I used to view Portland through the lens of Portlandia. 

A bit ridiculous, politically too liberal, but an artsy quirky place that contributed to the cultural vibrancy of America. There should be places like Portland where quirky liberal people should be able to let their freak flag, even if I wouldn't want to live there. Not every place has to be Middle America where peole are hard working, mostly more virtuous, but much less quirky. 

I admit, I find that attractive as a place to visit and make fun of. At least the idea of it. 

The problem with such places is that liberals ruin everything in the end, and it takes them decades to face the fact and elect a mayor who cleans thing up temporarily. 

That hasn't happened yet in Portland. It has become a literal s**thole. 

Dysentery is on the rise in Portland. Here's what it is and how to prevent it.https://t.co/Set6ZQmooz

— KOIN News (@KOINNews) February 27, 2025

Dysentery. A disease spread through the entirely pleasant sounding fecal-oral route. Nice. 

Dysentery was, until the 20th century, the #1 killer of soldiers in war, vastly outstripping the deaths from combat. 

In the Mexican American war 13% of our expeditionary force was killed by dysentery. Luckily we have antibiotics now that can mitigate the risks,.

Dysentery is all about hygiene, and in s**tholes there isn't any. Which is why places like Portland, which used to be lovely cities but which are now plagued by homeless people for whom hygience is a foreign concept, are seeing it rise up again. No doubt the city was all about masks during COVID, but preventing oral-fecal transmission of a preventable disease is beyond their ability to control. 

It's insane. Obsessing about a purely imaginary way to prevent transmission of a disease almost never fatal was normal, but dealing with people crapping in the streets is considered mean. 

According to the health department, two types of Shigella typically circulate in Oregon. Although both strains can cause severe diarrhea, officials are not seeing the strain which can cause more severe or fatal illness. However, they note the strains circulating in Multnomah County are resistant to several antibiotics.

Shigella cases have been rising in Multnomah County since 2012, officials said. But health department data on dysentery cases collected by the county from 2017-2024 shows a marked increase in the number of cases between 2023 and 2024. Further, January 2025 showed 40 cases reported.

Given the population in which dysentery is popping up, those numbers are obviously minimum estimates. It's not like every homeless person who gets dysentery is showing up at the hospital getting treated. They are homeless people. 

And it's not just homeless people who are getting it, although they make up the majority. The disease is spreading to others who are around them, which is nice.

According to the county, 91% of the cases in that 7-year timeframe were caused by person-to-person spread, adding that the fecal-oral spread through intimate contact may account for between half and more than two-thirds of all recorded cases.

But of the most recent cluster of cases, the county said 56% were among people experiencing homelessness and 55% of the cases reported methamphetamine or opiate usage. They have also also identified a spread among housed and unhoused social groups who use drugs.

"Unhoused." We must be politically correct, right?

I know people who live in and near Portland, and while they are disgusted by what has happened to the city, they for the most part refuse to acknowledge that they are partly responsible for its decline. Supporting the people who put in place the policies that cause the decline is a choice, and a bad one. 

After all, the alternative is people who are Bad Orange Man adjacent, so best let the community to decline. 

I just don't get it.