Richard as I have considered your own personal predicament and those in the same raft with you, how long will you keep up the fight? Are you seeing signs of hope? I realize writing about this and attending meetings has its own cathartic benefits. And it does lead to change. However it takes so damn long to see some of those changes come about. As I age out, I still do my own limited warfare but I am not sure how I would handle some of this.
One of the few benefits of getting really, REALLY old is that you will have lived through so many mass hysterias that you won't take the latest herd stampede toward the cliff seriously. Actually, watching our fellow primates making the same damn mistakes and elevating their pulse-rates is weirdly humorous. Check out the George Carlin pages on Instagram and you'll feel better.
On the other hand, when you’re older you may have less to lose. When I get discouraged, I find something to laugh at. History is full of people behaving like fools. Yet here we are.
I keep one of my favorite books handy — “Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat” by The New Yorker’s famed cartoonist George Booth (who might not have a career in today’s media).
What we have here in Portland and Oregon are politicians telling us to think good thoughts about the drug-addled homeless.
I noticed this earlier from the Oregon Capital Insider:
“Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek wants the state to spend more than $2 billion on homelessness and housing and send a record $11.4 billion to public schools as part of a budget focused on maintaining existing programs with little cash to spare for new initiatives.”
As a reader/commenter points out, if there are 24,000 homeless in Oregon, $2 billion comes out to about $83,000 for each person in the next two years.
“This is after spending hundreds of millions in the last two years,” the reader notes. “Once again, throw hundreds of millions of additional dollars to the schools, only to have PERS eat most of it up. PERS retirement benefits are out of control and not in the same reality that Oregonians live in.”
To anyone who hasn’t read it yet, here’s a gift link to Mike Rogoway’s important story in The Oregonian about Intel’s problems. Even the state’s success stories are starting to turn sour.
During the recent City Council election, candidates and supporters of the new district-wide system insisted that finally East Portland was going to get some much needed attention.
Apparently Montavilla doesn’t count, because it isn’t east of 205 but west. Still, at some point will the new city commissioners representing the southeast show some interest in what’s happening in Montavilla?
It would be even better if all members of the new city council showed some interest in building housing for janitors, bartenders, store clerks, hairdressers — people who actually show up to work a job.
It looks like the big issue kicking off the new council will be whether members of the 14 public employee unions in Portland should be required to show up more often for work at City Hall. They have homes they like so much they prefer to stay there instead of going downtown to work.
"It looks like the big issue kicking off the new council will be whether members of the 14 public employee unions in Portland should be required to show up more often for work at City Hall."
Where did our soon-to-be-hapless Mayor-elect come up with this divisive idea? Did his super-connected and high-powered incoming chief of staff suggest this, or did he get there on his own?
In the old days when there was a City Hall beat, the headline would have been "Wilson Debuts, Steps on Rake".
As for Wilson's high-powered incoming chief of staff, this is from The Oregonian: “The mayor-elect didn’t respond to OPB’s reporting and his incoming chief of staff, Aisling Coghlan, said Friday she was traveling abroad and unable to comment.”
Another curiosity, this one from Dick Hughes’ column in the Oregon Capital Insider: “Emory Mort, chief of staff for retiring Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, will become chief of staff for newly elected Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama-Lane.”
Supposedly, each commissioner will have a staff of one. How can you have a chief of staff if you have no staff?
I guarantee that fence is going to end up covered in some hideous "diverse community mural" artistic atrocity, most like featuring George Floyd.
Richard as I have considered your own personal predicament and those in the same raft with you, how long will you keep up the fight? Are you seeing signs of hope? I realize writing about this and attending meetings has its own cathartic benefits. And it does lead to change. However it takes so damn long to see some of those changes come about. As I age out, I still do my own limited warfare but I am not sure how I would handle some of this.
One of the few benefits of getting really, REALLY old is that you will have lived through so many mass hysterias that you won't take the latest herd stampede toward the cliff seriously. Actually, watching our fellow primates making the same damn mistakes and elevating their pulse-rates is weirdly humorous. Check out the George Carlin pages on Instagram and you'll feel better.
On the other hand, when you’re older you may have less to lose. When I get discouraged, I find something to laugh at. History is full of people behaving like fools. Yet here we are.
I keep one of my favorite books handy — “Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat” by The New Yorker’s famed cartoonist George Booth (who might not have a career in today’s media).
What we have here in Portland and Oregon are politicians telling us to think good thoughts about the drug-addled homeless.
I noticed this earlier from the Oregon Capital Insider:
“Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek wants the state to spend more than $2 billion on homelessness and housing and send a record $11.4 billion to public schools as part of a budget focused on maintaining existing programs with little cash to spare for new initiatives.”
As a reader/commenter points out, if there are 24,000 homeless in Oregon, $2 billion comes out to about $83,000 for each person in the next two years.
“This is after spending hundreds of millions in the last two years,” the reader notes. “Once again, throw hundreds of millions of additional dollars to the schools, only to have PERS eat most of it up. PERS retirement benefits are out of control and not in the same reality that Oregonians live in.”
https://www.oregoncapitalinsider.com/news/oregon-gov-kotek-s-39-3-billion-proposed-budget-has-more-for-housing-homelessness-schools/article_68f9f28c-c26e-5b42-a185-6cbd0d425a51.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=oregon-capital-insider&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read more
To anyone who hasn’t read it yet, here’s a gift link to Mike Rogoway’s important story in The Oregonian about Intel’s problems. Even the state’s success stories are starting to turn sour.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/12/intel-sputters-jeopardizing-oregons-financial-engine.html?gift=09312c63-1c5e-453f-a81f-37bf7cbd433e
During the recent City Council election, candidates and supporters of the new district-wide system insisted that finally East Portland was going to get some much needed attention.
Apparently Montavilla doesn’t count, because it isn’t east of 205 but west. Still, at some point will the new city commissioners representing the southeast show some interest in what’s happening in Montavilla?
It would be even better if all members of the new city council showed some interest in building housing for janitors, bartenders, store clerks, hairdressers — people who actually show up to work a job.
It looks like the big issue kicking off the new council will be whether members of the 14 public employee unions in Portland should be required to show up more often for work at City Hall. They have homes they like so much they prefer to stay there instead of going downtown to work.
"It looks like the big issue kicking off the new council will be whether members of the 14 public employee unions in Portland should be required to show up more often for work at City Hall."
Where did our soon-to-be-hapless Mayor-elect come up with this divisive idea? Did his super-connected and high-powered incoming chief of staff suggest this, or did he get there on his own?
In the old days when there was a City Hall beat, the headline would have been "Wilson Debuts, Steps on Rake".
As for Wilson's high-powered incoming chief of staff, this is from The Oregonian: “The mayor-elect didn’t respond to OPB’s reporting and his incoming chief of staff, Aisling Coghlan, said Friday she was traveling abroad and unable to comment.”
Another curiosity, this one from Dick Hughes’ column in the Oregon Capital Insider: “Emory Mort, chief of staff for retiring Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, will become chief of staff for newly elected Portland City Councilor Tiffany Koyama-Lane.”
Supposedly, each commissioner will have a staff of one. How can you have a chief of staff if you have no staff?
But but city workers say it’s racist, sexist, ableist and anti-climate to have to show up
to work ….
https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/08/31/hundreds-of-portland-city-workers-resist-calls-to-return-to-downtown-offices/
It's anti-equity too!
It just never ends.
I foresee more street walkers on those extra wide sidewalks on 82nd.