R.I.P. Philippe Rushton

Posted on October 4, 2012 by jewamongyou

Rest in peace Prof. Phillipe Rushton. You will be missed.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The evils of gentrification

Posted on October 4, 2012 by jewamongyou

According to the Portland Tribune the influx of whites into black/Hispanic neighborhoods is an evil that should be prevented. The Northeast Portland neighborhood of Cully is in the throes of gentrification. According to a current article in the Portland Tribune:

Despite the welcome attention, some residents wonder if they’ll get pushed out as Cully becomes more desirable. They’ve seen it happen nearby, where white-tablecloth restaurants and other developments gentrified Alberta Street — raising property values and displacing longtime African-American residents.
“Many people hold Alberta Street as an example of what we don’t want,” says Nathan Teske, economic development director for Hacienda Community Development Corp., a nonprofit that promotes affordable housing in Cully for Hispanics and others.
“I think there’s a lot of trepidation in the neighborhood about that,” Teske says.
At the behest of Hacienda and others, the city Bureau of Planning and Sustainability vowed to make Cully a model for preventing the ill effects of gentrification, while seeking to improve the neighborhood…
For starters, the city commissioned a study of what worked elsewhere to stem gentrification, and Zehnder will appoint a citizens group to focus on the issue. The city will periodically gather data to determine if gentrification or displacement are occurring…
Cully Grove, a cohousing project being built at 4745 N.E. Going St., symbolizes changes coming to what’s considered Portland’s most ethnically diverse neighborhood.
All but two of the 16 units have been pre-purchased, and future residents are planning how to share a 4,200-square-foot garden and other ways to live cooperatively as an intentional community. Though the incoming Cully Grove residents are of varying ages, family situations and education levels, none is a person of color, and the units cost more than most Cully houses.
It’s more evidence, one Cully activist says, of “white hippies” moving into the neighborhood, which in the 2010 Census was 58 percent white, 21 percent Hispanic, 16 percent black and 6 percent Asian.

Could you imagine a newspaper article stating something like:

Though the incoming Cully Grove residents are of varying ages, family situations and education levels, none are white…

I’d recommend that Steve Law, the author of the above abomination, take a course in economics. If an influx of whites bring property values up, this is an indication that they are bringing improvement to the neighborhood. Or perhaps lower property value is a good thing and this is the real reason blacks commit so much crime. It’s to make sure their property values stay low and their taxes remain manageable. It all makes sense now; it’s all part of a grand scheme.
Perhaps the civic-minded white hippies, who are gentrifying Cully, should offset some of the damage they are doing to the black community and take matters into their own hands. I’m sure local blacks would be kind enough to teach them the art of tagging, dressing like gangstas and playing loud rap at all hours. If the new white arrivals simply adapt to the local (black) culture, then the problem should be solved.
While the article does mention that gentrification isn’t “all bad”, it does so near the end – where most people don’t even read.  Also, the overall attitude is made clear when the article concludes:

Ultimately, Teske says, the best way to prevent gentrification and displacement in Cully will be old-fashioned political pressure from the community.

I’m still waiting for a corporate-controlled newspaper to publish even one article bemoaning the displacement of whites from their neighborhoods. Unlike the displacement of blacks, whites are displaced through violence and intimidation.  The massive, and ongoing, refugee crises we’re experiencing in the U.S., known as “white-flight”, is of no concern to the corporate media except insofar as it demonstrates the “racism” of said whites.
Steve Law lives in an upside down world where good equals bad and bad equals good. Where the forced displacement of millions of whites is of no concern and ghettos are something to be desired.
His call for “old-fashioned political pressure from the community” is ominous. If current diversity-worship trends continue, the time is not far off when the government will assign a specific ethnic mix (it will be, of course, called a “goal”) to each city and neighborhood. A citizen will have to get government permission before he can move somewhere. There is already a precedent for this in public schools, where “racial balance” has long been a government goal and an excuse for every sort of crime.
Good equals bad. War equals peace. Government micromanaging. It’s people like Law who are making Orwell’s 1984 a reality.

Posted in Africa and blacks, examples of propaganda, shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 35 Comments

Werewolves call for a ban on the full moon

Posted on October 1, 2012 by jewamongyou

Between 80,000 and 90,000 new werewolves have arrived annually to the U.S. each year recently and their numbers are projected to continue growing. Clearly the werewolves find the U.S. (and Europe) attractive places to live – or they wouldn’t continue to stream in.
In their native countries, werewolves have established provisions to block the effects of the full moon. Unfortunately, in the U.S. and Europe such provisions do not exist. Therefore the werewolves of Kansas City have called for a ban on the full moon. According to Fox News:

“We understand that the United States Constitution allows for the moon to appear in all its cycles, to wax and wane and even to be full , but when the allowance of the full moon incites violence it should be banned,” read a statement from the Werewolf Society.
While condemning the violence that was originally blamed on the full moon, the Werewolf group said it would “be in everyone’s interest to ban the moon from appearing in its full form.”
“We condemn the violence and feel that, in spite of the U. S. Constitution, action may be necessary to pass such a bill or, at least, censure such actions in order to calm the current situation as well as prevent future re-occurrences,” the statement read.
The Werewolf Society in Kansas City is not alone in their calls for limiting the appearance of the full moon.
“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] the moon,” the head werewolf told The Blaze.

There have been several recent instances where werewolves have gone on the rampage, randomly tearing out peoples’ hearts and engaging in other such mayhem. Each occurrence has been linked to the full moon.
There are no plans to limit the immigration of werewolves to the U.S. and Europe; their numbers are already large enough that such a move would be politically impractical. Furthermore, werewolves are on the endangered species list and any action against them could be prosecuted as a Federal crime.

Posted in freedom of speech issues, Muslims, parody/satire | 3 Comments

The ultimate crime: Being a white supremacist

Posted on September 29, 2012 by jewamongyou

The opening line in a recent Oregonian article reads:

An intensive interstate hunt for the white supremacist accused of murdering a Lake Oswego high-tech engineer ended quietly Saturday, when police arrested Erik John Meiser in Corvallis.

Even if Meiser identifies as a white supremacist, there can be little doubt that he also identifies as other things. He probably identifies himself as “straight”, “a sports fan”, “a Marlboro smoker”, “a drug user” or “a burglar” or any number of other things. The crime he was sought for, the murder of another white man (Frederick Hayes), seems to have no relationship to his white supremacist views. In an earlier era, a similar report might have read:

An intensive interstate hunt for the homosexual accused of murdering a Lake Oswego high-tech engineer ended quietly Saturday, when police arrested Erik John Meiser in Corvallis.

Or perhaps even:

An intensive interstate hunt for the negro accused of murdering a Lake Oswego high-tech engineer ended quietly Saturday, when police arrested Erik John Meiser in Corvallis.

Was white supremacy the centerpiece of Meiser’s criminal career? Apparently not. The article goes on to say:

Meiser was particularly worrisome to police because he has a history of arrests for hate crimes, drug crimes, assaults, burglaries, theft, domestic violence, assault/cruelty toward a child, obscene phone calls, vandalism, disorderly conduct, trespassing, providing false identification to an officer and resisting arrest.

Certainly, if his “hate crimes” included other acts of violence, we would be told about it. As far as I know, a “hate crime” charge can only be added to an existing charge as an enhancement. Perhaps a reader can enlighten me as to how a person can be charged with a “hate crime” that is not also another crime (with the exception, perhaps, of ethnic intimidation).
It’s telling that the Oregonian puts “hate crimes” at the very top of the list, above all the other heinous crimes listed. It seems that, according to the Oregonian, being a white supremacist is worse than abusing a child, worse than beating your girlfriend, worse than violating the property of others and worse than assaulting another person.  According to the Oregonian, all other aspects of your personality are secondary to being a white supremacist. It is the single most defining feature by which you are known, rendering you an untouchable or some sort of inferior species.
It now turns out that Meiser wasn’t even a white supremacist or neo-nazi; he had renounced those beliefs and had been married to a Jewess for several years. Personally, I think it’s better to be a neo-nazi than to marry a Jewess. Neo-nazis help bolster Jewish identity and thus strengthen the Jewish people. But gentiles who marry Jews are killing the Jewish people through assimilation. But this goes to show how desperate the corporate media is to condemn any sort of pro-white sentiments.
The underlying message here is that white supremacists are out there, they are evil, they are dangerous and they need to be eliminated. The fact that black/Hispanic gang members are far more numerous than white supremacists, more dangerous and more hateful, never even comes into consideration.
This is especially so if you count people like myself as “white supremacists”, as the editors of the Oregonian certainly would. The only way they could avoid admitting that many “white supremacists” are harmless is to make  a distinction between non-violent academic race-realists, and wannabe academic race-realists, and full-blown neo-nazis – and they are unwilling to make such a distinction. According to them, anybody with pro-white beliefs is a neo-nazi skinhead.
Would we ever encounter an Oregonian article that stated something like this?

An intensive interstate hunt for the black gang member accused of murdering a Lake Oswego high-tech engineer ended quietly Saturday, when police arrested Jameel Johnson in Corvallis.

Not likely. Instead we might find, in paragraph 11, “gang activity did not appear to be a factor”.

Posted in examples of propaganda | 18 Comments

Madonna: Human pollution

Posted on September 27, 2012 by jewamongyou

I try not to waste time keeping up on the various “news” stories, about pop celebrities, the corporate media bombards us with. But it seems like the name “Madonna” pops up in association with every abomination in the book.
She recently lost a bid to adopt yet another child from Malawi:

A Malawi court ruled on Friday that Madonna, right, cannot adopt a 3-year-old child there, Reuters reported, because she has not been a resident of the country for the last 18 months. As with Madonna’s adoption of her son David Banda, 3, completed in 2008 in Malawi, her petition to adopt a girl named Chifundo James caused critics to complain that the pop star was trying to circumvent laws banning nonresidents from adopting Malawian children.

She was also in the news recently for promoting Obama at one of her concerts (oddly, by referring to him as a “black Muslim”):

Pop diva Madonna urged fans to vote for President Barack Obama in America’s November election, but raised eyebrows by calling him a “black Muslim,” according to a video posted online Tuesday.
In the clip reportedly shot during a concert Monday night, she listed American icons Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King before turning to Obama, of whom she is a well-known supporter.
“And now it is so amazing and incredible to think we have an African American in the White House,” she said in an expletive-laden speech, flanked by her troupe of black dancers at the show in Washington DC.
“Am I with you, and are you with me?” Madonna — who at one point admitted to feeling “a little dizzy” and repeatedly sucked on a bottled drink and blinked a lot — asked rhetorically, to whoops from the audience.
“So y’all better vote for… Obama, okay?” she added, before saying: “For better or for worse, all right, we have a black Muslim in the White House. Now that is… some amazing s***.”
“It means there is hope in this country.”

She can be forgiven for thinking Obama is Muslim; after all, his middle name is Hussein.  But to swoon over him, get dizzy and get publicly orgasmic over the fact that we now have a black tyrant in the White House instead of the usual white one – that’s going a bit too far.
Her excessive use of profanity is probably part of a syndrome whereby those who were raised strictly religious spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for it. I’ve known many Jews who do this and some of the most foul-mouthed folks I’ve met were ex-Catholics, just like Madonna.
It’s not enough for Madonna to embrace evil at every opportunity. It also appears she is on a mission to destroy all that is good and wholesome. She recently got sued by France’s National Front for screening Marine Le Pen with a swastika superimposed on her face at a concert. Even the most feeble and watered-down attempt to save Europe’s people from extinction is viewed, by Madonna, as the ultimate evil. Since she hates whites so much, she should just commit suicide and be done with it.
When the trashy components of American pop-culture seek to spread themselves across the globe, they use agents such as Madonna as spores. Though Arab/Muslim culture is far from perfect, it holds some treasures as well. Is the colorful heritage of the people of Dubai so cheap to them that they allow their younger generation to be contaminated by the likes of Madonna? According to Gulf News:

Featuring a major production, with a massive transforming stage, the show was undoubtedly the biggest and most extravagant organiser Flash Entertainment has ever hosted.

tabloid! had earlier asked the company if Madonna would tone down her performance to suit cultural sensitivities in the Emirates. Flash did not want to comment…
Besides featuring violent images of blood splattered on the screen during a performance of Revolver and Gang Bang, there were lots of religious iconographies, sexy dance moves and potentially contentious audio-visual content never before seen in a UAE public performance.

America has much to be proud of, and much we can offer the world. Unfortunately, all too often it’s our cultural excrement that gets exported to faraway lands – like so much raw sewage being dumped into pristine streams.
Given all the above (and much more I’m sure), it’s no wonder that Madonna is attracted to the so-called Kabbalah. I’ve already written about this dubious offshoot of Judaism here, here and here.
Surely there is a desolate island somewhere where we can exile the likes of Madonna. I’d pay for her one-way ticket.

Posted in shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 11 Comments

Sins of their fathers

Posted on September 26, 2012 by jewamongyou

In a recent American Renaissance post, about the British grooming scandal, there are some interesting comments:
Jedsrael wrote:

Sadly, none of the elites’ White daughters are sexed by nasty Pakis, but even worse they probably all take up Diversity sex partners at Cambridge.

To which Davemm1 replied:

Actually I do know of a case in the USA where that did happen. She was a very nice girl, too. She had light brown hair and bright blue eyes and was very beautiful, smart, well-mannered, and sweet. It happened at a private College in a western U.S. state. This happened in 1984. There was an E.S.L. program at the college, in addition to the college curriculum. It was possibly not run by the college but was in the college. There were lots of foreigners there, mostly rich young aspiring professionals from wealthy Latin American families. In this case, there were also some Saudis there. I was acquainted with them. One of the Arabs told me that he was on the Olympic judo team for Saudi Arabia. One time he even told me to “go at him.” I thought that he just wanted to show me a move politely so I played the “uke” for him. I wasn’t fighting or using my skills. I thought that he was just going to “fit” the throw as we were on a marble floor. He threw me completely even though I was not contesting with him and was helping him. I was a wrestler and a good judoka and karateka and accustomed to contesting with national and international calliber judoka and State and National calliber wrestlers (there are a lot where I live). I got mad and ran over and put him in what we called the “Iron Jock” in wrestling (a form of sukui nage in judo). I threw him on his knees on the marble floor.
Anyway, in spite of the rudeness, I wouldn’t have thought that they would later do what they did. Some foolish idiot had housed these Saudis in a dorm mostly inhabited by young women in this formerly Catholic college. Well, one day these Arabs all got in the elevator with the nice young woman that I mentioned. While she was stuck on the elevator with them, they grabbed her, about 8 or 10 of them, and held her against her will, tore her panties off, and forcibly felt her up. I gather that the only thing that saved her from a complete rape was that she screamed and the elevator got to her floor and opened and their were people there.
Well, I didn’t know this had happened for a while afterword. I did notice that the Saudis were gone suddenly. Well, word started getting around and I heard the story a few times from several people. I always said that I didn’t think that they (the Saudis) would do that. Most of the people in the ESL program were from their countries’ “elite.” Finally, one day, this very sweet and beautiful girl with whom I was acquainted came and sat across from me at the cafeteria. She told me that the stories were true and that she was the girl who had been attacked. She told me what had happened. She also told me that her father was a prominent congressman from her New England state and that he had flown in to our city and state to deal with the situation. For some reason, even with his string-pulling and his influence as a congressman, all that happened to the Saudis was that they got forced to leave our campus and to fly to Texas for their ESL training.  I would like to have gotten my hands on them and so would several of the other young men on campus, at least one of whom was a wrestler and karateka, too.  Maybe some Texans got offended, too, and got ahold of them;)
That young woman was a very well mannered and sweet girl and she did not behave provacatively or dress provacatively. The Muslims always make such claims about their victims. She was a very kind, beautiful, sweet, and intelligent young woman and she did not deserve that and she was not socializing with the Arabs but merely wanted to get to her dorm room. I doubt that her influential father is a fan of Arabs or Muslims as a whole. As for me, I know that Muslims are incompatible and are a real threat to westerners and freedom.
I hope that the moderators let this comment through because I think that it is important for several reasons. It shows that the white victims can be completely innocent and do not deserve that treatment even if their parents are influential. It also shows that there are probably some influential people who know the score.

I have expressed Jedsrael‘s sentiment on occasion myself. We’re so used to seeing downtrodden, powerless, whites suffer from the evil policies of the elite that we yearn for the elite to taste the bitterness of their own medicine. We love to see them hoisted by their own petard.
But do the children of the elite deserve to get murdered or raped? If there’s one lesson we can learn from the Bible, it’s:

Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin (Deut. 24:16).

The young woman in Davemm1‘s comment certainly did not deserve to be molested even though her father is probably a member of the hostile elite.
That young woman, though she didn’t deserve what she got, probably did not suffer in vain. When the children of the hostile elite suffer the consequences of pro-diversity decisions, it drives home a reality that may cause some of those elite to rethink their policies. It may force some light into the darkness that is the ignorance of their minds. It may remind them that their own flesh and blood is not immune to the sickness they impose upon the rest of us.
This is the silver lining when diversity attacks the children of elites. When it attacks powerless whites, the silver lining is minimal – because the hostile elite doesn’t give a damn about them. But they do, presumably, care about their own children.

Posted in crime and violence, immigration/ Hispanics, Muslims | 3 Comments

Ann Coulter's race-realism in "Godless"

Posted on September 25, 2012 by jewamongyou

I just finished reading Ann Coulter’s “Godless“. Though I find her style to be abrasive and sometimes difficult to read, there are a lot of gems to be found in “Godless”. For the time being, however, I want to focus on Coulter’s particular brand of race-realism. Racial differences in I.Q. is a subject that she is willing to broach – but only with a ten-foot pole. On page 175 she writes, regarding “The Bell Curve“:

Liberals were afraid of a book that told the truth about IQ because they are godless secularists who do not believe humans are in God’s image. Christians have no fear of hearing facts about genetic differences in IQ because we don’t think humans are special because they are smart. There may be some advantages to being intelligent, but a lot of liberals appear to have high IQs, so, really, what’s the point? After Hitler carried the secularists’ philosophy to its bloody conclusion, liberals became terrified of making any comment that seems to acknowledge that there are any differences among groups of people – especially racial groups. It’s difficult to have a simple conversation, much less engage in free-ranging, open scientific inquiry, when liberals are constantly rushing in with their rule book about what can and cannot be said.

Apparently, it’s difficult for Coulter as well; for she leaves this (obviously important) IQ issue at that one paragraph and then launches into a seven and a half page tirade about AIDS and homosexuals. Though she’s willing to mention racial IQ differences, she clearly wants to keep such talk to a minimum. Coulter does bring up race and IQ once more toward the end of her book (pgs. 277,278):

This is why liberals have panic attacks in response to any science that reveals differences in humans – differences in acquiring AIDS, IQ, mathematical abilities, and so on. If there really is a genetic component to IQ, what arguments do atheists have against sterilizing, enslaving, or killing the stupid among us?…
But with the secular crowd, their political ideology keeps shutting off open scientific inquiry. Over and over again, they can only accept one answer: AIDS doesn’t discriminate, IQ is an artificially contrived social construct with no genetic component, there are no innate differences between the sexes, and the human soul was created by random mutation and natural selection. Their religion prevents them from engaging in honest discussion because science without God leaves them with no arguments against barbarism – like bestiality, abortion, slavery, and eugenics.
The only lesson liberals learned from Hitler is: Don’t discriminate! Not that human life is sacred, but that we must never say people are different. Girls are the same as boys, and homosexuals are the same as heterosexuals, and blacks are the same as whites. That’s their plan for nipping any aspiring Hitlers in the bud…

If race-realism is the hard liquor of controversial conservatism, then attacks on homosexuality/AIDS would be the mixer that makes it more palatable for Coulter. Without bringing up homosexuality, bestiality, AIDS etc., Coulter is unable to discuss racial differences*. AIDS is her aid in dealing with this issue. It’s her crutch.
It’s easy to see why, despite her knowledge of racial differences, she’s loath to dwell on them: When it comes to race, she is a liberal. She has fallen for the same racism phobia that has infected the Left. According to Coulter, racists are among the most evil people on Earth. She writes (pg. 271):

In a 1939 manifesto titled “Birth Control and the Negro,” she noted that “the poorer areas, particularly in the South… are producing alarmingly more than their share of future generations.” Sanger recommended birth control to lessen the financial burden of caring for such weeds, “destined to become a burden to themselves, to their family, and ultimately to the nation.” Undoubtedly, she would be delighted to know that today (1) Planned Parenthood is the leading provider of abortions in the United States, and (2) about 36 percent of our aborted babies are black, almost three times their percentage in the American population. Mission accomplished, Margaret!

In fact, the last chapter of “Godless” can just about be summed up by saying that liberalism (via Darwinism) was responsible for the greatest evils mankind has ever known: Nazism and eugenics/racism. It’s no wonder Coulter fears expounding on race/IQ differences too much. She doesn’t want to sound like a “racist” herself. Not that her AIDS/race-realism mix has protected her from accusations of “racism”. She should have known that even the slightest hint of acknowledging racial differences is all it takes to be labeled a “Hitler” these days.
Since couching race-realism within the folds of homosexuality/AIDS is futile, and since open recognition of racial differences is crucial to the preservation of civilized society, she might as well just come out and state the facts without compunction.
*This is the only book of hers I’ve read. Also, it’s been six years since it came out and I’m sure she’s said/written much since then. So my comments only apply to the contents of “Godless”.

Posted in book/movie/video reviews and links, politics and attitudes of the pro-white movements | 10 Comments

An Obama supporter in Portland

Posted on September 24, 2012 by jewamongyou

Once in a while I like to take cheap shots. So here’s an Obama supporter I saw in downtown Portland. But if he were truly loyal, he would have insisted on chocolate ice cream.

Posted in Africa and blacks | 12 Comments

Norway insanity continues…

Posted on September 23, 2012 by jewamongyou

Norway has appointed a Muslim woman as its “culture minister”.  According to Alarabiya:

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has appointed a Muslim woman as part of his government during a Cabinet reshufle this week.
Hadia Tajik, 29, from Pakistani decent, was appointed on Friday as Norway’s minister of culture.
Hadia has become the first ever Muslim cabinet member and youngest ever government minister in the Scandinavian country.
The newly appointed minister of culture has already publicized her program for the upcoming months and highlighted that cultural diversity should become an undisputable part of Norway’s everyday life.
In 2009 she was elected as MP for the Norwegian Labour Party that represented Oslo.

It’s not clear why there needs to be a government minister of culture in the first place, but if there is to be one, shouldn’t he represent the indigenous people of Norway? With traitors like Stoltenberg comprising the ruling class, it’s easy to understand the rage of Anders Behring. As for Tajik, my guess is she was hired for her good looks – to give genocide a pretty face.

The new face of Norway: Not Norwegian

Posted in government/corporate discrimination against whites, immigration/ Hispanics, shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 16 Comments

Do buildings define a culture?

Posted on September 18, 2012 by jewamongyou

Most advocates for “Diversity” don’t give much thought to what they espouse. A lot of them tout the virtues of “Diversity” simply because they have no other choice if they wish to keep their jobs, friends and even family.
But the few who do start asking serious questions may find themselves wondering what, exactly, constitutes a community. After all, if a population is multicultural, multiracial, multilingual etc. then what unifying feature can be said to define them as a community as opposed to a collection of individuals?
Beaverton, Oregon councilwoman Betty Bode asked this question. This is what she wrote (typos and all) in the September/October issue of “Your City”, an official publication of the Beaverton municipality (pg. 4):

Beaverton’s Changing Face

Beaverton has some big questions to answer. We have to decide as a community where we will be investing in our future.
“The word citizen has to do with cities, and the ideal city is organized around citizenship – around participation in public life.” (Solnit, Wanterlust: A History of Walking)
Our city will be 120 years old next year we have never built a City Hall. Over the last twenty years Beaverton’s population has grown, city services have been added; we have become culturally diverse, maintain quality public safety for the entire community supported by a budget that gets the job done…
The only building we have built – the Beaverton City Library – today serves as the heart of our city. Why is that? Is it the beautiful fountain and Park next door? Is it the welcoming and distinctive library building itself? Is it the Beaverton Farmers Market? It is all of those things. Civic buildings bring life to our city and define our character…
Civic buildings are landmarks, I returned to the town I grew up in the Midwest. It had been over thirty years. I felt reconnected when I saw City Hall, the City Park which still has the hill I use to sled down thinking it was really steep, city library, and the Church I went to with my family. The rest had changed, the drug store was gone, movie theater closed, gas station replaced by a high rise. What I realized was that the civic buildings, landmarks of the City were the enduring icons. What had changed were economic forces that torn down out of date businesses added new improved regional centers, shops, and eateries…
What will a new City Hall look like? Will we move in the direction of a Civic Center? Does City Hall need to be dependent upon light rail?… Answers to these questions need to be consistent with our values and character of our community…

I agree that civic/historic buildings are an important part of  a community. Historic cities all over Europe have striven to maintain their character by enforcing strict building codes. The government of Jerusalem, Israel has insisted that all its buildings have stone facades. This gives Jerusalem a unique character.
But buildings are expressions of a culture. They are not the culture itself. Councilwoman Bode writes that any proposed Beaverton city hall should be consistent with “our values and character of our community“, but if it’s the buildings that define the character then this would be a circular argument; however the building is designed, the community will be defined by it. She writes of “our values” but does not explain how there can be one set of values in a multicultural environment. Doesn’t each culture have its own values? If she is implying that Beaverton has its own dominant culture and values, then perhaps she should be concerned about what will become of this culture when the city is 80% Mexican. Bode obviously places some priority on the preservation of our “values and character” but, by stressing the importance of architecture instead of demographics, she is like a physician whose only treatment for a dying patient is to record his last words.

Posted in immigration/ Hispanics, pan-nationalism and multi-culturalism | 7 Comments