9:42 PM: A very excited fellow in a baseball hat is saying “this is what it sounds like when an avalanche rains down on city hall.” He’s a self described “anti-fluoride nerd.” And a “socialist.” And he can’t believe he’s been working side by side with conservatives.
“This is how Portland comes together.”
He’s leading a chant about water. He’s also reminding people to tip their servers and bartenders even though they’re paying with drink tokens.
No one’s pushed any drink tokens into my hands. So maybe that’s not a victory after all. It’s all over but for the shouting. And the second-hand pot smoking.
9:36 PM: An impossible applause just went up at the news that Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland conceded, announced by KC Hanson.
“I love you guys,” she says.
People have talking about text messages of congratulations and love coming from relatives all around the country. That affection went on display on stage right after Kristen Robison, campaign manager, got on stage.
“Portland has spoken and sent a message,” said Robison, basking after a victory over some of the most high-powered Democratic campaign consultants in the state. “Thank you, every last one of you.”
Kim Kaminski, director of Clean Water Portland, then got up to offer thanks and to bask in the crowd’s adoration.
“I’m so grateful to everyone who came forward,” she said, “and did this and helped to protect our water.”
Clifford Walker of the NAACP and former city commissioner Mike Lindberg also took their bows. Lindberg, who wrote an Oregonian op-ed about his health problems and doctor’s urging not to drink fluoridation, called our water “sacred.”
“No victory has been as sweet as this one,” he said. “We also feel a good public process should be just.”
Rick North, another fluoride fighter, actually compared this to the United States beating the Russians in hockey in 1980. Soviet Russia. He called tonight “the biggest upset” since then, never mind Portland’s predilection for voting against fluoride. Hell, Oregon couldn’t even fluoridate water, losing the battle in the Legislature 40 years ago.
AND BONUS! I’ve only been mocked once by someone over the paper’s fluoride endorsement. So that’s also a victory.
9:07 PM: Fluoridation did a little bit worse with the next round of updates, trailing 61 percent to 39 percent.
“61 percent,” KC Hanson shouted. “You do the math.” The PA system still isn’t working so well.
The crowd here has swollen up a bit. And we’ve just been treated to our first musical interlude. Rick North, a longtime fluoride fighter, earlier told TV cameras that he thought the message that real people would be harmed by fluoride, the stuff of testimonials shown by opponents, was what put things over the top.
It’s been festive. What I thought was a skunk out on NW 14th might not actually be. But there’s still some anger. When the TV cameras showed the other party, people booed. And when the results at 9 were shouted out, one guy replied with: “Get the fuckers out of office.”
Original post: “What do you think? Is it going to be a close vote?”
This is the question I get from Mike Bluehair, devoted fluoridation foe and Occupy Portland mainstay, at the Clean Water Portland party over at On Deck Sports Bar. He’s being rather gracious, remembering that the Mercury has endorsed in favor of fluoridation.
I confess that, no, I don’t think it will be close. He laughs. “We’ll kill them, right?” I nod. We’re waiting for the first wave of results to spill in from Multnomah County, in a crowd of maybe 75 or so supporters. He’s telling me about the volunteers who’ve been coming out of the woodwork. And he says he’ll be glad when he doesn’t have to talk about it anymore.
“I’m gonna look forward to not having to argue,” says Mike. “It’s been stressful.”
The PA system isn’t so good here. They’ve abandoned it.
It doesn’t matter. Fluoride is ahead 60 percent to 40 percent in early returns. And the crowd erupts with hoot and claps.
“We are proud. We are Portland. We care about our community,” says one woman, shouting over the din. “We are here tonight to celebrate with one another.”
She went on to mention the rapprochement that’s due next after months of heated infighting and odd political bedfellows. She wants people to be magnanimous. It’s easier to say this because they’re winning.
“There are good people who believe perfectly the opposite of what we did,” she says. “As a community, as Portland, we need to come together. I know you guys will.”
“Fluoride is ahead 60 percent to 40 percent in early returns.”
Fluoridian slip?
Related: Tonight I chipped a tooth eating a burrito.
Well, I guess this means we won’t have to spank the fluoride lovin’ minority again for another 20 years or so. When you lose by 20% (or more) you just have to give it a rest for a decade or two. That’s about as much of a beat down as you can get at the polls, especially when you outspend the other side 3 to 1.
I’m relieved that my water won’t contain chemicals.
“I’m relieved that my water won’t contain chemicals.”
Minus water being a chemical with its one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds.
AKA H2O.
It also might be likely you’re joking, at which case I apologize.
Yeah, it was a joke. Accepted. The fact that you can’t tell speaks volumes about the antis.
Just got back from the campaign party. Thank you Portland! What a fantastic victory for common sense and what a dismal failure for anti-science pollution advocates.
I love how this debate has inspired the Typical Portland Liberal to wax poetic about how “Democracy sucks” and how “the uneducated” shouldn’t be allowed to vote on stuff like this.
You know, because things so rarely work out for your Typical Portland Liberal causes, when put to a vote.
Yeah, we were for pollution all right.
Got us there.
I guess making fun of refugees wasn’t such a great thing for the Mercury’s pro endorsement after all…
Take a look at the last picture of the anti-fluoride gathering. Now count the number of stupid fucking hats. Yeah, that’s right, two fedoras even.
This is the type of person that voted no on this for a gauge of Portland’s electorate.
It didn’t even have anything hard in it. Just beans, cheese and pico.
TL;DR
I don’t realize how out of touch I am with Portland values, so I attend the opposition’s victory party to speedily mock them.
@ theMarsTravolta:
Yeah, if something takes more than 15 seconds to read, it’s obviously too long and i refuse to read it. I, like you, learn a lot more that way. I can’t wait until all news is Twitterified. Details are dumb. Words are stupid. And if it’s something important, yet detailed and wordy, i’ll just let someone else read it and tell me what to think. Rock on, bro.
@the MarsTravolta- Best Avatar Ever
Sweet, roughly 24% of registered City of Portland voters got what they wanted. Its a mandate people!
Can we get started on outlawing chemtrails? I live near the airport and its been getting out of hand the last few years.
Chunty, I think it is funny that you assume that “typical Portland liberals” were on the “yes” side. I’m pretty sure that there were more of them on the “no” side.
@Mars: the Mercury Staff confessed in their pro-fluoridation issue that they were overwhelmed by the “dizzying” loads of information they had to sift through to make their so-called ‘enlightened’ proclamation.
Yeah, if it was a Twitter feed, they might have come to a different conclusion. As it was, they took the circuitous route and came up with something that was just batshit crazy talk.
Good for you, Mercury, waiting til 8:06pm last night to publish a story from the opposing team. How very big of you. You guys just suck. In other news, I threw a Mercury on the ground and stomped on it yesterday. It felt good. Assholes.
Phew! Thank LOB! Now I can go back to building a tin hat for my house and protesting those horrible vaccination clinics!
As for presenting a plan:
Assuming the city still agrees to spend $10M in 10 years, how about if we create a poor peoples’ dental insurance and hand out tooth brushes and FLUORIDE toothpaste at the dollar store. And maybe ban high-fructose corn syrup.
@Katie Napalm – yep, 65+ years of solid scientific evidence is “batshit crazy talk.” Good thing we have you to set us straight, changing public opinion one newspaper stomp at a time. Big congrats to you today.
It seems as though you went there with somewhat of an agenda to portray this particular group as wack jobs, unbalanced or at least something along those lines. I doubt they speak for everyone despite some of the odder people you encountered. Mercury, losing and getting your ass kicked sucks regardless of the situation. It is best to admit it and move on rather than hang on with annoying snark and whining
“Assuming the city still agrees to spend $10M in 10 years, how about if we create a poor peoples’ dental insurance and hand out tooth brushes and FLUORIDE toothpaste at the dollar store. “
This was the argument on the No side that I found the most naive. You know how far $10 million over 10 years goes in health care, even dental health? Nothing. It’s not even a fucking blip. That’s the whole point of fluoride: it’s incredibly cost effective.
Disagree with @showstopper. Snark is one of the cornerstones of this publication and if we let science deniers take that away from us, what have we got left?
We were confounded, Katie? Or did we actually suggest maybe some opponents and skeptics were confounded? Maybe you didn’t read our endorsement so closely or don’t understand a deployment of the royal “we”? Take a look at the verbatim quotation:
“The simple and reasonable case for fluoridation—which the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definitively urges for the prevention of tooth decay in children and adults—is drowning under a hailstorm of counter-arguments that look, sound, and seem rational. Except that they aren’t.
And it’s understandable. We’re scared of junk science that we’re too busy to tear apart. And we’re worried about one of the things that Portlanders hold at the center of our civic identity: our water. So we rage about lobbyists and we put up signs that tell people not to do something that practically every other major city in America has done, some for decades and none with any sign of catastrophe.
Never mind that many of you who might be leaning toward “no” won’t be the ones who suffer…”
Have fun jumping on newspapers and complaining about how people who don’t agree with you—and list precisely and transparently why not—are rotten!
Blabby, in my unscientific opinion, fluoridation was a very upper-middle-class and white cause, another one of those “we’ve got to look out for the poor people!” things that make the privileged feel good about all the favors they’ve done for the poor Black kids that they’re convinced only eat HFCS or whatever. (Never mind that it was the upper middle class whites that kicked the minorities out to east county with development and gentrification, but that’s a bit too spiny of an issue to tackle– especially when a “Dental Health Crisis” had magically appeared overnight!) So I’m sure this was very much the Big Issue for “hot yoga class” attending moms gossiping in line at the Whole Foods checkout.
Now don’t get me wrong; the tinfoil hat bad science crowd loved the other side, and maybe that’s “wingnut” Portland liberal, sure. But it’s not “lives-in-a-$600k-Alameda-home” Portland liberal. (So many different varieties!) We could split hairs further and say that the Hot Yoga Moms would be voting GOP anywhere else, but hey, this is Portland! We’re all liberals and we’re all really excited about eco-equality and outdoor activities and whatnot. Common ground. At least most of the time.
Somehow the wingnuts found themselves in bed with the curmudgeonly libertarians this time around, adding to the confusion. So yeah. But the “save the children” appeals weren’t aimed at them; they were aimed at anyone who’s decided that they exist on some sort of figurative perch, high above the unfortunate. This crowd might drive redevelopment, food culture, etc but they’re not the majority. They’re not really hippies, just like they’re not really progressive or really into yoga. They’re just good at throwing money and time at pretentious self-serving causes.
Awesome. Portland stays within the relatively sane 95% of the planet that doesn’t put toxic fluoride into their drinking water. That includes 97% of Europe, including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland Iceland, and Italy. No surprise: a 2003 survey of over 500 Europeans from 16 countries concluded that “the vast majority of people opposed water fluoridation”.
Also, 1/3 of the US rejects fluoridation — yet another crucial fact that the manipulators at the Mercury didn’t mention.
Now we just have to convince the remaining 5% minority of “kooks” and “fearmongers” and “conspiracy theorists” (in the polite words of The Mercury’s frantically pro-fluoride reporting) to follow the saner 95% (including Europe, Japan, Portland, and 1/3 of the US) in rejecting toxic fluoride.
Portland officially kicks ass. And if you think we’re stupid, that’s just because you’re a pseudoscientific hack with no critical thinking skills, and should move elsewhere.
And take your asinine pro-fluoride propaganda with you.