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Reposted by Zack Wilson

Jeff VanderMeer

@jeffvandermeer.bsky.social

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.)

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.

October 12, 2025 at 1:02 AM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Observations of Deviance

@obsofdeviance.bsky.social

Terry Riley turns 90 today!

June 24, 2025 at 7:07 AM

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vineyille

@vineyille.bsky.social

They should make a social media site that shows everyone a different color every day and you can only post "Yes" or "Good"

June 12, 2025 at 5:13 PM

Zack Wilson

@zrwilson.bsky.social

What a weenie

Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · Jun 11

Here’s a video of Stephen Miller in high school screaming that he’s “sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash, when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us.”

This is the sociopath shaping our immigration policy and so much more

June 12, 2025 at 7:14 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Hari Kunzru

@harikunzru.bsky.social

The “big beautiful bill” has $160bn in new anti-immigrant measures including $8bn for ICE personnel, $15bn for deportations and $45bn to build detention facilities. Current total ICE budget is ~$8bn. They want to scale up this terror to an unimaginable level.

www.wola.org/analysis/160...

$160 Billion to Detain and Deport: Congress’s “Reconciliation” Bill is a Betrayal of Priorities and Will Harm the Most Vulnerable - WOLA

This piece focuses on the incredible scale of what the U.S. Congress is proposing to spend on enforcement and border security. The reconciliation bill’s mammoth dimensions are not getting the attentio...

www.wola.org

June 10, 2025 at 12:16 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Lindsay Goldwert

@lindsaygoldwert.bsky.social

What a photo. Paramount, California, U.S., June 7, 2025 @reuters.com

People ride motorbikes next to a car burning in flames during a standoff between police and protesters following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Los Angeles County city of Paramount, California, U.S., June 7, 2025 (REUTERS)

June 8, 2025 at 12:42 AM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Damon K

@dadadrummer.bsky.social

Jeez, here we go…

Governor Gavin Newsom @governor.ca.gov · Jun 8

The federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers.

That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.

June 8, 2025 at 12:58 AM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

byron coley

@byroncoley.bsky.social

RIP YASUNAO TONE, whose group ongaku & fluxu-related work was pretty damn mindblowing. non firewall link.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/a...

Yasunao Tone, Composer Whose Métier Was ‘Anti-Music,’ Dies at 90

www.nytimes.com

May 31, 2025 at 2:19 AM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Oblique Strategies

@obliquestrategies.bsky.social

Be dirty

May 30, 2025 at 8:40 PM

Zack Wilson

@zrwilson.bsky.social

If you are in Portland ME tonight and like ambient sound and/or cool art happenings, have I got the thing for you

THE CIRCULAR in residency at Cassidy Point.

Portland, Maine

Thursday, May 29 6 pm • $5

Love Streams

An interactive sound installation and live ambient recording

With audio by Matt Brown and
Zachary Wilson and live accompaniment by Shon Mahoney and lan Paige

The Circular is a collaborative arts and performance event series involving social stuff, public interest, and live-ness.

May 29, 2025 at 7:24 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

sherri cola ✺

@sherricola.bsky.social

tony conrad
sept. 14, 1998
the point, atlanta
📹 : vacantmoon

I think I floated to another planet rewatching this…🧘🏻‍♀️ 😅

(pt.2 below)

May 28, 2025 at 9:18 PM

Zack Wilson

@zrwilson.bsky.social

So nice to have a new, very good, Stereolab record in the world today.

May 23, 2025 at 9:20 PM

Zack Wilson

@zrwilson.bsky.social

This is exactly how I want music writing to look

frozen reeds @frozenreeds.com · May 20

May 20, 2025 at 4:05 PM

Zack Wilson

@zrwilson.bsky.social

One more reason to be proud of my Maine roots

May 20, 2025 at 2:53 AM

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frozen reeds

@frozenreeds.com

the greatest line in cinema? #FilmSky

May 18, 2025 at 2:01 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Panospria

@panospria.com

‘The Sound of Ice Melting’ was an art installation from 1970 by Paul Kos consisting of two twenty-five pound blocks of ice, eight boom microphone stands, eight microphones, mixer, amplifier, two large speakers and cables
kadist.org/work/sound-o...

May 6, 2025 at 7:23 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Tyler Wilcox

@tylerwilcox.bsky.social

Live music options in NYC, May 1975

May 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

The Quietus

@thequietus.com

Alan Lamb's practice grew out of a chance encounter. Hearing the aeolian song produced by phone lines went on to propelled him into becoming one of the pioneers of Australian exploratory sound practice

Remembering #AlanLamb, by Lawrence English

buff.ly/9y5UXSN

Photograph of Alan Lamb with recording equipment outdoors in Australia.

April 29, 2025 at 4:45 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Alex Firer

@alexfirer.bsky.social

Sinners invites a new bold business idea. What if people want to see movies because they like them and not due to a pavlovian response to being 12 years old once!?

April 27, 2025 at 1:40 AM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

David_j_roth

@davidjroth.bsky.social

It's cool how Pete Hegseth thought running the Department of Defense would involve knocking out some push-ups on camera and hitting various Marine Todd notes on cable news and then he has just been living the "Jump Into The Fire" sequence from Goodfellas for every single moment since he got the job.

April 24, 2025 at 10:03 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Gerard Cosloy

@gerardcosloy.bsky.social

CROCUS 4 EVER

April 24, 2025 at 12:19 PM

Reposted by Zack Wilson

Kid Congo Powers

@kidcongopowers.bsky.social

R.I.P. David Thomas of Pere Ubu . Really some of the best concerts I saw in the 70’s . Mind blowing in fact. Absolutely unique individual. Here’s one of my all time fave songs youtu.be/Leax63ullPE?...