Hello, my name is H. Harreld Dinkins. Human Rights. Rivers, oceans, lakes, water. Disability awareness. Literature, art, film, music, politics. Conversations about things big & small.
Can’t imagine why what seems to be a Louisiana #pirogue is sitting in a front yard in Portland’s Hollywood District where it’s been repurposed into an odd planter. They’re some of my favorite boats and the sight of the l...
April 9, 2018
Old pics that have been needling me for months since taking them: this was a homeless camp that surely wasn’t going to work where is was beside a school playground. But to see that a crew had been paid to just destroy th...
March 30, 2018
"You're asking what a persimmon tastes like? Well, look: it might very well be a reasonable query to ask if you've never had one, but you'll have to ask someone else. Why? Because it's only with restraint that I've spent...
January 5, 2018
The instant trigger for memories of happiness in childhood often being spent in Grumman canoes in the bayous of southern Louisiana with several of these paddles including one with hidden marks which was my trusted favor...
December 26, 2017
Persimmons in winter’s grim give a brief visual lifering, providing just enough to get to Daphneas and their olfactory lifering.
December 23, 2017
The final number of this derelict AMC Pacer “vehicles” (in quotes because for many had so long surrendered to the moss and rust that even to call them frames would fail to keep abreast of their entropic decay) was alread...
October 21, 2017
While any analysis of floors with metrics that privileged their visual textures over financial costs of materials, installation, and maintenance (to say nothing of structural integrity) would be one sorry sort of metric,...
October 8, 2017
The incomparable rescue dog canine beauty is calmer by the day, and really shines after daily exfoliation and a gluten-free green tea pinch of snuff and a moisturizer of cold-pressed oil from goji berries and tears of jo...
July 31, 2017
#RealMurfatlar is reassuring since it must be premium if you have to go all the way to H Mart in Tigard for the real thing. Amazed to not have a riot during the visit.
July 31, 2017
Jan's descendants had long ceased giving a damn about prestige or the cache of snob appeal. After Trump's ascent they snapped and decided to go for the mass market and gun for the ginormous royalties they deserved but co...
April 12, 2017
The volume of people who emerge from a haze obscuring memory and know only the agony of their own organ count to be lower in the aftermath of hooligans resorting to deceit and theft is far far lower since oversupply has...
April 9, 2017
If you haven't heard the tale told, then you don't know about when a panel truck lost control on a tight turn along hwy 64 on the Lower Ocoee not a whole lot longer than the end of the debate that was open for a long tim...
March 26, 2017
If I had a nickel for every time I heard this cliché over and over in NüPDX: "Making garbage AND recycling a fun party since the midway point of the twenty first century's first quarter' is good, I'll give you that it do...
March 16, 2017
The ubiquity of "Daphne odora" is at last a sign of spring's approach, though I do wish Portland would avoid having it become a landscaping cliche as it is too wondrous a plant to make mundane.
March 13, 2017
Every single thing about this signage, at a place a friend once said should be called "No Lava," has only somehow gotten creepier over time in spite of a period in the 90s when it seemed I'd end up sharing cigarettes wit...
March 1, 2017
Somebody might want to put a check on this sort of hubristic claim or our actionable ability to masquerade snarky commentary in lieu of embracing a real redistributive economic system might force us to examine our incess...
February 26, 2017
A few months ago, I'd have presumed this sign to be a warning to keep riff-raff from vandalizing this particular space. Now it seems just as likely to be a prototype test for transitional signage before we attain the glo...
January 26, 2017
If there might ever be a time when the winds of politics make a potato chip that tastes like booze succeed, it is sure as heck right now.
January 26, 2017
So many of my life's people of portent and/or interactions with impact have occurred in a radius of only a few hundred meters of here, it seems impossible to not visit with as much regularity of a gambler's casino trips.
January 21, 2017
Seeing 雪見燈籠 cues my mind to a catalog of topographies alternating between the predictable and the inscrutable.
January 18, 2017
Ah, the dogs of August heat are always recalled most vividly after the solar day rubs brevity in one's face with cold. At the edge of the forest, los perros!
December 24, 2016
Always chatty, Maki immediately erupted into prolonged dramatic begging the moment we pull up to the dog park and the sound was far too good to miss.
December 21, 2016
East of the synagogue across NW 19th, there is a lot featuring two structures that are placed in proximity but not adjacent to each other, and they take up less than a parking space each. I suppose this is the line that...
December 13, 2016
#Trump transition team has leaked his critical decisions will be deeply grounded with a reliance on nothing but the best moonshot tech we need from the cutting edge...of 1978. #worldfear #tandyisdandy
December 10, 2016
Probably my favorite winter garden in Portland area, today showcased the witch hazel soon to come and the hellebores and daphnea preparing to perfume 2017 and perhaps we can go forth away from the stench that was so stea...
December 9, 2016
PDXFiles: Such a warm place in the heart of the people here, and it's such a good counterbalance to the snuggle toasty in secure and wholesome relief from the wintry weather. HA! Just kidding it's only sometimes that way...
December 2, 2016
This belongs in the “worst insults to journalism” category of bookmarks. Even if it were @Oregonian’s only abdicati… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
May 14, 2021
#COVID upended life >1yr ago & the only west coast state w/o a notification app is #Oregon. WTF has to change for… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
February 13, 2021
#Uganda’s masses would choose @HEBobiwine if elections had been free. Observers say they weren’t. … twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
January 16, 2021
Require a complete COVID-19 vaccination or proof of medical exemption as precondition to get stimulus check or pand… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
January 12, 2021
@KateBrownForOR: Oregonians over 75yo & essential workers deserve to be next in line for vaccines. They face high… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
January 11, 2021
"if something similar had happened in the U.S., life could be completely different now."
So, @MultCoHealth, … twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
So, @MultCoHealth, … twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
November 19, 2020
September 16, 2016
Take a few minutes and watch this piece on the importance of outdoor access and the engineer's route to get it for disabled and temporarily able-bodied people. Think of access as a bedrock human right, and use your voice to help make sure politicians understand they must include this as part of their job's bare minimum requirements. Inclusivity means not leaving people behind, period.
It seems more than a lifetime ago and I'm ever more clear that we both never AND always step into the same river twice, thrive, and on and on and on.
September 15, 2016
September 1, 2016
A rocky start wasn't surprising, but there was hope that, since in power and free from fear herself, Aung San Suu Kyi might use her influence to allow ceasefire groups to enjoy cultural freedom and to have human rights access. Is it too much?
Maybe it's just unrealistic to expect her human rights support while she's so busy stonewalling on the Rohingya being entitled to the same inalienable human rights as everyone. Maybe later?
September 1, 2016
WTF, DC?
WTF, USA?
This makes my blood boil and stands out against the District's many problems (including lack of representation, zero budget authority, rapid-fire gentrification/displacement, sundry behemoth challenges in education, infrastructure, and public health).
Read this. Get agitated. This will irritate and so...
Right NOW: write your representatives and senators and ask them to see and address this in every committee hearing and vote they have. It's another predictable outcome from the disgusting federal disempowerment of the national capital.
Alonzo should be alive and Beverly sho...
August 31, 2016
Read this engaging interview with the remarkable Scott Greacen and start organizing a response to make it right.
Weed evangelists, who have always bored me beyond capacity, need to take stock and move to mitigate unacceptable damage done by the marijuana mass agriculture juggernaut. I've long been a supporter of drug legalization and have always seen the ethics and science pushing unambiguously to legalize asap.
However, negative impacts on public lands are not okay. And if you're doing sustained damage to river ecosystems? Now I'd have no problem rallying money and voters to make THAT a jaila...
One of these things are not like the other.
One of these things would be a national shame.
#TrumpIsAChump
August 31, 2016
RIP Gene Wilder, my first fully adored actor and one that was able to make me both laugh so hard to nearly be sick and to strive to be a better person working for a better world.
August 29, 2016
August 28, 2016
Resident millenial in or near the Emerald City and seeking to get to Bumbershoot? Fill this out yourself or pass it forward to someone else in the demographic. Entry due asap for eligibility to win the passes so get it in!
It is imperative to understand that there is a vast difference between candidates in this regard.
August 27, 2016
Watch your violations, Portland Public Schools. Can't wait to see your attempt at spin result in blowout.
August 24, 2016
If you're going to crap up nonsense about ROI for drug companies' capital risked for R&D, you'd better have an inkling that you're not just full of it.
August 24, 2016
August 24, 2016
Gee, I wonder if the defendant needs a reminder on the importance of flossing regularly.
Perhaps someone could helpfully )non-hatefully!) swing a metal bat into his teeth as a friendly reminder to avoid the disrespect that would be implied to vast swathes of the public by the willful disregard for gingivitis & halitosis.
Maybe a wide swath of the public should get to swing the bat?
To be a NOLA native in PDX IS engaging and tiring. I've spent hours talking to people in the PNW after they pronounce the Gulf South as simply "that place that invented racism," because those absurd views don't...
"Citius, Altius, Fortius" as Olympic motto apparently refers to the IOC view on how to handle misogyny & racism and what to make of it.
August 23, 2016
August 22, 2016
Having just been notified that a longed-for snorkel might soon be (too late) arriving, I marvel at these sounds and can not help but to think of how they might be cause for laughter were they played for a couple of folks I'll never cease to miss.
Sigh.
Tim Kaine is growing on me & I'm actually hoping this podcast might prove an ongoing concern beyond November or January.
August 22, 2016
There was a time when public health was valued as a human rights issues by all. Then, the GOP decided it wasn't. #StrongerTogether is nowhere more clear than in human rights concerns.
August 21, 2016
August 14, 2016
Kicking it at a meetup of more misfit toys' and doing collective (but no consensus nonsense) work for the rise of New Rome. Someone has to watch and limit the more vicious relics of the latter-day viking impulses oddly salient in this region.
August 14, 2016
He needs to lose big & then we have some backlogged work to address the needs of Trump supporters along with every segment of American society. Hillary will prioritize and empower these efforts if we can maintain organized efforts to remind the nation of these oft overlooked To-Dos.
August 2, 2016
Taiwan just stood and did the right thing and apologized for to its indigenou people for the centuries of failure.
Tsai Ing-wen is amazing and the Democratic Progessive Party there is doing real things of substance aligned with a more equitable society.
I am inspired by Taiwan electing her and her follow-through in stepping forward into a better future.
July 31, 2016
To err is human.
To fail and fail often is common in mortal life.
But to manage a sustained trajectory of successive failures each more progressively repellent than the last and with pure contempt for civility or gratitude is an epic achievement that marks Donald Trump as one of the most disgusting affronts to this nation and all nations, our species and all others, and all of the myriad possible multiverses.
I can not imagine giving him political power and before voting for his ilk I'd sooner be coated with gravy to spend all of August locked into an underventilated metal box in the Mojave wi...
July 28, 2016
WTF, CTW and/or HBO?
You saw there was a trio of beloved longstanding people at the heart of the series and decided they didn't fit in with your reboot demographic? That sounds like the action of a failing first-season new network show desperately pleading for renewal, not the crown jewel of the most beloved children's show ever made.
You FIRED Luis, Gordon, and Bob?
Looks like Sesame Street just got gentrified.
July 27, 2016
A rare break in the work to push back against this truly ugly disease of ALS, read to learn how we might get hope enlarged and build future free of progressive pain for patients, friends, & families. It's easy to dismiss funding campaigns started by outsiders and growing exponentially huge fast for they can often be insipidly ineffective at wasting money and dangerously harmful to public perceptions if not doing an outright disservice to the cause at hand, as the mentioned Kony campaign still sets records for failure. But this time, the judgement was far too quick and smug and things still...
July 26, 2016
Southeast Asia is home to a tremendous wealth that could be sustainable for its people and the planet's heritage. It isn't. Global ignorance of the forces shaping the future there is tilting the odds to bad. Learn about Leng Ouch to help tip them back. There are countless others, but begin with one.
RIP Tom Peterson.
Thanks for the haircuts and all the rest.
July 25, 2016
You want to solve the issue, Portland?
It's not difficult.
Change the zoning and accept density and understand that your love for bungalows is helping keep people locked out onto the streets.
July 25, 2016
I'm gonna join the fanclub for this now, but wonder if Leshu will join on the merits of film or politics or just for the (Nic) Cage.
July 22, 2016
July 21, 2016
Read this.
Think about the pressing need to begin to genuinely address this conflict today, yesterday, right now, and sure as hell before tomorrow.
I have been accused by some as always weighing in rather immensely on the Rohingya "side" to the exclusion of the Rakhine, and might even do so since there has been nothing (really NOTHING) forthcoming from almost any part of Burma's civil society groups advocating on their behalf or even just resembling any good faith consideration of the basic universal human rights standards.
Truly, everyone in Arakan should be pissed off at the Regime and all o...
July 21, 2016
Whenever I begin to this the absolute idiocy of American policing has reached a nadir of respectability, innovative thinking comes to the rescue to show that there is no limit at all to what cops are prepared to do in the dedicated maintenance of racism, ableism, and old-fashioned reliance on guns instead of talk.
Disgusted.
July 16, 2016
The world is forever enriched by your having been in it and it is simultaneously impoverished by your early exit. On most every day, those truths are both visible but on this anniversary of your departure, the tears have been flowing like an unending tide that I'm quite certain you'd be able to make me somehow giggle about if you were here. I wish your departure had been better and miss you terribly, D'Laney Ford.
July 7, 2016
This piece from two years ago would never ever have needed to be written in an ideal world.
This piece should read now as if a reminder to avoid ever permitting systemic failure of this kind again, and as an anachronism as universally recognized as a failure of law from legislation to enforcement and of all people who should have been protected by law or provided oversight of those who failed to protect or serve.
This piece could have the details changed but find the message as distressingly relevant today as ever.
That should be understood for what it is: a wake-up call to those obstructing r...
Well done, Governor. All Oregonians with a conscience: the state should be in complete unity with Washington to put an immediate halt to Islamophobia.
July 6, 2016
June 30, 2016
Hell yes.
Penned by Woody himself on the badness of Old Man Trump over four decades back, this pedigreed protest is returning with a prophecy of warning. Maybe it seems inevitable that this would find its rebooted way into our 2016 lives, but we should all know by now that just because something should be doesn't mean it will be unless people wake up to go show up and get it done. Gratitude aplenty to getting this back out there, Ryan Harvey. May your inspiration be amply rewarded without waiting for revolution.
The Wages of Hatred are Hateful
June 29, 2016
Enjoy these for some Wednesday optics with less agony than my last several grim posts of global ugh.
June 29, 2016
June 29, 2016
For over two decades, I was among those who waited for the day to come when Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD to ascend to some power and felt confident that things would begin to get better.
My inbox contains a request from Elliott yesterday morning for comments on the article below and reading it was something that was successfully avoided all day for fear it might say exactly what it does. In a Burma where The Lady has forbidden the use of the word "Rohingya" by any public official (including an attempt to "require" the American Embassy to censor the completely accurate ethnonym from being used)...
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