Dropped But Not Forgotten
A while back I mentioned David Picray, a local man who made the paper in May for removing private signage(realty signs, etc.) placed in the parking median(area between sidewalk and street).  Enforcement of this local statute is considered by the city to be the responsibility of law enforcement officers, and in mid-May was arrested for petty theft and tampering with property.  I've heard no more on this, but am interested.  I was hoping to talk to the gentleman, couldn't find a phone number, so I did an on-line search.  I find I kind of admire this guy.
Since then, he was arrested on May 27 for reckless driving and reckless endangerment after, as he says, he had been using a camera to document aggressive and dangerous drivers.  On June 10, several Benton County deputies broke open the door to his residence when serving a warrent, restrained him, and removed photographs, cameras, recording equipment, and other electronic devices as evidence in the case.  The charges were recently dropped.  I don't know what he has to do to get his possessions back.
In 1992, Picray received a trespassing charge for attempting to enter a polling place wearing campaign buttons, was held for five hours(until polls closed?), released, and later acquitted of the tresspassing charge.  Oregon election law provides that "[n]o person, within a polling place, shall wear a political badge, button, or other insignia." O.R.S. § 260.695(4).  Did you know, the library is a polling place when the ballot boxes are there?
He was also one of the many arrested for DUI by now resigned Corvallis Police Officer David Cox.  With no drugs or alcohol in his system, he also moved to bring suit against the city.  The charges also went away, but he still has a DUI arrest on his driving record and is responsible for having it removed.  These are only a few of his escapades.  He seems to have a habit of tweaking the nose of authority, and I would really like to know if there is an overall issue or complaint he is trying to address.  Good luck, Mr. Picray, be safe.
. -tcj

The League of Conservation Voters and CREDO Action are teaming up to help protect our planet from dangerous coal ash.

Coal-fired power plants are producing more than 130 million tons of coal ash every year. That’s enough waste annually to fill train cars from the North Pole to the South Pole!

And you know what is even more alarming? Coal ash contains toxins like arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury. And there are next to no federal regulations on it.

Right now, the EPA is considering options that could either reel in Dirty Coal’s assault on the environment or maintain the status quo. Will you let them know which option you support?Coal ash is loosely regulated on a state-by-state basis. In some states, it’s less regulated than household waste. All too often, coal ash gets dumped into waste ponds and even our landfills– and from there it leaks into our drinking water and fragile ecosystems. The EPA is currently reviewing two options for the regulation of coal ash:

* Option One: Set federally enforceable standards for coal ash disposal. The EPA would set storage and handling safeguards and strict pollution prevention and monitoring requirements for coal ash disposal sites. And companies wouldn’t be allowed to operate a plant if they couldn’t prove they could pay for the consequences of a disaster.

* Option Two: No federal enforcement. The EPA would give non-binding “suggestions” instead of enforceable standards - and would maintain today’s unsustainable status quo where the states with the greatest amount of coal ash have the weakest regulations. Unsurprisingly, Dirty Coal and the powerful energy lobby are giving their full-throated support to this weaker option.
With your help, we can ensure that the EPA strengthens coal ash regulations and protects the environment from the perils of failed coal ash handling.

Thank you for all that you do for the environment.

Sincerely,
Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters

 At least nine shootings in a three-day stretch last week left Portland police struggling to deal with the aftermath of a sudden flare-up in gang violence.

The outbreak went citywide, with shootings in traditional gang enclaves in North and inner Northeast Portland as well as areas in outer Southeast—sometimes called “the Numbers”—where black residents have been pushed post-gentrification. Nobody was killed, but three men were seriously injured.

Cops say the violence has tapped nearly all their resources, including the gang team, the Hotspot Enforcement Action Team, traffic cops and regular patrols. That effort may have calmed the outbreak—the last reported gang shooting was Aug. 21—but still there’s a sense violence could erupt again.

“We have not been able to get our arms around this issue ,” said North Precinct Commander Jim Ferraris at an Aug. 20 meeting of the city’s Gang Violence Task Force.

Police aren’t the only people frustrated.

“My grandkids should be able to play in that yard without fear of getting shot,” says Jeanette Davis, sitting on her porch at the corner of Northeast 17th Avenue and Killingsworth Street. The Bloods who claim the neighborhood openly sell drugs and harass residents, neighbors say. Last week bullets sprayed a building one block away from Davis’ house.

While investigators continue to piece together evidence in the shootings, here are three ways the violence is playing out, both on and off the streets. Investigators believe the three-day shooting spree may have started because of a funeral for a member of the Rollin 60s, a Crips-affiliated gang.

On Aug. 7, 39-year-old Tyrone Mullen was shot to death by 29-year-old Isaac Pankey while Mullen was allegedly trying to rob Pankey at his home on Southeast 154th Avenue. Both men were associated with the Rollin 60s.

Mullen’s funeral Aug. 17 brought to town current and former Rollin 60s members from around the nation. The first shooting occurred that same night. “I absolutely don’t believe it is a coincidence,” says Sgt. Charlie Fender of the Gang Enforcement Team.

The ensuing violence engulfed not just the Rollin 60s but also the Woodlawn Park Bloods, Unthank Park Hustlers and Hoover Criminals. It’s unclear how the other gangs got pulled in. But the Unthanks and Hoovers are former rivals who appear to have entered into a new partnership this year, former gang members say. Outreach workers fear the latest conflict will cement that alliance and embolden its members. At the Aug. 20 task force meeting, gang outreach worker John Canda publicly accused Adams—who took over managing the Police Bureau in May after 16 months as mayor—of failing to lead on the gang issue. Canda suggested Adams is building a city that cares more about bikes and dogs than life and people. The room erupted in applause. Canda faulted other local leaders as well, but he repeatedly called out Adams. It was a reminder of the deep distrust some African-Americans have expressed toward Adams since he admitted in 2009 to lying about an affair with teenage intern Beau Breedlove.

Adams kept his job as mayor. But three years earlier, as a city commissioner, Adams didn’t stand up for then-Police Chief Derrick Foxworth, who is black, when Foxworth was ousted over an affair with a bureau employee (see “The Great Divide,” WW, Feb. 4, 2009).

Rev. Roy Tate of North Portland’s Christ Memorial Church says mistrust remains strong because Adams has been absent from the community. “He hasn’t had a lot of meetings to tell us what he’s trying to do,” Tate says. “Basically, it’s a disconnect.”

Adams defends his record, saying he’s held town halls on gang violence and made repeated trips to North Portland and outer East Portland focused on crime prevention. (For the record, three members of Adams’ 22-person staff are African-American.) Canda also contrasted the mayor’s responses to the gang violence and a series of attacks on gays earlier this year, when Adams rolled out an action plan that included support for “Q Patrols” to walk the streets. Canda’s implication: Violence against blacks received far less attention from the city’s first openly gay mayor.

Adams rejects that comparison. “I don’t think it’s factual or useful to try to pit the queer community against anybody else,” he says.

Adams rolled out a different plan after last week’s shootings—an aggressive five-point proposal to keep illegal guns off the streets. Adams proposes increased penalties, neighborhood exclusions and curfews for offenders.

The Oregon Firearms Federation has already challenged the plan. Adams might savor a fight with right-

wingers, but he’d be less eager for a battle with civil libertarians. That’s what he may be facing with his gun proposal.

Mark McKechnie, head of the Portland-based nonprofit Juvenile Rights Project, says he’s especially concerned with adding a new curfew law. “It would be subjectively and selectively enforced based on officers’ perception,” McKechnie says.

The more I've campaigned around Kentucky, and the more people have seen of Rand Paul, the more people have told me one thing:

"You have to win."

But some of the right wing's most controversial groups are lining up to stand with Paul.

That includes groups like Citizens United, whose lawsuit led to the Supreme Court ruling allowing an onslaught of corporate money in this fall's elections. They wrote him a $5,000 check -- twice.

That also includes American Crossroads, Karl Rove's latest project, which is taking advantage of that very Supreme Court ruling by funneling corporate contributions into a just-announced, multi-million-dollar TV campaign that is targeting me this fall.

With all these right-wing groups standing with Rand Paul, can you tell me you're standing on my side?

I spoke out against the Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited corporate spending in our elections.

And this is exactly why.If we don't do something about it, Karl Rove will go back to controlling our elections, and we'll end up with the same failed policies he helped implement -- the ones that got us into this mess.

I'm running for the Senate because Kentucky is worth fighting for, and we need a leader who holds corporations accountable. I've already spoken out for Wall Street reform and filibuster reform.

But these special interests just challenged you and me to a fight.

Please click here to let me know you're willing to help me fight this one out.

Thanks for your support,


Jack Conway

After a bad day on the job as a Border Patrol agent, Eddie DeLaCruz went home and began discussing with his wife how to celebrate her upcoming birthday. Then he casually pressed his government-issued handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

"It was the ugliest sound I ever heard in my life," his widow, Toni DeLaCruz, recalled of that day last November. "He just collapsed."

A month later, one of DeLaCruz's colleagues at the Fort Hancock border post put a bullet through his head, too.

Suicides including these have set off alarm bells throughout the agency responsible for policing the nation's borders. After nearly four years without a single suicide in their ranks, border agents are killing themselves in greater numbers. Records obtained by The Associated Press show that at least 15 agents have taken their own lives since February 2008 – the largest spike in suicides the agency has seen in at least 20 years.

It's unclear exactly why the men ended their lives. Few of them left notes. And the Border Patrol seems somewhat at odds with itself over the issue.

Federal officials insist the deaths have nothing to do with the agency, which has doubled in size since 2004, or the increasingly volatile U.S.-Mexico border. But administrators have quietly undertaken urgent suicide-prevention initiatives, including special training for supervisors, videos about warning signs and educational programs for 22,000 agents nationwide.

"It's a microcosm of life," said Christine Gaugler, head of human resources for Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol. "There's no uptick. It has nothing to do with our hiring. We are just responding to the suicides that have occurred."

The agency declined to provide details of the suicides and would only confirm the number of deaths since 2008. But the AP uncovered the names, locations and dates of the suicides by reviewing public records, including those obtained from medical examiners through the Freedom of Information Act, and speaking with federal officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about this issue.

Control/chaos

The controlled aspects in music have increased the past years and the trance inducing qualities inherent in music have suffered. Getting things tight and sewn up are not inherently bad and perhaps the need for patterns and control is necessary in this unsafe topsy turvey world, but it shuts down an openness and liberating feeling that the language of music can provide.

Chaos provides balance. It can wipe the slate clean. Sometimes when you want the music to tighten up, and your body is tightening instead, you can throw a little randomness into the mix. Let go of the control and the need to sound good, tight or impressive. “Hey it doesn’t matter that I am just flopping around right now, because I have no expectations (or abilities) anyway.”

And then you can return to your originally scheduled program without having to carry all that unnecessary baggage.

Control is ultimately a myth.



Note: This is a weekly column by long time Corvallis resident and jazz drummer Dave Storrs.

As the summer gives way to fall, I wanted to let you know about a series of four Town Hall meetings and forums I am sponsoring beginning this week. You can read more about these events below, but I hope you will be able to join us this Tuesday night at 7pm as we discuss the future of Mental Health Services in Oregon. The meeting will be at the Corvallis Public Library, and we will discuss a variety of issues including community based mental health services, the Oregon State Hospital, and the proposed Junction City facility. We have a panel of highly respected experts in the field, and it will be a unique opportunity for dialogue. (More information below).


I continue to sit on the House Revenue Committee which will receive the quarterly Revenue Forecast this Thursday. You have probably seen the headlines about a projected additional shortfall in revenues for the current budget cycle. This will make the September 9th Town Hall on the state budget even more timely. I hope you will come with your own ideas about how we should prioritize our budget with the limited resources available to us.

Incidentally, I was pleased to work closely with our budget leaders to restore services to seniors and people with disabilities following the across the board cuts announced by the Governor in June. The letters and phone calls from citizens across the state about why these services are life saving and cost effective made a real difference.

From September 21-23, all legislative committees will meet as part of Committee Days. The House Education Committee, which I chair, will consider a number of interesting issues. Virtual schools, seclusion & restraint policies, burden of proof in special education disputes, and Early Head Start are all likely to be covered at the meeting.

To celebrate the start of the new school year, I am also working on putting together testimony highlighting some of the most inspiring success stories in public education from across the state. If you have ideas about what should be included, please send me an email and let me know.

The agendas for all of the committees meeting in September will be posted here once the agendas are finalized in September.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions, concerns or ideas. It is always a pleasure to hear from you! ~Sara

Dear friends,

A humanitarian catastrophe of terrifying proportions is unfolding in Pakistan, with a fifth of the country under water, and millions of people homeless and desperately needing assistance.

Some relief efforts are underway, but the international response to the mega-disaster has been irresponsibly slow and weak—the UN has urgently appealed for $460 million of vital aid, but just 40% has been delivered.

Relief workers warn that without an immediate increase in aid the death toll could sky-rocket. We can help by sending funds directly to the most reliable aid organizations, and by pressing our governments to step up their efforts. Let's show our leaders what generosity looks like, and demand that they join us. Click here to send a personal message to key donor governments:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90017&id=22794-18038529-PAbsjix&t=7. And click here to donate to the relief effort:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=90034&id=22794-18038529-PAbsjix&t=8

After visiting the flood stricken areas, a visibly upset UN General Secretary, Ban Ki Moon, said "This has been a heart-wrenching day for me. In the past, I have visited many natural disasters, but I have never seen anything like this."

Thousands of towns and villages have been washed away—roads, buildings, bridges, crops. Now people are stranded on tiny islands surrounded by flood waters. With no clean water to drink, cholera, diarrhea and other sicknesses are on the rise, threatening the millions of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods.

The international response so far has not matched that of previous large scale disasters. Organisations like UNICEF and WHO have said they lack the funds to provide adequate assistance.

The governments of the world need to do more, and we can lead by example. Let's stand with Pakistan at this time of crisis, and ask important donor governments to do the same.

Our community has risen to the challenge of awful disasters before. In 2008, Avaaz members raised over 2 million dollars for the victims of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. Earlier this year, $1.4 million was raised for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Our ability to move quickly in times of crisis can make the difference between life or death for people struggling to cope with disaster. Let's show the people of Pakistan that people and governments around the world stand with them in this awful crisis.

With hope,

Luis, Iain, Mia, Ricken, Paul, Giulia, Ben, David, Graziela, Pascal, Milena and the rest of the Avaaz team.

How to Win the Online Mcgraw Hill Business Strategy Game
A History of the Canadian Dominion, William McGillivray and the Canadian Clique
History of Russians in the Pacific Northwest
The Basics of Making Cheese
Lyman Beecher and the Second Great Awakening
Bus Schedules
The Tulsa Race Riots
An Inquisition Torture Session
History of Mathematics in India
Corvallis dogs and Jack London's Call of the Wild
Corvallis Serial Killers
Thomas Egarton Hogg and Corvallis
The Modoc Indian War in Oregon
The fur trade in the Northwest
Imprisonment of OSU students 1942
The History of Astoria and Washington Irving's Trip to Oregon

My youngest brother, ashamedly, is a "wing nut" from Arizona, where California immigrants like him have altered the laid back attitudes of residents whose outlaws and cowboys once nonchalantly rode across the border ( and you can rest assured the traffic went both ways, with banditos and caballeros corissing into Arizona just as effortlessly). In the movies, Jack Nicholson never stopped to check in with the federales. Now, the tea baggers meet them and threaten to gun them down if the traffic is from the south.
"Henry" recently visited the family locally and launched into one of his rants on illegal immigrants. After he was through, a distant relative asked "whi does [let's call him Henry] resemble?", a call for comparisons between my brother and his parents. I told her that if "Henry" trimmed the corners of his mustache, he resembled Hitler. "Henry's" response was "Where I come from. that's not necessarily an insult." I told him that I agreed: "Where you're coming from, that's certainly true."
Later in the evening, I spoke with my neighbor whose reading list comes from right wing "talk radio" and Fox TV. He summarized for me the day's news on the economy, of how he had been reading a recommended book about how "they" want to bankrupt the economy, make the U.S. weak, etc. I asked him who "they" are. He lowered his voice conspiratorially and muttered that the author had "mentioned the Jews". I lit up, told him those conspiracy theories had been floating around 2 centuries ago and were responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. His eyes blazed as he said "I think this is why Hitler killed the Jews".
My brother and my neighbor are not alone. Like most white supremacists, they're middle aged, rarely think for themselves, and are easily led by the nose via Lars Larson, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura et al into white washing Mussolini and Hitler and Fascism. Never mind that 40 million were dead before the 2 dictators met their demise. They were after all only figure heads for governments which preached authoritarian rule on behalf of the corporations who originally sponsored the 2, a list which included not only Italian corporations like Fiat and German ones like I.G. Farben, but also American ones like General Electric and Ford Motor Co. The dictators died but their corporate sponsors all survived. Now, the News Corporation is in the forefront of the campaign devoted to the same end. Listen to the guests and hosts on Fox's shows and their cousins in right wing "Talk-Radio Land" and you will find that increasingly, the insane Hitler is being lionized. Now the Tea Baggers' candidates are picking up the torch. Nowhere is this more evident than here in Corvallis, where the right wing extremist Art Robinson has become the candidate of the Republican Party against the always popular Peter DeFazio, as so well documented by Camilla Mortensen and Shannon Finnell.
We may have reached peak oil, but has the U.S. reached peak wingnut? Peak oil, if you don’t know already, is the idea that the world’s finite crude reserves have maxed out and we are on the downhill side of using the last half of the world’s currently extractable oil.

Peak wingnut is the more hopeful theory that we have reached the summit in how many rightwing crazies are going to enter into the current political scene, or in this case Oregon politics.

The recent rise of the Tea Party (aka the Teabaggers) could be a sign that we’ve hit peak wingnut. Or maybe a truer sign is Art Robinson’s current campaign against Rep. Peter DeFazio for Oregon’s 4th District congressional seat, already characterized by threats of chicken suits and some name calling.

Wingnut, in reference to politics, seems to have arisen in about 1989 from the expression “right-wing nut job.” Before that the word was pretty exclusively used to describe that metal thingy with the ears sticking out that goes on a screw or, in England, a guy with big ears. It’s the opposite of the lesser-known slur used against liberals — moonbat. Recent elections have also brought us useful words like wackadoodle in reference to some of the more special candidates, or as DeFazio describes Robinson, “off the edge of the flat Earth.”

David M. Herszenhorn in a 2009 New York Times column defined a wingnut as “a loud darling of cable television and talk radio whose remarks are outrageous but often serious enough not to be dismissed entirely.”

Robinson is hardly a cable and radio darling, but this isn’t the first time his name has made it into the news. In fact one might point to his significant scientific credentials and argue he’s not a wingnut at all. The man has a Ph.D. in chemistry, worked with two-time Nobel-Prize winner Linus Pauling, developed a successful home schooling curriculum and has raised almost $400,000 for his campaign against DeFazio. He won the Republican and Independent party primaries, and garnered the nominations of the Constitution and Libertarian parties.

The congressional candidate also believes that a little nuclear radiation is good for you, human-caused global warming doesn’t exist, the pesticide DDT that almost wiped out bald eagles should never have been banned and that public schools should be abolished, calling them “nationalized child-abuse” on his Robinson Curriculum webpage.

A glance at Robinson’s campaign funding reveals that most of the money he’s raised has come from out of state. The April and July quarterly reports to the feds show that there are 303 out-of-state versus 54 in-state contributions. Some of those contributions come from Tea Partiers, and many from people with ties to chemical interests. DeFazio’s money is primarily in-state and some comes from the unions. DeFazio has raised money from Native American tribes. Robinson has paid $8,500 to David Jaques of Roseburg for political consulting. Jaques is the president of One Nation United, a group Native American news source Indian Country Today calls anti-Indian and bigoted.

This election season saw incumbent Susan Castillo only narrowly beat out R-G-endorsed anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-evolution, anti-affirmative action, pro-guns and prayer-in-the-classroom Republican Ron Maurer for the state superintendent of schools position. It also saw local Tea Partier Jay Bozievich — also pro-guns at schools and known to dress up in a wig and colonial soldier outfit — stay in the race against Jerry Rust for the West Lane Commissioner’s seat. So it seems that being a bit of a wingnut isn’t holding anyone back from running for public office in this state.

The Terminator is still the Governator of California, former Fugees singer Wyclef Jean has thrown his hat in the ring to be president of Haiti, unknown and unemployed Alvin M. Greene won South Carolina’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and people are still taking Sarah Palin seriously.

Nervous yet?


Candidate Art Robinson is also known as Dr. (or professor) Arthur B. Robinson, and when you talk to him he sounds exactly like the university professor he once was. He’s got that avuncular sort of scientific but friendly tone, which makes you think of Sir David Attenborough narrating the scene in the BBC’s “Life on Earth” nature series where he meets the mountain gorillas, just not with a British accent. Trouble is, what Robinson’s saying is more reminiscent of the John Hammond character played by David’s brother Richard Attenborough in Jurassic Park — you know the guy who brings dinosaurs back to life. His science seems solid, and yet a little wackadoodle all at once.

Robinson offers his life story in a brochure distributed to Lane County voters. He’s the son of Ted Robinson, who designed the Union Carbide chemical plant in Texas as well as in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Scotland, England, Belgium, India and Japan. Union Carbide is best known as the chemical giant whose pesticide plant in India leaked in 1984 and killed thousands of people, with an estimated half million injuries.

Ted Robinson died in a plane crash in 1966, and Art Robinson and others have speculated (in a conspiracy-theory sort of way) that the crash was orchestrated by the CIA to kill Indian nuclear scientist Homi J. Bhabha, who was also on the plane.

Shortly after his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent suicide, Art Robinson graduated UC San Diego with a Ph.D. in chemistry and became a professor there. He left and joined Linus Pauling, winner of Nobel Prizes in chemistry and in peace, in founding the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in 1973. According to his brochure, Robinson assumes that their medical discoveries will soon be available to the American people. But, the brochure says, “He is naive. The tentacles of Washington politicians have already reached into American medicine — choking off innovation.”

The institute still exists, now at Oregon State University, but Robinson and Pauling fell out in the late 1970s. Robinson has said it was because his experiments proved wrong Pauling’s theories on the efficacy of vitamin C. He sued the institute and various members and trustees for $25.5 million. They later settled for $575,000. Robinson mentions his relationship with Nobel laureate Pauling in the brochure, but not the falling out, nor the lawsuit.

Robinson went on to found his own institute: the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, or as his detractors have labeled it, the Oregon Institute for Science and Malarky. Of the eight faculty members listed, two are Robinson’s sons and two are dead.After Robinson’s wife died in 1988, the widower raised the couple’s six children on their farm in Cave Junction. Or rather, the brochure says, “The Lord raised the children, Art ran errands.”

Robinson home schooled the children. He developed the Robinson Curriculum, which is sold for about $200 on the internet. It worked for his kids — two are veterinarians, one has a Ph.D. in chemistry and three of them are getting their doctorates in nuclear medicine at OSU. Robinson says on the website that he began home schooling the children because, “the social and religious environment in most schools in America has deteriorated to a level of evil such that it is a threat to the spiritual, moral and mental health of each child who is forced to participate in it.”

Robinson has called repeatedly for abolishing public education in his newsletter Access to Energy. The Robinson Curriculum website says, “There is a growing possibility that, if the home schooling movement continues to expand, it may become the most important single force that Christians can employ to take America back from the anti-Christian forces that currently control American public life.”

The curriculum is on a set of 22 CDs that include a 1911 encyclopedia, the King James Bible and a collection of books no longer under copyright. Robinson’s attacks on multiculturalism, as well as the curriculum’s use of books with bigoted passages, have led to accusations of racism.

An article on AlterNet says Robinson has been “reprinting, marketing and selling a virulently racist 19th Century English boys’ adventure novel that suggests Africans are like retarded children.” The article points to a PBS criticism of author G.A. Henty that says, “Henty’s books are notable for their hearty imperialism, undisguised racism and jingoistic patriotism.”

Robinson contends that the passage reading “the intelligence of an average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old” was pulled out of context. The rest of the book is an adventure with the explorers’ bags being carried by cannibals and encounters with a tribe that uses white tablecloths and silverware. He says the book is actually an argument against slavery, and points out that the curriculum also publishes the autobiography of Booker T. Washington.

In response to these accusations and to criticisms of his calls to abolish public schools and diatribes calling them “tax financed racism,” Robinson says, “I never planned to run for office, or I would have looked at every word I wrote.” Robinson has denied authorship of some of the statements in the newsletter he has been responsible for creating for the past 17 years.

DeFazio calls this perspective “reconstructionist,” and says that Robinson “is well off the edge of the flat Earth on the question of public education and is trying to reconstruct himself as someone who is merely critical is false.”In a recent letter to DeFazio Robinson writes that he has published six peer-reviewed articles in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and asks, “Are you even capable of writing any article that would be suitable for consideration by that journal?” In the same letter he accuses DeFazio of “hiding behind the skirts of the League of Women Voters.” Robinson refuses to be part of any debate scheduled by that group, implying they would mollycoddle DeFazio.

With articles like “Prediction of Protein Deamidation Rates from Primary and Three-Dimensional Structure” and “Evolution and the Distribution of Glutaminyl and Asparaginyl Residues in Proteins,” Robinson’s scientific background appears impeccable, but some of his scientific theories are a little, well, wackadoodle.

Robinson is an advocate for nuclear power and a proponent of radiation hormesis, a theory claiming that very low levels of radiation can be beneficial to humans. He writes in a 1997 issue of Access to Energy, “The most sensible use of low-level radioactive waste is as a concrete and insulation additive in residential homes — especially in areas where there is insufficient natural radiation for optimum health.” He told EW that a state like Oregon, with its lower radiation rates, suffers from higher cancer rates than Colorado, which has higher background radiation. The damage done at a very low level of radioactivity keeps the immune system in shape, he says. In response to a question regarding whether this is similar in principle to homeopathy, he says, “Homeopathy is so strange; it’s outside of my field of specialization.”

Both the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation say there is no evidence to support the theory of radiation hormesis. What has been proven is that high levels of radiation are indeed pretty bad for our health.

In one issue of Access to Energy, which Robinson has been editing and producing since 1993, Robinson writes, “If radioactive waste were dissolved as water soluble compounds and then widely dispersed in the oceans, no health or other environmental risks would ever occur.” In another issue he says the newsletter is “proudly printed on 100% unrecycled paper.”

An earlier issue of the newsletter, which Robinson credits to its founder Petr Beckmann, claims oil spills “are a boon to marine life, inflicting damage mainly on the oil and shipping companies. For crude oil is a natural, organic, biodegradable product of the earth’s ancient plant and animal life, and it is this type of hydrocarbon that marine life in the open and deep ocean is starved for.”

But Robinson is perhaps best known for his denial of global warming. He is responsible for the Oregon Petition, a document directed at the federal government insisting that global warming is an unproven hypothesis and requesting that the government reject the Kyoto Protocol. The project’s website says 31,487 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with Ph.D.s.

Critics counter that some of the signatures are known fakes, including one purporting to be a Spice Girl and another for Perry Mason.

Another criticism is that many science degrees involve no training in climatology. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the same group that has published Robinson’s peer-reviewed papers, disavowed the findings in the petition and the 12-page review that accompanied it, which critics say was misleadingly formatted to look like an NAS publication.

Robinson rejects the idea that humans are responsible for any warming of the earth’s atmosphere. He acknowledges that the atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing, but, “If you like plants and animals, you should like CO2,” which he says is good for crops. He writes in Access to Energy, “The more hydrocarbons we burn, the more our natural environment will prosper … We are moving hydrocarbons from below ground and turning them into plants and animals — a wonderful and unexpected environmental gift from the human Industrial Revolution.”By most folks’ reckoning, DeFazio — who is running for his thirteenth term in office — is politically invulnerable. The fiery politician has faced down challengers before, notably Jim Feldkamp in 2004 and 2006. Right about the time people start grumbling that DeFazio’s a liberal, he does something like vote against President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill. He’s not afraid to go against the grain. “People don’t always agree with me,” DeFazio says, “but they know where I stand on issues, and I study the issues before I approach them.”

Robinson’s campaign leans on the idea that DeFazio has been in office too long. “I have been there a while,” DeFazio says, “and there’s people who arrived last year who never should have been elected; there’s people who have been there too long and who have gotten stale on the job and corrupt; there’s other folks who continue to be vital and put forward good ideas, and I put myself in that last category.”

During a July 13 talk to a group of Eugene 9/12ers at Harris Hall downtown, Robinson called DeFazio a “screaming socialist.”

When apprised of Robinson’s description, DeFazio laughs. “If we’re to exchange labels, I could come up with some extraordinary descriptions of him, but I will refrain from that,” he says.

“I’m member of the Populist Caucus, a member of the Progressive Caucus, and I’m also the co-chair of the House Craft Brewing Caucus. I have a pretty wide portfolio, but none of it includes ‘screaming socialist,’” he adds.

Of Robinson’s platform, DeFazio says, “His polices reflect all the failures of the past. That’s not new and different.”

Robinson has complained that DeFazio won’t face him in a debate. Robinson is demanding there be seven debates in seven counties, in homage to the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.

“He wants to have debates at times and places of his choosing, with his format — which is totally bizarre. He would talk for three minutes; I would talk for three minutes; he would talk for three minutes,” DeFazio says, “with no questions from the audience and then, after two hours, after everyone has left, he would take questions from the audience.” For his part, DeFazio has scheduled four debates: one at the Eugene City Club, one sponsored by the Corvallis Gazette-Times, one at the Roseburg Chamber of Commerce and one is in the works for Coos Bay.

“I’ll come to any of those debates on two conditions: normal debate rules and public attendance and I’ll come,” Robinson says. “I haven’t heard from his people yet.”

In reference to an incident during the Feldkamp campaign in which someone appeared at a DeFazio gathering in a chicken suit, Robinson has suggested if DeFazio doesn’t show up for the debates Robinson himself has scheduled that a surrogate, possibly in a chicken suit, will take his place. Robinson has scheduled one for 6 pm Aug. 12 at Valley River Inn.

DeFazio says Robinson is avoiding a debate because “he has little a bit of a problem thinking on his feet about issues that are relevant to people rather than the blather that’s come out of his bizarre newsletter for the last 20 years.”

Because Robinson has denied some of the quotes from Access to Energy, which doesn’t list authors for most of its articles, and downplayed his position on public education. DeFazio says, “He got the nomination three months ago and he’s a totally different changed person with a different belief system. I’ve served with too many people like that in Washington, D.C. and he last thing we need is another charlatan who believes one thing then says another to get elected. So I want debates.”

Dear Savage
I'm herpes-free, but I found out today that my roommate has contracted it. He has a sore but won't see a doctor about it because he says he's embarrassed. We share the same bathroom, so I knew I would have to be diligent about that. But now I am freaking out: Not long after he shared this information, my seven-month-old puppy runs into his room and proceeds to cover my roommate's face in kisses. I've called the vet and my medical provider, and while they both agree that my pup cannot contract the STD, they cannot rule out the pup passing the infection on to me. Please advise. I would like to know how to best handle this situation.

-Scared To Death

Wouldn't it be great if being paranoid about contracting herpes was the only way to contract herpes?

Look, STD, lots of people self-diagnose themselves with herpes when all they have is an innocuous little cut or sore near their mouth or genitals. People who are too embarrassed/ridiculous to go see their doctors are highly likely to arrive at a herpes misdiagnosis. So calm the fuck down.

Even if your roommate does have herpes, STD, you're not going to get it from sharing a toilet—unless you and the roommate have invented a novel new way of taking a dump. And you're not going to get it from your damn dog. For his own sake, your roommate shouldn't allow your dog to lick his open sores (who does he think he is? Job?), herpes-related or not, and if you're really freaking out about your promiscuously affectionate new dog, well, you can make up your mind to refrain from kissing any animal that drinks out of toilets, licks its own ass, and laps up vomit.
- Dan Savage

Above: Irish American Oregon Governor Ben Olcott kept this poster (click for larger version), on which a KKK member had scribed "Koons, Kikes, Katholics" in the Ku Klux Klan's 1922 successful bid to unseat the governor.

"This is a mass grave," Bill Watson said as he led the way through the thick Pennsylvania woods in a suburb about 30 miles from Philadelphia.

"Duffy's Cut," as it's now called, is a short walk from a suburban cul-de-sac in Malvern, an affluent town off the fabled Main Line. Twin brothers Bill and Frank Watson believe 57 Irish immigrants met violent deaths there after a cholera epidemic struck in 1832.

They suspect foul play.

"This is a murder mystery from 178 years ago, and it's finally coming to the light of day," Frank Watson said.

The brothers first heard about Duffy's Cut from their grandfather, a railroad worker, who told the ghost story to his family every Thanksgiving. According to local legend, memorialized in a file kept by the Pennsylvania Railroad, a man walking home from a tavern reported seeing blue and green ghosts dancing in the mist on a warm September night in 1909.

"I saw with my own eyes, the ghosts of the Irishmen who died with the cholera a month ago, a-dancing around the big trench where they were buried; it's true, mister, it was awful," the documents quote the unnamed man as saying. "Why, they looked as if they were a kind of green and blue fire and they were a-hopping and bobbing on their graves... I had heard the Irishmen were haunting the place because they were buried without the benefit of clergy."

When Frank inherited the file of his grandfather's old railroad papers, the brothers began to believe the ghost stories were real. They suspected that the files contained clues to the location of a mass grave.

"One of the pieces of correspondence in this file told us 'X marks the spot,'" said Frank. He added that the document suggested that the men "were buried where they were making the fill, which is the original railroad bridge."

In 2002, the brothers began digging and searching. They found forks and remnants of a shanty and, in 2005, what Bill Watson calls the "Holy Grail" -- a pipe with an Irish flag on it.

They knew they were close, but Bill said they knew they needed "hard science" to get them to the next step.

The science came from Tim Bechtel, a geophysicist, who learned about the project from a colleague at the University of Pennsylvania who had heard the Watson brothers speak. The friend knew Bechtel could provide the missing link in the brothers' excavation efforts.

Bechtel's work included earth scans, which can help detect what's underground without digging or drilling.

By shooting electrical current through the slope, Bechtel said he learned there were "oddball areas" or places where the current wouldn't pass through. "We saw areas in the slope that were very electrically resistant," Bechtel recalled.

This was an initial indicator something might lie beneath the surface. After further digging, Bechtel and the Watsons detected "air bubbles above the coffins," he said.

Bechtel helped pinpoint key areas to dig and on March 20, 2009, Bill Watson said the team made a startling discovery.

"One of my students came running over at about 2 in the afternoon with something that was a clearly discernable human bone," Bechtel said.

It was just the beginning of the many puzzle pieces to surface at Duffy's Cut. The pieces led them to suspect that something other than cholera was responsible for the deaths.
A teeny weenie little fragment like that is so chock full of information.
--Janet Monge, anthropologist

"A teeny weenie little fragment like that is so chock full of information," said Janet Monge, holding up a jawbone and teeth found at the Duffy's Cut site. She believes the teeth, because of their irregularities, could someday be linked through DNA to living descendents of the men unearthed at the dig site.

Monge, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, joined the forensics team when Bechtel looked her up in the campus directory and asked for help separating the human bones from any animal bones.

Since then, Monge has collected bones from seven skeletons unearthed at Duffy's Cut, including four skulls. The trays and containers of bones occupy a long, wide table in the back of a lecture room at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.

Poring over the bones with her green spectacles sitting low on her nose, Monge said she has focused her attention on the skulls, adding that they have provided crucial clues to what might have killed the Irishmen at Duffy's Cut.

"This skull has a little divot on what would have been the side bone of the skull," she said, holding it up. "That little divot is something that didn't happen when they excavated it out of the ground."

With just one divot on one skull, she was reluctant to jump to conclusions. But as more skulls surfaced, a pattern started to form. Holding the second skull, Monge said with confidence: "This person was clunked on the head at around the time of death."

Two weeks ago, a new piece of evidence came up from the ground at Duffy's Cut: A skull with a perforation that could be a bullet hole. "In fact, we can see some nice cracked edges that do look very much like a bullet hole," Monge observed.

Monge and the team will soon test the skull for the presence of lead. The source could be a bullet or an ax. Either way, she said, "If they had cholera, it didn't kill them. I would say something else killed them, but they might have had cholera, too."

Why is the mystery so important to the team?"It could have been us," Bill Watson said. "These guys came over here with nothing, looking for the American dream like countless people have done. They thought they were going to make it and within six weeks of arrival they're literally buried in the fill here."

Although they have unearthed seven individual's remains, the Duffy's Cut team labors on to find the 50 more they believe are still underneath the surface.

The brothers said their goal is to preserve the memory of the Irish workers and to put the story in textbooks, to be remembered for years to come.

Hi, kids!  We are holding over HANDSOME HARRY; THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT; GET LOW; THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE; and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

On Tuesday, Sep 7 and Sunday, Sep 12, as part of our Opera at the Darkside series, we are showing LA TRAVIATA, performed at La Scala in Milan, Italy. Admission is $20 and tickets are available now at the Darkside during show times.

LA TRAVIATA poster
LA TRAVIATA by Verdi (2 hrs 13 min plus one intermission)
Conducted by Lorin Maazel
Starring Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas
Performed at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy

Tuesday, Sep 7 at 7pm ($20)
Sunday, Sep 12 at 3pm ($20)
Show times

HANDSOME HARRY poster
HANDSOME HARRY --R (94 minutes)
(subtitled)

Genre: Drama
Director: Bette Gordon
Cast: Jamey Sheridan, Steve Buscemi, Aidan Quinn, Campbell Scott

Show times

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT poster
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT --R (106 minutes)
(subtitled)

Genre: Comedy
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Cast: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson

Show times

GET LOW poster
GET LOW --R (103 minutes)
(subtitled)

Genre: Drama
Director: Aaron Schneider
Cast: Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black

Show times
poster: The Girl Who Played With Fire THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE --R (131 minutes)
(subtitled)

* Genre: Drama, Crime thriller, Foreign
* Director: Daniel Alfredson
* Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Annika Hallin, Per Oscarsson, Peter Andersson

Show times
poster: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO --R (150 minutes)
(subtitled)

Genre: Drama, Crime thriller, Foreign
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Cast: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube

Show times
OTHER STUFF: Not this week.
As always, thanks for your continued support!

Lainie and Paul Turner


Darkside Cinema
215 SW 4th
Corvallis, OR 97333
darksidecinema.com
541·752·4161

Note: Corvallis officials are making a good faith effort to address issues raised on this log. Please be as specific as you can when filing a complaint. The interactive possibilities of "Web 2.0" are available now for citizens and public officials to track existing problems ranging from street repairs to law enforcement to library problems.  Use the map to drop a flag on the location of the problem and describe it. And you're done. Diligent public officials (yes, there are more than a few at the non- managerial level in this city) will be left to check the map on a regular basis, as do officials in Albany, Salem and Eugene, for their respective areas.  No matter how interested a public servant may be in serving you, he or she cannot be everywhere.

Local Music Calendar for the week of August 24

 Corvallis
Central Park, 8th and Madison
Corvallis Community Band: All That Jazz!
Featuring Steve Matthes: Steve is currently directs the Oregon State University Concert Band. Traditional jazz appearances include Stumptown Jazz, Hume Street, Dr. Jon’s, OSU alumni jazz bands (including Homer Welch and George Bruns) and the Opera House Saloon house band in Columbus, GA.
7:00 pm rehearsal, 8:00 pm performance
www.c-cband.org

Sunnyside Up Café
Bluegrass Jam, 7:00 pm, FREE
Wednesday August 25th

Albany
Riley’s Billiards Bar and Grill
Pure Country Night – Country Dancing with DJ, 9:00pm

Corvallis
Block 15
Ty Curtis, Blues, 6:00 pm, FREE

Cloud 9
symmetry/symmetry, Rock, 9:00 pm

Corvallis Farmer’s Market, 2nd St. and B Ave.
Figs & Thistles, 3:30 pm, FREE

Peacock Bar and Grill
Jonny Dark and the Wondertones, Blues, 9:00 pm, FREE

Sunnyside Up Café
Celtic Jam, 7:00 pm, FREE

Lebanon
Peacock Bar and Grill East
The Brand, Blues, 7:00 pm
Thursday August 26th

Albany
Calapooia Brewing
Sons of Thunder, Acoustic Rock, 7:30 pm

Riley’s Billiards Bar and Grill
Ladies Night with DJ Unofficial, 9:00pm

Corvallis
Bombs Away Café
Josh Green and Summer Soundtrack, Acoustic, 7:30 pm

Cloud 9
Jovian State & Jake Door present: “We Deal In Memory”
A welcome back party for TK, and art reception for Jake Dorr

Crowbar Rooftop
The Kindreds, Bluegrass, 6:00 pm

Lebanon
Peacock Bar and Grill East
Blues Jam, 7:00 pm, FREE
Friday August 27th

Albany
Calapooia Brewing
The Kindreds, Bluegrass, 8:00 pm

Riley’s Billiards Bar and Grill
Dance Party with DJ Unofficial, 9:00 pm

Timber Linn Park
ATI Wah Chang Art and Air Festival
Festival Stage
5:30 – 7:00 pm: Ancient Ways Marimba
8:00 – Dusk: Curtis Salgado
Dusk: Nightglow
9:00 – 9:30 pm: Curtis Salgado

Corvallis
The Beanery on 2nd
The Marzipan Handlers, Acoustic, 8:00 pm

Bombs Away Café
Wolfbeater, Rock, 9:00 pm

Fireworks Restaurant and Bar
Jesse Meade, Acoustic Blues, 8:00 pm, FREE

Troubadour Music
Dorian Michael, Acoustic Fingerstyle, 8:00 pm, $10
www.dorianmichael.com

Saturday August 28th
Albany
Calapooia Brewing
Robert Richter and Jessica Hitchborn, Guitar and Fiddle Duo, 8:00 pm

Riley’s Billiards Bar and Grill
Dance Party with DJ Unofficial, 9:00 pm

Timber Linn Park
ATI Wah Chang Art and Air Festival
Festival Stage
12:00 – 12:45 pm: Cascade Performing Arts
1:00 – 1:30 pm: Zumba Exercise
2:00 – 2:45 pm: Fiesta Mexicana
3:00 – 3:45 pm: Rupert Hayburn Duo
4:00 – 4:45 pm: City Dance Theatre Performing Company
5:00 – 5:30 pm: Rupert Hayburn Duo
6:00 – 7:00 pm: Apropos Musique
Main Stage:
8:00 pm: America: 40th Anniversary Tour

Corvallis
Big River
Wild Hog in the Woods, String band8:30 pm, FREE

Cloud 9
Van Myers Jazz Duo, 10:00 pm

Crowbar Rooftop
Eric Nordby, Acoustic, 6:00 pm

Fireworks Restaurant and Bar
Brooks Robertson, Funky Fingerstyle Guitar, 8:00 pm

Lebanon
Lebanon Coffee House and Eatery, 661 Main Street
Afternoon Free Movie, 2:00 pm
Live Music, 6:30 pm
Sunday August 29th

Albany
Calapooia Brewing
Blues Jam, 4:00 pm

Timber Linn Park
Wah Chang Art and Air Festival
Festival Stage
11:30 – 12:45 am: The Grove Church
1:00 – 2:30 pm: Bush Pilots
Monday August 30th

Corvallis
Fireworks Restaurant and Bar
Open Mic Night, Signups at 8:00 pm

Former Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN), the Dem nominee for governor of Minnesota, is now chiming in on a controversy surrounding the business that was originally founded by his family: Target's $150,000

 donation to a business group supporting Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Emmer.

As the Star Tribune reports, Dayton responded to the controversy while speaking to reporters:

Dayton: "Personally, I'm disappointed in that decision. I am very proud of what my father and his brothers, who are my uncles, and thousands of Minnesotans built as the Dayton-Hudson Corporation and Target is one of those subsidiaries. You know, my family's been out of the operating side of the business for about the last, almost the last 30 years. I don't hold any stock directly in Target in my own holdings. I don't know the percent of my family's holding in Target but I would estimate it is less than one percent of the actively traded shares in the company and certainly my family has no voice in the actions of Target corporation."

Reporter: "Had your family still be involved do you think that Target would have given to MN Forward."

Dayton: "I don't believe so. No."

As we've reported before, Target's involvement with MN Forward triggered a political backlash in this liberal state, and especially from gay rights activists, due to Emmer's right-wing social positions. The company said it was supporting MN Forward (and by extension Emmer) because of economic issues -- and also touted its own positive corporate policies on gay rights -- but the matter has caused enough controversy that the CEO has apologized. In addition, several large shareholders in the company are demanding a review of the company's political donation processes, in order to avoid future embarrassment.

The TPM Poll Average currently has Dayton leading Emmer and the Independence Party's Tom Horner by 44.2%-33.6%-9.9%.

KGW-TV in Portland had an exclusive report last night about the deadly Dec., 2008 bank bombing in Woodburn, Or., that killed two law enforcement officers and seriously wounded a third. It seems the accused suspects, the father-son duo of Bruce Turnidge and Joshua Turnidge, had been planning (or perhaps “fantasizing” is a more accurate term) about robbing banks ever since 1994.

According to a police affidavit, a family friend, Ronald Laughlin, stated that he heard Bruce, Joshua and another family member who has not been charged in the case “speak so often about robbing banks that it became like ‘white noise’. Often, Laughlin said, they’d “discuss methods of robbery including diversions.”

Laughlin described the men as Constitutionalists and anti-government.

According to investigators, in the summer of 1994, Laughlin recalled meeting Joshua and Bruce Turnidge for lunch in Woodburn.

Witness Joshua Turnidge said “he had called the bank and told them there was a bomb and they were to deliver $20,000 to $40,000 to a construction Port-a-potty.” Laughlin said he watched police arrive at the bank.

How odd they were thinking of that in 1994, the summer of love, er, black helicopters. I can’t find seem to find anything in the Constitution about blowing up banks and killing cops, oddly enough.

The new information makes a statement by Oregon Republican chair Vance Day shortly after the deadly Dec., 2008 bombing even more curious.

And the arrests of two members of the Turnidge family — which decades ago helped start the Salem Academy Christian schools — have left those who know the family incredulous.

“I would be very surprised if Bruce Turnidge was involved in that,” said Vance Day, the Oregon GOP chairman and a Salem attorney who has known brothers Bruce and Pat Turnidge for several years. “I know him to be strong, very pro-American. He doesn’t believe in violence of that sort whatsoever.”

Now, it’s true that there be monsters in the world, and sometimes you think you know people and all that. So I have no problem taking at face value the idea that Day was genuinely stunned. It’s not really clear from press accounts what relationship Day had with the Turnidges. Political leaders meet all sorts of folks, take their money, shake their hand and move on.

Still, WTF? And there’s another family member who was also talking about robbing banks in 1994? Remember, this is a fairly prominent family in Salem. Crazy.

Until recently, Dr. Kevin Pezzi was listed as a contributor to Andrew Breitbart’s eclectic BigGovernment.com website, where he posted white papers about Shirley Sherrod’s black racism. But then the muckrakers at Media Matters for America conducted an Internet investigation of Dr. Pezzi and found all kinds of very UNUSUAL things that he had posted on the Internet about himself, his Porno Star-sized penis and his magical sex inventions. Wouldn’t these attributes make Breitbart like him more?

Suprisingly, the answer is “no,” MMFA reports:

In response to our posts, Big Government has now disappeared Pezzi’s articles. If you attempt to visit the pages for his posts and bio, you are greeted with an error.

MMFA reportedly used a brand-new technology called “Googly Eye Search” to compile a fairly extensive list of Pezzi’s documented Eccentricities, including:

* His claim that “a government official once [told him he'd] achieved the highest score ever attained on an IQ test administered nationwide.” (The “government official” was not named “Shirley Sherrod.”)
* Talking about “Chinks” and “Japs.”
* His sex inventions to cure problems such as “vaginal laxity,” America’s number-one health issue after Glenn Beck Tentative Blindness Syndrome.
* His other inventions, like a mysterious cancer cure and a Mosquito Motel.
* His authorship of several books of questionable informational and aesthetic value, such as Fascinating Health Secrets (owned by Al Gore, so why not YOU?) and The Science of Sex. Both volumes come with a free copy of Pezzi’s Gas Saving Tips, which tells you how to save cash at the pump. (“Tip One: Stop driving. Tip Two: Continue not driving. Tip Three: Power your body with my custom-made candy bars, which I have named ‘Lana.’”)
* How he writes things like, “No doctor in the world knows more about sexual pleasure than I do,” which is not very easy to prove!
* His boasting about turning down a blind date with Katie Couric, because he hates cities.
* All the “my penis my penis” talk.

How did Andrew Breitbart not know about these many peculiar traits of Dr. Pezzi’s before bringing him on board his special website/spaceship to write about hot racism topics? Has the BigGovernment HQ not yet learned about the power of “Googly Eye Search”? MMFA thinks that maybe Breitbart and his cohorts “have long-since abandoned any pretense of responsible behavior,” because they didn’t even need any special software programs to learn that Pezzi was so unique. He let it all hang out right there in his bio, pretty much: here.