This is a joke, right?

Nope. Look here and here.

I don't know, I'm a pretty liberal guy...but that's apparel that's appalling.

Dressing up your baby as a "junior pimp?" Giving your toddler "street cred?"

I'm a strong supporter of small local business, but this is too weird...and one trend I hope doesn't become trendy. A bad, bad idea.

Oh, maaaan. NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me featured this company last week (panelists had to guess which of the three ludicrous products for kids was, in fact, not a spoof) - but I must not have been listening and/or they must not have identified it as from PDX.

Let's hope not, anyway...!

Frank Dufay I don't know, I'm a pretty liberal guy...but that's apparel that's appalling.
Dressing up your baby as a "junior pimp?" Giving your toddler "street cred?"
JK: But Frank, they are just starting early at becoming part of Portland’s vibrant street life. Add a few drugs and guns and they will blend in perfectly on the transit mall. They could add aggressive panhandling to their skill set to achieve perfect vibrancy!

Thanks
JK

I saw a funny (if not frightening) onesie on a baby in a stroller downtown:

ARE YOU MY DADDY?

You gotta hope it's just a Jerry Springer joke.

How coincidental. Mrs. Wino and I had alway referred to our boys as the Junior Pimp Squad. How lucky we are that we can now find clothes with our kid's moniker. I'll take two please ...

Let's not be so judgmental.
The moderate views some redeeming qualities and business sense in the biz of pimping that our little ones could benefit from.

It's the absence of I'm-a-whore wear for the children I am most troubled by.

Hopefully it is forthcoming so that the pimp wear does not elevate a disproportionate appreciation and enamor for pimping while whoring itself
goes unrecognized by our very young.

Know what I'm saying?

SS: Oh you linchpin, you. Is really think you ought to apply for a job as an editorialist for the Oregonian.

That's I really think...

Sorry, I forgot to say that the crowd over there has a problem with the words "whore and pimp", but doesn't seem to have a problem playing the first when Goldscmidt and company play the latter. You might help them add these useful words to their vocabulary.

When my nieces were smaller, they would show up at my house wearing these kinds of t-shirts, THONG underwear (my God) and sexy streetwalker attire, including inappropriate HEELED shoes. My ex-sister-in-law was having a severe mid-life crisis and living it out on her kids.

I battled it by having a change of "play clothes" (underwear, clothes, shoes) ready and waiting so we could go outside and get our hands dirty in the garden or on the playset at the park or riding on our bicycles.

What I'm trying to say is that this stuff is not new; just getting more mainstream which is so sickening. I feel like my entire life of feminism has been negated by our sick culture. And, as everyone knows, culture trumps policy every time.

The real question for the City is how to tax the junior pimps and vandals. If each is assessed $10 toward the tram ...

And you guys thought WalMart was bad.

Long live the TRAM.

Oh its hard out there for a kid!

Oh its hard out there for a kid!

Alice, you made me laugh!

But, y'know, it is hard out there, and its hard for us parents too, figuring out how not to make things harder.

I listened to a long stretch of Tupac this morning, taking four boys to basketball. Pretty rough stuff, some of it. Anne won't let Parker play that stuff in the car; I figure its better to know what they're listening to...sometimes, though, I feel like I'm being tested, how far I'll let them go.

Teenage boys, finding themselves is one thing. Selling weird stuff to toddlers, though...I just don't get that one. Anne sees a silver cloud, maybe...all the 'ho and pimp stuff will just get so ridiculous it'll finally be totally uncool and go away.

"""it'll finally be totally uncool and go away"""

"Cool" is only mind deep.

When they lose their minds the cool will follow.

Is that dumb or deep?

Hey, guys, that's just the free market at work. The alternative is Socialism!

The alternative is Socialism!

We have that too, or at least an incompetent version of it; it's called the Portland City Council.

Truth in Labeling

Using these definitions, let's examine our City Council.

Socialist - of a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole

Progressive - (modern) liberal, advanced, forward-thinking, enlightened, enterprising, innovative, pioneering, dynamic, bold, avant-garde, reforming, reformist, radical

Ranked in order of senority:

The Sten-Balckmer Virus
Socialist Gone Wild! (PGE, elections)

Fireman Randy
Socialist (PFDRF) grinning behind Progressive "cover"

Steely Dan
"Useful" Liberal (Lost inbetween)

Sam the Tram
Unapologetic Progressive showing Socialist tendency

Gramps
Progressive (not quite ready to make the Baseball leap)

I know I will be corrected or given a definition lesson on communism, but from a generic view point I think our city government is close to communism.

We don't get to vote on the most important issues like voter-owned elections, light rail, urban renewal districts, etc.

If you occasionally get to vote on substantive issues, the bureaucrats, politicians ignore the votes.

The media is controlled by the "state".

The "state" directs you on how you should "feel" about issues. If you do not think like the "state" you are penalized in so many ways.

And the "state" wants to take away your property rights which is the fundamental backbone to communism.

Welcome to our world here in Portland.

Man, if what you say is true, it's getting as bad as the Army and the State Department were back in the '50s!

Lee, anyone who lived under an actual Communist system would laugh long and hard at this. It's political theory brought to you by Monty Python's Flying Circus.

I'm not so keen on "isms" or knee-jerk reactions. Mixed systems can work very well. I have cousins in the Republic of Ireland who say that, while the national heath system is not perfect, it functions well as a safety net. Something we could use here, imho.

But I do see the "statist" tendencies in that Lee notes as something that should concern us. Until a few weeks ago when I changed my voter registration to independent, I was a Democrat; yet, when I would critique government agencies and actions, I would have people trying to make me out as some kind of ant-government extremist. That sort of thing, and a press that doesn't seemed really interested in the deeper questions about government is something that should concern us all. When we end up with government employees, including prosecutors, who are agents of a certain segment of society,where dissent isn't tolerated, then we have are on the road toward a kind of fascism. And I love Monty Python, but a strictly pro-government press that doesn't respect critics and criticism ain't funny.