Many journalistic sins are committed before the reader gets to the meat of a story in the hors d’oeuvre of the headline. A sampling of recent misadventures…
…in the Tribune. A winner in the “Weird Linkage” division. It may be apples and oranges—but we’ll make a fruit salad!
The story, penned by the overworked Jim Redden, was a typical journalistic hoo-ha—politicians lied (stop the presses!) and, even worse, they didn’t spend enough!
Here’s Mr. Redden’s money shot…
…in fact, the county has only been able to spend a small fraction of the Metro funds it has received for eviction prevention, and at least some of the elected officials knew that before election day. The county first started receiving its share of Metro’s $2.5 billion measure during the last fiscal year. According to the county’s first annual report, it only spent $36 million of the $68.4 million it received.
From his post high atop Tribune Tower, Mr. Redden twists the knife…
The underspending continued through the first three quarters of the current fiscal year.
And quotes Multnomah Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s mea culpa…
“The underspending is simply unacceptable.”
Reading further you’ll discover that Mr. Redden is actually following yet another WillyWeek newsbeat, this one from their Pulitzer-seeking missile Nigel Jaquiss. (Our money’s on Sophie Peel to get the tarnished award.)
Neither story, in typical fashion, dealt with any actual metrics. Such as: how many people were helped to pay their rent? Why were they selected? Who did the selecting—and what did the bureaucracy cream off to dole out the dough?
Leaving aside the question of, Why should the county pay anyone’s rent? (and when will the county pay my mortgage?), did any of the lunging journos ask: since the county managed to spend $36-million—hardly chump-change— in socializing the rental market, which landlords got the checks? Cross-referenced with political contributions, perhaps?
Nope; that wouldn’t fit the frame (more on that below) which is Mr. Redden’s and Mr. Jaquiss’s assumption that…
The more of our money they spend the better off we’ll be.
Without asking the timeless journalistic question: Why?
Here’s another frame…almost universal among our journos (here and nationwide), all of whom have received doctorates in global climate…
…a headline written by a bored OPB web scrivener, who is ignorant of the first commandment of climate science…
Do not confuse weather with climate.
Maybe that writer should watch this Instagram clip…
…the speaker, Dr. Ian Plimer also brings “climate” into geological focus in this lecture on YouTube (don’t worry; it’s in English, Australian variety).
Meanwhile, if you want to know why the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is floating apocalypse pretty soon, check out this Substack by climate scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. His most recent post notes that…
…core [IPCC] participants represent a kind of climate in-group with a shared sense of purpose and an overarching commitment to a shared political agenda. For some people, their entire career is centered on the IPCC. These core participants do have a shared political agenda which can be seen in varying degrees within the reports. So what is the political agenda of the IPCC in-group? Transformational change…
…which comes down to, in the IPCC’s own words…
Consumption reductions, both voluntary and policy-induced,[which] can have positive and double-dividend effects on efficiency as well as reductions in energy and materials use . . . a low-carbon transition in conjunction with social sustainability is possible, even without economic growth.
Comforting words to the people in Africa, India, China, and just about everywhere else.
To round out his, her, or ze’s homework, OPB’s headline writer might want to read another contrarian position (and isn’t that what journalism is supposed to be about?) from the Clintel Foundation here, which summarizes…
In 13 chapters the Clintel report shows the IPCC rewrote climate history, emphasizes an implausible worst-case scenario, has a huge bias in favour of ‘bad news’ and against ‘good news’, and keeps the good news out of the Summary for Policy Makers.
I’ll bet no one from OPB has seen or read any of this. Why screw up the master narrative?
Not to be deterred in the climate change department, most local media mindlessly ran a version of this from KOIN…
…which, we’re told, will cost $2-million (although it always winds up costing more) and which won’t actually “ban” those nasty gas and diesel trucks—simply set aside delivery parking zones for electric trucks (seen many of those lately?) and maybe even encourage bike delivery (of what? don’t ask).
No journo in town asked the critical questions: how will those evil fossil-fueled delivery trucks help downtown’s congestion by double-parking? In a downtown that’s leaking businesses, why make deliveries of inventory about to be shoplifted any tougher?
Most important:
How much CO2 (poison! except for plants that eat the stuff so we can eat them) will actually be removed?
This is a handy rule that all local newsies should apply to any and all climate change hysterics and their policies. But, as they say, “Never let the facts stand in the way of a great story”—and what’s greater than apocalypse?
So what’s the bang we’ll get from the $2-million bucks?
Actual metrics are rare in the CO2 debate (which are based on computer simulations and models, hoping that our memory of similar digital hi-jinx with Covid has been forgotten). But there is a thriving market in CO2 credits such as the US Treasury’s 45Q program, that, according to Reuters, gives big corporations…
…credits [of] $50 per metric ton of CO2 for projects that sequester carbon and $35 per ton for projects where carbon is captured and then used for recovering oil underground.
…please, do not dwell on the part about pumping more fossil fuel out of the ground.
Reuters added, as an afterthought…
Last year, the Treasury Inspector General found that 10 companies improperly claimed almost $1.1 billion in 45Q credits over the last few years.
The latest credit for California carbon (Oregon being too small to count in the market summaries) is $29.22 per ton. These are credits that allow the emitters to emit—no carbon is “captured,” as if that was practical or possible. Bookkeeping at its finest.
Conclusion: it’s going to take 68,446 tons of CO2 (credits, remember) to pay for the kinda-sorta zone’s copious amounts of paint and signage, which is PBOT’s real function. Enforcement? Who knows—but don’t the cops have better things to do downtown?
As for PBOT’s efforts to climb aboard the Climate Change train, here’s a poster we whipped up…
Meanwhile, as PBOT plans to spend that dough, here’s another headline in the Oregonian that tells a different tale…
…which failed to make any connection with the above irony.
Then, hardly missing a beat, came this…
…which is of interest only because Mayor Ted is now running—hard—to stay employed under the new city charter.
Quick reminder: in the last Alaska election using the same ranked-vote scheme, the eventual winner got an initial 10-percent of the vote. Strange things are about to happen. (And which non-profit will hire Mr. Wheeler when the city paycheck stops?)
We couldn’t leave without citing one headline that got it right…
…part of reporter Joe Gallivan’s ongoing series (we wrote about him here) in which he actually goes out and interviews the various folks who make up the protected class of bums. His latest interview ought to be required reading for any of the compassionistas running Homelessness, Inc. Which sees the homeless as, well, helpless unfortunates who just can’t help themselves.
Especially in the tiresome job of paying rent.
Mr. Gallivan’s story puts the lie to that nonsense. He kicks off with the de-rigueur account of a bum’s tough life…
Dean Murphy lives outside, favoring a rain poncho and silver emergency blankets and a sleeping bag at bedtime. He had a tent but one day when he walked from West Burnside to Blanchet House for lunch, his tent and its contents were stolen.
…standard boo-hoo closeup before going to the wide shot of arcane policy discussions (here’s thinking of you, Nicole Hayden). But Mr. Gallivan then goes on to reveal—in the subject’s own words—something many suspect about the homeless…
Murphy is…from Imperial Valley, California, and has been in Portland for six months. “This is my first year, I’m only on the streets because I am in Oregon. If I was in Washington or in California, or several other states, I'd be with my family on my family's property.”
…and…
His aunt and her new husband have a string of condos on the beach in San Diego, one of which is his to use when he’s there, so long as there are no timeshare people in it.
“Probably if I had a chance to head to California, I'd probably go there.”
…which is amplified in the caption under Mr. Murphy’s touching close-up photo…
He says he could go back to family if he wanted.
Mr. Gallivan gives his subject a touching sign-off quote…
“I would say there's always hope for everyone. And there's a place for everyone, no matter what.”
“Kicks back” in the headline got it right. Facts have a way of speaking for themselves.
Sneak a Peek Behind the Headlines
Odd. One does not always recognize a rant even when one is well launched on one. However, the yeoman's work of disputing the madness of the times through the attrition of logical argument and patient remonstrance sometimes don't quite cut it.
Governmental climate change diktats and there enforcement are much like the covid debacle or the 2020 election for that matter: a combination of the unbelievable and the unreliable cemented together with lies. All seemingly tends toward catasrophe these days.
Five minutes ago there existed two genders. Not anymore. At least not anymore according the government, the law, the scientests, and other top men, and I mean top men.
Hell, so bad is the weather we're gonna have electric tanks and guided missle frigates by the end of the decade. Got to.
Remember Climategate? East Anglia ring a bell? You don't? Well, shut up and pay attention to what you are supposed to believe now, today.
Oh yeah, dumping all those experienced servicemen because they refused masks? Well, how many millions of unvaxxed wets we got these days? Shotgunned across the country. Wait, wait, I'm reviewing the science.
Compassion for bums? Used to have it. Same with gays. Now those two ouitfits seem to calling the shots and it isn't seem quite a reciprocal arrangment is it? The same schools that are indoctrinating children and illegals with anti-white American hate, and boy/girl Man love are laying the the scientific groundwork so that the youngsters will really understand the truths of climate change.
As an aside it would seem the teachers unions have smothered progress in Newberg. You would be wrong not to hate our masters. Very, very wrong
Fox News was short hand for white bumpkin racists but its tide is receding so we've got the floodtide of "Trump." Play that card and we are back to . . . . you guessed it - white bumpkin, racist, anti-science, Christianist deplorables.
Conservatives lockstep? Sheesh, pretty quick we'll be on to "running dogs of ..."
Like hell AGW isn't a leftist issue and any man makes the claim that it isn't is mistaken.
Go to the link below. The burden of its subject hails from Seattle. It's subject matter is muy intersectional: There is science, there is indigency, and of course there is social justice. AGW resides in its every breath. The creature moderating/controlling this meeting is a good representative of our betters. Could be Biden, Kotek, and on and on . . . It is representative of our committment to the grotesque and national destruction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hph9REo8erI&t=5s
After reading and rereading Oregonlive's story about the zero-emission delivery zone, I concluded that it serves just one function.
It exists to hoover up federal dollars to set up an unsustainable Potemkin climate-action showpiece in a bid to restore luster to Portland's questionable reputation as an innovator in all matters having to do with urban planning and the environment.
It will be much like a world's fair (remember them?) in that it will vanish like frost on a window the moment the last delegation of credulous junketeers has departed.
Among the questions Oregonlive's earnest stenographer failed to ask were:
1. Since the zone is utterly unrepresentative of the rest of downtown Portland in that it is dominated by government offices and courthouses with "with few other businesses or restaurants," how reliably will the pilot program predict the reduction of carbon emissions should the scheme be applied to the entire downtown?
2. How many jobs would this scheme eliminate in the shipping and delivery industry? How would the lost salaries and benefits compare to the compensation earned by the operators of the "smaller electric and human-powered vehicles" that would replace today's delivery trucks?
3. Does Portland have enough beardy couch-surfing Millennial bros to power an entire fleet of cargo tricycle delivery vehicles?