August 6, 2020: An Abundance of Concerns

The cover of the forthcoming issue of The Atlantic features two big stories, equal billing, which is how it feels right now.

Well, it feels like there are at least two big stories. The Atlantic has the virus and the ongoing societal reckoning with race. In Portland, we are also devoting a big chunk of brain space specifically to protesting and to policing, local and then federal, which was certainly sparked by the murder of a black man, George Floyd, by a white police officer, so the protests began in response to a terrible racial injustice, but police bias is only part of the story of race in America.   So, multiple big stories.

This overabundance of trouble is reflected in my inbox and feed and alerts, local, state, and national this morning.  (International has tragedy too.)

 

Consider Portland vacuums tear gas residuefrom storm drains downtown.

 

So that’s toxic residue left behind from the visit from federal troops (Chad Wolf says they will be back! Or they are STILL HERE, just lying in wait!), which ties it to protests around racial reckoning , but it also is a reminder of another huge global concern (alas, eclipsed by these other issues) :  the environment. (We really don’t want the toxic residue from the gas going straight into the river.)

 

And what’s the very next headline? Return of the Tear Gas.  Last night, it was used by our Portland Police, not downtown, East Precinct. I read the headline and kept going.

 

First line of the next article?  Today's the day Oregon is likely to announce its 20,000th coronavirus diagnosis. I know, compared to other states, we are off to a slow start. But it’s hitting some communities very hard. The Warm Springs Reservation just extended their quarantine for another week.

 

And from the next OPB piece? Possibly my favorite few lines:  “The Portland Bureau of Transportation imposed a $528,000 fine on the federal government for the fence surrounding the federal courthouse downtown, OPB learned yesterday. Officials with the city say the fence was erected without permits, obstructs a bike lane and "creates a hazard to the public." “

Yes, we are trying to sue the feds for putting up a fence (the site of the very worst violence, that fence around the Federal Courthouse) which obstructed a bike lane. DO  NOT obstruct bike lanes in Portland! 

 

I have a lawyer friend who consistently catches the slimiest possible bad guys on tax fraud. I mean, really slimy bad guys, the ones who traffic young women and swindle old people. “It was just a lingerie modelling company, honest!” Fine, whatever, can’t prove it wasn’t, but you didn’t pay your taxes for all that money, did you, so into the clink you go! It’s a time-honored way to catch bad guys. I would purely love it if Portland somehow caught the feds on “bike lane obstruction.”

 

For that matter, I’d love it if we could nab some national crooks on tax fraud, or fraud and self-dealing – another headline today, about the NRA! Back in the day, I wanted to protest about gun control. Why am I nostalgic for issues of that size? It was a big issue! It still is! (I don’t know the New York Attorney General who filed this case, Letitia James, but I know someone who does. She posted the link to the NRA article this morning, with the comment, “Go, Tish!”  It made me happy to know I am one away from Tish, may she fight the good fight.)

The next headline is about how Oregon’s unemployment situation was vastly  worsened by a bad computer system. 

And that unemployment mess, representing individual and family suffering, only begins to touch on the next big concern barreling at us, which will be The Economy, right? Shades of the Five Competing Imperatives which came to me in March:

We need herd immunity

We need to flatten the curve

We need to help each other (I’ve expanded this to cover race and inequality and injustice)

We need to keep the economy afloat

We need tools

You will note that none of today’s articles cited are specifically about the tools we need to combat the virus (there are some great articles about medical advances right now!) nor our very first (imaginary) friend, herd immunity, but THAT one, THAT is covered in a terrific article in The Atlantic! Remember The Atlantic, at the beginning of all this? There is a great article about immunology! Turns out the focus on “herd” and “immunity” is … it’s complicated. But there’s a really good article on all of that. I’m aiming to get to it here tomorrow, if I can just focus.