Category Archives: Portland

‘Tiny Grass is Dreaming’

There are no statues of Todd Beamer in Newark, N.J., but there is one of George Floyd. For all of the extensive 20th anniversary coverage of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, this oversight seems to have escaped notice. On Sept. 11, 2001, Beamer, 32, boarded United Airlines Flight 93 in Newark and headed for a business […]

Body Cams: A ‘Neutral Third Eye’

How perfect that the first U.S. police department to study body-worn cameras on officers was in Rialto, Calif., where Rodney King met his Maker. Years before King died in 2012 of a drug overdose at his home in Rialto, he became famous when Los Angeles police officers beat him following a high-speed chase – an […]

Moms Are Here, Nothing to Fear

With the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death behind us, will the nice white ladies return this summer with their protest signs honoring a man none of them would have wanted for a neighbor? “We can’t stop protesting,” the Wall of Moms tweeted over the weekend. “Like John Lewis said, ‘Find a way to get […]

Dollar Signs in Their Eyes

George Floyd didn’t change the world. He made a fool of it. The man who bought a pack of cigarettes with an allegedly counterfeit  $20-bill, then refused to return the cigarettes, ended up leaving an estate worth $27 million. That’s the settlement his family received because Big Floyd didn’t want to give the cigarettes back […]

A New Face on the ‘Creep Sheet’

How do you know you’ve finally arrived after being a member of a marginalized minority? You’re treated like a white guy. Welcome to the privileged world of white power, Rep. Diego Hernandez.  How do you like it? Hernandez (D-East Portland) is facing expulsion from the Oregon House of Representatives after a Conduct Committee recommended he […]

What Could Go Wrong?

It’s hard to get excited over the insurrection in Washington D.C. after a year when rioting became acceptable in the U.S. If it’s OK to go on a rampage in service to Black Lives Matter, why can’t a QAnon freak like Jake Angeli roam the Senate floor showing off his bare chest, painted face and […]

Roughing It in Lake ‘No Negro’

Diego Stolz would have loved to trade places with Mya Gordon, a young black teenager who made a documentary about the racism she encountered in Lake Oswego, Ore. – also known as Lake ‘No Negro.’ That’s the title she gave her documentary, “Lake ‘No Negro.’” It could be a slur in the hands of a […]

Fanfare for Donald Trump

Should Donald Trump live to see Election Day, he deserves another win. It would be a rebuke to America’s vaunted media who have devoted the last four years to waging war on him. This is the same media who are forever telling us that the president of the United States is the most powerful man […]

Investing in White Supremacy

The George Floyd Gravy Train is about to the leave the station. If you’re black and you haven’t figured out how to monetize Big Floyd’s passing, hurry. Inconvenient truths are piling up. A week ago, prosecutors in Minneapolis released more toxicology reports confirming that Floyd had enough Fentanyl in him to cause pulmonary edema – […]

Portland: A City of Nobodies

Here’s a glimpse into the future of law enforcement in Portland, Ore.: A hand-scrawled cardboard sign taped outside the wall of the Stevens-Ness Law Publishing Co., “Per Rico and Riot Ribs please don’t vandalize.” Will Portland’s nationally-recognized protests, which have included vandalism and looting, devolve into a protection racket? The Stevens-Ness store is a block […]