Hello. I’m Francine Colman-Gutierrez, and here are some things (about Portland) that you’re wrong about.
“Transplants have ruined Portland!” Tell that to the heart surgeons at OHSU.
“Swimming in the Willamette River is gross.” It is literally cleaner than your bathtub.
“Portland is too crowded!” …says the unmarried bachelor who works at Under Armour and shares a five-bedroom house in the Laurelhurst neighborhood with no one.
“I’m so sick of all the tourists!” What, you think locals are going to buy your disgusting artisanal vegan jerky?
“It rains too much.” LOL, in a decade, your children won’t remember what rain was.
“Antifa shouldn’t be allowed to wear masks!” And yet it’s okay for Patriot Prayer to dress up in homoerotic Gladiator cosplay?
“Protesters threw milkshakes filled with cement!” I’ll bet $100 that none of those protesters have ever seen the inside of a hardware store.
“Portlanders should pump their own gas.” What’s next? Doing my own pedicure?
“Stop driving and polluting the earth!” Aren’t you the guy who throws Lime scooters in the river?
“Does this town really need two alternative newspapers?” No. No, it does not.
“Mayor Ted Wheeler can’t find a way to control the city’s protesters.” Oh, sweetie. Mayor Ted Wheeler can’t even find his glasses.
“There are too many condos going up in my neighborhood.” Oh, I’m sorry—did you want all these tech bros to move into your apartment?
“Whenever they don’t get their way, Oregon’s Republicans throw hissy fits and leave the state.” Unfortunately, they come back.
“The city has yet to take meaningful action to prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths from unreinforced masonry buildings.” Weren’t you just saying there are too many people in Portland? You can’t have it both ways.
“They’re kicking out food carts to make room for a Ritz-Carlton.” Say what you will about Ritz-Carltons, but they’ve never given me norovirus.
“I keep getting home later and later thanks to this traffic!” Like anyone is waiting for you. Stranger Things can wait, champ.
“There’s no way for me to ever afford a house here.” It’d just be destroyed by the earthquake anyway.
“Dating in Portland is awful.” No, dating you is awful.
“Everyone in Portland is passive aggressive.” You’re wrong about that.
New favorite column. Keep it up.
Glad to see you back on a semi-annual basis, Francine!
Am I the only person on earth who knows the definition of “condo?” There are literally no condos going up, at all, anywhere, in Portland.
As a rare born and raised in Portland 53-year-old white guy I only take issue with two of your points. I’ve seen the creative defensive items that the antifa have created, and they have definitely been in some of our locally owned hardware stores. But I agree that there was no cement in any of those shakes. And the other one is that YES Oregonians should be able to pump their own gas and are already doing so now in the remote rural areas of Oregon. It is something I have grumbled about for decades. Also, motorcyclists are already allowed, though not legal, to put gas into their bikes. I used to ride back in the 1990s and there was no way I was going to let somebody else put gas into my motorcycle.
But out of the whole list, these are my only quibbles. I especially like your point about the antifa and even more importantly your point regarding two alternative newspapers. Through personal experience I have found that outside of Neil Jaquiss, the WW lacks any kind of journalistic ethics that has literally hurt my family. My observation over the years is that the Mercury is honest and completely willing to admit when they have screwed up, which is actually quite rare.
You’ll notice she DIDN’T say we were wrong about the Oregon Republican thing.