You know what it means when a restaurant "86's" an item from the menu. But did you ever have to pull a "Routine 288"? Cousin James has, and he tells the story here.

A fellow by the name of Campephilus Principalis is making quite a stir down in Arkansas, and around the world. I'm no birder, but this is way cool. Lord God, indeed.

Congressman David Wu has jumped into the Cascade Locks casino fray. He's asked the Secretary of the Interior to nix the deal that Governor Ted has struck with the Warm Springs tribes to put their gaming palace in the Columbia Gorge. The Gorge isn't in Wu's district, of course, but his constituents include the Grand Ronde tribe, whose competing casino would take a major hit if the Warm Springs deal goes through; and the West Hills guardians of the Gorge environment. Although Wu's move won't be warmly received at Mahonia Hall, it makes perfect political sense.

I wonder if there will be a public debate between Wu and Len Bergstein, the p.r. guru who's fronting for the Warm Springs tribe. If so, I'll be in the front row -- not!

Now that Goli Ameri's out of the picture, there are few celebrities in the Rose City who are more annoying than Wu. Bergstein, however, is a contender for that crown.

Yesterday saw my last class lectures for another academic year. Since late August, I stepped up to the podium 112 times, for a total of 182 hours, before a total of around 235 students.

That's a lot of tax talk, and a lot of odd-looking PowerPoint. Like this.

So now the theater goes dark for the summer, and most people think it's a four-month picnic for us academics, but for me, work continues -- just different kinds of work. First there are exams to prepare, and administer, and grade. Graduation hoopla to attend -- fun, yes, but after 20 years it's a little bit of a duty along with a party. My several professional writing projects go on all year long, and a large part of June and July will be taken with a serious revision of my book. Those months are also the time when I teach marathon bar exam review lectures in three cities. There are a few weeks in August where things hit a sort of lull, but a full 11 days before Labor Day, another crop of students arrives, and it's off the races again.

Still, the end of classes marks a time of transition to a new summer attitude, and that's a good thing. Away go the heavy Rockports that hold us up through the soggy depths of a Portland winter. Off come the button-down flannel shirts and long-sleeved polos. Out come the shorts and the sandals. The dog-eared seating charts by which I try to keep track of the students fall by the wayside. The 10-speed bike gets used a little more. The rose bushes get some attention. The home to-do list starts to get whittled down a bit. The pile of sweatshirts gets thinned out.

Cue the Beach Boys.

Well, just as I predicted four months ago (scroll down for first comment). The developer who came in with the best original proposal for the east side of the Burnside Bridge -- the only one who didn't call for big box retail -- had its idea handed off to another developer, who in turn was awarded the project by the snakes at the Portland Development Commission tonight.

Once again, the PDC goes out of its way to do the exact opposite of what the community wants. In this case, the neighborhood beat back the big box proposal, and so I guess they deserved punishment for daring to defy the mighty PDC Mafia.

People rag on me on this blog for being so negative. But tell me, what is there to like about state and local government around here? The PDC is like a cancerous cyst on Portland civic life. Whether Tom Potter has the will and the smarts to save the patient surely remains to be seen.

Well, Buckman Pool is closed, probably forever. The MLC Pool in Northwest Portland is next. Sorry, no money for repairs, or even routine operation, for that matter.

But we've got millions to work on the Park Blocks downtown, to make the surrounding real estate more valuable. From today's Trib:

Portland Parks & Recreation has selected ZGF Partnership to design three parks that will help tie the area together — a $2 million park on what’s now a parking lot just west of the Fox Tower; a $1.7 million renovation of O’Bryant Square, four blocks to the north; and an unbudgeted renovation of Ankeny Park, between Burnside and Southwest Ankeny Street.

"It's Vera's vision! It will be the next Barcelona!" Whatever.

The statute of limitations on income taxes is generally three years. If you behave badly -- commit fraud or even innocently omit large amounts of income from your tax return -- the period for the IRS to come get you may be longer. But in the usual case, it's three years and out.

The three years generally runs from the April 15 due date for filing the return -- later if you file later. The IRS typically has three years to get the bad news in the mail to you from that date. (If you don't file the return, the statute doesn't even start to run until you rat on yourself.)

And so when the end of April rolls around, if you haven't heard from the revenuers about the fourth year back (in this case, 2001), their chance to audit you for that year has now most likely gone away. Congratulations!

Monday night is garbage night in my neck of the woods, and I just got done with my annual ritual marking the passage of the tax audit year. I shredded all my tax information and other receipts for 2001, and moved my 2001 tax returns to my permanent tax return folder. (It generally pays to keep the returns forever -- you never know when you might be called upon to prove what you made, or paid, or declared. And surprisingly, the IRS doesn't keep such information where you can get it, at least not for long.)

I'm a nerd who keeps every receipt for three years, and although I've outgrown looking at them all as I feed them to the shredder blades, I did have a wistful moment or two tonight. I ground up the receipts from the doctor for my older child's infant checkups and shots. She's 4 now. My first bill from Verizon was in there -- boy, was their coverage lousy -- and a bunch of worthless privacy notices from this bank and that. You could fill up the van with gas for $21. The New York Times daily home delivery ran around $133 a quarter. The Nordstrom bills said that they were "prepared for" me. It was before we refinanced this house. I bought a Joe Tex CD on eBay.

Anyway, here's hoping I didn't jump the gun. I'd hate to find a notice from the IRS in the mailbox, postmarked April 14, after the garbage guys come through and the mailman swings by tomorrow morning.

But I doubt it. Goodbye, residual tax worries of 2001.

Rob at AboutItAll-Oregon says he's hanging it up. This has happened before. Let's hope it's just another hiatus. We all know how useful and refreshing they can be.

The other day I remarked about the city's plan to spend $7.5 million more on lawyers alone in its quixotic attempt to buy Portland General Electric (PGE). I suggested that if the deal doesn't close, that fee will wind up being paid by the city's taxpayers.

Not so, answered Commissioner "Fireman Randy" Leonard. He wrote: "If we do not reach a deal with Enron to sell PGE, our legal fees to this firm are capped at $650,000."

Ah, but as Bill Clinton might have put it, it depends on what your definition of "reach a deal" is. A review of a press release now available (pdf) at Mayor Tom Potter's pages on the city website reveals that the Miami, Fla.-based law firm's fee is divided into three segments -- a $650,000 meter drop, another $2.35 million more "[i]f it strikes an agreement" with PGE, and "an additional $4.5 million, if the deal closes and regional ownership of the utility is established."

That's $7.5 million all together. Of which $3 million could very well be due and owing even if the deal never closes.

The $650,000 ceiling is in effect unless and until the firm "strikes an agreement" between PGE and the city, according to the mayor. One wonders exactly what that phrase means. A letter of intent? A mutually signed "term sheet"? And even if it means a fully integrated agreement, there's a lot that can go wrong with a deal this complex and nasty between the "striking" of an agreement and its actual closing.

So it's $3 million potentially down the tubes. Just on lawyers. Not counting what's been spent already. As of November 2003, the last time it was reported, the out-of-pocket-to-date was more than $800,000. Wonder what the tally is today. Such a deal.

And you wonder how the lawyers are going to withstand the obvious pressures when there's a $4.5 million bonus waiting for them on the other side that closing table. What if one of the attorneys discovers a deal-breaker between the time the "agreement" is "struck" and the closing? Will the law firm be vigorous in advising the city to back away from the transaction? Will the firm be as zealous in keeping the city out of a bad deal as it would have been if it were being paid simply by the hour?

It's bad enough that the investment banker weasels are going to be working on commission. They've been known to push bad deals through because their rule has always been, if it doesn't close, they don't get paid. Now the attorneys will be largely in the same position -- more than half their fee is on the come. Great.

Oh, and by the way, Kevin Mannix weighed in against the city takeover today. Finally, something he, Neil, and I can agree on.

Have you checked out Portland blogger Superinky Fixations yet?

Here's a tale of a private e-mail message heard 'round the world.

We've been reading a lot these past couple of weeks about Dr. Jayant Patel, a.k.a. "Dr. Death," a surgeon who, according to press reports, took his deadly incompetence through the health care communities of New York, Oregon, and finally Australia before the powers that be got around to pulling his license.

Patel spent 12 years playing doctor with Kaiser patients in Portland before he packed up and moved to Australia. While he was in the Rose City, he apparently engaged in all sorts of shenanigans, including performing a colostomy backward. He allegedly was not above falsifying patients' charts, either.

So far, I haven't heard or read a word of logical connection being made between this case and Ballot Measure 35, the proposal that Oregonians narrowly voted down (.pdf) last fall. It would have capped awards for pain and suffering at the hands of quacks at $500,000. It was a bad idea, but the insurance industry, which runs medicine in this country, almost conned the electorate out here to fall for it.

As I said back then, the real problem with medical malpractice is not the lawyers. It's the medical profession, whose will and ability to police itself are every bit as lame as those of the bankrupt Catholic Church in its darkest era. When trusted professionals are maiming and killing through negligence or worse, the answer is not to move them to another state or country. The answer is to be sure that they never harm anyone else, anywhere, ever.

When the medical profession cleans up its act, maybe I'll start thinking about "tort reform." But not until then.

A reader writes:

I've read your recent posts about the Gov., I have to say, I couldn't agree more. He's has done a terrible job with his first term, and I'm certain a second term would be just as bad. There has been a lot of uncertainty surrounding the 2006 Governor's race, and who wil run. The only thing scarier then another 4 years of Ted is the thought that we might not be able to keep Kevin Mannix out of the Governor's Office. Needless to say this has really been bothering me. He's anti-environment, anti worker, and a right wing freak. After thinking about this for a while I came to the realization that there is only one Democrat who has shown interest in being Governor in the past, has the statewide name recognition needed, and would do a good job in getting Oregon back on track -- Cong. Peter DeFazio.

While Cong. DeFazio showed a lot of interest in running in 2002, there have only been a few rumors about his interest in running this time. In this vein, I have begun a grassroots campaign to let Cong. DeFazio know how much Oregon wants and needs him in the Governor's office. I have had decent success so far in getting people to write letters, but I don't have the ability to reach out to the Progressive base. I was hoping you could help me with this by mentioning it and encouraging your readers to contact the Congressman.

While he is not commonly thought of as being a likely candidate to run I think the evidence overwhelming points towards him. His statewide name recognition would make him an instantly credible candidate, he has the contacts to set up the fundraising and grassroots program needed to run, his legislative record is beyond compare. I think we would be hard pressed to find a better candidate anywhere.

In 2002, he was interested in running but was unfortunately convinced by fmr. Gov. Goldschmidt to stay out of the race so the party wouldn't have a costly primary. Now that our current Governor is showing little support across the state, is doing a terrible job, and has still yet to decide whether to run again or not, this seems like the perfect opportunity for Cong. DeFazio. I believe that if we show him how much support he has across the state that he will surely decide to run.

The first song and video from Bruce Springsteen's new album are out on Yahoo. I think you should be able to link to it here. (You may have to sit through a 30-second Pepsi commercial first.)

I've never liked Bruce's solo acoustic albums much, especially on first listen. "Nebraska" I grew to like, but I never could sit through "Tom Joad." So far, I'm not happy with this particular song. It has a total of two chords, and one of them makes only the briefest of appearances. It reminds me of Bob Dylan's "Self Portrait" period -- a period when Bob might better have stayed home.

Bruce is a genius, but I suspect this album's going to be an acquired taste at best.

Yesterday was an amazing day for me on a number of levels. A lot of it had to do with my relationship to the written word.

I started the day at a luncheon (regular readers here know that's usually my first meal of the day) at which the featured speaker was Michael Powell. Powell's Books has long been the true cultural soul of Portland, and its owner, who seems a relatively humble, down-to-earth man, told a few of the many stories surrounding his phenomenally successful business.

I've grown tired over the years of listening to the Republican version of "small business." The "ownership society" people, who whine about the wealth transfer taxes and make it sound like this country has been so unfair to them, leave me cold. Powell didn't complain about taxes. He didn't complain about land use regulation. He didn't complain about the union that he lives with. He didn't complain about anything, really. He was mostly about thanking all the people who have gotten him to where he is. Genuine gratitude.

Powell illustrates, to me at least, that love for one's trade and respect for one's employees and customers can overcome all obstacles. I had been impressed before I heard him speak, and I'm even more impressed now.

One thing he's worried about these days is the part of the Patriot Act that lets the FBI throw him in jail if he doesn't tell them, on demand, which books you and I purchased in his store. He doesn't want to cooperate with them on that. I don't blame him, and I'm grateful for his advocacy on my behalf.

Most of all I liked Powell's style. He knows who he is, and who he isn't. Portland is lucky to have him.

After a brief nap -- dreaming and drooling on the couch while thunderstorm warnings squawked away in the background over the kids' TV show -- I had another brush with literary greatness. I was privileged to dine in the company of not one but two Pulitzer Prize winners, in connection with this weekend's "Wordstock" festival here in town. It was a delightful dinner on a number of levels, but most intriguing to me was the accessibility of the most highly honored guests -- they were more real than most of the rest of us in the group.

Then I came home and, after tucking everybody else in, I read this. And I was reminded of two things. One, those who tell stories like that one are among our society's greatest assets. And two, people like the lady about whom the story was written are ever greater.

I'll never make it into her league. But I'm proud to be somebody who's trying, once in a while, to tell a few stories that might matter almost as much as hers.

Governor Ted quickly folded the state's hand the other day in the high-stakes poker game surrounding the future of Portland General Electric. He made it clear that he isn't going to let the state get too involved in trying to wrest ownership of PGE from private hands. In his current view, the City of Portland is the best potential public buyer for PGE. And since the PGE customers out in the sticks are worried that the city will behave like -- well, like the City of Portland always has, placing New York Times-worthy "big ideas" and foolish PC doctrine above all else -- the state promises that it will exercise control over the "governance" of the company after the city buys it.

The guv's announcement takes the wind out of the sails of State Sen. Ryan Deckert's plan to form some sort of state entity to take over the Enron subsidiary. Ryan's still acting like there's something to talk about, but the last time the governor invited him over to the office to chat, I guess Ryan didn't notice that ornate veto pen set on Chief K's desk. It's over, dude.

Ted's playing this one pretty smart. Now that the cronies of his hero, Neil Goldschmidt, are out of the picture for a private bid, he's suddenly fine with public power. And he's not naive enough to put a cent of state money on the line for it. Let the geniuses at Portland City Hall front all the expenses (many millions), and take all the risk. If they fail, it's the city's, not the state's, millions down the drain. If they succeed, the state can come in and keep the city in check through "governance."

If you don't think this is a Team Goldschmidt comeback to Portland Commissioner Erik Sten, then you haven't been paying attention.

How sad. Governor, if the state is so interested in "governance" of PGE, then why doesn't it immediately undertake some serious reform of Oregon's public utility laws? Why doesn't the state make it illegal for a future private owner of PGE to pull the outrageous stunts that Enron inflicted on the consuming public in Oregon? Why doesn't the PUC adopt rules that clean up the sordid mess that public utility finance appears to have become in this state? Why don't you appoint a set of public utility commissioners who will call private owners of utilities out if they attempt more outrageous ripoffs?

If we had rigorous state "governance" of PGE to begin with, we wouldn't need the city to take it over. Having the fiscal wizards at 1221 SW Fourth become the owners of PGE, and then suddenly "governing" the heck out of it, is closing the barn door after the horse has run out.

Let's let Enron's creditors have PGE. And let's get some real "governance" in place, over them. There's no time like now to start some real regulatory reform.

Well, shave my legs and call me Betty! The oldies station on your Portland radio dial, KISN-FM, is no more. It's been moved to AM 910, and something called "Charlie FM" is in its old place at 97.1 FM. Charlie claims to play "everything," but so far that seems to be defined as music by white people from the 1980s and early '90s. "Everything" from Billy Squier to Billy Idol. With no live DJs.

So now for Motown, early Beatles, etc., we must listen to it the tinny old AM way. I knew KISN was in trouble when they started playing '70s music in the mix. Now they're banished to nursing home territory. Ouch.

Hey, "Charlie" just played "Maggie May." That's soul music, ain't it?

My fantasy basketball teams, the Ballers and Amgwana Kikbuti, were both smashing successes this year. In both leagues, they finished in first place for the "regular season." And each also won the league championship, decided in a "playoff" system based on the last several weeks of the real NBA regular season.

For a nerd, I'm cool.

Happy birthday to my sibling, who enters his sixth decade today. Welcome to Geezerville, bro. We've been expecting you.

Oh, man. Can you believe it?

Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.

That's right -- "Baby Got Back" -- in Latin!!!

The lame-duck Goldschmidt crew at the Portland Development Commission have delivered what I hope is their parting shot. At a recent retreat, they declared that Portland needs to become a "world-class city," like Atlanta or Bilbao, Spain.

And get this -- “The tram is a good start. The Pearl is there. But we’ve got a long way to go." Hey, PDC underachievers -- don't let the door hit you in the heiny!

Interesting news in The O this morning about the City of Portland's plan to take over Portland General Electric (PGE). Commissioner "Ready Kilowatt" estimates that the legal bills could run the city around $7.5 million.

If the deal goes through, it will paid by the PGE customers. If the deal doesn't go through, it will be paid out of property taxes.

Wow. Great.

Portland Tribune urban issues columnist Promise King announced yesterday that his career as a pundit is over. He's moving on to other things, including writing one or more books.

It's always a drag to lose an intelligent local commentator, and particularly sad in this case. See you around, we hope, Promise.

A serious disadvantage of these modern times is being subjected to data overload. Once in a while, I get introduced to someone as a blogger. A person I was meeting on these terms the other day got this forlorn look on her face and said, "How are we supposed to deal with all the information that we're hit with nowadays?" Er, nice to meet you, too.

Anyway, tonight I'm cleaning out my overstuffed e-mail inbox before the server gods cut me off from the outside world. I'm finding lots of neat stuff in there that I wish I had the time to really get into, but it's a pipedream.

Several of the pieces of e-mail are newsletters from our local state legislators. I e-mailed these folks back when the Major League Baseball bill was floating around in the legislature a while ago, and once they have your e-mail address, they'll be sending you their takes on the latest doings in Salem until the day you die.

Representative Jeff Merkley (Dem.), from out east Portland way, had an interesting item in one of his latest newsletters about the hassle that his constituents are having with the City of Portland. Back when the city annexed these folks years ago, it promised them that they wouldn't get sucked into the black hole of paying for the city's woeful sewer problems -- the source of never-ending complaints from the beleaguered citizenry whose sewer bills have reached astronomical proportions.

Funny thing -- the city promised, but it didn't deliver. The east Portland folks still haven't gotten, and are worried that they're never going to get, the storm sewer discounts that they were assured they'd get. According to Merkley, the city keeps putting off implementing the discounts until it gets its billing system straightened out. The current schedule is for that to be achieved sometime shortly after hell freezes over.

Merkley wants the city to get on the ball and give his constituents what they were promised. His letter to City Hall is here (pdf). He adds, in his newsletter --

[A]ll citizens who are legally required to provide their own storm water systems should get the discount automatically. This is important because the [city] Bureau of Environmental Services has been plotting to use an application system as a barrier to citizens receiving their fair discounts.

Is it any wonder that PGE's customers are just a little worried about how they'd be treated if the city owned that utility?

"Habemus Papam!" Sounds like a pitcher in the old Negro Leagues, doesn't it? But actually it's the Latin cry, "We have a Pope," which resounded today in Vatican Square as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was named the new pontiff.

And you know what's so nice about it? He's Pope. That's it. It's over. No Janeane Garafolo shrieking, "This election was so obviously fixed!" No six rounds of lawsuits. No absentee ballots coming in from the Jesuit soldiers that are yet to be counted. No confirmation hearings with Tom DeLay and Joe Biden. No having The New York Times running around to see if he's got a girlfriend on the side.

O.k., maybe they are running around looking for the girlfriend. But even if they find her, he's Benedict XVI anyway. Let's go have some eggs in his honor!

It looks like another fun-filled 10 years or so ahead, with little or no change in Catholic teaching on any of the hot-button issues that John Paul II held so tough on. Keep your Voice of the Faithful membership current, folks, the wild ride's going to continue.

The Oregonian ran a pretty big spread yesterday comparing the competing takeover plans for Portland General Electric. In particular, they held up side by side as potential purchasers the City of Portland and a possible new public entity to be created by the Oregon Legislature.

There's a lot of good food for thought there, but a key question didn't get asked very forcefully. That has to do with operations. Let's start with the basics: If PGE is publicly owned, who will actually operate the electric utility? Not the City of Portland or the new state-created public body. Under both plans, a private company will handle the day-to-day functions of the power business.

Proponents of the "public" power plans are slow to mention this truth: The shareholders of that private company are going to make a lot of profit.

Sure, there will be competitive bidding for that contract, but any electric utility operator putting in a bid will demand cost plus profit. It's likely to be a long-term deal. And the incumbent will have a major leg up on any bidding come renewal time. The slogan that private profit will be eliminated is simply misleading.

Of course, there will be additional private hands in the public pockets if either plan goes through. How much profit would Goldman Sachs earn from the sale of the bonds? How many millions would lawyers be paid to cut the myr