News This video making the rounds today in which U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) tells some woman waving an Obama-as-Hitler sign that having a conversation with her would be like arguing with a "dining room table" got a huge laugh from a former Frank staffer in Portland. That ex-staffer is city Commissioner Nick Fish, who in the early 1980s both volunteered for Frank's campaign and worked as a paid ...   More

News Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died last night, led a life obviously both accomplished and troubled. But beyond the obvious signposts of the highs as the "Lion of the Senate" and the lows of Chappaquidick (and of course now the way Democrats will use his death as an impetus to pass real health care reform), I first realized the depth of the connection he and his family's legacy had in 1980. That's when ...   More

News Ex-Portland Trail Blazer Ime Udoka, whose local hoops roots also include Jefferson High and Portland State University, has been signed by the Blazers as they get ready for training camp next week. Again, not an earth-shattering offseason move by the Blazers heading into camp. But if Udoka ends up making the team, he has proven throughout his basketball odyssey to be a good defender and not the ...   More

News We've just gotten word that the Flaming Lips naked bike video saga is continuing today on Sauvie Island. (Take a sec to read Matt Singer's amazing post on yesterday's video shoot and boob casting at Mt. Tabor Park while you're at it). Would-be fur vag emergers and naked bikers met this morning at Mt. Tabor Park only to caravan to Sauvie Island, where the band is shooting more excellent fleshy footage ...   More

News It's been a long time since Juwan Howard was on Michigan's fabled Fab Five. So long that when Howard came into the NBA 15 years ago from Michigan, his first team was still known as the Bullets before that name was considered in poor taste for a franchise in Washington D.C. We tell you all this so you get a sense with today's news about the Trail Blazers signing the 36-year-old former All-Star ...   More

News Amy O'Neal is rightly well known for her kinetic, inventive hip hop dance with locust (read WW's review of their TBA performance this week) and with performance artist Reggie Watts, but in her TBA Fest show with Ellie Sandstrom, Too, there are much different things at stake. The piece begins not with live dance but with film, with a David-Lynch creep up the steps to a house, and what follows ...   More

News Since so many folks are all a-twitter today about the Blazers returning to the Memorial Coliseum for an exhibition game, here are my Top Five moments from events I actually attended as a lad in the building before it became an under-used eyesore. #5: The Blazers' Billy Ray Bates pulls off this incredible last-second shot with the help of a great pass from Kermit Washington: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPiZW21GzUA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] #4 ...   More

News President Obama's pledge on Saturday at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign to “end 'Don't Ask Don't Tell” comes at an opportune time for Veterans for Human Rights. The Portland nonprofit, which promotes equal rights in the Armed Forces, has scheduled a re-organizational meeting Oct 21 at 7 pm at the Q Center (4115 N. Mississippi Ave) to create new leadership. “Everything ...   More

News The Portland Police Bureau has released this training video to offer advice to officers on dealing with bicyclists. The video comes just as Commissioner Dan Saltzman's office, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, Portland Police and the Willamette Pedestrian Coalition are about to enter into a new community policing agreement, which is pasted below. City officials will present the agreement Thursday, ...   More

News No big surprise here, but it is now official: Oregon voters will be deciding in January whether to overturn permanent increases in the income tax on wealthy state residents, and in the minimum tax paid by corporations. Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown announced today that anti-tax groups gathered enough signatures to refer the increases passed by the 2009 Oregon Legislature to the Jan. 26 ...   More