Oregon

Religious Freedom Exemption

If you’re interested in Oregon and/or in religious freedom legal issues and/or public schools, this will interest you.

A bill passed by the Oregon Legislature that broadens religious freedom in the workplace has prompted protests by some faith leaders because it exempts schools.

The bill requires employers to allow workers to wear certain clothing, grow beards and take certain days off to observe their religious practices. But it specifically carves out school districts in Oregon, one of two states that expressly forbid teachers from wearing religious clothing.

[…]

The bill, titled the “Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act” grants workers wide religious leeway as long as the activity, clothing or other practices don’t cause an undue hardship on the employer. Religious organizations typically applaud such measures.

But the school exemption has highlighted what some think is a glaring hole in Oregon’s efforts to expand religious freedoms.

[…]

Oregon has had a law on the books for decades that states: “No teacher in any public school shall wear any religious dress while engaged in the performance of duties as a teacher.” Pennsylvania has a similar law.

Oregon’s law was tested in the 1980s, when a Sikh teacher was suspended from her job as a Eugene special education teacher for wearing a white turban and white clothes to class. The case went before the Oregon Supreme Court, which upheld the suspension. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

I saw this night before last, saved it as a draft to post yesterday, and forgot.

Source: The Oregonian

Give Peas a Chance!

I like peas. Especially raw, popped right out of the pod, fresh off the stalk.

And I remember years ago when we were house-sitting Marion and Berneice Schrock’s house in Hubbard, Oregon. They’d told us to help ourselves to stuff in the freezer. I fear we launched a Bigger Than We Should Have assault on their stash of frozen peas-and-baby-onions. Wow, those were delicious!

I also like split pea soup, especially with bacon and/or ham in it.

Not only are peas delicious in so many settings, they’re alleged to have nutritional benefits for your bones and cardiovascular system and who knows what else.

So, parents, be good parents and train your children early to eat these little round marvels. If you start early enough, you’ll have unusual children — who like peas. (And you might learn to like them as well.)

I thought I coined “Give peas a chance” as a unique, lightly-mocking spin-off of “give peace a chance.” Google dissuaded me of that self-inflicted, self-aggrandizing notion. 😆

Being of the suspicious, determined-not-to-be-gullible sort, I wonder if this image has been photoshopped:

Give peas a chance...in the UK

On 99E: Shedd Cafe

So I took a break from hanging out at Linn-Benton Community College (Albany, Oregon) and went driving south on Highway 99E.

Before I got to the Highway 34 overpass, I saw this billboard:

Sign near Tangent (Oregon) for Tangent Mennonite Church

I’ve been to that church! If you can’t go visit them (as they invite), you could at least stop by their website: Tangent Mennonite Church.

That railroad bridge looks mighty rusty; keep Oregon green, I say:

Two bridges on Highway 99E between Tangent and Shedd, Oregon

Not knowing where I was going or what I was looking for, I drove all the way through Shedd and missed the cafe. Read it all

Horsetail Falls, Oregon

Via I-84 via old Columbia River Hwy via Crown Point Vista House

We — all 18 of us — were there yesterday for our annual James & Noreen Roth family outing.

Horsetail Falls is upriver two-and-half miles or so from the more-famous Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.

We didn’t go directly there, of course. We took Exit 22 off I-84 East to the old Columbia River Highway (Hwy 30) and stopped first at the Crown Point Vista House. What a structure! And what a view!

From there we went to Multnomah Falls to see it (of course) and to hike up to the bridge. Two of us (namely, Russell and Andrew) hastily chugged up to the top of the falls. Before they got back, most of the rest of us backtracked a quarter mile of so to Wahkeena Falls to set up our picnic lunch. Then we drove on — roughly 2.5 miles to Oneonta Gorge where we walked through the old tunnel as well as down by a creek a bit.

Another half mile or so of driving got us to Horsetail Falls.

Read it all

Nuke Woodburn?

The first comment on the following story says so:

Woodburn police say more than a dozen people, some of them gang members, got into a street fight late Thursday, sending one person to the hospital for stab wounds.

Source: Woodburn Police Respond to Large Street Brawl

Weird 🙄

(We used to live in Woodburn. We still do lots of business there. We like Woodburn.)

Anyway, here’s some Oregon news causing less of a flap:

In thousands of Oregon neighborhoods and condo buildings, covenants and other rules ban clotheslines, even from private backyards. Homeowners using clotheslines face threatening letters from their homeowners’ associations and potential fines — not to mention simmering tension with neighbors who consider hanging clothes an eyesore or an emblem of poverty.

[…]

A bill that may soon become law would prohibit homeowner associations and condo associations from banning clotheslines in areas maintained by individual homeowners. House Bill 3090 cleared the Oregon House and could soon reach the Senate floor.

The effort joins others from Hawaii to Connecticut, where state lawmakers are caught in clothesline politics.

Source: Oregon legislation puts backyard laundry on the line

I’m all for clotheslines. In fact, we used them extensively in the past. I’ve even posted about them previously:

Bank It or Dump It?

Time to do some armchair quarterbacking!

By way of introduction, here’s part of the story as reported by The Oregonian:

When times are tight and people are hungry, any kind of waste — even the deep-sixing of a truckload of junk food — is taboo.

That may explain why no one seems to want to take the blame for sending 2,000 cases of snack cakes to the landfill after a Little Debbie truck overturned on Oregon 217 late Monday.

Read the full story here: Oregon 217 crash sparks debate over wasted Little Debbie cakes

The Oregon Food Bank wanted that food.

So if the decision had been yours, what would have been done with that dumped treasure?

Oh, and while you’re at the article, be sure to read the comments — the comedians were out in force. 🙄

And speaking of comedians, here’s another wreck related story. Read it all

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Above all, love God!