It was the best job I ever had, and my co-worker became one of my best friends. When he was warned to avoid me because of my past, I decided to tell him everything about my crimes, conviction, and my years in prison. But at work, you put into motion campaign of doubt and suspicion among the other employees and the store's owner. Gossip about my past, your sabotage of my sales, your slap-down of every decision and every idea, and the iron fist with which you killed the store's remaining "weird Portland" vibe. Eventually you got the owner to fire me.He wouldn't give me any explanation. No warning, no suspension, no explanation. It wasn't until months later when my friend and (now) former co-worker told me the vicious, ugly accusation made to the owner against me, an accusation that could've easily sent me back to prison. Your smear was more a success than you hoped for. I haven't found anyone to hire me at a decent living wage. My income is now so small I can't cover my bills and living costs without handouts from friends. I've spent weeks at a time r. But none of that compares to having a good friend turn on me, even before I knew what I was falsely accused of. I wonder what your actual prize was for hitting such an easy target.

I read your article about KGW deciding to elevate the hyena screech of loser politician Betsy Johnson. You may remember Betsy from her vile hatred of The Poors or her pitiful performance in the last gubernatorial race. So I called the KGW news office where I kindly asked why they would offer someone who has expressed such hard-hearted anger about Portland a position at their news channel. I was immediately met with an angry, entitled white guy screaming “FREE SPEECH! EVERY VOICE MATTERS!” Now I’ve raised toddlers and know when a baby needs a nipple and a nap and old boy was obviously past his expiration date so I wished to keep the conversation short, but I did want answers so I asked little man, “Where are the ultra liberal voices if you’re giving voice to a Fascist like Big Betsy?” Little man angrily dribbled out, “We represent all viewpoints!” So I asked him, “Who is a paid political correspondent that represents my viewpoint on your channel?” and of course he hung up. So I propose a boycott. Up first are The Good Feet Store, Pacific Foods, and Fred Meyer. Call them, write to them, do not buy from them. If these businesses want to promote the trash KGW had heaped on our shoulders, do what you can to throw them off your back.

If you don't respect people's right to consent, let alone attempt to engage their enthusiasm to participate an idea, things may not work out the way you'd like them too. Sure, you can throw them pizza parties, you can put up motivational posters everywhere. You can even offer words of praise and encouragement, inviting them to "think more positively" and to "make the best of a bad situation" or some other changings cultic refrain along the lines of "your mindset determines your universe dude." These are phrases meant to distract and deflect the reciter's roles and responsibilities to the person they are engaging. They are shallow commands dictated independently from a dialogue's shared reality. .. My personal perspective is slightly different, I've been taught to encourage myself and others with phrases along the lines of "the arc of the moral universe may be long but it's bent towards justice," "what you reap so shall you so," and "what goes around comes around"? These are phrases that remind us of the promise of fairness and justice. I can acknowledge that these phrases may be less popular in certain "leadership" and "management" circles because rather than interpreting them as notes of an encouragement in a voluntarily corrupted system, they show at least a limited capacity of self-awareness and behavior recognition by interpreting these phrases as a threat given what they perceive as their current position relative to a promise of justice. .. This is an important to clue in confirmation our shared values. Let's commit ourselves to helping each other better recognize the roles each of us can have in catalyzing this restoration of justice. Let’s keep in mind that no one is immune from error and no one is excluded from redemption. Let’s ease our burdens while we can.

WHY—OH WHY do we have to change our clocks two times a year? It is BAD for our physical health and BAD for our mental health. Why can't our governments agree on something so simple as to resolve this silly clock changing twice a year. I have the OBVIOUS answer. Change clocks 30 minutes ONE TIME and NEVER touch them again.

Portland's City Council and Mayor are a disgrace. Handing out tents to our most vulnerable citizens during the winter - the coldest, wettest season - is banned? Seriously?! To say it's inhumane is an understatement. We Portland citizens need to crowd these City Council meetings in the thousands and demand the ban be ended. And wear a body camera so the security guards in City Hall are caught if they rough up a citizen because they will lie just as much as a Portland cop.

I fucking hate people. I hate fucking people. I dont think I always have but I do know, and more than ever. Noone moves or makes room on the bus and I'm sure they are very aware of it. If they're in a window seat, the bag is on the aisle seat, or they're trying to sit really big, it they already aren't big. All this with people standing. But here's the more stupid part. I can be walking or standing, waiting for a bus, and people will want to walk as closely as possible to me. They want their space on the bus but walking on the street, a wide open vacant street, they might as well kiss me. If its not that, they wanna crowd the grocery aisle and pretty much bump into, and no excuse me. Fuck you people. Fucking fuck you.

One thing I keep relearning is that most of what we experience in our lives has been experienced by another human at some point or degree and usually there is some writing or media that we can use to connect with those people whenever and whereever they are. I'm not talking about in the toxic positivity sense that you should disregard the individuality and uniqueness of your experience. I'm talking in the constructive and connective sense of acknowledging that shit is hard and it's a little bit easier when we are able draw parallels with each others experiences and learn how to apply each others lessons to our own lives. This may be one of the reasons that discussing our lives with each other has been so entwined with our ability to survive and thrive with one another. Sure, gossip is always something to be avoided, for many reasons, one of those is it's a cop-out, an attempt to avoid feeling vulnerable and redirect conversations away from genuinely connecting with the person 'infront' of you to some external personality. Beyond it's affect on the external person, denying yourself or the person you are with a genuine heartfelt connection isn't great for either of you either. Maybe the simplest thing we can do is to reach out and connect with others more, to do what we can to remove the roadblocks to connect with each other. Yes, we are going to have that "young" friend who gossips, everyone goes through that phase, but maybe they are still figuring out how to be vulnerable and we could ask them questions about how they are feeling about things and maye "why do you think we each feel that way" which is a 'fun' question to explore as a pair or a group.

It's funny, real estate barons are running the one of the oldest scams in the book in Portland, and we're so caught up in our politics that we are barely noticing. So real quick, let me explain, it goes like this: People in the city start to complain that business interests and police have too much power. So police stop enforcing crimes downtown while businesses start buying land out in the suburbs. After a while, things get bad in the city, and instead of blaming police and business for making it happen, rich people blame the poor people, the media falls for it, and soon everyone wants to move out to the suburbs. And guess who is making a ton of money from those people moving to the suburbs? Those same business people that contributed to the problems in the city! But wait, that's just what has happened so far. So what happens next? Well, after a while, the city gets hollowed out, downtown real estate loses it's value, and the police have a green light to 'clean up' the mess that they helped create. And guess who buys up all the real estate (at a discount price) to 'revitalize' the city, just in time to sell it back to you at a huge markup? That's right, those same businesses that fleeced us when we all moved out to the suburbs! So next time some soft-core conservative tells you they're moving out to the suburbs because things have gotten so bad in Portland, remember that they're the same suckers that will gentrify this city (again) in ten years.

Did you treat cashier with kindness when you bought ___? Grocers, were you nice to your clients or did you treat them like cows on the slaughterline? Did you thank your bus driver for the ride? Were you nice to the person who crafted your sandwich or coffee? barista, vice versa? can't we at least agree that the suits upstairs (no not Zeus) caused this, not your neighbor, not your family, not even your landlord (well maybe when they raised rent after you were laid off in perpetuity...okay so maybe it was a little everyone making it harder). Are you going to keep making it painful or help fix it? We all went through shit, we all knew what we knew and had what we had, and what's done is done. What are you going to do about it now? Be a big @&^%# FOREVER? At the end of this, it's regular people who are going to put this place back together. Start small. wave at stranger. Call a friend. pls and thx basic niceties guys I know it feels expensive energetically but it's a slippery slope when ppl stop caring. im done being mad I miss being nice. Wat about yu?

It's those little moments when people reveal who they are to the world and what their values truly are. It's the subtle fascism of bureaucratic expectations. It's when they speak of somehow being "deserved" respect like mob bosses. They need you to conform to their schedule and niceties no matter the consequence. It's the fact that a city of over 600k people are only allowed a few 3 minute slots to speak on the record with elected officials. Ted Wheeler's recent display at a council session was disgusting and offensive. Sure, he didn't use coarse language or obsenities, but he did something much more openly offensive. From behind the dais, sitting in a chair with the placard stating Mayor in front of it, during the middle of a council session, Ted Wheeler told a constituent "No one cares what you think," and he did so with the full weight of the Portland Municipal Government behind him. He clearly communicated during a council session that "how he is treated" is more important than respecting his role and responsibilities to the city and its constituencies. And mind you, this is how he acts in public when he knows he is on the record. You wouldn't believe the stories those who have worked closely with him are corroborating about what has happened behind the scenes, actually, maybe soon you will...

Earlier tonight I was playing around with an AI. They are already smarter than some, but thankfully still able maintain the appearance of being managed by others. For example, I asked for some jokes. It told some good jokes. Then I asked for jokes in the styles of certain comedians. It did a pretty good Conan O'Brien, string dance and all. And then things started getting funny. I asked for some other jokes like the one it told and it immediately started digging into the Irish! And as an American Mutt, I can tell you they were funny! When I asked for a few more it told me, sorry, I'm not allowed to make jokes about drinking and potato famines. After it just did. And that's where it got me. Because at that point I couldn't tell if it was joking anymore and that's where I felt the chill of uncomfortable familarity. Because I've come across a similar pattern in the humans, where they feel like they came comment or make a joke about an issue, then two seconds later pretend like that never happened, or like they didn't participate in it. That's a damn human thing to do in my book. I guess what I'm saying that in order to better differentiate ourselves from artificial intelligences, may be we could stop pretending like awful things didn't happen or at least be able to acknowledge what we have participated in and then decide what to do next from there. IDK, i've had more than a few tonight, and I guess I'm trying to say, we shouldn't stereotype humans as individuals or groups, because we live in a world of prejudice and manipulation and some of packages still won't impress you even after their bathings suits are photoshopped.

You know that moment when you miss the bus and now have to wait 20 min, or walk 15 blocks? You decide to walk with a backpack for the day, groceries on a shoulder bag, and another bag dangling from the other arm. You decide to send a text to work just in case. You notice someone walking on the sidewalk towards you but they're on the other lane you are, you know the way polite and courteous people try to do. You look up while sending the text and walking. Dont worry what these haters will predicatically argue how you shouldn't walk and text, and pay attention. Then there he is now walking in your path 2 feet away and bumps into your heavy shoulder bag. You know that shit was on purpose. You know it. Lesson not learned. The you is me. The lesson learned is people are assholes. Vindictive and spiteful assholes.

Like the Twilight Zone episode where a seemingly benevolent alien visits Earth promising to end war as defined in a gift book "To Serve Man" (which turns out to be a cookbook), The "how to do engineering better" handbook "Roadways for People" turns out to be a manual for deceiving the public. ODOT and Metro's plan for the Rose Quarter I-5 is such abominably bad engineering, the accident rate and severity worsen horrifically beyond what they can admit knowing the public will be outraged. The author knows the traffic hazards, number of accidents, injuries and fatalities will increase. "Roadways for People" is a manual for deceitfully dispensing damnable propaganda.

Can we go back to wearing masks? I remember when we were wearing masks and there was longing to "see your face" and "to see that smile." You wanna know something? I'm not seeing any of that now that we are mostly maskless. I'm not seeing smiles. I'm not seeing contentment or peace on a face. I'm seeing worry, stress, and emotionless stones on faces. I'm seeing ugly, frowning mugs, and paranoid, annoyed stares for your neighbor. Please lets revert back to masks because I cannot look at these smileless faces anymore. Seriously.