07 March 2016

[pdx] Two More Reasons To Smile If You're A Portland Liberal Who Likes Print

3291.
Two things that have happened in the last week that should make you smile if you're liberal, a Portlander, into literature, or a liberal Portlander into literature (surprisingly, that's not all of us, campers).

The first thing is that The New Republic, the 102-year-old journal of liberal thought and opinion, is now essentially a Portland immigrant, but its mentor is a good one. Win McCormack, who ran the legendary Oregon Magazine back in the day and currently helms Tin House Press and is one of the greatest literary figures Oregon has produced latterly, bought TNR out of the hell of 'vertically digital integration' that Chris Hughes was moving it into. The Wall Street Journal reports:
When announcing his intention to sell the publication, Mr. Hughes said finding a sustainable business model for the magazine had proven elusive. But he says he believes that Messrs. McCormack and Fish are the right people to lead the publication forward.
“I had many conversations with qualified candidates, and of those I ultimately concluded that Win McCormack and Ham Fish are those stewards. Their backgrounds in journalism and progressive politics make them uniquely qualified to lead such a historic institution,” he said in a statement.
When you're looking to give a liberal magazine a proper home, going with an actual liberal is always the best way, I think it's axiomatic to say.

The other notable thing that should make every good liberal happy is that the Oregon Center for Public Policy is moving its office to the center of the big-time. I like saying that the OCPP are the policy geeks The Oregonian thinks they're talking to when they talk to the Cascade Policy Institute. That is to say, when Soylent News™ goes for some reasonable political voice, they think they've found it in CPI but, as usual, they're wrong about that.

This can only be good news for the OCPP, as Chuck Sheketoff's voice has been gaining much strength around here and of the two big voices, OCPP is much much more on the side of working Oregonians of all types and those of us who think we're a community rather than those of us who see the Oregon economy as some sort of Thunderdome.

And if you'd like to work for OCPP and have the mad office skills, there's a position for Office Manager open: http://www.ocpp.org/2016/03/03/2016-office-manager/


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