Opinion
Van Halen’s lesson for police reform
Glam rock bad boys Van Halen included an odd item in their contract rider: a bowl of M&Ms, but no brown ones. A single brown M&M in the bowl, and the band wouldn’t play. As it happens, this was entirely reasonable. Arena rock acts were extraordinarily precise, multi-level performances, where an accident or outage could…
Faith, power, money and death
Italian banker Roberto Calvi’s body is found hanging from Blackfriar’s Bridge in London on June 18, 1982, bringing to an end another chapter in Italy’s made-for-TV saga of financial crime as a way of life. His Banco Ambrosiano had failed. His entanglement with the Vatican cost the Vatican Bank $244 million to settle creditors claims.…
Director’s Desk: Laws targeting the poor in America are shameful
Legislation in Kansas this week is looking to ban those who receive government assistance from spending it on the movies, swimming pools, spas, lingerie and tobacco among other things. The law would only allow people receiving benefits to access $25 a day from an ATM in the land of Jayhawks. Seriously. More than 65,000 Indiana…
Editorial: drug policy reform must look to the future, and the past
This past November, a clear majority of Oregonian voters agreed to take formal action on what had been a fairly accepted social norm: That marijuana use shouldn’t be illegal. Its use shouldn’t result in being arrested, serving time and a criminal record. It shouldn’t be used to target minorities. And it shouldn’t cost anyone their…
News
The end of youth
Anne Frank and Eva Schloss, both born in 1929, had known each other for a long time before they became stepsisters. In fact, when they did become stepsisters in 1953, Anne was no longer alive. By the age of 15, both young girls had survived Auschwitz. However, just before the end of the war, Anne…
Rodrigo Amarante
Rodrigo Amarante and I weren’t connecting. He was late in receiving my call for this interview, followed by an afternoon of phone tag after he tracked down the number for the Street Roots office. In fact, I had pretty much written him off and moved on for the day, when, after a series of messages,…
The evolution of Revolution (Hall)
Walking the halls of Washington High School in Southeast Portland, I am nostalgic about my old high school days. Portland youth attended school here from 1906, when the school was built, until the school closed its doors to students in 1981 for lack of enrollment. One of the most notable WHS graduates, Linus Pauling, is…
Dreamland: an interview with Sam Quinones
When black tar heroin first reached Portland in the 1990s, you could buy it much like you would buy a pizza. Call a number, give an address and wait for a dealer to show up on your block, hiding small bags of dope in his mouth. By the time the 2000s rolled around, this new,…
