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.
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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.