Murmurs: News To Chew On.

  1. What do you give the zoo that has everything? A dead water buffalo. That’s the unusual offer Clackamas County heavy-hauling magnate Terry Emmert made the Oregon Zoo this month. Emmert owns the Portland Thunder arena football team (“Touchdown Terry,” WW, March 5, 2014) and a herd of more than 400 water buffalo. Two weeks ago, Emmert sold the zoo a water buffalo, slaughtered at Emmert’s meat-packing plant in Sandy, as a meal for the zoo’s lions. Zoo officials say the carcass gave the lions new nutrients and a change of pace. “The horns, tough hide, udders, and just the mere size of it, offered unique and enriching activities,” says Africa section curator Jennifer Davis. “It ended up weighing around 1,400 pounds, and not only the lions but also the African painted dogs got to enjoy it for a little while on the second day.” Emmert charged the zoo about $2,800. “The king of beasts gave it a great rating,” Emmert says. “They loved it.”
  1. Reed College student Jeremiah True drew national attention March 19 after claiming he was bounced from the discussion portion of his Humanities 110 class for arguing that sexual assault statistics are inflated. His story got weird from there. After BuzzFeed reported his claims and rape culture deniers championed his cause, True, 19, posted increasingly aggressive rants online, prompting fellow students to report feeling unsafe on campus. In an interview with GotNews posted on YouTube on March 24, True claimed he was purposefully acting like a “jerk wad” to draw more attention and parlay the controversy into a career in media. As of March 24, Reed officials were standing by their decision to bar True.
  1. The March 19 filing deadline to run for the Portland School Board has passed, and a crucial set of endorsements is already in. The Portland Association of Teachers, a union whose influence and money candidates covet, has endorsed Julie Esparza Brown in Zone 1 to replace Ruth Adkins, who’s not running; Paul Anthony in hotly contested Zone 2 to replace Matt Morton, who’s also not running; incumbent Bobbie Regan in Zone 3; and Mike Rosen, who’s running uncontested in Zone 7. Candidates must live in the geographic zones in which they run, but all voters in the Portland Public Schools district can cast votes in all races.
  1. The implications of legal weed continue to reverberate. After the federal government issued a memo in December telling native tribes they’d be treated the same as states when it comes to marijuana enforcement, former Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who serves on the Warm Springs tribes’ economic development board, and tribal and board member Pi-Ta Pitt launched an evaluation of whether a commercial growing operation is something the tribes should try. “It’s something we have to start looking at, whether we want to or not,” Pitt says. “What we’ll do is really unknown at this point.”

WWeek 2015

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.