The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Reading the Durham Report, one can be forgiven for wondering whether to reach for a bottle of Advil or a tinfoil hat. I recommend both. What the report details — I’ll spare you the 300 pages — is a politically motivated cabal of FBI... — Updated 5/23/2023

What are we, mere monkeys chattering in front of the cobra’s basket, to think about the recent unveiling of a meatball made from the DNA of a woolly mammoth? If you didn’t know, an Australian “cultured meat startup” recently... — Updated 4/11/2023

Here’s hoping you enjoyed the sudden appearance of the Steampunk Party Balloon over the United States as much as I did. There’s something delightfully throwback, something Jules Verney, or perhaps League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,... — Updated 2/7/2023

Americans nurture a long-running obsession with criminals, from Jesse James to John Dillinger to Bernie Madoff, so it’s no surprise that FTX charlatan Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was able to enjoy a guilt-free series of softball... — Updated 12/20/2022

And finally the madness ends. Election madness, I mean. Most of the candidates, early or late, zeroed in on homelessness as a problem. One candidate was even bold enough to suggest that he would “solve homelessness.” That’s a big and... — Updated 11/8/2022

I read, with some amusement, that the chairman of Russia’s Lukoil, Ravil Maganov, had died after falling out of a hospital window in Moscow. It’s more likely that he died of a severe case of Putinitis, which sometimes looks like poison,... — Updated 9/14/2022

“Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.” — Wendell Berry Turns out we can add monarch butterflies to the list of species threatened during the sixth mass-extinction event, which we are all living... — Updated 8/9/2022

Within hours of the mass murder of school children and teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, public scrutiny of the law enforcement response turned accusatory, with a pile of unanswered questions landing squarely at the feet of... — Updated 6/7/2022

The best thing about documentary filmmaking, it turns out, is the friends you make along the trail. For nearly two years, Sisters native and cinematographer Sam Pyke and I have been traveling around the country meeting people who have... — Updated 11/3/2021

A few summers ago, while lounging around the Munich Airport waiting for a flight to Reykjavik, I bought a book: “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World,” by Peter Frankopan. Frankopan is a senior fellow at Oxford University, and has... — Updated 3/18/2020

Hobbs Margarét, 32, of Sisters Cattle Company, might be a radical. Maybe that’s a result of his deep West Texas ranching roots, his degree from the University of Oregon, or because he lived too long in the low-intensity warfare of... — Updated 10/9/2019

If you are one of those rarified Americans who still believe that natural rights are bequeathed to us by our creator, rather than granted to us by government masters, you will perhaps appreciate the gift of Robert Francis O’Rourke. During... — Updated 9/24/2019

With all due respect to Sgt. Bailey and the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, whose service and dedication to professionalism are both real and deeply appreciated by this space, the advice to citizens to stand back and “be a good... — Updated 8/20/2019

The new American penchant for tribalism isn’t doing us any favors. That was on full display at the most recent Democrat presidential debates, where candidates pandered vigorously to their various tribes by promising virtually anything they... — Updated 7/9/2019

Last week, while some Oregon legislators were resisting the cyanide pill of a “climate bill” — whose only certain result will be the destruction of of good jobs for mostly rural Oregonians — I bombed south through the desert... — Updated 6/25/2019

I took some time off from working the colt, writing, and fixing the myriad things around the Figure 8 that broke in the last big snowstorm. I put all that away for a three-day fishing trip down the Lower Deschutes. I went with my friend,... — Updated 5/22/2019

Juanito Mendiolea was a Basque immigrant who over many years donated considerable time and energy helping my family with our sheep. He was an enduring presence at our place, during winter lambing seasons when we carried bummer lambs into the... — Updated 4/16/2019

Out here in the West water is precious, particularly when living on the east side of any mountain range between the Sierra-Cascades and the Rockies. Eastsiders live within a perpetual loop of drought and diminishing returns. The diminishing... — Updated 4/2/2019

Challenges travel in packs, and this winter is no exception. No sooner had our second generational snowstorm in four years ransacked an otherwise placid winter, than one of the dogs ripped open his shoulder in an accident and needed medical... — Updated 3/5/2019

I'm writing this on Sunday morning, during the first real snowstorm we've enjoyed this year-though I almost didn't believe it was going to happen. I stopped believing the weather woman about two months ago. This was a deliberate act of... — Updated 2/26/2019

Last week provided a sobering look in the American mirror. Much of that ugly reflection was concentrated in the State of Virginia, where Governor Ralph Northam first admitted, then denied, that he was one of the two utter dimwits who appeare... — Updated 2/12/2019