Salem Political Snark

Bill Maher wrongly makes fun of Portland schools "wokeness"

I've watched Bill Maher for many years, most recently via his Real Time show on HBO.

Generally I enjoy Maher's blend of political humor and observations, but sometimes his tendency to criticize perceived liberal excesses rubs me the wrong way.

Not because I object to Maher making fun of extreme left-wing stances, which indeed can be deserving of ridicule now and then. Rather, I don't like it when Maher oversimplifies a complex issue just for the sake of making it a more convenient object of scorn on his show.

Yesterday Maher had a bit in his New Rules segment where he featured a headline from a story along with a quotation.

Maher didn't mention that the author of the story was Christopher Rufo. Today the Oregonian had a story about Maher's ridiculing Portland Public Schools for claiming in its elementary school curriculum:

When the United States was colonized by white settlers, their views around gender were forced upon the people already living here.

The Oregonian story describes Rufo.

Rufo, who lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, is a controversial figure who makes frequent appearances on the Fox News Channel and who, as The New York Times noted, is a conservative activist “who probably more than any other person made critical race theory a rallying cry on the right -- and who has become, to some on the left, an agitator of intolerance.”

So in no way is Rufo a scholar of our nation's early history, or a respected commentator on childhood education regarding gender issues. Maher offered a platform to a controversial conservative.

In his story Rufo shares a slide presentation that does look like an authentic product of Portland Public Schools, though whether it was actually used by teachers is another question. I didn't read all 198 slides thoroughly, but I scrolled through the slides looking for the ones that referenced colonization.

Here's screenshots of what I found, along with my comments on the slides.

Discussion of gender as it relates to colonization of our country comes in a 4th and 5th grade section. Thus when Maher combined the title of the story, which mentions kindergarten, with the content of material intended for 4th and 5th graders, that's misleading the viewer.

Maybe I'm excessively woke also, but I don't find much, if anything, to criticize in this slide. I suspect what it says would be endorsed by most reputable scholars of early American history.

I've heard about the notion of Two-Spirit but don't know much about it. Some Googling indicates that gender fluidity indeed was a part of Native American culture. For example, see here. 

This slide also strikes me as being mostly or entirely accurate. 

Here's a video of yesterday's New Rules segment. The Portland mention is at about the 5 minute mark.

These disturbing days I'm doing my best to deny reality

It's a tough time for lots of people in the United States. No, let's make that most people. President Biden said as much yesterday.

Speaking to the Associated Press in a rare one-on-one interview in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, the president touched on many topics from war to hair.

“People are really, really down,” Biden told the Associated Press White House reporter Josh Boak, according to a transcript of the interview. “They’re really down.”

Agreed. Maybe you aren't feeling down, but I sure am. Not totally, of course. I have plenty of cheerful moments.

But I find it difficult to be all that upbeat given what's happening in Oregon, the United States, and the entire world. 

Being a news junkie, I can't shut off the flow of facts into my brain. However, I've been doing my best to put a positive spin on reality. Arguably, I'm denying reality. That seems preferable to falling into a deep depression, though.

Here's some examples, with my positive spin/denial in italics. 

Inflation and gas prices are going up like crazy. But the Granny Smith apples I eat every day, keeping the doctor away, still cost the same. If I ferment them, maybe they'll power my Subaru.

Betsy Johnson could be the next Oregon governor. I much prefer the Democrat, Tina Kotek, but even though Johnson has ads every night on Portland TV, that didn't do Carrick Flynn any good in the recent Democratic primary for the sixth congressional district.

The stock market is sinking into bear market territory. If I don't put my reading glasses on, and  ignore the red numbers in my iPhone's Stocks app, sometimes I can imagine that the market went up rather than down.

Biden's approval numbers are as bad as Trump's at this point in his presidency. So this puts pressure on Biden to not run in 2024, which would make me really happy. 

It looks like Trump is going to run for president again. That doesn't bother me, since he lost last time. What would bother me hugely is if Trump won. There must be a Dem who can beat him.

Republicans are going all out to make sure Trump wins in 2024, even if he actually lost. We couldn't really lose our democracy, could we? Won't Americans rise up and stop this from happening? I like my questions more than the answers that pop into my head.

It's been the rainiest April-May-June in NW Oregon recorded history. If this is an effect of global warming, I'd rather have too much rain than not enough. My daughter lives in southern California. She can't remember the last time it rained there, the drought is so bad.

Given the finalists, Salem will have a middle-aged white guy as the new City Manager. But hopefully one of them will be better than the middle-aged white guy who was the previous City Manager.

Vladimir Putin shows no signs of stopping his war on Ukraine. Some disease may stop Putin from living, though. Maybe a fast-growing cancer will win the Nobel Peace Prize.

The first case of monkeypox has been found in Oregon. OK, let's trade covid for monkeypox, a much rarer disease that doesn't spread easily and is rarely fatal.

Our 2021 Christmas letter explains what we mean by "Fine"

For us, 2021 was one of those years when we felt like adding an asterisk to our usual reply when asked by a store employee, "How're you doing?" 

Fine was an OK answer. But Fine* is even better. Our Christmas letter allowed us to describe what we mean by the asterisk.

Here it is in PDF and JPEG formats.
Download 2021 Christmas Letter PDF

Angry Owl's 2021 predictions for Salem, Oregon

It's always a pleasure to be able to share local predictions for the coming year from Salem's most famous life form, Angry Owl. Here are Angry Owl's Twitter tweets -- better termed "hoots," of course. 

They're funny and wise. Since Donald Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter, I'm recommending that his 80 million or so followers migrate over to Angry Owl's account. 

After all, there's way more truth in a single Angry Owl tweet than in the countless tweets Trump inflicted on the nation. Enjoy...

Borat 2 movie shows the funny side of right-wing politics

Humor is subversive.

Lenny Bruce knew that. Other comedians throughout the ages, including ancient Greece, also have known that. To mock a political stance is to show how absurd it is, how open to ridicule it is.

Sacha Baron Cohen's new Borat movie, creatively titled Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, may not be a comedic masterpiece, but it is damn funny. 

Laurel, my wife, and I rarely laugh out loud during movies, even when we are watching them at home. But last night we fired up the Amazon Prime app on our television and hugely enjoyed Borat 2, the shorter way of referring to this film.

Yes, laughter was audible in the Hines home. We like dark edgy humor, and there was plenty of that in Borat 2.

To answer the most pressing question first, in regard to the Rudy Giuliani episode near the end of the movie it looked to me like Giuliani was tucking in his shirt rather than playing with himself in the bedroom scene with Borat's daughter, Tutar, played by a marvelous actress. 

The Borat line "She 15, she too old for you," uttered as he rushes into the bedroom trying to stop whatever might happen between Giuliani and the girl (who actually is 24) has echoes of Jeffrey Epstein. I'm sure Giuliani thought the woman pretending to be a journalist was older than 18, but this 74 year-old clearly was trying to set up a date, or whatever, with her.

Which reflects the overall theme of Borat 2. 

Right-wing Republicans (is there any other kind these days?)  talk a lot about morality, but they do a crappy job of living up to those words. So Cohen had a lot of targets to point his comedic artillery at in the movie. For example...

Children in cages -- Borat puts Tutar in a cage, this being how female children are treated in Kazakhstan. Also of course in the United States under Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Anti-Semitism -- Tutar isn't allowed to read books, but she discovers Facebook, a different sort of book. There she sees a post saying the Holocaust never happened. This disturbs Borat. However, a visit to a synagogue leads to a conversation with a Holocaust survivor, who assures Borat that the Holocaust is true. This restores Borat's faith in humanity. Or rather, inhumanity.

Trump supporters -- Borat crashes an actual Trump rally in Olympia, Washington. He ends up on stage, singing a song to the delight of the crowd. A movie review says:

“Obama was a traitor, America, he hate her. He belong inside the jails,” Cohen-as-Borat sings, affecting a country-western twang, at the March for Our Rights event. “I ain’t lying, ain’t no jokes, corona is a liberal hoax. Corona is a liberal hoax.”

He continues in song: “Obama, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu. Dr. Fauci, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu.”

Later, Cohen-as-Borat asks the crowd whether they should inject journalists with the coronavirus or “chop them up like the Saudis do.” The crowd cheers loudly.

Racism -- Hoping to give his daughter to Vice-President Pence, Borat infiltrates CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit and saying he is Steven Miller, Trump's anti-immigrant front man. 

Now, I'm sure conservatives would say that if there was a right-wing Sacha Baron Cohen, it would be possible to make an equally mocking movie of liberal excesses. To some extent that's true. But here's the thing.

Modern day liberalism is much more moderate than modern day conservatism. The Republican Party has bought into the Trump clown show almost completely, while the Democratic Party has come together around Joe Biden, who is pleasingly centrist and sane.

So it was easy for Cohen to push the boundary of right-wing politics into absurd comedic territory, because Republicans are so close to that boundary all the time. Every time Trump talks, what he says is laughable. Yet Trump's devotees don't laugh, they applaud. And that's really funny. 

Watch the new Borat movie. I merely scratched the surface of the laugh-at-loud bits. A scene in a right-to-life counseling center with Borat and his daughter was a highpoint for me (and a lowlight for right-wingers with no sense of humor). Here's the movie trailer to whet your appetite for it.

 

Trump is a genius! He just solved every problem on Earth.

Ever since he was elected president of the United States, I've been a vociferous critic of Donald Trump. But now I realize how wrong I've been.

A recent statement by Trump points to a solution to not only the COVID-19 crisis, but every conceivable problem that afflicts our planet.

Behold the genius of Trump the Almighty:

I bow down before the glory of this single marvelous sentence which, in eight carefully crafted words, cuts through the thicket of confusion that has prevented humanity from dealing with so many issues that have bedeviled people for millennia. 

Trump, though, did expand upon this unsurpassed wisdom in a tweet.

Thank you, President Trump. We now know that not only would there be very few coronavirus cases if testing for COVID-19 infections ceased, also...

Breast cancer would be a thing of the past if women stopped having mammograms.
Global warming would disappear if greenhouse gas levels weren't measured.
Deaths would shrink to almost zero if obituaries weren't published.
Fevers would stop bothering people if thermometers were banned.
Obesity would be eliminated if there were no scales.
Wrinkles would cease to worry older people if all mirrors were shattered.
Bad news would vanish if journalists found other professions.
Student achievement would skyrocket if tests stopped being used.
Crimes would be negligible if FBI statistics weren't reported. 

Of course, I have merely scratched the surface of the marvelous improvements to human life if Trump's genius becomes more widely recognized, as it should be.

My profound hope is that after January 2021 Donald Trump will be relieved of his duties as President, thereby freeing up his time to pursue the many avenues of improvement that build upon his groundbreaking insight that if no attempt is made to recognize a problem, the problem ceases to exist.

New issue of Salem Cherry Pits takes jabs at city officials

Not surprisingly, we (well, I) here at Salem Political Snark adore snarkishness.

That's why I'm eager to share every new issue of Salem Cherry Pits when it hits my email inbox, sent to me by downtown resident and property owner Carole Smith -- the creator, publisher, and distributor of this marvelous mixture of biting satire and solid information about downtown goings-on.

Below I've shared screenshots of the first two pages of the Spring 2020 issue, which deal with a novel approach to homelessness and a heretofore unrecognized way the coronavirus can be transmitted: farts. You can read the whole issue by clicking on these PDF files.

The first is the entire issue minus the centerfold (which, sadly, isn't a provocative unclothed image of a city councilor). The second is a rotated page 4, so you don't get a crick in your neck from perusing details of where downtown urban renewal money comes from. And the third is the oversized centerfold, "Proposed 2021 Downtown Urban Renewal Budget."

Download Spring 2020 Cherry Pits Newsletter
Download Downtown Urban Renewal Money
Download Centerfold Spring Cherry Pits

Angry Owl's Top 10 Predictions for Salem in 2020

Funny. Sarcastic. Provocative. In short, a hoot. Here's Angry Owl's Top 10 Predictions for Salem in 2020 that came to perch on the top of the Twitter tree today.

It's tough for me to pick a favorite, because I like them all, but I suppose my #1 of the Top Ten would be... "Botched construction at the polo grounds and clubhouse delay grand opening of Salem's $73 million police facility," because cost overruns were so extreme on this Police Palace.

Be sure to follow Angry Owl on Twitter so you don't miss this famous bird's tweets. And check out Angry Owl's 2019 predictions for Salem, which also had some sharp talons aimed at our city.

Downtown Cherry Pits takes a satirical jab at Salem issues

I like satire. I admire humorous writing. And I appreciate efforts to improve downtown Salem. Downtown Cherry Pits is a funny satirical newsletter that hits on all three cylinders for me.

The March 2019 issue has a great cover.

There's a lot of good stuff in the other eight pages also. Check out the issue via this PDF file of a scan I made of it.
Download Downtown Cherry Pits March 2019

Or if you're lucky, there will be some free copies left in a box hanging on the wall outside 363 Court Street NE in downtown Salem (next to Lullu's).

Carole Smith is the creative force behind Downtown Cherry Pits, which was born last December as I reported in "Downtown Cherry Pits debuts as Salem satirical newsletter." Each issue has improved, in my decidedly personal opinion.

Here's the January issue if you want your brain to munch on another Cherry Pits.
Download Downtown Cherry Pits January 2019

The March issue features both humor and some serious examination of how the City of Salem has been managing -- or rather, mismanaging -- a Downtown Parking District tax that originally supported a downtown association and maintenance of parking garages. 

Here's a story in the March issue that talks about how that money has been frittered away on other budget items by Mayor "Chuckles" Bennett and other city officials.

A chart on page two of the March issue shows that after 32 years of parking tax money going to funding for downtown projects and support of a downtown association, from 2012 to 2017 the City Manager kept all of  the funds. 

This happened during the reign of City Manager Linda Norris, with the willing connivance of then City Councilor Chuck Bennett. I reported on this debacle in a couple of blog posts. I'll share an excerpt from each.

Should Salem City Manager be known as Exalted Emperor Linda Norris?
It deeply bothers me when "public servants" are pleased to suck up taxpayer money for their often-lofty salaries, yet fail miserably at their core job -- choosing to lord it over the people they should be serving.

Case in point: Salem (Oregon) City Manager Linda Norris.

A recent Statesman Journal story, "Will latest downtown group succeed?," only tells part of the sorry tale of how Norris did away with the existing downtown association so she could personally rule over how funds provided by businesses are spent.

...The SJ story by Michael Rose reveals that City Manager Exalted Emperor Linda Norris rules without the usual open government transparency demanded by Oregon's public records law.

After taking control of the EID money contributed by downtown property owners, Norris doesn't allow anyone to know what is going on with her and the "hand-picked" yes-people she has chosen to be her lackeys.

...This is amazing. Amazingly disturbing.

The top non-elected city official dissolves a duly organized downtown organization so she can take control of the group's money. Then chooses to keep records of her Imperial Pronouncements secret. I can't believe this would be tolerated even in Tony Soprano's New Jersey, much less in supposedly squeaky-clean Oregon.

City of Salem took over Salem Downtown Partnership for lousy reasons

A few days ago I talked with someone in-the-know about how the Salem (Oregon) City Manager, Linda Norris, ended up controlling on her own $215,000 in Economic Improvement District funds paid by downtown businesses.

It was a lengthy conversation. This person asked to talk with me because he/she was so disturbed about how the EID was handled, and liked my blog-reporting on other downtown issues.

I was on the phone with this person for about 90 minutes. I learned a lot about how the City of Salem ended up cancelling the contract Salem Downtown Partnership had to administer the Economic Improvement District (EID) money. 

The headline, so to speak, is this:

Norris and other City of Salem staff set up Salem Downtown Partnership to fail. Instead of working cooperatively and collaboratively with this duly-selected organization that represented downtown businesses, the City undermined its efforts in various ways.

Now, admittedly this is the opinion of only one person. But this person was in a position to be very well informed about what happened during the period Salem Downtown Partnership (SDP) had the EID contract.

And, no, this person wasn't either of the key businesspeople who got SDP up and running -- Carole Smith and Eric Kittleson. He or she prefers to remain anonymous.

Downtown Cherry Pits isn't enamored with a wanna-be, but isn't really, "downtown association" that goes by the name of the Salem Main Street Association or Salem Lame Street Association. Here's how the January 2019 issue describes the group.

It does indeed seem strange that a private group with a self-selected board of directors is acting as if it were a genuine downtown association -- which it clearly isn't. I wrote about the drawbacks of the Salem Main Street Association, and past downtown association follies by city officials, in "Here's why Salem needs a genuine downtown association."

Salem no longer has a downtown association. We need one. What happened at last night's City Council meeting is only one of many reasons why. 

But before I explain what transpired at the meeting, a bit of relevant history about how downtown lost its downtown association is in order. I wrote about this in a couple of blog posts.

...So here we are in 2017.

A new group, Salem Main Street Association, was formed in April, as I discussed in "New Salem Main Street Association debuts with questions and concerns." Among other things, I noted that the Association doesn't really deserve its name, since it doesn't have any members. 

Rather, it is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with a self-selected board of directors. Meaning, the board established by the founders chooses new board members. Since there aren't any members -- such as downtown business owners -- Salem Main Street Association isn't at all like a real downtown association.

...I get the impression that Salem Main Street Association is angling to be treated like a downtown association without actually being one. I also have a suspicion that Mayor Bennett and other City officials want to have parking meters installed downtown, and they see the Salem Main Street Association as a willing accomplice in helping to make that happen.

Angry Owl makes 10 Salem predictions for 2019

Check out Angry Owl's 2019 twitter predictions for Salem. Predictably, I've got to say, "They're a hoot!" I am unbelievably honored to be featured in one of them. Enjoy...