The Jefferson Exchange

Charles Longjaw had already admitted to a killing in Oregon and a rape in Washington. Yet he was released from custody in 2015 , and charged with committing another murder the next year. The situation comes back to the law under which he was found "guilty except for insanity." GEI verdicts, as they are known, can lead to offenders being released despite predictions of danger. The non-profit news organization ProPublica uncovered issues with the law in a joint project with the Malheur Enterprise.

Drought and wet years tend to alternate in our part of the world. We get used to a winter with little snow followed by one with above-average snowpack. But computer climate models show the situation getting worse as the planet warms, with something like a "precipitation whiplash" effect: deep and prolonged droughts followed by deluges.

We stopped the "warehousing" of people with mental illness years ago. Or did we? The huge state hospitals with thousands of residents are generally gone, but our jail and prison population has boomed. And there's plenty of evidence that the two trends are related... like the fact that up to half of the people in lockup have psychiatric disorders. Journalist Alisa Roth researched the trends and the people they represent for her book Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness .

There is a pressing need for affordable housing all around the region, especially in pricey Ashland. And now there's a possibility that a grocery store could provide some help. The Ashland Food Co-op recently announced a deal to buy a parcel of land across the railroad tracks from its current location. The parcel is big enough for a bigger store and more parking, but could also have space left over for "workforce housing."

Tales of people fighting fires go way back in the region. And there's a special aura of mystery and romance around smokejumpers, people who actually jump out of planes (yes, with parachutes) to fight wildfires. Mystery and romance? More like grunts and groans, from the tales of the smokejumpers themselves. The physical conditioning they undergo to be ready for action is challenging, to say the least. This month's Stories of Southern Oregon features a return visit from Gary Buck of the Siskiyou

Silent since her death in 1959, the voice of Billie Holiday still echoes for generations of Americans. The story of "Lady Day" has been told many times, but author Tracy Fessenden tells the story of Holiday's music with a religious focus. Fessenden's book is Religion Around Billie Holiday , and it explores religious influences ranging from Holiday's time in a convent as a child to the Jewish predominance in the Tin Pan Alley pop music culture. Each helped shape the work of the singer who flamed

Paint your skin green, stagger around like your joints hurt, and make sounds like "arrrrr!" and people will generally get it: you're Frankenstein's monster. Dr. Frankenstein's creation is actually 200 years old this year; Mary Shelley's little book came out in early 1818. And yet we still make new movies and plays and even musicals about the mad scientist and his creation of life from death. Ashland author Tod Davies has some ideas about the durability of the characters and story. She talks

It's one of the worst sounds you can hear coming from under your vehicle... that grinding sound when you step on the brakes, indicating something has worn out and needs to be replaced. But which something? That's among the questions we have for Zach Edwards, the owner of Ashland Automotive , as he returns for another edition of The Squeaky Wheel, our monthly visit on car care and feeding. But we won't limit the discussion to how the car stops.

The wide-eyed man walks down the hallway to a particular door. What awaits behind it? Is the music happy and carefree, or tense, with the sound of low string notes? See, music plays a huge part in movies... we depend upon the music to give a context beyond what our eyes can see. And our region is home to several people who have composed music for the big screen. Joby Talbot , Tessa Brinckman , and Terry Longshore are among them, and they'll speak about the craft at a session at this weekend's

If you break a leg or come down with a disease that confines you to bed, people generally know what to do. But that's physical illness. Mental illness presents a different set of challenges in diagnosis and treatment. All of the members of Southern Oregon Compass House in Medford learned this firsthand. Once a month, we visit with clubhouse members and staffers to explore issues in mental illness, issues we're often hearing about for the first time.

Freak out your loved ones: tell them you want to change your career to comedy. Laughing is fun, but it takes work to produce laughs, and often little money for the work. But Joe Randazzo made it, and then offered advice to people who want to be, in the words of his book title, Funny on Purpose . Randazzo worked as the editor of The Onion, among other gigs. He joined us in June 2015 with advice on making people laugh all the way to your bank.

South Medford High School graduate Laura VanZee Taylor suffered from depression and anxiety as a young woman. So she's aware of the confusion and stigma that attaches to mental illness, especially in young people. Her documentary "I Am Maris," screening at this week's Ashland Independent Film Festival, features 17-year-old Maris Degener, yoga instructor who has dealt with anorexia.

If we had more money, we could probably turn our monthly Signals & Noise media segment into a 24-hour service. There's just THAT much to talk about in the media, all day and every day. Especially since we define "media" broadly, to include everything from modern social media to books. Andrew Gay and Precious Yamaguchi from the Communication faculty at Southern Oregon University are our regulars. We tee up some key issues in the media--like the promo copy all the anchors of Sinclair TV

It wasn't THAT long ago that people with developmental and intellectual disabilities ended up shunted away from society and placed in mental institutions, until they died. We treat them better now, but better enough? That is the question Dan Habib asks in his film "Intelligent Lives," screening this weekend at the Ashland Independent Film Festival . The film follows three people who challenge society's definition of intelligence, and pursue their dreams despite their own personal challenges. The

People are full of surprises. And sometimes they surprise themselves, not in a good way. Can you honestly say you're aware of all your biases? Police officers face a lot of scrutiny for their biases after many shooting incidents. Eureka Police take part in a program called Principled Policing, which includes attention to implicit bias and procedural justice.