Occupy Portland camp

In the paper recently I read about the takeover of two city parks that has been going on for two weeks here in Portland. The same thing is going on all over the country and all over the world! Just what do they hope to gain from all of that? No one is going to hand them jobs and the economy isn't going to get better over night. In the meantime, the parks will be partially destroyed and the people will probably eventually be arrested. I don't understand their purpose - I believe in what they're saying, but is that the way to go about it? They have a community kitchen, temporary library, information booth, first aid center, a community garden (can they grow vegetables in two weeks at this time of the year?) and a recycling area. That sounds better than my condo area, and they aren't paying rent! There's another block in town where the owner has agreed to let homeless people - Portland has a lot of those - take up residence in their tents. This was organized by a group called Right2Dream Too. Occupy Portland protesters collected tents for the group and are in support of their movement.

Our mayor is leaving town Thursday on a 10-day trade mission to China and Japan so he will be out of the city for a while. Interesting time to leave town! He hasn't said when he might put an end to the illegal camps. Maybe he can come up with another trade mission before he has to return to the mess here. What these people should be doing is reading up on all the candidates running for anything and find the ones who believe in the ideals they have. That's where it really counts - electing the persons with the right beliefs as far as you're concerned. But unless congress settles down, I don't think anything will change very quickly.

I found this picture of Cindy taken a few years ago. I think she was getting ready for an "occupy something" with her cave-like tent she made over our dining room table. I thought she was just having fun, but I'll bet she knew that "Occupy Portland" was coming. However, she doesn't live here anymore so she won't be participating. Too bad because she would have fit right in and even added a little color.