I had a good day in Portland yesterday. We celebrated my wife’s birthday in Laurelhurst Park, with a small group of family and friends while social distancing outside.
1/

While we were there we witnessed an outdoor wedding and overheard a beautiful set of vows and a powerful speech from the officiant.
2/

Less than 100 yards away some people set up a table of pre-paid post cards that you could write and they’d mail to your elected representatives, in support of the @USPS.
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Next to the post card station were a couple of painters with easels making political art. “Silence is Violence” read the painting I saw.

And all around us were happy people and families enjoying each other under the summer sun. A literal and figurative breath of fresh air.
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It was all so happy. And peaceful. And purposeful. Everyday activities being performed with love, but also with a dash of activism. No one at the park could escape from the current political climate, but at the same time no one was threatened by it.
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On the way home we were caught in the middle of that pro-Trump truck caravan on I-84. They were tailgating other cars on the freeway. Exchanging middle fingers with other drivers. Speeding recklessly, switching lanes, cutting off other motorists, and belching black exhaust.
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When we got home, as we watched the end of another @trailblazers season, we learned the same drivers we had encountered had been involved in violent and aggressive actions towards Portlanders downtown.
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Just a couple miles from the wedding in the park, people were being terrorized in the name of our President. This came on the heals of deadly “Blue Lives” violence in Kenosha and a #GOP convention that celebrated armed citizens aiming guns at peaceful protesters.
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Now another young man is dead by gunshots and hate-fed political violence. In Portland. How that sits alongside the scene in Laurelhurst Park last night... I just don’t understand. He didn’t have to die. That violence doesn’t need to exist. It doesn’t need to be celebrated.
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What’s the point of this thread? I don’t know... I guess that good things happened in our city yesterday too.

Some people got married. Some people celebrated birthdays. Some people painted in the park.
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And we desperately need some real leadership in this city - and this country- because someone got killed yesterday too ... and it didn’t have to happen.

Ted won’t resign. Trump won’t quit.

We need to #vote

/end