I rarely bother reading Jack Bog. For one thing, he doesn't write very much, and I'm not into blogs that simply point to the work other people have done. I have better ways to find such things (it's called research). For another, he just seems rather full of himself. Maybe that's the point, but it's also the reason for the dictionary's newest word: Meh.

Still, I see his headlines roll by (in clumps) in the Oregon BlogWire when I'm reading BlueOregon. I rarely follow the headlines (I've learned the payoff isn't worth it) but this one I had to see: "Mayor Creepy Gets Religion". If there's one thing I really dislike, it's the abuse of religion, but I simply could not believe Sam Adams would be turning to religion or church to help bail himself out. But that's what the headline, and the single line of text Jack struggled to type out, indicated. Adams was fleeing to the churches to save, not his soul, but his career.

Well, not so much. Sam did go to meet a bunch of church leaders. He went with Nick Fish, currently not seeking any kind of salvation that has been made public. They picked up $100,000 donated by evangelical churches. From OregonLive:

The money will go toward the Home Again Mentoring Project and the Portland Schools Transition Center. The mentoring project helps homeless families transition into stable housing, and the transition center encourages youth who've dropped out of school to resume their education.

Also scheduled to attend were "mayors and civic leaders from Portland, Vancouver, Beaverton and Hillsboro". So, more accurately speaking, Mayor Adams joined a group of local mayors, government officials, and civic and religious leaders for the kickoff of a community service project. On their behalf, he received a donation of $100,000 to be used to help homeless families and their children.

This is creepy?

In other words, an opportunity for tens of thousands of Metro residents to find a way to give time and energy to their communities and fellow citizens, whatever their spiritual beliefs, becomes a chance for Jack Bog to do some name-calling.

Sweet. Jesus. No wonder I don't bother.

What Sam did was lie, and lying is not creepy. Everyone lies. Lying is familiar, recognizable, about as non-creepy as you can get. So when Bodganski calls Adams "creepy" I do not believe for one moment it has anything to do with lying.

It's about the sex. Which, as is pretty clear by now, was legal. Of course, there's the kissing-in-the-bathroom thing, which was borderline but not creepy. That was lust, which is every bit as common as lying but, as we saw ages ago when Jimmy Carter had the guts to be honest about, it provides another option for moral superiority. But to admit to being creeped-out by Adam's (and Breedlove's) actions means two things:

One, you're jealous that you're not being pursued by a hot 18-year-old.

Two, the gay part of it bothers you.

Why did Adams lie? Not to protect his career; that was secondary. He lied because Bob Ball was spreading a rumor that Sam was a predator, a pedophile — a fag pedophile, at that. In our society, even in Portland, the only thing lower than fag pedophiles are baby-rapers. Grown men in the 40s stalking and abusing teenage boys? Gross. Horrible.

Creepy.

So an event and opportunity that Steve Duin called "radical generosity" was attended by Portland's Mayor and begins a months-long collaboration between local churches, government, businesses, organizations and individuals — on behalf of the area's most needy citizens — is fully ignored and simply used as another opportunity to prove that Adams was right to fear how people would react to his relationship with Breedlove.

Again: Sweet. Jesus. This is just what we need: Political opportunism at the expense of children and the homeless. You must be so proud, Bogdanski.