January 29, 2009

NYT: Portland is most European of American cities

From a New York Times story, "The Great Gay Hope," on the latest Portland, Oregon mayor who can't keep his hands off the teenage help:

Portland is The City That Works, a slogan not just emblazoned on official vehicles, but taken to heart by its citizens. It is perhaps the most European of American cities, literate and small-scale urban, a pleasant surprise around every corner. And it is often a city of firsts, doing things well and sensibly before any other.

Could Portland being the most European of American cities have anything to do with it being, by far, the most European-American of cities?

Nah, it's got to be just a coincidence.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apparently the only way to get the readers of something in the NYT to universally condemn the writer is to say that gay sex with a minor employee might have been wrong.

Anonymous said...

Most European? Isn't that another way to say most civilized? Isn't that what the elite Europhilia syndrome has always been about? That the Euros are civilized and we in the USA will always be barbarians on the frontier.

Well it looks like the whole world is about to be severely stress-tested and we'll find out who is civilized and who is not.

It's unclear whether a city like Portland will be a more civilized place than Phoenix or Tampa Bay or Nashville in which to ride out Great Depression II.

I'll let someone across the pond speculate on the various European cities and their ability to remain civilized during this crisis.

Anonymous said...

Portland has the most annoying young panhandlers of any city I can think of. The aggressive bums in Seattle are generally older and grizzled, and possibly more intimidating (street people who winter here are kind of tough, as opposed to the weenies in San Francisco), but Portland's street kids are the biggest nuisance I have ever encountered.

Anonymous said...

So this mayor initially denounces the reports as "stereotypes", then finally admits they're true.
Can we start a new definition of stereotype? Perhaps 'politically incorrect and inconvenient heresies that turn out to be true'.
Beau Breedlove?

Anonymous said...

This effect is noticeable all over Europe. The more European a city, the better it works. Swiss are notorious for being careful about whom they let in. Towns can vote on who their neighbours should be, which is actually a humane and fair approach. The result is that Swiss towns generally work better than say German cities, which again work better than say southern Italian or French cities with large immigrant populations. German immigrant cities are tenuous because there is actually a struggle between German law enforcement and immigrant communities who want many standards relaxed. But of course the PC media cover it all up.

Anonymous said...

If Portland is so European, where are the:

city-wide strikes
beer vending machines
drunk, vomitting young people
historic architecture
10%+ unemployment
masses of (non-Mexican) immigrants
grand opera houses where you can find sado-masochistic versions of great operas
narrow streets
indoor smoking
airports where they blow up unaccompanied luggage
Roma

Anonymous said...

The article also slips in this lovely bit of Obama worship:

"It’s about why voters should never give their hearts over completely to politicians. As a class, they are inherently insecure—a character flaw at the base of all politicians, from Bill Clinton to Bob Packwood. And they lie, with rare exceptions—a hard thing to say at a time when the doors of possibility are open to leaders yet untarnished."

"The doors of possibility are open"?? Oh wow, that's deep. Really cosmic.

Anonymous said...

Towns can vote on who their neighbours should be, which is actually a humane and fair approach.

But mightn't that lead to s-s-s-s-s-segregation??

Hey, it's like those Swiss are...adults...or something, the way they are free to choose their neighbors and associates. Almost like they're in charge of their own lives.

Thank God we live in an anti-white nanny state that imposes these choices on us by force of law for our own good, insofar as it's possible.

Who wants to be an adult? Being an abused child is doing the right thing.

Dutch Boy said...

Perhaps the good people of Portland can rename their city "Chickenhawk" in honor of their mayor.

Anonymous said...

A guy from Europe once told me that the average European goes home after work, put the TV on, and drinks a beer, just like the average American.

Anonymous said...

So Europe is now a model for paleocons? I thought Europe was the model of decadence.

The comment about "more European a city, the better it works" is off track. German cities with immigrants still work better than Southern Italian or Greek cities without immigrants. "more Nordic, the better it works" is probably what you mean.

Truth said...

"A guy from Europe once told me that the average European goes home after work, put the TV on, and drinks a beer, just like the average American."

That's a lie!

The average European throws on one of his impeccable Yves Saint Lauren dinner jackets, yells at his wife to hurry up with her Cristian Lacroix dinner dress, calls the chauffer to wisk them to a five-course dinner followed by a night at the opera and a late-night bottle of Chteau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1996 with a few of their gauche American friends about the antidisestablishmentteranianism of the creative bourgeois.

Don't spread these vicous rumors about your breathren across the sea! Everyone knows the average European has never even tasted beer, and only one in ten Germans has.

Anonymous said...

Portland may be the most European of any city we have, but that did not stop a crazed mexian immigrant from opening fire on a "youth" nightclub full of kids (and killing a Peruvian exchange student).

The Oregonian, God bless them, actually admitted he was an immigrant in one of their stories, and that he was a "student of concern" at his HS. Another case of alien-nation ala the South Korean fucker at VT?

No community means no consequence for this kind of action. We are the anonymous society now.

I suggest the end part of The Republic Book III for instruction on how people like those at the Oregonian become what they are.

Anonymous said...

Anony-mouse said:

Roma

Anony-mouse, we already have a perfectly good word for these people: Gypsies. I completely agree with Steve when he rails against PC renaming of well-known peoples, countries and cities. I'm reading "The 10,000 Year Explosion" right now and I was heartened to see Peking and Ceylon mentioned there. The "that's not what they call themselves" defense is phony. The Germans actually call themselves "die Deutsche" and Finns call themselves "Suomalaiset". I've never seen a PC renamer try to get all sanctimonious about the names of European peoples. They only ever get sanctimonious about non-Europeans. When we accept the renamers' terminology, we're playing along with their hateful leftist mind games.

Anonymous said...

"German cities with immigrants still work better than Southern Italian or Greek cities without immigrants. "more Nordic, the better it works" is probably what you mean."

I'm not Latin, but to forget the Roman empire and the birth of the Renaissance...

You must visit as it is unbelievably beautiful and civilized. If they are wrong, I don't want to be right.

I was recently looking at pictures of a relative's and I kept thinking, "And they're considered kind of backwater, but no small town in America can come close to comparing to one of theirs!"

It's actually kind of cruel when you think about their reputation. They're hazily compared with northern Italy and people get confused and think they're backwards in relation to the rest of the first world.

Anonymous said...

"Could Portland being the most European of American cities have anything to do with it being, by far, the most European-American of cities?"

Steve, I've only ever heard white nationalists use the term "European-American". I guess you've crossed the line.

Anonymous said...

Can we start a new definition of stereotype? Perhaps 'politically incorrect and inconvenient heresies that turn out to be true'.

Those are actually called 'canards'.

Anonymous said...

I think most Europeans tolerate their immigrant populations as long as they don't cause problems; but it's a delicate balance (note the Romans with their Romanian/gypsy population). With the recession beginning to bite and Europeans finding themselves increasingly hard pressed for jobs and state housing, I think that tolerance may well disappear.

Anonymous said...

"Steve, I've only ever heard white nationalists use the term "European-American". I guess you've crossed the line."

Dear Liberal,

Is anyone who uses the term "African-American" to describe themselves a black nationalist?

If not, what is the reason for your racist double standard in classifying someone through the nomenclature that they use for cultural/racial/political self-categorization?

What the actual issue is, we know, is that you know that the term "European-American" makes it much more difficult to dismiss whites as a legitimate ethnic group that deserves the care and attention of both fair law and cultural celebration that other minorities currently enjoy in broader society.

Furthermore, anyone and everyone who self identifies with a particular ethnic political group is a nationalist for that group. Any and every black or Hispanic that pushes for special privileges or cultural recognition at the expense of the current majority culture or fairness is a nationalist.

Nationalism for thee but not for me?

Fact: You can't shame whites anymore with these pathetic semantic acrobatics and ad-hominems to convince us to give up our political or cultural rights as a group. Every other group has these rights, and the right to advocate for them, and so do we. If you believe otherwise, you are truly the hateful, bitter, disgusting, oppressive racist.

Tristan said...

Stupid hipster city. Just because people there are super indie doesnt make it european

Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Baltimore are way more european. They are way older, with biking, dense population, older architecture, smaller roads, colder climate, more european people, more diversity, ...