The most Portland place

OK, I should have posted this yesterday to coincide with the beginning of Hanukkah. But, still, this is a powerful and beautifully written piece by my colleague, David Sarasohn, that goes to the heart of why we Portlanders felt so unnerved by the thought that someone might want to place a bomb in our civic living room: "Pioneer Square not just a target, but a symbol"

Located in the heart of downtown, bordered north and south by light-rail tracks and sandwiched between Nordstorm's on the west and the old federal courthouse on the east, Pioneer Courthouse Square is an open-air gathering place whose descending brick steps that give you the feel of stepping into a living room or a den.

According to the affidavit charging would-be bomber Mohamed Osman Muhmada, a part of the reasoning that allegedly drove him to try to set off a bomb at Friday's tree-lighting ceremony was his fury at finding himself in "the lands of the polytheists," Sarasohn writes.

"That's actually not a bad description of Pioneer Courthouse Square, designed and functioning as a place open to everybody, where in warmer weather the skateboarders tool around the chess players, where the dress code runs from informal to Don't-they-know-this-is-in-public?, and Portlanders walk calmly by a street preacher warning of their eternal damnation. It's about the most open place in a proudly open city, and you could see how Muhamud might consider it a particular affront."

Many, if not most, of us who live here have attended the tree-lighting ceremony at one time or another. And even if we haven't, we've come to the square for music, food or films; to enjoy the fountain or a lunch-time concert; to grab a drink from Starbucks or drop off a mail-in ballot.

Consider me one of the polytheists.

Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand, The Oregonian