Perhaps our longings will be satiated . . . .
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STRONG Salem is for everyone who wants to help and participate in getting Salem, Oregon, to quit chasing Growth Ponzi Scheme plans and instead become a resilient, fiscally responsible place that lives by the wisdom that "Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit."
STRONGSalem (formerly LOVESalem)
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Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit.-- Ted Roszak, "Where the Wasteland Ends"
"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." (Henrik Tikkanen)
"Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends." (Lewis Mumford)
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay
If you are thinking a year ahead, plant seeds. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people.
Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it’s my responsibility to make it better. (Gov. Tom McCall)
"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." (Henrik Tikkanen)
"Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends." (Lewis Mumford)
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay
If you are thinking a year ahead, plant seeds. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people.
Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it’s my responsibility to make it better. (Gov. Tom McCall)
Visit also
- STRONGSalem
- Strong Towns
- Oregon Public Empowerment News (OregonPEN)
- Salem Progressive Film Series -- must-see documentaries
- Salem's "Breakfast on Bikes" blog (More than just bikes)
- Salem Harvest (Another Best Salem Nonprofit)
- Resilience.org - formerly EnergyBulletin.net
- Congregations Helping People
- Pro Publica (Public Interest Noncorporate News)
- Scorecard (Pollution Report Site)
- Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air
- The Localizer
- Desdemona Despair (Grim but solid)
- Petition to Deny Corporate Personhood
- Nature Bats Last
- Appropriate Technology Sourcebook
- City Farmer News
- KMUZ 100.7 FM
- City Farmer -- great resource site
- Root Simple - low tech home tech
- For Climate Change Skeptics
- Low Tech Magazine
- Biodiesel Bob
- RSS Feed for LOVESalem (alerts you when new items posted)
Blog Archive
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- ► 2009 (710)
Why This Blog?
Jan 19, 2008: LOVESalem reaches the web, bringing a vitally needed message to Oregon's capital city: We must Oregon-ize to put the needs of people before the needs of cars. This requires that we live our environmental values -- that we LOVE (Live Our Values Environmentally) Salem -- by working to stop the Sprawl Machine.
The Sprawl Machine is a ravenous beast that feeds on green space, close-in neighborhoods, and property taxes and that excretes monstrous, ugly road projects that pollute the air, increase mortality and morbidity, promote climate change, weaken families and neighborhoods, and help weaken the social fabric and civic participation.
The Sprawl Machine works by constantly luring its prey with promises that the problems created by cars can be addressed by doing more of the same -- building more lanes, more bridges, consuming ever more money. In other words, the Sprawl Machine promises that we can keep doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result this time.
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2 comments:
Having been in Trader Joe's once or twice, I'm bewildered by its popularity. I saw lots of things that in any other store would be snubbed as "packaged convenience foods."
And what's with the excessive packaging on those apples and all that bottled water?
As someone who is going up to Bellingham on the Amtrak to take in a conference on starting a BALLE local network
(BALLE = Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, see http://www.livingeconomies.org/workshops) because I think Salem really needs to treasure and nurture the locally-owned businesses that make a place a thriving community rather than just a place that looks like every other place, dominated by chains, I definitely have my misgivings about TJs.
As the Costco of upper-middle-brow processed foods, TJs (owned by a giant German conglomerate, Aldis) offers people a narrow and eccentric mixture of things, some absurdly tasty and some, as you note, just sort of absurd, particularly around packaging.
The question for me is how they treat their supplier-growers. Do they treat them the way Wal-Mart treats theirs (nails their feet to the floor and then orders them to dance?)or not? It's hard to know. These high-volume buyers make a point of concealing everything about sourcing and demand absolute silence from the growers, and they tend to wind up with growers over a barrel, so dependent on the chain buyer that they can't say no.
TJs does have some really good prices on what I call industrial organic food.
I know that some of the items are just house-brand versions of semi-national labels in the organic aisles; given that those brands already left the "local" markets a long time ago (you can find Amy's organic frozen pizzas just about anywhere), is it better to pay a higher markup for them? Don't know. Those dollars leave Salem regardless of the sign on the store where you buy those imported goods.
I know that TJs is going to put quite a lot of pressure on LifeSource and I would guess carve into some of Roths' business too. That's the downside. On the up side, TJs reportedly treats its workers pretty well. On the down side, they're helping turn the oceans into lifeless pools of water with overfishing.
I could go on and on -- like all corporations, TJs is a mixed bag.
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