So, today’s contribution for me being the next oracle of delphi is fresh from the Oregonian. Mind you, this is the biggest paper in the region, and when I was beating the drums that we have problems back when we could have fixed it without major issue a few years ago, there had been some who had called me out for being pessimistic because the Oregonian didn’t talk about it. Go. Read the Opinion from the paper that people said they will come around when this paper does. While you do that please be aware of all the things in the past tense. The tense that things already occurred, the tense that actions have been committed.
The only reason I bring it up that I was right, was because I do not want to hear ow so many people could not have seen it.
Look at it all, read the article and let it echo especially if you were the kind thinking I as pessimist, because those people with high end college degrees? I was right. The city commissioners who said they know better? I was right. The people who lived in the pearl or in the expensive towers who thought they had a better grasp? I was right. People who thought measure 110 was going to happen and make the city perfect when I thought it would make it right? The only right was me, and all the others who could read to a third grade level and could see what was going on, and not be given nice words or pretty pictures when all of it is fake.
Between blog posts, less then seven days, no less then a business has shuddered a day. A day brings the death toll for a business some with thirty, forty, fifty years and all of them are now shells. Considering there are not enough to replace them means a bit of a problem. No longer helping the community, no longer making it better. Some may think I am being a bit crass, but when you are right, time and time again, and people do not listen, because I am not the only one, this is not some rocket science we are calculating on our fingers here.
I want Portland to be better, I want it to be the city I love again. However, the people who are so lost seem to put their hands up just saying an oops and then walking off like they did the right thing anyway. Well things have been a bit of a riddle, because I do not have the supplies to make any store or anywhere in Portland right now, not enough anyway to make more of a difference. Because one has to remember there is not a lot of help from the police, insurance is going to be higher, and often times one has to defend themselves, their has to be a way, but their needs to be a way to bring about ideas for business that bring back some of the safety of before.
Donald Trump has been brought in under suspicion of 34 charges of business fraud. A lot of people are cheering that he will finally be caught, but here are my thoughts. I am not a lawyer, but there is a lot of business woven through this so just my thoughts from a loudmouth.
Considering this is based around a time almost a decade ago. They have to prove that he falsified records with the intent to commit or conceal another crime. Here is why I am not holding my breath.
First, this man whether you love him or hate him, has one of the biggest war chests available. Prosecution can’t push out the clock like they can with those with less funds, he can afford and will afford to make his case as easy to fight as possible and from the D.A’s own office it comes down to three main charges.
Now, one thing we need to make clear before going any further is there are thing that may not meet moral standard, but are legal. One is it is not illegal to pay someone if they have an unflattering story about you, that is why often in many settlements it cannot be talked about. Just from the D.A the first of three three major points is not going to hold well.
Going to the third, there was already a special counsel who got in trouble for doing this paying an adult film actress $130,000 now one can have two people be charged for the same thing, but if the payment was handled by counsel, and trump just said to get it paid, then that would most likely be on the counsel and not on Teflon Don. Which leaves the second point.
American Media Inc, they admitted what they did was unlawful that they made false pretenses to take that money, but the issue as it stands is not the payment of the money, but how it was received. That would be a problem on AMI, not Trump.
In short I doubt he gets anything more then a fine, and that is if that.
It is legal to pay for people with negative stories for their silence, it is legal to hide it, it is not moral. What is not moral. That a case this honestly soft would be brought forward. It smacks of a last minute throw at the end of the game, because the state of New York basically just said to the guy who could say is a master of loopholes that they know the rules better then he does. Considering How the State of New York is handling their own businesses I would think will be a calamity. You know what this also does though?
How many republican groups are watching this and are taking notes on how to do this better because some of the states of many democratic presidents can now dredge up the past for the exact same thing, and most likely with more chance for success. Never teach your enemy and right now the class is in for those who have backed Trump to any degree and I can tell you a lot of people are taking notes. Let us not even go into political bias, because when CNN has to do a survey and even most of those people see this as being a political biased then we are taking a turn down some bad moves. For those who are happy to see the political pressure brought down in law then you cannot under any condition complain when the republicans are deciding to start with the D.A of the case.
Never, ever, EVER train your enemies. While you will get first chance at the idea or tactic they will be able to see you bumble through it and they can watch to see mistakes they don’t need to make. That would be making their efforts overall more fruitful.
Back to three major moments. The second is really the only thing that would be the best chances of the three, but remember there are still a lot of questions to answer, like when did Trump specifically do the falsifying of records? Because my thought is he would know just to tell someone to get it done and have them do as they need to do without his knowledge, he is given plausible deniability and if that is the case there could be grounds to see him innocent on all charges. On top of that considering how long it has been since the charges there is a possibility that it may have been too long, we shall see on that.
For any charge, any single charge the case needs to be locked up, air tight, in the ocean, shot with a full drum of ammo and blesses by several preachers, because if there is any crack, any chance it will be looked it with the best eyes money can buy and it will be seen as weakness. If Donald Trump gets out of this without a serious sentence (prison time), then I feel the party behind him will be galvanized enough to push him to a second term. Not the D.A the bad press, or those who hate him with such vitriol will stop it.
In other news, my knights are in the playoffs for the Stanley cup. Small positives.
It has been a couple weeks. I am still alive. Although a lot has happened. First, finals always tends to be something that takes extra energy from me and I have done well in my classes, and that makes me happy. There has been some health issues that took some time of course, when your body runs on caffeine and spite sometimes you need to recharge every so often. That or the nerve damage gets the better of me sometimes.
The city is still a shit show, and while I can tell you how, there are others who do it better then me just look up on twitter PDXReal1 does a lot of good work showing how things are, People4Portland on twitter and now it seems more and more that people are getting the word out that we do have a problem in the city. So people are knowing, but now we have to make some impact, and that is been something that I have mused for the past few weeks.
Portland business journal recently had a survey of businesses where no one, I am sorry “99% do not feel supported by the city’s elected officials.” Damning by any count when almost every business believes they are not being supported by the city. That means you could go and throw a rock in the air and the sidewalk it lands on you got almost 100% chance that the business closest to it thinks they got no help from the city. Not like anything has been done to change that, Measure 110 has gone a major calamity because the government has not been fast enough to get the support out there. ( Big shocker, it is almost like someone called it.)
The city is in rough shape and the state is worse, but you know what sometimes it just takes a spark, a chance to get things rolling in the right direction. While the more well known businesses are running away from the city there is a chance to make it better, and if you can survive in the harshest conditions then it should be able to survive in friendlier conditions. It may be looked at as a bit of trying to find the sunshine in the dark clouds, but there is something to be looked at when bad things happen. One can always look at it more as a challenge to be overcome. Just seems honestly, that there are a lot more challenges then times of smooth sailing. These times will test those of the city I love, because there is a lot that seems to be wrong.
Try and stay healthy and hopefully I don’t need to do this again this week. I am sick as a dog.
Portland has decided to at least hurry their spiral because at least if you are going to fail you might as well do it quickly. For those who do not know Portland has gotten much more violent having more then 900 shooting incidents in 2020 and more then 1300 in both 2021 and 2022 and it looks like its another year over a thousand incidents.
We have among authorized sworn members has only been able to this date keep the rate from he rate in 2021 when it was lower then 2005, that is almost twenty years ago. Portland still has a prosecutor that does not want to prosecute, and a city council that doesn’t want to deal with the unpleasant reality and a growing issue with businesses feeling more uncomfortable, almost a third of business vacancies in the city and that is going up in a year where people are learning they cannot survive in a city that very simply, does not care.
So we have 880 authorized sworn workers in the police and we have in a thirty day period 19,099 calls for the month of January, that is top to bottom. The average response times for high priority calls, your really nasty crimes, in January is 16.5 minutes. Considering it was at 20 minutes in October, it is going down but unfortunately it is not going down enough to make people safe. Here is a number that gets me angered.
81% of high priority calls will be responded to after 5 minutes. You got a four out of five chance that whatever is so bad you need cops yesterday you have a 4 out of 5 to survive 5 and anyone is been in an abused situation or has been hurting or bleeding. Those five minutes can seem like years. All of these numbers are all looking through the Portland police department data dashboard.
This is just to show that all the things are not getting better, but I think a different tack is needed. For this I have something I would like to ask anyone reading this.
If you had a chance to ask a question or a couple questions to the homeless of Portland, what would they be?
Let me know.
Stay strong.
Also, yes. I did have this lined up and just forgot to hit the post button. One of those days.
Welp, it’s been a couple of weeks again. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, some numbers have come out based on the city where it has to be said. Portland is now in a position where the problems they have constructed for themselves will be fixed slowly, which is unfortunate. This was brought up by KOIN 6 news and reported on by the News for Reasonable People channel( A name I get a giggle from whenever I watch their videos). Also, they are a channel with a view on more of the business and property lens. However, human issues make enough appearances to be counted on being shown.
So, what am I talking about? Currently, the violence in Portland has been growing, and the cost of living has been rising throughout the country, even more so in Portland. More drugs, less quality public education, and less business have been happening. Now we have a business vacancy rate getting close to a third. That means that about 73% of spaces are filled. Which would be good, except most people need to learn that cities account for something like 95% to be filled on a bad year for tax reasons. If businesses are not in buildings, they aren’t making money, no money, no tax, and the budget is reduced, and while a lot of places have had to deal with many of these things, Portland has been ranked third last in recovering from the pandemic. We are ranked 60 out of 62, with a wild guess being able to figure out the two below us.
This has now reached a point that, save for a miracle of high-class thought and action from our city commissioners, this will not be good for a while. Five years, maybe ten, maybe thirty. The time frame depends on how shit others are after this. What will be something is that now we are in a position where it will most likely be this way for quite a while, and a lot of Portlanders are okay with that.
Not because there is a wealth of ideas or thoughts. Actually, it’s because most Portlanders only know or care to know once they have to. As a result, portlanders generally boil down into two groups.
They are in a position to ignore everything until something happens, as they get robbed, their children are in danger, or their life’s work is destroyed.
They are so poor and just trying to hold it together; unfortunately, they just had to get used to it.
This is sad because what comes next is not going to be fun for a lot of people. It will not be able to be fixed quickly because people do not want to see it. It won’t be the end of the world, but for those who think Portland is going back to the 2000’s era dominance, this will be bad news.
Good times will come at some point, but we have some choppy waters.
You ever just get into a thing where you do and keep doing until you get to the point you are exhausted and on autopilot and look back to wonder what you were doing to that point. That is EXACTLY how the past two weeks has been for me. Running for chair of the school senate committee on Government operations and finance, homework, nerve attacks, passing out, taping myself back together. Sometimes though, things work out in a way where you are just happy to have.
Despite being exhausted that running for the chair, well it is something more then that now. The problem is that a lot of things going on I am finding needs more then someone to help good ideas, they need someone willing to take the field as well. Always something to be done, and despite it my body is not the font of energy it once was and sometimes, especially since my nerve damage there are limits that have to be respected physically or there will be more problems then whatever good is done in those few moments.
The fraility of existence unfortunately is not something that can be mentally broken sometimes. It must be dealt with, in that dealing though new answers arise. Moments of thought sometime occur here, I like to call them sigma moments, not because of things like sigma grind set, but because it would be something Sigma the character (overwatch) would most likely think of.
So ya, a lot of things are happening here, which is why I went radio silence, things have gotten so hectic I have to actually use a calendar like a responsible adult. You know what I hadn’t looked at what has been happening in Portland since trying to help the students I represent. Hopefully it was a slow news week….
Ever ask yourself why you should ever ask a question that seems to be the start to disaster?
We are starting off with the Willamette Week, who did some interesting journalism this time. Some progress in some areas, but this article is about the value of money.
I am just going to save some pain and just go to the numbers. 82 units, refurbishing a building from 1911 and the refurbishment will cost 36.15 million dollars. Which is about 480,000 per unit or just about 13,00 per sq foot for units that have no bathroom or kitchens. I do not know about you, but this so expensive that anyone tries to explain this as a good value needs their head examined because the only reason this money is of some value is if it’s in someone savingsd account because you aren ot getting that value or even half of it on the work.
I would fire the people who okay-ed it, the people who accepted the contract, the company, anyone who thought this was a good idea. There would be mass firings of the failure that allowed this to stand. Why would all this be important, why would the value of things be needed especially now?
Portland fire and rescue have to freeze spending both of them are within the range of the project or even could be heavily aided by the half that could be cut by the building if someone with a calculator worked in Portland politics.
Get some progress done, bask in the bright light if this stupidity and then try to make your day a little better
I wanted to have this be the end-of-year post where we look back at the time and what has been done and bring some hope to the future. That is what I wanted. However, some things happen that make you feel like you got to take yourself out of whatever mood and deal with some weapons-grade stupidity.
For those who did not know, there are some problems with the D.A. of Portland. The work put forward has caused many of the city’s woes, and there have been many posts based on lousy decision-making. Things get worse for an entire year, having the area break records you do not want to break if you are in those positions, crime rate, murder rate, and gun violence are things you want to keep down.
All of this may be news to those in the offices of the city commissioners and the county district attorney. Still, I like to think it is that journalistic integrity that makes you stay, and I wrote all of that with only half of the usual sarcasm. This has to do with the D.A. specifically because I went to the county website and found the papers for the compensation or pay rates for everyone hired through them. Now, it is government, so you would expect some egregious, shocking, or brain-numbing numbers, and here is what was found.
Despite the work being a cavalcade of failure, despite it being some of the worst any D.A. has put forward in position for the county and the cost of everything up going up due to horrible financial decisions on almost every level of government. It would look bad if everyone had gotten a cost of living increase, but that would be at least understandable to a degree. Looking at the papers, you can see that it seems very much across the board there is an increase in spending.
After all, these people have to work for the government and to do it without hitting the escape hatch on life because all their work goes to very little, at least in this area. Some compensation is at least in the realm of possibility. There is one specific case thought that I would like people to look at. Now, as you can see from the pic above, the pay rates are active on July first. Looking at the difference between the two sets of paperwork, it would look really bad for someone to get a large raise, like 10% or 12 % even would be really bad.
How about a raise of almost 50%? Below is where I got the evidence, straight from the horse’s mouth
A 30k raise in the salary for some of the worst work that a D.A. has put on record. Failure so shocking it has brought down the whole county. This is someone in charge of charging people for crimes who push sentencing, and for all that was done, his office has been so soft that marshmallows look to it as a goal. A pool of water has more of a backbone than that office and the fact that with more death, more gun violence, and fewer things to charge for because now one can carry a small amount of any drug, those charges are gone. Antifa has been slapped on the wrist, often getting low bail or a misdemeanor when their records would dictate they should be in for years. Andy Ngo did a great set of explanations on that on Twitter @MrAndyNgo
Between 21-22 and 22-23, the Multnomah County D.A. has gotten a raise of almost 30k in their salary for work that would be best described as abysmal, and I wonder what they believe the reason is they earned that money.
21-22 salary table for District Attorney (D.A.) at 63k22-23 salary table for D.A. at 93K
I would like anyone to explain why that raise was a good idea, to explain it because I am lost. I would rather give that money to the waffle house employee who decided to give everyone who hopped over the counter a free sampling of hands. Most likely, she would get something done versus what we have now.
This blog was initially built on the idea that is going from homeless to a semi-productive member of society, there would be some things I can see that others would miss. One could even say that because of my intelligence and my experience, there are bits and details that politicians do not have or would only use in the political batoning for their own political side. Those who have read this know my politics are rather centered and may pull from both sides depending on what may be needed for specific problems to be removed or handled.
That being said, this is not against a side or a party.
Portland is spiraling into something not a lot of people want to be associated with. Stolen cars are being broken down in broad daylight. Homeless people all over, and laws that made it so there would be no problem carrying all kinds of drugs without a problem. The city commissioners went through protest after protest. Then, there was no movement when they had to rebuild from the ashes. All people who are against them have been deemed from the opposing party when they have made error after error, and the city right now is hurting to the point where no one wants to live there. Nobody wants to open a business there, and there are more taxes than in the surrounding areas.
There are so many problems that when you look at what is going on, you have to ask, where do you start? From that, I do not have an answer, and there is something that seems to be missing every day. Like the city had finally died, it feels passed on. While moments had been good, looking almost normal for small snippets, it is about what the normal is, and the normal in the city is a far shadow from what it once was. There are not enough good things coming, and a lot of the bad has been left to fester, meaning there is even more that needs to get done to bring it back. Again, it looks terrible, and there is not a lot that can be done right now without people enforcing laws and punishing those guilty. None of this is new, and if it is, look in the back posts; trust me, there is plenty to get mad about.
I haven’t written about my home city because unless it is more people not doing their jobs or people trying politically smack people only to get a riptide in the wrong direction, there just isn’t much to say. People in charge in Portland must be the most extensive collection of abject failures in politics. If any of them can look from this time and say they did a good job, I would love to hear their side because it looked like they just sat and played Genshin Impact all term.
Who knows, when things change, I will write about it, and if something is horrible, I will do that too, but right now, I really do not want to. May do some cheap and fun foods to make for later. With the cost of everything, we can all use a couple extra pennies for groceries. We shall see, though.
"I wanna know why we're randomly beating up people…I wanna know why random cars are being f—king attacked."
The violence by #Antifa in Portland on the night of July 4th was so extreme that Portland #BLM activist Danielle James expressed her disgust: pic.twitter.com/94QazkVgup
Visual aids today. Now, I will answer this as simply as I can. Danielle James, I hope this helps.
Why is Portland Antifa rioting about and why?
You started it. You lit the fire. I have written post after post about the good of what BLM could be and differing opinions and tried to figure this way and that and worked to get people to see it my way and I have post after post after post after post so this time I will be very clear. I had hope not because I am black but I saw the concept as something that could be good for all people to bring more culture and more community in and all it did was burn it to the ground, crack the windows and do nothing to help the city.
The subject of race is a poisoned well, the statement of differences is getting there and BLM worked with Antifa because it was all to do with their plan. Look at the city and tell me one thing, one single thing that got better because of you all. Violence has gone up, police response down, no one wants to open a business and everyone is making tracks out turning the city I loved and still do and watch turn to waste by people who have shouted about literally everything to the point where it is all white noise.
To those who say they didn’t do anything ask yourselves if you can find a single thing positive in my city because right now more people have died, and been shot less police want to help and money is getting stretched because we have a leader of the country with the capabilities of a baked potato and one side is trying to defend him because he is on their team. Take all of this ‘my team versus theirs’ horse shit, cram it up your ass, and go make sure you light it on fire first. Both sides of the major political parties and many of the minor ones have good points to be made if they can sit and talk, but no one wants to do that because that means your team is not strong and your team has to be strong right?
I am flat out of patience. I am not the only one. Every time those riots occur now BLM has been with it for so long they are signed to it as well. The only thing this has done is make your points that much smaller because no one wants to listen to those destroying their livelihood, and that does not take a bachelors in economics to find out. I used to have hope for the concept, but that has been long lost, and the fact that people are just now beginning to see what I said may happen in 2015 and 16 makes me sick to my stomach. So who is at fault for Portland failing. You, BLM and Antifa and all the little groups that back them but aren’t the same because different names, you should all laugh it up because you made the city you tried to supposedly champion into a joke and unfortunately the punchline stinks.
Here is some blasts from the past in all my crappy editing to prove it.
‘Nothing gets to me than the idiocy of a large group of very dimwitted people. Seriously, I understand learning disabilities I was told to have a couple, but I am shocked at the sheer duncery of a group of people who have told me to check my privilege.
So I did. These people who do not like ideas or opinions or even conversation that takes a half watt of brainpower to understand make me go back to being a problem solver, because by god the market needs one again. I once had a nice conversation with someone from the BLM group and while I do not agree with the group 100% there are things that could be good if they focused more on them. Back to the point I had a talk with someone who had a nice conversation as we went over our points to and fro in a respectful matter about things the group would have to do to become more of a mainstay and less of an extremist group. -2017
‘White privilege, does it exist ? Yes.
Black privilege, does it exist? Yes.
Male privilege? Yes.
Female privilege? Yes.
Every group of people has a set of strengths and weaknesses; privileges and problems and that’s just going to happen until people on the whole get to be a lot nicer to each other.
Every subsection of people has sets of advantages and disadvantages that over the grand scheme I would say is closer to even then most people would hate to think. Should everyone be based and judged on person by person basis. In a perfect world then yes, but I do not know when I woke up and it was perfect. The emotion is a good start though because at least that shows investment of people to try and change things. Now, if it could be focused properly most of the problems in this country could be finished in just under a week.’ 2015
‘Blm, Antifa and the Proud Boys are groups with exactly that, both sides have actual problems and both have insults flung at them from the other just for the sake of emotional prizes and it just does not work.
Be mad, sure, think the world hates you? Most times it just doesn’t care, but if you can focus it on positives then make it work. For that to be achieved it is something that needs to work for all sides. Of the conflict. Focus your anger at the trappings of the cycle rather then those who execute and you will find your capabilities much more warmly received.’ 2020
All of these posts go back more then five years when I thought this would be a problem but if we could just talk we could avoid it.
‘There is a need that only the police can handle. We have cut back police response in Portland and we are at the lowest sized force in 23 years. Considering how gun violence has gone up and continues to go up it means we have some major problems that need to be worked out and the police are going to have to help with that because currently our Mayor is using private security and that as damning of his work as all the city commissioners, and it should because has previously noted they have failed.
How do we fix it though is the question and to do so would take a multi faceted plan to answer questions where people have an issue. First, it is to help the officers, in Portland it takes 2 years to be a full officer, and in it I would add also some study in law. I would try to restructure the training so we aren’t losing so much as upgrading in different areas and I feel a little bit of time learning the law will give them a little confidence to further add some capabilities explaining how things are in the laws they defend.
Another thing is that we need to take a look at what counts as the over bearing hard left trying not to hurt anybody’s feelings instead of solving problems style of politics needs to end. It is not working and after close to six years for Mayor Ted Wheeler and the four for Commissioner Hardesty. There is very little to show for the hundreds of thousands of dollars their paychecks have given.
Kowtowing to political groups for clout was a disgusting move as it painted the city in a corner and one it will take years to get of. Some who sympathize or claim they are a different group then antifa despite wearing the same colors, using the same tactics, and fighting the supposed same enemies is a lark.’ 2021
‘Black lives do not matter.
Black lives do not matter because one group of people cannot have their lives try to matter more then anyone else’s. To have people chanting it, making it a hashtag, blowing up social media with it makes me a little depressed for the sake of our culture. Personally I can’t care less about what skin tone someone has on whatever particular day, because it is not something that really is important. Their culture is important, their background, context, political views, loves, hates, targets of affection and disdain are all important while skin tone simply is not. Unless you are trying to dress up to the best of your own aesthetic creating ability and aesthetic calculation aside color does not make something matter any more or less in my eyes, and for the eyes of many others.
Now, before someone goes down some fairly used set of responses pertaining to their own tragedy let me tell you something about myself, just so you understand who I am. I have tragedy befall me as so many others have had, and some would say even more so. I have had to cry myself asleep in junior high while someone close to me was raped and murdered. I have had to stop friends from murdering their entire family, bled buckets for people who thought that no one would defend them, cried for all the times the pain was too much, when one parent went to jail and once while the other was on the floor turning blue due to the effects of a stroke. I have seen people I have had so much hope for fall to the bottom, and I even tried to take my own life once to a painkiller cocktail that no one would take on accident and couldn’t sink under the rim of a large martini glass. I have seen so much idiocy in this world that it makes my skin crawl and my head ache. Every day because of all the fights I got in just to keep my sanity had some pain in it. Some days waking up is so much a challenge that I wish for some long reprieve.
There was no group for them or hashtag for us nor was their a group saying how they were a group whose lives mattered while seemingly forgetting the rest because creating such a thing would be disrespectful. The latina girl who knew I did my best as her friend, the black friend who was ostracized because he just liked acting like a hip hop styled gangster, the marine who came from the kid that tried bullying me in my youth, the christian who just wanted to feel respected by his parents. Their lives were not encapsulated in some news bit story or made light by a sixteen letter slogan. Hearing what kind of lives matter is such a foreign concept to me because it is so simple. It is like looking up and seeing the answer boldly written on the wall in marker. so simple that the questioning of it makes me wonder if we are becoming some side step on Mr. Darwin’s theory. We all have had to deal with horrible things, and some more then others. If you want me to think that those raped and murdered are not worth it, that those dying of hunger are not worth it, or even those who worked so hard to make the world better and died horribly are not worth it, but your little group of people does then please be prepared to either punch me or shut the hell up because you could not be any further from the point if you tried.
Black lives do not matter nor do white, nor yellow or red, blue or green or any shade on our spectrum.
We all matter because we all are the same when we start as a blank slate. We create the definitions of our world, and we grow within them. So how about we drop what we can say about who matters and who doesn’t, and start showing it through who you are. Make the world a canvas for all of the actions colored by who we are completely, and not what we just so happen to be on that day. A world colored so vivaciously that fantasy could become reality. That would be the world we all would be happy of.
2015
‘Now, though I must say I am more than a little hurt because what started off as a branded “resistance” brought the wrong people to the dance. The crown is tarnished, and the jewel that once held some magic may have grown duller. That does not mean that efforts should stop, though. One does not get by moping about, and even though it has wavered, I will still make my home a better place, and then move outwards because that is the plan, the goal , and the dream. It does not matter now, who won or who lost. We must work with what we got and sometimes it takes a group of misfits to make something greater than the sum of the parts. ‘ 2016 About the Portland resistance.
Danielle Davis, you, Antifa, BLM and all your little same but not quite groups, did it. Take a bow, you did were the main force behind Portland turning into a shit hole, now when the city is failing get all your friends to look in a mirror.
Finally, to those reading it who may think they are the change in society. Tim Pool made a wonderful bit of music.
You see that statue that keeps spinning? Just the same old things given a new coat of paint. So what happens when the wheel turns against you, because it will eventually. Time after all is undefeated.
You know what I loved about Portland. There always seemed to be something to learn, you could be someone trying to do their best and it just seemed if you knew where to look Portland had everything to get to the next level in you crafts. There had been so much to learn and do and it felt that you could pull yourself by your bootstraps and make yourself something because there was and were for a long time things too numerous to count going on around the city. It had problems, but it had a charm that made it a place I loved to call home.
I don’t know as it stands right now if my home will ever bounce back because for as much as the twitter profiles of the city commissioners are crowing about how they should be reelected because the city has been made safer. Over the past three years specifically to Joann Hardesty but to the others look at the P.R. and the city’s own count to things. If you look at that and tried to tell people things were getting safer. Look at the city report and if you still say it is safer I got bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
I hear people defending her saying she was not responsible for the police. She was responsible for the fire department, the same fire department that had not been able to get to all those fires lit in the riots. She was the right hand for the mayor Ted wheeler, we went over him multiple times. She is in charge of education and the fire department and during all of this she is both part of a group to help make Portland as good as it can be and according to her defenders far enough away from the mayor despite working with him on how to defund police (she was a proponent of that in Portland).
She worked with the mayor on this and she wanted to take control of the police department and yet people defend her saying how she was too far being the person was essentially fill in mayor. At some point the time has to come for people who with a history of failure should not be left in power and 3-4 years is more then enough for me. Where people seem to not understand is that this is not something that has to have a figurehead, you need to have someone who can get the job done.
I am watching this next election very very closely because if people can look at her and look at all the other people wanting to give it a crack and still think she is the best option then I need to maybe look from that as political path. My home needs help but I cannot fix things as fast as someone else can screw it up. Did that with my roommate and honestly I am not going to lose time like that again.
BigTAnderson in Portland 