protests

Writer 404 Error – Venom Spitting Mad

A dozen pages, thousands of words, most of which I am being less of an educator or explainer and more of a yelling yahoo. It didn’t sound right so I did not pull the trigger and because of things going on in my city that meant I was guilty by something I hoped those reading this would not be and that is overly bound to emotion. I am glad I didn’t post what I had written it wouldn’t have helped anybody and so we continue.

Where do we go from there? Plenty of things have come up that as either changed or through the venom I was spewing in my own anger that we still have not gone over.

We may as well start with how the homeless situation has changed, and it has been changed for the worse. Section 8 the usual last bastion of hope is enough to do if you have the time, but if you are single you must realize that you are at the bottom of the list no matter what gender you are. Section 8 goes to families first and of those minorities, disabled and veterans push them up higher. I would say do the paperwork to get on the list as it does not take very long, but do not expect it to save you.

Through the new presidency the amount cut from section 8 had not been replaced and states have not been able to figure out the problem per each of their borders. Portland has gotten much worse and you can count dozens of tents on your way to work in the city. It had a major homeless problem and between the rent issue, the pay issue, the pandemic and the lack of health care, mental care or beds for those who need it, the population has led to many turning into simply living in trash heaps or small tent towns that go down inlets or sidewalks.

Commissioners of the City and of the state have failed at the problem, and it is only getting worse so as we go forward make sure to best equip yourself with the skills, tools, tips, and tricks to help yourself get out of there.

Stay Strong and Stay Calm

If you like what I do please let me know, it does put a smile on my face to know people read these. There are things I have not done to these pages and soon their will be more then just these blog posts and I hope you enjoy at least some of them.

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Protests and the Looters

I did have another post lined up but considering what has happened I felt this was needed. What happened is not in question in that is an absolutely idiotic move with a group of co workers that should have corrected it quickly. I haven’t read anything or found anything that signed especially to racism, but just to sheer stupidity, and boy the officers here were dumb.

Here is my problem though, the whole claiming racism being institutionalized,but without a set array of data and without a target it holds no water. I have seen discrimination, some of my own worst memories came from being discriminated for being raised as a white catholic boy. Not getting mad because other races didn’t help, but instead making sure that I would learn from it. All for when I can break some of the bricks that build into such horrible situations that instead of focus less rage there is a target and a start to break these things down.

The sad thing is you can be mad and claim how something is not in your favor but that doesn’t do anyone any good. Really changing something, you need to break it down in to blocks from relevant data and take each smaller objective on brick by brick. The whole changing an Instagram picture or Facebook picture does nothing without an action. Being emotional thinking the world is out to get you doesn’t do anything but get people to start to ignore you.

I may do more writing on that later but there is a specific end of the riots that got me to think because we are going in to a pandemic issue that did incredible damage to people and to a lot of people’s livelihood and this brought up something. There will be a lot of people I fear that is gong to be homeless after the pandemic with many businesses closing and the whole thing of businesses being hit in great number in riots has done nothing to make me think otherwise.

This is more of an off the cuff writing and to put it simply, to the looters, who think they have the right to steal and break things who come from all races and only have a streak of finding opportunity in chaos, fuck you. Protesters who are just trying to do that and protest now have to look and see their work chained to your damage. Stores will look at this and after the whole pandemic this will be the killing blow to the business. Less business, less jobs, less money, more people on the street.

You can hate the police and granted a lot of them are no friends of mine, but it is a job that still needs to be done so before anyone wants to say kill all police make sure you have a really good plan about who would replace that. Otherwise you are just emotional static at high volume and that does no good.

For those close to homelessness or completely homeless, when it comes to a riot they are groups of people put in between a rock and a hard place. What would normally be safe turns on to its head, some of these people are drugged up or down. Others can be trying to silence the voice in their head or try not to panic and then we got a bunch of yelling vandalizing yahoos. There may be more violence if the homeless feel their camp or their own safety is at risk. Majority of the homeless have something to give them an edge in a fight and the citizenry may not be ready for that.

This entire situation is just bad, it has shown the worst parts of being a person and for any real progress to be made we need to start breaking down the problems down to pieces we can look at, research and verify before getting our eyes as a people on the goal and getting it done.

Keep on and stay strong.

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Black Lives Do Not Matter

I wanted to do a game post again, but that will be the next one. If you were expecting some half baked goof ball then my suggestion would be to wait a a few days, and I will do my best to have it up for you. It seems there has been something else sitting forefront on my thoughts, and doing so in a way that will not allow much else to be done until it has been expressed. I know some of my other posts may have had some badly thought out puns or a quip, but I think here I will not use such things. First, let me go over something that some people are angry about and let me give you my opinion.

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.

Some black people are not the only ones that seem to have an ax to grind. Just because you think that getting people to act differently towards black people will make them act way towards everyone. It doesn’t work well that way, and that is why it such a celebration when it happens when homosexual marriage was legalized and women could vote. Because you have taken something and tried to push it through a process where spin doctors, headlines, and damage control is concerned instead of just doing it. If I said that the minimum age of presidency should be lowered by a half decade in the time frame of three years or that after four years of service as a representative or senator combined then you no longer able to work either one in the time frame of four years, or if every police department should not be so militarized then in a matter of months it would happen numbers can beat the painfully slow processes of law. Do not make something that needs to be an action i.e(wishing for police to be more transparent in reports and action) in to a reaction(#blacklivesmatter and #alllivesmatter by degree) otherwise the meaning behind it rings hollow.

We all matter, and we should act like it.

So there is what I think, some points to fight popular counter arguments, multiple points as to why this is a bad idea and my thoughts how I got there in case anyone was confused. I’m going to hope we can all treat each other better, and I know I will at least try to, thank you for reading and I am going to go have a talk with a whiskey bottle about how some actions are just so utterly disappointing.

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