I am nothing if not somewhat attentive to the desires of Weekend Reader readers, who have once again jumped into my spouse’s camp to note that recent editions have been too depressing. To which I have two responses: First, dear readers, look at the world around us. Second, you all have a point. Let me see if I can strike a better balance this week and find some upbeat reads, but I cannot guarantee that you won’t find something here that bums you out. It’s the world around us!

First this week, though, something surprising: I didn’t expect the Oregon State University football team to make national news this season – especially if it was good news. But here’s The Athletic, the sports arm of The New York Times, checking in with a story that calls the 3-2 Beavers “the most fun team in the country.” How so? The team’s quarterback, Braden Atkinson, leads the nation in passing. The team’s top receiver, Jesse Legree, is No. 2 in the nation. Chances are pretty good that the transfer portal will sweep both players away to Power 4 conference schools next year, but in the meantime, Beaver fans, enjoy this. 

It could be that the only issue on which I half-agree with President Donald Trump is his insistence that we do away with the twice-annual clock switch that comes as we spring forward into daylight saving time and then fall back (this year, on Nov. 1) to standard time. Now, there is daylight, so to speak, between our positions on the issue: I think it would be better to stick with standard time, but Trump wants to stay on daylight saving time and recently has been aggressively making that case – so much so that one might wonder why. I’m happy to report that The Atlantic has cracked the case: More light in the evening means more time to play golf.

If you’re thinking this all means that I’m going to spend the next few weeks railing against the Nov. 1 time change – you are correct. Expect whining on this topic all the way through the Nov. 7 edition.  

Meanwhile, Trump is blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the high price of diesel in the United States. Maybe Trump needs to play more golf. 

If candidates for the Corvallis City Council come knocking on your door as they campaign (and, thank goodness, local candidates still go door-to-door), you might ask about how they plan to approach the city’s estimated $8.1 million biennial budget gap – and how they plan to reconcile that with the city’s push for new facilities, such as the “civic campus” proposal with its estimated $200 million price tag. It’s an important question to ask, especially since the current council apparently has punted it over to the next edition of the council – which could include the very candidate who is talking to you on your porch.

A couple of observations here: Virtually every governmental entity in Oregon is facing big structural deficits, as Measure 5 and 50 come home to roost. Unless there’s a brilliant idea out there that has yet to surface, these all will end with taxpayers paying more and receiving fewer services. In that environment, it will be challenging for the city to make a persuasive case for a $200 million project – especially when the county still doesn’t have an adequate jail. Finally, the Gazette-Times’ Joshua Perry, in his latest story about these budget woes, quotes City Manager Mark Shepard as saying he believes the city has been “very transparent about our work over the last six years,” but still lamenting what he called “a lack of knowledge about facilities.” It is true, to be fair, that Shepard during his term has consistently cited a need for improved city facilities. But there’s a disconnect here.

That was a little depressing. Let’s find something to cheer us up.

During the vaudeville era, the Cherry Sisters were widely considered the worst act ever – people flocked to their performances to see just how dreadful they were, and they rarely disappointed. Reviewers were less than kind, though, and eventually the sisters filed a libel lawsuit over a particularly nasty piece published in The Des Moines Leader. In a shockingly entertaining piece for Poynter, Jordan Friedman outlines how the resulting landmark ruling helped cement journalists’ right to criticize public performances. (And why has no one made a Cherry Sisters movie?)

I still believe that while Tina Kotek is the clear favorite in the Oregon gubernatorial race, Republican Christine Drazan has a shot. Now here comes The New York Times with an article that explains why. But at the same time, new polling suggests that Kotek has grabbed a modest lead. 

That prompts three questions that we may never know the answers to: If somebody other than Trump were in the White House, would Drazan have a better chance of unseating Kotek? Won’t it be interesting Nov. 4 to see how well polls predicted 2026’s midterm results? And are you, reader, in the camp that believes Democrats still could fumble away what appears to be a big opportunity to regain Congress? Feel free to post your answers in the comments section below. 

One of my relatively few journalistic regrets is that the Gazette-Times and Democrat-Herald didn’t ask tougher questions a decade ago, when the state and Linn County were pushing plans to develop that Mid-Willamette Valley Intermodal Center off Interstate 5 in Millersburg. You’ll remember that the idea was to offer a site where semitrucks loaded with hay and grass seed could move those crops onto railcars, removing some truck traffic from the interstate. The project and a similar facility in Malheur County have cost $70 million thus far, Alex Baumhardt reports for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. The results to date aren’t great: The Malheur site is unfinished. The Millersburg site, which came in some $10 million over budget, is now used only by a home roofing company that transports a few cars of materials each week. 

This year’s hurricane season – relatively restrained in the Atlantic Ocean, but very busy in the Pacific – offers evidence that we’re already in the grip of an unusually strong El Niño weather pattern, The Atlantic says. 

We’re not spending as much time with friends as we used to – we all know that, or at least those of us with friends do. Now, it turns out, we’re not even going out on Friday nights, or so The Atlantic reports. Well, of course not: We’re all spending our Friday nights doomscrolling on The Atlantic’s website. 

You’re still not doomscrolling right now, are you, hunched over in your chair? Well, take a break and go through this relatively easy series of exercises designed to take your body out of that hunched position. (A physical therapist describes the process by which your body assumes that hunched position as “creep.”) I’m all for anything that helps keep the “creep” at bay.

Finally this week, a word to the choir: I’m guessing that better than 90% of Weekend Reader readers are registered to vote. If not, take care of that before the end of the day Tuesday – because later this week, ballots will be in the mail. Here’s an easy way to register in Oregon.

Correction: The original version of this Weekend Reader included an incorrect link to the story about exercises you should do after sitting in your chair all day. It’s been fixed.