You know why I'd make a lousy candidate for public office? For one thing, I haven't fought Enron.

Now, John Kroger has fought Enron. Fireman Randy, too. Opie was a big Enron-fighter. Enron is bad. Bad, bad, bad. The good guys all fight Enron.

Who am I leaving out? Did Hillary fight Enron? She'd tell us if she did, wouldn't she?

Oh, let us not forget this guy:

Fighting Enron is pretty much what he does, I guess. Some day, I'll fight Enron. And after that I can be king.

Here's one of those classic "WTF?" moments. Over at the Hollyrood-Fernwood School in the Grant Park neighborhood in the northeast part of Portland, a group of public-spirited folks recently raised a goodly amount of money to rehabilitate the baseball diamonds where the kids play:

The work got done, all right, but where you would expect to see and hear kids playing the great American game, these days you see nothing but a barbed-wire fence, and hear the sounds of silence:

Now, at first glance, we thought that perhaps the work wasn't finished, but apparently that's not the case. Word has it that the place has been shut down because of a dispute between the school and some of the neighbors over the process by which the improvement work was authorized. A glance at page 4 of a recent edition of the neighborhood newsletter would seem to confirm that version of what's going on:

Now, I've been known to be as big a NIMBY as anyone, but in this case, the nastiness seems awfully silly. People, it's May. It's time for baseball. Kids have played ball on that playground for many decades, and there is no good reason on earth that they should not be playing it there this year. Someone made a heroic effort to make the place a better place to play, and instead all they've managed to do is shut the field down entirely. Whatever the problems are, they need to get worked out, at least temporarily -- like yesterday.

It's time to grow up -- and we don't mean the Little Leaguers. Surely there's some way to put the hostilities on hold while the kids play ball.

No matter how you feel about the Portland mayor's race, those who groove on R&B, blues, and jazz from the Rose City will want to take note of this campaign benefit for Mr. Dozono tonight at Jimmy Mak's. If we weren't looking at several solid weekends of babysitter action right in front of us, we'd be there. No doubt they will hit it and quit it.

Our new PC has arrived, replacing the one that we cooked last week.

It's wonderful.

It's awful.

Our girl cat, Lola, is enjoying her first spring on the planet. She's discovered that the yard is a great hunting ground. Over the past few weeks, we have found evidence of some of her exploits in the grass: little spreads of feathers, and even a squirrel's tail and feet. Everything else from the victims' bodies was gone, and our own "fur creature" seemed to have a smug look on her face.

Now, we didn't catch her in the act. It could have been her brother, Bill, who did the killing -- he was seen joining in on the squirrel lunch, and one time last year we watched as he actually snagged a hummingbird. But lately, our gut instinct (if you'll pardon the expression) has been that this was Lola's work.

Along with the occasional warm snack, the yard also provides heart-stopping danger at times. Just the other night, a neighbor's dog came charging at Lola while she was out in front of the house. She took off like a shot into some hiding spot or other in the back, and she wouldn't come out for hours -- even through dinner hour and our many calls for her at the door.

Now, it's always a worry when a cat doesn't show up at his or her food bowl on time. We have always been able to set our watches by our cats' hovering for food at (or a little before) meal time. When they're not begging for their grub, it means that something's wrong.

Lola eventually came inside for her vittles, but while she was gone, our memories drifted back to the night years ago when our prior man cat, the late and beloved Ralph, failed to appear as scheduled for supper. Ralph never missed a meal -- never -- and so when he wasn't around for chow, we knew he was in trouble.

And we were right. That evening, Pinky (as he was also known) used up one of his nine lives.

It was 5:00, then 6:00, then 7:00, and no sign of Ralph. We walked all around the block, calling him by all of his names, especially "Man." No answer. Very disturbing. He was around earlier in the day. Now, he was nowhere to be found.

Being a Jersey guy, I have a fairly dim view of human nature. I always think the worst at times like these. He must have been cat-napped. Handsome fellow that he was, maybe he was scooped up by someone who liked his looks. Heck, somebody had just swiped an empty recycling bin from our curb a short time before -- maybe they decided they'd like a cat, too.

The Mrs. had an alternate theory. We were in the midst of having some plumbing work done in our master bathroom, and to do it the workmen had to cut a hole in the wall. Maybe Ralphie had gone in there, and gotten himself walled in. The tile guy had just drywalled up the hole that afternoon.

It sounded like a dumb idea to me. But what the heck, we went over to the spot where the wall patch was still drying, and gave out a few of our favorite Ralph calls. No answer.

The Mrs. called the drywall guy on the phone. Was there any chance that our cat could have gone into the hole in the wall? No way, he said. The hole had been carefully covered when it was not being actively worked on, and it was not left open and unattended for more than a minute at a time.

That pretty much exhausted all our theories of where Pinky might be.

We were both in shock. Our human children had not arrived yet, and so our kitties were our kids. We used to hold them in our arms like babies, sing them lullabies, the whole works. Now Ralphie was gone.

After a glum evening, the Mrs. turned in, and I headed off to the den to think about what we were going to do next. All I could think of was flyers on telephone poles. And those hardly ever turn up anything, do they?

Continue reading "When kitty doesn't show up for supper" »

Here's your chance to pick up a quick 30 grand and help the City That Works at the same time. It seems that the Portland Bureau of Development Services -- where the developers are their customers and the neighbors can go pound salt -- still can't function without "executive coaching" and "organizational development" by outsiders. Amazing that for $136,772 a year, this fellow can't get the job done without personal help. Anyway, if coaching's your bag, you might want to put in for this -- although I suspect the contractor's already been picked and the rest of the procurement process is just for show.

State House candidate Cyreena Boston keeps sending us her beautiful but lightweight flyers. Her last one had a foreign film festival feel to it. Before that it was a barrage of retail images -- first perfume, then clothes. Today it seems like maybe we've moved on to feminine hygiene products of some kind:

If things don't work out in the election, this gal has got a great future ahead of her at Land's End.

It could have been a 400-foot-tall building.

Greeting I-5 commuters from the Corbett Street overpass as they made their way northbound into downtown this morning: a huge homemade Novick for Senate banner, and several of the Hook's supporters. Dudes!

One of our faithful readers is an astrology expert. Maybe he or she can tell us if there's something in the stars this week that is making the establishment candidates in our various elections become so wickedly negative toward their challengers.

Or maybe it's just the trickle-down effect of Hillary throwing Reverend Wright and related garbage at Obama. Whatever it is, the candidates of the powers that be are slinging some serious mud.

We've already noted that Peapicker Gordon, who doesn't even have any real primary opponent to attack, has gone seriously negative against both of the Democratic challengers who are vying for the privilege of having their booties whupped by him in the fall. Get this: They're the status quo, and Gordon's the agent of change. Is it a sin to tell a lie where Senator Smith comes from?

In the Democratic ranks, we reported last night that Jeff Merkley, the choice of the Network Formerly Known as Goldschmidt, has gone way to the minus side of the spectrum as he calls Steve Novick out for comments Novick wrote on BlueOregon over the years. Hey Jeff, man, it's a blog.

Moving to the state office scene, Greg Macpherson, the old-money candidate for Oregon attorney general, just released an ugly little TV piece attacking his opponent, John Kroger:

Now granted, Kroger's last ad noted that he was the only candidate who's ever tried a case, which by negative implication pointed out that Macpherson never had. Macpherson's entitled to respond to that in kind. But I must say that this latest spot is the most negative ad I've seen around here in a long time. It rivals Mannix and Sizemore in its tone and misleading content.

And it's so unlike Macpherson, who at heart is a quiet and kind guy who can get things done without being nasty to those who disagree with him. This ad isn't the Greg I used to know, and he must be truly worried about his chances for him to be drifting into this territory. He claims to be the face of old Oregon, but this sort of thing is straight outta Jersey City.

At the local level, Portland City Council wannabe Jim Middaugh takes a couple of swipes at his main opponent, Nick Fish, and disrespects his lesser known opponents at the same time in this radio ad (mp3). "My opponent," he says, as if there were only one, "has taken thousands of dollars from some of Portland's biggest developers, but since I'm publicly financed, I didn't take a dime from big business."

True enough, on its face. But of course, the reason that Middaugh was the only candidate to qualify for taxpayer money to pay big bucks for his truncated campaign is that he is the handpicked successor to Erik Sten. And as has been noted on this blog before, Middaugh had a six-week head start on getting organized to run, because Sten told him about his pending mysterious resignation long before the public heard about it. When Sten made his announcement, there were only 10 days left before the deadline to qualify for public financing. Sten then quickly endorsed his crony Middaugh, and called and e-mailed the members of his own well established City Hall machine to help Middaugh qualify for public financing in three days.

Ugly politics, at best. If that was how I got my "clean money," I wouldn't be bragging about it.

Tighty righty blogger and radio host Rob Kremer has been preaching for a while that in Portland area government, nothing succeeds like failure. Fireman Randy proved Kremer's point yesterday when he praised the city's chief bureaucrat in the face of an $21.6 million cost overrun on a $27.9 million computer project. A 77 percent budget screwup (so far)? No problem.

Have you ever used the Wayback Machine? We do from time to time. It's got archived versions of websites from long ago. It's fun and informative to see how favorite sites used to look.

You may have a little trouble using that valuable resource today, however, as the site and its owner are very much in the news. It seems they stood up to one of those snoopy "national security letters" seeking information about internet surfers who used the site. And not only did the FBI back off, but the veil of secrecy that shrouds such proceedings (usually unnecessary, but routinely employed) was also lifted. The story's all over the media, but a good summary can be found here.

Way to push back, Wayback.

UPDATE, 9:48 a.m.: They're back up and running now. Check out this sample, and this one. Those were the days!

Yesterday at New Seasons Market we sampled their semi-sweet chocolate cherry panini.

Life will never be the same.

Ol' boy Jeff Merkley is taking Steve Novick to task for things he's written on BlueOregon:

Can you imagine how six years of candid comments on this blog could be clipped and used against me? I shudder to think. [Via The O.]

Gosh. I didn't even know there was an organization of Multnomah County Republicans. Its membership can probably be counted on one hand.

Anyway, unlike their Democratic counterparts, they don't require local candidates to be a member of their party in order to endorse them. And lo and behold, they have endorsed a few local candidates despite the latter's progressive leanings. The endorsement flyer, sent along by an alert reader, is here.

All of a sudden, the Portland city commissioners are acting like they're worried about the city's finances.

As well they should be.

But of course, they're pulling your leg. Go by streetcar!

Bookmark this page for handy reference during the upcoming Adams administration.

"Clean money" sure is a wondrous thing. The Portland City Council candidates whose campaigns are being financed by the taxpayers in the wasteful "voter-owed elections" system just keep a-pumpin' out the junk mail.

Here's part of a mailer we got yesterday from John Branam. Not much new in this one compared to what we've seen before (surprising, given how well his campaign manager is paid), but they did add what appears to be a picture of the candidate and his dad long ago:

And there's that logo again, up top, which sorta looks like this, don'tcha think? No wonder WW has taken to calling him "Obranam."

But a funnier piece comes from another "clean money" candidate, Amanda Fritz. Now, we don't dislike Amanda, although we're supporting one of her opponents in the primary. But we had to laugh when someone who does dislike her pointed out something funny about this flyer:

Inside, she gets quite specific about what she's complaining about:

Spending Portland taxpayers' money with out-of-area firms is a shame and a sin. O.k., point well taken.

But then when you flip to the back panel --

-- and look down in the lower left where all the little union insignia and soy ink and recycling symbols are, if you get out your really strong reading glasses, and squint really hard, you see where Amanda had her flyers printed up:

Oh, well. At least she kept our money in-state.

At this point there's no way that Hillary can gain the Democratic Presidential nomination without stealing it. Now, I wouldn't put it past her and Bill to give that a try, but they may drop out while they can still do so with some small shred of grace. They'll act like they're doing it for the good of the party, yada yada yada, but the harsh reality is, their campaign is out of money. And if there's one thing that motivates those two, it's that good old dough re mi.

As an alert reader warned us a few months back, the City of Portland's new computer system is fast becoming a financial black hole. Back then, the reader said it was $40 million over budget, which commenter Dave Lister (of all people) denied. In today's O it's reported that the project is $18.5 million over budget, and counting.

And guess what, Portland taxpayers. The city's going to run out into the shaky municipal bond market and borrow another $11.5 million to pour down its technology hole. The City Council will be authorizing the new bonds at its meeting this morning.

This is the city that likes to boast about its administrative and financial competence. And it wants to build a municipal fiber network. Give me a break.

Unless the latest reports are some sort of joke, Sam the Tram and Fireman Randy have apparently figured out that (a) the bike bridge project will never get done for $5.5 million, and (b) it's costing Sammy Boy some votes. And so now, as quickly as it appeared on the radar screen, it's gone.

Just like the street tax. Just like Cesar Chavez Boulevard.

But with this guy, who knows? Starting the day after he's elected mayor, he'll be unveiling all sorts of other stupid stuff. Some of it will go through, some of it won't. But rest assured, we're in for four years plus of unprecedented jerking around. [Via BikePortland.]

It turned out to be pretty easy to locate the owner of the wallet that the Mrs. found yesterday:

1. Google the address on the ID contained in the wallet.

2. Google Maps handily provides the name of the apartment complex along with a satellite view thereof.

3. Google the apartment complex for its manager's phone number.

4. Call the manager and ask that she alert the wallet owner to contact us.

5. A few minutes later, our phone rings; it's the wallet owner's family calling us.

We've staged a wallet-owner reunion for the morning.

I don't. Every day it looks more and more like something the Soviets might have dreamed up.

Several of her worker bees are none too happy with her.

The fact that guys like this can run for office without meaningful opposition is a clear indication to us that the whole concept of Metro needs to be re-thought.

The City of Portland is reporting that it has shut down the north side of the large reservoir on Mount Tabor after finding in it this morning "a 2 gallon jug of latex paint, a vertical, orange construction barricade, a bundle of informational fliers and 5 tennis balls."

Now, tennis balls in the reservoir are common, and probably innocent. There's a tennis court near there, and you'd be amazed at how wild the shots can get. The rest of the stuff, however, is likely the work of a vandal. I hope they catch the offender. Throwing junk into a water supply is probably a pretty heavy offense, and they should throw the book at him or her.

I also hope this doesn't turn into another "cover the reservoirs" crusade.

Whose "informational fliers" were they? It wasn't election porn, was it?

We've blogged here about the impending demise of the Colwood Golf Course, including plans to put a new airport runway on it, noising up Northeast Portland even more. Now it turns out that there are some folks trying to defend the use of the site as open space. Which makes total sense -- too much sense for the greedy hands that run Portland nowadays.

Anyway, the preservationists have got themselves a new website, and it is here. [Via Activistas.]

The City of Portland parks bureau sure knows how to make enemies. Remember all the ill will they caused when they tried to sell off part of Mount Tabor Park to one of Jim Francesconi's clients? Now they're starting in with a new group of outraged Portlanders: tennis enthusiasts.

Apparently the city is planning continuing budget cuts for that sport, contributing to the deterioration that is already evident in the tennis facilities in the parks. That has led to a series of e-mails mobilizing players for Thursday's budget hearing. It's hard to resist noting that they plan to raise a racket about this.

One player, Doug Hansen, has done a bit of investigation of the state of tennis in the Portland parks, and he prepared a little report that is circulating among the T-ballers these days. It includes the following observations:

1. Tennis has been supported by Portland Parks and Recreation since the early days, when outdoor courts were constructed at many Portland parks. Most notable among these are the courts at Buckman Field as well as Washington, Grant, Laurelhurst, and Gabriel Parks.

2. The era of year round indoor tennis arrived in 1973 with the construction of the Portland Tennis Center (PTC), which has now become the center of activity for public tennis in Portland.

3. A second indoor tennis facility, the Saint johns Racquet Center (SJRC), was added in 1980.

4. Since 1980, however, no tennis facility has been added by Portland Parks, while numerous new and enhanced sports facilities have been constructed for the benefit of other sports and recreational activities.

Most prominent among these are a new golf course at Heron Lakes, new club houses and driving ranges at Eastmoreland and Red Tail golf courses, a new softball complex at Delta Park, artificial turf for the Delta Park soccer field, new skateboard parks, a new disk golf course at Pier Park, as well as new community centers, which include sports and recreational facilities such as basketball and volleyball courts, exercise and martial arts rooms, swimming pools, table tennis and Foosball, etc.

5. In addition, over the same 27 plus years, many tennis facilities have bee