Quotation of the Day
As a progressive leftist myself (of the bitter resignation variety) I find often embarrassing the lengths well-meaning Portland liberals can go in terms of figurativeness, metaphor, language or what have you, without actually getting to the meat of any matter and hammering out a deal that would actually challenge the status quo in any way.
| Posted at 10:53 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
I think the term he's looking for is 'euphamasia'.
Posted by Allan L. | April 18, 2008 11:59 AM
Somewhere in there is a new city motto.
Posted by Steve | April 18, 2008 12:01 PM
Some people long for the days of yesteryear when social debate was over the use of garbage dump or sanitary land fill.
Posted by David E Gilmore | April 18, 2008 4:27 PM
I'm confused: is "progressive leftist" just redundant or is it an oxymoron?
Posted by brothers | April 18, 2008 5:23 PM
I love 'euphamasia '; we sugar coat language instead of using real words to talk about real things. In the process, genuine insight and genuine reform die. Usually in Portland metro, this happens after an opportunity for real reform; we have a chance to move forward, and that seems to mobilize forces that move us backward, For example, right after Nathan Winograd, animal shelter reformer, spoke at the law school last November, Cat Adoption Team, which used to be a genuine No-Kill shelter, stared looking for a new executive director who could lead the place backward, while appearing to move forward and avoiding the word "kill", going along Humane Society of the United States (an outdated dinosaur of an organization) and the "Asilomar Accords", which ensure that shelters will contine to kill cats and dogs indefinitely, by failing to address the feral cat and research interest subjects, among others. I have never believed the sin of omission to be "nice"; it is deceptive. Founder Evan Kalki is presented as a sort of kindly legendary cartoon character on the new website (Kathy Covey, formerly of Oregon Humane Society) is the new marketing person, and believe me marketing over there under that tenure was based on creating public perception rather than expressing reality. Evan should have known better than to let this happen.
As for gentrification and the references to atrocities: Wouldn't be better to AVOID inflicting wounds we might have prevented in the first place than just offering healing?
Posted by Cynthia Eardley | April 18, 2008 5:26 PM
That's Evan Kalik.
Portlanders do seem unusually susceptive to symbolic farces, while insisting that more analytical and open-minded people are somehow "bad".
Posted by Cynthia Eardley | April 18, 2008 5:30 PM
Portlanders do seem unusually susceptive to symbolic farces, while insisting that more analytical and open-minded people are somehow "bad".
amen. critical thinking--without the necessity of polarizing thought into left/right or conservative/progressive (or whatever) is unusually avoided here. or at least dismissed as naysaying.
you know things are bad when the city government is unable to evaluate, critique and make a decision on something as unimportant as a "bike bridge."
Posted by ecohuman.com | April 19, 2008 11:24 AM