Skip to main content* Last May, mainstream FM rock station KNRK axed (sorry in advance for the forthcoming bad taste) producer Nik Miles after his show aired wisecracks about a beheading in Iraq. Miles has now turned to an unusual unemployment tactic: a fundraising website. At www.helpnik.com, fans are entreated to donate to Miles so he can sue Entercom, KNRK's parent company. The website reads like it's the work of an enterprising fan. But lo, according to domain-name records, Miles himself owns the site. "Nikki Jay" was not available to comment on his role in the movement to save his ass.
* You might mistake Portland's latest baby art rag for a nightclub poster. The Artic (yes, the misspelling's intentional) launched this month with a print run of 1,000 and the budget of a publisher working two coffeeshop jobs. The one-sheet broadside has a silkscreened "cover" and mini-features on four local artists. Deyf (pronounced "Dave") Olver, the lone writer and designer, wants to focus on Portland's hopping scene of day-job artists and low-key spaces. The maybe-bimonthly's debut issue is free at local cafes.
* The Great Foie Gras War of 2004 rolled on last week. After agitators from In Defense of Animals badgered both Hurley's and the Heathman into yanking the ultra-decadent goose liver from their menus, Portland foodies schemed to fight back. The city's Foie Gras Underground crowed as Carafe's Pascal Sauton flaunted a "Protesting the Protesters" foie special at his downtown French bistro last week. The restaurant sold out of the hotly debated dish--made, in part, by force-feeding fowl to fatten their livers--in a single night. Meanwhile, anti-foie forces are threatening to target other locally owned restaurants.
* Meanwhile, a fight over one of Portland's last three American chestnut trees has roiled the Woodstock neighborhood. In the 1870s, Oregon governor W.W. Thayer planted the now-majestic specimen on his mansion grounds at the corner of Southeast 45th Avenue and Holgate Boulevard. When Michael Martin and Ben Brody bought the land this spring, Martin says they signed on to a detailed tree protection plan that also applied to two subdivided parcels next door. Now, they claim developer Harry Schumacher is breaking the rules and building too close to the tree. The city briefly halted the work last week but then allowed Schumacher to proceed--imperiling the tree's life, claim Martin and Brody. (Blight has annihilated American chestnuts nationwide, adding to the Thayer tree's significance.) Follow the fight at www.defendthethayerchestnut.com.
* Two weeks ago, County Chairwoman Diane Linn warned county employees that workplace discrimination would "not be tolerated." Whaddya know?! Last Friday a federal jury said it wouldn't tolerate it either, fining the county $650,000 for retaliating against a whistleblower at the Department of Community Justice. Computer trainer Lea Lakeside-Scott alerted her supervisor about favoritism and discrimination, and followed up with a complaint to the state Bureau of Labor and Industries--after which the county fired her. Lakeside-Scott sued in 2002. The verdict is not quite final, but some county employees are viewing it as a referendum on Linn, who in 2003 promoted Jann Brown, the manager who was allegedly the prime retaliator.
* How hard did the election hit David Bragdon? The president of Metro, the tri-county regional government in charge of planning, moved up a planned January vacation, apparently to get some distance on W 2.0 and the passage of anti-land-reg Measure 37. Where to? Mystic India--and the trip will include a four-day yoga retreat in Bangalore. Bragdon will be back in the office Dec. 7, according to his assistant.
WWeek 2015