Rumor Factory: Blame Fires on Antifa

"Reports that extremists are setting wildfires in Oregon are untrue."

     FBI, Portland, on Friday

Facebook announces it is removing posts spreading false rumors about the cause of the fires.

     

Too late. People who want to blame it on Antifa have done their work.

Yesterday:

 "Peter, did you hear? SWAT teams arrested six of the people who travelled around and set all the fires on purpose. It was Antifa. They did it so police would be busy and they could rob houses, to fund a revolution. They send the money they steal to George Soros. The Antifa people, they're all on his payroll."

     A resident of Phoenix, Oregon, whose house narrowly escaped burning.

He said he heard all about it from someone who "got the real truth, straight from people who heard it from people who talked with the police."

I asked if he was sure.  "Absolutely sure. I got the information from people who know what's really going on," he said.

Rumors are circulating, and they are political and weaponized. Some of it is in fact coming from law enforcement. A uniformed sheriff deputy in the Portland area was videotaped telling a person it was all due to Antifa. "Antifa motherfuckers are out here causing hell," he was shown saying. The Clackamas County Sheriff said that as soon as he learned of the incident the deputy was put on administrative leave.  

His comments went viral. Facebook and Twitter are the engines of spread.

Douglas County Sheriff

One of the sources--or accelerants--of the rumor about Antifa and George Soros was Q-Anon, which posted a link to a tweet by Paul Joseph Romero, Jr., an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate. 

It is untrue, the sheriff of Douglas County, Oregon protested in a Facebook announcement, noting  that his office was inundated by calls from people inquiring about the source of fires there, blaming Antifa. 

No, not Antifa, and please, please stop spreading rumors, their sheriff pleaded: 

"Remember when we said rumors make this already difficult incident even harder? Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 disputers are being overrun with requests for information and inquires on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY OREGON.

THIS IS NOT TRUE! Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.

Do your part, STOP. SPREADING. RUMORS!"

The City of Medford's Police Department has been busy trying to stop Facebook posts that have used the logo of the department to spread a parallel rumor, this one that the fires were caused by the Trump-supporting Proud Boys. Police spokesman Mike Budreau told the local public radio station, Jefferson Public Radio, “When we have to stop and constantly address these false rumors it just takes our time away from that. But we have to, because we don’t want our community believing these things and being in any more upset or stressed out than they are already."

Rumors, Budreau said, are "basically pouring gasoline on the fire."

Click: JPR

Facebook, responding to the fact that both local law enforcement and the FBI calls these rumors of Antifa's involvement false, has taken the unusual step of removing posts that spread this misinformation. Too late. People already heard from a friend who had the real skinny. 

The rumors spread because authoritative information comes out slower than people's curiosity demands. People are missing and their relatives and friends are frantic with worry. People whose homes and phones are destroyed may be out of contact, so are reported "missing." 

"Were there fatalities? People are looking but bodies are slow to find in the rubble. Even authoritative sources get things wrong. An early report counted five human bodies, but this was revised to four when one of the remains was determined not to have been human. The local Jackson County sheriff's department is posting press notices on their official website, Click: Sheriff,  and on Facebook. The information may be slow, but it is authoritative and is corrected as new facts come in.

CNN: Jackson County Search and Rescue 

The rumors also serve a political purpose. Blame the fires on someone you despise. It feels great. It may not be exactly "true" as in accurate, but it feels "true" in the sense that you know those people you despise do despicable things, and setting fires is despicable, so, sure, it must be "true" in a fictional, poetic license sort of way. And then people inclined to believe your claim will do so because, after all, they heard it from someone in the know, you.

It is bearing false witness, sure, but if weren't a weren't a temptation there would be no need to forbid it.

Hazardous Air. Off the charts.

     “This is not an act of God. This has happened because we have changed the climate of the state of Washington in dramatic ways.”

         Washington Governor Jay Inslee

The air quality in Seattle is "unhealthy" with a particulate count of 194.  In Medford, Oregon today and yesterday it was "hazardous" at a count of 323 now and 334 yesterday.  

The air is startling. Not only can you see it and smell it, it hurts to breathe it.

It is actually much worse in Salem, Oregon. There the index is 519. It is "beyond the index." 

Jay Inslee is voicing the settled doctrine of a secular quali-religion, that humans have changed the environment so much, primarily by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, that we are causing actual, profound changes to the climate. He won't lose votes by voicing this. The idea is out there and agreed to by most Democrats. Jay Inslee says that what is happening isn't a surprise. "It is what scientists have been predicting for decades."

Americans generally believe in "climate science," but not fully. There are other frames. Democrats--90% of them--

generally believe what Inslee is saying. Republicans are not so sure.

There is a basis for skepticism. Climate is complicated, with feedback loops and mitigations. It isn't just a linear direction of more CO2 meaning more heat. California's Governor is on CNN as I write, saying that climate change is making dry areas drier, but also wet areas wetter, that it varied. Some scientists say warmer temperatures will increase water vapor in the air, deflecting more sunlight, so, actually, extra CO2 won't increase temperatures. Some Republican officeholders assert  is all just catastrophic thinking, alarmism, to push through a socialist agenda, because, once thing are all figured in, human activity cancels itself out. 

People can think that maybe it is volcanos or the variable radiation of the sun that changes climate.  Or maybe it is the cycles of the earth's tilt. Climate has unquestionably changed on its own, both over the eons but also in human historical time. Six thousand years ago the monsoon patterns were different for some reason, and the Sahara desert got rainfall. What is now the driest place on earth had palm trees and rivers. Elephants need lush vegetation to survive, and their bones are testament to the fact that they thrived there. Whatever caused such a giant change was something other than humans.

There is reason for doubt. Maybe the scientists are godless and denying the actual force leading human events; maybe they are corrupted by money and where they get their grant funding; maybe they have "group-think;" maybe they are blinded by partisanship.

Distrust of science is both a left and right phenomenon. It is widely assumed among the pundit community that President Trump will announce some big hopeful news regarding a COVID vaccine as an October surprise.  Even though it would have been a "warp speed" achievement of Trump, only 36% of Republicans say they would take the drug. Fifty percent of Democrats say they would take it. An idea circulating within conservative social media is that the COVID virus--or certainly the vaccine--are a plot by Bill Gates or George Soros, intended to control Americans by inserting a mind control device.

Climate is unintuitive. Hot can make cold. Climate warming might trigger, of all things, an Ice Age that would make most of Europe, Canada, and the northern USA uninhabitable, a catastrophe in the other direction. Warmer temperatures might cause Greenland's ice to melt, making the water in the North Atlantic less salty, thus turning off the "thermo-haline" cycle that is the essential second half of the Gulf Stream that warms Europe. The giant flow of warm water that brings heat from the equator and Caribbean up to Europe much  needs to go somewhere. It turns and goes south, and does so because that warm water out of the Gulf has evaporated somewhat due to its warmth, making it saltier--and heavier--than ambient ocean water, so upon arrival off Europe it sinks and flows south.

 It is complicated. It is easier to blame China's coal plants and to say that nothing we do will matter much. God's will be done. The fires are an act of God. There is no one to blame.

So while we are figuring this out, do nothing.

Scenes of the Fires

500,000 Oregonians are under orders to evacuate their homes.

It is a good idea to take that warning seriously.

If the wind turns and points the fire at your home, there is no hiding or "sheltering in place." Homes burn to the ground.  People who evacuated got out.

Yesterday I posted photos of my own. My own situation is good. My home--indeed my entire extended neighborhood--is out of danger. My only distress is heavy smoke, with visibility of about 200 yards, a small problem compared with people who lost everything.

Today's photos and links are taken from Facebook. I am avoiding going to the burned out areas. Curious lookers have been instructed to stay away, and Facebook reports incidents of police questioning people thought to be potential looters.

The mechanism for the fire spread is wind driving flame or embers into dry vegetation that moves to nearby structures, which then moves from structure to structure. Once it gets into a neighborhood--especially closely packed ones like mobile home developments--the fire is unstoppable.

The Bear Lake Mobile Home Park at 300 Lumen Road offers a lesson on regulations, safety, and a lucky escape. It is an old subdivision.

Look at the photo below: 100% loss.

Bear Lake Mobile Home Park, looking south

It is a common occurrence for me to hear people complain about building and fire codes they consider unrealistic and overbearing, as well as subdivision requirements that turn out to be expensive or even impossible to implement, stopping a development. "Oh, those nitpickers," I have heard people say. "The regulations are so unreasonable."

The Bear Lake Mobile Home Park, pictured above, is on a dead end road. Take a moment to look at the Google map. 

There is a problem with dead end roads, particularly ones that serve multiple residences. They are dangerous. This development is surrounded on the east by the Freeway, to the west and south by Bear Creek and the riparian area that fed and spread the wildfire. It has one exit, to the north, Lumen Road. It is more than adequate most of the time. The development is an over-55 community, and traffic is not great. After all, everyone doesn't need to come or go at once. Unless they do, because a fire is coming fast. In this instance, the development had warning and the fires were coming from the south. The sole exit is to the north and it wasn't a wall of flames. It could have been.

300 Lumen Road: Bear Lake Mobile Homes

There were no fatalities. Everyone must have had time and heeded the warnings. 

My point is a simple one. There is a reason that fire and building codes exist. 99.9999% of the time, there is no particular need for extra fire exits in buildings or developments. But sometimes there is. Could anyone stuck in their homes have survived that fire? 

The following links are to Facebook, where various people in cars or helicopters took videos of the destruction, and posted them.  Readers can skip around to get a flavor for the fire damage. A simple takeaway: some areas were utterly untouched, others were utterly destroyed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjm5wI4yd4

https://youtu.be/iYP1QrTNE3Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg8k2oVoOcs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi42MtEPC64&feature=youtu.be

Fire Update. I am OK

I am OK so far, but it is very bad for a lot of people.

I am fire-free and out of the evacuation zone, both at home and at the farm.  Other people I know have had their homes burn to the ground.

Context: It has not really rained for three months, and the past week has had days of 100+ degree temperatures and unusual winds blowing in multiple directions of 30 and 40 miles per hour.  Branches on trees are breaking. Fire danger is very high. Natural vegetation--i.e. unirrigated--is bone dry.

My situation could change in an instant. The fires are putting up embers that fly for miles and then come down in dry vegetation, get started, get whipped up by the wind, and then move to structures. A structure fire creates enough heat to move to the next structure downwind or uphill.

Wednesday: New fire broke out, skipping 4 miles to Central Point

There are major fires in the forested areas around Medford, and they burning up a valuable resource and filling the area with smoke.

The more consequential and heartbreaking damage is the wildfire in the urban and suburban area, burning along the natural area of the freeway and Greenway areas stretching from Ashland through the City of Talent, then the City of Phoenix, Oregon, then Medford, skipping up to Central Point. The fire in the natural areas sneaks into neighborhoods, especially crowded one, and especially mobile home subdivisions.

I know two people whose homes have burned to the ground. The candidate for County Commissioner I was going to hold a "virtual house party" for, Terrie Martin, had her own business--a Harley Davidson dealership--burn up the day of the event. One of the people who planed to participate, Allen Hallmark, lost his home that afternoon.

A person who was going to come to my house to continue a painting project wrote me a text this morning. It said. 

"Good morning. I was glad to see you did not get evacuated. My aunt and one cousin had to stay at our house, but their house was spared. My step brother and step sister each lost their homes and places of work.  I have been staying off the phone because of the high demand of calls. The fire out here at my home looks like it won't be a threat to us, as long as the wind is in our favor. We are in a state of disbelief."

A person helping me at the farm lives just outside the city limits of Phoenix, Oregon. His house and three others around it were spared but all the others in the neighborhood were burned to the ground. His house was, however, looted in the night. People broke in with a sledge hammer to the door, then spent several hours attempting, with torches and crowbars  to break into a gun safe he had at the house. They got in, found nothing, and then destroyed the walls looking for valuable objects that might have been hidden in the walls.

I am safe, but I live near the top of a hill. Some of the neighbors below me have "natural vegetation" which means scrub oak trees and dry grass. (My own home is landscaped and irrigated, a controversial choice. I use lots of water, but Medford has lots of water, and I wanted green things in my front yard below me as a fire break.) If a fire starts in homes with dry grass below me, I have 150 or so feet of separation. 

Farm: The homes that were formerly those of my grandparents and uncles are actually more endangered. The areas around them and the barns have equipment stored around them, which means some natural vegetation, now bone dry. Embers are falling, and if embers get started in dry grass it could easily move to the barns, which have both hay and equipment, and of course, there are the 90 year old homes themselves that could get started. It is the nature of farm homes to have gasoline and diesel stored In the area to run the equipment. 

Below are three photos.  The all are taken from the same angle, from my deck looking south. The first was of the fires burning up Talent and Phoenix by day. The second was the scene at night. The third was taken this morning. You can see nothing. The Valley is filled with smoke.

[Today's political blog follows. It is on the subject of Trump's comment to Bob Woodward.]

And here is a photo of a brand new forest fire, I happened upon. This is what one looks like from a distance of about a mile, when one cannot see the flames at the base of the fire. The fire was probably 50 acres in size then. It is several thousand acres now.

Photo from local media.  Note two things. One is the utter devastation of the places in the foreground, but look at the house just behind it. It appears to be untouched. Some people are lucky, some are not.

Added photo Thursday afternoon.  The fire skipped north from the south end of Medford to the north end.  Note the Freeway in the background.  The Freeway, Interstate 5, runs beside and sometimes directly over Bear Creek. The fire has travelled up the riparian area and then straying out to houses alongside it.

Trump: I'm White and OK. You're OK, too.

Trump to Woodward: "You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? Wow. Listen to you. No, I don't feel that at all."

Trump feels good about himself. No guilt. No empathy.  He knows he is OK, and so are other White people.

In the taped interview Bob Woodward had asked:

     "We share one thing in common, we're White, uh privileged. My father was a lawyer and a judge in Illinois, and we know what your dad did, and do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave to a certain extent, as it put me and lots of White privileged people in a cave, and that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain particularly Black people feel in this country?"

Trump mocked the question and questioner.

Some of my readers will see this as an extraordinary example of clueless lack of empathy. The son of a multi-multi millionaire, a New York playboy, doesn't acknowledge his extraordinary good fortune and is willfully blind to the problems of people he and his father were punished for discriminating against. Wow, huh?

Another way to look at it was political malpractice. He is a sitting president and a journalist is asking an obvious softball question. Any politician--any well brought up human being--would have seen it as an opportunity to show even some pretense of empathy. How easy it would have been for Trump to acknowledge that, yes, he had every advantage, but then segue into something about how he values everyone, how hard he works to understand other people's point of view.

Stop a moment and consider: If you were asked on tape if you understood the pain some fellow American was feeling, wouldn't your own first instinct be at least to pretend some sympathetic connection?

Trump did not.

It does not reflect good character, but it was probably excellent politics for a president who staked his re-election on maintenance of a traditional social order, and a reminder that he is a bulwark against cultural and demographic change. A significant divide in this country is over the issue of whether White Americans are under attack. Trump says they are. A lot of White Americans agree, especially White Evangelical Christian Americans, people who live in rural America, people who are part of gun culture, and people who have attitudes toward race that were common fifty years ago but are disapproved of now.

Sixty four percent of White Republicans believe discrimination against White people is as great as discrimination against Blacks, down slightly from 72% last year.

Asked the question whether generations of slavery, and then segregation and discrimination, made it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of poverty 80% of Republicans disagreed, up from 75% last year.

https://www.prri.org/research/racial-justice-2020-george-floyd/

On both questions Democrats answered very differently, with only 19% considering discrimination against Whites to be equal to that against Blacks, and only 25% disagreeing that the effects of discrimination lingered.

Mainstream media calls Trump's answer to Woodward tone deaf and extraordinary for its lack of empathy. They are not Trump's audience. His base was his audience and his answer both connected with them and it was politically artful. Notice that Trump did not argue the point. Instead he mocked Bob Woodward.  He said Woodward "drank the Kool-Aid, and therefore was part of the chorus of hated liberal elites and politically correct scolds who criticized Republicans for feeling the way they actually feel, and who don't think there is anything wrong with how they feel.

Most Trump voters do not consider themselves racist. Indeed, they resent enormously the charge, and are alert to even the implication. Saying nice things about White Power is problematic, as is defending Confederate flags, or people who say overtly racist things, but it is safe harbor to say that Democrats are wrong to think Whites have anything to feel guilty about.  

Republicans: just isolated incidents

Most humans like their own language, culture, and religion, and usually are most comfortable with people like themselves. Immigrants to America gather in their own neighborhoods and communities until they assimilate, i.e. "Little Italy" and "Chinatowns." My grandparents were Greek immigrants. My mother was born in Boston and lived primarily in Boston's Greek community, was bi-lingual, then met and married my father. I speak no Greek, nor do my first cousins. Three generations to assimilation for Europeans. 

Racial and religious differences slow and until recently sometimes legally prohibited the assimilation of some groups into American culture--Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, and Blacks most notably. Some Americans are suspicious and uncomfortable around those groups. They are "different."

Trump speaks directly to that discomfort. He defends White culture. He is OK. White culture is OK. Other White people are OK. Voters know who he is. He is White, he recognizes no legitimate grievance of Blacks, and he has contempt for any Democrat or liberal who thinks he ought to feel any differently.

There is a constituency for that.

Calculater: Will Covid Kill You?

 What are the chances you will die if you get COVID? 

About 1% if you are 70 and quite healthy. 

About 3% if you are 80 and have something wrong with you. Most people who are 80 have something wrong.

Marathon finisher at 78

Polls show Biden currently doing better with seniors than Hillary did. It might be because Biden  seniors identify with him. It might also be because seniors in America think that Trump has thrown them under the COVID bus.  

Trump staked his flag: COVID shutdowns are a Democratic nanny state worrywart thing, that Biden is wimpy to wear a mask, and that the virus is an exaggerated threat. Trump represents being courageous and free and getting back to normal. Trump says that if seniors want to shelter they can do so, but don't expect the country to shut down to accommodate such a tiny risk.

Trump's policy decision has electoral consequences. It may increase the turnout among the many White working class people who failed to turn out in 2016, especially in the Upper Midwest swing states. They are a large underdeveloped constituency for Trump. Trump's language on violence and the get-back-to-work message on COVID may keep those crucial states in Trump's camp. That is the obvious Trump strategy and it might work.

There is a flip side, though. Between now and the election seniors may become more conscious of the actual risks to themselves from Trump's policies and decide that a 2% or 4% or higher chance of dying if they catch the disease is just too much. Or not. People do risky things.

Biden has taken--intentionally or not--a "Senior Strategy" in which his policies are clearly friendlier to seniors than are Trump's as regards COVID, and it may mean he can win the states of Arizona and Florida, which means he would need only a single Upper Midwest state to get to 270 electoral votes. That strategy requires seniors to stay worried about COVID. Should they be?

Seniors want to know:  How much risk is Trump putting me in?

https://calculator.covid-age.com

The answer to this is a merger of age and health conditions, which the media describes as "co-morbidities." There are indeed people in their 60's, 70's, 80's and beyond who are in perfect health, although my observation is that in the real world, most people of retirement age have "co-morbidities." 

I suggest readers experiment with the linked Covid Calculator hosted by EveristHealth. My purpose was to see what different risk factors did to ones risk of hospitalization and death, and what were the absolute risks. The questionnaire gets at risk factors, asking ones sex, date of birth, height, weight, waist size, whether one smokes, blood pressure, A1C number (i.e. diabetes), Vitamin D level, and figures for Triglycerides and HDL. It is OK to leave some of these blank.  

The calculator adjusts ones "COVID age" up or down depending on the answers, recalculating ones "age" and therefore likelihood of hospitalization, ICU, or death. It asks if one has cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, lung disease, or if one is immunocompromised. Those move the risks substantially. Adjusting the number of cigarette per day from zero to 30 almost doubles ones mortality risk. Adjusting the weight figure from trim to plump does as well. 

Some results: 

A 30 year old in good health as a 0.02% chance of death, i.e. 2 in 10,000. No wonder they go to bars and hang out with friends. COVID is safer than riding a motorcycle.

A 50 year old man in good health has a 0.17% chance of death, i.e. less than 2 in 1000.

A 75 year old man in good health has a 0.87% chance of death if he gets COVID, and a 85 year old man in good health has a chance of death calculated at 1.7%. 

The risks grow when when one calculates for real Americans as we actually experience most of them, people with health problems. 

If we presume that the 75 year old male is somewhat overweight and has borderline diabetes, but not otherwise ill, his chances of being hospitalized if he catches the virus grow to 11%, of going into ICU to 5.2% and of dying of 2.5%. Lots of 75 year old men fit that profile.

Some 80 year olds run marathons and are in great health, like Jerry Evans in the photo above; most are not. Take an 80 year old man as we frequently see them in America, i.e.  somewhat overweight, with borderline type two diabetes, and some heart problems but under control, or maybe some lung problem from the smoking he did before quitting years prior. That very typical 80 year old's risk of hospitalization is 13%, of going into ICU is 7.6%, and dying is 5.6%. At age 85 with the same conditions his risk of hospitalization is 15%, of ICU is 8.4, and dying is 6.8%.

If the disease is out there and widespread, seniors will get exposed by somebody, and then they take their chances in the COVID death lottery. There are 50 million Americans over age 65, of which 22 million Americans are age 75 and older. If 1.5% of the people from 65 to 75 die from COVID if they get it, it means some 450,000 deaths. If 4% of the people in the 75 and older cohort die from it, we have another 1,000,000 deaths. 

The readers of this blog skew old. Check out your risk factors. Maybe readers will learn that their risk of death is one in twenty and will decide they are OK taking their chances. People assume bad things happen to others, not themselves.

Trump is betting that people are more afraid of urban violence than they are of COVID. Biden is betting on COVID.

Calculate your risk.

Young in Portland: Frustrated and Angry

Black Lives Matter protests are the catalyst, not the cause.

The real problems are bigger and long term: generational equity, unemployment, housing costs, mental illness, drugs, homelessness, income inequality, health care.

George Floyd's death set off something, but the protests in Portland persist because there are problems in America that haven't been addressed.

Portland is a victim of its own success. It is a prosperous, livable city, less expensive than San Francisco and Seattle, big enough to be interesting to young adults, a place that embraces craft beer, liberal politics, food trucks, gentrifying neighborhoods, and pride in being "weird."

Some of the problems that put Portland in the news as the poster child of Democratic misrule and the pathway for Trump's re-election flowed from its success. Housing prices were going up, but wages haven't kept pace, making Portland increasingly unaffordable for the young adults it was attracting. Oregon avoided California-type sprawl with land use planning rules, but denser urban centers, surrounded by rural open space--the intent--meant Portland itself is more crowded than it would otherwise be. Congestion is worse, automobile infrastructure is less, and people are being nudged toward mass transit faster than many want to go. It is social engineering for people who want to get along and share, not so much for live-free-or-die libertarians who want their own space.

Portland's government didn't want to be cruel to the homeless. It meant homeless camps were conspicuous, under bridges, along highways, downtown.

Click: Portland has nation's worst homeless problem

Then COVID made every problem worse.

Portland had a strong tradition of liberal-progressive government. There are a lot of Bernie Sanders-oriented activists, people who believe strongly that the establishment status quo isn't working. Oh, they think it works great for prosperous boomers--the establishment liberals who are content to do measured, incremental reform--but who are in fact preserving a status quo they benefit from. They say those Democratic liberals are content to slow walk addressing climate, implementing universal health care, and bringing income redistribution. The status quo is squeezing the life out of people in their 20s, they say, keeping them poor, destroying their planet, and burying them with debt rung up by the two-party duopoly, and they have every right to be impatient and pissed off. 

Who thinks that way? Lots of people in greater Portland. It makes the politics harder for a Democrat, pressured from both right and left.

John Flenniken lives in Portland and reads this blog and wanted to add his voice to this commentary on Portland's civil disturbances. 

Guest Post by John Flenniken

I was born in Portland 75 years ago. I am retired, a former high school chemistry teacher and employee of an electric utility. I have travelled and lived on the East Coast, in Wyoming, and travelled the country and the world. I live just outside Portland and describe myself as a Portlander.

John Flenniken

Let me set the stage for what is happening in this city I love. Portland has changed over the years since I lived in an apartment near Portland State College that was torn down and is now The Raddison on Broadway among assorted urban renewal and massive infrastructure projects, has changed the feel of Portland from one of a large town to a small urban city with all the attractions and problems of urban life. 

There are good things going on. The public school system still serves a majority of the school-aged children. The revitalized downtown area and waterfront are still open, spacious and inviting. Portland has long been considered a very livable city. But in the last 3 or 4 years the effects of the Great Recession, soaring housing costs, inattention to mental health issues in the community, and now the pandemic allowing nonviolent prisoners to be released early have added to the homeless population. 

Court orders barring "No Camping" or loitering coupled with local outreach to help feed, clothe and shelter have led to compounding the numbers of very visibly homeless unemployed and under-employed people. They end up camping on the streets to be near family services within the core of the city. The result is that the nicest open space areas of the downtown, adjacent to the upscale shopping venues, are crowded with people sleeping in doorways.

The City, spread over three counties, has tried to address it.  The mayor, Ted Wheeler, is in charge of overseeing the Portland Police (PPB) and their policies and practices, and if the buck stops anywhere, it stops with him. This time is also an election year and Wheeler has a strong challenger for his office requiring him to cater to the widest coalition he can muster.  What should be done and what is good politics is making his decisions worse.  Case in point the focus of the PPB was the suppression of gun violence, drug and gang activity. It was mostly centered in the Black community where minor infractions were met with maximum penalties, resulting in fully a quarter of the Black male community members having felony convictions. That got noticed and was part of the context for the City's response. It already had a reputation for being unreasonably punitive and racially biased. The distrust of the PPB is palpable. Then George Floyd was killed. The lid came off and the city boiled into the streets. Americans saw injustice televised. 

The problems compound. Businesses were affected by Governor Kate Brown's COVID “Stay Home, Save Lives” order, an order that was controversial and created demonstrations against the policy and her personally. People circulated recall petitions. There was a scramble to assemble a plan to care for the homeless, whose situation went from bad to worse, and there were fewer resources to deal with them.

The Black Lives Matter movement media attention was effectively hijacked by White Anti Fascists, Far Right movements and Trump’s thumping the Law & Order playbook all aided and muddled by street hooligans. Still there are daily peaceful protests in the Black community, and signs supporting BLM are up and flourishing in my neighborhood. My neighbors can separate the violence from the protest against systemic racial bias and wish the police would simply do their job and make that distinction as well. Peaceful protest - yes, Violence -no!

On warm summer nights the mixture of local and national politics from people stirred up from various points of view, plus street people, and rowdy youth make a near impossible situation. That should have been stopped by police taking immediate action toward looters, arsonists and vandals. It wasn't. Now people are bringing guns and people are getting shot and killed.  Patriot Prayer has scheduled a demonstration September 26th - what can go wrong now?