The latest casualties of gentrification: roaches

[September 5th, 2007]

WINNERS

Cockroaches scampered away from the light of victory after some North Portland apartment-dwellers refused to have their units fumigated, figuring the only thing worse than the insects are the chemicals used to kill them. Guardian Management threatened to evict 22 tenants of a HUD-subsidized apartment complex for siding with the bugs. If they won’t leave, you can always gas them.

Shortly after University of Oregon officials announced Phil Knight’s $100 million bequest to UO athletics, PSU announced a $1.5 million gift from Business Wire founder Larry Lokey. And while Oregon will likely sink its tenth of a billion into several hundred new football uniform designs, PSU will spend its free money on an equally glorified campus tradition: the Judaic Studies Department!

As reported in the Oregonian last week, any of Oregon’s 47 steel truss bridges are older and have more “fatigue cracks” than Minnesota’s collapsed span. But they haven’t pussed out and flattened under the weight of Subarus. Even the Sellwood Bridge—which earned just two of 100 safety points—has waited stoically since Oregon legislators set aside $1.3 billion out of the required $4.5 billion needed to repair the state’s bridges. It’s safe! What do engineers know about strength of character?

LOSERS

Suds enthusiast Nolan Cunningham had his mug splashed on the Internet by the Portland Water Bureau after he got caught adding soap to the Ira Keller Fountain, the geometric waterfall behind Keller Auditorium. Cunningham, 19, told The Oregonian he did it because he “likes bubbles.” Fair enough.

Portland’s DIY porn industry suffered a blow to its otherwise sterling reputation when Paul Eugene Frizzelle II was arrested in the murder of 18-year-old Emily Egan, his live-in girlfriend and model. Frizelle had maintained several online porn sites out of his downtown apartment. Let’s hear it for the creative class!

Ira Glass, the nasal narrator of This American Life , had fans astir after OPB scheduled him to appear at New Hope Community Church in Clackamas—the megachurch that led the Measure 36 campaign against gay marriage. In response to the outcry, OPB moved Glass’ Oct. 7 talk to the Oregon Convention Center, a venue with sterile blandness that is equally offensive to everyone, regardless of faith.