New York City Blog July 20 – July 27 from Portland, OR.

Cris Land and I met at Doug Fir on Portland’s East Burnside. I wanted to interview Cris because he is transexual. I was nervous, feeling a little guilty because I was going to ask personal questions. How did he get that way? You know, changing body parts, especially the sexual ones. I had written down some questions: When did you become aware of your gender? What were your greatest sources of help and support? Do you connect your gender change with sex? How did your partner react to your transition? Did you have medical insurance? Do you have a transgender community? As soon as I’ve written the interview and received Cris’s approval, I’ll post it.

In reply to the Israeli lawmaker’s call for genocide of Palestinians getting thousands of Facebook likes, Tom Siracuse, the chair of the NYC Green Party wrote: I’m not surprised. I’ve heard these arguments from many:
1. Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular are incorrigible fanatics and are incapable of co-existence with Jews or negotiating in good faith. Either they are forced out or killed, or that is what they will do to the Jews.
2. “Palestinians” are a made up entity with no valid claim to the Holy Land. They are Arabs who migrated into the Holy Land from Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, etc. and should go back where they came from. Only the Jews have an historical and religious right to live in the Holy Land.
3. The Nazi Holocaust, Czarist pogfroms, Jewish persecutions and expulsions over the centuries prove that only an exclusive Zionist state for Jews can guarantee safety for world Jewry.

Did I leave out any other justification to get rid of the Palestinians?

Portlandia: Roses are grown in gardens, on sidewalks, in parks and honored in the public library carpets.

Portland Roses on Market Street
Portland Roses on Harrison Street
A rose covered carpet at the Portland library
A rose covered carpet at the Portland library

Cosy, civic, and charming: How about a library on a tree? This one is at Market and 34 Ave.

Portland Tree Library
Portland Tree Library

Some friends and I celebrated an important birthday at a restaurant in the 1883 Ladd Carriage House, one of the few remaining nineteenth century mansions.The Carriage House has been moved several times and is now on its original site.
We went to a charming Portland fixture, the Clinton theater, to see a very New York documentary about the venerable Nat Hentoff. The Clinton is in a little enclave of nineteenth century buildings. Portland is having a real estate boom. Good bye space and skyline.