Sophie

portland continues to serve up a protest that confuses the feds and totally disrupts the false narrative they're pushing via propaganda channels...

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

This is a) utterly terrifying and b) vital. Don’t turn away. The crisis is fixable because it is, ultimately, political. We know the chemistry. We decline the action necessary.

Kermit faces off with Hopper in The Muppet Movie

Meanwhile in #Portland

War zone in Portland, terrorist scooters and bikes lined up infront of terrorist gay flag mailbox

War torn Portland (2025) 😞

An illustration of an old truck in the woods filled with pumpkins, with a pumpkin frog, several ghost frogs, and ravens about

welcome autumn! 🍂 🎃

As we boycott vile companies, a reminder that many US public libraries offer:

1) Ebooks & audiobooks via the Libby app. Pro tip: use the “notify me” tag to request your library add books by trans, disabled, & BIPOC authors!

2) TV & film streaming via Kanopy

3) Language learning via Mango

💙📚 And:

The idea that the combined MMR is dangerous but separately the vaccines are fine was created out of whole cloth by Andrew Wakefield, a disgraced former doctor who had a patent on a non-combined version of the MMR. We've known his research was bunk for almost 30 years.

Page of Authority by Jeff VanderMeer, introduction written by N. K. Jemisin

The brutally honest N. K. Jemisin. Always sharp. This woman is absolutely incredible!

We All Need to Be Talking About the Murder of Jonathan Joss This Pride and Beyond The actor, who was Comanche and White Mountain Apache, was shot in a targeted hate crime while protecting his husband.

Wrote this piece for Harpers Bazaar about the life, legacy, and hate-induced murder of Jonathan Joss through the eyes of being a Two-Spirit Native person this Pride.

I hope you take a read. For Him. For all of us. 🪶

Los Angeles. Just wow.

No Kings protest at the Minnesota State Capitol

No Kings protest at the Minnesota State Capitol

No Kings protest at the Minnesota State Capitol

No Kings protest at the Minnesota State Capitol

Despite warnings from the law enforcement not to attend today’s No Kings rally after this mornings shooting of Minnesota lawmakers with the killer on the lose, the No Kings Rally is happening at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul.

Protesters carry a banner that says “No Kings!”

A protester holds a mock guillotine.

Chicago #NoKings

How much more do we need to know about the transversals of these assholes minds ? How much three D chess are yall gone play before we admit it’s the racism and classism

How long before we show America instead of aiding in this by pretending it’s just about whiteness

In California speech is free and weed is legal, suck it CNN

Hot pink chairs and benches stacked up in a protest with protesters hiding behind them as law enforcement fires upon the barricades with rubber bullets and tear gas

RIOS rios.imagines RIOS rios.imagines Images of the bright pink Civic furniture line that we designed for@grandpark_la "The Park for Everyone," being used by LA protesters stopped us in our tracks. These pieces were designed to move, adapt, welcome, connect - and now protect. We stand in solidarity with our city during moments of civic expression in support of unjust treatment, and we are reminded of why we design: for our community, diversity, and a sense of belonging. Photo by: David Ryder-AFP/Getty Images

Everyone saw Grand Park's hot pink benches being stacked into a barricade on Sunday. What an exceptional statement from RIOS, the benches' designers instagram.com/rios.imagines

"These pieces were designed to move, adapt, welcome, connect — and now protect"

Reporter: How did the Israelis treat you, we saw them giving sandwiches? Greta Thunberg: They probably have posted lots of PR stunts, they did an illegal act by kidnapping us in international waters but that’s not the real story here. The real story is the genocide in Gaza and systematic starvation. Reporter: Are you worried about the others? Greta: Yes…I’m calling for everyone who can to mobilize to demand their immediate release and, of course, to demand not only humanitarian aid being let into Gaza but also a ceasefire and most importantly an end to the occupation, an end to the systemic oppression and violence that Palestinians are facing on an everyday basis. Reporter: “Why do you think so many countries and governments around the world are just ignoring what’s happening in Gaza?” Greta Thunberg: “Because of racism.”

This is how.

Greta Thunberg spits fire and gives you the only media training you may ever need.

19 companies pulling back their support for Pride For years, major corporations publicly celebrated the LGBTQ community.

Lowe’s
Dyson
Nivea
Tiffany
Capital One
UPS
Disney
Door Dash
Live Nation
Anheuser-Busch
Diageo
Pepsi
Nissan
PWC
Citi
Mastercard

…all pulled their support for Pride.

If brands aren’t supporting your equality, you don’t need to support their profitability.
popular.info/p/pride-and-...

6 Things You Can Do to Secure Your Phone as You Reenter the Country After Traveling In some instances, government agents can search your digital devices legally after an international trip

Dystopia is the AARP advising older Americans about how to live in a police state
www.aarp.org/travel/trave...

Also had a weird moment today where I remembered it’s 2025 now. She never lived into 2025. She never turned 28. She never got to have her big wedding. Our high school reunion was her funeral.

The weird thing about grief is how it gets you in the weirdest places? Trying to remember weird stories from our college dorm that only she would know and yet. And yet. She’s gone.
No one can correct my memory on these things now.

Icy terraced street. A stepladder is placed where a car has been parked looking like it has melted the area around it.

My god that must be a hot ladder.

Streaming in 2010: You can watch an entire catalog of amazing movies and TV shows for a reasonable monthly fee

Streaming in 2025: our library is Batman movies and 28 seasons of a Tim Allen sitcom, it costs $159/month. We just destroyed the last piece of evidence that Mister Rogers ever existed

Nothing makes me as irrationally angry as the people who crowd and block the baggage claim carousel at the airport with all their fucking carts and kids and blocks the rest of us from seeing the carousel, much less grabbing our luggage!!!! Stand back like the rest of us of us!!!!

The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer comes to mind!! It’s got lots of ecological & transformation/body horror-esque stuff going on. Start w/ the first book Annihilation and see how you feel :)

They said that same bullshit about gay people holding hands. I am not doing this again

A pink sign in a window that says NO!!! Solicitation!!! ("except Tamale Lady" is underlined underneath)

Ordered my Christmas tamales today from our favorite place. One of my favorite Texas traditions. Comes with homemade green and red salsas.

TMI but ok; my husband has an audio processing disorder and last night I was showering and I asked him to pass me the “Diva wash” (for my diva cup) and he went “the BEAVER wash?”
Like. Yeah. I guess it’s also that.

I got nothing done today because I was dealing with weird Facebook Marketplace buyers. What is peoples’ problem with being normal when I’m selling a 20 year old tv for $15?? Everyone either ghosts me or gets weirdly pushy about ME delivering to THEM (blocked those folks, btw).