This time around, Jim Francesconi says he’s treading lightly. When he lost a bid for mayor in 2004, the attorney and former city commissioner says, people were suspicious of the money he raked in from downtown businesses. He told the Mercury he’ll go out of his way to avoid that impression in the race for […]
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The War on Thanksgiving Is Real
Greedy retailers are ruining Thanksgiving for low-wage employees by forcing them to work on the one goddamned American holiday that isn’t about the buying and selling of plastic bullshit shipped in from China. ThinkProgress has smartly decided to call this phenomenon The War on Thanksgiving. I wholeheartedly approve of this move. They’ve compiled a list […]
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McDonald’s Urges Employees to Sell Their Possessions to Get Out of Holiday Debt
Adam Peck at ThinkProgress says: McDonald’s McResource Line, a dedicated website run by the world’s largest fast-food chain to provide its 1.8 million employees with financial and health-related tips, offers a full page of advice for “Digging Out From Holiday Debt.” Among their helpful holiday tips: “Selling some of your unwanted possessions on eBay or […]
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The Portland Bazaar
Remember a few years ago when the Design*Sponge-associated Portland Bazaar first came to Portland and a bunch of people got all freaked out and protective because it was scheduled on the same weekend as Crafty Wonderland? Ha! That was embarrassing. Anyway, in keeping with my vow to only bring special attention to the very most […]
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In Today’s City Budget News: Business Tax Breaks, an Urban Renewal Dog-Whistle, and Police Car Cameras
Portland commissioners this morning finally made speeches and went on the record with occasionally reticent votes that carved up much of the city’s $14.1 million surplus and also swallowed up most of the city’s $3 million contingency fund for good measure. We previewed some of that spending in September, breaking the news about the surplus […]
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Little Boxes: The App
Now that Halloween is out of the way, I think it’s safe to start hyperventilating about you know what. The third annual Little Boxes indie Black Friday sale is back (it’s actually two days, on the 29th and 30th), and this time they have an app! This is super-useful considering that nearly 200 local independent […]
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Congressional Democrats Slam Walmart for Sucking at the Government Teat While Failing to Provide a Living Wage
It’s heartening that the living wage discussion is finally inspiring Democrats to fight on behalf of the American worker. Salon’s Josh Eidelson says: A slide from Wal-Mart’s U.S. CEO’s presentation to Goldman Sachs’ retail conference boasts that “Over 475K” U.S. employees earned more than $25,000 last year. Activist workers and members of Congress seized on […]
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Katrina Scotto di Carlo on Urbanism and the Importance of Buying Local
Katrina Scotto di Carlo (co-founder of Supportland, board member of Portland Made, and one of Portland’s best advocates for the local economy) spoke at Creative Mornings a few weeks ago, something that got lost in the crush of too many events on the calendar. Luckily, CM documents all of its speakers in a video archive, […]
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Next Year’s Budget: Hales Won’t Ask for Cuts—But He’s Also Not Asking for Wish Lists
Mayor Charlie Hales has offered some relatively good news to beleaguered city workers this week. After last year’s big budget cuts (and in light of this fall’s sizable surplus), bureaus for the first time in several years won’t be asked to contemplate any cuts when preparing their spending proposals for next summer. But Hales declaration […]
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Exxon Sues FXX Because They’re the Only Ones Who Can Use Two X’s Side-by-Side, OKAY?!?
In what might be considered the most hilariously stupid story of the day, terribly awful company Exxon is suing not-awful-but-rather-redundant new TV network FXX for stealing their extra X. From Deadline: ExxonMobil Corp has sued FX Networks over its use of the second “X” in its new, comedy-centric network which, the oil company says, infringes […]
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A Simple Yes or No Question About the Shutdown
So! The first government shutdown in 17 years? Sounds like fun, right? The New York Times has a helpful guide to exactly what the fuck’s going on. The short version is that everyone is terrible and we’re all doomed: With Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, the Republicans who control the House, tugged […]
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Will Wal-Mart Actually Start Paying a Living Wage?
Haha, no! Of course not, you ignorant rube! I mean, there was an option for Wal-Mart to start paying its Washington, DC employees reasonably—and if that DC plan had passed, it likely would’ve encouraged other parts of the country make their Wal-Marts start paying those employees reasonably, too. But it isn’t going to happen. Because […]