Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (May 25, 2011)
www . ThESkANNER . COM M Ay 25 , 2011 P ORTLAND V OLuME XXXIII, N O .29 25 CENTS C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow Asthma Rates Increase SeezninS Activists work to raise awareness of air quality issues lisa loving of The Skanner News Photo BY hElEN SIlvIS F or asthma sufferers nothing is like the panic of an attack – you can’t breathe, you can’t control your body. If the attack is really bad, you can die. The Centers for Disease Control reported this month that asthma rates are up for every demographic category they track – but it’s rising fastest among African American chil- dren, 17 percent of whom live with asthma. For activists around the country working to bring attention to the issue, the current state of environmental research and regula- tion are standing in the way. “People know what’s wrong with them – everybody has a nebulizer, everybody has asthma, they’re preaching for cancer sur- vivors in their church or in their mosques,” said the Rev. Lennox Yearwood this week. “They know they have a problem, but they aren’t connecting that sometimes with cor- porations who are not being regulated the way they should be.” Yearwood, founder of the Hip-Hop Caucus and the subject of a new documen- tary film on the Discovery Network, was in the Northwest last weekend for Seattle’s Green Festival. “It doesn’t matter what color you are, Black or white, or brown or yellow — and mainly those in urban communities, people don’t have the information or aren’t quite connecting the dots.” A 2009 report in USA Today the newspa- per drafted researchers and scientists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the University of Maryland in College Park to dig into how deeply children across the country have been exposed to industrial pol- lution at their schools. The report also named the nearby corpo- rations specifically responsible for the air pollution emissions – as a separate factor from the car exhaust generated from the Sam and Andre behind the bar at Seeznin's on 82nd Avenue Life’s Good At This Sports Bar & Grill Former SEI mentor is serving up quality food, drink, entertainment By helen Silvis of The Skanner News S am Thompson says he wants his brand new sports bar and party lounge Seeznin’s to be a friendly community space –kind of like a Portland ‘Cheers’. Families and kids are welcome until 6 pm. Playing dominoes or card games is encouraged. “I wanted it to be a place where people could come and hang out with me like it was my own home,” he says. This home sports eight tele- vision screens, a fully-stocked bar, a menu of great eats and live entertainment Thursday through Sunday. Then there’s Sam himself: your neighbor- hood youth worker, standup comedian and single guy around town turned bar owner and businessman. “Running a business is like studying for an MBA,” he says. “You’re learning about everything all the time.” To give Seeznin’s the true Portland vibe, Thompson has decorated the bar with articles, photos and basketball jerseys that showcase successful, home-grown athletes, such as: former NBA star Terrell Brandon; Terrence Jones the Jefferson High standout, who now plays for the University of Kentucky; Aaron Miles, who played for Kansas and now for the Reno Bighorns; and Michael Lee, another Jefferson High hoops star who went to Kansas, played in Europe and now coaches at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. And it’s not all basketball. Check out Ndamukong Suh, the Detroit Lions defensive tackle fea- tured in Weiden and Kennedy’s new Chrysler ad. Like Suh, Thompson graduat- ed from Grant High School. That’s why he painted his building Grant blue, an unmissable bolt of color on Northeast 82nd Avenue, just down the hill from Madison High School. After graduating from Grant, Sam went to Columbia Basin College on a basketball scholarship, then to Grossmont College in San Diego, where he took business classes. He moved to Indiana before finishing, he says, along with his good friend Fred Jones, a Sam Barlow High and University of See SEEzNINS on page 3 See ASthmA on page 3 INDEX News ...................2,3,8 Opinion ..................4,5 A & E .........................6 Books & Theater ........7 Careers ..............10,11 Bids/Classifieds ........11 Metro Council Approves New District Map Changes mostly affect representation of Maywood Park, Happy Valley L ast week, Metro Councilors approved changes to the regional government’s representation lines. According to staff, the new map, which shifted the government’s six districts to meet the population movements catalogued under the 2010 census, won’t change much in terms of daily operations. Unlike districts at the state or federal level, Metro does not allocate resources based upon population concentration within district boundaries, according to staff speak- ing on background. Some of the changes include moving the city of Happy Valley into District 2; the city of Maywood Park and other portions of East Portland were moved from District 1 to North Portland’s District 5; and the eastern boundaries of District’s 4 and 5 now follow the boundaries of the city of Beaverton. The council also sought to maintain the current “communities of interest” which include communities of 15,000 or less, as well as regional centers, town centers, school districts, neighborhood associations and organizations and other established community organizations The new districts will take effect in See mEtro on page 3
