By all accounts, he is a very sick fellow. Being a former police officer and a convicted child molester is going to make for a very difficult time in prison.

A reader writes:

Apparently the Oregonian has its own computer problem and I [am] guessing you won't be reading about it in the paper. We've been on their Easy Pay credit card system for over a year and we recently started receiving invoices in the mail showing our payment in arrears. A quick review of the credit card statement shows that we were still being charged for the subscription every month. After a ten minute wait on hold, we talked with an account representative who told us they recently changed billing systems and account data from the old system did not transfer to the new system as expected and that they were manually updating accounts. I was told to ignore the mailed invoice. If this was a government system problem it would be front page news.

Don't worry, Willy Week will pick the story up. They never miss a chance to take a swipe at the O.

And help regulate it, too: The City of Portland is looking for a citizen representative on its noise board.

What? What's that you say?

If you let an independent utility ratemaking board set Portland water and sewer rates, they might be less accountable to the public than Sam Adams and Randy Leonard.

And the Sam Rands get "green" groups to make their case for them.

Let's just put it up for a public vote, shall we?

An alert reader noticed this cozy little event at the MAC club the other day:

Making it much more expensive for honest passengers to ride, all the while cutting bus service, is just going to accelerate the death spiral. Goldschmidt crony Fred Hansen parachuted out just before the plunge became obvious. Why his hapless successor took the gig is anybody's guess.

Tri-Met's allowed itself to be Blumenauered into oblivion. You'll have to ride a bike, because there won't be a bus, and the streets will be pretty much blocked to cars.

And now we're up to a five buck minimum entry fee every time we go downtown? The phrase "ghost town" comes immediately to mind.

Fortunately, nobody's got that kind of money to play with any more, or else these people would be wrecking Portland even faster than they already are. Who says there's nothing good about this economy?

Gardner also worries about creating a jagged downtown skyline with an erratic scattering of taller buildings surrounded by more modest ones.

"It’s not a beautiful skyline," she said.

We have a beautiful airport, though, and several excellent moving companies. People who don't like Portland, and want everyone else to pay to remake it the way they want it, should avail themselves of those excellent resources.

They've got a shiny new children's building, but no money for secretaries. So now the nurses will do the secretarial work, apparently. That siren going off in Grandma's room? They'll be in to look at that in a few minutes.

Now the high school dropout rate is "unacceptable" to Oregon's retread governor. This is a lot like the current gang violence epidemic being "unacceptable" to Portland's sketchy mayor. What brilliance. And what are these two going to do about those problems other than make speeches? Nothing, because they'll be too busy handing out money to their friends to build junk that isn't needed.

The $250 million in lottery money that these fellows are about to blow on the Mystery Train to Milwaukie could do a lot of good to bolster education and fight crime. But no. And so their pronouncements of "unacceptability" are utterly laughable.

The local health care news and commentary website says that the "job creating" Republican congressional candidate is misrepresenting what it reported about his opponent.

Thank heaven that ugly little cat fight is almost over.

We are not making this up: The City of Portland is hiring David Reinhard to try to sell the dopey "sustainability center" project (that big old hunk of steaming pork for the voracious Mark Edlen and crew) to downstate Republicans in the legislature. The Sam Rand Twins and Reinhard -- there's quality for ya.

Just as we wrote when it happened, it was a smart move on the other passengers' part to shut the heck up and get off at the next stop. Check out the latest MAX shocker from the PoPo:

On Thursday January 26, 2012, at 8:20 p.m., officers from the Transit Police Division responded to the report of someone with a gun on a MAX train stopped at the Old Town/Chinatown stop.

Officers arrived and learned that group of boys and girls, including two young men ages 11 and 13, had a dispute with another passenger after one of the boys bumped into her baby stroller when they boarded the train.

During the argument with the baby's mother, the 11-year-old boy lifted his shirt to show the woman a gun in his waistband then he started to pull the gun out but the woman backed away and the boy put the gun back into his waistband.

The woman called 9-1-1 and the train stopped at the Old Town/Chinatown stop where the victim identified the suspect and police took the 11-year-old into custody. A loaded .22 caliber semi-automatic handgun was recovered from his waistband.

Officers contacted the 13-year-old boy and learned he had a BB gun in his backpack. He too was taken into custody.

The 13-year-old boy was taken to Janus Youth Program. Officers obtained a court order to lodge the 11-year-old boy into the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Home.

Use mass transit? Go downtown? If you don't absolutely have to, why would you? It's so sad, but we've clearly entered a new phase here in Portland. Things do not bode well for our future.

If you wonder why so many Portland motorists are hostile toward the special people on two wheels that they encounter on the city's streets, here is something for you to think about. He'll have plenty of opportunity to tighten his statuesque gluteals on his holier-than-thou fixie during his five-year driver's license suspension. Way to go, guy! You sure showed him.

Now he knows more than the people running Penn State University. Just like he knows more than the people running the Oregon university system. Maybe he should start a university and run it himself.

The Blazers' new backcourt isn't getting it done.

You guessed it.

The voice of countless memorable warnings -- especially "Danger, Will Robinson" -- has been forever stilled. We loved that show.

The soon-to-be-departed duo that has been leading Portland city government into one hole after another for the last decade or more, is now reportedly cranking up the heat on the charter review commission. The Twins and their moneyed puppeteers can't stand the thought that the voters of the city might get a direct say in some of the issues of the day. And so they'll fight tooth-and-nail to kill any reform efforts:

Council members are refusing to replace departing commissioners, allowing their numbers to shrink near the 15 required to do business. The council has also said it will not give the commission any more money, preventing it from adequately publicizing and holding forums on such complex and controversial issues as an Independent Utility Commission and Ranked Choice Voting.

Three hundred and forty days to go... and then let's hope this is the low point.

The revised script is playing out to perfection. It looks as though Fireman Randy and his buddies may get to build their useless ultraviolet treatment plant after all. Something to remember them by: a middle-finger salute that will show up on your water bill every month for several decades.

Portland's army of planners have come up with a new "master plan" for the freeway ghetto areas around the Rose Garden Arena, and it features... you guessed it... high-rise apartment buildings! And lots of them. Some of them 20 stories tall, and the developer sharpies will be allowed to slap them up 10 stories high all the way east down Broadway and Weidler to Seventh Avenue. Six stories all the way east to 16th. Enjoy the daylight while you can, Irvington.

Not to mention the traffic impacts. If you've ever tried to get onto or off of Interstate-5 at the Rose Garden -- and who in this area hasn't found themselves in that scene at least once? -- you know that it can already be a traffic fustercluck. I-5, I-84, and 99-E all coming together, and I-5 essentially two lanes wide in either direction. The surface streets there are also in a constant state of constipation, and when the streetcar starts running on Weidler and Broadway, the congestion is only going to get worse.

That's regardless of whether anyone builds anything new. Stick a few thousand junk apartment units in that neighborhood, and you'll have the worst tie-ups imaginable, both on the freeway and on the street. The nabobs in city government no doubt think that this will cause people to give up their cars, stick a feather you-know-where, and fly everywhere, the Blumenauer way.

The naive and the greedy are working together quite effectively on this one. The worst part is that the working people of Portland will wind up paying huge subsidies to the developer set and their construction cronies to make it all happen. If there are any working people left, that is.

It had been about a year since the Portland police killed somebody, and this fellow appears to have made the end of that streak a no-brainer. He reportedly brandished a fake gun at the PoPo. Some of those guys will kill you if you flash your wallet at them, and so that was the end of Brad Morgan, age 21, father of an eight-month-old son.

Suicide by cop, apparently.

Would more spending on mental health services in Portland have saved this deceased man's life? We'll never know. We have other priorities.

The media are following their every move, but between the Michael Jackson dance party incident and the long break for the holidays, suddenly we've lost interest. They were climbing on the elk statue downtown again, though -- given that that landmark was just repaired at significant expense, that should have resulted in an immediate arrest. And they're hassling the Channel 8 camera crew -- real public relations geniuses, this bunch.

Between the police killing this morning and Occupy all evening, it's a banner day for cop overtime. It will make Newt and Mittens's upcoming visit seem mighty cheap by comparison.

Once again really interesting news gets buried. It's way down in this story. The writer focuses on the Portland Development Commission's practice of creating winners and losers in the local business community by making sweetheart loans to favored companies -- some of the loans being real stinkers that go sour immediately. But here's a detail of the Vestas headquarters deal, which is looking more like a stinker every day, that we don't think has previously seen the light of day:

As of October, in 2011 the PDC had loaned out over $15 million, more than half of which was at a zero percent interest rate to a single borrower.

A large chunk of that was lent to an investor group led by Gerding Edlen, according to Quinton. Gerding is a "green" developer group and recipient of numerous government subsidies in the Portland area for a variety of projects.

The investor group received $8.1 million at a zero interest rate to renovate the old Meier and Frank warehouse in the Pearl for the new Vestas U.S. headquarters.

Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer, has seen better days. Last week the company announced it is laying off 2,335 employees after missing several revenue and profit targets.

The loan to the Gerding Edlen is the single largest zero interest loan made by the PDC to date and shows that PDC has yet to shut off the faucet to cheap money, even with a reworking of its loan programs.

As we understood the deal when it was announced nearly a year and a half ago, the sweetheart loan was going to Vestas, not Edlen. Guess the deal changed, eh? Funny thing.

Somebody should dig up, and publish, all the documents on that transaction. It would make interesting reading indeed. If Vestas gets sold or goes under, which seems more likely all the time, somebody's going to get burned. Probably the taxpayers -- certainly not the developer. This is Portland, after all.

This just seems so wrong. Yet we keep listening to it. And there's plenty more where it came from -- a whole catalog of it.

Satirist Stephen Colbert has been having a lot of fun with his "super-PAC" -- his political action committee. One of the hilarious things he's done with it is to set up on the side a "civic league," a so-called 501(c)(4) organization, to show that although PACs are transparent, 501(c)(4)'s are not. And the 501(c)(4) corporation, which does not have to disclose its donors, can make contributions to the PAC,with the PAC never saying where the 501(c)(4) got its money. Colbert compares it to money laundering, and as usual, it's hard to disagree with him.

It's a ridiculous system, quite worthy of the lampoon. And while guffawing at the absurdity of it all, we can't help but think about the Bus Project, brainchild of Portland mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith, which is set up the same way. As we found out when we looked last fall, with "Bus," there's a PAC, and a 501(c)(4). They're both called "Bus" something or other, there's overlap of personnel, and the stage seems set for the type of quiet back-door funding that Colbert makes fun of.

But with the Bus Project, things get even more brazen than they are on TV, in that there's a third organization called "Bus," a section 501(c)(3) organization, also in the picture. Contributions to 501(c)(3) organizations are not only discreet, but they're also tax-deductible (unlike gifts to 501(c)(4)'s). And so it appears that the Smithmeister not only is organized to push the envelope as Colbert illustrates, but he also throws the prospect of tax-deductibility into the enterprise.

We're sure the smug folks at the Bus complex think they have it all covered legally. Maybe they do. But just maybe, a tax auditor could have a field day looking into the tangled arrangements over there. In any event, when we're laughing along with Colbert, Portland voters should remember who's prominently in the group that he's damning with his humor.

Today the venerable Portland weekly feeds us not one, not two, not three, but four stories about pot. (Maybe more -- are we missing any?)

Is this an indirect slam on state attorney general candidate Dwight Holton, who as acting U.S. attorney battled marijuana? Then again, maybe they just like a good buzz over there. Sometimes a blunt is just a blunt.

The O buries the lead on this story, a followup to yesterday's announcement of 25 layoffs in Portland by Iberdrola, the Spanish wind energy firm:

Mayor Adams traveled to Spain a year ago to try persuading Iberdrola to stay in Portland. He said Tuesday that the city is doing everything possible to retain the company. Asked whether incentives have been offered, Adams said he was "not willing to talk about that."

Scott Andrews, board chairman for the Portland Development Commission, said the agency remains in discussions with Iberdrola. He's confident the company's headquarters will stay in Portland. With layoffs out of the way, company officials are expected to solidify plans in a matter of weeks, he said.

Andrews expects the company to keep its Brewery Blocks location, where it's been since 2003. As recently as last year, Iberdrola officials considered expanding at the U.S. Bancorp Tower or in buildings not yet built. Iberdrola's local leases, for about 85,000 square feet in two buildings, expire in 2013.

Some form of public subsidy for Iderdrola [sic] has been widely expected, especially after the PDC in 2010 issued a no-interest loan to help fund construction of a new headquarters for turbine-maker Vestas. That will cost taxpayers $2.6 million.

"It's not going to be of the same magnitude as a new building or a new location with a promise of 'x' number of jobs over a period of time," Andrews said of an investment for Iberdrola.

But some financial contribution is likely to keep Iberdrola in Portland, he said, adding: "I think that's worth something."

Secret deals, handouts of public money to private corporations... foreign corporations, at that... Ain't that the Portland way. As long as it's "green," nobody's supposed to ask any questions.

According to this story from a year ago, Iberdrola had 350 jobs in Portland. Apparently, that's down to 325. How big a perfectly legal bribe should they be offered to stay here?

The tax policy wonks, the presidential campaign followers, and many others are grinding out the commentary about Willard "Mitt" Romney's tax return, which hit the intertubes yesterday, all 203 pages of it. One of the things folks are focusing on is the candidate and his wife's effective (average) rate of tax -- an obvious indicator of whether the guy's paying a fair share of his income to support the federal government. But we think that most of the media commentators have got the rate a little too high, because they're looking at the wrong taxes.

The writers, including at both Timeses (L.A. and N.Y.), say that Romney's tax rate in 2010 was 13.9%. But they're counting self-employment tax in there, and that's not included in what most people think of when you ask them their federal income tax rate. Self-employment tax all goes to Social Security and Medicare, and for most folks, that sort of tax is sent off to the federal government as "FICA" -- taken out of their paycheck (matched by their employers), and never appearing on their tax returns at all. And so we don't think it's really fair to be taking that tax into account when computing the Rommeister's tax rate. (They're probably also including the payroll tax that the Romneys paid toward their household servants' Social Security and Medicare, which is also not what most people would think of as the couple's federal income tax.)

In 2010, the Romneys forked over $29,150 of self-employment tax on self-employment income of just under $594,000 -- around 4.9% of that income, all of which went to Social Security and Medicare. (It was actually 15.3% on the first $108,800 of self-employment income, and 2.9% on the rest.) The payroll tax on the household servants was $4,270.

If you leave self-employment and payroll tax out of the equation -- the way most people do when they talk about federal income tax -- the Romneys' tax was $2,976,345, on gross income of $21,661,344. That works out to an effective tax rate of 13.7404%.

Even after taking his deductions and getting hit by the alternative minimum tax (which even upper-middle-class folks like ourselves pay), Romney made out like a bandit. His taxable income was $17,120,067, and his tax was $2,976,345. You math majors out there already have the rate: 17.39%. Not bad.

We keep waiting for Eileen Brady to show us that she'll do something different, something smarter, at Portland City Hall. But we read this sort of stuff -- she's all for more "urban renewal," in with the Portland State developer cabal, pave over wildlife habitat on West Hayden Island for the Goldschmidt boys at the Port, more light rail, the whole works -- and we have to conclude that she's not worthy of our vote. And since Streetcar Charlie from Camas and Jeffer-Sten Jeffer-Sam Smith are completely out of the question, that leaves us with candidates who haven't got a prayer. We may as well pick one, and there's a lot to be said for the 19-year-old candidate who tells it like it is. So he's got our endorsement. We're voting for Max Brumm. Seriously.

If Portland takes Hales, at least it will know what it is buying, and it deserves the mess it will get. With Brady, the promise is kind of vague, but the program actually produced will be much the same as it is now. It's a bit like the upcoming Obama-Romna: Who cares? The middle class is screwed either way. Maybe it will be less painful with less hypocrisy.

Here's an exciting new medical revelation: Brown fat burns white fat. Does this mean we should go with Guinness and whole wheat pizza from here on out?

A closely held Portland business that's competing against the lumbering giants of its industry is now also battling rogues of a different kind. Let's hope that they keep their chin up, and hang tough. And that the cops and the neighbors are extra vigilant on their behalf.

More layoffs on the sustainable front. We don't recall there being a lot of local subsidy for this outfit, but if there was, it isn't paying off. Condolences to the 25 Portlanders with pink slips in hand.

Bowing to pressure, Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax return this morning. It's here, along with a lot of related tax documents (including an estimate of his 2011 taxes, which haven't been filed yet). But before you start digging into it, you might want to grab a 20-ounce coffee (or a 40-ounce malt liquor): The basic 1040 form is 203 pages long.

So far, we've gotten as far as seeing that he had $21.6 million of income last year, on which he paid U.S. income tax of just under $3 million. His tax compared to his gross was 13.75%.

And his real name is Willard.

We've been enjoying the Blazer games on TV a lot more with the sound turned off, and the radio on sometimes. We get the radio call about a second ahead of the picture, but that's o.k. In this screwed-up partial season, everything about the pro hoops game is a little off anyway.

Watching the tube without audio is pretty revealing, especially the ads. It's a lot easier to perceive how the images work on your mind without the cover of the sound.

Probably the most revealing aspect of our Mute Strategy is to get a good look at the announcer guys we've shut off. Especially Mike Barrett, the television play-by-play guy. His commentary is so boring that we can't stand it. And the look he gives when he's on camera -- well, it just screams "I hate this job." Never smiles, never shows any enthusiasm -- his facial expressions alternate among suspicion, fatigue, and anger. What a way to suck the life out of what is supposed to be entertainment.

And don't get us started on the ads. Adjourning to the bedroom with the Spirit Mountain babe in the red dress gets creepier by the month, and it's a lot more obvious without the audio track. We've had a lot of fantasy fun with her, but now it's over. We request an annulment. It's not her -- it's us.

Don't worry, it's just one lane of a road, and for only two blocks. Still, nowadays that's a serious news item.

Heaven forbid that the taxpayers should continue to see who's collecting what out of the state's public employee pension system. Let's cover a bunch of that up.

O columnist Steve Duin posted a howler this weekend: Now that the City of Portland's being sued for wasting water bureau revenue on unrelated pet projects of the city commissioners, and now that the council is being threatened by a charter amendment that would take water rate setting out of its hands, Fireman Randy is fighting back. He's got Opie Sten's former chief lackey, Rich Rodgers, on the charter revision commission, and the two of them are reportedly trying to subvert the charter review process to validate the illegal water spending and kill off meaningful oversight of water rates by an independent body.

How stunningly ugly. And how typical.

Rodgers, the "genius" behind "voter-owed elections" and "free municipal wi-fi," must have ambitions for public office some day. He's not rehabilitating himself by defending the "water house," that's for sure. With 343 days to go in the Admiral's command, Rodgers is putting his eggs in a pretty beat-up-looking basket.

Here's a bit of a startler from the Trib: Over the past four or five years, the Portland public schools have spent $1.7 million on an outside consultant to conduct diversity training. Sheesh. The school district already has Lolenzo Poe on the pad as "chief equity and diversity officer" at around $122,000 a year. There is also one, and who knows how many other, "equity specialists" on staff. But apparently, an outside consultant is also a necessity.

And oh, what a message he is delivering:

White Talk is "verbal, impersonal, intellectual and task oriented," Singleton describes, while Color Commentary is "nonverbal, personal, emotional and process oriented."

"Safer interracial dialogue," he writes, happens when we "monitor" our styles and balance the conversation to ensure fuller participation — for instance, if a parent wants to hear from a teacher that her child is being respectful in class, while the teacher is just focusing on the child’s academics.

The thinking is that such background will help teachers avoid labeling their students "disrespectful" for talking out of turn in the classroom, says PPS equity specialist Paula DePass Dennis.

"They’re not meaning to be, it’s just who they are or that’s what their communication style is," she says. "They need to not be penalized every time they do something that’s natural to them. They’re being penalized because it doesn’t fit well in the structure we set up for them."

Does that sound like a recipe for success, in school and in life? Sometimes we can't help feeling that with friends like the Portland School District, racial justice doesn't need enemies.

Last week, when the Clackistani rebels gathered to discuss their ballot measure to kill off Tri-Met's Milwaukie Mystery Train once and for all, they did so at the Milwaukie Elks Lodge, which is on McLaughlin Boulevard down toward Oak Grove. Some of the anti-rail activists who showed up for the meeting learned a few new things that night. One of them is that the area's apartment bunker pushers have that Elks lodge in their sights for demolition. Once the Milwaukie MAX is run down that way, the lodge would be torn down and replaced by low-income housing, to the enrichment of some favored developer and to the detriment of the folks who currently use the place.

What would it take to stop this? It's not entirely clear, but according to the locals, strengthening the membership rolls at the lodge might be a step in the right direction. Without more members, the Elks won't be able to fend off the bad apartments. The dues are reportedly dirt cheap -- something like $140 a year for a family. We never thought we'd be tempted, but it might be worth a small investment to become an Elk (or some sort of Elk affiliate) down there, if for no other reason than to make a statement against the spread of the hideous bunkers that are sucking the character out of our area.

It's becoming a standard story: A college football coach appears to break the recruiting rules, and before his school is disciplined for it, he runs away to coach in the professional ranks. It happened at U.S.C., and now it's happening at U.C. Nike (located in Eugene). But as old Chipster reportedly exits the scene of his problems, apparently he's contractually bound to leave many millions of dollars behind as a penalty for terminating his contract early. Gee, we certainly hope so, but ridding our state of this unsavory fellow is priceless. And good luck with the gimmicks in the pro's, pal.

The New York Football Giants won a hard-fought overtime battle in the City by the Bay this evening, setting up a Super Bowl match against New England in a couple of weeks. For the second time today, a special teams problem undid one of the Harbaugh brothers. The final standings in our season-long charity underdog game are therefore as follows:

Continue reading "Harbaugh family Super Bowl party will be sedate" »

With a classic choking-place-kicker ending, the Baltimore Birds have surrendered a Super Bowl berth to Tom Brady and his man purse. Congratulations are in order, then, for the winners of our underdog game:

First prize - $510 to player's favorite charity - Pete Rozelle
Second prize - $135 to player's favorite charity - John Ch.
Second prize - $135 to player's favorite charity - Michael K.
Fourth prize - $75 to player's favorite charity - Usual Kevin
Fifth prize - $55 to player's favorite charity - PDXileinOmaha

Winners, take a while to think about where you'd like your prize to go, then shoot me an e-mail message with your choice. The recipient must be a nonprofit organization recognized under section 501(c)(3). We'll post the charities, and get the checks out, when we have them all.

Thanks to all our 33 players, who made it a memorable season. We'll do a little analysis of this year's 'dogs over the next week or so, for what it's worth.

It's kickoff time in the pro football conference finals, and here is how the players in our charity underdog prediction game have called it:

7.5 BALTIMORE at New England - AKevin, Bob, Rudie, Gordon, genop, genop's gal, Tommy W., Paul, Carol, Larry Legend, NoPoGuy, Grizfan, Broadway Joe, Weavmo, Drewbob, Eric W., Gary

2.5 NEW YORK GIANTS at San Francisco - Bayou Baby, Biggest Cubs Loser, Pete Rozelle, Usual Kevin, jmh, PDXileinOmaha, Ricardo, John Cr., Michael K., umpire, John Ch., Annie

With the standings in our game packed so tightly at the top, we won't know until the first game is over exactly whose charity is going to win which prize, and if Baltimore wins that game, much will be left undecided until the second game. We've been scouting out the various scenarios, and here are our unofficial thoughts on what the outcomes of the games will mean -- all subject to further review:

Interestingly, all five of the top players in our current standings have taken New York, and the next five have all picked Baltimore. As result, all of our top 10 players are still in the run for the money.

If neither underdog wins, last week's standings become final, and the prizewinners are:

1. Pete Rozelle 49
2. John Ch. 48
3. Michael K. 48
4. Usual Kevin 47.5
5. PDXileinOmaha 46

If the Giants win and Baltimore loses, it's the same five in the same order, with 2.5 more points each.

If both 'dogs prevail, the prizes go to:

1. AKevin 53
1. Carol 53
3. Pete Rozelle 51.5
4. John Ch. 50.5
4. Michael K. 50.5

If Baltimore wins and the Giants lose:

1. AKevin 53
1. Carol 53
3. Paul 49.5
4. Gordon 49
4. Larry Legend 49
4. Pete Rozelle 49

Pete Rozelle is the only player who's guaranteed to bring home a prize for his favorite charity. Congratulations to him. And he will be the grand prize winner if Baltimore loses. If Baltimore wins, AKevin and Carol will share top prize, no matter what happens with the Giants, but third through fifth will be up for grabs in the evening.

For Usual Kevin and PDXileinOmaha, New England is a must-win. For AKevin, Carol, Paul, Gordon, and Larry Legend, Baltimore is a must-win. And that contest, in chilly New England, starts now. Have a great day, and enjoy the games, all.

One of the stars of our beloved mid-'70s New York Knicks has been having his medical issues. Which is truly sad, because in his prime, the man had, as they used to say, "more moves than Ex-Lax." We wish him and his family peace through his current ordeals.

If you haven't seen this interview, you should watch it:

Too funny. Ya gotta laugh to keep from crying.

Now we're supposed to feel guilty for laughing at Portlandia.

The preciousness here is moving way too fast for us to follow.

Etta was a road warrior and kept up a heavy touring schedule despite her health issues. I was lucky enough to see her many times, and it was thrilling to watch her, all 300-plus pounds of her, command the room and wield her sexuality so deftly, leaning on a stool for support sometimes but so playful and confident, man she was sexy and she knew it, and she knew you knew it. Then she would get serious and let loose on a blues that would wrench the soul out of you and leave you stunned. It's easy to think of her as someone with a deep well of loneliness, knowing about her precarious childhood and her history of addictions. You just had to look at her in those years to see that her hunger was larger than her ability to satisfy it. If she was singing to quench an unquenchable longing, then we all know something of that longing, and its expression in her music was a kind of magic. To transform an absence of love into an expression of love that resounded in so many of us.

The whole thing, here, is worth a read.

The Danish windmill company with its U.S. headquarters in Portland is really on the ropes, and it sure looks as though we'll be dealing with new management, if not new ownership, shortly:

Investors, citing the company’s bad track record and inability to deliver projects on time, are now calling on management, including CEO Ditlev Engel, to step down. When asked about his future at the press conference announcing the job cuts, Engel said he had no plans to resign.

Jakob Pedersen of Sydbank said that confidence in Vestas is "blown completely away."

This is not the first time that Vestas has closed factories. In November 2010, it made similar moves that cost 3,000 jobs in Scandanavia. Some investors and analysts are insisting that the company’s management is the problem.

Vestas is warning that the current round of cuts may not be enough if the Production Tax Credit (PTC) is not extended in the United States. The entire wind industry is calling on US lawmakers to extend the PTC, which grants companies a financial incentive per kilowatt-hour of wind power they generate.

"We will evaluate … 2012 entirely on how the political situation evolves," Engel said.

The current round of reductions cost 182 US workers their jobs and Vestas said 1,600 more are threatened if the PTC is not extended.

Industry analysts said that the US market has turned into a massive disappointment for Vestas and other wind turbine manufacturers.

That super-sweetheart deal the company made with Portland's "urban renewal" geniuses looks worse and worse for the city's taxpayers by the day.

America's tired of nasty, divisive, gridlock politics in Washington. That's why they're sending Newt Gingrich to the White House.