I like how they used a photo of what is presumably the Blues Festival to bring home the point.

(If this IS their point, they forget that the Blues is happy music.)

Absurd. There's no way this is correct, worse than Detroit? Ugh, c'mon!

I'm not surprised. The parts per million of SSRIs in the effluent increases as stigma toward getting help decreases. Sorry about that unintended effect of advocacy.

But seriously. We're ahead of El Paso? Tacoma? Little Rock?

What about the most psychotic town?

Darn planners.
It seems utopia is an elusive delusion.
So sad.

I guess we need more of the same.

PDC and Metro are on it.

Swell.

..."The environment is stable. It's the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die."

Serenity (2005) apologies to Joss Whedon

Blues happy music?

She got the Gold Mine, I got the Shaft

(Ooops, we got the Shaft!)

The picture is from the Obama rally on May 18th, 2008. It still works with the story though. The "Change You Can Believe In" crowd must be gulping down Prozac with soup spoons by now.

Looks like the folks at Oregonlive are surfing your site for content these days:

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/03/bizweek_mag_says_portland_is_m.html

It was even on the front page under "Interact"

On an earlier thread, the question was asked:
Why aren't the citizens of Portland at the gates of city hall with your pitchforks????
Others ask why citizens aren't engaged in what is happening in our city?

Antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average.... Other states with high antidepressant use were Maine and Oregon . Utah 's rate of antidepressant use was twice the rate of California and nearly three times the rates in New York and New Jersey , the study showed.
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/critics/081021anti.html

I am not an expert by any means, but this article on Portland being depressed and the link above got me to thinking about this.
I am not bringing this up in terms of being judgmental or critical of those who need these antidepressant drugs. I just wonder if they are overprescribed in our area.

Could there be a connection to lack of citizens uprising over the issues?

Overprescribed to some, underprescribed to some. It's the rain. Didn't anyone notice that pair of days last week, one was dry and warm and the feeling was ebullient, and then the next day it was really cold and rainy, everyone at work was silent or complaining, the only thing anyone wanted to do was lie on the couch?

I didn't see how Seattle ranked, but it has a huge natural antidepressant, the ocean, and more hills, which are also anti-depressants we lack.

Surely part of the explanation for this is revealed in the WW Story that ran a couple of years ago wherein a self-applauding young PR genius was crowing at how successful he had been in personally creating a national “buzz” about Portland: a mecca for “young creatives,” an environmental paradise, the most progressive and cutting edge city in the country. Well, unless arriving “young creatives” were well-heeled, they ran into a poor job market, a lack of cheap housing (a necessity prerequisite for a genuine creative scene), and of course the moody skies that both give Portland its character and have served as a winnower. People who can take months with only an occasional fleeting sunbreak adjust to Portland. Others run screaming away after a few dark seasons. What care the peddlars of illusions? One successful snow job under their belts, and widely advertised, they can hope to go on to sell bigger and better things, like crooked candidates and redevelopment projects.

Congratulations! You, too, got hoodwinked - along with KATU, KOIN 6, The O & a bunch of other local media outlets.

The story in question was published more than a year ago by BusinessWeek - 2/26/09, to be exact.

I didn't pay any attention to how old or new the story was. Nor does that matter. It's still interesting, and nobody in Portland wrote about it before this (that I know of, at least).