The math whiz profiled in May 7's Oregonian Sunday edition by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Tom Hallman says the front-page account of his life was closer to fiction than fact. Mark Provo, who disliked how Hallman portrayed him and his research, compiled on his website (markprovo.com) a list of about 30 facts that he says Hallman screwed up. Among them: a scene portraying Provo watching cars crest a hill on I-5 outside the Peppertree West Motor Inn, where he lived (Provo says there's no hill there, which motel manager Daxsho Sandhu confirmed for Murmurs), and a description of Provo being kept awake "by a noisy couple in Room 113." (Provo notes there is no Room 113 at the Centralia, Wash., motel, which Sandhu also confirmed.) "It was as if he was writing a novel," Provo told Murmurs. "It was completely flabbergasting." Meanwhile, grumblings moved through the O's newsroom like smoke that editors are applying a double standard for a star reporter. Provo says he notified the paper of the alleged errors. No correction has run. Hallman was unavailable for comment.

Property records show that former ripe/Gotham Tavern/clarklewis restaurateur Michael Hebb mortgaged land he owns in Jefferson County for $200,000 on March 13. That's noteworthy because the action came just weeks before his abrupt departure (see www.wweek.com/editorial/3225/7492) from the empire he started with his wife, Naomi Pomeroy. The sudden exit left a number of lenders in the lurch, and Hebb's former business partner, clarklewis chef Morgan Brownlow, says creditors would like to see that $200,000. "To my knowledge, he didn't pay off any debts," Brownlow says. "I'm not too happy with him myself." Hebb did not return messages.

Federal Medicare inspectors' shutdown of Physicians' Hospital (see "Doctors Inc.," WW, Oct. 19, 2005) for a second time last week struck one more blow to the Northeast Portland institution. But this may hurt even more: The feds want Physicians' to repay $541,803.44 for 393 Medicare claims made last year, when, they say, Physicians' had no right to bill for Medicare or Medicaid services. That's because the feds say the claims came after Physicians' had opened as a "specialty hospital" during a moratorium on the development of such facilities. The Senate Finance Committee, which oversees federal hospital reimbursements, objects to specialty hospitals, arguing they cherry-pick the most lucrative procedures, destabilize general hospitals and don't always act in patients' best interests.

Watching City Council mates Erik Sten and Dan Saltzman grip and grin their ways through the primary seems to have stirred Mayor Tom Potter's re-election juices. Last week, the mayor told Murmurs he's "considering a fundraiser" for 2008 but will keep the $100 ceiling he put on contributions for the 2004 mayor's race. Potter says he will not take public money if he runs.

Portland cyclists are steamed over the Portland Police Traffic Division's recent decision to target extra enforcement at the intersection of Southeast 23rd Avenue and Salmon Street, where 57 cyclists were cited last Wednesday, May 10, for running a stop sign. Jessica Roberts of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, a group that usually supports any form of enforcement for bikes or cars, says the crackdown wasn't based on an analysis of whether the violations were actually dangerous. She says the city could better use limited resources by focusing its efforts on intersections with the most crashes. Traffic division Lt. Mark Kruger says the "traffic code is clear" and plans to continue enforcing it, possibly with more stings on scofflaw cyclists this summer.

Meantime, Portland pedalers will join thousands of cyclists in cities across the world Wednesday, May 17, for the third annual Ride of Silence, a memorial ride honoring those injured or killed while riding on public roadways. The Portland ride, organized by John McCaffrey and one of six in the state, meets at 6:45 pm at Wilshire Park, Northeast 33rd Avenue and Skidmore Street.

WEB-ONLY MURMUR!

Jenna Orzel and Lisa Brotherson were trying to decide where to start mulching in their Northeast Portland yard last Sunday morning, when they came across a horror worse than the juiciest slug: a severed human thumb. The couple called the police, who bagged and iced the specimen and canvassed the neighborhood looking for the owner. The mystery wasn't solved until hours later, when officers located a man missing more than half his thumb in a local hospital, according to Northeast Precinct Commander Bret Smith. The man had been working on a project with a circular saw, which sliced his digit and flung it two houses down to Orzel and Brotherton's yard. The thumb could not be re-attached.