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WINNERS
1. Itinerant signature gatherers are now
legit, thanks to a court-of-appeals ruling last week that
they're employees, not independent contractors, which ensures
that they'll be covered under workers' compensation and
unemployment insurance.
2. Rational thinkers breathed a sigh of relief
upon learning Oct. 14 that the 9,300-year-old Kennewick
Man was, according to federal researchers, probably Asian.
This will muffle the white-man-here-first claims made by
the Asatru Folk Assembly, which worships figures from Norse
mythology.
3. Conservative activist Ted Piccolo led
the fight against extending light rail to Vancouver last
year, an idea that was nuked by greater Portland's voters.
On Oct. 14, when the City Council went forward with a scaled-down
version of the plan, Piccolo ironically gained fodder for
a possible bid for city commissioner.
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LOSERS
1. Langdon Marsh, director of the Department of
Environ-mental Quality, says he's going to embark on a public-relations
campaign to buff up his agency's tainted reputation. Given
that DEQ can't even convince the landowners along the stretch
of Willamette River under consideration for Superfund designation
to cough up the money they promised to study the pollution,
Marsh has more than an image problem on his hands.
2. Maybe the media have contributed to the fight-club
frenzy, but that's still no excuse for officials in Oregon
City to stand idly by as members of Generation D-minus
pound each other sillier. Instead of wasting time passing
an ordinance, the town elders should either hire supervision
and dedicate gymnasium time to the crew or simply arrest
the fighters for assault.
3. Food, food everywhere, but not a bite to eat.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last week that
Oregonians have the nation's sixth-highest rate of hunger--30
percent higher than the national average--at the same time
that the United States has essentially been giving away
wheat to Third World countries.
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