CHEERS & JEERS: Legal Laws and Other Laws

CHEERS for snow! It’s white and it’s pretty and it makes the world seem magical. Have you seen Marys Peak lately? How many Aprils do we get a view like that! JEERS for snow! It’s cold and it turns to slush and it causes accidents. Have you seen Marys Peak lately! How many car wrecks do you think are up there? SIGHS for snow, because even with the late snowfall in the mountains of Oregon, we’re still gonna have a drought. 

Moving on… 

LOUD SQUEAKY CHEERS for the Corvallis Police Department. Not only did they achieve CALEA accreditation again [been accredited since 1995 – woot woot!] but they were one of only six out of 115 to get the AWE award [and, no, that doesn’t mean they are AWEsome, it means Accreditation With Excellence]. Way to go, CPD! 

FURROWED BROWS over the end of the era of Corvallis Brewing. Over on 4th Street, there’s going to be an empty storefront where Corvallis Brewing Supply currently is. After 25 years, owner Joel Rea is closing the doors due to customers finding their supplies online instead of downtown. [We’re bummed about this, because we always hold onto hope that our community takes care of each other and, well, in this case they didn’t.] 

JEERS for micro-chips. We love ‘em and we hate ‘em ‘cause they make life fancier but they remind us how reliant we are on tech. The newest tech-flop is all about not having enough cars for the people who need them, and that is laid at the feet of those darn micro-chips. Prices are up, and unless Corvallisites really-really-really want a Dodge Ram or a Honda, they’re gonna need to find a way to Eugene or Portland to buy a new car. 

JEERS for gubernatorial candidates Reed Christensen, Brandon Merritt, Tim McCloud, Kerry McQuisten, Amber Richardson, Bill Sizemore, and Marc Thielman. Why, you may ask? Well, it seems that these seven individuals not only supported the January 6 Insurrection, but that one of them was there assaulting police officers [Reed Christensen will be appearing by video in a DC court on May 10 – yes, that is one week before the primary]. Our press partner, Oregon Capital Chronicle, has the full story, and before you vote [if you’re Republican], you might want to read it. 

CHEERS for delays… in the form of student loan debt. The feds have pushed the return date for student loan repayment off again – this time to August 31 – and we’re sure a whole slew of people are wiping their brows with the backs of their hands over this one. There’s nothing quite like drought followed by wildfires followed by Covid followed by the lifting of eviction moratoriums to get you in the mood to not pay your loans back, am I right? 

YAY for water. It’s delicious and so hydrating. It’s also the cause behind a lawsuit facing the NCAA and the University of Oregon. Seems in a “drill” the student athletes were forced to do, they were denied access to that yummy H2O and therefore suffered “irreparable harm” which cost the player in question an NFL career. The suit was filed a couple years ago and the trial begins soon. [Here at The Advocate we go back and forth on opinions about football depending on who’s writing the column in any given week, but we strongly believe that student athletes should have access to the bare minimum of a f***ing glass of water] 

And now this… 

THOUGHTFUL HMMM over energy. Did you know the U.S. and Canada use too much energy? That to live a happier, healthier life, we should cut our energy usage in half? A study done at Stanford University found that Americans [and by American they seem to mean people living on both sides of that imaginary line separating Washington from British Columbia] use 284 gigajoules a year of energy – nearly four times the recommended usage of 75 gigajoules per year [mathematically we’re talking 3.78666 times which is about equal to four times]. Add to this quandary, approximately 759 million people live their lives with zero gigajoules of electricity, and 2.6 billion live without clean fuel to cook with, leading to about four million people dying each year from indoor cooking pollution. 

So, what would happen if we all cut down our electricity use? Fewer TVs turned on. More computers turned off. Better management of light switches. More electricity to pass over to those in more need than you and us. It’s a head scratcher…