Back in the 1960s, Ralph Nader got rid of all the pointy instruments inside cars and nagged automakers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed] into adding seatbelts. (Mom sold the Corvair.). Next, cops got huffy if you had one little beer open anywhere in the car. (Dad's Saturday errands
Nah, Howard, your Starbucks [http://www.starbucks.com/] isn't a "victim" of its success, it's just feeling the downside of inevitable maturity. America's bad-boy, break-out, Maxwell-House-whuppin' coffee is – middle aged. That's the metaphor flogged in an Oregonian commentary piece [http://www.orego
When in Seattle, I peruse Real Change [http://www.realchangenews.org/]; in Portland I keep up with Street Roots [http://www.streetroots.org/about_us/index.html]. Both newspapers, of course, are by and for homeless folks, and they regularly serve up readable news not found elsewhere. The Rose City ve
Let's say you run a business and your front door opens 310,000 times a day to let customers inside. Many are regulars, going in and out a few times daily. They are mostly strangers to each other, and once inside they spend a lot of time crowded together in small spaces. At any given time, some are r
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Portlanders are dying to drop their drawers for a cause. Well, not exactly a cause. OK, not a cause at all. But perhaps a case can be made that the "No-Pants on Max" event scheduled for Jan. 12 is a big, creative international improv event. Yeah, that's it! We're no
