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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2021)
A4 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2021 EDITORIALS & OPINIONS AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER Heidi Wright Gerry O’Brien Richard Coe Publisher Editor Editorial Page Editor What should be in the emissions diet for the city of Bend? B end’s Environment and Climate Committee is gearing up to choose just what kind of emissions diet the city should be on. It has a menu of options it is look- ing at, from more renewable energy to recycling. And it’s not only choos- ing what strategies to prioritize but also could discuss what should be mandatory and what should be vol- untary. Not everyone will feel like they are being done a favor. The committee doesn’t make the final decision. It is making recom- mendations. But we have to imagine the Bend City Council will take the committee’s recommendations se- riously. So if you want to influence Bend’s emissions diet, let the com- mittee know what you think. For now the best email for the commit- tee is clacy@bendoregon.gov. Unfortunately the actual action matrix the committee discussed at its Thursday meeting is not available online. It should be. We got a copy by asking for it from Cassie Lacy, the city staff member working with the committee. The matrix is not all that different, though, from the strategy options in the Bend Community Climate Action Plan. That is online and easy to find. We are going to highlight a few options we found interesting, but you should check it out for yourself. • Expand residential and com- mercial solar. The city could create incentives. The city could create a revolving loan fund to finance more renewable en- ergy. It could also just try to raise more community awareness of options. • Increase energy efficiency in buildings. Once again, the city could create incentives, create a revolving loan fund or just promote education and the incentives provided by utilities. • Develop a home energy score program for the city The Department of Energy set up ratings for energy efficiency of homes. The Bend City Council debated it in the past. Should Bend make it manda- tory for new homes or homes that go up for sale? It is a good way for people to get information that might help save them money in the future. But a home could be efficient and still use way more energy than another similar home because of choices the people who live in it make. • Waste. Many of these ideas are about improving recycling and reducing waste, through encouraging differ- ent behavior. The problem with making a choice within the existing action matrix is that there are no num- bers attached. How much do things cost? Which are more cost effective in improving efficiency or reducing emissions? And how much time and effort is involved to get them going? It’s easy to be attracted to some of these options, but from the informa- tion presented to the committee it’s hard to know which are truly pretty. Tolling, congestion pricing fight it out in Legislature C ongestion pricing can help clear up choked roads. In some states, people choose to pay extra to get where they want to go faster. There are special express lanes that people can pay extra to use. Beat traffic. Save time. And although any sort of benefit like that can accrue more to people with plenty of money, it’s not only people who have lots of money who use them. Four years ago, the Legislature enabled the Oregon Department of Transportation to do another kind of congestion pricing. Tolls could be set on I-5 and I-205 so that they would be higher during peak times. It would encourage more people to work their schedules to drive when it would cost less. This legislative session, that could suffer a fatal blow, as reported by Willamette Week. House Bill 3055 would cancel congestion pricing and replace it with fixed tolls. Fixed tolls might bring in more revenue to build more roads. Congestion pric- ing could help reduce traffic and make the existing system better able to handle traffic. Those are the theo- ries, anyway. Maybe you don’t spend too much time on I-5 or I-205 for it to matter to you. But if the change happens there, it could influence what hap- pens elsewhere. Tell you legislator what you think or write us a letter to the editor. Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe. Bar exam needs an overhaul BY JOE WILLIS I am a 1971 graduate of the Uni- versity of Oregon School of Law. I passed the Oregon bar exam in 1971 and have practiced with Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt. I passed the Washington state bar exam in 1983. I respectfully disagree, in large part, with Mr. Joshua Marquis’ position of continuing the bar exam, as expressed in a recent letter to the editor. I salute our Oregon Supreme Court for the practical and humane approach it took as a temporary mea- sure. But I think the bar exam needs substantial overhaul. In my opinion, bar exams should be substantially modified. I came to that opinion some time back for the following reasons: • I saw some students who passed the bar but barely got through law school while seeing others who were solid students throughout law school failing. • When I took the Washington bar I crammed for several days and passed. I had been a trial lawyer for years and knew trial procedures very well, but there were other substantive areas I did not feel competent han- dling without help from my colleagues in the firm who were competent and available to me. But for that support, it is questionable whether I was qualified to practice all on my own. GUEST COLUMN I suggest that law schools play a much more prominent part in the process. I suggest law schools require completion of basic subjects which would be approved by our Oregon Supreme Court. I suggest then that any student who successfully completes those courses in the top 90% (or some other percent) be admitted without further examination. Those that can’t stay out of the bottom 10% (or some other percent) must take and pass a bar examination. • I have also watched minority ap- plicants not pass even though they demonstrated knowledge and profi- ciency, which was sustained for three years of law school. • I have watched law school curric- ulum tend to allow more specialized courses that sacrifice the basic core of subject matter I think is needed. Thus, my request for curriculum approved by our Oregon Supreme Court. • I suggest that law schools play a much more prominent part in the process. I suggest law schools require completion of basic subjects which would be approved by our Oregon Su- preme Court. I suggest then that any student who successfully completes those courses in the top 90% (or some other percent) be admitted without further examination. Those that can’t stay out of the bottom 10% (or some other percent) must take and pass a bar examination. The grades could remain confidential but provide a basis for not being required to take, or to take, the bar exam. I am keenly aware of the is- sues of making grades public, and that can be easily solved. I think the incen- tive to avoid a bar exam would im- prove overall knowledge of law. And in the interest of disclosure, I served as a member and as chair as what then was called the Dean’s Advi- sory Board. I floated this idea on more than one occasion and was met with strong opposition from the law school. In my opinion, if the public saw the frailties of the bar exam to test compe- tence that I have seen over the years, I strongly suspect they would under- stand that a better measure of compe- tence is to look for satisfactory com- pletion of approved curriculum rather than cramming for one exam. e e Joe Willis is an attorney in Bend. Letters policy Guest columns How to submit We welcome your letters. Letters should be limited to one issue, contain no more than 250 words and include the writer’s signature, phone number and address for verification. We edit letters for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. We re- ject poetry, personal attacks, form letters, letters submitted elsewhere and those appropriate for other sections of The Bul- letin. Writers are limited to one letter or guest column every 30 days. Your submissions should be between 550 and 650 words; they must be signed; and they must include the writer’s phone number and address for verification. We edit submissions for brevity, grammar, taste and legal reasons. We reject those submitted elsewhere. Locally submitted columns alternate with national colum- nists and commentaries. Writers are lim- ited to one letter or guest column every 30 days. Please address your submission to either My Nickel’s Worth or Guest Column and mail, fax or email it to The Bulletin. Email submissions are preferred. Email: letters@bendbulletin.com Write: My Nickel’s Worth/Guest Column P.O. Box 6020 Bend, OR 97708 Fax: 541-385-5804 The joy and genius of jazz innovator Chick Corea BY DAVID VON DREHLE The Washington Post T he impeachment trial has been a painful trip to a low, ugly cor- ner of the American psyche. Republicans over the past few gener- ations have spoken a great deal about fealty to the original intent of the na- tion’s framers: They were a pretty con- tentious lot, as any “Hamilton” fan could tell you. But one would search the Federalist Papers in vain for any words in favor of a president whip- ping up a mob to storm Congress. Former President Donald Trump took an oath — its words written right into the Constitution — to preserve, protect and defend a system of gov- ernment that serves all the people in our quest for a more perfect union. He failed to uphold that oath. The burden of proof has been met. But even in such a week, espe- cially in such a week, there must be space to celebrate joy and ge- nius. Armando Anthony Corea, the piano virtuoso and composer known as “Chick,”reached the end of his brilliant life on Feb. 9, having made an enormous contribution to Whatever crisis jazz had passed through, it was over. Its essence is and always will be the mutual joy of shared improvisation, of humans pouring themselves into a moment and connecting over a good tune or interesting motif, of taking creativity for a spin together. Making music, Corea once said, “stimulates what’s natural in all of us. … All you need to do is be a living human being, and open to the play of imagination.” the world’s music and winning 23 Grammys along the way. You might say, what’s music at a time like this? But humans have been singing at least as long as we’ve been arguing; in fact, music is a way of healing that which politics in- flames. Born in 1941, the son of a Boston trumpet player, Chick Corea had a gentle personality yoked to a mete- oric talent that simply announced itself without swagger or gimmick. Within a few months of moving to New York after high school, the teenager was sitting in with the likes of Stan Getz and Herbie Mann. He absorbed all the right influences, from Mozart to Monk, with particu- lar regard for the hard-bop guru, pi- anist Horace Silver. Corea arrived just as jazz hit an identity crisis. It was no longer pop- ular dance music; that niche was now filled by rock-and-roll. The im- provisational and increasingly intel- lectual nature of jazz fit poorly into the three-minute singles straitjacket of AM radio. In the late 1960s, the search for a future that was more than a museum of the past coalesced around the tortured, strangely char- ismatic, trumpet player Miles Davis, who sought a “fusion” between the languages of jazz and the electronics of rock. Davis attracted superior talent across the board, but his pianists were essential to his project — first Herbie Hancock and then Corea. By feeding a Fender Rhodes electric keyboard through a ring modula- tor created by the inventor Robert Moog, Corea found the sounds that would become familiar throughout the jazz-rock revolution launched in 1970 by the release of Davis’s influ- ential album, “Bitches Brew.” Corea left Davis shortly thereafter to form his own bands and combos; later, he made half of some of the great duets of his generation. To my ear, he wanted to infuse some sweetness into Davis’s astrin- gent brew. By 1974, even as he continued to pursue electronic frontiers with his Return to Forever band, Corea was weaving a lush acoustic piano back into an interpretation of “Someday My Prince Will Come.” As a composer, Corea was tune- ful and propulsively rhythmic — it’s almost impossible not to sway and bounce while listening to “La Fiesta,” for example. His “Spain” is as pure an exam- ple of the 1970s jazz revival as you might find. (Hancock’s “Chameleon” is right there with it.) Of all Corea’s duets — with singer Bobby McFerrin, vibist Gary Bur- ton and more — my favorite was the tour he performed with Hancock to close out the seminal ‘70s. The two pioneers of electronic jazz keyboards appeared at matching Steinway con- cert grands. Together, they played one anoth- er’s compositions, listened to one another take solos, and reached back to George Gershwin for a rollicking rendition of “Liza.” Whatever crisis jazz had passed through, it was over. Its essence is and always will be the mutual joy of shared improvisation, of humans pouring themselves into a moment and connecting over a good tune or interesting motif, of taking creativity for a spin together. Making music, Corea once said, “stimulates what’s natural in all of us. … All you need to do is be a living human being, and open to the play of imagination.” e e David Von Drehle writes a column for The Washington Post.