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Crunchy granola eaters in Portland think we're a violent hellhole, it seems
By adamg on Thu, 04/06/2017 - 1:59pm
CNN has a weird story out of Portland, OR, in which some guy, described as being "formerly of Boston," approached the mayor and city council during a debate on parking codes with his hand in his pocket - and then pulled out a can of Pepsi that he tried to hand to the mayor:
Portland's somewhat shaken mayor said afterward, "Please, folks, do not do that. For your own safety do not do that, OK?" before quipping, "If this were the Boston City Council, that would have ended differently."
Yes, because if anybody tried that at Boston City Hall, they'd be beaten to a pulp by any number of councilors, all of whom drink only Diet Coke (or water) during meetings. Or maybe the mayor of Portland is an Onion fan.
H/t Elizabeth.
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Comments
Maybe I'm just grumpy today but
I find the Mayor's quip about Boston insulting and annoying. What is he implying, exactly? He should apologize. Yes I'm probably over-reacting.
I don't blame him
Did you read the report on opb.org?
http://www.opb.org/news/article/pepsi-portland-protester-mayor-ted-wheeler/
Mayor briefly had reason to believe he was about to be shot at. You'll forgive him for being a bit shaken up.
Fortunately, security did not shoot the suspect. And the suspect had claimed to attend Boston city council. So you could read the quip as "other places, you would've been shot by security for that stunt".
Yes I read it
He called out Boston specifically. Are you saying that he's right - that in Boston this person would have been shot? If so, shame on you.
He called out Boston because
that's where the suspect said he was from.
It wasn't the best comment to make, but I forgive him. I know I'd be in a punchy mood if someone just tried to make me think they were about to kill me.
No one knows what dwells in
No one knows what dwells in the depths of Marty's pockets.....
BUT I DO!
I think it's very clear what
I think it's very clear what the Mayor of Portland meant...
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/04/04/boston-less-racism-still-r...
No
In Boston they don't let you walk up to the mayor like that. (although I can't remember where he stands at City Hall, which always reminded me of the room in Scanners where the guys head explodes)
Anyway,
Maybe he is pissed because the police in Portland, OR have one of the most violent reputations in the country too (maybe he wishes they would protect him?)
About our mayor: Yes and no
First, I don't know anything about Portland municipal government (does it show?), but it looks like they have a Cambridge-style thing where the mayor's really a councilor who gets named to the job by the other councilors. Our mayor almost never shows up at City Council meetings, so you'd be unlikely to have a situation where somebody would just walk up to him like that (also, our council chambers are more like a Thunderdome fighting pit than a church-basement meeting room - but, unlike Portland, no security guards). If you tried to barge into the mayor's office to hand him a Pepsi, yes, you'd be stopped long before you got to him - you have to walk down a fairly long corridor under the watchful eye of his receptionist first, for one thing.
But one of the things I've long liked about Boston is how approachable our elected officials are when they're out in public. If you really want to shake the mayor's hand or give him a piece of your mind, he won't be hard to find at some Christmas-tree lighting or ribbon cutting or whatever. Yeah, he'll have some muscle discretely standing nearby, but we're not talking Popemobile or Secret Service-type cordons. It's even easier to talk to a city councilor - they're everywhere.
He always has someone with him though....
who would act quicker than those two in Portland.
But you would actually know more about that than I, you see these guys in action more.
Mayor is elected at large in PDX
And I have to laugh at the "couldn't do that in Boston" comment because the Portland Police desperately need to learn whatever it is that the BPD is being taught about how to handle themselves like professionals.
I think it may be more of the "OMG Eastern Cities are crimeholes!" mentality that emanates from the places that were overrun by meth a decade ago and by heroin in the 1990s on a scale that puts Methadone Mile to shame.
Or maybe...
it's because the last time someone in Boston got flagged for terrorism, they ended up in the center of a circular firing squad. Portland has some serious police force problems, but not much in the way of terrorism concerns.
I do agree that our council members and even state reps are approachable, but the mayor also put the whole city on lockdown to catch one person once, so... yeah.
About that one person
You mean the guy who helped build and set off two bombs that killed three Innocent people and injured scores more at an event attended by thousands? And then ran over his own brother trying to escape? That guy?
I was in the Chambers of the
I was in the Chambers of the Boston City Council for the first time this year and that is the first thing I thought when I walked in, like it was the Octogon at an MMA fight.
A Herald reporter?
Not just "formerly of Boston," but a Herald reporter who covered our city council?
Only problem is the Herald denies anybody with the name he gave (sounded like Carlos Enrique or Henrique) ever worked there, which I can believe, since he claimed he used to cover city-council meetings here and, um, well, as one of the few reporters who shows up semi-regularly at their meetings, nope, never heard of him or seen him (and I know what you're thinking and, no, he did NOT say "Henriquez" and besides, that guy is not our Carlos).
Also, they have security guards at their city council meetings? Yeesh, what a violent place (granted, you have to pass through a metal detector to get into City Hall here, but, no, security guards don't routinely staff City Council meetings).
Adam fact checking aside, you are missing the real story.
The Portland City Stenographer has digitally catalogued the meeting as noted on the screen as Item 339.
Noooooo ...
You did not just do that!
Funny (slightly related story)
I went to the state offices to testify against Liberty Mutual's (?) property tax break about 8 years back.
This was only permitted by the governor's office after some of Shirley Kressel s usual amazing work noting our right to testify and some arm twisting to get the governor to agree that we were entitled to testify. When we showed up, they had a state trooper stand guard over us to make sure the three of us didn't get "rowdy", cause you know I have that long criminal record and Shirley is a scary grandma and all. Mega intimidation.
We said our peace, basically clearly showing this was not in anyone's interest but the company and the politicians, fraudulent and illegal. Then they gave them the tax break by an 8-1 vote (I believe the nay vote was one of the few or only ever cast by that board).
The cop assigned to hover over us pulled us aside after the meeting and told us we were right and we the taxpayers, like him, got railroaded.
So be careful w the security guards at public meetings. They might not take the official's side!
Council meets at City Hall so...
It took a minute for the secretary to get there, right? Sounds like someone was at the front desk, like in most government buildings, so, no, they don't have a guard just sitting at the meetings. That said, as 'granola' as people think Portland is, the mild climate attracts a reasonable share of people with problems that tend to lead to not having a consistent place to live, so even though it's statistically less violent than Boston, city council may reasonably want someone in the building to clear things up from time to time.
And I have lost a two inch knife for trying to go to a credit union here, so don't be so quick to say Boston is laid back.
Not saying we're laid back
We just have different security measures. There aren't any guards at city council meetings here because you can't get into City Hall without going through a security checkpoint. City Hall, in fact has a lot of guards - they're just not sitting at council meetings.
I've never seen a more delicate trigger in my life
...than when someone not from the Land of Milk and Honey called it "or-a-GONE" and not "organ". Let's all call the mayor and pronounce it wrong.
BZZZT
Both are wrong.
It is or-RE-gun!
(Orygun)
... O
O-REE-GUN
Sounds like that song the soldiers sing when marching in the Wizard of Oz
O-REE-GUN - o eeee o
Shall I share the state song?
Or just give a trigger warning for those who dare look it up?
Clearly you don't know what you're talking about...
because the Or-gone thing is nothing compared to the internal eye-roll that happens every time an easy coaster tells a Portlandian where there wine is from. No, the williame-etty valley does not exist. Just stop. Now. Or I will start trying to say 'hahvahd yahd'.
Well if they can't even
Well if they can't even pronounce their own state correctly - according to Merriam- Webster it's OR-reg-gon.
Used in a sentence "... if I can't have parsley on my pizza then how about OR-reg-gon -OH...!!
He Should Have Given The Mayor A Can Of Sam Adams
( instead of a dangerous, sugar sweetened beverage )
If this was Boston
They'd already have their Dunkin's cups proudly displayed.
Suburbanites who tell people
Suburbanites who tell people they're from Boston when they travel outside of New England run on Dunkin.
A can of Sam Adams would have been appropriate a few years ago
Considering he was once Mayor of Portland. I was in The Other Portland two weeks ago, and was really impressed by it (I even visited its City Hall - by the way, the Mayor there is one of the five members of the City Council, but elected separately by voters).
Perhaps we can thank the
Perhaps we can thank the space saver users for our reputation. Their behavior, often violent, was international news two years ago. Space saver users are an embarrassment to the city.
Fun fact: Portland would be called Boston if a coin flip ended differently in 1845.
Haven't you just about beaten that horse to death?
Three points:
1)People who use space savers are dicks.
2)You are a dick on the subject of anything to do with cars.
3)If you really think that Boston has an international reputation based on a few of type 1), then you must also believe that the rest of the world is of type 2).
Stop being silly, ok?
How Portland's mayor thinks Boston City Council happens:
NSFW language
Given their output?
Obviously that's the BRA, not the council.
The Pepsi commercial
The Pepsi commercial may have been pulled off the air, but it lives on in real life.
He was just trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding.
Pepsi endures!
I just watched the Pepsi commercial
It was a bit silly, but the overall message which I got was, "Can't we all just get along?" was fine. The comments I've seen like, "This isn't what MLK faced" show that people can't just take something that is clearly meant to be lighthearted at face value.
(I have more of a problem with Portland guy, wasting everyone's time...)
(No subject)
Actually
What I got out of this was the person in question was paid as part of one of those stupid guerilla marketing campaigns that is tied into Pepsi's equally stupid Kendall Jenner commercial. Not unlike the Mooninite bomb scare here. And while our city's response was often ridiculed, I do think marketing and advertising people often do horrible and intrusive things that should be stopped.
Obligatory pop culture reference
All he wanted was a Pepsi ...
" Just a minute! — That's not snickering I hear, is it? "
Attention seeker
Speaker has issues, one of which is enjoying wasting people's time.
kendall jenner saves the world
with a pepsi right?
Welcome to Portland...
...where evidently, they are a bunch of pu$$ies. Go eat some granola and tofu losers. Pepsi is probably outlawed. Whatever, get a life. That dude looked soooooo menacing smh
Careful there, darling
You have no idea what the place is like - Portlandia is satire of a handful of subcultures.
Oregon also has very generous gun laws. I grew up with gun racks. The guns and campers culture is alive and well, too. Even within the city of Portland.
This Portland mayor would've been nonplussed
PS- this is one of those times I wish I could figure out how to just have the image show up rather than link to it, but I am a Old Man of the Internets apparently.
PPS and ETA: Thanks! I was missing the "/" in the second brackets when I tried it last night so, derp.
The Eternal Mayor of Portland
... would not have batted an eye:
How to embed an image
Pretend the parentheses below are actually square brackets and that the URL is the one you want for the image:
(img)http://www.test.com/image.jpg(/img)
For added goodness, under the comment box, change Default in the text-format dropdown to Filtered HTML (this step should be unnecessary; one of these days I should fix that).
Wrong!
Instead of (img)http://www.test.com/image.jpg(/img) you need to do it like this (img)//www.test.com/image.jpg(/img) leaving out the protocol.
Um!
Maybe elsewhere in the universe, but right here, you can use the http://
Tutorial — How To Embed An "Adorable!" Image
[img]http://imgur.com/V10Zksk.gif[/img]
( click "reply", then copy and paste the code shown above to try it yourself ! )
It's not for nothing...
I grew up in PDX, and after five years in Boston, well, there are parts of the city that deserve that rep. Also, case in point, the reactions here to a vague quip include a lot of chest beating for being upset about being accused of violence.
It was weird to me, when I moved here, to find how many people will tell at strangers for nothing, and also to see people actually dressed like 'hippies' (in Oregon, hippies wear blue jeans and a shirt they can get mud on, so mostly like farmers). Fortunately the population at large, and especially the police in Boston are not as deserving of a bad rap as our traffic is. Still, in retrospect, we seem a lot more bothered by this comment than I suspect people in Portland are by the actual animosity directed at them in response.
To be clear, y'all made me uptight, so don't think that's a Portland thing.
Methinks thou protest too much
Don't worry, we're not going to go around beating up people from Portland.
You must have grown up in the nice places
Boston is much more tight lipped about people acting like jerks - they are just in your face rather than passive aggressive about it when they do let go.
I take it your first encounters with working class people were here and not there? Like, you grew up in the West Hills in those places where anyone driving a beater car gets pulled over (like my brother used to on his way to coach)?