• Family Support Around Mental Illness
• City and County Budget Input
• Red Cross Open House
• Free Mental Heath Lecture
• Educators' Video Contest
• Health Lectures at OHSU
• Columbia Crossing Protest Rally . . .

• Week of the Uninsured
• Whirligig! Returns to Seattle Center
• The film "Taking Root"
• Small Business Seminar
• Walter Mosley Reads from Newest Book
• Free Google Map Building Workshop . . .

A general consensus is that it was a deadly mix of panic, rage, and frustration that caused Lovelle Mixon to snap. His shocking murderous rampage left four Oakland police officers dead and a city and police agencies in deep soul search about what went so terribly wrong. Though Mixon's killing spree is a horrible aberration, his plight as an unemployed, ex-felon isn't. There are tens of thousands like him on America's streets. . . .

If Tanya Scarborough can't find a kidney donor, she'll die – possibly before her daughter graduates from high school in two years. As she struggles to persuade friends, family and church members to get their blood tested in the search for a potential match, and suffers through kidney dialysis three times a week, her time is running out.
"African Americans have among the highest rates of kidney disease, and yet when someone passes away they refuse to donate organs . . .

Mrs. Ruth C. Neal celebrated her 100th birthday at a celebration at the Calaroga Terrace auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Mrs. Neal was born on Feb. 24, 1909 in Nashville, Tenn., where she graduated from high school and attended business college. She soon met and married Richard Neal. They moved to Laurel, Miss. and had two beautiful children, Richard Jr. and Ruth Helen. Mr. Neal owned and operated a drug store there. . . .

Currently, prisoners are counted as residents of the correctional institution in which they are imprisoned, inflating population statistics and inaccurately skewing congressional and local representation in sparsely populated areas where offenders can't vote and rarely stay after they're released, says state Rep. Chip Shields, the bill's main sponsor.
During an introductory hearing last week, the Department of Corrections said it would be difficult to track the permanent addresses of offenders . . .

Members of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren – Jamie Farlow, Carollyn Smith and Margaret Curtis — engaged in a protest this week at the Department of Human Services office on Vancouver Avenue.
Smith, the group's founder, accuses the Department of Human Services Child Welfare Department of improperly separately families and merely paying lip service to their mandate to give custody to willing relatives . . .

When the beloved House of Sound music store building was demolished on Dec. 31, 2008, decades of memories came crashing down with the wood, metal and glass. Now the sign is the only remnant of a once-vibrant North Williams Avenue scene of jazz clubs, shops, and homes. Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Renwick has launched a show about the building, at the New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny St. through April 19 . . .

Black Electro is a night of electronica featuring Thavius Beck, Rasheeda Ameera/ De Angelo, Cheetah Finess, Ayam Music and DJ Adiva with host Deena B from KBOO's The Soundbox. There will also be live art by the Sub2mit Crew. The event takes place at Friday, April 3 at 9 p.m. at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, $10-50 sliding scale, and is a benefit for KBOO Community Radio.

It was nearly 9 years ago when PassinArt first produced the play "A Sunbeam." Now, with three actors from the original production returning to the stage, the controversial and emotional play about family, mental illness and tough choices is back. The play runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through April 25 at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.
"A Sunbeam," by John Henry Redwood, tells the story of . . .