|
|
|
BEST EVIDENCE THAT POLITICS ONCE
HAD CLASS
Are you tired of the shenanigans that pass for
electoral affairs these days? Do you share the romantic
belief that, once upon a time, politicians deserved the
respect that only female soccer players enjoy now? There
is perhaps no better evidence that politics once had class
than Maurine Neuberger, who was a U.S. senator from
1960 to 1967 after serving in the Oregon Legislature. Today,
at the age of 93, she still demonstrates more wit and insight
than the entire House of Representatives' delegation combined.
Historians reserve most of their ink for Maurine's husband,
Richard, a brainy pol and prolific writer who served in
the Oregon Senate and in the U.S. Senate from 1955 until
his sudden death in 1960. But Maurine, the daughter of a
Wilsonville doctor, was no slouch. She made headlines in
the Oregon Legislature for taking on the dairy industry's
efforts to restrict the sale of margarine. At one point,
she took to the floor of the House with an apron and bowl,
giving the entire state a lesson in home ec. In Washington,
D.C., she maintained her passion for consumer legislation
and was the author of the bill that put the surgeon general's
warning on cigarette packages. She retired in 1967 and currently
lives in Northwest Portland, where she is, to this day,
one of this city's most engaging dinner partners. Does she
have any advice for lawmakers in Salem? "Oh no," she says.
"I can barely read about them."
BEST
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Whether you're an environmentalist, anarchist,
peacenik, bike nut, feminist, unionist or just have a burning
passion for social justice, there's no place quite like
the Red Rose School (232-5043). Originally founded
by a local offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society,
the school has been subverting the status quo--and offering
continuing education for activists--for the last 20 years.
Weekly classes and Sunday seminars cover an impressive range
of topics: "Surviving the Oregon Health Plan," "Resisting
the Christian Right" and "Nature Trails through the Neo-Liberal
Wasteland." Suggested donation: a paltry five bucks--and
no one is turned away due to inability to pay. Check out
the full schedule of classes at www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/2172/.
 BEST
GUTSY PRODUCT NAMING
Frustrated by drugstore brands that irritated
all 2,001 of her body parts, Donnalee Baudry, founder of
Hugin & Munin Soap, a local soap-making outfit (231-1283),
started researching different ingredients and then went
into business. Using saponified plant oils, Baudry, a health
physicist at OHSU, invented extremely gentle soaps with
rock 'em-sock 'em names. There's Assisted Suicide Soap
(contains hemlock) for the new mother or first-year
resident; The Fennel Frontier (boldly go where no
soap has gone before); and Dark Side of the Moo,
a chocolate-colored soap made with cow's milk and cocoa,
picturing a lunar landing...and cows. Y2K soap features
Bill Gates dressed as the Pope. Dope on a Rope is
a hemp-oil soap with a beaded hemp-twine loop hanger. So
far, only Sacrilegious Soap, misunderstood by the
masses, has gotten Baudry in trouble. Ask her if she cares.
BEST
VOTER DRIVE
It's long been argued that if more young people
voted, Oregon politics would look a lot different. Now it's
verified and quantified, thanks to a detailed analysis of
the 1998 election by X-PAC, a Portland group dedicated
to increasing political participation among young people.
The groundbreaking study showed that young Oregonians strongly
favored local ballot measures to spend $675 million on parks,
community colleges and light-rail expansion, which all went
down to narrow defeats in the November 1998 election. Marshall
Runkel and Amy Cody's analysis showed that if twentysomethings
voted at the same rate as 40-year-old Oregonians cast ballots,
all three measures would have passed, significantly changing
the face of the region. That finding alone may get more
young people to vote in the year 2000; pollsters say the
best motivator for young voters is showing proof that their
votes will make a difference. X-PAC plans to use this information
to launch a voter drive for the 2000 elections. (In November
1998, just 27 percent of 18-to-34-year-olds voted; in the
May primary only 9 percent turned out.) Anyone interested
in helping the cause should contact X-PAC election guru
Sam Chase through the group's Web site: www.xpac.org.
Chase and the gang's planned voter drive next year will
surpass even the 1998 drive, which spent $35,000 for posters
in Portland clubs and restaurants, public service announcements
on 202 local movies screens and a 'zine-style voters' guide
that was mailed to more than 30,000 households in which
young voters lived.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published July 21, 1999
|
