Your Cycle Of News.

[October 26th, 2005] Phil Busse , managing editor at the Portland Mercury for five and a half years and a mayoral candidate in 2004, is moving on. Busse says he won't run again for office but will freelance for the Merc and complete work on a documentary about baristas ; he hopes to open a politically oriented summer camp for college-aged kids. Amy Jenniges, a reporter at Mercury sister paper The Stranger in Seattle (who has enjoyed a sham marriage to Stranger ed Dan Savage), will replace Busse, who departs Nov. 8.

The Clown House , a home at Northeast 25th Avenue and Alberta Street that does extra duty as a popular performance space, bicycle repair shop and dog-snack emporium, will shut down temporarily. That decision by proprietors Dingo and Caffeine Jones comes after complaints spurred a visit Monday from a city inspector who found code violations. The couple promises to clear out the overgrown blackberry bushes, circular stage and jumble of bike parts —some of which are used to build tall bikes that sway a couple of yards in the air. And they hope to reach an agreement with the city to keep their beloved, and cluttered, business/home in operation.

If you don't regularly watch Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, you missed host Bill O'Reilly and Charlie Hinkle , The Oregonian's First Amendment lawyer, getting into it Monday night over Oregon's sex laws. O'Reilly, a former Portland TV anchor, repeatedly pressed Hinkle to answer whether the state Supreme Court ruling protecting live sex shows as free speech was good for the state."You bet it is,'' Hinkle responded, calling the Sept. 29 ruling a "vigorous re-affirmation'' of free-speech principles.

Although the Portland Development Commission says its number two exec, Wyman Winston, is still on the payroll, sources inside City Hall and PDC say he's gone. Winston, who had been a contender for the top job when former director Don Mazziotti got hired, got mixed up in a contracting mini-scandal earlier this year ("Put me in Coach, I'm Ready to Pay," WW, May 26, 2005). Winston is among a number of high- ranking African Americans who have left the agency in recent times, joining a list that includes former general counsel Chip Lazenby, Board Chair Matt Hennessee and former acting director Baruti Artharee.

1-2-3-ouch! Lourdene Haley was exercising at the Multnomah Athletic Club on Oct. 28, 2003, with a footlong rubber band when, she says, the band slipped off her feet and slapped her in the eye. Haley filed a lawsuit Oct. 14 in Multnomah County Circuit Court over the injury, saying it had impaired her vision. The lawsuit alleges that the slip-and-slap occurred under fitness instructor Barbara Dalbey at the MAC, making Dalbey and the club bound collectively to pay up to $160,000 in mostly non-economic damages. The MAC's response is a no-comment until it sees a copy of the suit.

What do the Texas Pacific Group and Warren Buffett have in common beyond being extraordinarily successful investors who came to Oregon to buy utilities ? Both hired Tom Imeson , former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's business partner and the transition director for both Govs. John Kitzhaber and Ted Kulongoski, to advise on their purchases. Texas Pacific struck out in its unsuccessful bid for PGE after spending 16 months and millions of dollars. Now it's Buffett's turn with a pending Imeson-aided bid for PacifiCorp.

^WEB-ONLY MURMURS!

One more from the legal files: Janitors Svetlana Galas and Sergey Bezhinets claim in a lawsuit that they found human body parts and blood on surgical trays when they came to clean the Oregon Outpatient Surgery Center last April. In their lawsuit filed Oct. 12, Galas says she ran to the toilet heaving, and passed out while her husband Sergey cleaned up the horrific mess, no doubt pondering a career change. He says in the lawsuit that some blood splattered into his mouth, producing a sore that, months later, hasn't healed—though he has tested HIV negative. A woman who answered the phone at the surgery center in Tigard told Murmurs that the center knows nothing about the alleged event or the cleaning couple's $851,000 lawsuit claiming physical injury and emotional distress. Bloody hell.

Political whispers have some mystery election recruiters on the lookout for a candidate to run against Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto next year. Giusto has lost some luster lately after recent flaps over his spending on overtime and the lengths to which he went to protect a close female friend from her allegedly abusive, and politically connected, husband (see "The Long Arm of the Law," WW, July 20, 2005). One contender, Portland Police Cmdr. Rosie Sizer of Southeast Precinct, says she got some recruiting calls (but wouldn't say from whom) and said no thanks.

Multnomah County Chair Diane Linn has picked up an early thank-you from Basic Rights Oregon for her support last year of gay marriage. Days before Linn opponent Ted Wheeler had his official campaign kickoff Wednesday, Oct. 26, for next year's race, the gay rights group announced its endorsement of Linn.

Portland cyclists have installed five more "ghost bikes" at accident sites where bikers have been killed. The installation of bent bikes with frames spray-painted white is the project of Forrest Burris, who erected Portland's first ghost bike at Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Wygant Street, where his brother Christopher was killed by a car. The eerie white frames can be found near the following intersections: Southeast 40th Avenue and Belmont Street (there are two), Southeast 49th Avenue and Stark Street, Northeast 37th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard, and Northeast 9th Avenue and Killingsworth Street. The website www.ghostcyclepdx.org promises to be updated soon with more information.