Category: Pete Shaw

No Fooling, Part 2

Story and photo by Pete Shaw When is a home a Home? That is the central question at the heart of C Pam Zhang’s recent novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold. The book, which I recommend highly, was released shortly before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic and Republican Donald Trump’s racializing…

Providence Nurses Struggle For Basic Needs During COVID

Story by Pete Shaw On Wednesday March 10, the Portland Area Workers’ Rights Board (WRB) live streamed a public hearing at which some nurses who work at Providence-Oregon and are represented by the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA), testified about what they believe to be the Catholic organization’s inadequate support of caregivers and its lack of…

One Year of Covid, Part 2

Story and photo by Pete Shaw When I went into a quasi-lockdown a little over a year ago, just before the first case of the novel coronavirus in the US was announced, it seemed my life would continue more or less unchanged. After all, particularly during the Winter, my better 99% prefers I keep a…

One Year of Covid, Part 1

Story by Pete Shaw A year ago, almost exactly to the minute of my typing this, I came home from the gym and said to my better 99%, “Do you think I am smart if I say I should not be going to the gym anymore?” While lifting weights, I had noticed on one of…

Giving Thanks

Story by Pete Shaw The idea of Thankfulness this year may seem a bit odd, and certainly for many, a clear-cut case for the glass being “half-empty” as a default position. Yet here we are again, most of us if not all, which is worthy of appreciation and gratitude. And for those who have against…

Let A Thousand Lilies Bloom

Story by Pete Shaw It is a little early in the Summer for such things, but the lilies are blooming. In the front of my house, there are about 30 of them, some reaching over 12 feet tall. The trumpet varieties reach toward the sky, their flowers blaring unheard but not unnoticed. I am not…

On Being An Accomplice

Story by Pete Shaw What material changes will result from the protests, rallies, and other actions demanding transformation to the way policing is conducted in the United States? Calls range from fairly tepid reform to outright abolition of policing. These protests are connected with larger movements seeking to dismantle white supremacy and policing, which is…

Today’s Progress Indebted to Sustained Activist Efforts

Story by Pete Shaw A month ago I attended the 10th anniversary memorial for Keaton Otis, the young Black man executed by the Portland police near the corner of Northeast 6th and Halsey. That corner has become hallowed ground. For an all too short spell, Otis’s father Fred Bryant held a monthly vigil at the…