More on our predicament: Business trying to silence the warnings on climate

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/18/cyberbulling-scientists-using-threats-in-an-effort-to-silence-the-discussion-on-climate-change/

Cyberbullying Scientists: Using Threats in an Effort to Silence the Discussion on Climate Change « JONATHAN TURLEY

The Great Train Robbery ... By the Trainsters at Union Pacific, trying to hold US up!

House Bill 4028A: Oregon’s Union Pacific Gravy Train

 “If their tracks need repairs, it’s their job as a business, not ours as taxpayers, to fix them.” Jody Wiser, Tax Fairness Oregon, Willamette Week, Feb. 8, 2012.

 
 “Gravy Train,” the recent Willamette Week story by Kara Wilbeck, notesthat last year, Union Pacific Railroad had profits of $3.3 billion. Yet since 2006, under a law stating that Oregon should subsidize transportation businesses that “lack capital,” the state has already handed out $24.7 million tax dollars to this corporate giant.

The current legislative session in Salem is slashing school budgets and senior services, potentially closing a jail and counting every penny. ButHB 4028A is trying to add another $10 million to the $40 million already in the fund called “ConnectOregon,” for gifts to businesses and to public entities for multi-model (non-highway) transportation projects.

Of the 69 grant applications – most ask the public to do most of the spending
·       48 are for grants where the project owner will pay 25% or less of the project cost.  Thus the public through ConnectOregon will be covering 75% or more of the cost. 

·       11 applicants will cover 25% to 50% of cost.

·       10 applicants will cover 51% to 75% of the cost.

Of course there may be other grants or loans coming to the project owners from other sources, which would further reduce their own contributions. 
 
Of that additional $10 million for ConnectOregon, $8.2 million could go to UP. The gravy train just keeps rolling along.

Why is UP once again seeking Oregon subsidies? The corporate giant’s mouthpiece Aaron Hunt answers in discredited terms that should make taxpayers grab for their wallets: the corporation just “wanted to partner with the public” and create “trickle down throughout the economy.”

This is the type of taxpayer rip-off that giant corporations like to arrange behind the scenes, even as their mouthpieces are complaining about “big government.” 

In this short session, the next decision point in the state legislature is coming right away in the Capital Construction Sub-Committee of the Ways and Means Committee. Legislators there could add the extra $10 million--but passing out more cash to corporations is not acceptable. 

Please phone or email one (or more) of the committee members now and say “NO” to the $10 million ConnectOregon allotment in HB 4028A. Tell them to use our tax dollars to pay teachers to teach, not to pay for corporate-owned railroad tracks. Thank you.

Click here for talking points and the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of committee members.

Tax Fairness Oregon

Food Co-op Meeting at Grand Theatre, 7:30 pm, February 21

This is a meeting to explore a great idea to fill a big gap in Salem. Lots of good potential here. a very dynamic core group of organizers bodes well. See you there!

What Presidents should remember when sending young people off to die

Here's something worth pondering on President's Day.

We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, negroes and whites, rich men and poor–together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.

Any man among us the living who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts up his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the rights of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white men and negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them here have paid the price.

And non-theists too.

For Oregon farmers, oil-rich canola is either promise or peril | OregonLive.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/02/for_oregon_farmers_oil-rich_ca.html

Take action against this disastrously horrible idea. More effort to place the needs of rich auto drivers over humanity's need for real food. Growing rapeseed to make motor fuel in the Willamette Valley is like putting an oil refinery in the Vatican or the Louvre, only much more serious. Art can be recreated ... Getting those genes back out of the fields would be like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube while on fire.

Is there no level too low for the biofuel-mad subsidy seekers? Apparently not.

Tell Oregon Dept of Ag to do their job, and protect the future of food in the Willamette Valley.

Use your First Amendment freedom to demand labels on gene-tampered phoods

Image via WikipediaThe FDA is on the brink of approving genetically TAMPERED [correct term, not "engineered"] salmon for human consumption. This would be the first genetically TAMPERED animal on supermarket shelves in the United States. The salmon is engineered to produce growth hormones year-round that cause the fish to grow at twice the normal rate. The government already requires labels to tell us if fish is wild-caught or farm-raised – don't we also have a right to know if our salmon is genetically TAMPERED? Without labels, we'll never know.

More than forty countries, including Russia and China, already require labels on genetically TAMPERED foods. As an American, I firmly believe that we deserve the same right to know what we are eating.

That's why I signed a petition to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which says:

"Commissioner Hamburg, we urge the FDA to require the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. We have a right to know about the food we eat and what we feed our families, but under current FDA regulations, we don’t have that ability when it comes to genetically engineered foods.

Polls show that more than 90% of Americans support mandatory labeling. Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare. Please listen to the American public and mandate labeling of genetically engineered foods."

Will you sign this petition? Click here

Thanks!

Mesmerizing Saturday Fun

Now Hear This! Seed-Starting Learn-by-Doing Workshop Tomorrow!

Come one, come all!
All are invited to lend a hand this Saturday as we start seeds at the
Oregon School for the Deaf.

WHO: YOU! Anyone interested in learning how to start seeds in our climate

WHAT: we’ll be doing: OSD is the site of a 2-acre urban farm, and this year we’re gearing up the summer youth program to grow even more food on that site. This Saturday we’ll be doing some seed starting, preparing seed flats, and maybe planting in the garden if time allows. For folks interested in the basics of starting seeds, this will be a great opportunity!

WHERE: The Oregon School for the Deaf Urban Farm. 999 Locust Ave. NE, Salem
(Click on address for a map; from Cherry turn right on Locust, then take a right on Maple. Enter through the gate on your right. Meet at the greenhouse.)

WHEN: Saturday, 2/18 from 10 – noon.

HOW to pack: Bring weather-appropriate clothes, sturdy shoes, water to drink and a snack if you so desire.

WHY: Because hunger never takes a holiday!

For more information, please call Ingrid at 503-798-0457. See you Saturday!

Ingrid Evjen-Elias
Community Gardens Resource Coordinator
Marion-Polk Food Share

T: 503-581-3855 x329
C: 503-798-0457
F: 503-581-3862
E: ievjenelias@marionpolkfoodshare.org
1660 Salem Industrial Drive NE
Salem OR 97301-0374
www.marionpolkfoodshare.org/

If you could represent Salem in a font, what would it look like?

Any typographic artists out there? If you send me examples of an original font you create to represent Salem, I'll put it out there for people to see.

Your good thing today. View this newsletter in your browser →

Chattanooga Designers Take a Typographic Approach to Civic Pride TODAY'S GOOD 20% serifs 20% kerning 60% hometown love #beyondHelvetica

Around the world, only a few hundred people make a living as fulltime typeface designers. Two of them happen to live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, population 167,000, where they've embarked on an ambitious project to distill the city's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a font called Chatype. The goal is to help the city and its businesses forge a distinct and cohesive identity through custom typeface, sending a visual message to the world that Chattanooga—a rapidly growing city in the midst of a creative renaissance—is “more than just your average Southern town.” Chatype came about when D.J. Trischler, a brand consultant, discovered he'd been sitting next to typeface designer Jeremy Dooley at their local coffee shop. The two became fixated on a question: What if Chattanooga had its own typeface? The idea may sound strange from an American perspective, but it's actually the norm throughout Europe, where even small cities employ custom typeface to distinguish themselves. Joined by recent Chattanooga transplant and typeface designer Robbie de Villiers and Trischler's business partner Jonathan Mansfield, the collaborators met with a local historian to figure out what should inform the design of a Chattanooga-inspired font. They pulled from a diverse set of local visual references including the Cherokee writing system, Coca-Cola's first bottling plant, and, of course, that city's "choo choo," immortalized by the 1940s big band song. Chatype made its debut at a event hosted by the local creative community and quickly garnered public support. They've raised nearly $7,000 through Kickstarter from more than 100 backers. De Villiers says they now have "hard, firm commitments" from Chattanooga's public sector to work the typeface into local projects (they have yet to reveal which ones). While the designers still have more work to do to finalize the typeface, if all goes according to plan Chattanoogans will soon begin to see Chatype popping up on signage, business cars, emails, and websites published by the city government. “We want to let businesses use the typeface too," says Trischler. "It'd be awesome for startups in town that can’t afford a typeface, to give them a typeface to really set them apart.” Get the full story on GOOD.is

New Link in "Visit Also" list: Congregations Helping People

A resource for hard times.