As the State Turns

Rothko Pavilion is a Go
Last week, the Portland City Council nearly unanimously voted YES, OH SWEET LORD YES in support of the Portland Art Museum’s plan to build a new “pavilion” in an attempt to shore up their terrifyingly stupid hallway layout. If you’ve been to the museum and have tried to find your way to the other half of it, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Official City Dude Nick Fish (of the proud Northwestern Fish’s) whipped out the term “accessibility” when confronting the fact that some people in the neighborhood feel the new building would block an important passageway between the two existing museum wings. Because the only thing that can thwart an accessibility argument is another accessibility argument. I’m not even being sarcastic, though. Still, someone else threw in a quick “connectivity!” over his shoulder just in case.

To make way for the new structure, museum folks asked the city earlier this year to lift an easement requiring a passageway to be open between certain hours. This easement was in place for some pretty common-sense reasons related to street car access and some other boring stuff like that. You know, concerns for the disabled and whatnot. And hey, the museum plans to allow walk-throughs during business hours. So as long as you restrict your disability to a certain time of day, you should be good.

At a city meeting held on the topic, a number of people showed up to protest the obstruction of the path, arguing that any construction should have an external walkway. That sounds all well and good, but you can’t reasonably expect museum patrons to have to exit one door and go in another, can you? That, and where the hell would the new gift shop go?

GOOD NEWS!
According to 2016 data from super official medical examiner’s offices, 80 homeless folks died in Multnomah County alone. What, that’s bad news? Well, it isn’t as bad as the 88 that died in 2015’s report. So, take that. Happy holidays.

Earthquake Heard ‘Round the Mollala
Last Wednesday an earthquake jiggled the area around Mollala, but didn’t cause any damage.  The 4.0 magnitude quake actually occurred in Scotts Mills (no apostrophe…), but the people who live there have barely even heard of the place, so let’s just stick with Mollala, whose name you only remember because it is fun to say. MOLLALLALALLALA. Okay, moving on. You did get the joke though, right? That these places are small, so nobody has heard of them? Because I can do it again.

According to KING 5 news out of Seattle, “[t]he Molalla area also had a 1.9 quake on Nov. 28 at about 3:40 a.m.; a 1.7 quake on Nov. 22 at about 3:15 p.m.; a 2.4 on Oct. 29 at about 12:05 p.m,; a 1.4 on Sept. 11 at about 7:40 a.m.; and a 1.9 on Sept. 6 at about 1:36 p.m.” So, in other words, who gives a rat’s as*? It happens all the time.

Well, I’ll tell you who give rat’s as*! People who are all like, “dude, these early warning seismic warning systems are working, because they told us ahead of time.”

And yeah, this story is boring. I’d apologize, but eh. I don’t like you enough to bother with that sort of thing.

However, I Do Like You Enough to Share This…
Christian Robert Berge. The man, the legend. The Portland policeman who banged a woman he met on a noise complaint call. I can’t really find the words here, so please accept my humblest #LOL.

Apparently, his time in court lasted only a few minutes, which has been met with some suspicion as this was the third time in the last few years that an officer showed up in that particular court for a speedy trial. I’m guessing we’ll be hearing more about that in the future, but until then, a highly accurate court transcript for your reading pleasure:

“Yes sir, I did it. Thanks for the 120 hours of community service. Also, here’s my badge. PEACE.”

As reported by Oregonlive, Multnomah County Chief Deputy District ::stops to breath:: Attorney Don Rees commented, “When he was supposed to be serving and protecting, he was fornicating.’’ Again, no words. Already used my one LOL hashtag for the day, so I’ve got nothing.

Now, this dude’s amazing hair aside (you really do have to see it…), I don’t feel too bad for him. Or at all. The woman involved says she was coerced, and Berge had already been in hot water for some flagrantly racist bullsh*t dating back to 2015.

The only thing better than a turd going down for a funny crime is a power-abusing turd going down for a funny crime.

By Johnny Beaver

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