Black Helicopters Over Portland

We owe our lives to the tireless blogging of Portland’s Paul Reveres —but you’ll never learn that from the Reichpublican apologists and corporate media. Conspiracy theorists had feared that the Homeland Security disaster drill called Noble Resolve would “go live” —meaning, the feds would nuke Portland to create a pretext for martial law (and silence an outpost of dissent!). The anonymous heroes of the Oregon Truth Alliance, thinking that publicity could prevent the disaster, got KBOO, KATU and local papers to sound the alarm. Noble Resolve ended last Friday. Portland was left standing. The Oregon National Guard told Murmurs no personnel or aircraft, including black helicopters, were “mobilized” during the Aug. 20-24 drill, which was essentially a software test of government agencies’ modeled responses to disasters like earthquakes and anthrax attacks. Back in the real world, 14 Americans died in a helicopter crash last week in Iraq .

What do you get an ex-mayor for her 74th birthday ? If you’re City Commissioner Sam Adams and you’re shopping for former Mayor Vera Katz , the answer is a watercolor print of the tram . Adams, who worked for over a decade as Katz’s chief of staff, presented his ex-boss with the framed print at her birthday party earlier this month at the home of another ex-Katz staffer. Adams says of the $60 print: “That’s the last tram I’m ever building for her.” All together now, fans of Walt and Jean: “God trammit.”

One of the names that’s being bandied about as a possible candidate to replace the current speaker pro-tem of the Oregon Legislature, Diane Rosenbaum (D-Portland), is none other than former Basic Rights Oregon director and now national gay-rights advocate Roey Thorpe . Last Sunday Thorpe told Murmurs she has been approached by the LGBT caucus of the Democratic Party of Oregon for a possible run at the seat. As for whether or not she will run, Thorpe, a former city council member in Ithaca, N.Y., has indicated in prior conversations that, although she always loves a good campaign, she is not inclined to actually run for any office at this time.

Guess who’s buying drinks? Former WW staff writer Zach Dundas won $300 and a neat but inedible certificate at the annual Association of Food Journalists awards, held last week in Minneapolis. With his WW cover on the historical significance of the PDX coffee scene (“Bean Town,” Oct. 11, 2006), Dundas won the award for Best Newspaper Food Feature in a paper with circulation below 150,000. The Oregonian took Best Newspaper Food Feature in the next-highest circulation category, with Inara Verzemnieks’ ode to the maraschino cherry (“The Fruit That Made Oregon Famous”). The O also won a prize for best food section. West Coast!

And in other award news: Many compulsive whiners who participated in Kvetchfest ’07 found Portland hippie-o-crites particularly worthy of scorn and ridicule. But no kvetcher captured the essential stupidity of certain do-gooder affectations so well as Aaron Varhola , one winner of WW’ s 2007 Golden Bitch Award™ . Varhola skewered vegans for smoking American Spirits , a.k.a. “hippie coffin nails.” Vitriol and precision! Nice work, Varhola. The other top bitch is the WWeek.com poster “I Say Cynic, You Say Asshole,” who decried “fashion Nazis...who preach at people for wearing brand x of clothing made by poor foreigners in shitty working conditions, but seem to have no problem at all using cocaine made by poor foreigners in shitty working conditions.” Varhola and “ISCYA” will receive multi-dollar gift certificates to one of Portland’s finest watering holes.