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December 30, 1992.. The Portland Observer...Page 7
City Council To
Vote On New
Nuisance Law
The City Council will voted on a
new ordinance aimed at people whose
disruptive behavior becomes a chronic
nuisance to their neighbors.
The draft law will allow the city to
take legal action against property where
three or more incidents of harassm en t,
intimidation, disorderly conduct or gun
discharges occur within 30 days. Pos
sible penalties include civil fines and a
court order excluding people from a
property for up to six months.
The new ordinance was proposed
by City Comm issioner Earl Blumenauer
and an inter-agency task force as part of
a nine-point plan to improve drug house
enforcem ent. The Council is expected
to add an emergency clause so that the
measure would take effect immediately.
Last Chance To
Register for
Winter Classes At
OMSI
There is still time to register for
winter day camps and classes at the
Oregon Museum of Science and Indus
try. This year camps and classes are
being held at the new museum and a
O M SI’s Education Resource Center in
W ashington Park. The classes are de
signed to offer youngsters, age two
through 13, opportunities to learn more
about science and the world around
them.
Illustrate your ideas with anim a
tion, graphics, sound and special ef
fects! HyperCard, a class designed for
kids 5th through 8th grade, teaches
students how to construct m ultimedia
com puter programs.
Students can also discover w hat’s
“way down under” in a four day rock
adventure. Create crystal gardens and
make your own volcano in “Can You
Dig it?” First and second graders will
ajso participate in rock hunts and put
together rock collections to take home.
All winter classes have limited en
rollment. For more information contact
the O M SI’s Registrar’s office (503)
797-4501.
Unsure If You
Can Afford
To Buy A
Home?
Then you will want to attend a
series o f free seminars concerning home
buy ing and home ownership. The sem i
nars will provide an overview of the
home buying process, explain m ort
gage financing in general terms and
assist with a household budgeting plan.
Specific mortgage programs, designed
to assist low to moderate income house
holds will also be discussed.
Some specific questions that will
be addressed include the following:
How much house can I afford?
Sales price? Mortgage amount? Loan
eligibility?
W hat would hiy monthly payment
be? How much down payment would I
need to have?
W hat if I have bad credit, or no
credit at all?
W hat about inspections, assess
ments, building codes, home m ainte
Il is a problem no parent should
ha ve to face. A nd m i 11 ions eac h y ear are
having to face it.
One way or another, parents fre
quently are shocked to discover that
their youngster is using illegal drugs.
How a parent discovers this doesn’t
much matter. Perhaps you find som e
thing in the youngster’s room. Perhaps
you learn about it from another parent.
Perhaps the child or teenager admits it:
“ So I just tried a bit of marijuana. No big
deal,” he or she might say. You might
even learn about your child’s drug use
from the school principal or the police.
The big question is what do you do
now?
t
Ignoring the situation or shrugging
it off certainly isn’t the answer. Even if
one tried smoking a little marijuana
back in one’s own youth, as so many
millions of Americans did, these are
very different times. The fact that you
didn’t get heavily involved with drugs
doesn’t mean your child w on’t.
At the same time, it isn’t the end of
the world cither.
Perhaps the best thing you can do is
take the time to have a real “heart-to-
heart” talk with your child. O r a number
o f talks.
This isn’t alw ays as easy. But real
communication about the situation isn’t
going to hurt. And it can help trem en
dously.
There are things you should under
stand about drug use. On the surface,
there may appear to be a lot of different
reasons a person might take drugs. There
is always talk about peer pressure, for
instance. But the bottom line is that
people take drugs because they make
them feel better in some way. And there
is nothing wrong with wanting to feel
better. But this good feeling is not only
short-lived but results in self-destruc
lion.
So this is something you can talk to
your child about. W hat is making him
feel bad or miserable or depressed? Is
he ju st bored/ W hat problems does he
have?
Get these out in the open as much
as you can.
Then go over how much of a solu-
New Hud Secretary Believes
Discrimination Can Be Overcome
Henry Cisneros Recalls Personal Experience With Prejudice
Henry G. Cisneros, who President
elect Bill Clinton has named to the
Cabinet post o f Secretary o f Housing
and Urban Development, has person
ally experienced prejudice but firmly
believes it can be overcome.
“D on’tbackdow n,’’Cisneros urged
those who are faced with discrim ina
tion in an interview with the Sunday
Parade m agazine. “G et an education.
Beat them with hard work. This is a
good country. Its values are good. It can
change. It has proved that.”
Cisneros, who is of Mexican d e
scent, recalled an early experience with
prejudice thataffected him profoundly.
W hile a student at Texas A&M, he
qualified for a leadership position in the
Corps of Cadets. An adult sponsor didn ’ t
want him because he was Hispanic,
66
however, and recommended a white
student who was Cisneros’ best friend.
“ No, I’m not the most qualified
person,” his friend said. “ Henry is.”
Cisneros w asespecially moved because
his friend came fromacommunity where
there was tremendous discrim ination
against Mexicans. “ And yes,” Cisneros
recalled, “he insisted I was the guy who
deserved it. I came out of that with a
sense of that, though discrim ination
exists, there are decent people.”
Em phasizing that immense d is
crimination still exists, Cisneros said,
“I know many Latinos who live in
settings that are just patently unfair.
They are the m ajority, but people have
conspired against their having voting
rights, for example. It continues to ex-
ist.
Portland Copwatch” Line
Begins Taking Calls
3 2 1 - 5 1 2 0
A group of concerned citizens has
inaugurated “ Portland Copwatch” (321 -
5120), a special telephone number d e
signed to help the people of Portland
monitor their police. Any person who
wishes to report a negative or positive
encounter with the pplice is asked to
call and describe the event in as much
detail as possible. The result will be the
only com prehensive record of police
conduct m aintained independent of the
Portland Police Bureau.
The phone line is sponsored by the
People Overseeing Police Study G roup
(POPSG), residents o f Portland com
mitted to increasing the role civilians
play in police training, policy making
and in investigations o f police conduct.
All calls to Portland Copwatch will
be held in the strictest confidence. Any
special requests made by callers in re
gard to use o f the information will be
respected. Callers willing to leave their
names and numbers will be contacted
only by a m ember o f POPSG. Again,
POPSG places high priority on the con
fidentiality of the information offered
on the Portland Copw atch line.
POPSG intends to use the incidents
reported --positive and negative —for
statistical purposes. These statistics will
provide Portlanders with belter infor
mation as they decide whether there is
sufficicntcivilian involvement in polic
ing. For example POPSG is concerned
that thccurrentcom m unily policing plan
provides no adequate avenue for civil
ians seeking a fair hearing of their com
plaints against the police.
It is important that people under
stand the Portland Copwatch number is
Not a crisis number. People with em er
gency medical needs should call an ap
propriate crisis line, such as Metro C ri
sis. Nonetheless, it is critical that civil
ians report their experiences to Portland
Copwatch. No other adequate m echa
nism for documenting police conduct
exists outside the police departm ent it
self.
Portland Copwatch is a project of
the People O verseeing Police Study
Group, 2600 NE Martin Luther King
Boulevard, Box 106, Portland, O r9 7 2 12.
tion to these problem drugs really arc.
For that is always the kicker. The truth
is that drugs do give a temporary relief
from unwanted feelings and em otions
like anger, sadness or even hopeless
ness. They do make a person feel better
for a short while. But then the person
feels worse.
Crack cocaine, for instance, is par
ticularly addictive. Not only does it
give intense feelings of well-being and
Uses
Drugs
B y J ohn D uff
Part 1 Of A Series
euphoria for a short while, but this is
then followed by such a crash, such
severe depression, that the person will
sometimes do alm ost anything to get
some more. Even casual drug use can
be quite devastating. The person will
feel worse and worse. One answer he
has to this is to do more drugs. That
factually is how addiction develops.
Your child needs to really under
stand the harm that drugs do to him.
This is something w ecover extensively
in NARCONON drug education lec
tures, not as scare tactics, but rather so
that students are adequately informed
about what they are doing to them
selves if they even casually use drugs
For one thing, as American author
L. Ron Hubbard discovered, drugs ¡tre
not fully eliminated from the system.
Drug residuals of even organic drugs
like marijuana lodge in the fatty tissue
o f the body and remain títere for years
and even decades. lítese residuals make
a person feel bad, they adversely affect
his mental abilitiesand clarity ol thought,
and reduce his intelligence and his abil
ily to learn and retain data. I hey can
even adversely alter his personality.
In the NARCONON drug rehabili
tation program, a unique method is used
to get these residuals out of the body.
This is called the New Life Detoxifica
tion Program. It is a rigorous program
that takes a number of weeks and is
actually the only known method to get
these residuals out of the body.
So what do you tell your child?
Trying to tell him that using drugs is
wrong often w on’t cut it. Our whole
society is practically hooked on drugs in
one form or another. Alcohol, ciga
rettes, tranquilizers-all of which ate
addictive and destroy lives. And he
knows it.
W hat would be constructive is to
share with your child that hiking drugs is
wrong simply because they are the wrong
solution to the problems they are being
used to solve. They are wrong because
they solve nothing and because they
harm and weaken the individual in the
process. Give him the above informa
tion concerning the truth about drugs.
W hat you also need to do is get the
problems your child is facing out into
the open. And then try to look at alterna
five solutions with him or her. W hat will
make him feel better without having r
resort to drugs?
Find that and you are taking a big
step toward curtailing his continued di u>
use.
For information on NARCONON's
drug prevention and education progr ams
for youth write N/XRCONON Interna
tional, 6381 Holly wood Blvd., Suite
420, Los Angeles, CA 90028 O r t all
(800)-468-6933.
Saturday,
January 10, 1993,
10:00 AM to Noon
Zoo Valentine Poetry Contest
Deadline Nears
The deadline for the seventeenth
annual Valentine Poetry contest at Metro
W ashington Park Zoo is Jan. 14,1993.
T he contest is open to pre-school
through high school-age students.
To enter the contest, students must
write a poem about an animal that lives
in a zoo. Each entry must be an original
work composed by the student and must
include the poet’s name, address, phone,
school, teacher and grade, poems may
be delivered to the zoo or m ailed to
Valentine Poetry Contest, Metro W ash
ington Park Zoo, 4001 S. W. Canyon
Rd., Portland, OR 97221. Entries must
be received by the zoo no later than Jan.
14, 1993 (postmarks are not accept
able.) W inners will be notified by mail.
W inning poems will be selected by
FEBRUARY IS
BLACK HISTORY
M ONTH
CALL 2 8 8 -0 0 3 3 o r FAX 2 8 8 -0 0 1 5 T O
ADVERTISE OR RESERVE Y O U R SPACE
a panel of judges drawn from the Oregon
State Poetry Association, W ashington
Poets A ssociation, O regon W riters
Colony and representatives from local
colleges and universities. W inners will
read their poetry during an awards pro
gram at the zoo on Friday, Feb. 12,1993
and their work will be published in the
1993 anthology o f Winning Poems. Last
year judges selected 60 winning poems
from 4,519 entries.
Valentine Poetry Contest flyers are
available at the zoo, at schools and
libraries in Portland and Vancouver
metro areas and at schools in Columbia
and Clatsop counties. For more infor
mation, write Metro W ashington Park
Z o o ,4001 S. W. Canyon Rd., Portland,
OR 97221, or call (503) 220-2454.
Mid-life and older women me in
vited to the Portland Chapter o f the
O lder W om en’s League (O \\ I lam e
meeting place: Good Samaritan Hospi
tai, 1015 NW 22nd, Conference Room
A3,3rd floor.ncxt to Cafeteria. Speaker:
Bennett I. Alberts, M.D. Topic: “Op
tions For Surgery: Do You Know Uic
Alternatives?” The meeting is open to
the public. No admission charge Fin-
parking is available in structure B on
NW Marshall between NW 21st and
N W 22N D .T ri-M et isavailableon NW
21st or NW 23rd. Call 245 4271 for
directions or information about OWI
W ill cancel for snow/ice and hold tol
lowing week on 1/17/93.
Nobody Does it Better, for Less
/-------
Ad Prices Good December 30 through Jan. 5,1 99 3 At Safeway.
SAFEWAY
Town House
Green Beans
nance?
The sem inars will be conducted
every month and attendance at the sem i
nars will be required in order to qualify
for certain loan programs. Space is
lim ited-reservations will be taken on a
first com e, first served basis. Please call
the Portland Housing Center at 282-
7744 to reserve your space today.
The Home Buying Class will run
for 4 W ednesday evenings (all 4 classes
must be attended) and will begin on:
W ednesday, January 6 thru 27.
PCC SE Center, Room C-2
2850 SE 82nd
6:30 - 8:30 pm
The Portland Housing Center is a
private, non-profit program o f Ecu
menical M inistries of Oregon, and is
supported by a unique partnership of
private and public funds.
1 6 -O u n c e , c h o o s e fro m C u t, S lic e d or F re n c h -
S ty le g re e n b e a n s . Id e a l fo r a n y m e a l or a d d to
c a s s e ro le s a n d ric e d ia h e s .
Notice
The Oregon Family Support Net
work parent support group in Portland
«m eeting the 2nd and4th Thursdays of
ach month from 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
l Holladay Park Medical Center, 1225
IE 2nd, Conference Room C, Portland
✓ ith a break occasionally for holidays,
'lease have interested families contact
heir local support group facilitator,
.inda Reilly at 774-1824 for informa-
ion.
Nobody does it b etter fo r less.
Happy New Year From
Safeway
Look In The This Week
Magazine for your Safeway
Shopping Guide for a complete
list of specials on sale this
week at Safeway!
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