DENIAL, BARGAINING, ANGER
RE: The Mercury's May 2016 political endorsements, "Shake Up the City" [Feature, April 27], and "Is Portland Berning?" [Feature, May 18], Heidi Groover's web-only report from Portland's Bernie Sanders campaign. "My own excitement about Sanders' candidacy has been eroded, beat down by delegate math and the outlandish behavior of some Sanders supporters," Groover wrote, noting, "Every volunteer I spoke with on the Sanders campaign in Portland said they believed he still had a path to the nominationâa whole team of people in optimistic denial or frantic bargaining, each seasoned with a bit of anger at the media."
The Portland Mercury supporting Bernie Sanders, at this late date, when he has no chance of winning the nomination, is the equivalent of bailing water INTO the boat as we sail into battle with the forces of Trumpism. It might feel good riding your alt-weekly high horse, but if Trump wins in November, you'll sink with the rest of us. (And why are you on a horse at the same time that you're on a boat, anyway?)
Todd Mecklem
10 PERCENT OF $400,000
RE: "Billboard Informs Portlanders That Only Stupid People Rent" [Blogtown, May 18], Erik Henriksen's post about the ad for Social Finance, Inc. (AKA SoFi) currently visible from the Hawthorne Bridge. "10% down," the billboard reads. "Because you're too smart to rent." "As of December 2015,â Henriksen wrote, "the median home price in Portland ranged from $317,000 to $412,800."
SoFi is headquartered in San Francisco (though, obviously, incorporated in Delaware because taxes). That's some insult on injury there. It's not a matter of intelligence, SoFi, it's a matter of transplants from your fair city (in large part) pushing my dreams further and further out of reach.
portlandbugle
How embarrassingâSocial Finance doesn't own their office.
Spiffy
MIXED NUTS
RE: "White Supremacist Admits to Harassing Vietnamese Neighbors in Klamath Falls" [Blogtown, May 19], Doug Brown's story about John Vangastel, a... well, a white supremacist who admitted to harassing Vietnamese neighbors in Klamath Falls. But Brown also found Vangastel's insightful Facebook page, which includes the status update, "Another vasectomy today my nuts hurt âš"
Why would anyone have "another vasectomy"?
AlaskanNow
It's rare, but it's possible for the vans deferens to reconnect during the healing process, sometimes well after the procedure. Given the source, though, I'm chalking it up to incoherence.
Sok
We can at least take solace in the fact that he's thoroughly seeing this vasectomy thing through.
Nessamonster
DOING THE WORLD A FAVOR
RE: All the Mercury's bullshit.
Where do you get your writers the National Enquirer or what? Wow I've never seen so much bullshit in one paper....do the world a favor and forget to breath
Jason Parrish
ATLANTIC CITY
RE: "The Atlantic's Written a Tough Article on Portland's Housing Crisis" [Blogtown, May 17]. "While the article speaks of some of the measures Portland has taken to alleviate the problem," wrote Wm. Steven Humphrey, "seemingly liberal neighborhoods are blocking efforts to create density."
As disastrous as San Francisco's model has proved, Portland seems bent on imitating it. If you want a Portland that somewhat resembles the Portland you love, density is what you need, and some new apartment buildings are what it looks like. If you want an ultra-precious, cutesy-poo mini-Frisco that virtually no one can afford, surrounded by a dismal Orange County of sprawl, keep it up with the NIMBYism.
Seeing this stupid nativism from Republican hicks in Georgia is par for the course. Seeing it from progressives in Portland who've done such a superb job of urban planning so far is depressing on a personal level, and also depressing because it is pretty much guaranteed to make the problem worse.
torkfool
Well said, torkfool. We're giving you the Mercury's letter of the week prizeâtwo tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater, where a movie, some pizza, and a beer are all but guaranteed to ease those NIMBY blues.
