I could not keep the idea of daily posts too well but I type this while in Washington DC
Yes someone screwed up and yes, I do no its weird but hey ho what do you know I am in the nations capital learning how to do a finance competition.
No, no one in the school wanted to be part of the team although I only asked about 50 students and had to go off to work on other projects. Once again that leaves me representing Portland State. Enough about that
Up to us is a finance based competition that allows people to talk on a nonpartisan issue in this case the national debt getting people involved to learn and fill their own leadership camps and internships.
Everything a bunch of college students need you would think.
In this case they sent me to Washington DC for a weekend to learn and while it was very taxing, currently I type this at the end of 2 of a convention, it is something where it is very much useful and you meet very interesting people as well. I got off my flight late and had a bit of communications issue getting my tardiness explained. I cannot make a plane move faster and assure you readers I tried.
Still had a good time, and my team won a trivia competition on fiscal policy, overall a good day.
In my volunteer work, I have been keeping track for the university because you get an award if you do so many hours in a twelve-month period. Last year I got 148 hours getting me to the second highest level and 150 is the minimum to get into the highest level. The count is from May 14 to May 14 every year and so far, this year after tabbing it all up I was at around 30 hours last year
I am at 72 hours this year, and the trip is volunteer service (anything I don’t collect an hourly wage on is something that can be counted) and that is including camps and trainings as well. This includes all my meetings and generally I do not claim any reading or studying resources I could almost double that if I did.
Getting that award would be nice because as a disabled person it is something that feeds the chip on my shoulder because every so often people think disabled means you can’t do something. I try to look at it that I will need to do it a different way, and it is a different way because my goodness my legs feel like iron most days and I will say my thighs are so big I can actually crush a melon pretty easily. My size allows me to do that pretty easily, but someone who can walk miles with a frame like mine is something that usually scares some people.
Another thing is the jokes, lots of jokes with me classifying as a heavy armor unit if you give me a slingshot. I have gotten used to them and some of the better ones still make me chuckle about it.
At my size I am the volunteer version of Roadblock(seen above), although I think he looks better then I do. Cannot complain for what I have though, I am making what I can work, I just need to make sure I rest well.
There once was a knight, he was not fair or nice, he loved luxury and money and painted his armor the notes of shadow and guile with a weapon so large that every time it touched earth a canyon erupted underneath it. He rode on a horse and tried to find victims to test his skills fighting more and more and letting those who watched talk about his serpent scale patterned armor seemingly glaring at all like the of the animal it represented was watching.
One day the rogue knight clad in armor saw up the road as the hill evened out a group of highwaymen on a witch where they had tried to grab at her valuables. There was not much but something filled the dark warrior taking his axe from his back he sent his horse in a full gallop swinging the axe through the air signaling a sound like a whistle of the damned. Two heads fell from their bodies who would join them soon after as the attackers found they had become prey and not the predator the warrior had been able to take the shots from the remaining two and as they lay on the grass begging for mercy, they could not give the wish the large axe climbed to an apex.
Except it never came down. During the time he had attacked she had gotten herself together just enough to be decent and without a word put a hand on the arm of the warrior. Not out of anger or hate for she knew he had defended her, saved her even. The metal helm closed had looked at her before slowly withdrawing the blade and putting it on his back before getting back on his steed.
He had ridden a horse of shadow and fury, whose eyes shone like bone and wrath and while everyone else would be scared. If it wasn’t the look, it was the size as the horse was a full half size bigger than other horses. Offering a hand silently she had taken it failing to get up only for the horse to lower itself for her before she had found a seat in the saddle behind the knight.
No words were spoken but both had found a comfort in the other, and as one had begun to ride taking the witch back to her house there was something of peace in the snakeskin knight. It had been strange, but it was not anything he had to run from so he enjoyed the misty air in his lungs as they trotted into the fog where a morning’s ride down several paths the witch had made her home.
Fear is an odd thing, it comes when you never expect it and when you do expect it it never goes the way you think. When you get close to a big goal where it is within your reach.
Life has not been the kindest to me, but there was one memory, her memory that wanted Portland to be a better place. That goal has been the reason for me to get up every day, the reason to patch myself up, to learn and go to college the way I have instead just focusing on me. Now I sit on the precipice of a decision that will win or lose change my life, and for the first time in years I was scared.
This reason to go on, this goal, could be accomplished if I win one more time. I will have the road to make this city better and I think I can do it. Then a hand feels like its squeezing your heart and panic starts to rise, and you hear your own breathing a little too well, and suddenly you feel like you don’t know if you are hunt or hunted, target or tracker.
Honestly, it feels strange. When you spend so much time with a reason being why you push yourself and suddenly you have a chance, a moment where you can step forward and try to get it, knowing if you win that you have done it, or you may lose. Finality brings the fear, a chance of maybe you aren’t that good, you can or can’t. When the reason you made it through hard times was for a mission and you can finish it something happens with who you are.
A decision here one way or another will change my life. I may lose. I may be made a fool. I may be the lowest scoring person to ever try.
I do not like wasting time, it is one of those things that just drives at me because no matter what is done that time cannot be gotten back.
Seeing people from the state government try to prop Portland as some no problem paradise just pisses me off. We have crime problems, we have job problems, we have money problems and the most people want to talk about it is saying if you talk bad about Portland you are an evil MAGA.
I am a registered democrat and there are others who see this and look at the lies over the years and for those thinking Antifa is getting cleaner, they did this in 2020 with their free milkshakes and walk with families, they then poisoned a milkshake and turned it into a chemical weapon against Andy Ngo. How do I know?
I was at those protests five years ago, hell, you scour the video you will find me in a white and blue jacket. I was there and have seen the down fall and the same people who say there are no problems are now trying to show nothing is wrong when everything in their paperwork says otherwise. I have seen them try to barricade front doors since 23, the bags of rocks or the hap hazard stacks of bricks during the 2020 riots, the fireworks and items thrown at police, the hiding behind mothers who believed with them. The only thing I say what was wrong was this was something I tried to understand, I tried talking to them, and everything they said was utter trash.
Portland state had their library trashed causing more than a million dollars’ worth of damage in a series of years where they had their budget shrink and had to make those cuts during more years of budgets shrinking. It is a lot harder to cut a shrinking budget then a growing one. We cannot as a school,(Portland state) as a city (Portland) or as a state (Oregon) be so foolish that we simply not look at out problems, and seeing that so many people want to brush them under the rug is absolutely infuriating because it means that all the good done is essentially wasted.
No program can last without funding, and no funds can be collected without people with jobs, and those jobs do not exist without businesses. Also these failed fact checks like the Oregonian is just a show of stupidity they claim no explosives have ever been used meanwhile there are videos in 2020 and 2021 of explosives being used. Hell, I saw them from a park trying to figure out why people would do this in the city.
I would have no problem if it had some point, but after five years of this, it clearly does not have one, it has been a waste of time and money for everyone in the city and the worst part is it does not even help their own case.
Gaslighting and picking the best times to show video just as a gotcha is the equivalent of someone hiding a broken plate behind their back because they know if caught it will mean they will be punished. Honestly I think we just need a better level of politician not more one way liberal or conservative, just more honest about the situation…
Maybe I need to think about doing something about it.
One of the projects I have been working on is a civics calendar so people can get more involved, this is the current meetings for Portland next week, neighborhood associations and district coalitions in red, and city council and city advisory boards in green. It is not perfect but week to week it should tell you what everything is going to be. There will be more added so if you want to know more you can always look. I would say just on default if you are looking for your neighborhood association meeting then you will need to look with the time closer to 9 pm. A lot of them are between the 6 to 9 pm. This has been something I will keep working on when I get the time. If you are interested about civics in portland hope this helps.
You know I do hate when I have to do someone else’s job better then them. Even when it constitutes a level of basic knowledge. Rep Eric Swalwell from California had a question a few other dems asked for the sake of a gotcha.
As a dem lets go over why this only shows the dems have lost more touch with people then ever.
Currently the republicans hold all three major houses, but not total power. Total power would come when they have 60 people in the senate for a couple reasons. One it would be the amount to pass continuing resolution bills, like the one that our shutdown was caused by just this past week. The other is the Filibuster where it currently stands that 3/5 majority or sixty would be needed. Some of the reasons would go to the need for a larger support and more likely then that the need to work with multiple parties as often times one party even at great strength do not have the votes to break a filibuster.
Can the filibuster be changed? Yes. That however is a bot of a nuclear deterrent and would allow the democrats to do the same if they got back in office before the heat death of the universe.
Continuing Resolutions are harder to change the votes needed and as it stands will be something that will not change currently, so why is there a problem.
Well, in these bills are things called riders, thin of them as a little something to make someone vote your way for the whole thing. Right now a lot of democrats are not getting medical aid for illegal immigrants (one of the riders proposed) and are not getting the affordable care act credits extended which they wanted as well.
Now, it is something he should know, and he looks foolish, and makes the dems look so as well because he does not know this.
I may know why he doesn’t know and wanted to show everyone lawyers can be boneheads at times.
Rep. Swalwell is a lawyer in California. And for those who don’t know I just put a pair of the most lore intensive detail needed bureaucratic heavy categories together. Try to think yourself learning Latin and the other language your teacher knows is Klingon. Very difficult and a lot of stuff to keep on hand, so most likely he just thought it was a majority pass, didn’t think twice wrote the tweet, and now is on my wall of shame.
Do I know him? No. Could he be a bonehead? Chance of it happening. I would say in this case I am not impressed with him but that is more not impressed with a lot of people and he currently decided to sample his shoes for putting his foot in his xbox. (mouth)
I did hear of the whole fang fang thing. For the sake of not writing a thesis I am not going to touch it. Swalwell is a bonehead for this tweet, try again next time.
Everyone is a bonehead at times on social media, at this point just shrug and hope it’s a blip and not a sign of average content.
You know I have an absolutely atrocious sleep schedule, I do not think I have slept 8 hours straight since the Clinton administration. I have talked over problems of the city and what could be fixed in it this time I just want to talk.
In the next sixty days I will be in three separate competitions, now I won’t go in depth for what I am doing but being in three competitions, alone, is kind of a problem to me because for two of them I should be on teams. Now, is that going to stop me? No. I tried to get teams and no one wanted to try it thinking there were other things to do, they didn’t feel it aligned with their majors or just thought it was not a good idea.
Now, for some that could be the end of it but this is something that may help me later and so I am going to step in with schools with teams incredibly more qualified and like I normally do take my best shot at it and who knows. Sometimes dark horses run sometimes.
Outside of this there is a lot going on and sometimes everything just feels like it is getting away from me in a form or another. Sometimes I do not even know why I try to do so much, but I have learned the level generally I do this with and how the next couple months I am pushing myself past that point for the sake of stretching my capabilities.
My health has gotten better in places, now we are doing enough I am losing weight slowly but naturally and my muscle is more coming in. Blood pressure is low at times but I have something now to help me with that, and something in case it goes too far. It sounds weird for those who see me to think I have low blood pressure, but it is true.
A joke I heard from a friend was that I had to be part shark (like Great White or Hammerhead as those sharks are the kind that need to if memory serves.) because otherwise I would just die, and the need to try and do definitely feels like that. Generally, I try to do one piece of advice so y’all can learn from my stupidity.
Just take care of your neck, I injured mine many times and I pay for it so take care of yourself. Don’t want to take your health from the present and pay for it in the future.
I did make a few things for different foods spices, but I need some more products that people want so I am working on that, in the free moments.
Writing novels have been fun, I may try to get published in the old-fashioned way and see what comes of it. Who knows, I don’t.
There are videos currently debating about something called the insurrection act, for those who do not know of it. It is a piece of legal doctrine that has been in the country in some form or function since the times of Jefferson.
“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”
Now the bar for this is rather high, generally you need either a city or state completely over run or unwilling to enforce the law, the last time this was used was in the LA Riots in the early nineties.
Looking in the issues in the city let me go over something that no one in the city wants to deal with.
Due to the actions of our city council, mayor and, governor is why Trump can do this.
Let me explain, the president cannot use this because he does not like the city because if it were the case the penalties after the actions had been finished would mean the president could be under severe penalty.
Currently we have at minimum two investigations against the Portland Police Department, one for regular federal and another for civil rights violations. The city has allowed a group to take over a block of a street including a road allowing them to dictate traffic and enforcement without so much as a parade route request filed.
Antifa has here gotten the benefit of multiple mayors and city councils back since I started this blog six years ago. I sat through multiple riots as a homeless person saw other homeless people be attacked but the press wanted to force it on the proud boys, they couldn’t and despite the crimes of the proud boys beating the homeless was not one of them. Now it seems Portland is allowing this so I am going to let the secret go they don’t want anyone to realize.
Trump would not be here without them, these politicians from the mayor to the council to even the governor made moves to strengthen the capabilities of the federal government to handle business. The worst part is there is not a thing they can do about it. In case law Portland has declared the road in front of the facility to be theirs to take care of, and not enforcing there would be enough, however this is where they have liaison officers stand by when the city has a 20 minute average on calls where seconds mean the difference between life and death. We have city councilors asking soldiers to abandon post and to show how to hide phone records using burner phones. We have a mayor and governor who instead of solving problems will happily walk down in marches where no one is going to change their opinion just so they can be seen.
There are a hundred problems in the city but the sheer mockery of their jobs for the sake of being seen as a rising star in local politics is not going to allow them to do anything. Downtown Portland has a business vacancy rate going past 35%. One in three now.
One thing is that Portland wanted to pick this fight, these politicians wanted to have a rebel complex and instead of doing their jobs this is what they deemed important. That is the biggest problem, these politicians would rather take brownie points from their own circles instead of doing their jobs like the rest of us have to deal with. That is not a quality of a good politician or of a good person for the city and the angering thing is that no matter what your view in politics, it is just broadway, an act to make people feel better, and it sucks but it has to be said because with those actions the only thing it does is strengthen trumps position.
We need people to work, to do their jobs and not try to invite problems, and right now I do not see a lot in local government I would say is doing that.
It means because of those who want to provoke instead of problem solve we have a disaster only getting worse. That has left me personally with more questions than answers.
Stay strong.
Also, I had to sleep a lot due to health so I’m counting this as my post for yesterday.
We are going to try some things, first, I am still working on doing things with this blog that I think will be useful to someone, but part of one of my classes is going to be opening and allowing myself to be more creative.
I like to have things regimented, but it was never good to me after some time, so we are going to do the same things we talked about, creative stuff, Portland, civics, maybe do it a couple different ways.
A big fear has been thinking I am useless and with my disability it has been something that has pushed me further, sometimes when it was the smart idea to rest up. In an effort to handle that I am going to write more. I am not sorry, but it may be what you are not expecting and if you still read this I hope you get something out of it.
BigTAnderson in Portland 