AltWeeklies Wire
Willamette Week's Top 5 TV Shows of 2009new
Yes, I know, it’s already 2010. I’m sure by now 2009 is now a distant memory. We’d rather forget the year that cultivated both the recession and MTV’s The City. While it’s a bit tough to summarize the best TV in a given year, as most shows run across years, these five stand above the rest.
Willamette Week |
Ali Rothschild |
01-06-2010 |
TV
New Year, New Momentum Give New Hope For Legalizing Cannabisnew
Paul Stanford, who runs a national chain of medical marijuana clinics, is making a new legalization push. And with the help of a professional signature-gathering company, and a political climate vastly more turned on to cannabis, Stanford hopes to attain his lifelong goal.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
01-06-2010 |
Drugs
In Matthew Flaming's Debut, the Secret, Sordid Origins of... Toledo?new
Life before the internal combustion engine was no damn fun. That, along with a vague sense of disquiet, is the thrust of The Kingdom of Ohio (Amy Einhorn Books, 322 pages, $24.95), the debut novel of Matthew Flaming, who lives either in Brooklyn or Portland.
Willamette Week |
Ben Waterhouse |
12-30-2009 |
Fiction
Goats are the New Chickens, Plus Other Must-Know Trends and People for 2010new
We’re undaunted by the challenge of trying to predict who and what is likely to pop around these parts next year. In fact, we embrace it as close as a fifth of Jack at 11:59 pm on Dec. 31. Check out our 14 people and trends you must know when the new decade begins.
Willamette Week |
Editorial Staff |
12-30-2009 |
Commentary
New Report Raises Questions About Portland as 'Bike City USA'new
The number of bike trips in Portland dropped for the first time in five years, according to a new report. Meanwhile, city officials are launching their most ambitious plan yet to upgrade the city’s bicycle infrastructure to meet what they say is strong demand.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
12-16-2009 |
Transportation
Cheerless: The Real Reason Lincoln High No Longer Has Spiritnew
Lincoln High’s boys basketball season opened Nov. 30 with all the fanfare one would expect. The bleachers were packed. Students wore the school’s red and white. The band played. Only one thing was missing: Lincoln’s cheerleaders.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
12-16-2009 |
Education
Watch Wieden+Kennedy's Portland Music Documentarynew
Anytime you make a documentary on the Portland music scene, a few common topics are brought up. Portland is cheap. Portland has lots of basements. Portland is creative. And, of course, the biggie: it rains ALL THE TIME. But there are a lot of stories that haven’t been told.
Willamette Week |
Michael Mannheimer |
12-09-2009 |
Music
Cops' Recent Blowup with their Chief Surprised Many, and It Shouldn't Havenew
In her 3 1/2 years as Portland police chief, Rosie Sizer has been called many things. She once joked in a City Club speech she’d been called the B-word too many times to count. But she has also been praised as a transformative leader, a gifted communicator, a role model to women and a champion for minority rights.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
12-09-2009 |
Crime & Justice
The House of the Devil Brings Back the Beelzebubnew
While he never actually appears in director Ti West's retro screamer The House of the Devil, Satan's little helpers make a welcome return to the screen, bringing their funky rituals and pentagrams along.
Willamette Week |
AP Kryza |
12-04-2009 |
Reviews
What's the Plan for Those Feel-good Light Bulbs Poisoning Portland's Water?new
If you’re feeling all environmentally conscious about buying compact fluorescent light bulbs, check yourself.
Willamette Week |
Nigel Jaquiss |
12-04-2009 |
Environment
Wieden+Kennedy's Briliant Pitch or Epic Failnew
Deep within the labyrinthine layers of Wieden+Kennedy's Pearl District headquarters is the secret responsible for the company's three-decade run of screaming creative success. It’s a record that is the envy of every madman in the ad game.
Willamette Week |
Aaron Mesh |
12-04-2009 |
Media
Oregon's Most Litigious Stripper is Out to Reform the Industrynew
Zipporah Foster insists strippers deserve to be paid a minimum wage like any other worker. She and other dancers around the country are beginning to take a stand, and a handful have successfully sued for back wages.
Willamette Week |
James Pitkin |
11-18-2009 |
Business & Labor
One Prominent Enviro Thinks the Copenhagen Conference is 'Probably Obsolete'new
Next month's global climate conference in Copenhagen does not lack for dire warnings from environmentalists about what failure would mean for the world. But Lester Brown, the founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, doesn't put much faith in Copenhagen.
Willamette Week |
Henry Stern |
11-18-2009 |
Environment
Can a New Publisher Reverse the Slide at The Oregonian?new
N. Christian Anderson III began his job this week as publisher of The Oregonian at one of the more harrowing times in the daily’s 159-year history.
Willamette Week |
Henry Stern |
11-04-2009 |
Media
A Father and Son Connect by Way of the Summer Game in 'The Opposite Field'new
The Opposite Field blends Jesse Katz's both painful and comic struggles as a single dad to remain connected with his growing son through baseball. And like a crafty pitcher, Katz is deft at mixing speeds in his book so that readers are always surprised at what's coming next.
Willamette Week |
Henry Stern |
11-04-2009 |
Fiction
