Isaac Laquedem

Sam Adams (the beer) should take a peek at the election laws

As reported by Professor Bogdanski, the manufacturers of Samuel Adams beer have written a threatening letter to Mark and Dave, two personalities on KEX radio.  The reason?  Mark and Dave bought two website names, www.samadamsformayor.com and www.mayorsamadams.com, thinking that Commissioner Adams might be able to make use of one of them before the election and of the other one after the election, if he should become Portland's next mayor.

The beer company says that these names risk confusion with their trademarks and want Mark and Dave to cease using the websites.  You can find the beer company's letter here.

If, as the brewer says, it's possible for someone to confuse the candidate with the beer, then it must also be possible for someone to confuse the beer with the candidate ("because," as Professor Lehrer sang, "addition is commutative").  Since the brewer admits that people could confuse the candidate with the beer, the brewer should read ORS 260.695, relating to election offenses, which includes this charming passage: 

      260.695 Prohibitions relating to voting in elections conducted by mail or at polling place.

      (2) No person, within any building in which a polling place is located or, in an election conducted by mail, after the date that ballots are mailed as provided in ORS 254.470, within any building in which ballots are issued, or within 100 feet measured radially from any entrance to the building, shall do any electioneering, including circulating any cards or hand bills, or soliciting signatures to any petition. No person shall do any electioneering by public address system located more than 100 feet from an entrance to the building but capable of being understood within 100 feet of the building. The electioneering need not relate to the election being conducted.

Chapter 260 doesn't define "polling place."

As all Oregon elections are now conducted by mail, isn't the home of every registered voter a "polling place"?  And if so, then -- keeping in mind that people may confuse Sam Adams the beer with Sam Adams the candidate -- isn't it unlawful for Sam Adams (the beer vendor) to locate its Sam Adams labels within 100 feet of any Portland building that houses a registered voter?  Or a ballot drop site (like a mailbox)?  Or a post office?  Or to have a radio spot running on election day?

So if the brewer's theory about confusion is right, they're in the wrong.

Which union leader should Portland honor first? Not Mr. Chavez

I'm no fan of renaming a street after Cesar Chavez, the late United Farm Workers union leader, who had nothing to do with Portland or transportation.  Our prominent highways are named after buildings (the Stadium Freeway), geography (Canyon Road, Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, Interstate Avenue), pioneers (Powell Boulevard), and transportation people (Baldock Freeway, Banfield Freeway, Barbur Boulevard). 

It did occur to me that our area should recognize a union leader, but one with some connection to our city's history.  The west coast offers a perfect candidate in the person of Harry Bridges (1901-1990), an Australian immigrant who became the first president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, and was active in union affairs in ports up and down the west coast.  I heard him speak here in the 1970s to a hall filled with rambunctiously reverential union members. 

Eventually we'll build a new span across the Columbia between Portland and Vancouver.  It will doubtless be named after a politician or highway engineer, no telling who.  If the old spans are allowed to remain in place to serve local traffic, and I hope that they are, they could easily be renamed the Harry Bridges, a fitting way to remember a leader of the waterfront.

How to counter the anti-Measure-50 advertisements

I've been bemused, as many others have, by the advertisements being run against Measure 50 (the tobacco tax) that feature concerned suburban voices saying that it amends the constitution (Oh horror!) and can't be changed without another election (Oh shock!).

It occurred to me that the pro-50 campaign should reply with a message along these lines.  "Yes, Measure 50 amends the constitution.  And yes, it will take a vote of the people to change it -- instead of merely a vote of our state legislators to whom the tobacco industry funnels campaign money.  Who would you rather have decide our tax and health policy: your friends and neighbors or R.J. Reynolds?"

May I take your harp upstairs, just for a minute?

When Kenyon College decided to buy a new Steinway, it sent three of its staff -- the head of the music department, the piano coordinator, and a professor emerita -- to New York and the showroom of Steinway & Sons, where the piano coordinator (John Reitz, who soloed with the Oregon Symphony at age 21) played five of the pianos.  The school chose one, and plunked down $85,000.  The professor emerita, Camilla Cai, got to see how Steinway breaks in the keys on its pianos: a machine hits all 88 keys at once, over and over.  The Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin quotes her description: "I don't think I have ever heard a sound as glorious, except the time I heard a harp fall down a full flight of stairs."

Chicago, the city that works more efficiently than Portland

Mrs. Laquedem, given to good works, notes that the budget of the City of Portland for fiscal year 2006-07 ($2,933,560,038) is larger than the budget of UNICEF, which operates 126 offices worldwide.  She also wants to know where that extra $38 is going.

Mrs. Laquedem also points out that the 2008 budget of Chicago, Illinois is twice the size of Portland's current budget, weighing in at a hefty $5.9 billion, but then, Chicago's population is five times the size of Portland's, suggesting that Chicago, known as "the city that works," manages despite its colorful city history to run its government at less than half the cost per resident of Portland's government.   Chicago's city government costs its residents about $2000 each per year, and ours costs about $5000 per resident per year.  Let's look around town for that extra $3000.

408 games is a lot of football, even if you're a kicker

There was one additional highlight to the Lions game that I saw last week, which was that Lui Passaglia came into the box to shake hands, and gave me an autographed B.C. Lions cap for the Laquedemitasse.  He also passed around one of his championship rings, which is an impressive piece of jewelry.

I have to admit that his name didn't mean anything to me until my host explained that Mr. Passaglia had played for the Lions for a long time: 408 games, to be exact, starting in 1976 and continuing to his retirement in 2000.  I was impressed when I found that out, but alas, too late to congratulate him.  I imagine he's heard many nice things from others already.

Let's look at the CFL for Portland

Last week, for the first time, I attended a professional football game.  Through a friend's courtesy I got to sit in a skybox and watch the 24 players run and throw tbe football up and down the 110 yards of field.

24 and not 22?  110 and not 100?  Yes, as I was in Vancouver (the other one), watching the B.C. Lions defeat the Calgary Stampeders, 42 to 9, in a game which if not suspenseful was alawys exciting.  The Lions play their home games in a basic concrete bowl close to downtown, covered with an inflatable top -- a series of tubular balloons sewn together to make a dome.  "It deflated only once," said my host, "but no one was in the stadium at the time."

The CFL has two divisions, each with four teams.  Six of the eight teams make the playoffs each year: in each division the no. 2 and 3 teams play each other.   The winner plays the no. 1 team in the division.  The two division playoff winners then play each other.

It occurred to me that Portland could satisfy its major league ambitions by seeking a CFL team.  Besides giving our sporting activities an international air, we would also have a team that would make the playoffs most years.  Even if the playoffs continued to be restricted to six teams we would make the playoffs two years of every three.  And we might very well support the team with enthusiasm, if Vancouver's experience is a guide: each time the Lions scored a touchdown, the spectators stood up and sang the team fight song.  Do fans of the Seahawks stand up and sing when the team scores?