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See coverage inside
‘City of Roses’
Volume XXXVIII. N um ber 13
lhc Review
www.oortlandohserve
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Wednesday • March 26. 2008
Rock Star Treatmentfor Obama
Dozono Stays in Race
Oregon visit
earns coveted
endorsement
H
by R aymond R endleman
T he P ortland O bserver
If Barack Obama’s first visit to
Portland as presidential front-run
ner was a hearty reception, his lat
est at Memorial Coliseum became
fit for a rock star.
Obama followed his landmark
speech on ending racial inequities
Recession Hits Consumers
Levees Strained
Emergency management officials
began evacuating communities
along the White River in east-
central Arkansas on Tuesday be
cause a rural levee showed signs
of weakening amid the region’s
prolonged flooding.
-1
Food Prices Skyrocket
M ark in g a
grim m ile
stone, a deter
mined Presi
dent Bush de
clared M on
day the lives
o f 4.000 U.S. m ilitary men and
women who have died in Iraq
“were not lost in vain.” The
W hite House signaled anew that
additional troops w on’t be pulled
out soon.
Missile Parts Misplaced
nation’s only Hispanic, governor.
“We cannot wait to fix our
schools, to fix our healthcare sys
tem, to end the war in Iraq,” Obama
said to thunderous applause.
The excitement had been build
ing since his campaign announced
the visit hours following his Phila
delphia speech, as evidenced by
tickets selling out for the 12,000-
seat coliseum the following day
and by people lining up outside
before dawn.
Electricity in the arena before
Obama’s entrance could be found
emanating from devoted fans as
We cannot wait to fix
our schools, to fix our
healthcare system, to end
the war in Iraq.
Consumer confidence sank to a
five-year low in March as tight
credit markets, falling housing
values, rising prices and worsen
ing job prospects deepened wor
ries that the economy has fallen
into recession.
Bush: ‘Not Lost in Vain’
VOTE
Established in 1970
Travel-agency owner Sho Dozono
plans to stay in the race for Port-
land m ayor
despite los
ing his pub
lic financing
to a judge’s
ruling that he
wrongly ac
c e p te d
a
$27,295 cam
paign contribution from a lobby
ist hoping to entice him into the
race. “I don’t think of quitting as
an option,” he said.
From subsistence farmers in Ec
uador to French gourmets, con
sumers worldwide face rising food
prices in what analysts call a per
fect storm of freak weather, dra
m atic ch anges in the global
economy, higher oil prices, lower
food reserves, and growing de
mand in China and India.
Last Day to Register:
April 29
www.oregonvotes.org
1-866-ORE- VOTES
photo by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver
Barack Obama earned the endorsement of Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, at
a rally o f more than 12,000 in Portland's Memorial Coliseum on Friday.
last week with another crowd-pleas
ing testimony.
Confronting criticism s from
within, Obama’s address on that
Tuesday in Philadelphia parallels
Martin Luther King’s “Letter from
Birmingham Jail.” Friday's rally here
was Obama’s “March on Wash
ington," delivering an inventory of
demands for U.S. politics that at
tracted an endorsement from the
Party Faithful Pledge Support
-B arack Obama
much as from the 360-degree speak
ers bumping R&B.
“Obama inspired me to come out
and vote,” says Octavius Miller, a
40-something from St. Helens who
has registered for the first time in
his life. "It’s now possible to have
one America, not just a white
America, Asian America and Afri-
continued
on page A8
at party convention
The allure of Obama, who could soon stood behind Obama’s vision “As an African-American woman,
by R aymond R endleman
become the first black president, to end politics as usual. After meet I see clearly how we must have a
T he P ortland O bserver
In the tight race between Sen. has captured the allegiance of a ing with her union this month, she voice in this.”
Last becoming a delegate as part
Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack longtime political organizer in Port concluded that it’s her duty to par
Obama, two local activists areclam- land Shirley Minor. She said the ticipate in every way possible dur of Jesse Jackson’s run in 1988,
former state senator Bob Boyer of
ing the crucial times ahead.
oring for an invitation to this year’s decision wasn’t made lightly.
“I want to make sure that people Portland sees a renewedexcitement
Minor recognized the value of
Democratic Party Convention this
Clinton sharing her gender, but like me are represented,” she says. in the presidential contest.
summer in Denver.
He too is supporting Obama
who he says embodies the rejec
tion of divisions in politics.
Like many black Americans,
B oyer’s family began turning
Democratic as the Roosevelt ad-
continued
on page A8
Preserving Local Homes, Neighborhoods
Residents vow to
save what little is left
The U.S. mistakenly shipped to
Taiwan four electrical fuses de
signed for use on intercontinental
ballistic missiles, but has since
recovered them. The error is par
ticularly disturbing. Pentagon of
by R \ y mond R endleman
ficials said, because of the sensi- I
T he P ortland O bserver
tivity of arms sales to Taiwan. \
Perhaps everyone wonders how
which China regularly denounces
residences end up squeezed be
as provocative.
tween factories or get left jutting
out of a neighborhood into fields of
parking.
The short answer is not by acci-
Grannies Arrested
Portland’s Seriously Pissed-off ;
Grannies were back at Northeast
Broadway's Military Recruiting
Center last week, after having taken
several months off from their Fri- i
day protests. Police arrested sev
eral for putting red handprints on
the center's windows to symbol- I
ize the blood of those who have
died in the war.
photos by
R ay mono R endit m an /T iie P orti . and O bse ry lr
Pauline Bradford, a retired Peninsula School teacher, keeps a close watch on developments near
her home in the Albina neighborhood.
Neighborhood historian Roy Roos, who has released a volume
on Irvington, prepares photographs for his "History o f Albina," a
research book he expects to publish in about two months.
dent. The historically African- line with acardealership, wouldn't day for her about a decade ago, she
American Albina district of inner sell out for an entire barge-load of remembers getting hack from a va
cation to find several more houses
north and northeast Portland has a newly minted SUVs.
Even as almost everything she ra/cd. Vehicle-based commerce and
particularly large number of such
loner houses, and each one had its knew from mid-century Albina fell light industrial dominate this tract
own astonishing way of surviving down around her. even as develop that has been largely abandoned to
ers year after year offered her I arger the roars of the freeway and nearby
decades of urban renewal.
E ig h ty -y e a r-o ld
P au lin e sums for her property, Bradford coliseums.
Bradford, whose house overlooks held on and encouraged others to
continued
on page A J
Interstate 5 and shares a property do the same. On a particularly sad