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NEWS Christmas Lights: A Judgmental Guide

Rate the lights in your neighborhood with this helpful system

By Jase Graves

One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas in the 1970s was riding around in the family station wagon, “Bessie,” to look at Christmas lights while I whined to my parents about needing a snack – again. There was something magical about a familiar evening landscape transformed to a radiant wonderland at the expense of someone’s lumbar spine.

My dad always made sure that our house was exemplary in its presentation of illuminated holiday décor, and even now, his legendary displays make my own attempts look like those of an unsupervised toddler with a Lite-Brite toy.

Little did I know as a child exactly how much work goes into producing a respectable home display that delights passersby and annoys the neighbors. But now that I’m an adult (sort of), I take pride in climbing on the roof and crawling around the yard for the sake of an electrified Christmas spectacle that makes me feel like I’ve sprained everything except my belly button.

Maybe because of the intense effort I put into my own residential Christmas lights, I’ve become a bit of a snob when evaluating those of others – to the point that I’ve come up with the following categories:

The My-Wife-Made Me-Do-It

This display (if you can call it that) is clearly installed under duress – and probably during the commercial breaks of a Dallas Cowboys football game. The jumbled lights look as if they’ve been strung by someone being attacked by hornets, and they include the absolute minimum – maybe one string of bulbs and a mildewed inflatable Nutcracker sagging toward the storm drain. It’s better than nothing – but just barely.

The Grinch

This is the house without so much as a plastic baby Jesus glowing on the porch, a single cheap lightup deer in the yard, or even a wreath of dilapidated pinecones on the front door. It’s almost ostentatiously dark and gloomy.

Images courtesy of Unsplash

The Griswold

This is the type of display for which I strive each year. It includes every string of lights that can be scrounged up from the attic – along with a cartload purchased as soon as Walmart replaces the Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins with Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes in late October. This is the kind of overwhelming display that might cause acute retinal damage with prolonged exposure. It’s truly a sight to behold – if you dare.

The Cheater

It’s obvious that someone paid big bucks to have professionals do all the work on this geometrically precise display with meticulous ridge line coverage. It’s beautiful, no doubt, even bordering on the Griswold, but I say that if you aren’t in a bad mood and in need of prescription painkillers when you’re done, it doesn’t count.

When I see these houses during the holidays, I often catch myself mumbling something like, “How can they not put out a single decoration? Are they out of Tylenol?”

My wife inevitably replies, “Maybe they can’t afford decorations. They could be ill or elderly. Or maybe they don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Then I feel like The Grinch, Scrooge, The Abominable Snow Monster, Heat Miser, Mr. Potter, Frank Shirley and Scut Farkus all rolled into one insensitive naughty-list doofus.

It’s at those times that I need a good lecture from Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Sure, Snoopy has the best lights, but Linus knows what Christmas is all about.

Winter Driving Obstacle Course

We put together a handy obstacle course with the basic tenets of winter driving, which a shocking number of Bendites could learn from

By Jack Harvel

When I moved to a mountain town, I thought you folks would know how to drive during the winter. Boy, was I wrong. As a simple Midwesterner, I was used to the occasional snowstorm and how to drive on it — and so were other drivers who, from my limited anecdotal experience, fared better than the snow-hardened Central Oregonian. It’s so bad I almost have come to believe in the mythically monstrous Californian transplant. So, I decided to imagine a winter driving course on the basics on winter driving I’ve learned through years of common sense and a conversation with Nancy Haase, program manager for the High Desert Drivers Education Program. If you make it to the end, you get a prize!

Your Four-Wheel Drive Isn’t as Good as You Think

Your Subarus, 4Runners and lifted trucks slide around on ice just like any other car. Take stock of the cars you see stalled on the side of the road during the next snowstorm; you might be surprised by how many supposedly high-performing snow cars get stuck. A four-wheel drive can be essential in some circumstances, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to adjust your driving.

“They might be able to go faster, but they can't stop faster,” Haase said. “When you’re faster, and when you hit that black ice or the icy spots, your car is going to be out of control and it's going to be out of control at a faster speed.”

Keep Your Distance

People believe in their heart that if they keep within a couple feet of the driver in front of them, they will somehow get to their destination faster. It’s a stupid belief, but probably driven by our lizard brain’s knowledge that you’re just a bit closer to where you’re going if you’re closer to the car in front of you. With clear roads this can be a nuisance, but with slippery winter conditions there’s a good chance a quick stop will end in a fender bender.

“I tell my students to imagine there's another car behind the car you're stopping behind and stop at that point and then you can ease in, but have more following distance between you and the car in front of you at all times,” Haase said. “We ask our students to always have four seconds of following distance unless they're at highway speeds, and then have six seconds.”

Sliding

If you drive on ice you’re going to slide eventually. A knee-jerk reaction to sliding on ice may be to hit the brakes, but that could actually result in less control. If you’re at highway speeds, and are keeping your distance from other cars, let the car slow down on its own to regain control.

“A stopped tire has no traction. It's just going to put you more into that skid if you hit the brake,” Haase said. “Let your car slow down on its own and then start to slowly accelerate towards your target.”

Congratulations! You Made It

Congratulations! You’ve passed the winter driving obstacle course and now have about the same knowledge expected of anyone who possesses a drivers license. Your prize for completing this course is the continued functionality of the front end of your car — the back end will depend on if the person behind you also passed the course.

Treading the Needle

Four-wheel drive won’t slow you down, but your tires could be the difference between a clean stop and long slide. A good pair of winter tires, studded tires or chains is going to give you more mobility than your standard all-season tires — which are really only designed for light snow.

Know What You’re Driving On

Fresh snow, solid ice, slush and black ice all provide different challenges for driving. You’ll have more traction in snow but it’ll be easier to get stuck. Solid ice makes it harder to get moving and needs longer to stop. Black ice and slush can be deceptive and lull you into a false sense of comfort. It’s best to test what you’re driving on early in a car trip to inform how you drive.

“I give myself a little acceleration and a slow speed to see if I am going to slide and then I test the brakes,” Haase said. “Chunky ice is really, really hard because it throws your car around. Slush is also very dangerous, and it will just throw you all over the road. Black ice, of course, is deadly.”

More St. Charles Staff Unionize

About 40 home care and hospice nurses are the latest group of St. Charles employees to form a union

By Jack Harvel

Home health and hospice nurses at St. Charles Health System voted to form a union on Dec. 8, becoming the latest cohort of St. Charles employees to become unionized. About 40 nurses across Central Oregon will now be represented by the Oregon Nurses Association, who already represent over 1,100 nurses in the St. Charles Health System.

“Despite opposition from administration, we remain united in our endeavor and today’s vote reflects that. I look forward to a collaborative and transparent relationship with St. Charles so we can give our patients the best care and nurses will feel supported by the health system,” said Karin Arthur, a newly unionized registered nurse, in a press release.

ONA said the nurses wanted more input in local decision making and sought union representation to ensure they receive fair treatment, due process and adequate compensation to ensure patients get high quality care.

“Forming a union provides us the opportunity to better advocate for our patients and ourselves,” said Cherie Iannucci, RN, in a press release. “We take care of people after they leave the hospital, to prevent them from being readmitted. Readmissions add to the strain that our hospitals face right now due to surging cases of RSV, COVID-19 and the flu.” Several groups of St. Charles employees have unionized since the start of the pandemic. In April 2021 about 150 technical workers in the hospital system agreed on a contract after organizing a strike. In June about 300 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners joined a union after St. Charles announced it would lay off over 100 caregivers and eliminate 76 unfilled positions.

St. Charles is the largest employer in Central Oregon with about 4,500 employees. It has been hesitant to accept unionization in the past and didn’t meet with union representatives in the lead-up to the strike in April 2021. A statement from the hospital after the home care nurses vote to unionize said the health system was disappointed but would participate in negotiations. "While we are disappointed in the outcome of the election, we respect the rights of our caregivers to be represented by a union and over the coming months, we will work with the union to reach a contract that meets both of our interests," said Debbie Robinson, director of Home-Based Care, in a press release.

Over the next few weeks nurses will negotiate their contracts and establish bylaws. The Lund Report disclosed that the unionization drive in June is still pending, and that the union is criticizing St. Charles for hiring two “union-busting” consultants.

Photo courtesy of the Oregon Nurses Association

Home care and hospice nurses are the latest St. Charles employees to form a union, though more cohorts of employers at the hospital system have been seeking representation for years.

The Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem houses the state’s execution chambers.

Governor Commutes Death Row Inmates

Seventeen inmates with death sentences are no longer eligible for capital punishment, a policy the state hasn’t acted on in over 25 years

By Jack Harvel

On Dec. 13 Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentence of Oregon’s 17 inmates on death row and ordered the execution chamber to be dismantled. The 17 prisoners will now serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Oregon rarely uses the death penalty, executing only two inmates in the last 50 years. Since the state’s last execution in 1997, the scope of capital punishment has narrowed. A 2019 bill made the murder of children younger than 14, murder of law enforcement officers, terrorist acts that kill more than one person and prison killings committed by a convicted murderer the only crimes eligible for the death penalty. Gov. John Kitzhaber placed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2011, which Brown continued.

“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a press release. “Since taking office in 2015, I have continued Oregon’s moratorium on executions because the death penalty is both dysfunctional and immoral. Today I am commuting Oregon’s death row so that we will no longer have anyone serving a sentence of death and facing execution in this state. This is a value that many Oregonians share.”

Twenty-three states don’t have the death penalty, and Oregon is one of three states with a governor-imposed moratorium. Oregon has abolished and reestablished the death penalty three times, most recently in a 1984 referendum after the Oregon Supreme Court declared the practice unconstitutional in 1981. Frank Thompson, the former superintendent of prisons for the state of Oregon who oversaw the construction of the execution chamber in the 1990s, celebrated the end of the death penalty.

“The Death Penalty is simply a bad public policy on many levels. It does a disservice to everyone it touches, including the state workers in our corrections department whose job it is to carry out executions. No employee of the state should have to take on the burdens that come with killing a defenseless human being,” Thompson said in a press release.

A 2021 Gallup poll found 54% of respondents were in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, which is the lowest favorability since 1974 when 50% were in favor. Oregonians were 57% in favor of the death penalty in 2012, but no statewide polling has been done on the issue since. Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp criticized the commutation in a press release.

“Did the people of Oregon vote to end the death penalty? I don’t recall that happening. This is another example of the Governor and the Democrats not abiding by the wishes of Oregonians. Even in the final days of her term, Brown continues to disrespect the victims of the most violent crimes,” Knopp said.

The death penalty is a part of the Oregon constitution and can’t be banned without a proposal by the legislature that clears both houses and is approved by voters in a general election. Governor-elect Tina Kotek told OPB she was personally opposed to the death penalty and would continue the current moratorium.

Photo courtesy of M.O. Stevens via Wikimedia