Portland's Police Force

What is going on with these guys? Last week, they shot a man who agreed to emerge from the house and was coming out backwards with his hands behind his head. That incident is the latest in a long string of Portland Police Bureau brutality.

I can't understand why the Police shoot to kill. What justification do they use for such excessive force? What's wrong with tazing and bean bagging?

Thirteen years ago I was arrested. The arresting officer did everything in his power to escalate the situation - he wanted to turn my misdemeanor into a felony, probably to make the arrest more worthwhile. He swore at me, he was insulting, aggressive, and rude. He told me he actually enjoyed bullying the people he arrested.

Have policemen always been this aggressive? I think they all need to become vegans and do yoga. Namaste.

Tea Partiers are pro-life, pro-tax cuts, and pro-defense - NOT REALLY

Tea Partiers are not so pro-life if the life in question is that of a child of illegal immigrants and the child needs medical care. Tea partiers are pro-defense, especially when they don't see the devastation of a 1,000 pound drone bomb or pick up the body parts of a 'collateral damage' strike. That's not pro-defense, it's non-defense - of Iraqi mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.
Tea Partiers are pro-tax cuts as long as it doesn't affect them personally. (see Medicare)

Nope. Tea Partiers are business as usual - selfish, self-absorbed, white, racist, middle class hypocrites. As one of their nifty little hand lettered signs at the convention said, "You can't fix stupid"

The Little Girl with the pink ribbons

Warning: This is a depressing post.

Yesterday, I picked up a Newsweek magazine. It contained a number of photos of the destruction in Haiti. One image in particular, will haunt me forever. The scene was of a courtyard filled with the bodies of those who did not survive the quake. I felt like an intruder on very sacred ground.

The image that will haunt me forever was of a little girl. She couldn't have been more than three or four years old. And her hair had been done in cute little ponytails with pink ribbons. Amid all of that death, dirt, agony, a little girl with bright, clean, pink ribbons in her hair. . . . . . . .

Did her mother survive? Was her mother lying next to her, caring for her in death as she had so obviously cared for her in life?

Little ponytails with pink ribbons . . . . . . . . . I won't ever forget.