The New York Times writes up Manzanita today.

There's talk in the paper today of ending Fareless Square in downtown Portland. It's part of a larger discussion of security on Tri-Met, including the troubled MAX light rail line.

It seems as though there are several different issues being jumbled together here. The punks who are terrorizing people on the far ends of MAX need to be shut down. The news that the situation in Hillsboro is as bad as the one in Gresham is particularly troubling:

Rouches said reasons for increased MAX patrols exist at all nine stations in Hillsboro. So far this year, Hillsboro police have responded to an average of 240 to 250 incidents a month at each station.

But it's not clear how eliminating Fareless Square is going to make a dent in that problem. And there's no way to put turnstiles in at the MAX stops along the streets in downtown Portland, anyway.

More Big Brothers than you can count.

Do you remember Steve Goodman? He wrote "City of New Orleans" and a slew of other great songs in the '70s and early '80s. He was buds with people like Jimmy Buffett, John Prine, and Jethro Burns (of Homer and Jethro). His albums were true gems. What a spectacular human spirit. Alas, he died of leukemia when he was 36.

Anyway, on a recent visit to the Multnomah County Library catalog, I found a Goodman anthology called "No Big Surprise." It's got just about all the studio greats, and then a full disk of solo live songs that's even more stunning. You owe it to yourself to check this thing out. You'll laugh a lot, but you'll cry some, too.

Did you know that Portland had a Great Fire? Yep. In 1873. Dan Haneckow tells the story -- and tells it well -- here.

I decided to put my pro football weekend out of its misery early. I chose Green Bay over Dallas in the Thursday night game, and of course, they lost. At least I didn't waste any time watching it.

I guess if you're a member of the most dysfunctional governing board anyone's seen around here in decades, you've got to do something, but this is bad news. A reader writes:

I was listening to the radio… so Maria Rojo de Steffey says that the city council is all "white men" and that the council needs "more color." Yeah, that will help racial tension in the city. Make more racially sensitive comments.

If ever a person needs to keep her promise to spend more time with her family, this is the person.

Ah, the dirtbag past of Rudy G. even has some accounting hanky-panky in it. And to think the best this country can do is he and Hillary Clinton, another venal crook. God help us. (Via pinktalk, and don't miss her NSFW nickname for Giuliani.)

The cop did a good job of toeing the line between stern cop dude and sympathetic father figure. He told her a few times she needed to quit doing drugs.

Nothing says "Christmas party" like recycled bubble wrap centerpieces and cardboard topiaries.

The state starts cracking down on grocers who don't give a darn that their shopping carts are sitting around, abandoned and cluttering up neighborhoods. Even the regional public affairs director for Safeway, himself a former political affairs vice president for the grocery association, notes that it's been difficult to get stores to care. Under a new state law allowing cities to impose fines for unretrieved carts, several cities are getting ready to put the fines on their books. In fear that even tougher regulations are on the way, a group of grocers establishes a hot line for residents to call if an abandoned cart is spotted.

O.k., journalism students: What should the headline on this story be?

"New law forces grocers to get off dime"? "Grocers must toe line on wayward carts or face fines"?

Well, of course, not if you're the O, whose doubtlessly dwindling ad revenue comes largely from grocery stores. No, in that paper, you know you're going to get something like:

"Oregon's grocers, cities devise way to call in stray carts."

That's that independent journalistic spirit that inspires such confidence in the readership. A proud Newhouse tradition. Along with the time-honored rule: Anything bad that ever happens in or around a large retail store isn't important.

Hey Wyden! Hey Blumenauer! What the heck is up with this?

Vera Katz this, Vera Katz that, Sam the Tram on the cover -- the boys at Willamette Week seem kinda tired. I'm sure they'll light our fire when they launch the attacks on this guy.

Here's a doozy from the City of Portland. They just put out a bid notice for an "Annual Supply of Adjustable Keyboard Trays." The cost estimate: $100,000! The detailed bid document looks as though it's for 600 trays, plus "installation" for 200. That would work out to $167 per keyboard tray. Wow.

Another week, another cipher for me in the pro football underdog pool. I took a flyer on Miami, which actually turned out to be close to right. But not, of course, right. San Francisco, Minnesota, and Oakland were the teams to pick. (Cincinnati would have earned a measly 1 point.)

I shoulda listened to Nick.

The season-long pool has pretty much been won by now. There's still time for me to save face, however. Just one decent 'dog (in caps) -- who wins its game outright -- will earn me the number of points next to its name. If you think the Pack will beat Dallas, you've got to let me know quickly, as I'd have to call that one by 5 p.m. tomorrow.

20.5 BALTIMORE vs. New England
7 JACKSONVILLE at Indianapolis
7 CINCINNATI at Pittsburgh
6.5 GREEN BAY at Dallas (Thursday)
5.5 BUFFALO at Washington
5.5 KANSAS CITY vs. San Diego
3.5 HOUSTON at Tennessee
3.5 OAKLAND vs. Denver
3 DETROIT at Minnesota
3 TAMPA BAY at New Orleans
3 SEATTLE at Philadelphia
3 SAN FRANCISCO at Carolina
1.5 CHICAGO vs. New York Giants
1 NEW YORK JETS at Miami (that's right...the Dolphins are favored)
1 CLEVELAND at Arizona

Readers, please check in with your always helpful suggestions. In the meantime, I'm going to play a game that I have a better chance of winning: Powerball.

The funniest guy on earth is still working:

And according to the Wall Street, the trend-obsessed Rose City is missing the boat:

There is a basic truth about the geography of young, educated people. They may first migrate to cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston or San Francisco. But they tend to flee when they enter their child-rearing years. Family-friendly metropolitan regions have seen the biggest net gains of professionals, largely because they not only attract workers, but they also retain them through their 30s and 40s.

Advocates of the brew-latté-and-they-will-come approach often point to greater Portland, Ore., which has experienced consistent net gains of educated workers, including families. Yet most of that migration--as well as at least three quarters of the region's population and job growth--has been not to the increasingly childless city, but to the suburban periphery. This pattern holds true in virtually every major urban region.

The freeway blogger was busy in trademark protester style over the holiday weekend. Apparently he or she will be back up our way sometime in December.

A couple of boys from Highwood, Montana were playing the Three Wise Men the other night down in Priltown, when along came Scrooge in a patrol car.

It won't be Nordstrom without the piano players.

Tired of the same old holiday menu? Here's an idea to liven things up. Or maybe you should just go out to eat.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall to hear what's really going on with this little caper.

Reading the internet lately has got me wondering: What's the difference between an a**clown and an a**hat? Is either of them the equivalent of an a**hole?

The push to commercialize the Portland parks continues apace. Now they're recruiting a new "senior management analyst," at up to $78,000 a year plus benefits, to serve as a "sponsorship coordinator."

Sheesh, the parks bureau already has a manager of strategy, finance and business development, and a manager of marketing and business development. How many "senior" people do we really need for the misguided task of sticking corporate names on park facilities? I'd rather see them buy a few more swing sets.

Portland Commish Dan "Big Pipe" Saltzman -- courageous swing vote behind the SoWhat aerial tram [rim shot], tenacious watchdog over public property, and master architect of street renaming -- wants to cast tens of millions of city tax dollars to the wind, literally. They're talking $33 million for a wind farm, all borrowed of course, and we all know that means more like $50 million. I'm all for renewable power, but one would be hard pressed to name a less promising entity to construct and run a system than the City of Portland.

The PortlandMaps name debate rages on, with residents weighing in both pro and con about the City of Portland's practice of listing property owners' names on the internet with their properties, so that web surfers need only enter an address to see who owns (and often, who lives at) a particular address. I've been getting all kinds of e-mail messages about this issue since I first wrote about it a couple of weeks ago.

When last we left this saga, both Washington and Clackamas Counties had asked Portland not to include this information on the public access version of PortlandMaps any more, and the city had granted thieir request as to property in those two counties. I'm not sure whether the very few Portland addresses that are actually situated in those two counties still have their owners listed, but I suspect not. Clearly, addresses that fall outside both Portland and Multnomah County have now had their owners' names and mailing addresses removed from PortlandMaps.

Which leaves Multnomah County. Also at last report, the county chair, Ted Wheeler, was looking into the matter, but so far, no decision has been issued publicly. The city's justification to several e-mail correspondents who have questioned the posting of the names has included the suggestion that state law requires it. But if that's true of Multnomah County, why not also of Washington and Clackamas? If the city will honor each county's wishes, then it's really up to the Multnomah commissioners at this point. Maybe they can explain why their attitude toward the privacy concerns are different from those of the officials in the other two counties. At least one Multnomah County judge, who at times has had his life and those of his family threatened, will be watching closely. Even he has e-mailed me about this!

No one in the mainstream media thinks there's a story here.

Meanwhile, some cowardly, anonymous clown has posted my home address on the internet, apparently in retaliation for my initial post on this topic, which included a link to the former home address of City Commissioner Erik Sten. I'm not sure what harm I did by posting the address of the home where Sten used to live, but I guess anyone who questions the deep genius behind our city government is an evil guy. Actually, what's interesting is that the lightweight media stories about Sten's move to the toney Bridlemile area in the southwest hills indicated that he had sold his former home here in the northeast part of town. But according to PortlandMaps, that's not the case -- he now owns two groovy pads. Now, there's a question for someone to pursue, but instead the Pabst-sodden slacker set is hassling me. Whatever.

Just to throw some more fuel on this fire, I thought I'd take the city up on its assertion that no one is going to be patient enough to plow through whole neighborhoods, house by house, to develop a name-and-address directory. That's insanely naive. I took just a little while tonight and assembled a little list of my own. I compiled a complete rundown of who owns the units in a Pearl District condo bunker, selected at random -- 1009 NW Hoyt -- according to PortlandMaps. It took me about 10 minutes to assemble a list of the names and addresses of all the owners of the 28 units listed for that building. And that was done manually; robots will be able to do it much faster. No doubt they already are doing so.

It's interesting. One couple owns two units side by side; another owns a unit downstairs and the one directly upstairs from it. Many of the owners list addresses other than the property itself, which means these condo units are likely being rented out. Fascinating stuff.

The decision to post owners' names on PortlandMaps should have been thoroughly aired in public before it was made. But hey, this is Portland, where they decide in a smoke-filled room first and take public input later... if they get caught.

The quarter showed slower comps growth than usual, at just 8.4%, though Foolish colleague Alyce Lomax points out that grocery rivals like Safeway (NYSE: SWY) would slander their own grandmothers for organic growth like that. Whole Foods shares fell 12% last week, and it's tough to find anything 12% worse about the company's fundamentals than what we saw last Monday. Do your homework and act accordingly, Fool.

It's the end of a political career that's definitely had its ups and downs -- part of a continuing exodus from the GOP ranks.

Just take it to the Cully neighborhood and dump it there. Nobody from the city will care.

Dear God, I know I ask for a lot, including a lot of stuff I'd probably be better off without, but if you'll grant me just this one thing: Please, please don't let anyone at Portland City Hall read this.

To send your true love the whole 12 days of Christmas is going to run you $78,100 this year, up 4 percent from last year.

At least for now.

"Every street in the city has been paid by adjacent property owners."

Not if they've got friends in the "urban renewal" bureaucracy.

In a bold step designed to ease racial tensions in a city deeply divided over the César Chávez street renaming fiasco, Portland Commissioner Randy Leonard announced this morning that he is taking legal action that he hopes will soothe jangled nerves on all sides of the controversy. "I've been deeply troubled all holiday weekend over the awful ordeal that we all went through with the whole Interstate Avenue thing," he told reporters outside the Multnomah County Courthouse as it opened this morning. "It's time for the healing to begin. I'm personally committed to doing everything I can to make that happen."

Leonard is changing his own name to César Chávez, to honor the late civil rights hero.

His bid may hit a snag, however. Shortly after Leonard dropped off his name change petition with the clerk of the Circuit Court, several judges privately threatened to block the legal action unless the city agreed to take their names and home addresses off PortlandMaps.

Political analysts are calling Leonard's name-change gambit a brilliant strategic move in preparation for his upcoming re-election bid. "It's got everything," said local political expert Len Bergstein. "It picks up the unions and the Latinos, and the 'César' feeds right into his image as benign emperor of the city."

According to legal experts, court action technically is not needed for Leonard to change his name under Oregon law. "You can change your name without legal proceedings merely by using the new name," said Nick Fish, a Portland attorney. "For several years in college, I went by 'Road Warrior.'"

In order to help accelerate the change, readers of this blog are requested to call Leonard "Fireman César," rather than the customary "Fireman Randy," effective immediately.

Ah, the old familiar time-the-bad-news-for-around-the-holidays trick. We had lots of that over the festive weekend just past. There was this story, which old Governor Ted made sure made the paper on Thanksgiving itself. Then the O decided to sweep this under its extremely large rug on Saturday.

Here on the blog, we had a busy weekend. Portland hard news stories included this link to a wild tagger story; this new development in the PortlandMaps privacy fight; and a nauseating little problem that the mainstream media seem to want nothing to do with.

Welcome back to your cubicle!

Portland's big-shot condo tower developers are now scratching and clawing over $15,000 deposits. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

Meanwhile, you've got to wonder whether the buyers might not have a defense. By now, the SoWhat district was supposed to be a vibrant neighborhood, with thousands of high-tech jobs rolling in. One could certainly argue that it is not.

So says this observer.

My buddy Doug the Mo