Two weeks ago, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) sent a press release announcing their intention to prosecute seven North Portland stores they had recently caught selling alcohol to minors. Yet, in spite of OLCC’s loud trumpeting of its successes, it seems like no one except the OLCC is cheering. What has everyone else up […]
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¡Enseñame El Dinero!
Study Points Blame for High Latino Dropout Rate at Pisspoor Spending
When Lidia Lopez was eleven, her family moved to Portland from Mexico full of hope for the future. But for Lidia, disillusion had set in by tenth grade. Despite six years in Portland Public Schools’ English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, she still couldn’t understand what her teachers were saying. “The teachers spoke really […]
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Brother Against Brother
Is In-Fighting Tearing Apart the Local NAACP?
On Saturday morning, even before the most recent meeting for the NAACP chapter began, the event had disintegrated into a shouting match. About 30 members had gathered with the hope–albeit slim–to resolve several issues that, for the past year, have been tearing apart the local chapter of the renowned civil rights organization. As current board […]
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Too Many Needles
Homeless Youth Censored
Twenty-year-old Carly Laney has been clean for a year and a half now, and she’s recently begun a project to document drug culture; her collection of photos include graphic shots of people shooting up. But now that she’s finally able to expose the public to drug culture, she feels she’s been silenced. When she was […]
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Cops vs. the “Undesirables”
Park Exclusion Law Meets a New Challenger
The legal fight began as a simple accusation of jaywalking. With the Rose Festival in full swing last June, Front Avenue had been closed to car traffic. Hoards of people swarmed around the waterfront and streamed across the street. Black and wearing dreadlocks, Terry Yancy stood out in the crowd. Earlier in the afternoon, two […]
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Crouching Student, Hidden Handgun
Lawmakers Try To Get Guns Out of Schools
In 1999, school officials found a loaded handgun in the unattended backpack of a school janitor at Mount Scott Elementary. The janitor–a concealed weapons permit holder–sued the school for firing him, claiming they lacked the legal authority. According to current state law, any citizen with a concealed weapon permit may bring a firearm onto school […]
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Unwelcome Atheists
ACLU Prepares to File a Discrimination Case Against the Boy Scouts
When Nancy Powell’s son was in first grade, he was approached at his elementary school by Boy Scout recruiters. It is a ritual nearly as old as public schools themselves: They asked him and his friends to join. But that afternoon when he came home from school wearing a band placed around his arm by […]
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Divvying Up City Hall
Will Voting by District Diversify City Hall?
In 1977, when San Francisco changed to a voting system in which City Hall officials were elected not by a popular citywide election, but by districts, the results were staggering. Harvey Milk–a gay storeowner–was swept into office as the first representative for the Castro District, the city’s notorious gay neighborhood. It was an election that […]
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Free My Car!
Lawmakers Propose to Curb Vehicular Freedoms
After years of laissez-faire policy, it seems as if legislators are poised to determine how we can drive our cars–from cell phone use to what tires we can have. If they’re successful, cars in Oregon may be saddled with as many laws as a racecar with bumper stickers. Ever since the New England Journal of […]
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SODOMY, COCKFIGHTING AND THE LAW
An Overview of The Legislative Season in Salem
If State Representative Betsy Close (R-Albany) has her way, Oregon’s teens will be on a tight leash, effective immediately. Over the past few weeks in Salem, Close has introduced a series of bills that, if successful, will curtail liberties throughout Oregon–not only those for youth, but perhaps yours as well. From demanding that the Ten […]
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How the Other Half Lives
A Photo Essay Documenting Portland’s Homeless
Every night in Portland, there are an estimated 2000 to 3000 people living on the streets. For this photo essay, I talked with more than 20 of the men and women who make up our city’s homeless population. Each had a different story to tell. I heard stories of broken homes, drug addictions, and new […]
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The Evil Eye
Is Spy Technology Putting Our Privacy in Jeopardy?
Nine years ago, in the sleepy seaside village of Florence, Oregon, a member of the Oregon National Guard pointed a thermal imaging device, the Agema 210, at a frumpy triplex. For a few weeks, agents routinely had been casing the house, looking for evidence that marijuana was being grown and sold there. With help from […]