Letters to the Editor

FOOD FIGHT

RE: “Dining, with Kids” [Food, Feb 14], in which Chad Walsh offered tips to make dining in restaurants with children more tolerable—including advising restaurants to offer better food options for kids, and reminding parents not to bring their kids to “date spots” during “dating time.” “It’s okay to hit up, say, Biwa at 5 pm on a Wednesday,” wrote Walsh, “but dropping by at 7 pm on a Friday night isn’t cool.”

Here are some tips for the childless people in Portland who love telling me how to raise my kids:

1) Children are human beings with equal rights. If I have to share a restaurant with vapid morons taking Instagram pictures of food, you can deal with my kid making some noise.

2) I’m not going to silence my kid. I’m not going to tell him to sit still. I am going to allow him to be a kid, and if you have a problem with that, you should do some self-examination.

3) If you’re not a parent, you probably have no idea what the f**k you’re talking about.

ebag

“I’m not going to silence my kid.” That says it all right there, ebag. With that level of parenting (or lack thereof) and self-entitlement, I am sure your kids are prime examples of the type that give all kids in restaurants a bad rap.

JTR

GAS TAXED

RE: “Portland’s 10-Cent Gas Tax Raked in Almost $4 Million More Than Expected in 2017” [Blogtown, Feb 16]. “If the revenues continue, the city would have roughly $16 million more than expected,” wrote News Editor Dirk VanderHart. “But the revenues also represent roughly 40 million more gallons of fuel… purchased within the city, which means Portland is driving and burning more fuel than anticipated.”

Jack it up more. Polluters should pay for the effects of the pollution they inflict on everyone else.

FlavioSuave

I’m with you. If 10 cents a gallon isn’t lowering driving rates, we should keep increasing it until it starts to have an impact.

econoline

Jack it up, and don’t phase it out. It’s aggravating it took them so long to implement a gas tax at all.

sister brute

Wait, I thought everyone was going to drive to Clackamas County to avoid the tax. Did we all forget to do that?

GLV

BEGUN, THE TACO WARS HAVE

RE: “Taco Pedaler Is Coming Soon to the Old Pollo Norte Space” [Blogtown, Feb 15], Chad Walsh’s post about a second location for the restaurant in the Concordia neighborhood.

That’s weird, since there are already two amazing taco places right next to there (which also happen to be owned and operated by actual Mexicans). Before going to Taco Pedaler, I would try the carnitas tacos at Taqueria Santo Domingo (next door to the soon-to-be Taco Pedaler) and the carne asada tacos at Ole Frijole (across Killingsworth).

Around

THE PORTLAND MERCURY “NEWS”PAPER

RE: One Day at a Time, Ann Romano’s weekly roundup of news and gossip—and also RE: Ann’s fan mail, occasionally published here.

Holy fuck! Enough already with the grandstanding for One Day at a Time. I thought the premise of that page was to highlight and mock pop culture. Over the past couple of years, it has become commentary on current events and politics. If you insist on printing these editorials at the beginning of every “news”paper, then you should disclose the real names and credentials of the writers. Otherwise, that shit is the epitome of “fake news”—even worse than Breitbart or Fox News or your Facebook news feed.

I get that Portland is lapping up all of the liberal, elitist, pro-establishment viewpoints espoused by “Ann Romano,” so how about cooling it with printing their letters of praise and continuously reaffirming their confirmation bias. I could live without the weekly reminder of how willfully ignorant and un-progressive this city actually is.

(Insert hilarious, “Neil, I’m married,” response here.)

Neil

ANN ROMANO RESPONDS! Neil, if you know I’m married, why are you writing?