The Thong Show.

[October 19th, 2005] Oh, and what do you do? Whoever did the seating arrangements for Saturday night's 1000 Friends of Oregon dinner didn't follow the last legislative session very closely. State Sen. Vicki Walker , who co-sponsored legislation aimed at preventing utilities from collecting taxes they never pay, ended up at Portland General Electric's table. "For the most part, people at the table were quite friendly, but one guy was not at all excited about me being there," says Walker (D-Eugene), who's also exploring a run for governor.

In March, defense lawyers started selling merchandise online emblazoned with "Fuck Josh Marquis" in homage to Clatsop County's district attorney with the statewide profile. The tote bags, T-shirts and thongs have disappeared from the Web, but Murmurs expects a comeback. That's because Marquis proved on Monday that the law does indeed have a thong arm . He successfully convicted Corvallis defense lawyer John Rich of disorderly conduct for frightening people and yelling at least one obscenity at a cop in the courthouse—thus closing the case that inspired the merchandise. The result of the six-and-a-half-hour trial : a $90 ticket for Rich (who was not the thongmonger). Marquis has no regrets, saying, "If a citizen did this, they would probably be thrown in jail."

City Hall security officer Robert Tybie is calling out the artillery in his longtime battle to lease space in one of the city's Smart Park garages for large art exhibits. Tybie has enlisted bureaucracy-busting Commissioner Randy Leonard to meet next week with him and Smart Park general manager Casey Jones. Tybie, a 58-year-old artist and former garage manager, has been talking for several months with Jones about "Art Smart Garage Sales'' exhibits on Sundays in unused parts of the garage at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Alder Street. Tybie says the main hangup in those talks is a provision giving the city sole discretion to end any deal, potentially leaving him high and dry.

The latest hedge-fund blowup has a strong Portland tie. Wood River Capital Management , based in Ketchum, Idaho, and named for a river that runs through that town, managed as much as $265 million but invested much of that money in a telcom stock that tanked. Now investors and the feds are looking for Wood River founder John H. Whittier , 39, who grew up in Dunthorpe and attended Wilson High. Hedge funds are lightly regulated, highly speculative investment vehicles that pay their managers handsomely and can generate outsized returns.

Veteran political reporter Don Hamilton gave the Portland Tribune his two weeks' notice on Monday. Hamilton, one of the originals who jumped from The Oregonian to the Trib when the new paper debuted in 2001, is going across the river to The Columbian in Vancouver, where he'll report on local government and politics. Asked about the Trib's future, the always-gracious Hamilton credited his soon-to-be-former colleagues with working hard to create a new paper in town and said he expects the paper to survive.

Web-only Murmurs!

The state's biggest utility customers gave their view last week of legendary investor Warren Buffett's current bid for PacifiCorp: They hate it. In written comments filed Friday with the Public Utility Commission, Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities argued that Buffett's deal offers customers nothing but a steady string of rate increases. "The alleged benefits are illusory," wrote the group's attorney, Melinda Davison.

And another blog bites the dust. Weeks after the wonky Portland Communique blog pulled the plug, Portland Media Insider—the blog (pdxmediawatch.blogspot.com) that promised a look under the hood of Portland's newsrooms—is no more. The anonymously written 5-month-old blog announced over the weekend it's closing up shop with "no 'deep meaning' sign off" beyond calling it a decision "long in coming.'' For those still needing a navel-gazing media fix, one of the posters has created a temporary talking place at pdxmedia.boardsxp.com.

Liberals around Portland suffered heart palpitations on Sunday when The Oregonian's conservative columnist David Reinhard announced his "bid" for City Council. "I'm running and you're paying!" Reinhard wrote, intending to show how the city's new taxpayer-funded campaign-financing law can be abused. Asked the next day by Murmurs if he was serious, Reinhard laughed and said no.

Reinhard thus avoided comparisons to fellow scribbler Phil Busse's mayoral bid in 2004, but not Portland Tribune columnist Phil Stanford's threat earlier this year to run for mayor to show how the law can be abused. Anyone want Murmurs to announce its exploratory campaign?