News of the dark days

Here we are, just another afternoon in the addict paradise known as Portland. The scene at the Kerby Kampground over by Emanuel Hospital has moved from Stage 1 (tents erected) to Stage 2 (garbage strewn all over the place). That took about six weeks. Within a month or so we will move to Stages 3 (stolen goods scene) and 4 (violent crime scene). Eventually the city will sweep the place, but it will probably be a month or two. Fetty Christmas to all.

In the news, the O reminded us yesterday that Multnomah County doesn't know what it's doing, and despite hundreds of millions of tax dollars that have been wrested from working people, the county bureaucrats and shiftless nonprofits have gotten little to nothing accomplished to clean up the mess on the city's streets. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, the local media aren't critical thinkers. They never seem to spend much time digging into the facts, and the problems are reported in a superficial way and never really analyzed. 

After setting lofty goals to house homeless Portlanders facing some of the highest barriers, Multnomah County officials are learning it’s much more difficult than they anticipated.

That drivel is the lead paragraph of the article in the O. It is such a pathetically weak spin on the situation – the opposite of journalism, really. Earth to reporter Nicole Hayden: Maybe everyone knew the goals were completely fake right from the start. Maybe it's not difficult but the bureaucrats are incompetent. Maybe a lot of people (including Sharon Meieran on the county commission) said the county was going about the projects in the wrong way. But no. In the O, it's however the bobbleheads want to spin it.

Oh, well. At the end of the story, we learn that Chevy Vega's gang is heading out to try cleaning up Troutdale now; they'll get back to Portland later.

Negrete said outreach workers are starting at a second Housing Multnomah Now site this week, this time targeting Thousand Acres Park, a large green space in Troutdale. Members of the Multnomah County HOPE Team, the homeless outreach arm of the county sheriff’s office, will be the first workers at that site, though the county plans to bring on two additional nonprofits to assist with the work as well.

How many nonprofit executive directors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 

Meanwhile, you hear nothing from or about Kevin Dahlgren, the good-trouble-maker who's been filming the hideous street scenes in the Pacific Northwest and interviewing the tent addicts on YouTube and social media. He was indicted earlier this month in Portland on charges of identity theft, good old regular theft, and official misconduct – he used to work fot the City of Gresham – but the county D.A., Mikey Schmidtshow, hasn't released any details. As everybody in the establishment is quick to point out, though, there are 19 charges – count 'em, 19! – and so decide for yourself, he must be guilty and a no-good filthy liar. 

The most significant upshot of all this is that Dahlgren's court-appointed lawyer has apparently advised him to shut up and stop posting anything on the internet, which he's done. It's been almost a month now since we've heard a peep out of him. 

I have no idea what Dahlgren did or what specifically he's being accused of. If he's guilty, he should be punished. But if they were charging him with crimes just to stop him from further embarrassing Mikey and the local media, I do know that it worked. Oh and funny thing, although it's illegal in Oregon any more for the cops to give out a suspect's mugshot, somehow Dahlgren's got leaked.

It seems to me that we need more Dahlgrens and a lot fewer Schmidts and Vegas around here, if we're ever going to dig out of the massive hole we're in. Unfortunately, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction.