Author: Fiona Bruce

There’s a war being waged over a strip of Portland’s 82nd Avenue, an area just over six miles long. People living in the neighborhoods on and around this street feel that their rights and safety are being threatened by the prostitution trade that has flourished in their community, and many of these concerned, angry citizens blame Mayor Tom Potter and the City Council for revoking the ordinance designating the area as a “prostitution-free zone,” (or PFZ) a little over a year ago. Wherever prostitution is illegal (as it is in Portland, and almost every other place in the U.S.) it is already, by definition, a “prostitution-free zone.”

On September 29, the U.S. Congress voted 228-205 against a bill intended to provide $700 billion to rescue the nation’s critically failing financial market. At this writing–two days later–the thwarted bailout has gotten a second wind as the Senate voted to accept the proposal, after making it more palatable by adding a number of provisions and tax incentives. The “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” (more commonly known to us as “the bailout”) will almost certainly have gone back to Congress for a vote by the time you are reading this.