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Good Morning, Portland! It snowed in Hood River! And it might snow in the Portland to Salem areas of the Willamette Valley tomorrow and / or Friday morning. MIGHT. PUT THE KALE DOWN, AMBER.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

You may have read about last week's complaints from local ice cream moguls Salt & Straw about—Eater PDX clarified this—the area around its main kitchen, at SE 2nd and SE Ankeny. Strangely enough, the news came to light due to an impassioned email from Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale, addressed to two dozen representatives at the city, county, and state congress levels. Other business leaders in the area rallied around the letter: CEO of Smith Teamaker Darren Marshall, Revant Optics owner Jason Bolt. And last night the area's businesses and property owners association held a "listening session," with state Rep. Rob Nosse, Mayor Wheeler, Portland Police Captain James Crooker, and Chris Fick, who is chief of staff for Multnomah County Chair-elect Jessica Vega Pederson. As a result of the listening session, the Oregonian's Austin De Dios reports that the mayor announced a “90-day reset” in Southeast Industrial, similar to that of the reset implemented in Old Town, which led to homeless camp sweeps and an increased police presence.

• Sorry about these long ass openers, folks. But this shit is, like, layered: In 2019, during the infamous Republican walkouts in Oregon's Capitol (which kept the state's legislation from reaching quorum and effectively killed both a bill to fund K-12 schools and one to institute a carbon tax), State Senator Brian Boquist responded to the idea of state police escorting him into the session with: “If you send the state police to get me, hell’s coming to visit you personally,” and later "send bachelors and come heavily armed.” Since then, Boquist has been required to give 12 hours notice before coming to the Capitol so the state police would have time to bolster security. Anyway, it's been three years and those requirements were rescinded. But Boquist is still suing Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, saying that the requirements infringed upon his first amendment protections. Anyway, yehaw.

• The city of Portland has agreed to stop using "Rubber Ball Distraction Devices"—munitions commonly referred to as "flash-bang grenades"—against Portlanders for the next 14 months. What's more, the city has agreed to "engage in a process to decommission" the bureau's inventory of these specific munitions entirely in that time period. Read News Editor Alex Zielinski's explanation of the the agreement.

• Cars are weapons. Come for me, you weak-calved drivers. We'll see who is the victor—unless you are driving. It will be YOU, if you are driving, because cars are weapons. In the latest instance of cars being weapons, would-be robbers crashed a car into the REI on NW Johnson. Crashing cars into businesses, with the intent to rob them, is catching on locally, as people have come to see that cars are weapons.

This week's Savage Love is a series of "quickies"—we know this is a favorite—and contains the question: Is it possible to give a quiet blowjob? Read Dan's response.

• Speaking of quickies, it only takes a second to enter the Mercury's weekly free ticket giveaway—and you can do so until Thursday! This week we've got your guest list spots for Rakim and the Trinity of Terror Tour!

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

This story unfolding in New York City mirrors Portland's own decision-making climate: The city's mayor, Eric Adams, announced yesterday that there would be a major push to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways. From my years working in social services, I can tell you that one of the great questions in that world is: At what point do you deprive someone of liberty? Adams said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others. Sounds fucking slippery, we should keep an eye on how this goes for them—like the recent, increased police presence on the NYC subway, will it do nothing?

• Designer Bastian Allgeier had some words of wisdom to impart before he deleted all his tweets forever. I find time-based perspective reorientation to be comforting, and I hope you will as well. P.S. I'm on Mastodon (but so far I only use it to follow Oregonian photographer Dave Killen) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

• It's no "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush AND IT NEVER WILL BE, but Metallica finally found someone to ask why they allowed Netflix series Stranger Things to use their song "Master of Puppets." Screen Rant has the scoop—well, Howard Stern had the scoop, but Screen Rant wrote it down.

Here is your energy for today. They cannot keep you down with their impotent "safety" impositions. You will make music!

@kevwalkman @nick from space is a pleasure to have in class #fyp ♬ Im Not Crazy verse 1 by Kevin Walkman - Kev Walkman