August 29. 2 00 7
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f|Jo rtla n ò ODbserue
Concert to Benefit Cancer Patients
Sunday at Pioneer
Courthouse Square
by R aymond R endleman
T he P ortland O bserver
A benefit concert this holiday weekend
will be welcoming to all kinds of people
whether or not they are religiously inclined.
Organizers hope to pack PioneerCourt-
house Square this Sunday starting at noon
with the lure of a beer garden serenaded by
the Light Ministries gospel group, Sons of
Thunder, Linda Hornbuckle, the Misty
Manias, III Fated Hero, Riny Horst, Gen
eration United, Jim Sharecropper, Tom
Grant and Shelly Rudolph.
With donations going to a radiation
department that just opened this summer
at OHSU, Light Ministries Pastor Dwight
Minnieweather anticipates no sense of
"holier than thou” posturing.
"We don’t want people to think that
we’re better than them," Minnieweather
says. "W e’re serving God, but w e're serv
ing everyone by showing the concern we
have as a church entity to get involved
with social issues.”
C e le stia l
in sp ira tio n
alerted
Minnieweather of his special connection
to the cause.
“In January I just woke up one morning,
and this unction of the Lord told me to call
OHSU," he says.
PHOTO BY R AYMOND RENDI.EM AN/T h E PORTLAND OBSERVER
Bishop H. L. Streeter (from left) Light Ministries Pastor Dwight Minnieweather and singer Leonard Latin prepare for
Sunday's benefit concert at Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Promising to help the hospital's new
radiation department, he found out a few
months later that his 27-year-old daughter
had cancer.
A miraculous occurrence such as this
didn’t surprise Charles Thomas, the chair
man of the department.
"We have a lot of fancy technology and
a very nice place to treat patients." Tho
mas wrote in a letter to Minnieweather.
"However, I as well as the rest of the staff
are simply instruments of the Lord. He
works through
ustodohis will,
so that we can
carry out the
best treatments
possible.”
The urge to
help fund can
cer treatm ent
came naturally
fo r
H.L.
Streeter, bishop
of the St. James
TrueVineChurch. When Minnieweather’s
father died a little over a year ago, Streeter
says, "God sent Minnieweather to work
with me, and we work together as father
and son.”
"This is going to be much bigger than
what can fit into the church, so that’s why
we’re going to have it downtown," Streeter
says. "W e’re inviting everyone who wants
to participate.”
Neighborhood Coalition Returns to its Roots
continued
.from Front
that his agenda is heavily w eighted to
ward neighborhood associations.
“We need to grow and strengthen
neighborhood associations, and work
on their issues,” Santos-Lyons told the
Portland Observer. "W e exist because
neighborhood associations exist. W ith
out them, we would be nothing.”
However, he added, there are other
groups that NECN needs to reach out
to, listing businesses and business as
s o c ia tio n s ; the b la c k c o m m u n ity ,
churches; and schools and colleges.
"The organization needs to carefully
evaluate its goals with regard to all
these groups,” he said.
W ith regard to the rider advocates
and youth gang program s he says, "We
need to evaluate what our position is
with regard to these programs. W e’re
not trying to shop them around, and we
certainly would never just abandon
them, but if another agency wanted to
adopt them, we would give it serious
consideration. We have had a greater
social service component than any other
neighborhood office. We have been an
in c u b a to r to these pro g ram s; that
doesn't mean we have to keep them here
forever.”
Critics charge that the city’s neighbor
hood associations attract a small segment
of their communities, with a bias toward
the middle class and against renters and
people of color.
“ I’ve heard those criticism s," Santos-
Lyons says, “but we need more infor
mation from the com m unity, both from
those criticizing and those in leadership
positions in neighborhood a sso c ia
tions, as to what the disparity is and
what can be done about it. NECN needs
to create a vision o f diversity and inclu
siveness, and it has to work hard to
create that vision. Neighborhoods need
to create a vision o f what they want.
There isn’t an easy answer, and in fact
there is a different answer for each neigh
borhood.”
And what are his views on gentrification
Community Mobilizes Against War
continued
from Front
Other historical concerns of O r
egon Action, such as racial profil
ing, overlap their interest in the
w ar’s effect on the local commu
nity.
“Ourexperience has been young
people don’t fare well with interact
ing with the police," Bowman said.
"We will cover how to keep your
self safe during civil disobedience.”
She emphasized the points of
first operating within the law and
second keeping yourself safe in the
face of possible police intimida
tion.
"We have to question our gov
ernment. It doesn't necessarily al
ways make the right decisions,”
Bowman said.
The perceived abuse of commu-
nitiesof color and low income com
munities by the military are also a
driving factor behind the teach-in.
The percentages o f African
Americans involved in the military
have fallen since the Vietnam War.
Bowman attributes that to people
of color's skepticism toward the
military' in keeping with all that they
promise.
“I am finding that with young
Latino kids, especially kids whose
parents aren’t citizens, they are
being totally lied to. They are being
told that if they sign up and fight
this war their whole family will be
come citizens. Those kids are being
lied to,” Bowman said.
Oregon Action has approached
State Rep. Chip Shields about an
equal representation bill, mandat
ing that anytime the military at
tem pts recruitm ent on school
grounds they are accompanied by
military veterans in hopes that the
youth get the whole story.
Bowman, with her wealth of po
litical experience, said she is still
pleasantly surprised by the effect a
community that cares and talks with
each other can have on the world
around it.
Advertise
with diversity
in
and the economic transformation of local
communities?
“From my perspective, there absolutely
are
som e
good
things
about
gentrification,” Santos-Lyons says. "Pub
lic safety and quality schools are things all
people want. There are bad things, such as
displacement, that we need to identify.
Who is benefiting from changes, and who
has the power to make changes?"
As for himself, Santos-Lyons says
he is both a leader of and servant to the
community.
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A tto rn e y G e n e ra l
continued
from Front
general have been better than my
father's best days,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales, whom Bush once con
sidered for appointment to the Su
preme Court, is the fourth top-rank
ing administration official to leave
since November 2(X)6, following
D efense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, who had
a high-ranking Pentagon job be
fore going to the World Bank as its
president, and top political and
policy adviser Karl Rove.
Senate Judiciary C om m ittee
Chairman Patrick Leahy. D-Vt., re
acted to the announcement by say
ing the Justice Department under
Gonzales had "suffered a severe
crisis of leadership that allowed our
justice system to be corrupted by
political influence."
As attorney general and ear
lier as W hite House counsel,
G onzales pushed for expanded
presidential powers, including the
e a v e sd ro p p in g a u th o rity . He
drafted controversial rules for
m ilitary w artribunals and sought
to limit the legal rights of detain
e e s at G u a n ta n a m o Bay —
prompting lawsuits by civil liber-
tarians who said the government
was violating the Constitution in
its pursuit o f terrorists.
"Alberto Gonzales was never the
right man for this job. He lacked
independence, he lacked judgment,
and he lacked the spine to say no to
Karl Rove," said Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid. D-Nev.
In a warning to the White House,
Reid suggested that investigations
into the Justice Department will not
end until Congress gets "to the
bottom of this mess."
One matter still under investiga
tion is the 2006 dismissal of several
federal prosecutors, who serve at
the president's pleasure. Lawmak
ers said the action appeared to be
politically motivated, and some of
the fired U.S. attorneys said they
felt pressured to investigate Demo
crats before elections.
Gonzales maintained that the
dismissals were based the pros
ecutors' lackluster performance
records.
In April, Gonzales answered "I
don't know" and "I can't recall"
scores of times while questioned
by Congress about the firings. Even
some Republicans said his testi
mony was evasive.
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