News Big Head Buck’s story is a familiar one in this economy: A 27-year-old special-education teacher for Portland Public Schools, Buck—who declined to give his real name and provided his own alias   More

News Oregon is formally starting a discussion next week about whether or not to legalize lane sharing for motoryclists, also known as lane splitting or filtering. In a small first step, the Governor's Advisory Committee for Motorcycle Safety has planned a public meeting and released a report [PDF] on the practice, which is currently against the law in every state except California. Based on t...   More

Music The band got into San Diego in the wee hours of the morning and I took off for a walk through Presidio Park. I navigated the sleeping homeless scattered around the grass and all the while saw the historical Presidio looming high over the land. It's preserved from the mid 1700's when Spanish missionaries and soldiers built it to help gently persuade the indigenous people to become serfs to the Spa...   More

News As expected, California's Supreme Court announced this morning that it has upheld the state's ban on same-sex marriage but will let stand the thousands of marriages that took place between gay couples before voters approved that ban with Proposition 8 last fall. Jeana Frazzini, head of Basic Rights Oregon, said this morning that her gay-rights group was obviously disappointed by the decisio...   More

News With today being the day that California's Supreme Court is scheduled to announce its ruling on Proposition 8, Oregon's supporters of same-sex marriage have already planned a rally either way tonight at 6 pm at the water fountain on Portland's waterfront, 1020 SW Naito Parkway. Check back here later today for the California court decision and Oregon's reaction to it....   More

News Mark your calendars: Tuesday is the day that California's state Supreme Court has announced it will rule on the challenge to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that state's voters approved last November to ban same-sex marriage. Of course, Oregonians have watched the fight over Prop 8 very closely. And so have others: [youtube D1XScBKlv2E]...   More

News The late Tom McCall earned national notoriety when he was governor of Oregon in the 1970s by telling Californians and other non-Oregonians to visit, but don't stay. Well, here's a piece from the New York Times that asks whether Californians are to blame in part for Oregon's stratospheric unemployment rate of 12.4 percent. Too bad McCall isn't still around to have commented on the latest...   More

News Same-sex couples in California will have to delay their wedding bells even longer. After a federal judge ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional on Aug. 4, same-sex couples in California hoped they would be able to get married as soon as this week. However, a federal appeals court today agreed to stay U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's order and set a hearing date for Dec. 6, meaning same-sex couple...   More

News The nation's largest pension fund announced yesterday it would fire a long-time adviser. The California Public Employees' Retirement System, which manages more than $200 billion in assets, ended its relationship with the Pacific Corporate Group, which both advised Calpers on investments in leveraged buyout funds and also managed money for Calpers. According to news reports, Calpers was conc...   More