Leaving the hipster ghetto.

Long story short, I moved out of Portland at the end of 2017 for a live/work situation near Scappoose. That didn't work out, and I went back to work last summer (2018) in Beaverton. I'm now living and working in Hillsboro.

I like the Portland area, but it's unlikely that I will move back to Portland proper. When I first moved to the city, I found it walkable, liveable, affordable, and generally nice. Things are different now.

I no longer find Portland endearingly quirky. Between the rent, the crowding, the traffic, and Antifa apparently being given free rein in the streets, I'm content with my nostalgic memories of living downtown.

Follow Andy Ngo on Twitter and on YouTube to keep up with the latest from Portland and the culture wars generally.

Andy Ngo: Racism disguised as anti-racism.

Andy Ngo at Quillette:

When I started my graduate education at Portland State in 2015 after a long hiatus from academe, I attended an event titled, “Students of Color Speak Out.” The university president encouraged all students, staff and faculty to attend the event, organized in reaction to alleged racial tensions on campus. As a student of color and the gay son of refugee immigrants, the event’s premise interested me.

As I sat in the front, I listened to students detail their daily trauma of existing on a campus that was majority white. Students representing many ethnicities repeatedly shared feeling unsafe. I was confounded because their anecdotes spoke of an experience that sounded similar to those who lived in apartheid-era South Africa or Jim Crow Mississippi — not something I remotely recognized in ultra-progressive Portland. Still, I was sympathetic and recognized that my personal experiences may not be shared by others.

My optimism was challenged once I began to pick up on the theme connecting the speeches. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Israeli Artists, Intellectuals Sign Petition Urging End to Nasty Stuff

'When I read a survey that claims that 84 percent of the Israeli public supports this violent and foolish campaign, I am happy that at least a few public figures are willing to stand up to this.'

84 percent of Israelis may support the campaign, but journalist Yuval Ben-Ami knows better. He, along with other brilliant military strategists such as celebrated playwright and author Yehoshua Sobol, award-winning writer and painter Yoram Kaniuk, internationally acclaimed author Amos Oz, filmmaker David Ofek, Batsheva Dance Company founder Ohad Naharin, have declared that

Our hearts are with you, residents of the South. It is the government’s duty to protect you, but its way is not our way.

Well, personally I'd go with the government's way, but that's just me. I'm not a writer, painter, choreographer, or filmmaker, so what do I know? Anyway, I salute these creative intellectuals for their enormous courage.

And by "enormous courage", I mean "unbearable arrogance".

For me, the really sad thing about something like this - and this is scarcely the first such instance - is that it devalues these artists' work for me. Amos Oz, what a writer - I'm reading "A Tale of Love and Darkness" now. No doubt these people imagine that their stature as artists lends greater weight to their political pronouncements. It doesn't. It only tells us that these people - who have built their reputations on their supposed understanding of life and human nature - aren't as wise as they imagine themselves to be.

On Culture

I'm not going to bore you by recapitulating the debate over "multiculturalism", but I do want to link this excellent article from my old friends at Psychology Today:

My ancestors are from the violent, improverished part of Sicily. This gave me a dash of realism when teachers taught me to celebrate other cultures and sneer at everything American. I embraced this "multicultural view" for a long time, and even taught it to innocent youth. But I could not continue the dishonesty of excusing huge flaws in other cultures, while erasing all the good in American culture.

For exampel, a recent PT post Lets Eat, Drink and Grow Old Together, described the health benefits of the Sicilian diet and social system. This is true if you overlook the centuries of starvation and in-group murder produced by the Sicilian culture. I speak frankly because this my heritage. ...

By starting an argument with a Sicilian, PT made one of the classic blunders. But more importantly, Loretta Graziano Breuning reminds us that "the rush to idealize other cultures often leads Americans to a self-hate that is bad for our health."

I was shocked to hear the ways people from that culture rationalize and normalize child abuse, spousal abuse, and violent strategies for making your way in the world.

"Our society is like that too" you may rush to say. That's what was taught in school, and I absorbed it because I wanted to be "educated." But I always knew that life was more complicated. I was beaten by my mother, and I could see that "our society" treated me better than I was treated at home. I knew that we do not live in the nightmarish police state suggested by my college professors, who may not have experienced any direct violence. ...

She's talking about what some commentators have labeled "oikophobia" (if your Greek is rusty, that's "fear of the house"):

The adolescent rejection of home and its iterations (ethnic group/tribe/religion) is composed of many different strands; it is nearly, though not completely, universal. Adolescents in more traditional cultures and subcultures typically navigate through a more limited rejection of their parents and culture. The vast majority of adolescents come to terms with the compromises and limitations of their own culture and become full members by the time they have become young adults.

The Oikophobes have now established their own subculture in which adolescent angst and the repudiation of limitations is not only accepted but celebrated; imperfections in America are then the objects of Utopian inspired rage. ...

It's essential to recognize the difference between a reasoned, responsible, constructive critique of one's native culture (which liberalism, at its best, aspires to provide) and an irrational rejection of even the best aspects of one's heritage simply because it is not "foreign" enough. Knowing this difference matters, whether we are ordering lunch, or a land war in Asia.

Nora Ephron

Roger Simon remembers Nora Ephron.

It’s scary when people you knew and considered your (rough) contemporaries start dying.

I didn’t know Nora Ephron well, but we were friendly acquaintances in the 1980s when we shared the same agent and would bump into each other at parties. I even remember meeting her father Henry — also a screenwriter and director — at an Edgar Award ceremony in 1986 when I was nominated and lost. They graciously came up and congratulated me anyway. It was the best part of the evening for me.

Naturally, I followed Nora’s career after we drifted apart. How could you not? ...

Read the rest at the link.

Oh, hell.

After 35 years and 1669 strips, Matt Groening to quit "Life in Hell".

Fathers' Day Roundup

Well, I don't know about you, but I celebrated Flag Day by wearing my American Flag T-shirt (yes, made in the USA, it says so on the label!) to the office. It's been a holiday since 1777, which is pretty impressive. The Washington Post fills us in on lots more details.

Congress officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as the nation’s flag on June 14, 1777. The next day, Ross married her second husband, Joseph Ashburn. Her first husband, John Ross, had died during the Revolutionary War, as did Ashburn a few years later. Her third marriage, to John Claypoole, lasted 34 years.

I don't want to spoil the fun, so go to the link for the rest. The historicity of the Betsy Ross story may be dubious, but it's a great story anyway.

June 14 is also the birthday of the United States Army.

Fathers' Day nightmare, in two words: Lindsay Lohan. But hey, the paramedics were cute. #SabesQueTomasteDemasiado ...

As for my own little girl (she's four, going on 14), I'm helping her and her mom take a trip to earthquake-stricken Disneyland.

In case you were wondering, "Rock of Ages" bombed.

But back to Fathers' Day. If you want to know a little about my Dad, Ken McLintock, you can read his writing at Urban Renewal and his World War II memoir at Pacific Memories.

Anyway, on to the blogroll. Ace has advice on how to defeat a mama grizzly. Moe Lane goes down to Georgia, and I don't mean Tbilisi, with some infamous company. And via Richard Jeffey Newman at Alas, our friend Betsy Ross comes to the aid of those who want to fly their true colors proudly.

"Girls" and McDonald's

Fox:

Last week, Lena Dunham was one of the most talked about young women in the entertainment industry. At just 25, she has created, directed, starred in and produced (along with "Bridesmaids" producer Judd Apatow) the highly-anticipated new HBO series “Girls.”

But following the racy comedy’s debut on Sunday night, a decidedly different vibe has emerged. Dunham has come under fire for failing to convey a wider scope of ethnicities and races in her show's cultural melting pot of New York City. ...

Jenny E. M. at We Mix Our Own Mythologies writes:

Let’s get one thing out of the way quickly: I do NOT believe that Lena Dunham’s “Girls” has an obligation to “diversity.” I am of the mind, which I’ve seen written about elsewhere, that if “Bored to Death” didn’t have that obligation, then “Girls” doesn’t have it either. What is that, anyway? That a show about Women is defined as “other,” and therefore it has to represent every population that is ever “othered”? I think it’s almost more progressive to have a show about rich white girls that doesn’t try to be universally diverse, where that’s not its raison d’être, because then we’re one step closer to women not being “other.”

However, the whole debate about diversity, and whether “Girls” is obligated to have more of it, is limited to boxes on a diversity checklist (does it have a person of color? check; gay person? check; disabled person? check), and I guess I am opposed to that checklist view of humanity, not only because it promotes tokenism, but also because it isn’t humanistic enough, holistic enough. It reminds me of people in relationships who have a Conversation about whether they’re going to be Exclusive, and if they aren’t Exclusive, it means they’re Free to date and sleep with other people. What about the emotional tenor of your relationship? What about the implicit promises you’ve made to the other person by confiding in them, by acting as if you care about being with them? I’ve always been wary of people who treat other people like a checklist, who need a contract to have a relationship.

But if “Girls” wanted to acknowledge the diversity of the human experience in a more holistic way, it might do so in a less lazy approach to the main character’s central problem. ...

Read the rest at the link.