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September 9, 2009
Pori lanci OL s e r v e r Auf© R e v i e w
Page A9
News and reviews on new motor vehicles
2010 Toyota Pirus III
K athleen C akk
The Toyota Prius was completely
redesigned for 2010.lit remains a four-
door hatchback that seats five people.
The car's hybrid powertrain consists
of a 1,8-liter gasoline engine that pro
duces 98 horsepower and 105 pound-
feet of torque that's used in conjunc
tion with two electric motors and a
special planetary gear set that func
tions as a continuously variable trans
mission in total the system power is
134 hp net.
The current powertrain is a little
more robust on the highway than the
previous-generation car, although not
really any quicker away from a traffic
light. It is more fuel-efficient estimated
fuel economy of 51 mpg in the city. A
hefty lead foot will drop mpg into the
high 30-mpg range, however if keep
your mind on the "Eco" driving mode
indicators, and use of the new EV
mode, which allows a mile of pure-
electric driving with a well-charged
battery pack it will help any driver
extract more than 50 mpg in city driv
ing. At full acceleration, both power
sources work together to provide the
maximum get up and go. Although
under a lighter load conditions such
by
as stop-and-go traffic, the Prius alter
nates between the two, often running
on battery power alone. This maxi
mizes the car's fuel economy poten
tial. The brakes are now discs at all
four comers, and the regeneration that
captures kinetic energy, turning it into
electricity, has been improved
Inside the cabin you find that the
stiffer body shell helps reduce noise
and vibration from the engine and
continuously variable transmission.
The new body style creates more
room for it passengers. However there
is less front knee room, side to side,
thanks to the new center console, but
the driver's seat is now height-adjust-
able. It may be a little to quiet because
it took a few moments for us to notice
that it was on, although it great when
driving because you do not feel the
change between power.
The Prius has a Touch Tracer sys
tem that mimics your finger-swipes
over steering-wheel controls over the
gauges, so you don't have to look
down to adjust radio stations or cli
m ate-control settings. Pow er w in
dows, cruise control, and an AM/FM/
XM/CD player are standard. Major
new options include a moonroof with
Vehicle Specifications: 1.8L DOHC WT-14 cylinder engine: 51 city mpg, 48 highway mpg; MSRP $27,909.
solar panels, pow ering a fan that
draws hot air out of the car without
using the Prius’ other batteries. A re
mote air conditioner is also available,
along with a navigation system, LED
headlamps, Bluetooth, and a backup
camera.
Toyota's reputation for reliability
and durability is holding true for the
Prius. Although the Toyota Prius is
quite complex, future repairs and part
replacements could be quite expen
sive. It a excellent commuter vehicle
that meets the needs saving money
and the environment.
Health Net Volunteers Pitch in to Fix Home
A b o u t a d o zen e m p lo y e e s o f
Health Net Health Plan, a local in
surance company, teamed with the
n o n -p ro fit R eb u ild in g T o g eth er
group, to help an elderly north Port
land resident, fix up his home.
The goal o f the recent day-long
com m unity service effort was to
help make Howard M inor’s home
more inhabitable.
The volunteers scraped the old
paint o ff the exterior of the house
before priming and painting it. They
tore up old and soiled carpeting, in
addition to an old retaining wall.
They cleaned out a dilapidated shed
and hauled away.
At the end o f the day, M inor and
his daughter, Shirley M inor, and
grandson, Rodney G raves, warmly
thanked the volun teers, as did a
string of neighbors who rem arked
on how well the house looked.
“O ur crew worked very hard, de
spite the hot sun and the difficulty
of the w ork,” said Bill Dwyer, a
H ealth Net business analyst who
served as a leader on the project.
This is the fourth year Health Net
has been involved with a Day of
Service campaign to improving the
inhabitability o f som eone’s home.
Rebuilding Together, a founda
tion of north Portland’s Rebuilding
Center, is dedicated to helping re
pair the homes of people experienc
ing financial hardship or disability.
Rodney Graves (left) and his
grandfather Howard Minor
(second from right) welcome
Health Net Health Plan fix it
volunteers Bill Dwyer and Maggie
Huffman to Minor's northeast
Portland home.
p iloro bv M ark W ashington /
T he P ortland O bserver
State of Hate
continued ^ ^ f r o m Front
tion Against Hate Crimes, said that
Volksfront once had such clout that
smaller hate groups and individuals
essentially shied away from doing
anything without getting its approval.
Blazak added that Krager has left the
state, hastening the group's decline.
Harsher enforcement
Oregon has also taken a harsher
tact toward hate groups. Shortly af
ter Mulugeta Seraw, and Ethiopian
student, was brutally murdered by
Portland skinheads the police set up
a hate crimes unit, while the Legisla
ture passed hate-crimes laws and vot
ers approved get-tough-on-crime bal
lot measures.
"When we turned the hea, up on
these guys and put a lot of them in
prison they said, 'this sucks,"' said
Burkeen.
Blazak said that with Volksfront in
decline, there are a few smaller and
less-organized hate groups lurking on
Portland's east side, in addition to the
Hammerskin Nation across the Colum
bia River in Vancouver, which is per
haps the best known.
“When there are smaller groups
there isn't as much communication;
there aren't as much finances; there's
city.
“How much of it is real and how
much of it is imagined? Let’s face it, a
lot of these guys go out and thump
their chest, but are they really doing
a whole lot? No, because they’re not
anxious to go to jail,” said Nielsen.
fewer things to be able to grab onto,"
explained Daniel Nielsen, assistant
special agent in charge for the Port
land Division of the Federal Bureau
of Investigations, who confirm ed
Blazak's assessment.
The advent of the Internet has made
it even more difficult to know how big
a threat an "organization" is, accord
ing to Blazak. Sometimes a forebod
ing w ebsite that appears to have
many committed members is just one
person in their mother's basement,
which Blazak said was the case in one
instance.
“That is always a problem because
those groups aren’t going to give up
their membership list,” said Heidi
Beirich, research director for the
Southern Poverty Law Center, which
tracks hate groups nationally.
Without large public events, said
Beirich, it's hard to gauge how big a
group is.
Blazak said that one person can
download and print out hateful fliers
or stickers from the Internet and litter
their neighborhood with them. Re
cently this happened in the Sellwood
neighborhood in southeast Portland
when someone got stickers from the
racist National Alliance. Last year,
someone released balloons marked
by swastikas in various parts of the
P o rtlan d e a rlie r this year. Two
Medford men pleaded guilty to burn
ing the letters "KKK" into the lawn
of a racially-mixed couple's house,
among other incidents.
Hilary Bernstein, community direc
tor for the Anti-Defamation League's
Pacific Northwest Region, said that
How much o f it is real and how much
o f it is imagined? Let's face it, a lot o f
these guys go out and thump their
chest, but are they really doing a whole
lot? bio, because they're not anxious to
SO tO j a i l
*5
•'
'
-D aniel Nielsen, assistant special agent In
charge forthe Portland Division of the
Federal Bureau of Investigations
Incidents continue
But ugly incidents continue to pro
liferate across the state, according to
reports from anti-hate groups. Earlier
this year two Troutdale teenagers
painted racial slurs and swastikas on
tombstones in a Jewish section of a
cemetery. This summer a Pendleton
man yelled an anti-Jewish epithet be
fore head butting a judge for the city's
annual wiener dog race, among other
occurrences tracked by the coalition.
Three Native American men were
beaten by men yelling racial slurs in
her organization received 12 com
plaints about hate groups in Oregon
as of June, which she said is unusu
ally high. Many involved National
Socialists the southern and central
Oregon.
The SPLC claims there are only
seven hate groups in Oregon, but only
four espouse a white supremacist ide
ology.
“It’s out there on the fringe, but it’s
just not the same” said Mary Wheat,
spokesperson for Portland Police
who previously worked as a bias
crimes detective.
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However, Wheat said that the po
lice still butt heads with European
Kindred, an infam ous hate group
founded in 1998 in Oregon’s Snake
R iver Prison, but the group has
changed.
EK is now better known for orga
nized crime than organized hate, ac
cording to people close to the issue.
“They go about business differ
ently than your Crips and Bloods,"
said Burkeen, who explained that EK
engages in low-level crimes that aren't
likely to be on the nightly news.
Hate group monitors and old news
reports make virtually no mention of
EK committing overt racist act. Instead
they detail white males selling meth,
committing ID theft, burglarizing resi
dent of Portland's east side, and intimi
dating witnesses. The SPLC doesn’t
even list it is a hate group.
Driven into Hate
Blazak said that whites who are
typically driven into hate groups fear
an erosion of their positions of privi
lege in America’s dominant culture.
The election of the first black presi
dent at the loss of industrial jobs play
into those stereotypes and ensure that
hate groups will continue to prolifer
ate, he said. It's just a question of what
shape they'll take.
A Department of Homeland Secu
rity report released last spring warned
that the election of a black president,
rumors of looming gun restrictions,
and a glut of veterans unable to read
just to civilian life could create condi
tions ripe for right wing extremism.
The report was blasted by conser
vative pundits as politically charged
before a rifle-wielding white suprema
cist opened fire in the U.S Holocaust
Memorial Museum in June killing a
black security guard.
The man was later revealed to have
a long history with hate groups, and
had been tracked by the SPLC.
No one saw it coming. Could it hap
pen it Portland?
“I'm not going to say there’s not
going to be that nut job out there,"
said Nielsen.
I