News and Culture

What do last year’s Constitutional Party gubernatorial candidate Mary Starrett and the largely left-wing 9/11 Truth Alliance have in common? A surprising amount, actually.

Starrett, 52, is the first to admit that she is full of contradictions. She’s an anti-war, pro-life Christian, who refers to President Bush as “a joke.” The beer drinking, gun toting, vegetarian ex-smoker also has some controversial views on the U.S. government’s alleged complicity in the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001.

Starrett was the guest speaker at this week’s 9/11 Truth Alliance meeting. She explained that she lost her job at KPDQ Radio in part because she asked tough questions about what really happened that September morning. (She says the Christian station was ruffled by her repeated criticisms of President Bush, in addition to her interviews with white separatist Randy Weaver and survivors of the 1993 Waco Siege.)

Her presence caused some headaches for the 9/11 Truth Alliance, which found their guest was unwelcome at their usual venue. The meeting was moved at the last minute from Laughing Horse Books to the Lucky Lab on SE Hawthorne, but was well attended by at least 50 people. (Look for more information about this in next week’s paper.)

Starrett sat down to chat with Hot Action about conspiracy theories, government lies and finding common ground.

WW: What do you think happened on September 11, 2001?

Mary Starrett: I can tell you what didn’t happen and I can tell you that a bunch of disgruntled fanatics did not take box cutters and fly planes into major targets in the United States. I think it would be really stretching the suspension of disbelief to say that that happened. I believe that if you look at all of the evidence regarding the ballistics, regarding the science evidence, regarding even just the basic stock market manipulations that went on, nobody who has done any cursory research on this can come to the conclusion that this was not either allowed or provided for. In other words, do I think it was an inside job? I don’t see how it could not have been allowed to happen.

WW: During tonight’s Q and A, you indicated that you do believe it was more than just allowed to happen.

But when you want to take that one step further to people who say, “How could it be an inside job?” you have to then say, “Could this not have been allowed to happen?” What is that the natural progression of? If yes, it was allowed to happen then it was an inside job. However you want to use the term and however inflammatory it is to say, a lot of people knew this was going to happen.

WW: At this event tonight, you spoke about a lot of other events in the past which had led you to believe in government conspiracies before 9/11, such as Waco and Ruby Ridge. What connection do you see among all of these events?

Well, the connection among all of those events is not necessarily a thread that you can say all of these things happened for one particular reason. The fact that they have happened tells us that they can happen again. I suggest you look at the Gulf of Tonkin, which was the justification for the Vietnam War. That was a lie. The Pearl Harbor information—that’s common knowledge [that] there was foreknowledge there. I defy anybody to disprove that. These are not theories anymore. They have been proven.

WW: So what happens in a group like this when you get off the subject of 9/11 or the Iraq War and there’s a lot of places where you disagree?

You know, I don’t think I know any living human being that I agree with 100% on everything. Within the circle of people that I agree with mostly, we’re going to have disagreements. In any group, you’re not going to have consensus on everything because you have individuals with individual knowledge and experience. So, iron sharpens iron. I’m in a room full of people who do not share the same political persuasion as me. We are not the same on political issues. What does that mean? We agree on some things. We agree that this war was propagated on false information, that 9/11, by anybody’s account, was a lie. So, what difference does it make? We don’t agree on everything, but we do agree on some stuff.

WW: There may be people here tonight who are part of a gay couple, who came together with their partner. Do you feel like you could effectively discuss 9/11 with them, knowing that you probably disagree on a lot of fundamental issues around gay rights?

I have had and do have many people in my life who are gay. I cannot then say that because they are my friends I can approve of their lifestyle. I don’t approve of people who eat meat, but that is their choice and that is their right and that is not up to me to judge. I embrace everybody, but what I do say is, this cannot be something that we then try to paint as acceptable, normal behavior. I don’t think it’s so, and it goes back to my spiritual beliefs. But do I judge? Do I cease to embrace? I love everyone enough to say, I don’t think this is a good lifestyle, but I would never judge.

WW: How do your Christian beliefs inform your views on 9/11?

My Christian beliefs say you’ve got to tell the truth and the truth will set your free, but before it does, it’ll piss you off. And so, if we’re always looking for truth and we don’t compromise the truth, then we never have to worry what lies we told.

WW: People who have these views that you have about 9/11 tend to get dismissed as freaks or wackos or fringe. What do you think it will take to change that?

Nothing. In the beginning, everybody who has a novel idea takes the heat, takes the slings, takes the arrows. Galileo was considered a crackpot. People who said the earth is round, any major, major change [like] developing the light bulb, a car, any new, innovation is considered insane at the time and then, gradually, people come around when it’s safe to do that. JULIE SABATIER

Check out Hot Action, WWire’s weekly post about activists, demonstrations and other hot political action in and around Portland every week.

UPCOMING HOT ACTION EVENTS:

Saturday, March 3

Screening: China Blue

Shot clandestinely in China, under difficult conditions, this is a all-access account of the struggle behind a “Made in China” clothing label. Chinese language and English with English subtitles. 1:15pm, 3pm and 4:40pm at the Hollywood Theater, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd. $6.

Sunday, March 4

International Women’s Day Celebration at PSU

Portland State University is celebrating International Women’s Day four days early with an all-day event including a presentation by Winona LaDuke, performances by Mishkin, a Zine-focused art room and a self defense workshop. 10am-4pm at PSU’s Smith Center Ballroom. Free, donations accepted.

Monday, March 5

Reading: Not Buying It

Not Buying It is a cold-turkey confession by award-winning journalist Judith Levine that follows her progress — and inevitable relapses — over an entire year of not spending. 7:30pm at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. Free.

Reed’s Kaul Auditorium was packed Friday, February 2. The crowd gave a warm welcome to long-time activist and current NAACP chair Julian Bond, who approached the podium with an air of distinguished confidence. He earned a standing ovation before even opening his mouth to give a speech that was part history lesson and part call to action.

Bond, 67, is a revered civil rights leader, who helped to found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and went on to serve in the Georgia state legislature as both a Representative and as a Senator. In 1968, he was the first African-American to be nominated to the post of vice president of the United States, but he declined because the constitution requires the VP to be at least 35 years old and Bond was only 28 at the time.

Bond was the keynote speaker at Reed’s fifth annual Black History Series. “We are such a young nation,” he said. “Only my father’s generation stands between Julian Bond and human bondage.” He went on to discuss Hurricane Katrina, noting that it is referred to by some as “a modern-day lynching,” and reminding the audience that “the Gulf War was not removed from the Gulf Coast.”

Bond was nearly mobbed by admirers following his stirring address, but he did grant Hot Action a slice of his time to talk about Barack Obama, gay rights and tokenism.

WW: In your speech, you alluded to the parallels between the struggle for gay rights and the civil rights movement. Can you expand on that a little?

Julian Bond: Well, the connections are not exactly parallel, but nearly parallel. Here are a people being discriminated against because of immutable conditions. And the thing I think the gays and lesbians are facing, the difficulty is that many people believe you can choose to be gay or not to be gay. Of course, that’s idiotic, but many people believe that, and unfortunately, I think many black people believe it, too. And I don’t think the movement for gay rights is going to progress as quickly as it should unless more and more gay people who are in the closet come out and say, “I’m gay. You know me. I’m your neighbor; I’m your friend; I sit next to you at work; I go to school with your kids. You know me. Don’t treat me like I’m some weird thing. I’m a person just like you are.”

WW: Are Black History Month and Women’s History Month a form of tokenism that implies that all the other months of the year are white, men’s history months?

If you take it that way. I don’t. I think there probably was a time when I did, but I don’t now. The whole idea of Black History Month, or what was Negro History Week, was that during this week, we’d give special interest to black history, but that black history ought to be a regular part of the curriculum 52 weeks a year, and now, 12 months a year. So, I don’t take it that it’s a token set-aside, although I’m sure many people do.

WW: What kind of chances do you see for presidential hopeful Barack Obama?

I really don’t know. I think it’s fairly evident that Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner among the Democrats. She’s got a tremendous advantage in name recognition. And even though Obama’s been on the cover of many magazines and the front page of many, many stories, she has been a public figure for a long time and her husband is a person of great public recognition in the country. And that is what’s leading her into first place right now. The question is can he catch up? And I just don’t know. JULIE SABATIER

Check out Hot Action, WWire’s weekly post about activists, demonstrations and other hot political action in and around Portland every week.

UPCOMING HOT ACTION EVENTS:

Thursday, February 8

Rally and March for the Oromo people in Ethiopia

This event, organized by the Portland Oromo Community Association, is one of many around the world in solidarity with the Oromo people. The Oromo are the people indigenous to the horn of Africa. The Oromos are struggling for basic human rights, justice, and freedom, democracy and national self-determination, which they say are not available to them under their current government. Meet at Llyod Center Cinema parking lot 9:00am. March ends at Federal building downtown on 3rd St. Free and open to the public.

Friday, February 9

Screening: Mardi Gras Made In China

This film examines follows the life-cycle of Mardi Gras beads from a small factory in Fuzhou, China, to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, using the beads’ journey to talk about issues surrounding globalization and labor outsourcing. 7pm at Clinton St. Theater 2522 SE Clinton St. Runs through February 14. Admission $6.

Saturday, February 10

Lecture: Anuradha Mittal

Anuradha Mittal, executive director of The Oakland Institute, is an expert on agriculture, development, trade and human rights. That’s what she’ll be talking about in her lecture titled “The Myths of Genetic Engineering and the New Green Revolution for the World’s Poor.” First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave. at 6 pm. Tickets $8-$20, sliding scale donation to benefit Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering.

Late last year, Sarah Olson found herself in a place no journalist wants to be: she had become a part of the story she was covering.

Olson, 31, is an independent journalist based in Oakland, California. She has written for TruthOut.org, and her work has also been featured on Pacifica Radio and the National Radio Project. She was the first reporter to interview Lt. Ehren Watada, just before the commissioned officer from Honolulu publicly voiced his opposition to the Iraq war and refused to deploy with his unit last June.

In December, she was subpoenaed to testify in the court martial of Lt. Watada, in order to verify the accuracy of the statements she attributed to him after their initial interview. Watada himself confirmed the accuracy of his own statements, and the Army let Olson know on Monday, Jan. 29 that she would no longer be required to take the stand in his court martial, scheduled for Feb. 5 at Ft. Lewis, just outside Seattle.

Following that news, Olson joined me for a phone interview, which was broadcast on KBOO Community Radio. Hot Action picked a juicy excerpt from that interview. Read on to hear about the politics of free speech, journalistic ethics and the mysterious nature of military subpoenas.

WW: Lt. Watada has spoken to a lot of reporters. I interviewed him myself when he came to Portland last June and he was on Fresh Air talking to Terry Gross just last week. I’m curious about why you were singled out to testify in his case.

Sarah Olson: It’s a good question. I don’t know. I can tell you a couple of things. First of all, I did a fairly lengthy interview with him first, and it was published the day Lt. Watada convened a press conference and became public with his opposition to the Iraq war. The interview was readily available to the army prosecutors in print right away, but as you point out, there are a number of journalists who have reported him saying essentially the same things that he said to me. There is certainly broadcast of those kinds of statements as well as video recordings that are available online and certainly through those media organizations. So it’s not entirely clear to me why the Army had chosen to look at me with an increased degree of scrutiny.

WW: Were you prepared to refuse the military subpoena?

I had been asked that before and legally, I wasn’t really able to say what I was going to do should I have been forced to go into court and participate in this. I think I was very clear about my opposition and at the end of the day, I don’t think that the choice between one’s liberty, personal freedom, and one’s integrity is a choice that any journalist should need to make.

WW: What kind of advice did you get about what might have happened if you had declined to cooperate with the subpoena?

If I were to have been forced to take the stand, and should I have refused to answer the questions, I was faced with a felony contempt of court charge and up to 6 months in prison.

WW: You were not asked for any confidential material or anything that was not already part of the public record and yet, you felt that taking the stand would have compromised your journalistic ethics. Is that right?

That’s true. The Army has been very clear about what they wanted from me. They say they simply wanted me to take the stand and verify the accuracy of the statements that I’d published…To me it raised a question of what is my job as a journalist and how do I accomplish it? Will people continue to speak with me if they see me as kind of colluding with the government? I feel that it’s a journalist’s job to report the news and not to participate in government prosecutions and certainly not to participate in government prosecutions of personal, political speech. JULIE SABATIER

Check out Hot Action, WWire’s weekly post about activists, demonstrations and other hot political action in and around Portland every week.

UPCOMING HOT ACTION EVENTS:

Friday, February 2

Lecture: Julian Bond on Civil Rights

Julian Bond has been chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1998. He served in the Georgia legislature as both a Representative and as a Senator. He is a professor at the University of Virginia and will be in Portland to talk about civil rights “In the Day, Today and Tomorrow.” 8pm at Kaul Auditorium, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland. Free and open to the pubic.

Monday, February 5

Day of Action: Lt. Watada’s Military Court Martial

Lt. Ehren Watada claims the war in Iraq is illegal and that he was upholding his duty to the constitution by refusing illegal orders when he refused to deploy with the Stryker Brigade last June. As court martial begins, student activists will join Iraq Veterans Against the War for a rally, political art performance and vigil. 9am-5pm outside Fort Lewis, WA. Exit 119, off I-5. Dress in warm clothes and bring food. Coffee will be provided. Free.

Reading: Gabriel Thompson

Gabriel Thompson’s There’s No José Here draws out the voices of Mexicans in the U.S. to share their thoughts on the immigration debate. Thompson uses his skills as a journalist and as a writer as he tells the story of a Mexican family he befriended in Brooklyn.7:30pm at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. Free.

Alejandro Queral has only been in Portland a year, but he’s managed to get right in the middle of some of the hottest political issues (at least as seen by some on the local left): government surveillance, police violence and most recently, racial profiling.

Queral, 34, is the executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center (NWCRC). He came to the U.S. from Mexico at age 15 and became a citizen in 2000. He’s lived in 12 different states and, before he added Oregon to that list, he was in Washington, D.C., working for the Sierra Club and attending law school.

Queral recently joined Police Chief Rosie Sizer and NWCRC board president Jo Ann Bowman on a racial profiling committee, an oversight body that will review police policies and hold open meetings to discuss how best to eradicate racial profiling in arrests, traffic stops and other police activities.

He’s a pretty busy guy, but Queral took some time out of his schedule to sit down with Hot Action over a raspberry smoothie to talk about wire-taps, paranoia and the touchy issue of race.

WW: Does the NWCRC have the same sort of broad definition of free speech as the ACLU, which will defend neo-Nazis who want to hold a demonstration as well as anti-war protesters who want to march in the street?

Alejandro Queral: I think what the ACLU does is fantastic. I think there’s absolute value in the approach they take, which is: freedom of speech is freedom of speech, regardless of your point of view. They have filled that niche. The NWCRC is a project of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Our approach is really focused more on supporting the progressive community. We have progressive, lefty, liberals—whatever you want to call them. So, we do have an ideological bent, unlike the ACLU, which kind of tries to stay above the fray. I don’t think the center would ever represent white supremacists because they had some problem with the cops while protesting. That’s just not something that we would feel comfortable with.

WW: What kind of action is the NWCRC taking to combat warrantless wiretaps?

We haven’t taken any legal action yet, but what we have done is we have approached more than 20 activist groups in Portland and Eugene and Salem and filed requests under Oregon’s open records act asking for any information related to activities by these groups. We have also filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FBI, Department of Defense, a number of federal agencies that we know have been, in one way or another, conducting investigations of anti-war groups. Those are, I think, the groups that are being monitored most closely.

And so, we’re beginning to get some responses back from the federal agencies. We actually also requested all sorts of information about training policies with respect to surveillance from all law enforcement agencies in Oregon. And we’ve gotten some responses and we’ll be looking at this information as we get it. Obviously, what we’re looking for here is any evidence that the federal government or state agencies have done surveillance on groups.

WW: Do you find that doing this kind of work makes you more paranoid than the average citizen?

I don’t think it makes me more paranoid. I don’t think that I’m being followed or I’m under intense scrutiny. I wouldn’t be surprised if our phones are wire-tapped, for example. It wouldn’t surprise me, but that’s different from being paranoid. But the rest of the community is. There’s a lot of concern. I don’t necessarily think that it’s paranoia. If you’re expressing certain political points of view, you increase your chances of getting the attention of the government. That’s the reality of it.

WW: I want to ask you about the recently formed racial profiling committee. Do you think better work will be done now that police union president Robert King is on board?

Well, I think it gives us a chance to really talk about the issues honestly and openly, because if you don’t have the stakeholders at the table, those views, those issues, those concerns that they may have may come later or may be a source of criticism to the racial profiling committee and really stall the ability to make some progress.

WW: Obviously, we’ve come a long way from a time when it was actually illegal for African-Americans to live in Oregon, but are we still one of the more racist states?

The racial profiling issue is forcing Portland, at least, to talk about race and talk about race relations. And I have noticed that it’s an incredibly uncomfortable topic for Portlanders to talk about. It’s not surprising because you have that history, because you have a very, very, very small community of color. And so, my guess is there are a lot of race-related concerns and whether that’s racism or not, I don’t know. I think Oregon has some significant race issues to deal with in part because it’s not something that communities outside of Portland really have to deal with. And any time there’s no exposure, any time there’s no interaction, any time there’s no understanding, you’re going to have actions that may be deemed racist. Yeah, I think Oregon has a huge problem.

WW: Do you find yourself to be a victim of racial profiling of any kind?

My only experience [here] was this man in downtown asked me if I was a terrorist. I think the person was not well, mentally. He was like, “Are you a terrorist? Are you a terrorist? Why are you guys from the Middle East attacking us?” And I just turned around and said, “Don’t give me that,” and just looked at him straight in the eye, and he stopped. That’s about it.JULIE SABATIER

Check out Hot Action, WWire’s weekly post about activists, demonstrations and other hot political action in and around Portland every week.

UPCOMING HOT ACTION EVENTS:

Friday, January 26

Critical Mass Ride

It’s the last Friday and that means it’s time to join the pedaling pack that is critical mass. Show those cars who’s boss: ride, represent and obey traffic laws. Don’t forget to bring your lights. Meet on North Park Blocks at NW Park near Burnside at 5:30pm. Free.

Saturday, January 27

Reading: Fifty Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals

Want to make an activist out of your kid (or someone else’s)? Then, you won’t want to miss this event with Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing 2:00pm. Free.

Tuesday, January 30

Racial Profiling Committee Meeting

This is the first meeting of Portland’s newly formed racial profiling committee. Hear what the committee has to say about the issues and raise some of your own. Emmanuel Temple, 1032 N Sumner St. 3-5pm. Free and open to the public.

Two days after President Bush announced his plan to send 21,000 additional troops to Iraq, 150 Portlanders packed into the Multnomah Friends Meeting House on Southeast Stark Street to listen to Iraq vet Darrell Anderson talk about acts of resistance.

Specialist Anderson, 25, recently returned from an 18-month stint in Canada after going AWOL from his unit in the 1st Armored Division in January 2005. Dressed in a camouflage vest with an upside-down American flag sewn over the pocket, he told the rapt crowd how he served one tour in Iraq, where he was wounded by a roadside bomb, earning a Purple Heart. He also related tales of war crimes committed by soldiers he says were coerced by military procedure.

Anderson, who returned to the U.S. in October 2006, faced a less than honorable discharge at Ft. Knox, but got off without a court martial or prison time. He says he’s no longer welcome in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, and has been traveling to rallies and protests aboard a bus with Iraq Veterans Against the War, stopping in places such as Ft. Benning, Georgia and Ft. Lewis, Washington, where Lt. Ehren Watada is facing court martial for his refusal to go to Iraq.

Unlike Watada, Anderson has been to Iraq and been wounded, which boosts his credibility with some. But like Watada and Suzanne Swift (who also went AWOL after fighting in Iraq), Anderson is left without benefits like VA healthcare and the GI bill. In other words, he has nothing to lose, and this makes him an avid leader in what he calls “the resistance.”

The response to Anderson’s blunt but charismatic presentation Friday night was overwhelming. The question and answer session felt more like an organizational meeting and several people swarmed the bearded young veteran afterward to tell him how much they appreciate him speaking out, to slip donation money into his palm and, in the case of one Atkinson Elementary student, to ask for his autograph. Hot Action could barely get a word in edgewise, but Anderson did find time to answer a few questions for us.

WW: Do you think that Bush’s troop surge is going to cause more people to resist the way you did?

Oh yeah. Soldiers are mad. All the troop surge is going to do is [create] more bodies. More people are going to die. So, they’re upset. Even if they’re pro-war, they’re upset.

WW: A lot of people say that there won’t be a real anti-war movement until there’s a draft. What do you think about that?

I think it’s going to take that because people don’t care until it hurts them, it hits them, and that’s what the draft does—makes it resonate in everybody.

WW: Did you commit what you would consider war crimes, when you were in Iraq?

Yeah, I would say they were war crimes, but I was ordered. I didn’t act on my own when we committed war crimes. It was military procedure and orders to commit these war crimes.

WW: Is that an excuse?

Um, no. Because if you resist an order in Iraq, they can literally shoot you in the head for resisting orders.

WW: Did you fear for your life?

Oh yeah. I wouldn’t never question [orders]. I wouldn’t fire in combat, and the one time they told me to, I didn’t. They got really mad, but yeah, I was afraid that they were going to recognize that I’m not shooting when we get in fire fights. I’m not doing it. I was worried about that, but I was such a good guy that no one ever thought twice about me.

WW: What about when you first got there and, as you say, you heard other soldiers using racial slurs while talking about Iraqis and bragging about beating prisoners. Did you judge them?

Yeah. I was upset. I was mad. I didn’t understand what was going on, but after a while I understood that this isn’t who they are. It’s not their fault. You succumb to war and you react to war. You put a gun to anybody’s head, they’re going to do what ever it takes to stay alive and that’s what you face in Iraq. You could die at any second of any day and you’ll do whatever it takes to make it home to see your family, you know.

WW: You said during your talk that the military can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do. How does that apply to what you just said?

That’s in ranks. In Iraq, it’s a whole different story. But when you’re here in the United States, they can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. In Iraq, they can make you do whatever they want and that’s the scary part between war and the military. Things change when you get to a war.

WW: You said you were “other than honorably” discharged. What does that mean?

Less than honorable, yeah. It’s not as bad [as dishonorable], but still I don’t get benefits. So, that’s still bad in my eyes. It sucks, but I’ve got my freedom and that’s the most important thing. JULIE SABATIER

Check out Hot Action, WWire’s weekly post about activists, demonstrations and other hot political action in and around Portland every week.

UPCOMING HOT ACTION EVENTS:

Ongoing: Camp Resistance

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War set up “Camp Resistance” across the road from a side gate to Fort Lewis, where Lt. Ehren Watada is awaiting court martial for refusing to go to the war in Iraq, which he contends is an illegal war. The camp will be there until the end of Lt. Watada’s court martial in February and anyone is welcome to join. Near Ft. Lewis, Washington, off ramp 119. For more information go to www.thankyoult.org

Thursday, January 18

Reading: Bettina Aptheker

Bettina Aptheker will read from her book, Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel. Born into one of the most influential U.S. Communist families, Aptheker witnessed first-hand one of the most dramatic upheavals in American history. She also lived with a terrible secret: incest at the hands of her famous father and a frightening and lonely life lived inside a home wrought with family tensions. 7:30pm at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. Free.

Sunday, January 21

34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

NARAL Pro-Choice of Oregon is organizing a rally to celebrate the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that gave women the legal right to an abortion. Speakers include pro-choice state representative, Tina Kotek, No On 43 Campaign Manager, Carol Butler, and activist/author/professor, Melody Rose. Rally from 4:30 to 5:00 pm at Shemanski Fountain (SW Park and Salmon Ave). Celebrate afterwards from 5:00 to 7:00 pm at the First Unitarian Church downtown at 1101 SW 12th Ave. RSVP to Nora at 503-223-4510 x13 or nora@prochoiceoregon.org.