In exactly one month, the city’s controversial Drug- and Prostitution-Free Zones will expire, forcing city council to decide whether or not to renew them. And for the second time in two years, Mayor Tom Potter’s office has broken a key promise—the creation of an oversight committee to examine the law’s fairness. Under the Drug Free […]
Scott Moore
Posted inNews
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
The Mercury Infiltrates “Marriage and Morality Sunday” to Check on the Anti-Gay Referendum Campaign. Are Oregon’s New Gay Rights Laws Doomed, or Has the Anti-Gay Christian Right Lost Momentum?
David Crowe, executive director of Restore America—one of a handful of groups united as Concerned Oregonians, an organization seeking to overturn two recently passed gay rights laws—went on local Christian talk radio on Thursday evening, August 16, to rally the troops. He urged people to email Concerned Oregonians immediately to request petitions, and implored them […]
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Hall Monitor
What Price, Liberty?
Here’s the thing about the leaders we Portlanders elect to make decisions for us: When it comes to blue sky, hand-holding yuppie issues like recycling, planting trees, and biodiesel, they’d trample their own mothers to let TV news cameras know how liberal they are. That’s especially true for issues over which they have exactly zero […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Bean There, Done That
America Deserves Mr. Bean
The following conversation took place between two of the Mercury‘s writers after emerging from a press screening of Mr. Bean’s Holiday. —Editor SCOTT MOORE: I love Mr. Bean! I find him drool-inducingly funny. Ha ha ha! MATT DAVIS: I’m not surprised to hear that, Scott. There’s actually still a bit of drool on your shirt, […]
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Yuppie Elementary?
Despite Closures, Pearl Could Get a School
While public schools are closing (or on the verge of closing) across the city, a plan by Commissioner Erik Sten’s office could see one built, by private funds, in the Pearl District. It’s part of Sten’s “Schools, Family, Housing” initiative, which aims to maintain and increase school enrollments in the city—and decrease the number of […]
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Grumpy Grandpa
Potter Bites Back at Commissioners
Mayor Tom Potter has already retired once, and at nearly 67 years old, his colleagues—and the rest of the city—are wondering if it’s time for him to do it again. But as the clock ticks down on his decision to run for reelection, his colleagues on the second floor of city hall are biting at […]
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Hall Monitor
Go Home, Hippies!
Leave it to hippies to turn an otherwise perfectly fine idea into an uproarious exercise in self-parody. For instance! Marijuana. It’s great, right? It smells good and makes everything funny. But in the hands of hippies, it’s just another Cheech and Chong prop, what with all the “heeeeey, man” and “whoooaaa” and “groovin’ out” to […]
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In the Line of Fire
Fire Bureau Shutters Low-Income Daycare Center
A daycare center in Southeast Portland that caters primarily to low-income kids is either a flaming deathtrap waiting to happen, or the victim of an overzealous fire inspector—depending, of course, on whom you ask. Last Thursday, August 9, a rookie fire inspector walked in to Andi Panda Child Care on SE 80th and ordered the […]
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Return to Goo Lagoon
Ross Island Still Has Problems
The pronouncement from Mayor Tom Potter’s office came in all caps: “INITIAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF ROSS ISLAND SHOWS POSITIVE RESULTS.” In other words, a study was released showing that the part of Ross Island that could soon become city property isn’t the environmental wasteland that many people thought it was. That fear—that the city could […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Old News
No End in Sight Trudges Through Iraq
By now, the laundry list of things that have gone wrong in America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq should be embedded in the minds of anyone who’s paying attention. Disbanding the Iraqi army, allowing widespread looting, listening to the lies of megalomaniacal madmen (on both sides), failing to develop a post-invasion government, etc., etc., etc. […]
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Hall Monitor
Poo, Sweat, and Spit
Attention homeless people of Portland: All of your problems are now solved! Nobody thought it would be that easy to turn your lack of a home into just a minor inconvenience but, with the stroke of a pen, we did it. And by “we,” I mean “Mayor Tom Potter,” and by “solved all your problems,” […]
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But What About the Straights?
Qwest Challenges Portland’s Equal Benefits Law
More than eight months after going into effect, the city’s Equal Benefits Ordinance (EBO) is facing its first challenge: Qwest, which employs around 1,000 workers in the metro area, is asking to be excused from a key provision of the law—and it looks like they’ll get it. But Qwest isn’t on the outs with the […]