News [youtube OQzi0GNwRNI] Kevin Mannix, former chairman of the Republican Party of Oregon, visited Willamette Week's office today and had this to say about Señor Smith, WW's cover story from last week on U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith's family business and its practice of employing undocumented workers: "I object to anybody allowing illegal conduct to go forward. There's civil illegal and there's criminal ...   More

News Last week, WW published "Señor Smith" about U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith's family business, Smith Frozen Foods, and the Eastern Oregon plant's history of hiring undocumented workers. This week, WW followed up with "Señor Smith, Part Dos." While both pieces focused on the plant's reliance on the work of illegal immigrants, both also quoted workers describing poor conditions at the plant. ...   More

News Hell is other people. ­-Jean-Paul Satre Can you feel it? I said, can you feel it? This is the question repeatedly asked by the menagerie of characters in Dos Pueblos, the bilingual lovechild of Mexico City's La Comedia Humana and Portland's Hand2Mouth Theatre. Its 10-member cast comprises five actors from Mexico and five from Portland interacting in a fluid series of vignettes crafted ...   More

News The Hillsboro Argus editorial board recently endorsed U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) in his race against Democrat Jeff Merkley, speaker of the Oregon House. The audio from the board's interview with the incumbent senator is online now at Oregonlive.com, and it contains a number of interesting statements from Smith on Mexican workers and illegal immigration. In one instance, Smith applauds ...   More

News The weekend's AP report about Barack Obama's "illegal aunt" brought to mind this WW series about Sen. Gordon Smith's company in Eastern Oregon hiring undocumented immigrants. There are some key differences. The timing of the report on Obama, just 72 hours before Election Day, raised suspicions it's a Republican stink bomb. While Smith called our cover story a "slimeball," it certainly did not ...   More

News U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) was scheduled to address reporters outside his Pendleton home (pictured above) this afternoon in the wake of this morning's news that he lost to Democrat Jeff Merkley. It also comes three days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement replied finally to my Freedom of Information Act appeal, first filed in August and then again in September. The federal agency's ...   More

News Back in July, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation looking at allegations that Portland Public Schools wasn't adequately serving its English-language learners. The inquiry was to focus on Madison, Roosevelt and Marshall high schools. But according to a letter dated Oct. 30, the federal civil rights office has decided to drop the investigation because ...   More

News Looking for a sure way to duck out from under that spreading recession raincloud? Think for a second about how wimpy our "severe economic downturn" looks next to the Irish Potato Famine. This weekend, Irish president Mary McAleese will visit Portland to help ensure that references to that 19th century crisis never lose their bite. On Saturday, Dec. 13 at 11 am, she will dedicate the newly ...   More

News The latest (and last?) movie to ever match Clint Eastwood and a handgun screened after WW press deadlines, much to our dismay. The movie's a pleasure, though: Gran Torino I knew I was going to like Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino from the moment the director's character, Walt Kowalski, points a shotgun at a posse of Hmong gangbangers and snarls, without any irony, “Get off my lawn.” ...   More

News On April 13, President Obama lifted a U.S. ban that had made it illegal for Americans to visit family in Cuba or send them money. While a big step, it's not enough for Charles Grossman, a 94-year-old retired doc (and all around nice guy) who held a press conference today in advance of his law-challenging trip to Cuba. He wants the United States to allow tourism and trade that could set ...   More