Going To Mail This To The Oregonian (P.S. I Absolutely Love Baseball)
Proudly A Stick-In-The-Mud
Baseball is great, but is it practical?
I’m seriously enraged, yet smug in the comfortable cocoon of my liberal beliefs.
I just finished reading Susan Nielsen’s column, entitled “Baseball might be too fun for Portland”, which is based on almost entirely on her stereotype of a liberal: boring, unintelligent, and outdated. The worst is the general idea that I glean from the article: silly. Those silly liberals. Like a stubborn grandmother, liberals must be coaxed into perfectly logical ideas, such as pouring our already lacking state funds into another sports team (with which Portland has terrible luck, I might add), instead of things that really don’t need any money, like homeless people, and schools.
My beef with her primarily lies in her conspicuous lack of factual information, replaced by her relentless personal attacks on liberals as fuddy-duddies. I could just as easily write my column on conservatives that are hypocritical, insensitive, conceited liars. Of course, I’d never sink to that level, because such a scathing comment, like all generalizations, are sketchy at best…and at worst, you end up with a column like Nielsen’s, which less about baseball and mostly a groundless dig at the Portland liberal culture.
I just can’t believe that we’re in the middle of an economic semi-crisis, and she wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of desperately needed taxpayer money on something that might, well, sort of, uh, bring some of those job things to the city. Ms. Nielsen, can you point out another city where the economy has blossomed because of eighteen overpaid guys on a turf and dirt field?
Nielsen quotes the mayoral candidates saying they would rather funnel our tax money into education and jobs, as though that’s some sort of radical, completely ridiculous idea. We can pay people to teach the state’s kids…or everyone can just go watch the Portland Expos. Little Timmy can learn long division…or he can learn the difference between a slider and curveball.
Okay, here’s an idea: lets run a cost/ profit projection analysis on a successful Portland team (that works like she says it will), which brings jobs and in turn generates millions of dollars of revenue to be used for schools. If it works, great! If not, Ms. Nielsen can foot the bill. On a associate editor’s salary, by my calculations, she be finished paying that back by the year 2162. Think the Portland Expos will still be around?
What’s worse? Being a fun-lover who would rather watch baseball than help people, or a stick-in-the-mud who’s improving the schools and the streets of Portland? Frankly, I like baseball. I’d love to have a team in Portland. But put Fun Baseball on one side of the Scales Of Justice and put Starving People and Starving Schools and Public Transportation on the other, you know what I’m going to choose.
Break me off a branch.
Baseball is great, but is it practical?
I’m seriously enraged, yet smug in the comfortable cocoon of my liberal beliefs.
I just finished reading Susan Nielsen’s column, entitled “Baseball might be too fun for Portland”, which is based on almost entirely on her stereotype of a liberal: boring, unintelligent, and outdated. The worst is the general idea that I glean from the article: silly. Those silly liberals. Like a stubborn grandmother, liberals must be coaxed into perfectly logical ideas, such as pouring our already lacking state funds into another sports team (with which Portland has terrible luck, I might add), instead of things that really don’t need any money, like homeless people, and schools.
My beef with her primarily lies in her conspicuous lack of factual information, replaced by her relentless personal attacks on liberals as fuddy-duddies. I could just as easily write my column on conservatives that are hypocritical, insensitive, conceited liars. Of course, I’d never sink to that level, because such a scathing comment, like all generalizations, are sketchy at best…and at worst, you end up with a column like Nielsen’s, which less about baseball and mostly a groundless dig at the Portland liberal culture.
I just can’t believe that we’re in the middle of an economic semi-crisis, and she wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of desperately needed taxpayer money on something that might, well, sort of, uh, bring some of those job things to the city. Ms. Nielsen, can you point out another city where the economy has blossomed because of eighteen overpaid guys on a turf and dirt field?
Nielsen quotes the mayoral candidates saying they would rather funnel our tax money into education and jobs, as though that’s some sort of radical, completely ridiculous idea. We can pay people to teach the state’s kids…or everyone can just go watch the Portland Expos. Little Timmy can learn long division…or he can learn the difference between a slider and curveball.
Okay, here’s an idea: lets run a cost/ profit projection analysis on a successful Portland team (that works like she says it will), which brings jobs and in turn generates millions of dollars of revenue to be used for schools. If it works, great! If not, Ms. Nielsen can foot the bill. On a associate editor’s salary, by my calculations, she be finished paying that back by the year 2162. Think the Portland Expos will still be around?
What’s worse? Being a fun-lover who would rather watch baseball than help people, or a stick-in-the-mud who’s improving the schools and the streets of Portland? Frankly, I like baseball. I’d love to have a team in Portland. But put Fun Baseball on one side of the Scales Of Justice and put Starving People and Starving Schools and Public Transportation on the other, you know what I’m going to choose.
Break me off a branch.