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Jim Redden
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C’MON, GET VIOLENT!

The Partridge Family Temple Has Made a Religion Out of a Classic ’70s TV Show–But Would Danny Partridge Ever Kick the Shit Out of an Innocent Woman?
Avatar photo Jim Redden

THE FIGHT BROKE OUT at Fellini a little after midnight. It was a warm Friday in late August. Max Hardesty, a customer at the bar, saw a thin woman with straight black hair walk from the back of the bistro to a group of people seated by the front door. A large, stocky man in […]

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Not Making the Grade

Does Grade Inflation Hurt Minority Students?
Avatar photo Jim Redden

MONICA LINDSEY thought her son Brad was doing well in the Portland schools. When he graduated from the seventh grade last year, his final report card was all A’s and B’s, and only one C. But during a parent-teacher conference, Lindsey learned that her son didn’t meet the state standards. In fact, the teacher said, […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Mercury Video Picks

Armies of God
Avatar photo Jim Redden

Did you know the Catholic Church uses trained killer-priests to hunt down the Devil’s disciples and whack them? No? Then you missed these recent Vatican Hit Squad movies: Bram Stoker’s Shadowbuilder (1998)– Burly Michael Rooker stars as a pill-poppin’, pistol-packin’ padre with a haunted past who tries to stop Satan from seizing the soul of […]

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Black and White

Unsolved Murders Bring Charges of Racism
Avatar photo Jim Redden

ON JUNE 16, the Portland police staged a press event in the recesses of Forest Park to announce they were getting serious about clearing up the city’s backlog of unsolved murder cases. Chief Mark Kroeker accompanied Ron Overlund to the exact spot where, four years earlier, his daughter’s body was found. There, Chief Kroeker explained […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Almost High on Grass

Ron Mann Smokes Us Through the Strawberry Fields of Dope
Avatar photo Jim Redden

BE SURE YOU TOKE UP before seeing Grass, Ron Mann’s hilarious but ultimately superficial look at the government’s 65-plus year crusade against marijuana. Stoned is the best way to appreciate the film’s fast-paced cavalcade of clips from Hollywood movies, educational movies, TV shows, presidential press conferences, and staged police drug raids, all designed to convince […]

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Held in Contempt

Grand Juries Violate Activists’ Rights
Avatar photo Jim Redden

WITH HIS SHAVED HEAD, pale skin and skeletal features, Craig Rosebraugh has become the local face of environmental activism–the outspoken press aide for underground militants who are raiding animal research labs, monkey-wrenching logging equipment and torching ski resorts. For the past three years, Rosebraugh has served as the “above ground” mouthpiece Earth Liberation Front, notifying […]

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Arming Artists

Controversial Cop Kroeker Supports Cock Art
Avatar photo Jim Redden

AFTER THE CONFLICT between police and marchers on May Day, local media bashed Police Chief Mark Kroeker for his brutish actions. Yet local artist Brian Borrello knows a kinder, creative side of Kroeker. Scurrying around his N.E. Alberta Street studio on a recent, sunny Saturday afternoon, the high-energy, rail-thin Borrello reaches into a crowded cabinet. […]

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