Sunday, November 29, 2009

I Love My Ducks, but, I hate Eugene!!!


Just read a story from the Eugene newspaper about the MAJOR party problems they are having in Eugene. It's not new, just at an all time high level. I love the Oregon Duck football team, but as I have said a million times, I wish I could pick up Autzen and move it to Keizer, Oregon! I hate Eugene and this article adds to my dislike!

The dozens of people, many of them under-aged, who walk the west and south university neighborhoods each night with open containers of alcohol are hardly an unfamiliar sight to Eugene police Lt. Angie San Miguel.

But even San Miguel, who’s in charge of the night shift Wednesday through Saturday, says she has been surprised by what she’s seen this fall.

“Honestly, I’d say in all my 18 years as a police officer here, the amount of people this year out and about drinking in public and displaying disorderly behavior is the worst I’ve seen,” she said.

The rough outline of where many central parties occur, San Miguel said, is between 13th and 17th avenues between Hilyard and High streets. More specifically, San Miguel said, police have had multiple problems on 14th Avenue from Patterson to Ferry streets, and from 15th and 16th avenues and Hilyard Street.

University of Oregon sophomore Kristina Lekas said she chose her Patterson Street apartment because of the area’s reputation for being a party hot spot. The 20-year-old said she and her three roommates have a party at least once a week.

It’s a good thing she likes to party, she said, because she’d be miserable otherwise.

“It would be impossible to sleep on the weekends if I wanted to,” she said. “Anyone who wants to go to sleep before 4 a.m.: Don’t live here.”

But Lekas said she and her friends are fine with the amount of partying that goes on. The same holds true for the west university neighbor­hood in general, she says, because it’s a college neighborhood.

“I’ve never seen someone over 25 here,” she said.

Lekas also said she sees at least one arrest outside her apartment every week.

The most common citations issued in the university neighborhoods are for minor in possession of alcohol and carrying an open container, San Miguel said.

Between Sept. 24 — the Thursday before fall classes began at the UO — and Nov. 19, officers issued 180 citations for minor in possession of alcohol — 27 in the south university neighborhood and 153 in the west university neighborhood, according to police department data.

During the same time period, police issued 141 open container citations, with four in the south university neighbor­hood and 137 in the west university neighborhood. Additionally, police arrested 13 people in the west university neighborhood in connection with open container offenses.

When intoxication levels go up, so does disorderly behavior, San Miguel said.

On weekends, San Miguel said, it’s not uncommon for officers to have a half-dozen party calls waiting for responses.

Police received about 125 noise complaints in the university neighborhoods from the start of school until Nov. 19, issued 26 citations for noise — 13 in each university neighborhood — and arrested one individual in connection with a noise violation.

“We get so busy with other parties and priority calls on the weekends that we can’t respond to half of the noise complaints we receive in a timely manner,” San Miguel said.

In the south university area, it’s mostly homeowners who make the noise complaints, but in the west university area, homeowners and students alike make the calls, San Miguel said. Police typically don’t break up parties unless they receive a complaint, she said.

“If we see a party with lots of people in the front yard, we’ll make contact,” she said. “But if a party is not bothering anyone, we typically don’t care.”

The most effective way to patrol the university neighborhoods is with officers on bikes, San Miguel said.

Generally, students are cooperative with police. “Some slam doors and don’t let us in,” she said. “But that rarely happens.”

Tommy DeVoe, a 20-year-old university junior and advertising major, said he sees numerous fights every week at his Patterson Street apartment. From what he’s seen, police seem to handle the hectic environment well.

“The police do a good job at it,” he said. “We’ve had no complaints here, and my friends have had no trouble. They do a good job for having a couple thousand college kids around.”

— Rebecca Woolington

What is the matter? We have ANOTHER generation lost in the things of this world. What SEEM like the pleasures of this world are foolishness. These will only leave horrible scars that will stay with these kids all of their lives.
I know, I have them and ONLY because Christ has freed me from the bondage of guilt am I able to sleep at night. The scars though, are still there. They will be until He appears or I go to be with Him! Praise the Lord!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

City of Salem saves Christmas Parade: Bah Humbug!


The annual Festival of Lights Parade in Salem will go on after all! During a late night emergency meeting of the Salem City Council last night, Mayor Janet Taylor made a motion to grant $10,000 (UPDATE: THE AMOUNT WAS ACTUALLY $25,000, NOT WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY REPORTED TO THE MEDIA!) from the city's contingency fund to help offset a budget shortfall.

Now I don't want to sound like the Grinch, but, I am a little concerned that "contingency funds" designated for "budget shortfall" was used. I love a parade. I love Christmas. I don't love misuse of funds and this to me, seems like a pretty silly way to use those emergency funds.
If the Festival of Lights group cannot raise the funds then the parade itself should not happen.
In this economic climate, do we really have the latitude to use money for a parade? Aren't there many more pressing issues that could have used this money?

Where were the brave city councilors when the Obama administration wanted to take OUR land away at Minto Brown Park? They were holding another late night meeting to give 200 acres to the Feds in exchange for $800k. Yes, that is the Salem city council hard at work.
Maybe THIS decision, was to help placate the residents? Bah Humbug!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

My Veteran's Day Show is posted on Oregon Catalyst

Oregon Cataylst dot com, a conservative gathering site on the web has posted a link to my Veteran's Day tribute yesterday. I had Vets call in and tell their stories and it was extremely moving!

The Bill Post Radio Show Veteran's Day Program on Catalyst.com

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Veteran's Day: for those who didn't come home...





















This Veterans Day, I am reminded once again of the wonderful line at the end of the movie adaptation of James Michener's The Bridges at Toko Ri.

A Navy Admiral is reflecting on the sacrifice of airmen given the mission of destroying a group of heavily defended bridges during the Korean War. The men were successful, but at the cost of their lives, leading the Admiral to famously ask: "Where do we get these men?"




Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Oregon under Gov. Ted's Watch: #2 All time Unemployment!

Our fearless leader, Governor Ted Kulongoski has led Oregon into it's deepest recession and 2nd worst unemployment in Oregon history.

Great link to story here:

Underemployment suggests Oregon economy worse off

Monday, November 9, 2009

Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later, No President?

This is the 20th Anniversary of one of the GREATEST Moments in Human History, the fall of the Wall in Berlin. Where is our President?
Here are the highlights of my thoughts on this issue for today's radio program:

President Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week, he sets out on a weeklong tour of Asia.

But the president does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.

"A tragedy," is how former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described Obama's absence.

Some question whether the decision not to go was a nod to Russia, with which the Obama administration is trying to mend relations, or just another attempt to play down the perception of the United States as an exceptional superpower.

For its part, the administration is citing a scheduling conflict. The White House says the president simply does not have the time to go, with the trip to Asia starting Wednesday.

"Obviously we have a lot to work on here and we have commitments for an upcoming Asia trip," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday, noting that a "very senior delegation" of U.S. officials would attend.

David Hasselhoff may seem at first an unusual person to be commenting on the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But the American actor and singer has a long association with the wall and the German public. In the summer before the wall fell, Hasselhoff's hit song Looking for Freedom was racing up the charts in West Germany.

'I have about 100 pieces of the wall and I also have one that's really special because it's got all the colours of the German flag, that I just chopped out look at this piece,' he told Reuters.

Hasselhoff was even part of a concert on New Year's Eve 1989 where he sang on top of the partly demolished wall at the Brandenburg Gate.

'I had an opportunity to actually sing behind the Wall before New Years Eve at a kind of a pre-concert. And I drove in 35 minutes into East Berlin and I went to the studio and the studio was magnificent it had the most beautiful lighting and the stage and the cameras, but outside it looked like World War II,' he said.

Now Hasselhoff is back in Berlin for the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall.

Obama acknowledged the anniversary of the fall of the wall last week during his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We are now moving towards the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down and Germany being reunified after so many painful years," Obama said. "And this is a special moment for Chancellor Merkel, as somebody who grew up in East Germany, who understands what it's like to be under the shadow of a dictatorial regime, and to see how freedom has bloomed in Germany, how it has become the centerpiece for a extraordinarily strong European Union."

But some saw Obama's decision not to travel personally to Berlin as a snub to Merkel, Germany and the history behind the anniversary.

"Barack Is Too Busy," Germany's Der Spiegel magazine declared in a headline last month, writing that Obama had declined Merkel's invitation.

While Obama has traveled to Germany since taking office, he has not as president traveled to Berlin -- the site of his major speech in July 2008 during his overseas campaign tour. During that speech, he acknowledged Berlin's struggle, saying, "This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom."

Why then, critics asked, would the U.S. president not revisit that site to mark the culmination of that dream? After all, he has established himself as an intrepid traveler in office, setting off on a slew of overseas trips during his first 10 months on the job.

On several of the stops he has expressed regret for past American behavior, but the Berlin Wall anniversary was seen as an opportunity for the president to honor an American and Western victory for which the U.S. need feel no regret.

"It is a true shame that the president of the United States -- this man who cloaks himself in the rhetoric of hope -- won't be pausing to remember," Gingrich wrote in a column last week in The Washington Examiner.

The National Review's Rich Lowry wrote that the decision speaks to Obama's "dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking."

"John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' On the 20th anniversary of the last century's most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, 'Ich bin beschaftigt' -- i.e., I'm busy," he wrote. "Obama's failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency. It's hard to imagine any other American president eschewing the occasion."

Time line of the fall:

1987

June 12 Speaking in West Berlin at the wall, US President Ronald Reagan says : "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

1989

February 6 Chris Gueffroy is the last person shot and killed trying to escape. Meanwhile, the Polish government initiates talks with the opposition to defuse social unrest.

April 5 The Roundtable Agreement is signed in Poland, legalizing independent trade unions and calling the first partially democratic elections in June.

May 2 Dismantling of the Iron Curtain – the boundary between Warsaw Pact and NATO countries – begins as Hungary disables the electric alarm system and cuts through barbed wire on its border with Austria.

Aug. 19 The 'Pan-European Picnic' – a peace demonstration at the Hungarian town of Sopron on the Austrian border – turns into an exodus when Hungarian border guards hold their fire as 600 East German citizens flee to the West .

Aug. 24 Tadeusz Mazowiecki is appointed Polish prime minister, becoming the first noncommunist head of state in Eastern Europe in more than 40 years.

Sept. 10 Hungary reopens its border with East Germany, allowing 13,000 East Germans passage to escape through Austria.

Oct. 18 East German leader Erich Honecker is forced to resign.

Nov. 4 One million people rally in East Berlin during weeks of mounting demonstrations.

Nov. 9 The Berlin Wall falls.

Here is a wonderful video tribute to this momentous day:

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Stimulus in Oregon: Rep. Bruce Hanna on Fox News

How has the Stimulus money been working in Oregon? Watch this video from Fox News last night featuring one of my friends and regular guests on The Bill Post Radio Show, Rep. Bruce Hanna (R) from Roseburg.