Frightfully cold weather, delightfully hot dirt.

[January 23rd, 2008]

»King-making Oregon lobbyist Larry Campbell has called it quits at age 76. After two terms as state Speaker of the House in 1991 and 1993, Campbell—a Eugene Republican—became an architect of the GOP controlling the House through the 2005 session. Campbell’s sons Craig and Kevin will inherit their dad’s stable of clinets, who included Associated Oregon Loggers, the Oregon Lodging Association and AAA Oregon. Campbell père hopes to delay a complete retirement: He’s asked Gov. TedKulongoski to name him to a vacancy on the powerful Oregon Department of Transportation Commission.

»A piece of information provided by retired Rutgers political scientist Michael Munk has added a local twist to the death last week of 64-year-old chess champion turned raving lunatic Bobby Fischer. According to Munk, author of The Portland Red Guide —a 2007 book about communism in Portland’s past—Fischer may have spent several of his formative years in Portland. On page 142, Munk writes that Fischer’s mother joined the U.S. Communist party in 1945 while living in Portland. Fischer was born in 1943 in Chicago. There is no information regarding his whereabouts between then and 1948, when he showed up in Arizona. Checkmate.

»In response to Mexican immigrants’ growing concern about changes coming next month to Oregon driver’s license rules (See “Paper Chase,” Dec. 19, 2007), the DMV has shifted its personnel and created a new temporary post for a Spanish-speaking spokesman. The decision means Noe Pineda will go on air statewide following increased demand from local Spanish-speaking media for an explanation of the new rules taking effect Feb. 4. Roxy de la Torre, a TV anchorwoman for Univision Portland on Comcast Channel 31 and 47, says the rule changes are her viewers’ No. 1 concern right now. Those rules will for the first time prevent undocumented workers from getting licenses in Oregon.

»Remember the salmonella scare that led to a national recall of frozen Banquet Pot Pies last fall? Well, one more Oregonian claims he got sick, and he wants at least $75,000 for his trouble . In a federal lawsuit filed Jan. 16 in U.S. District Court in Portland, Donald Tallan claims he suffered nausea, vomiting, cramps and diarrhea after eating two Banquet Pot Pies on Oct. 6 that he’d bought from the Molalla Safeway. Tallan, 44, of Molalla, claims he was hospitalized for five days. A call to spokeswoman Regina DeMars at ConAgra Foods Inc., the Nebraska-based makers of Banquet Pot Pies, was not returned. (According to the Centers for Disease Control, 165 people in 31 states fell ill before ConAgra recalled on Oct. 12 all pot pies made at its plant in Marshall, Mo.)

»PDX bigotry update: Portland city Commissioner Sam Adams was leading a walking tour recently with out-of-town developers near the Oregon Convention Center, when someone in a passing vehicle yelled, “Sam Adams likes it in the ass!” “Must be your proctologist,” quipped a member of Adams’ party. The incident reminded Adams of growing up in tiny Newport, Ore., he told the audience at a Jan. 12 Q Center event (see Queer Window, page 33). The anecdote got a laugh. But Adams, who’s running for mayor, was reluctant to repeat the profane details for Murmurs. “I don’t know that Portlanders want to hear it,” Adams says. “And the folks that I was with were nice enough to make a joke out of it.”

»A Benson High School teacher who spent the morning of a professional-development day staging an anti-abortion protest has been docked four hours’ pay by Portland Public Schools. The teacher, Bill Diss, had taken half of a personal day to carry signs of fetuses outside of Walsh Construction in Southwest Portland on Dec. 3 (See Murmurs, WW , Dec. 5, 2007) with the anti-abortion group Precious Children of Portland. Walsh Construction was then a possible contractor for the developer of the new Planned Parenthood site on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard The district docked Diss’ pay because he hadn’t given adequate notice of using his personal time.