"Whatchamacolumn" by Jeb Bladine
The News-Register publisher writes about the community; people; local, state and national affairs; and sometimes whimsey.
Jeb Bladine: Local health insurance fight just the beginning
Health insurance in America is unstable and becoming more so. Insurance companies are cancelling unprofitable policies, creating narrower service networks and tightening benefits. There are nationwide ...
Jeb Bladine: Memorial Day Weekend merges fiction, reality
Memorial Day Weekend: flowers to the cemetery, a family barbeque, national mourning for military personnel who died in the line of duty, and opportunity for holiday escape into a marathon movie series. This ...
Jeb Bladine: Trump wins complex negotiations with himself
Books will be written about the 2026 Trump Anti-Weaponization Fund Settlement. My 500-word limit makes a full summary impossible, but here’s a thumbnail. President Donald Trump, his two sons and ...
Jeb Bladine: History urges strong response to youth violence
To be clear, there’s no public evidence the April 28 melee in Joe Dancer Park was gang-related. But if it was, historic lessons have taught us as a community to act quickly and vigorously. Last ...
Jeb Bladine: Kids caught more than crawdads in City Park
In the News-Register, our weekly “Vintage N-R” photo array is accompanied by “Memory Lane” morsels from 10, 25 and 50 past years. We reminisce about times when Hotel Oregon was ...
Jeb Bladine: Huge cost of unfunded mandates falls to taxpayers
It’s annual budget time for state and local governments, and the numbers are staggering. There isn’t enough money for government to do what it wants, but the costs are beyond what taxpayers ...
Jeb Bladine: Humiliating insults a staple of Trump presidency
This week’s State of the Union address by President Donald Trump was one for the ages. At 108 minutes, it was the longest in recent history. The speech featured typical Trump showmanship; promoted ...
Jeb Bladine: Focus on spending, not just on taxes and fees
Oregonians have focused too much attention on government taxes and not enough on government spending. That applies as well to McMinnville, where changes in city leadership do not yet seem destined to quell ...
Jeb Bladine: Challenges in a new chapter of city government
McMinnville, now embarked on a new chapter in city government, has challenges galore in areas of finance, operations, special projects and community trust. It begins with planning for a new budget year, ...
Jeb Bladine: Minneapolis could become a flashback of history
Time will tell if the 2026 shootings of ICE protesters in Minneapolis will be a turning point for America. Public response to the killings was deeper and more far-reaching than reactions to other Trump ...
Jeb Bladine: It's a target-rich environment for commentary
Every day, timely commentary becomes more difficult as new issues and events multiply at unprecedented rates. This week helps prove that point. Consider a few local meetings on Thursday — all past ...
Bladine: Immigration enforcement war needs a solution
Tracking national news these days is an exhausting mental labor. This week alone, among others, we’ve been confronted with high-octane controversies related to Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Mark Kelly, ...
Jeb Bladine: Rise of AI deep fake imagery has many victims
Here’s a new acronym for 2026 that deserves to become a clarion call against new combinations of human deviance and artificial intelligence run amok: NCSI. No, it’s not another spin-off of ...
Jeb Bladine: Before year in review, it’s still season of hope
Come New Years, media will look back at the most prominent stories of 2025, many of them disturbing reminders of sad news, bad weather, tragic events, and conflicts with local, state, national and international ...
