Late summer 2023 Tiny Letter
Hello, friends. You'll notice this newsletter looks a bit different. I have moved away from the Substack platform. Unfortunately, Substack, under the guise of free speech, has become a bit too hands off about hate speech, slander, and misinformation--and doesn't appear to be following their own rules. This tiny letter just goes out to a few dozen people, so my leaving the platform will have no impact at all. But I just wasn't comfortable using it to publish my own thoughts. I have switched to Button Down.
-- -- -- --
Portland report, past the one year mark
When people ask me how it's going, I tell them that Portland is good to me. And despite the notes that follow, that hasn't changed since my arrival. Like many places in the US, or the world, how you fare is strongly tied to your privilege, resources, and luck. However, from a governance perspective, the city is quite dysfunctional.
Let me see if I can explain this concisely, with a few examples.
The city and county governments are kinda broken.
Leadership is often territorial, departments are siloed and don't coordinate, and it often feels like leaders lack a sense of urgency. For example, the Department of Transportation hired a contractor to plant 30 trees in a grassy triangle in East Portland. Unfortunately, they made no plan to water them when the contract ended.
...watering trees is outside the bureau’s scope: “We only trim trees for visibility and clear brush. We simply are not set up for nor have the skills for tree maintenance beyond that.”
-- PBOT Spokesperson
Now all the trees are dead, the money gone.
Homelessness, substance addiction and mental health are a (mostly) unaddressed plague
These issues are impacting many American cities, Portland is not alone. However, this city has the perfect storm of very high housing costs, lack of mental health treatment options, and drug decriminalization which, while well-intentioned, was very poorly managed.
*****************
In some ways, Portland is to the rest of Oregon what Madison is to the rest of Wisconsin--an island of progressive blue in an ocean of red. I often wonder what people from red counties think when they drive through -- because even from the highway, it's easy to get the impression that this is a city in chaos. Graffiti, trash, tent encampments. Our graffiti aficionados are so dedicated to their particular form of disorder that they will obscure highway signs and even wayfinding signs for cyclists. Nothing says "I'm going to stick it to The Man" like making it harder for someone on a bicycle to find their way.
A culture of lawlessness and permissiveness
"Live and let live" is great. Portland is very tolerant of quirks and revelry. You might be running late to a dinner party, and find yourself stuck in your vehicle for an extra five minutes while 100 cyclists in their birthday suits ride by, accompanied by Earth, Wind & Fire's "Dancing in September". Yes, that was the Naked Bike Ride. Just be patient, they'll pass soon enough.
However, the culture tolerates a lot of bad behavior. Graffiti, speeding and intoxicated driving (I regularly smell cannabis when I'm in traffic). And some of the worst parking jobs I've ever seen. I don't think anyone really likes these behaviors, but there's very little enforcement of the laws prohibiting them. So in short, people feel like they can get away with things, and they are often right.
The problem is compounded because we have a police force that has historically been quite racist and unaccountable itself (and under a consent decree with the Department of Justice since 2014). So many people don't trust the cops. Unfortunately, a severe shortage of law enforcement resources means that many crimes go uninvestigated and unpunished. I have heard more than once someone say "you call the cops and they don't come". The city needs far more police officers, but we need good ones, and need to be accountable.
Think about this problem from a recruitment standpoint. You have a Police Department with a lousy track record. Reformers come in, and try to make it better. If you are a good person and want to be a police officer, why would you want to join such an embattled department? Even if you are trying to operate with integrity every day you walk the beat, many people dislike and distrust you reflexively, because while you act as an individual, you are viewed as representing the institution.
Finally, but not finally...
Our city has long had a very archaic form of government, consisting of a mayor and council of commissioners, each responsible for overseeing a different division of government (Police, Fire, Transportation, etc.), but not really expected to have expertise in their respective area. In a recent election, Portlanders finally passed a charter which changes this to a more modern system of city councilors, and mayor + a city manager. I'm hopeful that this will facilitate a more effective and more accountable government.
On to the more fun stuff...
How to communicate when trust is low
When a relationship has very little trust, you tend to interpret everything someone says in the worst possible light, or you may hear hostility, contempt, or dismissiveness where none exists. On the other side of the exchange, the conversation becomes a minefield, where it feels like everything you say gets misinterpreted or turned against you no matter how careful you are trying to be. This can turn into a death spiral of trust where every interaction ends up with each of you hardening against each other a little more and filing away ever more wounds and slights.
This is so well written. This kind of fracture happens a lot in friendships, romantic relationships, or business collaborations, which is the focus of this article. It's so nice to hear people thinking deeply about this.
How to communicate when trust is low, on Charity WTF
The wild, unaccountable world of debt collection
I was amused to read that in many cases, when debt collectors come calling, if you are armed with a certain amount of information, you may be able to dodge some or all of your debts.
The debt collection system does not track consumer debts in a systematic, accountable way. When the debt collector calls and says you own $XXX, that may be true, but they often they lack the paper trail to verify it. If you point this out, you may end up paying nothing at all. Hopefully, you're not receiving calls from debt collectors. But you may still find the article fascinating, a glimpse into a chaotic financial underbelly.
Credit card debt collection
Credit card debt is the waste stream of consumer finance. The debt collection industry ends up being sordid, for complex structural and microeconomic reasons.
50 years of hip-hop, a sample breakdown
I first discovered hip-hop when visiting my grandparents in Chicago in the late 1980s. There was a radio station called WBMX which played hip-hop and R&B tracks which hadn't yet crossed over to mainstream radio. I was enthralled by the sound. You will certainly recognize at least some of the samples referenced here. I can't embed YouTube videos here, so please follow the link.
Tall tale postcards
I love postcards. If you ask, I'll even send you one. I love these early cut/paste fake postcards. They seem like the kind of thing you could use to fake out a small child, at least for a while.
I believe that briefly, I persuaded the two boys I used to babysit that Cheetos grow on trees, because we found a tree that had some kind of flower or seed pod that looked a bit like Cheetos. The ruse did not last long.
Exaggerated Fruit On Vintage Postcards – c.1910
ICP (Insane Clown Posse) anecdote
I was reading an article about this "horror-core" rap group and their fans on the excellent Metafilter, a true American subculture, when I noted this anecdote, which I love.
///
Middle of nowhere Indiana, middle of the night, pre-smartphone/GPS days, so maybe 2005 or 2006? I'm trying to make my way across the state by following some east-west blue highway, because the interstates are like 100 miles to the north and south. Road atlas on seat, kicking it old school. I have to pee so bad that I just pull into some abandoned store's parking lot at a crossroads...and drive right over a big old sharp piece of scrap metal. It's my wife's car, and for some goddamned reason the tire iron is completely missing. I already had a terrible headache and now I've got to figure out how to take the lug nuts off the wheel?
I'm just about resigned to sleeping in the car and trying to sort it out after dawn, when in pulls a beater blasting what turns out to be ICP. Four or five total misfits pile out when they see me and the obvious flat tire. You could not ask for a more helpful bunch: "We were gonna light some trash on fire in a barrel and maybe smoke some weed, but we gotta get you back on the road again." They even drew me a map on the back of a fast-food bag to point me to the nearest place where I could get a proper tire put on after daybreak. I ended up sitting with them around the trash fire for a good chunk of the night: they were absolutely uneducated, underemployable and probably going to stay that way, but they were helpful, kind and there was nothing stupid about them. They were very clear that it was the ICP spirit that motivated them to be helpful: "clowns gotta take care of each other, sir." They made it clear that "clown" was intended entirely as a compliment.
///
"Say it’s because your dad was a fool. Don’t defend me." | MetaFilter
Stereogum's interview with Insane Clown Posse, of note is the following paragraph: And the amount of gay Juggalos out there is really surprising. I think about them doing their research and...
A white supremacist took MDMA for a study, and it snapped him out of his beliefs: 'Why am I doing this?'
A leader in the US white nationalist movement realized he wanted to change his extreme beliefs after he took the psychoactive drug MDMA as part of a scientific study.
The man, who is referred to by his first name, Brendan, was enrolled in an MDMA study in February 2020, which investigated whether the drug could increase the pleasantness of human touch, according to an adaptation of the book "I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World" by Rachel Nuwer, published by the BBC.
I'm sure I'm not the first to wonder what happens when people with abhorrent beliefs take a drug which engenders feelings of compassion and connectedness.
White Supremacist Renounces Beliefs After Taking MDMA in Study
30 minutes after taking the MDMA pill, Brendan questioned his actions and realized his life was missing connection.
///////////////////////////////////////
CLOSING QUOTE
"Kids getting their sex ed from porn is like teaching kids how to walk by showing them videos of parkour."
- Alex Falcone, comedian