But Jack, inPortland is chock-full of important, ground breaking information - like the fact that it is nearly impossible to find a home "close-in" for under $200K. Oh wait everyone knows that. Remind me to check their archive copies when I get around to writing the Restatement of the Obvious, First.

Okay, Jack, the inPortland section is weak, but you had to love the Oregonian’s picture of Eric Sten in Friday’s paper. It looked like the episode when Opie shot the robin.

Jack,
My initial reactions to inPortland were like yours, but it has grown on me.

I like the property listings, maybe just because I'm a homeowner. They are much more accessible now.

I found last week's inPortland pretty good, can't recall now what I liked, but I remember reading it cover to cover.

It seems to me like a mishmash of the Homes/Garden page with some of the Friday Out and About section thrown in.

I dunno what it is, but I still read it.

I weaned myself away from this site for almost a whole week mostly because I was just plain tired of the crumudgeonly bashing of everything Portland with very few commentors giving me any relief.

Jack, I seriously believe you have some personal self-loathing issues to deal with that surface within your constant ad hominen attacks ("gap-toothed opie", calling anybody not agreeing with you either Vera or Neil). Honestly, as much yous seem to hate this place, I'm really puzzled why you bother to stay.

While Portland has its blemishes and problems, try to give me an example of any city in the world, let alone the US, that is pristine.

My outlook on life and on my native hometown has brightened in the past week when I have not bothered to traffic this site.

So goodbye Jack. I'll run into you at *** events I'm sure (if you bother to even show up). And good riddance to the right-wingnuts that have taken up your banner Jack. You keep claiming to distance yourself from the ever-decreasing ratings Lars, but yet you keep attracting his fans and ideology to this site.

It was a nice run. But for me personally, you have become as relevant as the rantings of Phil Stanford: sometimes amusing, usually annoying.

As I like to say to one of your big fans, Steve Schopp (whose views were rejected by voters in a recent election), rant on.....

Thanks Hilsy.
I was going to write nearly the exact same post, but you did it first and saved me some typing.

I think Jack should run for City Council, just to show him:

1) how hard it is
2) how few people actually agree with him.

Whatsa matter, Jack? Chicken? Baaaaawk bawk bawk!

How pitiful. Folks, if you don't like it here, stay away.

If you don't like Portland, Jack, change your city. Run for office. Take action. DO SOMETHING.

[sound of crickets chirping]

Sorry, I have a real job, which is infinitely better than running for office. Besides, being a blogger is a lot more fun.

While I've got you on the line, though, why do you take it so personally when people question what's going on in Portland? Is it that threatening to you that there are people out there who disagree with you and the people in City Hall?

I had pretty much ignored this thread until Jack announced his shutting off of comments for a week because "I'm mostly tired of reading and brooding about certain readers' comments." So I went looking for the offending comments and in very short order came upon the above string.

Jack, Portland didn't get the way it is by accident. It's been the way it is forever, and it got this way because it's the way that most of the people here want it to be. It's thoroughly ingrained as part of the local social fabric. With one glaring exception, the people here have never wanted hard charging dynamic change-oriented leadership (the exception is of course Neil baby, and man, were they ever mesmerized by him). The people here don't want or embrace real change, and it's something that they resist mightily. And they really don't want growth. Not just physical growth, but attitudinal growth. And they don't want to be ripped out of their cocooned doldrums, and will turn on anybody who even off-handedly intimates that maybe for their own good they should be ripped out of them. And that's where you came in. Trying to run against that current is a futile Quixotic quest of the first order.

Hey, I found all that out a long time ago. A couple of weeks ago or so you wrote that you came here 27 years ago, which ought to be long enough for you to have learned it too. So you should have been ready for it. Me, I don't bring the subject up unless I'm ready and in the mood to deal with these sticks-in-the-mud.

I've lived in Portland for 38 years, minus 4 years away in the Navy. I came here to go to school, and I found that I kinda liked it here, so I stayed. My family and my old friends from whence I came always ask me when I'm coming "home." They can't figure it out. They come and visit. They look around. They don't get it. Over the years I've ruminated about it, trying to figure out why I do stay here. I've decided that it's a combination of many things, mostly geographical, and even, oddly, the weather. But, for certain, it wasn't because of city, county, or state governments, or the quality of political leadership. And it wasn't the prevailing social attitudes of the natives here, either. Those are things that you have to reconcile yourself to putting up with if you're going to live here. You live here in spite of them, not because of them.

"My outlook on life and on my native hometown has brightened in the past week when I have not bothered to traffic this site."

That's exactly how I feel when I don't read BlueOregon.

"It's been the way it is forever, and it got this way because it's the way that most of the people here want it to be. "

Wouldn't you say most of the people [insert: who run things]?

And the "If you don't like it, run for office" ploy is something I see continually on BlueOregon now. Quite the little conversation stopper.

As far as "certain readers' comments," many sideways and front-into-mirror glances or gulps! Cya in September after I get my daughter married off. The Beatles book did get ordered last week; I love Powell's and its owner but Amazon had a sale. :)

Wouldn't you say most of the people [insert: who run things]?

The voters chose Potter, Sten, et. al. And when given alternatives who promise to try to take Portland in new and different --more proseperous-- directions, they reject those alternatives handily.

The last candidate who won the mayor's race on a platform of change was in 1984 when Bud Clark ousted Frank Ivancie. That's the kind of change --in that direction-- that Portland voters like.

The people want things to be and remain exactly the way they are in Portland by at least a 65% to 35% margin. Maybe more. If the polls are to be believed, Potter has a 70%+ approval rating. For what?

"The last candidate who won the mayor's race on a platform of change was in 1984 when Bud Clark ousted Frank Ivancie. That's the kind of change --in that direction-- that Portland voters like."

Hmmmm ... well ... ummmm .... yeah. The demographics have considerably changed, though, in the last 20 years, and the polarizations (of incomes & politics) have increased, don't you think? I see the drop-out rate as high. I also don't think I see the "prevailing social attitudes of the natives here" as the controlling factor you do, and there would be a dividing line? Or maybe I just like ... at least what they used to be.

Speaking of ancient history, I'll mention again Fool's Hill by John Quick, OSU Press -- a remarkably beautiful quirky easy smooth little book about growing up in Port Orford in the 30's. A very Oregon book. Find it, savor it, absorb it.

This string is not why I am banning comments.

Jack asks why people get threatened when he disagrees with City Hall. Well, I'm not threatened because:

1) I know people like Jack will never run for office because they've "got a real job" (read: too scared to actually test their ideas and their popularity in a truly public forum, not a vanity project like this blog)

2) I know a majority of Portlanders disagree with Jack about the direction Portland should be going (from the constant election and re-election of people like Sam Adams and Erik Sten).

As to why I still come to Jack's site, it's cute to watch a baby boomer wrestle with his lost youth and also to watch a cranky member of Portland's minority caucus wrestle with their impotence. :)

Well, you'll need a new IP address now. As for the "impotence," I don't think so. I look around at what's happened with the PDC and PGE and I think, huh, maybe I'm on to something...