Speaking of the arts

Sara Alvarez, owner of Premiere Academy of Performing Arts on 19th Street, is organizing a Neighborhood Dance performance and potluck at McRae Park on July 31 from 1-2:00 pm. All are welcome. For more information, contact Sara at papadancers@comcast.net.

FYI, the Dance Studio is located in SESNA at 135 19th Street Southeast. McRae Park is located in NEN at 20th and Chemeketa Streets.

Admission fee, yes or no?

Image by Mr.Thomas via FlickrSure.

Provided that they drop the Salem Art Show name, and call it the Salem Outdoor Art Sale.

Alas, human nature prefers heroic response to prevention

Good piece from Kurt Cobb, who notices that our habit is to ignore problems until they become unignorable conflagrations and then to fixate on the story of the Hero who steps up to respond -- and to go back to ignoring the next wave of problems as soon as the conflagration is tamed or burns itself out.

Salem is a great demonstration of this phenomenon. The powers that be are resolutely ignoring the mounting wave of evidence that we're in a new normal, that we're not going to go back to the endless growth illusion, and that we're going to have to make some pretty fundamental changes in how we use energy and materials. The PTB would much prefer to prepare for the return of Happy Days and the fossil fuel fiesta, and so they do, regardless of the fact that those days are highly unlikely to return and exceedingly unlikely to last very long if they do manage to make a brief curtain call. So we've got corporadoes proposing to tear down a historic residential facility that is perfectly suited to serving as a care home for persons needing high levels of care near medical facilities -- or to serving as a respite house for families and friends of people undergoing any of the usual range of terrors called health care -- or for any of a number of other better uses.

But no. Because, for the PTB, the highest possible use of a prime piece of downtown land in the very capital of the state is -- that's right, a parking lot.

Road funds wax fat while funds for human needs slashed

Image via Wikipedia

Oregon's constitution is immoral. It privileges and protects a certain class of spending -- for "highway purposes" -- above all others. Meaning that we've got money for paving the streets we'll be tossing seniors into, the streets that kids who have no summer jobs will hang out near, the streets where the homeless vets will beg for spare change.

If we can't eliminate this immoral and unwise limitation, then we ought to at least have the sense to amend the constitution to force the roads to live within their means -- that is, if the gas tax can only be used for roads, then there can be no spending on roads but through the gas tax.

Sadly, this is all too likely to come true as shown

The Age of Stupid:

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Update: The Democratic minority in the Senate and President "No, We Can't, They'll Say Bad Things About Us If We Try" Obama have failed miserably and in the most cowardly way imaginable, rolling over to the Republican majority and condemning the world to its fate from the climate crisis. If you have kids or grandkids, you should be furious. We're left with ideas like this -- good enough, but totally inadequate to the scale of the problem.

The Right Question makes all the difference

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Sam Smith notes this spot-on observation from Alvin Toffler:

An important question to ask of any proposed educational innovation is simply this: Is it intended to make the factory run more efficiently, or is it designed, as it should be, to get rid of the factory model altogether and replace it with individualized, customized education? - Alvin Toffler

Salem Hospital's Ugly Side More and More Prominently Displayed

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Jim Hightower likes to repeat a saying he picked up as a young man about people and institutions who crap on others as they become more powerful --

"The higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ugly side."

Popped into my head when I saw this depressing story, proving that the cynics were right that the closure of the Oregon School for the Blind was nothing other than a vicious real estate grab by the Salem Hospital. And for what!? A parking lot.

With a little imagination, it's easy to see about a million better uses. For instance, that property could be converted to a long-term care facility for people with high-demand medical care needs -- it's already residential, it's in a beautiful spot with great access to medical and to Bush Park.

The City Council needs to step up fast, or we'll lose a historic facility and gain a blight.

An educational reform actually worth more than the words used to describe it

Image by Chris and Jenni via Flickr

There's so much trendy BS going on in the EdBiz today, mostly a function of the terrible takeover of schools by business interests. Real, promising ideas are all too rare. But here's one:

The NFER surveyed a selection of 1,300 school teachers and studied in-depth 10 schools belonging to the RHS Campaign for School Gardening, from a large urban London primary to small village school in Yorkshire, to discover that gardening in schools encourages children to:

Become stronger, more active learners capable of thinking independently and adapting their skills and knowledge to new challenges at school and in future;

Gain a more resilient, confident and responsible approach to life so they can achieve their goals and play a positive role in society;

Learn vital jobs skills such as presentation skills, communication and team work, and fuel their entrepreneurial spirit;

Embrace a healthier, more active lifestyle as an important tool for success at school and beyond;

Develop the ability to work and communicate with people from all ages and backgrounds.

Gillian Pugh, Chair of the National Children’s Bureau and The Cambridge Primary Review, explains, “Not only does gardening provide opportunities for increasing scientific knowledge and understanding, and improving literacy, numeracy and oracy, but this report shows that it also improves pupils’ confidence, resilience and self-esteem.”

Not to mention that children who garden eat what they grow, whereas bad diet is the root evil of much of what plagues kids today (and TV, which is mainly used to push bad food and junk at kids, accounts for much of the rest).

Even better, there's no standardized test for gardening skills! There can be as many styles as there are children, and they can all succeed at it.

The most important story you'll never hear of in the US media

What happened when Portugal decriminalized drugs?

Is Salem smart enough to learn from other cities?

An official with a clear, reality-based perspective!

As we swerve around a familiar Michigan tableau—a dead deer on the side of the highway—Kildee previews the speech he is scheduled to deliver that afternoon on a familiar Michigan imponderable: "The Future of Michigan Cities." For Kildee, the talk is yet another chance to trumpet what he sees as a common-sense approach to urban planning in an age of decline. Others view it as a radically un-American idea that embraces defeat and limited horizons.

First, he says, shrinking cities must accept that they're not going to regain their lost populations anytime soon. Abandoned houses and buildings should be leveled and replaced with parks, urban gardens, and green space. Eventually, incentives can be used to lure residents into higher density neighborhoods that have been reinvigorated with infill housing and rehab projects. While there are no hard numbers, local governments could save money by reducing infrastructure costs, and the housing market would stabilize, if not improve.