Pepper Trail: As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let us imagine the world we share with every living thing. Let us give thanks for this planet, this blue and green ball spinning in a lifeless void, holding us all and making possible our every heartbeat, our every breath.
Pepper Trail: This is the constant dissonance so many of us face. That is, the lucky ones, like myself, who are citizens, who are white, who are not in economic crisis, who live surrounded by beautiful wild places that nurture our souls and provide refuge from the daily deluge of nightmarish news. What are we to do?
Pepper Trail: The idea that species can be conserved by picking up the phone to “call Colossal” and order up a few genetically engineered survivors is a delusional and disingenuous fantasy.
Riva Duncan: The Trump administration’s vaunted effort to “trim the fat” from the federal government and curb “waste and fraud” reveal one terrible — but not surprising — fact: The cost-cutters have no idea how government works or who does what in the federal workforce.
Talent councilor Jason Clark: “People all over the world want a negotiated solution that provides peace and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. More military aid just provokes more resistance and makes a negotiated solution harder to achieve.”
Pepper Trail: As one species after another dwindles away, the structure of the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth is weakening.
Pepper Trail: “This stretch of Interstate-5 in Southern Oregon is a known killing field for wildlife and dangerous for motorists. The highway cuts through a critical connection for wildlife moving between two mountain ranges and home to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which is the only national monument specifically established for the protection of its rich biodiversity.”
Matt Witt: “Consumers could make it a point to patronize local stores and food producers, and also ask why a company like Costco can afford to set its minimum wage at $17 an hour when Walmart says it can’t.”
Pepper Trail: “I’m not ready to declare myself a citizen of the post-apocalypse. We don’t have to live there. Instead, let’s accept that humanity and the whole planet are ‘apocalypse-adjacent.’ The apocalypse is before us and we can see it clearly. But the world is not yet ruined.”
Matt Witt: “Communities in the rural West can stand up to giant outside gas companies, if they work together despite their differences. That’s how the Jordan Cove gas pipeline project was finally killed in Oregon by a coalition of conservative ranchers and farmers, climate activists, Indigenous tribal leaders, anglers and coastal residents.”
Rogue Valley Symphony tuba player Mike Knox is retiring this season after 55 years with the orchestra, a tenure that stretches back to the orchestra’s earliest days.
Talent Library employees and patrons are speaking out after multiple incidents at the Home Street branch within the past two weeks in which a man using a library computer station was observed watching what they believed to be child pornography.
Seventeen cannabis workers in the Rogue Valley were detained during federal drug investigations and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on July 30, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, making it one of if not the largest such enforcement activities in Oregon since the Trump administration began its immigration enforcement push early this year.
Homes and businesses across Ashland are lighting up the season with creative holiday displays. Whether discovered by a reader tip or chance, these glowing scenes add warmth and joy to an ordinary drive through town.
The Ashland Orthopedic Surgery and Spine Care Clinic on Maple Street will close in March, Asante has confirmed.
Uncertainty hangs over the job status of Ashland Parks & Recreation Director Rocky Houston, as city officials refuse to confirm whether he has been suspended. Despite repeated inquiries, the city has declined to comment, citing personnel confidentiality, while Houston remains unresponsive, and an acting director has been named.
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