What they hope you didn't notice

The weekend is always an opportunity for dastardly people, particularly government authorities and corporate flacks, to release news that they hope gets lost in the shuffle. A four-day holiday weekend, such as the one we just had, presents an irresistible temptation for these people. And sure enough, since Wednesday, several embarrassing stories have been dumped into the news hopper:

● The guy the Portland cops shot on the 19th died sometime between then and Wednesday. His name was Immanueal Jaquez Clark-Johnson and he was 30 years old. They still aren't giving out the name or names of the cop or cops who shot him, over by Reed College. Never mind that hiding that information, which they routinely do now, is out of line with their own policy on the subject.

● They gave out some details on how bad the damage was in the vandalism spree at Adidas headquarters in north Portland on the 20th. Hoo boy, was it bad. Fifty large windows and doors were trashed. The terrorists got away – not surprisingly given the absence of a functioning police force in Portland.

● The Portland city auditor, Mary Hull Caballero, whose office levied a big, loud fine on Portland City Council Rene Gonzalez for supposed campaign finance violations just before the election, completely flipflopped on Wednesday. Now that the election is over, she admits her shop was wrong, and she has rescinded the fine. I used to like that office, but after this foolishness, they're on probation with me.

● If you had any lab work done by the Legacy health system locally, one of their ex-employees has stolen your data, maybe even including your Social Security number. Don't worry, they'll buy you some free credit reports. Good luck.

Will any of the local media follow up on any of these sad stories and write about them some more, just to show the weasels that their little games won't work? We'll have to see.