Isaac Laquedem

Two faces, two places

The legislature is moving the official portrait of Governor Goldschmidt from its place of honor to a more secluded spot in the Capitol. Two things struck me as I studied the portrait in this morning's newspaper.

First is that the portrait includes three faces of Uncle Neil, and not just one. Amazingly prescient of the artist.

Second is the memory of Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange during the Crash of 1929, who earned public acclaim for defending the NYSE even as he was embezzling millions from the trust funds of others. In 1936 or so, the law caught up with Mr. Whitney, and he was sent off to prison for a few years. The particular memory it brings up is that the NYSE, which displays portraits of all its former presidents (rather like the portraits of the governors in the Capitol), has never displayed an official portrait of Mr. Whitney. The stated reason? Two portraits of him would be too many, and one portrait could not portray both of his faces.

Profit from your .iq

Sennoma at Malice Aforethought mentions that Iraq's top level internet domain (its TLD), ".iq", was deactivated before the war. Someone's mounted a petition drive to get it back for Iraq.

Our nation's leadership has said that we didn't start this war to get Iraq's oil. We ought to get something out of it, and why not the TLD? In the grand tradition, let's auction the rights to Internet addresses such as www.knowyourown.iq, www.testyour.iq, www.improveyour.iq, and so on.

Even politicians could benefit: the Bush campaign could grab www.thefrenchdontl.iq. The possibilities for the Kerry campaign are too numerous to list.

Jimmy Miller (1905-2004)

If you have wandered about Portland lately, in circles ranging from the relatively high to the quite plebean, you may have encountered an elderly man who would shake your hand and introduce himself as Jimmy Miller, a Lincoln High School graduate from the 1920s who had come home to retire.

If you were not a professional fundraiser, you might not have connected this spry leprechaun with the demure line of agate type reading "James F. Miller" that appeared in the lists of contributors published by many local charities, schools, and arts groups. It usually appeared fairly high up, for James F. Miller had started as an office clerk in a stockbrokerage and eventually became its president, amassing a reported $150 million along the way and after retirement devoting himself to giving it away wisely.

Jimmy Miller, the spry leprechaun, was also James F. Miller, the generous retired Wall Street broker, who died this month at the age of 99. Portland will miss both of them.

Slowest speeding tickets in the West

Tomorrow's Oregonian will report that Multnomah County processes ordinary traffic tickets more slowly than (probably) any other jurisdiction in the West. If you receive a speeding ticket in Multnomah County and request a trial, your trial will likely be set six to eight months out. Why is the backlog so high?

Two reasons: first is that the county courts are overburdened and underfunded (as is so much else), and traffic tickets have almost the lowest priority for trial time. Second is that last year's legislature raised the fine for speeding from the mid-$200s to the mid-$400s and took away much of the court's discretion to cut the fine. Formerly, the judge could cut the ticket in half, without a trial. Now the court can reduce the ticket by only a quarter.

[When I received my only (so far) speeding ticket, so long ago that it was a comparatively paltry $110, the state trooper helpfully told me that if I sent in the fine with a polite letter of apology and offered even the barest excuse, the court would send me back half of the fine. That's what I did, and that's what the court did. No longer.]

Because the tickets are again priced (if not valued) at more than courtside Trail Blazer seats, errant drivers have much more reason to fight them. It's another example of the law of unintended consequences at work: raising the fines hasn't deterred us from speeding; it's made us insist on trials.

Stagecoach started in Portland

I first saw the film Stagecoach many years ago, though not quite as far back as its premiere, which was in 1939. John Ford directed it. The robber is played by the young John Wayne. The absconding banker looks remarkably like Warren G. Harding, but isn't (Harding died in 1923).

To my delight I found out that Stagecoach has an Oregon connection. It's based on the story "Stage to Lordsburg" (1937) by Ernest Haycox (1899-1950), a writer who was born in Portland and wrote most of his works here.

Ernest Haycox, Jr. gives more of the story in the Fall 2003 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly, and in his biography of his father (On A Silver Desert: The Life of Ernest Haycox, also published in 2003). He notes that in 1940 Haycox built a large Georgian house in the West Hills that is now a historic landmark. It's on SW Humphrey Boulevard with a fine view to the north and east.

The neighborhood today is the home of doctors, lawyers, captains of industry, and Old Portlanders. No John Waynes live nearby, but only three lots separate it from the home of another man in the W's, who like John Wayne's character in Stagecoach has had some troubles with money and the government.

An honest day's work would be a nice change

I'm still ticked that the board of Fog Cutter Capital voted a $2 million bonus to the company's CEO, Andrew Wiederhorn, just as Mr. Wiederhorn was pleading guilty to a pair of federal felonies and preparing for a stay in the Big House.

What they did was grossly unfair to those hard-working men and women who stand by freeway interchanges. At the least they should have made him hold a coffee can and cardboard sign for a day at an off-ramp, and earn his pay.

Why City Hall should allow cigar smoking

An acquaintance told the story of being hired by Uncle Frank 20+ years ago to work in City Hall. He made the short list and was called in to be interviewed by the Mayor. He showed up at the appointed time, and was shown into a small room and told to sit down. The room had a little table with a bright light over it that made the rest of the room appear dark, rather like the police interrogation room in an Edward G. Robinson film. The room was redolent of cigar smoke and noticeably devoid of mayors.

As he slowly focused on the dark room, he saw the lit end of a cigar glowing faintly through the smoke, above a dark pinstriped suit coat. A voice came from behind the cigar and growled a few questions at him, which he answered without being able to see the face of the man who was asking. The voice then growled, "You're hired. I'll tell the mayor. Come in on Monday."

The smoke-filled room has a place in American politics. The key is to find the right people to smoke in it.

Staying home gracefully

On the good side, Governor Kulongoski chose to stay home to attend the funerals of the slain Oregon soldiers instead of going on the Japan business development trip. He mentioned this quietly and gracefully when speaking to the annual dinner of the Japan-America Society of Oregon on Thursday, before he made a presentation to the Japanese ambassador to the United States, who was the keynote speaker.

On this one, the Governor made the right decision. Japan will still be there six months from now, and thanks to the good work of his staff and the Port of Portland, Japan will welcome his visit, whenever he should be able to go.

Deniability

"Senator, your question to me was did I debate the contents of Roe v. Wade, the outcome in Roe v. Wade, do I have this day an opinion, a personal opinion on the outcome in Roe v. Wade; and my answer to you is that I do not." -- Clarence Thomas at his confirmation hearings, 1991

"But I never inhaled." -- Bill Clinton, on being asked if he had smoked marijuana, 1992

"I never heard anything about Neil and any underage girl." -- Ted Kulongoski, 2004

Winning the competition

My friend, a Captain of Industry with factories in Japan and China, invited me to lunch, and I told him I would be at his office in Central Tokyo at 11:30. His business is pulling out of the slump that's affected Japan for the past several years, and he's looking at expanding. In particular, he wants to build a third factory.

"Where at?" I asked, expecting his answer to be Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, or Vietnam.

"In the United States," he answered. "I need a factory in the United States to stay competitive."