Rogues Gallery 2000

By now, virtually every sentient being cursed with nasal passages is acutely aware that the flu season has once again descended. Holiday gatherings large and small sway to a chorus of sneezes; buses, trains and restaurants reverberate with blown noses and hacking coughs.

Like everyone else, we here at Rogue Central have fallen prey to the dread seasonal malaise. Unfortunately, we have also succumbed to a far more sinister ailment: the urge to look back over the past year's roster of dubious achievements known as the Rogues of 2000.

As we sat down to rewind the tape, however, a strange thing happened. We began to feel better. Who could fail to be moved by this catalogue of tomfoolery and bungling, this parade of the pitiful and the pitiless? So, in the season's spirit of good cheer, we now present our Rogues Gallery for the year 2000. We hope you'll enjoy them as much as we did.

* It was certainly a difficult year for the Portland Police Bureau, what with the May Day march and Chief Mark Kroeker's shaky debut. But those misadventures pale in comparison to the antics of the Police and Fire Pension Board, which in March approved stress-disability claims for Sgts. Richard Barton and Bradford Bailey, whose names surfaced last year in the $165,000 police overtime scandal. Both men had filed their claims within days of being notified that they faced termination for approving bogus overtime--and to widespread amazement, the board voted to grant their claims, even though the allegedly traumatic events took place eight years before.

* Surely one of the most vexing rogues to come across our desk this year was Regal Cinemas, the Knoxville, Tenn., movie chain that now holds a monopoly on every first-run screen in town. What got our dander up wasn't the $2 ticket hike, the disappearance of the $3 Monday cheap nights, the jacked-up prices for soda and popcorn, the sticky floors, the dirty bathrooms or even the irritating Theater Radio Network. These developments, distressing as they may be, were merely a sinister prelude to Regal's master plot to unleash the Evil One among us. We refer, of course, to the mock-Western Pepsi Poppet, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, whose cute-as-a-button persona now pollutes every movie-going experience with tedious admonitions for the audience to behave like human beings during the show.

* Late in the year, we couldn't help admiring the chutzpah of Kaiser Aluminum, which shut down its smelters so that it could sell back 190 megawatt-hours of electricity to the Bonneville Power Administration, originally purchased at $22.40 a megawatt-hour, for a cool $500 a megawatt-hour, for a profit of $52 million. In the meantime, Kaiser has idled 400 workers, who will receive "up to" 70 percent of their wages. Perhaps Kaiser would like to buy back WW's mountain of old soda cans for $1.11 a pop so we can go to Hawaii.

* Along the same lines, we recall with pleasure the peregrinations of one Eric Washington, of the Bronx, N.Y., who sent a letter to Sammy's Restaurant and Bar on Northwest 23rd Avenue with a cleaning bill for $25.95, complaining that some "red sauce" on his chair had marred his dinner jacket and pants. Strangely enough, Washington had sent identical letters to a dozen different Portland restaurants, with the identical sob story. Hey, Eric, guess what? Your table is waiting--down in the interrogation room of the Postmaster General.

* It's never pretty to watch principles bow to cash. Just ask University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer, who joined labor watchdog group the Worker Rights Consortium in order to placate students and activists concerned about university-licensed apparel manufactured in Third World sweatshops. That move ticked off a generous alum by the name of Phil Knight, CEO of Nike, who then weaseled out of a $30 million pledge to upgrade Autzen Stadium, home of the (lame) Ducks. Knight's huff paid off. In October, Frohnmayer pulled out of the WRC, citing some doubtful legal doubletalk, and cast his lot with a competing group, the Fair Labor Association, which is backed by industry titans including Nike. Final score: Knight 1, Frohnmayer 0.

* By many accounts, Mary-Jo Avery is an effective real-estate broker and a nice lady. But real estate can be a tough business--which may account for the remarkable "letter from the heart" she mailed out to 900 of her close friends, explaining that the reason they had not heard from her for so long was her father's death--certainly a regrettable circumstance. Unhappily, Mary-Jo then appended a sales pitch in a post-script, which must surely qualify as one of the less tasteful sales tactics we've run across.

Well, we feel better already--see you next year!