The Oregonian Editorial Board Should Do What Is Best For The City And Resign Immediately

Sunday Update: Good news in Puritan America today.

I wasn't going to write anything about the Sam Adams controversy and let my photo stand for itself, but it occurred to me that it would be entirely reasonable to demand the immediate resignation of the Oregonian's editorial board. They could have taken the high road and reserved judgment until the outcome of the investigation by the AG, but instead (probably in a pathetic attempt to sell papers) chose to demand Adam' resignation within hours of the story breaking. If the mayor had, say, taken a bribe from a developer, I'd be the first to demand his resignation. However, his sex life should not be our business, and I don't blame him for lying about sleeping with an 18-year-old. Stupid, yes (sleeping with Breedlove in the first place was incredibly foolish); worthy of resignation, no. The Oregonian editorial board let the people of Portland down, and undermined the public interest, by fanning the flames rather than simply reporting the story fairly, and for representing our culture at its hypocritical and moralistic worst. In my conversations with friends over the past few days, one sentiment expressed repeatedly ran along the lines of "why, oh why, are we stuck with such a horrible daily paper that seems so out of sync with the city?" Seriously. We deserve much, much better here in the City Of Readers. And the Portland (sic) Tribune barely even merits any attention. Headquartered in Clackamas and owned by a right wing Christian nut; reduced to printing one paper a week; riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. What more can one say? I remember when Jim Redden published PDXS back in the 90's. Man, has he fallen far. As for the Willamette Week and their star sex-scandal-journalist Nigel Jaquiss: nobody is winning any Pulitzers this time.

Since my last post, two things worth noting have happened. One, my hard drive bit the dust: 2500 un-backed-up photos, unretrievable. I'm debating whether it is worth the large sum of money it would take to send it off to the nearest clean room. Or whether I should just practice the art of non-attachment.

The other thing is that I'm feeling bored with the general format I've been using: photos with minimal text. I'm thinking of doing more straight-up architectural and urban design criticism, among other things.

In the meantime, for anyone who needs some pointers for who to vote for tomorrow, just look at my front yard. Or scroll below the photo.



**To begin with, Chris Smith and Jim Middaugh are no-brainer votes for the two competitive City Council races. In Smith's race, there are a number of strong candidates, several of whom would be fine on council. Unfortunately, Amanda Fritz looks to be the front runner -- she has not impressed me at all, with her outsourced anti-outsourcing brochure, her Republican Party endorsement, her lack of clarity on mass transit and bikes, and her vaguely "law and order" back-to-basics platform with literature featuring photos of police badges. A bit puritan 1950's NIMBY for my taste. Smith, on the other hand, is an accomplished civic activist who is extremely knowledgeable on transportation issues and led the fight against the strong mayor measure last year. Middaugh is up against labor lawyer Nick Fish. A tough choice, but I'm voting for Middaugh because he will most directly represent me as a bicyclist and he, like Adams, has a youthful energy that this city needs after 4 years with a lackluster mayor like Potter, who has let his own sore ego sabotage the city and has not displayed the sort of leadership and wisdom one would expect from someone of his age. And Randy Leonard, well, you gotta love that guy, even when he's threatening to personally drive a truck up to the tram tower and pull it out of the ground.

**In the current race for mayor, I simply hope that Sam Adams tops 50% of the vote, so that we can avoid a run-off and many more months of Sho Dozono's Potter-redux shenanigans: I won't even go into it, other than to say that anyone advised by a lobbyist like Len Bergstein will never get my vote, and I don't ever want to hear him say "pet project" again. Oh, and the suggestion that fighting Walmart sends the signal that Portland is "anti-business". Adams is a hard-working, visionary, well-spoken, balanced-transportation-system-loving, wonky guy who loves this city, knows his numbers, and deserves a shot at guiding us at an important moment in our history. We need someone with guts and verve in the mayor's office.

**Last but definitely not least, I strongly urge anyone who has yet to vote to write in Joe Cortright for Rex Burkholder's Metro Council position. Burkholder, much to my dismay, has been drinkng the Columbia River Crossing Kool-Aid: Joe Cortright is the local economist doing his best to expose the faulty reasoning and dodgy numbers being used by proponents of this mega-sized freeway project that deserves to go the way of the forever-unbuilt Mt Hood Freeway.