The Federal Aviation Administration has designated some areas of Oregon as test sites for commercial drones. I’ve been wondering why federal action along those lines was needed since remote-controlled aircraft already fly at various sites including the Benton County Aerodrome near Adair Village. (This is not one of the drone test sites. Those are in […]
On Dec. 22, a 16-year-old driver from Brownsville lost her life when her vehicle crossed the center line in a right-hand curve on Highway 228 in Linn County and collided with the front end of a tow truck coming the other way. It was what the Oregon State Police called a “road departure crash,” the kind we always […]
The way reporter Bennett Hall of the Corvallis Gazette-Times told the story in Sunday’s paper, the administration of Oregon State University is proving difficult when it comes to letting go of public information. That’s not exactly in the spirit of Oregon’s claim on government transparency.
Oregon has a law against talking on a cell phone while driving. Because the law has been widely ignored, the legislature raised the standard fine to $160 as of Jan. 1, up $50. And the maximum will be $500. The fine could be a thousand dollars and the law would still be ignored by many […]
The drive from Southern Oregon to the mid-Willamette Valley on Interstate 5 takes little more than three hours on roughly 200 miles of smooth asphalt without so much as a single chuckhole. And while you’re cruising along, you don’t often think about how to pay for good roads like this, or worry that it may get more […]
There’s a thickening fog as I walk to the store well after dark. This chill gray blanket has hung around all day. The sun never had a chance. It didn’t even attempt to get through, or so it seemed, during the few hours when it kind of looked like daylight.
And we get another year
Why is the change of one year to the next cause for celebrations and parties and noise? I think it’s because all that merrymaking is supposed to mask the sadness we are otherwise likely to feel at the passage of yet another year.
Tags: New Year 2014