Spreading the propaganda
The unholy alliance between Portland City Hall and Portland State University gets tighter by the month. They're now both firmly controlled by the local development mafia -- so much so that PSU resembles a real estate firm more than an educational institution. The school's academic departments preach the gospel of smart growth, streetcars, condo bunker infill, and the like, and are always at the ready with a consultant to promote the latest building project on which the local taxpayers will be taken to the cleaners. This serves City Hall, which has the same goals, quite well. And when the politicians and bureaucrats burn out or get bounced from their City Hall posts, PSU is always waiting to welcome them with open arms, and some sort of tangential job.
And so it comes as no surprise that when the city's water bureau produces a book revising the history of the city's water system to more closely match the current party line, Portland State is at the ready to teach the official version to impressionable young minds. Here's a list of everyone to whom the city has given a free copy of the book. Aside from dozens of copies to Admiral Randy, for whom it was like an authorized biography, the city also handed out an electronic copy to a professor at PSU, apparently with the understanding that she could disseminate as many copies as she wanted to her students. Just think how many dozens of young people will be sent out into the real world with the City Hall mantras on their lips.
We know about the book deal because Floy Jones, the meanest watchdog in town when it comes to shenanigans with the city's water system, sent us the list today. It seems she's miffed that they're making her pay for her copy of the tract, while letting so many others have a free ride. More importantly, she's outraged that the book left out and carefully spun the water bureau's many screwups over the last decade or two, as well as sanitizing details from the more distant past.
This time, she's upset about nothing. The real history of Portland government is not being written by the people in City Hall. For all their tweets and twists of the facts, they're fooling fewer and fewer residents each year. It will probably take many more years, but when the rebellion finally comes, being on the free book list will be a badge of dishonor.
| Posted at 3:08 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (17)
Beth Slovic of the O returned her copy. Maybe didn't want to be seen as accepting a bribe? Or just didn't have room in her library for another fluff piece?
Posted by Don | December 11, 2011 3:42 PM
Four copies were given as retirement gifts.
Sparing the recipients the need to purchase toilet paper?
Posted by Max | December 11, 2011 4:04 PM
If you want to enroll in a PSU course about this, it's called,
"Cultural Learnings of Portland for Make Benefit Glorious Department of Water Bureau."
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 11, 2011 4:06 PM
Zingggg!
Posted by Mojo | December 11, 2011 4:11 PM
Yea Bill. Which Marx will be teaching it?
Posted by Evergreen Libertarian | December 11, 2011 5:33 PM
Rippo.
Posted by Mojo | December 11, 2011 5:41 PM
A book about the history of the city's water system?
I have a lot of interests in arcane and generally trivial matters, but the water system?
Then again, this is the same water bureau that owns a luxury bus manufactured by a company better known for its limousines so that it can take folks on city paid day trips up to Bull Run. Think highly of ourselves, don't we...luxury buses, autobiographical books...what's next?
Posted by Erik H. | December 11, 2011 5:42 PM
Professor Borat will be teaching it. Very nice!
Posted by Bill McDonald | December 11, 2011 5:42 PM
I've been saying for the past several years that there's something fishy going on here, and it just keeps getting fishier.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | December 11, 2011 6:50 PM
What's next?
Please refer to the magazine "Super Yachts" where 200 to 400 foot mega yachts from around the world are regularly featured for sale and lease.
I doubt that Randy and Sam will ever actually be able to afford such toys, but it is something to which they can aspire; "to dream the impossible dream" as it were.
Posted by Portland Native | December 11, 2011 6:53 PM
PSU and CoP is pure synergy.
This past weekend there was a building industry convention with many seminars. One seminar on green roofs was certainly telling. The PSU/CoP speaker said Portland's $4 Million dollar green roof program didn't cost Portland taxpayers any money. A friend asked "Well, nothing is free, so where does the $4 Million come from-the Water Bureau??" Gosh, he was just just guessing. The speaker sheepishly said, "Yes, from the Water Bureau". "Aren't water bureau fees and other skimming the bureau employs really like taxes?" the questioner asked. No was the reply from our employee.
And that is what we're up against, the mantra continues. But we have to keep questioning these kinds of replies from OUR public employees. We need a "re-education" initiative.
Posted by lw | December 11, 2011 8:05 PM
Oh, here's a followup on that GreenRoof seminar. When the speaker was asked what do you do when the flat roof he was exhibiting leaks, his reply was "you fix it like any other flat roof." Ahhhh, sure.
Later his powerpoint showed a flat roof of one of Portland's fire stations that this program forced on the fire bureau. In the first major snow/ice storm the overflow scuppers got plugged by poor design when the melting occurred. The interior got saturated. The fire bureau told other city bureau to get rid of the GreenRoof crap after they had to remove the whole system.
The speaker admitted that over 90% of the GreenRoof projects were government buildings. It's like the Fed/OR/PGE/EcoTrust solar panel story-ripping off taxpayers for the few.
Posted by lw | December 11, 2011 8:20 PM
"Cultural Learnings of Portland for Make Benefit Glorious Department of Water Bureau."
More appropriately, the chronicles of Dear Father and Great Leader Leonard
have finally been codified for the future benefit of Portlanders who may forget his glorous efforts on behalf of Portland people.
This book recounts the story of Leader Leonard from his birth at the sacred temple of Bull Run thru his time well-served as people's janitorial service honestly to his efforts protecting the workers from ill effects of fire.
This all culminated in his serving in the worker's plebiscite (aka Oregon Legislature) to merit two pensions for himself and John Minnis.
Within close grasp of Chairman Leonard's final duties serving the workers as the string-puller for comrade Adams, this book shall serve as an everlasting chronicle of the self-sacrifice delivered (along with Portland loos) on behalf of the worker's collective known otherwise as the (almost) free Republic of Portland.
Hey, if the book gives him some comfort in retirement and lets him live his dreams without costing us any more money than he has already, it can't happen quick enough.
Posted by Steve | December 12, 2011 8:26 AM
And then we wonder why our youth are so easily led astray in one direction or the other (see the crap conservative Christian regions spew on their kids).
Education is no longer about learning to think- it's all about propagandizing the naive to a viewpoint that fits an agenda.
As for the Water Bureau, Orwell would be proud and Stalin envious...
Posted by Ralph Woods | December 12, 2011 8:57 AM
Apparently an investment to make sure that there is an army of sprouted new ones to continue an agenda.
This is supposed to be an independent thinking institution, not a place to plunk or perpetuate real estate and other policies via propaganda.
Must we across the board, no avenue untouched somehow be indoctrinated? Universities no less, is there no shame in our community?
Posted by clinamen | December 12, 2011 9:43 AM
What's next? Please refer to the magazine "Super Yachts" where 200 to 400 foot mega yachts from around the world are regularly featured for sale and lease.
You mean that the City of Portland Water Bureau isn't an investor in the Portland Spirit?
Posted by Erik H. | December 12, 2011 9:55 AM
...Within close grasp of Chairman Leonard's final duties serving the workers as the string-puller for comrade Adams,...
Speaking of final duties, note the council agenda this Wednesday...with a request for another $31 million and more for a project up at Bull Run.
If any spending is needed it should be for the deferred maintenance of our water system, money for the foundation of our system, to make certain that our pipes deliver healthy drinking water, and not for glitzy new unneeded projects.
We cannot afford another year of their brand of final duties.
We need to keep a close watch on who continues to be a string-puller for them,
Fish, Saltzman?? We keep hearing about budget cuts, how will they vote on this $31 million and more? Last May it was Fish who gave the third vote needed for the $80 million Powell Butte project and Saltzman disappeared when that vote came up.
Will Saltzman give the third vote this time so Fish can disappear?
Posted by clinamen | December 12, 2011 11:05 AM