Rioters in Downtown Portland

[beez]

I live outside of Portland.

It used to be a weird, quirky city filled with some great restaurants and Powell's Books.  (I love that place!)

But whenever I'm in Portland (usually one week out of the month) I stay at a secure hotel, eat at the hotel, take the interstate to the hospitals where I need to work, eat at the hospitals, then go right back to the hotel using the interstate.

I avoid the surface roads always.

Last time I was there (3 weeks ago) I was awoken several times over a couple of nights by flash-bangs the police were using to break up the riots.

One morning I found what happened to be a can of mace and several cell phones in some bushes by the hotels smoking area.

Some rioters looked to ditch their phones and hide at the hotel.

Cops still tracked them and arrested them.

Businesses are not just boarded up.

They are leaving Portland.

They can't afford the shutdowns, the lootings, the riots.

This will be looking like Detroit in a few weeks.

It's such a damned waste.

My stomach stays in a knot while my husband is away from home. He drives a truck interstate; he has been blessed, so far, to be away from the madness.  I hope that continues, and he stays safe. He and all the other truck drivers who have no choice on where they have to drive.

I've never been able to understand the destruction of one's own neighborhood: the burning, looting, destroying of businesses that are needed on a daily basis. I just can't wrap my head around the level of ignorance that it takes to imagine that sort of behavior is justified. 

Stay safe, dear beez!

Thank you ma'am!

Will do.  My wife is the same way.

She's just sick whenever I have to go to Portland now.

She worries more about me going to Portland than when I had to go to Kabul in Afghanistan!