Scoop: The Bitter Custody Battle Over Roger the Rabbit

Gossip that's got its snow chains on.

Not Roger, but a similar rabbit, of equal or greater value
By WW Culture Staff
  1. WHO KIDNAPPED ROGER RABBIT?: More than a week after 18 rabbits were stolen from a Portland Meat Collective instructor’s backyard, negotiations continue for the return of the 18th bunny, a breeder named Roger, to farmer Levi Cole. A source tells Willamette Week the woman holding Roger has hired defense attorney Lisa Ludwig and is trying to negotiate “joint custody and visitation rights for the rabbit.” The rabbitnapping has become a flashpoint for hostilities between Portland’s DIY butchers and its animal-rights activists. “Judas,” screamed a headline on local blog the Vegan Police after a group called Rabbit Advocates returned 17 of the animals on Friday, Jan. 13. “Rabbits occupy a weird space in terms to their social construction of worth—i.e. speciesism—in that they are common pets, but are also commonly eaten for their flesh,” the Vegan Police wrote.
  1. NEXT OUT: Portland wasn’t without a free LGBT publication for long. The last issue of Just Out published in December; the first issue of PQ Monthly is due in February. According to The Advocate, Melanie Davis, publisher-owner of El Hispanic News, will celebrate the new venture with a launch party at the Jupiter Hotel. Like its predecessor, it’ll be free. “My personal commitment, and the commitment from the team, is that every letter and color in the LGBTQ community is equally represented,” she told the publication.
  1. SCHOLLS SEATING: Apizza Scholls has signed a contract to use the OpenTable reservation service, according to the blogosphere. There’s also some buzz about the restaurant starting to serve lunch, which would presumably mean short midday lines for impatient pizza lovers, but no confirmation yet.
  1. WE READ THE PORTLANDIA PRESS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO: A week after the East Coast noticed the existence of Portlandia with a series of obligingly on-message Carrie Brownstein profiles, Slate advanced the conversation with dueling thumbsuckers by people who at one time lived in the Pacific Northwest, but now do not. “Like bigger, stronger, cooler siblings everywhere, Seattle doesn’t worry too much about Portland,” wrote June Thomas, who at one time lived in Seattle, but now does not. (If this seems like a strange thing for Thomas to declare all of a sudden, it was.) Then the response: “Portland is being lavished with attention…precisely because it is small enough to keep a certain brand of distinctness alive—even as all this attention risks the whole enterprise,” wrote Seth Colter Walls, who at one time lived in Portland, but now does not. The great thing about this exchange is that both Thomas and Colter Walls now live in New York City, so they could have had this conversation in person, but instead got paid to have it online!

WWeek 2015

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