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INTERROGATIONS

Officials in Portland, Oregon, are backing a decision by the acting police chief to refuse to join a federal effort to question Middle Eastern men about their possible ties to terrorist organizations and suspects -- saying the plan ran contrary to Oregon's strict laws against the interrogating of people who are not actually suspected of a specific crime.

The Justice Department plans to talk to about 5,000 recent arrivals from various nations considered to be terrorism sponsors in the next 30 days and has asked local police departments to assist with the questioning. Portland is home to about 200 men on the list.

But Assistant Police Chief Andrew Kirkland said his department would not take part due to the likelihood the questioning would clash with state law.

"You can't use personnel and equipment just to go out and randomly interview people solely on immigration," said Kirkland, who was filling in for the vacationing Chief Mark Kroeker.

Mayor Vera Katz called Kirkland's decision "a wise one."

"I do have a concern when we're asked to do something that violates state law," she told the Portland Oregonian newspaper.

There was no immediate comment on the Portland situation from Justice Department officials in Washington, although Michael Mosman, the U.S. attorney for Oregon, called the issue "a tempest in a teapot."

He compared the questioning of the men on the list to police talking to bystanders at the scene of a traffic accident.

-- What do you think?

9/11 MEMORIAL

Creators of a new exhibit at the site of President Kennedy's assassination 38 years ago said they'll provide the opportunity for the public to offer their own ideas for memorializing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Each year, about 460,000 people visit the Sixth Floor Museum in the old Texas School Book Depository, where the Warren Commission said Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that fatally wounded Kennedy.

In a new exhibit that opened this week -- called "Loss and Renewal: Transforming Tragic Sites" -- visitors can explore how Americans have memorialized five tragic chapters in the nation's history, some of them after years and even decades of painful reflection.

The memorial sites include Ford's Theatre in Washington where President Lincoln was shot in 1865; The USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, where a surprise attack by the Japanese in 1941 launched World War II; Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., where Dr. Martin Luther King was killed in 1968; and the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

In most cases, it took years, even decades, for Americans to decide how to properly memorialize an event, said Jeff West, executive director of the Sixth Floor museum. In the case of Pearl Harbor, it was 60 years before the USS Arizona Memorial was dedicated because it is such a sacred site for many World War II veterans.

At the end of the exhibit, the visitors are asked whether the twin towers should be rebuilt, if there should be a memorial at "Ground Zero," and whether there should be memorials at the Pentagon and in the Pennsylvania field where a fourth plane crashed.

Hand-written notes, some of them in foreign languages, are already being tacked on a wall in the museum lobby. They will be collected and forwarded to officials studying memorials, West said.

"September 2001 was not the first time our nation rallied in the face of upheaval," said West. "It is important to consider that as we ask each other how best to remember the sites and stories at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an open field in Pennsylvania."

West believes the memorial to Sept. 11 will probably resemble what was done in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. It includes a physical memorial site, a museum, and a center devoted to the study of terrorism.

-- What kind of Sept. 11 memorial would you like to see, and why?

(Thanks to UPI's Phil Magers in Dallas)

MIND YOUR MANNERS

Do you consider yourself well-mannered? Most people do. A new survey on etiquette and manners conducted by Lenox, the Gift Company, finds Americans believe they personally have better manners than the average person. In fact, 85 percent rate their own manners as excellent or good.

However, only 23 percent rate the manners of others as excellent or good. And apparently our manners aren't getting any better over time. 62 percent think manners are worse today than 10 years ago. In terms of age breakdown, compared to all consumers surveyed (91 percent), respondents 18 to 24 years of age (84 percent) are less likely to believe that manners are important to obtaining and retaining friends.

While a majority of people report using proper manners and entertainment/gift-giving etiquette, they're more likely to perform some proper etiquette actions more than others. Nearly all respondents say they always say "please" (92 percent). However, fewer consumers report they always send a gift when they are invited to a wedding they cannot attend (59 percent), send a thank-you note after someone gives him or her a gift (53 percent), bring a host or hostess a gift when visiting someone's home (31 percent) or send a thank-you note after attending a party or dinner at someone's home (28 percent).

-- What kind of manners do you have? Do you agree that manners have deteriorated, and that more and more people don't practice proper etiquette? Why or why not?

(Web site: Lenox.com)