Posts published in December 2005

Okay, so it's not as though no one else has ever said this.

But Associated Press reporters watch the state legislators at least as closely as anyone, and they are ordinarily sworn to high journalistic rectitude: Keep your opinions, in public, generally to yourself.

Charles Beggs has retired from the AP after covering the Oregon Legislature for longer than he probably would like to think about. And so, here's what he told the Willamette Week about what really pissed him off in 2006:

"The Legislature. It was very aggravating to see them taking seven months to do four months of work—and even then, they didn't accomplish much. There's an intransigence on both sides that's fueled by the desire to stake out positions that will satisfy interests that will give them money to get re-elected."

And who can argue?

The old Tammany politico George Washington Plunkitt, one of the great cynics of public affairs, liked to say that "reformers are only mornin' glories" - they never last. Plunkitt wasn't all right - some reformers have gone on to do good for an extended stretch. But he wasn't all wrong either: It's a tough job to keep that reforming ethic intact; so many things, sometimes little things, whittle away at it.

Consider the cat - an easy-going, eight-year-old calico named Agie, as of now the most famous cat in Oregon - that has the city of Willamina in the biggest uproar of its recent history.

Agie was a stray kitten when she fell into the hands of Melissa Hansen, the librarian at the Oregon timber town; she named the feline for Agatha Christie. Feeling that cats and things literary go together (cat blogging, anyone?), she moved the cat into the library, with official city permission. It has been there since, developing fans around town and especially among the children at the library. The chldren also have become enamored of two other library residents, hamsters named Hamlet and Othello.

The cat (as we observed this evening) is friendly but not overbearing, and clearly in good health. She has been declawed, and has no history of biting or other violence. The hamsters were asleep, but they were shielded consistently from children and others by placement of their terrarium inside a book case - visible but not touchable.

That was the situation the Willamina City Council voted, at its meeting of December 8, to upend by banning animals from city buildings. (more…)

The Dignity Village encampment in Northeast Portland has long been an unusual development, and it may become even more unusual - one of the most provocative places associated with the homeless anywhere in the country.

Five years and 11 days ago a group of homeless people set up camp at the location, called Camp Dignity at first, later Dignity Village. (The photos here are from the portland ground website.)

The group's website (!) leads with a credo: "We came out of the doorways of Portland's streets, out from under the bridges, from under the bushes of public parks, we came openly with nothing and no longer a need to hide as Portland's inhumane and Draconian camping ban had just been overturned on two constitutional grounds. We came armed with a vision of a better future for ourselves and for all of Portland, a vision of a green, sustainable urban village where we can live in peace and improve not only the condition of our own lives but the quality of life in Portland in general. We came in from the cold of a December day and we refuse to go back to the way things were."

To be homeless may often be equated with being helpless. But not in this case. (more…)