The Jefferson Exchange

Nobody likes getting a bad grade.  Especially when it's a whole state. 

But Oregon just got below-average marks for its friendliness to small businesses from Thumbtack.com and a partner. 

The state got a C+ for overall friendliness and a D for the friendliness of its regulations. 

The recent findings that Oregon job openings are staying open for long periods because of under-qualified workers got the attention of political leaders. 

State Rep. Peter Buckley of Ashland and his Senate counterpart host a meeting this evening (July 24) to explore the factors in the "skills gap" and possible solutions. 

It's one thing to be hard on yourself, and take setbacks and criticism to heart. 

It's another thing entirely to actually hate yourself. 

Author Anneli Rufus is one of many people who struggled with low self-esteem all her life. 

And while she does NOT recommend going all the way to the other end of the spectrum, she does think it's high time to close what may be an epidemic of self-loathing. 

It takes a very long time to make a cave. 

All that dripping and calcifying takes hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. 

But making the legal boundaries of the Oregon Caves bigger only takes an act of Congress. 

And Congress is on it; the Senate just passed the Oregon Caves Revitalization Act and sent it on to the house. 

The Lane County Commissioners and Eugene City Council provide one topic for discussion this week: paid sick leave, who should provide it, and which level of government should regulate it.

And if that's not enough controversy, we'll also talk GMO food labeling on this week's edition of VENTSday.

We do not schedule guests for Wednesday at 8:30, because that's the time for VENTSday, your chance to vent (politely, please) on a pair of topics in the news. 

The inventory at Goodwill Industries of Southern Oregon will soon include a very large pair of shoes. 

Those currently belong to Gayle Byrne, soon to retire as the organization's president. 

During her 37-year tenure, Byrne more than tripled the number of stores and expanded the service area and number of people helped by Southern Oregon Goodwill. 

Environmental groups are keeping their own and government lawyers busy. 

Cascadia Wildlands and other groups recently announced an intention to sue the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over the bull trout. 

The groups say the land agencies need a "timeout" to consider how projects on the lands they manage would affect the threatened trout. 

We can certainly save a bunch of energy and money using modern light bulbs. 

They are uniformly more efficient than the old incandescent bulbs. 

And--in theory, anyway--they last long enough to cover the addition upfront expense of buying them. 

But the compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) contain some toxic substances that require more attention to disposal. 

Okay, non-math students, stop making those gagging sounds and listen up.  Your case is not hopeless. 

Barbara Oakley is now an engineering professor, but she's one of those people who flunked math in high school. 

Yet she turned things around as an adult, and points the way for other people to do the same. 

Just because the Medford City Council backed down from a dog fight does not mean it's done with dog issues. 

The council chose not to enact a ban on certain aggressive dog breeds earlier this year, after hearing a fair amount of barking (sorry) from dog owners. 

But issues with dogs remain in town.