Our Spin On 7 Days of News

[March 25th, 2009]

• GOOOOOAL: Officials from Major League Soccer announced their decision to award a new Portland franchise starting play in 2011 to Timbers and Beavers owner Merritt Paulson.
  

• MARCH SADNESS: Far from the Rose Garden where Portland hosted a subregional of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Portland State University lost to Xavier 77-59 in a first-round game in Boise. But in Michigan, Newberg’s George Fox University Bruins women’s team won the NCAA Division III title.

  

• PAPER CUTS: Hot on the heels of pay reductions of 8 percent at WW, The Oregonian announced layoffs of more than two dozen part-timers companywide, as well as pay cuts of 5 percent to 10 percent and four-day unpaid furloughs for its full-timers. A memo to all employees said the paper “lost several million dollars through operations in 2008.
  

• FREEDOM FIGHTER: Freedom Child, a 57-year-old St. Johns woman who sued two Portland police officers for excessive force when they arrested her in 2003 for riding a bike at night without a light, lost her case when a federal jury found in favor of the officers last week.

  

• INFURIATING QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Should we embrace Beau as a symbol of sexual emancipation in what is still a homophobic and sexphobic society? Or do we dismiss him as just another highly beddable boy toy? Our readers can make their own call.”—Unzipped Media’s David Kalmansohn, in a press release for the porn mag’s cover photo of Beau Breedlove, on the “important questions” posed by the shoot.