By A Colleague
Tue, Jul 16, 2019 4:32 p.m.Portland, Oregon: the decline and fall of what was once one of my favorite cities
N.S.: Portland is a city with a low percentage of blacks, and yet they run hog-wild, committing violent crimes.
PORTLANDIZATION: IT CAN HAPPEN TO A PLACE NEAR YOU
When the crazies took over the city I loved, I knew it was time to get out
July 12, 2019 • 12:00 AM
This seemed to be around the time you saw "Keep Portland Weird!" bumper stickers everywhere, which was weird because, while the city was attracting newcomers in record numbers, they were, or many were, of similar stripe: educated, progressive, vocally pro-community. People began knitting in groups in public, and a lot of young men started growing beards. This was also the era of two women in their mid-20s telling me they could not get laid, that the guys always said they were too tired to have sex. I offered a theory about how low employment might make for low sex drive, maybe some apathy toward personal grooming, and the girls said yeah, maybe, but also, they kind of didn't care, they just flew home to have sex now, to Austin and Anchorage, respectively.
Then came the TV show Portlandia, which popularized the phrase "Portland is where young people go to retire." People loved this show! Which could be very funny, if not increasingly to Portland's chattering classes, who'd wearied of the outside attention (sample headline: "Sorry, NYT, We're Just Not That Into You") and wanted it understood that while parody was all well and good, Portland was in fact very serious in its commitment to tolerance and diversity and doing things in eco-friendly ways, like installing bike lanes, lots and lots of bike lanes, which would help Portland evolve into a uniquely new kind of American city, patterned not after Seattle, serial fellator of big tech, or God forbid anyplace in California, but more in the mold of a European city. I recall hearing Amsterdam mentioned a lot.
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I have a friend, let's call her Karen. Karen bootstrapped several Portland businesses, including a coffee shop. She walks in one day and the barista, who is trans, says she had a man come in earlier wearing a MAGA cap and is she obliged to serve people like him? Karen asks, did he say something to you? No, says the barista, but he's a white supremacist. Karen tells her, first, you don't know that, and second, you cannot discriminate based on the way someone is dressed. And that, Karen thinks, is that, but no, the barista relays the story to another barista we will call Jen, who goes onto Facebook and posts, "My boss Karen is a Nazi." Karen learns of this while she is on vacation. She calls her manager and tells her to get Jen into the office. Jen may intuit as much, as when the manager says she needs to speak with her, Jen gets on the floor behind the espresso bar and curls into a fetal position. And you might think, if anyone should maybe not be in customer service, it's Jen, but no, people prove sympathetic to her and the other barista's fears and start an online inquisition and can Karen prove she is not a Nazi? And should she not be more concerned with the safety of her employees than some random Republican wanting a cup of coffee?
1 comment:
jerry pdx
Having lived in Portland my whole life I'm pretty sure I'm qualified to weigh in on this one. First off, I remember well the women complaining about not being able to get laid in Portland. What a complete load of BS that was. If Portland isn't the easiest big city in the country for women to get laid then it's in the top 10 at least. Mostly because there is and always has been a surplus of young, horny, desperate single men due to out migration rates which cause a high percentage of young women (especially the more attractive ones)to move away as soon as they are old enough and a high in migration of single young males. Why is that? Attractive young women prefer sunny climates, it rains here constantly and glamorous high excitement cities, something Portland definitely is not, so they move away in large numbers and generally don't move here. On the other hand young men are attracted to the recreation and don't mind the rain so they come here in droves overloading the single scene with young men looking for women that aren't there for them.
In my younger single bar hopping years I sharply remember that single bars were heavily skewed with men and few women, but the women you do see out in the single scene still complain bloody murder about a lack of single men. That's a thing with women, no matter how good they have it, they still complain.
So, the whole "women can't get laid" hysteria in Portland was just media nonsense based on a couple of insecure dishonest women being given media space.
Also, the state of the single scene Portland has deteriorated further with an influx of Muslim, Eastern European, hispanic & black males from all over the world who have targeted Portland as a place to be because they think this is where the white wimmins is. You see them everywhere, in the gym, on the streets and in the bars. Rarely do you see single females of those ethnicities anywhere, there's a few but not many. I expect that problem to get much worse all over the country if the mass importation of 3rd world men is not stopped.
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