Skip to main contentYou want evidence that this state is headed toward the abyss? Looking for proof that Oregon may need to change its state bird from the western meadowlark to the turkey vulture?
You're looking in the wrong places.
Don't look toward Oregon City, where we've just witnessed the confluence of poverty, lousy parenting and twisted dirtbags. Those conditions have always been with us.
Don't look at the "inadequate" tax structure that is bankrupting schools. That's like blaming your mirror when you don't like what you see in the morning.
And please, for God's sake, don't look at the bums and gutterpunks who dare to sit on the sidewalks of downtown Portland. Sure, their presence causes the Nose to grip his Abercrombie and Fitch bag a bit more tightly when he walks past, but, hey, fear can be an upper.
No, the clearer indications of the demonic forces at work are in the margins--the easy-to-ignore omens that only someone as prescient as the Nose can understand as clear warnings that WE ARE HURTLING TOWARD PERDITION.
What does the Nose mean? Developments like the increasing popularity of she-male escorts (check out the back pages of this fine publication), the City Council candidacy of Lew Humble, a man who apparently gargles with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the fact that Everclear's Art Alexakis now has his own radio show.
Oh yeah, one other thing: the whoring of the Department of Environmental Quality.
Missed the news, didya? Overlooked the story in our daily about how DEQ, the state agency that is, supposedly, the keeper of the sustainable flame, the protector of what makes Oregon Oregon, the defender of our water and air, is prostituting itself?
Well, it's true. The agency recently decided to "revise" its rules about water clarity, specifically the rules about how clear the water needs to be when polluters like pulp and paper mills pipe their effluent into our rivers and streams. The clarity of the water is a sign of how well the mills are cleaning up their waste before they dump it into the river.
So DEQ is going to take a look and see if the current rules are too strict. But because the agency is financially strapped, it has decided to fund this study with a $120,000 check from the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association, the lobby that represents, among others, Georgia Pacific, Blue Heron and Weyerhaeuser.
Is this really any different from Dick Cheney inviting the oil industry to rewrite energy policy? Is this not a conflict of interest that would make Tony Soprano blush?
The Nose can only hope that the rumor that Oregon leaders are thinking of changing its motto from "She Flies With Her Own Wings" to "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes" is just that. A rumor.
WWeek 2015