It’s been more than a month since we briefed you on Oregon’s worrisome drought situation. It’s time we caught up. When last we checked, Oregon was cruising into its worst drought in nearly 15 years. Now we’re tied for the worst drought in about the last 25, and it’s not even August yet. Governor Kate […]
Bio Hazard
Posted inNews
Oregon: Now With Two Times As Much Drought!
Image courtesy of the Oregon Water Resources Department and we’re all going to burn up this summer Gov. Kate Brown today added eight counties to the growing list that are under a drought emergency declaration, including the first locations west of the Cascades. The additional eight—Deschutes, Grant, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Morrow, Umatilla, and Wasco—join Baker […]
Posted inNews
Fossil Fuel Charlie for Mayor 2016
Spotted near Portland State University Portland Mayor Charlie Hales isn’t getting much slack from fossil fuel opponents these days. Between the (I’m just going to say it) unflattering likeness in the poster above—spotted near Portland State University—and last week’s entertaining and disruptive Earth Day demonstration during council’s regular hearing, you could say opponents of a […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Mayor Charlie Hales Doesn’t Want You to Eat Meat Tomorrow
Hey all you devout Catholics eschewing chewing animal flesh on Fridays during Lent: Tomorrow, and only tomorrow, the rest of us heathens might join you. Mayor Charlie Hales wants all Portlanders to go vegan for one day, and he’s proclaimed Friday “Meatout Day.” The mayor made his proclamation in support of nonprofit Farm Animal Rights […]
Posted inEthics
A Golden Moment: How I Saved One Invasive Animal From Another
Chinese Golden Pheasant In Portland. First came the sound: the loud thumping of a soft body plummeting into hard glass. Then the sight: colorful plumage knocked silly by the cunning entrancement of the ersatz sky, that perfect illusion afforded by a window reflecting the sunlight in just the right way. “Holy Shit!” I yelled to […]
Posted inPortland
The City Had Someone Look Inside Your Food Scrap Carts
This Wednesday, Portland City Council is due to hear a report examining at how well the city’s year-plus—and pointlessly and irrationally controversial—food-scrap composting experiment has fared. It’s about what you’d expect from a document mostly meant to give city commissioners and city planners a chance to wax poetically about trash: A lot less of it […]
Posted inFashion
Single Use Disposables: Convenience or Conundrum
Jen LaMastra is the indisputable star (unless you care to dispute me) of Glean, a group show of art made solely with materials scavenged from the city dump, currently on view at Disjecta. She has a couturier’s knack for looking at a material—be it pages of a dictionary, window blinds, or tires—and determining what would […]
Posted inNews
Please Stop Eating Each Other. No Really, Stop It.
It’s true, the internet is eating its own tail. But in the interest of your being able to keep up with the water-cooler talk, here comes the latest horrifying act of cannibalism, this time from Sweden.
Posted inTV
Bio Hazard: Fucked-Up People, Fucked-Up Show
Fucked-up people make for a fucked-up show. That’s the implication Saturday Night Live comic Darrell Hammond makes in his new memoir. SNL comics have burst like humorless spiders from putrid nests into numerous movies, TV shows, stand up tours, and plays, and there have been many memoirs by and bios of these comedians, but no […]
Posted inBio Hazard
Bio Hazard: Pee Wee’s Less-Than-Playful House
We all know someone who looks like Pee-wee. The undersized suit, the close-cropped hair boasting a Tintin-like comma-lick at the crown. The recessively phallic tiny bow tie. The faint sense of make-up, the flushed cheeks, the pouting mouth. Yet also like Pee-wee, there is the raging man hidden within the child who comes out on […]
Posted inMusic
R. Kelly’s Love Letter Cruise
All aboard! That’s right, it’s the R. Kelly cruise. From the McRib-lovin’ mind that brought you “Bump n’ Grind,” Trapped in the Closet, and urinating on underage girls, Carnival is proud to present the Love Letter Cruise, embarking next October for a five day excursion through the Bahamas. If we needed any furthur proof that […]
Posted inBio Hazard
Deux
Another detail about next weekend’s Open for Business sale at the Cleaners (which I also previewed last week). Like so many things that happen in this city, the idea for the event was born as a byproduct of its organizers just hanging out. Alison Hawley, who first came onto the scene as one of the […]