The Daily Cut for April 3, 2009

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A Republican proposal to stimulate the economy by giving home and business owners tax credits for improvement projects got a hearing Thursday even as Democrats insisted there were better ways to spend state funds.

Music as therapy

In a world where kids, divas, teens and tweens rule the sonic landscape, one might think that a nasally family man hailing from Portland, Ore., would have a tough run of it. But this is a trifle that Scott Garred, the supreme force behind Super XX Man (pronounced “super double-ex man”), never seems to think about.

The Daily Cut for April 2, 2009

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Senate voted Wednesday to relax certain requirements included in the landmark ethics reform it passed two years earlier.

Officials and volunteers from small towns had been pushing lawmakers to rethink some of the reforms, arguing that certain rules invaded their privacy. More than 200 officials resigned over the matter.

Responding to two suicides on Portland State’s campus

Dear members of the PSU Community:

I want to make you aware that our campus community has recently experienced the loss of two students, in two separate tragic incidents. The death of any member of our student community is sad and very heartbreaking. In both cases, it appears the students took their own lives.

The Daily Cut

Local: New law protects wild areas in nine states
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday setting aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness.

Obama called the new law among the most important in decades “to protect, preserve and pass down our nation’s most treasured landscapes to future generations.”

Also in the legislation signed by Obama is a provision named for Superman actor Christopher Reeve that provides for paralysis research and care for persons with disabilities.

End of an era?

Everything is relative. And while it is easy and convenient to sit back and judge the success of something based on a single number, it is not always the best measure of progress and accomplishment.

EDITORIAL: A drastic measure

Earlier this week the Oregon Daily Emerald‘s entire editorial staff went on strike, citing a disagreement with the newspaper’s board of directors regarding its choices in filling the newly instituted position of publisher.