Category Archives: Mental illness

The Monsters Bide Their Time

We’re all living on Maple Street now. Has there ever been a more sheep-like animal than humans? The panic over COVID-19 is absurd. Even if it should turn out that coronavirus is as dreaded as the politicians and media claim it is, we will have behaved in an embarrassing way. What’s next – a lynch […]

The Trial of Jeremy Christian

How timely that Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum should kick off her new Hate Hotline while the murder trial of Jeremy Christian is under way. Christian is the “white supremacist” (as the media call him) who stabbed three white men on a Portland, Ore., MAX train on May 26, 2017. As the story went, he […]

This is Not a Good Life

One of the most frightening episodes of Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” was the tale of Anthony, a 6-year-old boy with mental powers that allowed him to read other people’s minds and act on them with his thoughts. Anthony could turn a cat into a rug. He could make a rat devour itself until it […]

Turning Police Into Uber Drivers

Coming soon to Portland, Ore.: A touch of Baltimore ghetto. In 2019, Portland’s white progressives can bask in the glow of Jo Ann Hardesty’s dark brown skin and let it hide their own pale provincialism. These are people who love to bemoan Portland’s whiteness – but don’t have the guts to move some place where […]

Going Postal? Me Too!

It’s amazing more newsrooms haven’t been shot up by the likes of Jarrod Ramos. The news business angers somebody every day, and newsrooms are often readily accessible, especially smaller newspapers. Open the door to many smaller newspapers during regular business hours, and you can walk right in, usually to be greeted by a receptionist. The […]

‘Please Do Something!’

How can a country that can’t handle a stupid tweet from Roseanne Barr possibly do anything about school shootings? We can hit the delete key on someone who has offended the wrong people, and make her disappear. We can’t do that with killers. We can’t even judge them too harshly. We offer them a seat […]

A Good Shoot or Bad Shoot?

The loss of a life isn’t always tragic. Sometimes it makes perfect sense. Take John A. Elifritz, for instance. On his last day on earth in Portland, Ore., Elifritz, 48, acted like a man with a long criminal history and a meth habit. After several hours of threatening to cut his own throat, menacing other […]

Our Hateful Gun Debate

And the Oscar for best killer goes to … That’s how it’s starting to feel in America. Our real-life, mass shootings with the dramatic cell phone videos and gripping narratives by survivors resemble violent movies. American popular culture long ago made violence cool. The proliferation of high-capacity weapons, far beyond what is needed for hunting […]

A Tax Grab For the Neediest

Everybody’s still waiting for the man with a bag. We want stuff all year long, not only during the holidays. We all want more. We’ve got a trillion-dollar national deficit and personal credit card debt, also in the trillions, to show for it. One of the most whimsical – and saddest – sounds of America’s […]

Portland’s Twisted Values

New York City has Central Park, and Portland, Ore., has an elaborate trail system that extends throughout the city, from Forest Park in the northwest to the southwest hills. Central Park has its nooks and crannies where homeless can hide, but nothing like the camps found in available green spaces in Portland. Portland’s urban woods […]