Pump it up

Published 5:16 pm Sunday, February 7, 2016

Importing Portland: Support is growing for a proposal to end self-service gas pumps in this state, requiring station attendants to pump gas, as is the law in Oregon.

Sure. That’s where it starts, with innocuous ideas like other people pumping your gas. But next thing you know it’s craft brews and quinoa and ironic facial hair. Before you know it they’ve take away our sales tax and replaced it with an income tax.

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Bored this way: Pop star Lady Gaga performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Sunday’s Super Bowl 50, dressed simply — for Gaga — and singing the national anthem with no avant-garde embellishment.

Tony Bennett, where is the real Lady Gaga and what have you done with her?

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Don’t know much about history: On this day in 1915, D.W. Griffith’s controversial silent movie epic about the Civil War, “The Birth of a Nation,” premiered under its original title, “The Clansman.”

To mark the film’s 101st anniversary, the Oscars’ big opening number later this month will be “The Academy Awards Celebrates. ‘The Clansman,’” just as it has every year.

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