Ancient Egypt
Benson
Rebounds
Techmen energized
by season 's success
‘City o /
Roses’
OMSI exhibit
unlocks
mysteries
See page 11
See page 2
gjaartlanh ©
w w w .p o rtla n d o b s e rv e r.c o m
Volume XXXXI, Number 4
Wednesday • January 26. 2011
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Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
A group of local and national activists are promoting a single-payer and universal healthcare system that goes beyond President Obama’s health care reforms
Beyond Obama Care
Health activists renew
push for single-payer
by C liff P fenning
T he P ortland O bserver
U.S. Rep. John Conyers
The giant task of informing and then motivating the public
to support single-payer health care is the focus of a confer­
ence scheduled for Saturday at Southwest Portland’s First
Unitarian Church. And the conference has a headliner: U.S.
Rep John Conyers of Michigan.
Conyers, who has cham pioned single-payer health
care at the national level for the past decade, will be in
Portland to help local organizers create a strategy to
combat the national discourse that denounces public
funding o f health care.
“What most people know about single-payer health care
they learn from Glen Beck, and that’s not helpful,” says
Samuel Metz, one of the conference organizers. “Single­
payer is not something you can easily get into a sound bite
or onto a bumper sticker; it’s about providing the same basic
care and putting everyone into the same risk pool.
“Our goal is to develop a common way to speak to the
continued
on page 9
Oprah Learns of Sister Born in 1963
She calls discovery
‘miracle of all miracles’
(AP) — Oprah W infrey recently learned she has a half-
sister — a M ilwaukee woman who was put up for adop­
tion by W infrey's m other nearly 50 years ago.
On "The Oprah W infrey Show" that aired M onday, a
som etim es-em otional W infrey introduced a woman she
identified only as Patricia, explaining how the wom an's
years-long search for her family culm inated in a meeting
with W infrey on Thanksgiving Day of last year.
The discovery is "the m iracle of all m iracles," W infrey
told her audience.
Talk-show host Oprah
Winfrey greets her
half-sister Patricia on
an episode of 'The
Oprah Winfrey Show.'
W in frey said she w as
stunned to learn about the
sibling, telling her audience
that when Patricia was born
continued
on page 18