Oh joy-joy, jolly-joy fun.
I’ve found a new favorite writer, Takuan Seiyo — a conservative — who, writing in the BRUSSELS JOURNAL , makes one of the most devastatingly accurate, funny and spot-on descriptions ever of the dystopian shitscape we call Portland. (OK, maybe dystopian shitscape is a tad harsh — I do, after all, have a love-hate relationship with our fair city. Perhaps a better term for it would be dysfunctional-albeit-occasionally-fun-and-scenic hellpit).
Seiyo, visiting town briefly, describes an encounter on the MAX train wherein he spots a rotund gal beaming with pride over her new acquisition, a garden gnome bearing an etched inscription of "Howard Zinn ."
Thus Seiyo dubs our politically righteous burg (along with its neighbor to the north, Seattle) "Zinnlandia."
Read his encounter with a prototypical, faux-altruistic Portlander:
"A Zinnlandian I met on this trip, a WASP physician endowed with the best education much money can buy, told me that he does not celebrate July 4th because the Declaration of Independence had been written by a slave owner and signed by other slave owners. He was just as hotly critical of the ‘racism’ of Americans in dealing with the growing Muslim immigrant minority. The conversation unfolded over a bottle of Oregon Vino Pinko, with the likeness of a notorious Cuban mass murderer on the label."
Seiyo goes on to take aim at the puzzling proliferation of Birkenstocks on his particular MAX train, which, incidentally, is en route to the airport.
"Such flimsy footwear on people who will soon be shuffling in long security lines and dragging heavy suitcases through crowded airports bespeaks of thoughtless insouciance. These people cannot imagine a hard heel stepping on their exposed toes, let alone a soft ‘diversity,’ voluntarily imported, rising to stomp on their faces, one day."
And Seiyo is at his absolute best when slamming our local print media kingpins. In particular, he ridicules The Oregonian for using overly-sensitive verbiage to describe a MAX encounter wherein several black teens assaulted a lone, white female rider. (A tagged-on, "oh-by-the-way" sentence sheepishly buried behind the story’s lede states "The woman, who is white, had just had a conversation with the teens, who are African American and were harassing another woman .")
"It’s uncharacteristic for the progressive press of this progressive town — just what are they progressing toward? — to disclose the racial identity of violent perps, since this could dent the very foundation on which Zinnlandia and all postmodern Western civilization are built on: that all people, and all racial, ethnic, gender and national groups of people, are equal in their proclivities, abilities and merits, and are equally deserving of uncritical acceptance. They just have different ‘narratives,’ you see. But it’s interesting how gingerly the racial identity is mentioned, when it is, with what curious, for a newspaper, waste of words. The story could have opened, after all, "An assault by five black teenagers on a North Portland MAX train this week…etc.’ "
Seiyo continues his (necessary and appreciated) assault on The O…
"It seems endless. ‘Sixteen-year-old Joe Crane is afraid to ride Portland’s MAX light-rail. Four years ago he was attacked on a MAX platform near the Lloyd Center. And recently, he was jumped at night by three men, who pulled him off the MAX, kicked him in the head and stole his wallet, cash and cell phone.’ At the end of the story, there is reference to surveillance camera footage as ‘pictured above.’ What’s ‘pictured above’ are three young black men pouncing on Joe Crane like beasts of prey on a cornered doe."
"The article goes on to blame the transit police for its insufficient presence. Such arguments are now ubiquitous in the Portland media’s editorials, demanding more funding, more TV cameras, better lighting, better inter-agency cooperation. Everything is discussed, everything is noted — except for the 10-ton rhinoceros wearing a tutu and, balanced on his horn, spinning pirouettes right in the middle of the room. For what is required is a better populace, not better lighting. And to have a better populace, its rotten part must be clearly identified, watched and punished for every crime committed, to the full extent of the law. Punished and cordoned off from society, rather than left to the ‘compassionate’ ministrations of the social saboteurs proliferating among the ruling, clueless and cowardly Western elites."
He softens his blow just a bit toward the end of the piece, stating "I should not like to single out Portland, Oregon, for scorn or ridicule. This type of paralyzing cowardice or suicidal stupidity exists in every American, Western European, Canadian and Australian city I have visited over the past thirty years."
True, good sir, but our city has the market cornered on a uniquely sinister brand of white guilt and condescending, all-encompassing groupthink. Don’t doubt that for an instant.
Seiyo wraps things up concisely with more venom directed at The Oregonian.
"For now we can rest easy knowing that virtue is winning. ‘Welcoming people of color makes a city,’ coos The Oregonian in a Nov. 17, 2007, sidebar. Particularly if they are 19, at a tribal stage of arrested development, and handy with sharp implements."
Touche, homeslice.
I effing love this guy.
