Archive for the 'Oregon' Category

Strippers have invaded my health club

This video shows what they do at my health club when I’m not around. The clip was shot in the room where I have my Pilates classes, which are a lot tamer. Pilates seems to do a better job of shaping people’s bodies, though.

Leave me alone, Sam

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) called for Senate hearings on Oregon’s assisted suicide law. Brownback says that he isn’t considering federal legislation to undo the Oregon law this year, but that he wants to explore the “unintended consequences and slippery slope of doctor-assisted suicide.” According to Brownback, a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law undermined the “culture of life” in the United States.

The hypocrisy of a State’s Rights Republican contemplating a measure to overturn a state law is obvious. Also, it seems a bit strange that Brownback’s “culture of life” would extend to the 30 Oregonians who annually choose assisted suicide, but not to the millions of Americans who depend on Medicare.

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I’ve driven past this building scores of times. I had assumed it was abandoned.

Ever see One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Did you comfort yourself with the notion that Oregon wouldn’t really allow its state mental hospital to become such a Godforsaken hell hole? Me too. But the truth is, it’s worse than that.

The Oregonian has now won a Pulitzer for its ongoing coverage of the Oregon State Hospital. The 15 part series is accompanied by an unforgetable photo essay. You can compare scenes from the movie, which was shot at OSH, to the reality of today:

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Since I’m here in Portland, I decided to visit my old neighborhood, which has become overrun with hippies.

It was overrun with hippies when I lived there, but they hadn’t yet opened businesses meant to extract money from current generation of disaffected counterculture types.

Most disturbing was this restaurant, which looks downright Satanic. I’m assured that the barbeque here tastes devilishly good because “Old Scratch hisself comes by once a month and spits on the griddle.”

Well, I’m still on vacation, which is why I’m not answering everyone’s comments. You can talk amongst yourselves until I get back to Salem. I should be back to a normal posting scedule on on the 31st or the 1st.

Today’s hightlight was the comedey act of Vince Morris. I thought I was going to wet myself. He had a warm up act. I think her name was Suzanne Lee, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Also very funny. You can get a video of Morris’ act here.

Also, I’m delighted to report that the Lotus (2nd and Salmon) has improved the quality of their food 10,000% since I last at there. Most nights, you can find a bartender who has the Portland skyline tattooed on her arms. It’s that kind of place.

Brain loss due to meth use

A recent report in Willamette Week attacks the coverage that the Oregonian has recently devoted to methamphetamine abuse. This really bothers me, because the issue of meth abuse is a serious one. The Willamette Week has long been little more than a weekly fishwrapper, staffed by resentful young writers who had their job applications rejected by the Oregonian. They’d love to falsify the Oregonian’s prize-winning coverage of the epidemic, but in trying to do so they could hamper promising efforts to bring meth use under control.

The Willamette Week loves to tweak the Oregonian, when it isn’t engaging in its own brand of baseless fear-mongering, seen on display in this report entitled, “Hispanic street gangs take over Portland’s east side.”

But with the Oregonian’s stories on the meth epidemic, you’ve got reporting that’s been looked at closely by many other major news organizations. The New York Times’ John Tierney may not have been impressed, but I think Frontline is a more reliable source. Seeing the Willamette Week, which regularly rails against the evils of the sellout corporate mainstream media, cite the Wall Street Journal and Tierney as authoritative sources was especially entertaining. Read the rest of this entry »

Three stories came out today, but I can’t figure out how they’re related because I was dropped on my head as a child and suffered damage to my Friedan Gland (the gland in the brain that produces a hormone known as “feministerone”). Luckily, though, I was bitten by a radioactive spider (same incident, long story) and so I have a “spider sense” that lets me know when stories are related.

Story 1

A recent study shows that the Atkins Diet damages the heart. Turns out, eating pork chops smeared with butter and stuffed with egg yolks is bad for you, even if it does make you thin, which it doesn’t. The bottom line is that conforming to society’s expectations regarding body shape can shorten a person’s life.

Story 2

The Australian stripper’s union, Striptease Artists Australia, successfully petitioned the Industrial Relations Commission to set new workplace rules. Topless bars will now have to pay workers overtime and allow meal breaks. The strippers will still have to take their clothes off and submit themselves to groping (the topless bars in Australia allow customers far more leeway on groping than the bars in America, not that I’d know from personal experience).

Story 3

Dr. Jerome Lentini, who ran cosmetic clinics called “A Younger You” in Salem and Portland, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $350,000 for injecting his patients with fake botox. Dr. Lentini became the first doctor in the history of Oregon to be punished for failing to infect patients with botulism.

Botox creates a youthful appearance by paralyzing facial muscles, making it impossible for a person to effectively frown. Dr. Lentini’s patients became suspicious when they began to recover from paralysis too quickly.

So, are these stories really related, or is this a “spider sense” false alarm?

Let’s hope these kids have a few extra thousand lying around

As federal education spending declines, states are looking for ways to shore up their universities’ finances. Most are raising tuition and cutting back staff. In Oregon, though, the financial picture is especially grave, and the state Board of Education is contemplating the extraordinary step of selling or closing one of its universities.

Since 80% of the university system’s enrollment is concentrated in its three large universities near the west coast, the school to be sold would be one serving rural eastern or southern Oregon. Whether a university is sold or closed, the cost to rural students of attending college would rise considerably.

Most board members oppose the idea of a sale, so the board will probably opt for less drastic measure to raise revenues and cut costs, like increasing tuition and fees, removing university system employees from state group insurance plans, and adopting a less costly retirement plan for yet-to-be-hired faculty.

If the financial crisis at Oregon schools continues, though, the more drastic option of selling or closing a university may become an unavoidable reality. And as states across the country feel the pinch of decreased federal support, closing schools may be an idea coming to a state near you.

Having brought the state out of a deep recession, Gov. Ted Kulongoski is now pushing to stabilize school funding by setting aside 61% of the state budget for education. He’s also pushing a plan to guarantee health care for every child in Oregon, paid for with a new cigarette tax. He’s visited our state’s troops in Iraq, and he’s attended the funerals of every fallen Oregon soldier. So what’s your governor been doing?