The Natives On the Portland Reservation Are Restless

Check your reality at the front gate, walk carefully, carry a weapon...

Behind the high walls of self-delusion, odd things are happening. Let’s stroll among the natives…

Despite the Troubling Headlines…

…and…

…the progressives hung out a sign…

…unless you’re an illegal immigrant, which should be changed to, “Welcome, especially if you’re a Nicaraguan selling blues.” Well, it is the “land of dreams.” Unfortunately, the streets aren’t paved¹ with gold.

The Oregonian Steals John Charles Jr’s Letter²

Ace reporter Julia Silverman essentially rewrote the Cascade Policy Institute CEO’s letter to the Portland school board (which once again proved it doesn’t listen to anyone who pays taxes), complete with his sources and research—without mentioning either the Institute or Mr. Charles. It only took her ten days to do it after we reprinted his letter³.

Has Portland Lost Its Mojo?

Oregon Public Broadcasting dropped this onto its tax-free website…

…although they didn’t attempt an estimate of the crowd’s size beyond, “large.” The “march” was a circuit of Schrunk⁴ Plaza. And it wasn’t followed by store window-breaking and looting. No cops were injured. No one bothered asking:

• Where were the Antifa stormtroopers?

• What did standing out in the cold accomplish? (Hope some folks came away with meet-ups, also known as “dates.”)

Speaking of the Inauguration…

“On another level, the election outcome is the most overdetermined reaction in history—a reaction against a class of mostly white elites who don’t really care about blacks, trans people, immigrants or climate but revel in moral grandiosity and self-righteousness over other, mostly but not exclusively less affluent whites.”

Holman Jenkins Jr. Wall Street Journal.

More Visions of Portland’s Cheek-to-Jowl Future

One of the standard progressive dog whistles is “density.” People crammed together = good. People with yards = bad. And so, here in my neighborhood on the dark depths of the east side, the local scribbler, Jacob Loeb, on his Montavilla News website, tells us that a new project will cram three of these itty-bitties into an existing house’s backyard…

…where you’ll get to know your neighbors’ habits really, really well.⁵

Meanwhile, isn’t it nice to know that GuvTina is on the case?

…especially heartwarming to the state’s construction unions, developers, architects, and building-permit bureaucrats. How come the “housing crisis” gets worse as the progressive machine issues edicts? (See below for one answer.)

Annals of Homelessness Inc.™ Chapter Umpteen

The town’s newspaper of record acted as stenographer for yet another nonprofit with Big Plans (and government grants) and announced…

…that Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center—one of our rapidly-metastasizing non-taxpaying NGOs—was going to do something (the word “hope” was frequently mentioned in the steno-report) about bums who shoot each other. Emphasis, of course, on POCs with guns.

You’d think that before writing the propaganda, our local reporters would pull the “charity’s” federal IRS forms 990⁶ which are almost never revealed on nonprofits’ lavish, self-congratulatory websites.

Interesting reading: on the most recent (covering 2022) form 990, POIC recorded…

• Total revenue of $21,741,292

• Grants and “similar amounts paid,” of $2,129,184

• Salaries and employee benefits of $11,520,973.

Do the arithmetic. Local reporters won’t.

If You Manage to Escape…

Idaho put out an interesting interactive map that told a political story with a happy ending: people seeking refuge off-reservation are…

California is still leading; as usual, we’re Number Two.

How Come…?

…two of our little town’s most trenchant Substacks…⁷

… need to drop F-bombs to make their points?

…Speaking of Which…

…is it just because I’ve been circling the sun for eight decades that it seems that more people, particularly young women, are employing the Proto-Germanic word (later stolen by the English) to make small points in loud public conversations?

1. And 50 miles aren’t paved. Send queries to Councilor Steve Novick.

2. …which we reprinted here: Mr. Charles Wants to Save You $-Billions

3. …which was one of our highest-read pieces.

4. Does anyone know which Terry Schrunk the square was named after? The mega-corrupt longtime political boss or his DA son, who was—we’re told—a “saint?”

5. Beats the hell out of living in one of the thin-walled rabbit hutches on N. Williams, where you’ll be lucky to have an upstairs neighbor with a dog with long claws and a habit of barking all night.

6. OK; they’re always a year or two late, but it’s better than nothing.

7. For the record: Fidelity PDX, by anonymous someone-or-other; Max’s Substack by Max Steele. Both are masters of invective and deep research; both are must-reads.