"Fall cleaning for the urban forest"? That one hurts. How unbelievably arrogant for humans to think of cleaning up after nature when it's a perfect system without us. I'm going to apologize to the first Portland tree I see.
Did I say tree? Make that "solar-powered urban bio-mass generator."

Portland has become flypaper for arrogant liberals from across the nation and beyond interested in imposing their thinking on the rest of the world.

It can't be good karma.

Talk about throwing a profession under the bus.... to be lumped in with developers, contractors and hucksters. That is kind of harsh for some of us working in the architectural profession. Not all of us walk around spewing those "empty terms" (we hate them too) and instead speak clearly and intelligently in our practice.

On a related note, I almost pooped myself when Adams managed to work the 's' word into his assessment of the deteriorating situation at Camp Adams. The Occupy Portland park takeover "is not sustainable."

Way to stick to the script, clown.

Will they stick to the flypaper of fly away when the house of cards falls?
We have been warned by the auditor, transportation is in trouble,
and who knows what else.
Back to the basics needed here, suppose that is not cool and too old fashioned,
it is like total denial by city hall and their supporters.
Prudence is a word that has been cut out of their vocabulary!!

“She has a very collaborative approach to working with property owners, tenants, cities and downtown organizations to identify opportunities in downtown cores for physical improvements, and programmatic improvements, that will help to stimulate economic activity,” Blackstone said of Reeves.

BARF.

"More phrases we're sick of"

King of all such phrases:

** Can we afford to it? We need to ask if we can afford not to do it. **

Of course, they never answer either question with one glimmer of truthfulness.

It's as though they're all still playing a college pot party word game.

It's truly depressing that I'm sick of phrases that include the word "justice".

RBBob,
I noticed Mayor Adams calling Occupy Portland "not sustainable" too. That is the ultimate insult in Portland. Wow, what a cold shot.

The other one of these that got to me was "repurpose". "We're going to repurpose the water revenue for something else.."
How about repurposing some of these clowns during the next election?

Fall cleaning for the urban forest

I've been wondering how to give this gift certificate for a Brazilian wax to my wife. Done and done.

Mighty Flynn: now that's Fun_neeeeee!!!

Speaking of Occupy, I'm sure you just received Sam's email blast.... Sunday is gonna be D-Day down there. Pull up your chair and pop the popcorn...

I need an "urban strategist" to help me figure out how to kill all the rats congregating by my Portland slop bucket - a task made more challenging by the removal of rat poison from the local Fred Meyer store (thank the EPA for that one).

If anyone needs soil amendments for your locally sourced food production location, I'll be sustainably harvesting refuse from my urban carbon sink, sited in a natural environment, tomorrow morning. My iconic, green, "include the food" (TM) green cart is already full.

It's too comical. Ms. Reeves, the urban revitalization specialists who only has a Bachelor in aerospace engineering, will be leading maybe a group of 9 that show up at the Masonic Lodge. She'll divide the group into 3. Then ask the typical questions of "What is missing in your community?", "Would a streetcar make life easier for you","Do you think trees are an integral part of LO?" and ad nauseum.

Then a 60 page document based on these 9 will be written up, submitted to LO City Council and Mayor Hoffman will proclaim "we need a $290 Million urban renewal district to execute the "Findings".

It gets worse. Council will proclaim that no vote on the URA is needed. "We are elected to make decisions for the citizens of LO". End of story. They think.

I've lived this scenario too many times. Time to end it.

Fancy phrases fail to fumigate the foul fatally flawed fanatasism.

The word I have always hated:

Expert.

Read the newspaper or just about anything related and you see journalists quoting "experts," whether it's on Iran, oil prices or how to get your brother-in-law to move out.

You can say someone is considered an authority on some subject, or you can say someone's opinion is widely respected in his/her field.

But calling someone an "expert" denotes a certain infallibility. As it they are always right and their analysis and prognostications are invariably spot-on.

I'm always reminded of Christopher Cerf''s compilation "The Experts Speak: A Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation." After reading a few only a few of these pronouncements, you wonder why anyone's opinion of anything is considered for authoritative than anyone else's.

And another:

Legendary.

Typically used to describe someone, something, or some event that few people have heard of or are familiar with but to which the author wants to attach often-undue importance and cultural significance.