Oregon's bike evangelist congressman Earl Blumenuaer plans to unveil these new t-shirts at Pride this weekend. Oops. I guess we unveiled 'em first, here:

Speaking of Blumenauer, you may recall that I wrote a piece this week wondering why the congressman is reluctant to criticize fellow Oregon Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden, on healthcare reform. Blumenauer supports a national public health insurance option, while Wyden doesn't. But Blumenauer won't hit out at Wyden by name. Nor will Senator Jeff Merkley. Or any of the other state dems I spoke with as I was researching the article. I'm still no closer to getting to the bottom of that conundrum—in fact I'm definitely inclined to agree with Don Loving of Oregon AFSCME: It seems to be a case of no Oregon democrats having the guts/balls to rock the boat and criticize Wyden. It might not do them any good, or advance anybody's cause, but come on, man: You can make a t-shirt like this, you can speak your mind!

Blumenauer's office does have an interesting development on the healthcare debate today, however:

Oregon activist Sue Stinton produced a 1960 Harper's Magazine at Blumenauer's town hall on healthcare with Howard Dean last week. "She pointed out that most of the fundamental debates about the healthcare work force, the role of government coverage, practice patterns, and affordability are all still sadly topical 49 years later," writes Blumenauer in an email update today. "She gave this to me to use in my efforts to make sure that we are able to actually make a difference." Blumenauer says President Obama may now use Stinton's magazine as part of his speech to the American Medical Association on Monday. Go to Blumenauer's blog for the entire thing. It's pretty interesting slash sad slash interesting again.