Unless the president of the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation, Rhonda Meadows, is a complete ignoramus (noun - an ignorant or stupid person.), she knows the difference between literal and figurative speech especially as written and distributed to 13,000 readers and published on the Internet as political commentary. Her recent complaint to the Portland police can only be seriously interpreted as a pathetically naive call for protection, not from physical harm but from the pain of public ridicule, shame and embarrassment which is the result of public exposure to the facts, truth and evidence of her own self-inflicted actions of ill repute: 

1. Refusing to publicly identify the names and contact information of the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation.

2. Refusing to publicly identify the names and contact information of its funders.

3. Failing to acknowledge that a demand under the Oregon Public Records Law revealed that the Portland Hope Meadows non-profit corporation was barely two years old with no track record whose members were unknown to the bare majority (3 of 5) on the Portland city council that voted to blindly give away public land. 

4. Becoming a willing, knowledgeable, culpable coconspirator after the fact by accepting the ill gotten gains of the reprehensible and illegitimate backdoor political deal by which due process was trampled in what amounted to the effective theft of 1.4 million dollars of public property.

5. Becoming a willing, knowledgeable, culpable coconspirator after the fact by accepting a public housing plan requiring illicit behind-the-scenes political deal making because it could not complete with virtually any other non-public housing proposals that were already on the table or would have been placed on the table for open public discussion and debate. 

6. Becoming a willing, knowledgeable, culpable coconspirator after the fact by supporting the long discredited and abhorrent public housing policy of unlimited concentration of public housing clients in any neighborhood of Multnomah county.

7. Becoming a willing, knowledgeable, culpable coconspirator after the fact by showing a deliberate willingness to add public housing clients to the Portsmouth neighborhood which has the highest total number and the second highest percentage of public housing clients in all of Multnomah county's 117 neighborhoods demonstrating a flagrant disregard for the social and economic consequences of increasing the number of public housing clients to this already overloaded neighborhood.

8. Becoming a willing, knowledgeable, culpable coconspirator after the fact by ignoring and rejecting all the public arguments made by neighborhood leaders, clergy, city council members, a former member of the Portland Planning Commission, current and immediate past Oregon House members representing the Portsmouth neighborhood and many ordinary citizens in opposition to the Portland Hope Meadows public housing scheme.

To put Rhonda Meadows alleged distress based on her presumed inability to distinguish between literal and figurative language in a widely read political commentary in perspective, consider the following:

The Portland Public Schools teaches its students about figures of speech in the seventh grade.

Portland Public Schools Language Arts Standards (2006) Grade 7 Standard 
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:nI0AM6Px2CEJ:www.otl.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/400/rid/11727/f/68_lit_stds.pdf+metaphor+taught+grade+portland+public+schools+oregon&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari

STANDARD 10 Literary Text — Evaluative Comprehension of Literary Forms, Elements and Devices: EXAMINE CONTENT AND STRUCTURE when reading grade-level literary text

7.10.1 Identify and describe the function and effect upon a literary work of common literary devices, such as imagery, symbolism, use of dialogue, foreshadowing, flashback, allusion, and figurative language such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole, and personification.

Here are several definitions of Figure of Speech:
A figure of speech is where a word or words are used to create an effect, but where they do not have their original or literal meaning. If someone says that they are 'starving', they do not mean that they are in fact dying of hunger, but that they are very hungry. This is a simple example of a figure of speech, where the word is used to heighten or increase the state that they are describing. A metaphor or a simile are two of the most common forms used.

A figure of speech, sometimes termed a rhetorical, or elocution, is a word or phrase that departs from straightforward, literal language. Figures of speech are often used and crafted for emphasis

Any intentional deviation from literal statement or common usage that emphasizes, clarifies, or embellishes both written and spoken language. Forming an integral part of language, figures of speech are found in primitive oral literatures, as well as in polished poetry and prose and in everyday speech.

A mode of expression in which words are used out of their literal meaning or out of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity.

Here are two definitions of Blood Sport:
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest use of the term is in reference to mounted hunting, where the quarry would be actively chased as in fox hunting. By further extension other activities may now be called "blood sports". Sometimes this is clearly figurative, as when politics is likened to a blood sport.
http://www.answers.com/topic/blood-sport

noun
A sport involving the shedding of blood, esp. the hunting or killing of animals : cock-fighting, bullfighting, fox hunting figurative | politics is a blood sport.
OS X Dictionary

Here are three examples of current usage (A Google search will reveal innumerable examples by english speaking writers around the globe):
The Definition of a "Mensch"
By Ira Forman - NJDES Blog - January 20, 2006
It has long been a political truism in this country that "politics ain't beanbag."  Many in the Democratic party bemoan the fact that we don't play politics as blood sport like our GOP counterparts."
http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2006/01/the_definition_.html

Blow-hards and Buffoons - Their senseless ranting are poisoning political debate
By Michael Crowley - From Reader's Digest March 2004
Political Blood Sport
Thomas Jefferson must be apoplectic in the Great Beyond. He warned that only people who are "well-informed can be trusted with their own government." Well, look what's become of us. 
http://www.rd.com/content/thats-outrageous----an-angry-america----poisoned-politics/

Gonzales' plight puts Bush at risk
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer - Washington Bureau Chief - March 18, 2007
"This is not going to go away," warned Joseph E. DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration. "I'm sure the president is going to let it go as long as he can … but there's only so much bleeding he can take."
Gonzales' plight puts Bush at risk
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-assess18mar18,0,1867548.story?page=1&track=mostviewed-homepage

Explanation of the following figures of speech:
Politics is always a contact sport. When you enter the political arena your political opponents will do whatever they can to challenge, overcome and defeat your position.

Sometimes it's a blood sport. When you enter the political arena your political opponents will go to the very limits of the legally, politically and socially permissible to challenge, overcome and defeat your position.

If you are not prepared to bleed and draw blood then you must leave the field. It is in the best interests of those who enter the political arena unprepared to leave the public field of play and cease their involvement. A failure to understand, much less have the ability and willingness to play by the rules of engagement, is most likely to lead to a potentially humiliating defeat.

When Ronda Meadows and the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation asked the government to protect the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation from paying taxes and then asked another government to give the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation 1.4 million dollars of public land at no charge with the intent of building public housing, Rhonda Meadows, the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation, its funders, its vendors and everyone else associated with this project entered the political arena. Political opponents of the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation's plan to add additional public housing to the Portsmouth neighborhood in North Portland will aim and fire all the weapons in their arsenal i.e., truth, facts, evidence and sunshine, at their targets.

In due time they will demand of the zoning Hearings Officer that he gather and give due consideration to public housing statistical data of the kind asked for by Sam Adams, Jeff Cogen Sal Kadri and Ted Wheeler which will prove that Portsmouth has the highest number and second highest percentage of public housing clients in all of the 117 neighborhoods in Multnomah county. He will be confronted by the fact that by allowing this use to increase the public housing in the Portsmouth nieghborhood the hearings officer will be risking his professional reputation in support of the discredited and abhorrent policy of unlimted neighborhood concentration of public housing for which there is absolutely no public support. He will be confronted by the fact that by the time he makes his decision in 6-8 months from now the final public housing units at Columbia Villa will be completed increasing the percentage of public housing clients in the Portsmouth neighborhood to 35% or beyond. Should Portland Hope Meadows add more public housing, the $111,000,000 PDC TIF funding for public housing pass the city council, the Sharff Army Reserve Center become public housing and the soon to be decommissioned Clarendon School follow the path of the John Ball School site, the percentage of public housing clients in the Portsmouth neighborhood could reach 60% or more.

I urge the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation, it funders and supporters to see the futility of their effort and preserve their public reputations by withdrawing their proposal to develop the John Ball School site in the Portsmouth neighborhood of North Portland. If they relocate their project to another neighborhood in the Metro region with 3% or less public housing clients then I will publicly acknowledge their efforts to support the morally and politically defensible public housing policy of equitable distribution.


Richard Ellmyer
Community leader coordinating a local effort to bring the Oregon National Guard to the Sharff Army Reserve Center
Community activist leading the campaign to Stop The Portland Hope Meadows Corporation From Adding To The Overload Of Public Housing Clients In The Portsmouth Neighborhood And North Portland
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 13,000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 18% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.

**************************************************************************************************************************************
[One of seven agenda item handouts distributed to attendees, including Erik Blythe - Wanda Meadows' husband, of the Public Housing Policy public presentation on February 21,2007 at the Historic Kenton Firehouse]

1. The campaign to stop the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation, its funders and vendors from proceeding to develop the John Ball School site in the Portsmouth neighborhood.

The total disregard for due process in the hijacking of the publicly owned John Ball School property for personal political purposes by Portland city commissioners Saltzman, Sten and mayor Potter is well known. The Portland Hope Meadows Corporation and those associated with it have been informed that they are now on the record as:

1. Supporting a non-profit corporation that refuses to publicly identify the names and contact information of its members.

2. Supporting a non-profit corporation that refuses to publicly identify the names and contact information of its funders.

3. Supporting a non-profit corporation that is barely two years old with no track record whose members were unknown to the bare majority (3 of 5) on the Portland city council that voted to blindly give away public land to those that did not even raise to the level of strangers .

4. Supporting a non-profit corporation that participated in and accepted the ill gotten gains of the reprehensible and illegitimate backdoor political deal by which due process was trampled in what amounted to the effective theft of 1.4 million dollars of public property.

5. Supporting a non-profit corporation whose public housing plan required illicit behind-the-scenes political deal making because it could not complete with virtually any other non-public housing proposals that were already on the table or would have been placed on the table for open public discussion and debate. 

6. Supporting a non-profit corporation that supports the long discredited and abhorrent public housing policy of unlimited concentration of public housing clients in any neighborhood of Multnomah county.

7. Supporting a non-profit corporation whose actions show a deliberate willingness to add public housing clients to the Portsmouth neighborhood which has the highest total number and the second highest percentage of public housing clients in all of Multnomah county's 117 neighborhoods demonstrating a flagrant disregard for the social and economic consequences of increasing the number of public housing clients to this already overloaded neighborhood.

8. Supporting a non-profit corporation that has ignored and rejected all the public arguments made by neighborhood leaders, clergy, city council members, a former member of the Portland Planning Commission, current and immediate past Oregon House members representing the Portsmouth neighborhood and many ordinary citizens in opposition to its public housing scheme. See video of city council proceeding here: http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=28259 select  Portland City Council 10-25-06 9:30AM , and summary of opposing arguments here: http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/PotterPummels.html , other connected commentaries here: http://www.goodgrowthnw.org .

For these reasons the following are targets of this campaign:

Portland Hope Meadows Corporate Board
Rhonda Meadows (Board President) * (H)2806 NW Fairfax Ter - Portland, OR  97210-2806 * (503) 997-6266 * rhondameadowshr@hotmail.com * Unemployed
 
Kristen Simmons (Board Secretary) * (H)420 NW 11th Ave., #609 - Portland, OR  97209 * (503) 525-0180 * ksimmons@panthersys.com * Controller - Panther Systems - Vancouver Washington * 5408 NE 88th St # D2  - Vancouver, WA 98665 * (360) 750-9783 

Leah Y. King (H)4201 NE 19th Ave. - Portland, OR  97211 * (503) 317-8577 * leah.king@fnf.com * VP, Lender Sales - Fidelity National Title Company of Oregon *1001 SW Fifth Avenue, #400 - Portland, OR 97204 * www.fidelityportland.com * 503.223.8338 Office * 503.317.8577 Mobile

Kevin McCullough (B)2050 NE 25th Ave. - Hillsboro, OR  97214 * (503) 640-3711 * kmac@aeroair.com * President, AeroAir Inc. * Cellular:  503.572.8527 * Fax: 503.681.6513
 
Madeleine Rose (H)600 SE Marion #309 - Portland, OR  97202 *
(503) 234-0699 * rosem@windermere.com * Windermere Cronin & Caplan Realty Group, Inc. * 733 NW 20th Ave. * Portland, OR 97209 * Office Phone: 503-220-1144 * Cell/Direct: 503-781-4667 * Agent Fax: 503-226-6227

Julie Peterson (H)831 SW Hume St. - Portland, OR  97219 * (503) 977-0161 * jpeterson@grouponelending.com * Account Exec - Group One Lending * 503.703.9398 * 10220 SW Greenburg Road - Suite 120 - Portland, OR 97223 * 503.327.4000 * Fax 503.327.4001

Pam Resnick (H&B)5738 SW Riverpoint Ln - Portland, OR  97239 * (503) 224-1047 * pamresnik@comcast.net * Unemployed? OR Employee? * Market Insights Incorporated

Kellogg Foundation
Board and related staff:
routesofchange@wkkf.org, Proposalsprocessing@wkkf.org, WKKF@wkkf.org, ted.chen@wkkf.org, gdm@wkkf.org, cpb@wkkf.org, jbconyers@wkkf.org, sheri.brady@wkkf.org, lindoc@wkkf.org, rick.foster@wkkf.org, gail.imig@wkkf.org, connie.vunovich@wkkf.org, media.hotline@kellogg.com, roderick.d.gillum@gm.com, wizard@wildflowers.org, kellerf@cascadeng.com, info@simsdesigngroup.com

University of Illinois and Generations of Hope Corporation
Staff and press associated with letter of support from Brenda Krause Eheart :
b-eheart@uiuc.edu, contact@generationsofhope.org, tfliao@uiuc.edu, ccomer@uic.edu, tford@uic.edu, sjones@uic.edu, rrich@law.uiuc.edu, PresidentWhite@uillinois.edu, dkdahl@uiuc.edu, andreal@uiuc.edu, mlpayne@uiuc.edu, junger@uiuc.edu

Carlton-Hart Architects
hart@chapc.com, brian@chapc.com, bradsim@chapc.com, dave@chapc.com, doug@chapc.com, jon@chapc.com, julie@chapc.com, karen@chapc.com, kcarter@chapc.com, kristen@chapc.com, lisa@chapc.com

Morrison Center
Board and related staff associated with letter of support from Jay Bloom:
development@morrisonkids.org, jbloom@morrisoncenter.org, ppatton@morrisoncenter.org, mford@morrisoncenter.org, pamelalum@umpquabank.com

Oregon Department of Human Resources and Governor Kulongoski
Governor and staff associated with letter of support from DHS Director, Bruce Goldberg:
dhs.info@state.or.us, Bruce.Goldberg@state.or.us, Erinn.L.Kelley-Siel@state.or.us, Liz.Kiren@state.or.us, Lonn.Hoklin@state.or.us, Gwen.Vette@state.or.us, Naomi.R.Steenson@state.or.us

Portland Planning Commission
The following planning commissioners have indicated support for a public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing:
Christine Caruso - project manager with MCM Architects, part-time instructor of interior design at the Art Institute of Portland.
Amy Cortese - Sustainability Coordinator, ZGF Partnership
Don Hanson - Principal, Development Services, Otak Inc.
Larry Hilderbrand - Retired Oregonian editorial board. Wrote editorial in favor of bringing 18,000 seat amphitheater to PIR which would have destroyed the quality of life for tens of thousands of Portlanders. Proposal defeated 5-0 in city council vote.
Paul R. Schlesinger - President, BPM Associates
Youlee Yim You - Sr. Assistant Attorney General, Trial Division, Oregon Dept. of Justice

They may be called upon to recommend zoning changes that will be required of the John Ball School property. They can be contacted through: planningcommission@ci.portland.or.us and gkeley@ci.portland.or.us

Here’s What You Can Do
1. Make copies of this document and share it with all of your family, friends and neighbors.

2. Talk about this issue with all of your family, friends and neighbors.

3. Contact by email, phone or in person as many of those above who are targets of this campaign and tell them to withdraw their support for this project.

4. Expose and oppose every candidate for public office that supports unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing.

5. Testify against every nominee for positions on HAP, PDC, HCDC and the Portland/Gresham/Multnomah county planning commissions that support unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing.

6. Take your 3 minutes for citizen comments before the Portland/Gresham city council and the Multnomah county commission and testify for a public policy of equitable distribution and against a public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing.

7. Send an email to Richard Ellmyer <richard at goodgrowthnw.org> asking to be included in additional efforts on this subject.