500
Special
Coverage
_
®lll'
Issue
Black
Month
Iraq Troop Removal Set
Stocks Up on Remarks
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke gave Wall Street a
double dose of reassurance
Tuesday saying the recession
might end this year, and that
regulators aren't planning to
nationalize banks. The news
lifted the stock markets off their
lowest levels since 1997.
7 0
Established ir»
in IQ
1970
Barkley to Serve Jail Time
North Korea Plans Launch
North Korea declared Tues­
day it is making "brisk head­
way" in plans
to send a sat­
ellite into or­
bit as part of
its
space
p ro g ram , a
launch regional powers fear is
a cover up for testing a long-
range ballistic missile capable
of striking Alaska and the west­
ern United States.
Huge Ship In Portland
The largest ship of its kind in
the world made its first stop in
America on Monday and the
port of call was Portland. The
Morning Lisa, a massive sea­
going car transporter that is
about nine stories tall and
longer than twofootball fields.
It can haul more than 8,(XX) cars
at one time.
°s
^community service
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • Februaiy 25. 2009
Tax Time
H e lp
Avoiding the pitfalls
J ake T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
by
■
Former NBA great Charles
Barkley was sentenced on
Monday to lOdays in jail after
pleading guilty to driving drunk
in Scottsdale, Ariz., last New
Year's Eve. He will have five
days susp en d ed upon his
com pletion o f a co u rt-ap ­
proved alcohol program, traf­
fic school and a $2,(XX) fine.
tananai r \ r » r i I Q n / 4 r \ k r a r - i z n r s'z-tm
Committed to Cultural Diversity'
Americans are finding themselves in the midst of
one their least favorite times of the year: tax sea­
son.
Although paying your share for the upkeep of
state and national government is full of pitfalls, it
doesn't have to be a taxing experience. There are
plenty of ways to get free help filing your taxes.
Locke to Run Commerce
And if you play it right, you could come out with
President Obama intends to
some extra cash after filing your return by April 17.
n o m in a te
If you do decide to go the route of using a com­
form er W ash­
mercial tax preparer to get your taxes in, one thing
in g to n G ov.
to look out for is the offer of a Refund Anticipation
GaiyLocketobe
Loan, which is a loan given by the preparer for the
commerce sec­
amount of the refund with interest.
re ta ry
on
Consumer advocacy groups have reported that
W ednesday in
the Locke,
refund loans have been used to prey on people
his third try to fill thejob.
a D em o crat, b ecam
e the their return in a hurry. People seeking a
needing
nation's first Chinese-Ameri­
quick refund are lured in with the offer of a loan
can governor when and
he then
took watch it evaporate as they are charged up
office in 1997 and served two
to 500 percent in interest.
terms.
Aimee Olin, the director of the Oregon branch of
Vancouver Sex Offender
the Association of Community Organizers for Re­
Admits to Killing Girl
form Now, said that getting a RAL might be a good
A transient sex offender admit­
option for some taxpayers, but stresses that they
ted to police that he beat a 13-
should always read the fine print of the loan agree­
year-old Hazel Dell girl todeath
ment and should shop around for a good interest
after attempting to rape her and
rate.
then moved her body after­
Olin hasn't received any recent reports of com­
wards to "an area where she
m ercial tax preparers using RAL's to put the
would be found," according to
squeeze on desperate people in the area, but she
a court document.
said it's possible.
Mardl Gras Shooting
"The risk is definitely out there,* she said.
A Mardi Gras parade erupted
into chaos on Fat Tuesday in
New Orleans when a series of
gunshots nearby struck six
people, incl uding an infant. The
infant was not seriously in­
jured and two suspects were in
custody, police said.
HU
See story, page A5
Pcf o h i
VolumeXXXVIV. Number«
President Barack Obama plans
to remove all U.S. combat
troops from Iraq by August
2010, administration officials
said Tuesday, ending the war
that defined his presidential
campaign three months later
than he had promised. See
story, page A6.
f 'he Left Bank is a new development, but
fo r many it will always be remembered
as the Dude Ranch, a black nightclub
<ind l
‘City of Roses’
Week ¡n
The Review
Neighborhood Reincarnation
Tressa Graham is all smiles after getting her 2008 tax forms completed with the help of Jeff
Malmquist, one o f the volunteers offering free tax help for those who qualify through a coalition
sponsored by CASH Oregon, KeyBank, AARP and the United Way.
Free Tax Help
ACORN Oregon
503-771-0396
E-mail: oracom@acom.org
CASH Oregon
503-243-7765
AARP tax preparation
website locator:
aarp.org/money/taxable
Flu Hits Hard
Outbreak reaches
epidemic level
Influenza has arrived in full
force in Oregon and state health
officials are urging anyone who
wants to avoid the illness to get
vaccinated.
Oregon medical laboratories
have reported marked increases
over the last few weeks in the
num ber of positive flu speci­
mens they’ve identified.
M ed ical o ffic e s aro u n d the
state that routinely report the level
of influenza activity in their prac­
tices first reported epidem ic lev­
els of flu transmission during the
last week of January. The num ­
bers have been rising steadily in
the last three weeks.
“Given that in three of the last
four years influenza activity has
peaked in either the last week in
F eb ru ary or the firs t w eek in
If you don't want to shell out money for a com­
mercial preparer, it may be tempting to do it your­
self. However, you might be missing out on some
tax credits that could give your refund a significant
boost.
There are a number of tax credits millions of eli­
gible people overlook each year. According to infor­
mation provided by the 1RS, these are some of the
more common:
The Earned Income Tax Credit is the big one. It's
continued
March in Oregon, I would not be
surprised to see the numbers con­
tinue to climb over the next few
weeks,” said Dr. Ann Thomas, a
public health physician with the
O regon D epartm ent of Human
Services Public Health Division
who oversees influenza activity
for the state.
Nationally, the Centers for Dis­
ease Control and Prevention re­
port a good match between the
circulating strains of influenza A
and the two strains contained in
this year’s vaccine.
While the strain of influenza B
in this y e a r’s vaccine does not
on page A5
match as well, that strain ac­
counts for only 20 percent of
influenza cases nationally and
in Oregon, health officials said.
T he in flu e n z a v a c cin e is
known to provide some cross­
protection against strains not
contained in the vaccine, often
reducing the severity of illness.
With the flu season is heating
up, Thomas urges people who
haven’t gotten flu shots to do so.
It takes about two weeks for
the vaccine to become effec­
tive.
About 450 O regonians die
from the flu each year.
Entrepreneur Lives Dream with Clyde’s
Popular night
spot had racist past
by L ee P erlman
T he P ortland O bserver
Today Clyde’s Prime Rib at 5474
N.E. Sandy Blvd. is, among other
things, one of the city’s premier live
jazz venues. When Clyde Jenkins
bought the building in 2004 it was a
venerable purveyor of prime rib and
other fine dining. Prior to that, it was
the Coon Chicken Inn.
The third of a chain of restaurants
that started in Salt Lake City and
Seattle, Portland’s Coon Chicken
Inn opened in 1931. Each of the res­
taurants were known for their giant
murals of a black face at the en­
trance of the establishments in what
is now considered one of the most
insulting of all anti-black carica­
tures.
Lester Maxon Graham and his
continued
on page A2
photo by M ark W ashington /T hf Pomi xnd O bsf . rvkr
Portland native Clyde Jenkins is living his dream as the owner and operator of Clyde s Prime Rib at 54 74 N.E.
Sandy Blvd.. a popular venue for dining and live jazz, but also a building with an infamous past when the worst
racial stereotypes were accepted as normal.
t
«