You Can't Just Hide It
- Rick Dancer
- May 24
- 2 min read
You Can’t Just Hide It!

I read an interesting article on a website out of Portland Oregon.
It’s about people volunteering to help clean up the streets to make the city more presentable for its biggest celebration of the year, “The Rose Festival.”
The idea got me thinking.
You can’t just cover up a problem you have to fix it.
If someone is diagnosed with cancer you can’t ignore the cancer by trying to make it look better, you have to deal with the root causes.
Each time we return to Oregon we see the garbage, the people suffering on the streets and the lawlessness.
Last time we were in Eugene was right after the Eugene Marathon.
I didn’t think about it at the time but thought, “Hey, Eugene looks better.”
Then, someone who lives there said “not so fast Dancer, it’s only clean because you showed up one day after the marathon.”
I get the whole idea of shining things up to make them look better for visitors.
We all do that to our homes when friends or family come for a visit.
But this is getting ridiculous.
There is a cancer in Oregon, a cancer of the mind.
While Oregon’s “leadership” and I use that term lightly, looks at trying to tax it’s way out of the problem few in the woke world of virtue signaling seem willing to go after the disease and instead cover the symptoms.
I scroll through news feeds and watch as the nimble culture slowly dies and wonder how sad it is that they didn’t pay attention sooner.
When the BLM rioters, acted like spoiled children, is when the real damage started.
MY POV
Something in us gave up and gave in.
But I see a new commitment to reclaiming our big and small towns.
People are willing to rip up what is, to create what can be.
But we’re not there yet.
Until we as a culture will admit “it’s cancer and it needs to be treated” the bedrock of society will continue to falter and try to sweep the mess away for a few weeks rather than solve the underlying problem for good.
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