Two weeks ago, in a fit of irony overload, we gave Chris Telfer a mock glass slipper instead of the real one that we reserve for those folks in the community who continue to unravel the mess that former OLCC Regional Manager Jason Evers left in his wake. Initially disappointed by Telfer’s seeming lack of accomplishment this legislative period, we overlooked that her willingness to meet with licensees helped to form the collective basis and network of trust that aided in the DOJ investigation that removed Evers. Upon further review, she deserves some praise in this case. Evers’ unfair, costly and rather bizarre fascination with the Bledsoes’ club, The Loft, is a sorry chapter in that agency’s history and we regret that we wavered in our support for making whole all of those impacted by Evers’ crusade. With two slippers now, perhaps Telfer will be emboldened to walk to Salem and get Oregon out of regulating and selling our liquor.

John Day is a pretty little Eastern Oregon town that up until last month was known mostly for the good fishing in the John Day River and good fossil-hunting in the nearby John Day Fossil Beds.

But in mid-February, a group that embraces fossilized political and racial ideas cast an unwelcome spotlight on John Day. Paul R. Mullet, who calls himself the national director of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group, breezed into town in a swastika-bedecked shirt and let it be known that he was looking at some real estate.  The group is planning to relocate from northern Idaho, he said, and John Day looks like the perfect place to establish its new headquarters.

Aryan Nations is a virulently racist white supremacist organization founded in the 1970s and originally headquartered in northern Idaho. It’s anti-black, anti-Semitic and anti-Hispanic, and dreams of creating a “Fourth Reich,” a whites-only “Aryan” nation within the United States.

For a six-year period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Oregon’s state slogan was “Things Look Different Here.” Although that was replaced in 2003 with “We Love Dreamers,” many things still are different here – including the way public officials are able to hide things that are the public’s business from the public.

The Deschutes County 911 Service District has been having some real problems lately. In early December the district’s board of directors put its executive director, Becky McDonald, on paid leave and launched a personnel investigation. The board hasn’t offered any explanation of why the director was sidelined or what’s being investigated.

Many people think the Catholic Church’s position on contraception is Medieval. They’re wrong – it’s several centuries older than that.

“Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted,” wrote Clement of Alexandria in 195 AD.

The church’s thinking has changed very little in the roughly 19 centuries since then, so we have no doubt Clement of Alexandria would have approved of the decision announced this week by Robert Vasa, bishop of the Diocese of Baker, to end the church’s 92-year relationship with St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Bend City Council elections are supposed to be non-partisan, and generally that’s worked pretty well for us. Our council races are far less acrimonious than, say, the typical campaign for president, Congress or even the State legislature.

But Troy Reinhart apparently would like to change that. Reinhart, the Chairman  of the Deschutes County Republican Party, ripped into City Councilor Mark Capell, a registered Democrat, in an e-mail to party members last week.

“I think for Republicans, he’s a target,” Reinhart said. “He will have competition, I can assure you of that.”