“It’s like seeing the Gestapo, man.”—“Mike,” a hippie, to KGW, describing the Portland Police Bureau’s decision to keep an eye on the Sunday night “Fire Jam,” a weekly drum-circle with fire-twirling on the Eastbank Esplanade.

“The banks are very good at figuring out risk.”—Lars Larson, explaining why more regulation isn’t the answer to the financial crisis.

27-21: Final score in OSU’s Sept. 25 super-upset over top-ranked USC.

Desperate Measures: Subscribers to The Oregonian—which is facing a $6.4 million ad shortfall as compared to last year—were treated to a DVD copy of Obsession, a tedious anti-Islam propaganda film, with their Sept. 28 paper.

“An unfortunate incident”: That’s how the Barack Obama campaign described the discovery of a cardboard cutout of the candidate hanging from a tree at “Oregon’s Christian University,” George Fox, in Newberg. The mock lynching made headlines from Sydney to Jerusalem.