Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 24, 2004)
50¿ Happy Thanksgiving ft (Ohserin'r ‘City of Roses’ Established in 1970 Volume XXXIV • Number 46 Committed to Cultural Diversity www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • November 24. 2004 ..-.Weekin TheReview Clinton Library Includes Scandals Erika E. and her daughter Jenna, 13, work on their relationship after many missteps while living at Shepherd 's Door, a Portland Rescue Mission facility for homeless women and children. Bill Clinton’s presidential library covers W hitewater and Monica Lewinsky in a single display that portrays the White House scan dals as a “fight forpow er” and an exercise in the “politics of perse cution.” GOPto Repeal Food Labeling Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in com petition with imports that C on gress two years ago ordered the food industry to do it. But meatpackers and food proces sors fought the law from the start, and newly em boldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before Thanksgiving. PHOTOSBY M ichael R i bens ' iein / T he P orti a n d O bserver Dan Rather to Step Down Homeless for the Holidays Dan Rather said he wi 11 step down from CBS with his last broadcast as anchor on March 9, the 24th anniversary o f when he assumed the p o s itio n fro m W a lte r | Cronkite. Causes varied as homeless themselves Phil Knight Resigns by J aymee R. C u n T he P ortland O bserver O regon’s Phil Knight stepped down as president and chief ex ecutive o f Nike Inc., the athletic shoe and clothing com pany he co-founded and built into one of the w orld’s best-known brands, The 66-year-old will remain chair man o f the com pany’s board of directors. William D. Perez, head of S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., mak ers o f G lade air fresheners and Drano drain cleaner, will suc ceed Knight as president. U Politically Incorrect Web Q uestions which may be too] politically incorrect to be uttered out loud, have found a place am id the ano n y m ity o f the I Internet at w w w .yfom m .com . The National Forum on People’s | D ifferences says the site can help bridge the gaps that divide people by race, religion and back-1 ground. Health Care and Civil Rights j Those rallying to keep open the doors o f a hospital trauma unit serving a poor, violence-plagued neighborhood o f Los Angeles have hit upon a more potent | nder bridges and secluded over passes, the elaborate and sometimes orderly camps set up by the hom e less can seen by anyone peering closely. They are outdoor "apartm ents,” some or ganized with a sleeping area, a couch for com pany and makeshift kitchen supplies. Approximately 3,000 homeless people live in Portland. They are scattered among those of us with jobs, heat and a roof to come home to. Many more are roughly two paychecks away from living in cars, perhaps wearing out a welcome after couch-surfing from family member to family member, friend to friend. The homeless scene has changed in Port wage that didn’t keep up with the cost of land and nationally, largely because o f a shift living, and skyrocketing rents.” in wealth that widened a gap between the rich A study by Crossroads, a com munity and poor, according experts in the homeless organizing project o f Sisters o f the Road, is care field. being conducted to identify and implement “In 1972,2,000people, mosdy men, lived in long-terms solutions to problems faced by the Old Tow n/Chinatow n neighborhood. the homeless. They were veterans, elderly pensioners, and Based on 6(X) interviews with formerly or itinerant or casual laborers, among others,” currently homeless people, the data pieced said Orion Gray, development director for together a picture o f who is on the street. Sisters o f the Road Café, which serves the Data gathered in April in Portland re homeless in a work-for-food arrangement. vealed that women make up 27.1 percent of “In the 1980s, skid row com munities in Port the homeless, men com pose the majority at land and across the country saw thousands 69.3 percent and 3.6 percent are transgender. o f men, women and chi Idren flood into them, African Americans make up 10.1 percent partly the result o f Reganomics, a minimum of the homeless, Caucasians are the majority argument than mere dollars and cents. They are using race. Op- i HODe ponents o f county plans to cut services at the troubled Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical | Center have invoked the lan guage o f the civil rights m ove ment. H AIKICA is Vital AHIS RJSPIINSE P‘ T i l ,i i i i j - \ |i i ! ,n > > i4 » T ( itv \ - - i h iittio n by J aymee R. C u n T he P ortland O bserver c o <u © © © World AIDS Day is a time forremembrance o f those lost to the infectious disease. For others, the W ednesday, Dec. I observance is a time to recommit to the cause o f wiping AIDS off the planet. It s a chance to do that not ju st in one town or one city or one state or one country but it s a time to do that as a global com m u nity, said Thomas Bruner, executive direc tor of Cascade AIDS Project. World AIDS Day is call to action The devastation from AIDS both locally and in Africa is the focus o f several Portland events. A “Hope is Vital” benefit On World AIDS Day will support grassroots AIDS efforts in Mutare. Zimbabwe, Portland’s sister city. Performances by internationally known perform er Maya Soleil and Portland favorite MarchFourth, along with an art action will make for a memorable event beginning at continued yf on page B3 The homeless wait for a hot meal outside o f Union Gospel Mission in Portland's Old Town district. at 64.4 percent and Latinos reportedly make lack o f social awareness, crim inal records, up 2.8 percent. Biracial or other races ac lack o f low cost housing, general and struc count for 18.7 percent o f the homeless and tural unemployment, physical disability, and 1 percent are Asian American or Pacific mental health issues. Islander. Chronic hom elessness, categorized by But statistics don’t begin to address the many years on the street, heavy drug or root causes that account for so many sleep alcohol addiction and a dual diagnosis o f ing in doorways, rural Portland outskirts, mental illness, is often viewed as less sym pa shelters and public parks. thetic than a the situation o f a homeless Crossroads’ preliminary research iden woman whose family was shaken by dom es tified nine strongly reoccurring themes on tic violence, landing her and her children in a the causes o f homelessness, according to shelter. But every case com poses the spec Gray, who was formerly a community orga trum o f junkies and mothers, recovering alco nizer and interviewer for the Crossroads holics and religious folks, the mentally ill and research project. Those causes are: trauma, continued y f on page A6 disintegration o f family, substance abuse, Epidemic Grows More Diverse aymef R. . R. C C utí un B B y y J J aymee T he P ortland O bserver Since AIDS surfaced and was identi fied, its dem ographics have grown and changed. Worldwide, 38 million people are esti mated to be living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with 65 percent o f the world’s cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 15 million children have been orphaned because of AIDS and an estimated 2.5 mil lion children are HIV-positive. In the United States, AIDS is the lead ing killer of African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44 and 50 percent o f new HIV infections in the U.S. occur in African Americans. A frican-A m erican w omen com prise 72 percent o f new HIV cases among all women, nationally. Through 2002, 5,357 cases o f AIDS have been diagnosed in Oregon, with 2,997 deaths to AIDS in the state. O f those served at C ascade AID S Project, the largest volume provider o f HIV and AIDS services in Oregon, 40 percent arc heterosexual, 28 percent are nennlp o í o m f color, in r i s 15 msmont «. 4 people percent arc women and percent are youth. “The disease has gotten much more di verse,” Bruner said. “If you have looked at dem ographics o f people served by Cascade AIDS Project 15 years ago, none o f them would have been youth. Virtually none of them would have been women. M aybe a handful, literally, would have been hetero sexual and a handfu I wou Id have been people o f color.” To Bruner, there’s a message in the numbers. “W hat w e’ve been saying for decades has been true all along: H IV /A ID S is everybody’s issue. Denial is a very strong human defense mechanism and it takes a long tim e for people to wake up and realize that th at’s true,” said Bruner. W hile he says that the world has more people living with AIDS and HIV than ever, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. People are living longer with AIDS than ever before and that explains the increase in numbers. According to Bruner, AIDS may continued yf on page BJ