As the rigorous embodiment of the intellectual high water mark of the conservative movement on Capitol Hill, Paul Ryan’s ascension to the national ticket will be good for him win or lose: so intones the conventional wisdom generator at the Washington Post. Paul Ryan cannot fail; it won’t be his extreme views or ignorant approach or hateful perspective or idiot budget or his pseudo-intellectual command of Arithmetic that takes down the GOP next month.

Just like the conservatism he embodies, Paul Ryan cannot fail: he can only be failed And every political religion needs its man on a white horse.

Last night, Portland television viewers were treated to wall-to-wall, all-local-channels, helicopters-hovering coverage of the approach — and uneventful passage — of Mayor Sam Adams’ three-day deadline of 12:01am to close the public parks where #OccupyPortland camped.

Our local media exhibited the lamest qualities of their national betters described by Glenn Greenwald: confusion (“what do these people want?”) and disdain (“people living in mud, filth and trash”) and dangerousness (“drug overdoses” and “molotov cocktails!”) but then the on-the-ground television correspondents, cheered on by their comfortable studio-bound anchors who passed the baton from one to another, devolved into a simple message in almost every sidewalk interview with Police Bureau representatives and #Occupy demonstrators: “WHY DON’T YOU & HIM FIGHT?!”

Share your market tales in the comments, and also please join us for Food Wednesdays over at the Seminal; I try to writeup our purchases there every mid-week evening when we return home from the market.

Ombudsman Andy Alexander of the Washington Post wondered this morning why women readers are abandoning the newspaper even faster than men.