Another Valentine's Week Do Not Miss: Joel Salatin (Free)

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Polyface Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Willamette University is making tremendous strides.  The prior President sat on the board of directors for Portland General Electric (PGE), primary owner of the single biggest source of world-wrecking CO2 in Oregon, the Boardman power plant (also a prodigious source of toxic Mercury, which lowers IQ all over the world) and was never heard to utter a word about coal.  

Since then, he has been replaced by a NASA veteran, someone who probably gets that the world is running very short of time to avert climate catastrophe.  Last year's Dempsey Lecture was by Dr. James Hansen of NASA, who spoke about his creative plan for carbon taxes with 100% rebates to citizens.  

This year, Joel Salatin will speak; since industrial agriculture is responsible for a huge share of climate-wrecking pollution, Joel's determinedly place-based model of agriculture is important ... and vital for the Willamette Valley.  

 America’s most famous sustainable farmer to deliver Dempsey Lecture

Farmer Joel Salatin believes our country’s food system is in a state of crisis — from nutrient deficiency to pollution to animal abuse to rural economic decay — and that all of these issues can be solved by one thing: local food.

It’s not a surprising statement from the self-described “lunatic farmer” whose roles in Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and the film, “Food, Inc.,” have turned him into one of the most prominent spokespeople for the local and sustainable food movements.
Salatin will bring his ideas to Willamette University Feb. 12 when he delivers the 2013 Dempsey Lecture. Titled “Local Food to the Rescue,” the lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Salatin’s family-run Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley uses alternative practices — including chicken tractors and pasture-fed “salad bar beef” — that have become a model for sustainable farmers across the country. Polyface serves more than 10 retail outlets, 3,000 families and 50 restaurants through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs.

“Most of the things that I do or say are considered lunacy by the conventional agriculture community,” Salatin says. “We’re a nation which is well-fed but undernourished. We lead the world in obesity, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and a host of other chronic maladies. Clearly it’s not just a matter of bins and bushels and volume, it’s a matter of nutrient density and food quality. Those are things our conventional system doesn’t even consider.”

Even regions like the Willamette Valley, known for its thriving sustainable and local agriculture communities, have room for improvement, Salatin says.

“I haven’t been any place in the U.S. where 95% of the food produced there isn’t exported first and then reimported,” he says. “We should be growing it here, processing it here and eating it here. That is ultimately a far more secure food system.”

In addition to farming, Salatin is a prolific writer and sought-after conference speaker whose humorous and conviction-based speeches are akin to theatrical performances.
“If you think the current food system — 1,500 miles between farmer and plate, gluten intolerance, factory farming, reduced aquifers, manure waste pollution and a host of other maladies — if you think all of that is just wonderful, then don’t come to my lecture,” he says. “But if you care about any of that, and that’s not the kind of world you want your children to inherit, then I want you to come.”

This event is sponsored by the Dempsey Foundation and Willamette University’s Center for Sustainable Communities.  Info: Joe Bowersox, 503-370-6220.

Related Event

Willamette will host a free showing of “American Meat,” a documentary featuring Joel Salatin, on Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201) at the Willamette University College of Law.

The film highlights the state of the country’s livestock industry. After the showing, filmmakers and local experts in sustainable agriculture and the locavore movement will lead a roundtable discussion.

Mark your Calendars for sure! Saturday after Valentine's Day

There was an amazingly small turnout the last time Roy came through, a sad sight because if ever a town needed the gift of humor surrounding the real insights Roy provides, it's Salem!  Make a point to catch him this time.

Saturday, Feb 16 -  8 pm 
SALEM, OR
Wake Up Call tour
UU Congregation of Salem5090 Center Street NE
$18 or pay what you can

Roy Zimmerman sings satirical songs - original songs about class warfare, creationism, same-sex marriage, guns, marijuana, abstinence, Republicans (a lot of songs about Republicans), ignorance, war and greed.

There's a decidedly Lefty slant to his lyrics. "We used to have a name for Right Wing satire," he says. "We called it 'cruelty.'"

The Los Angeles Times says, "Zimmerman displays a lacerating wit and keen awareness of society's foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer."

Tom Lehrer himself says, "I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs. And the rhymes actually rhyme, they don't just 'rhyne.'

Joni Mitchell says, "Roy's lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection."

In twelve albums over twenty years and on stages, screens and airwaves across America, Roy has brought the sting of satire to the struggle for Peace and Social Justice. His songs have been heard on HBO and Showtime. He has recorded for Warner/Reprise Records. He's a featured blogger for the Huffington Post. And everywhere Zimmerman goes, the Starving Ear goes with him.

The Starving Ear is Zimmerman's homage to San Francisco's legendary nightclub the hungry i. In the late 50's and early 60's the hungry i was a flashpoint for such talents as Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Phyllis Diller, Maya Angelou, the Kingston Trio, and a melting pot of music, comedy and social message.

Zimmerman's stage show "Live From the Starving Ear" is ninety minutes of original satirical songs, many of them co-written with his wife, Melanie Harby. There are political targets, of course: a post-hypnotic suggestion to "Vote Republican," an exhuberant paean to "Real America," a love song to Citizens United. There are Social targets: a lesson in "Creation Science 101," a lambasting of the "Defenders of Marriage" who oppose same-sex unions, a "Sing-Along Second Amendment."

And there are unabashed progressive anthems. "Hope, Struggle and Change" adds one important word to Obama's slogan, and serves as a populist call to action.
"I Approve This Message" is a campaign theme song for the Occupy Movement, folding its many messages into the unifying theme of Economic Justice.

In this election year, Zimmerman has made a "campaign promise" to perform in all fifty states before the Republican National Convention. He'll be posting a new Song of the Week every week until November 6, just to savor the delicate and perishable absurdities of the political season.

Zimmerman has shared stages with George Carlin, Bill Maher, Kate Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Oliver, Dennis Miller, Sandra Tsing Loh, kd lang, Andy Borowitz and Paul Krassner. He's done several shows with The Pixies' Frank Black, swapping songs in a solo acoustic setting.

Roy's songs are often played on progressive radio by Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press and others. His up-to-the-moment topical songs are spun regularly by folk music DJ's across the country and he's a frequent guest on Sirius Radio's syndicated show "West Coast Live."

Roy's performance of his song "I'm Fired" is featured in the Showtime film "Fired!" And he sings his song "Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual" in Alexandra Pelosi's HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard." Mr. Haggard himself said of the song, "It's really bad -- I mean, it's poorly done -- but it's funny." "Firing the Surgeon General," Zimmerman's song full of blue euphemisms, was used in MTV's "Sex in the Nineties" documentary. In 2005, Roy wrote the opening number for the 37th Annual Writers Guild Awards show in Hollywood, a song appropriately titled, "I Wrote That."

Roy has brought The Starving Ear to YouTube where his videos have garnered nearly seven million views, and tens of thousands of comments, many of them coherent. The Starving Ear on YouTube features Roy's songs and commentary, but also "Ear to Ear" conversations, Roy's interviews with artists, authors and activists whose work engages the world and changes it for the better.

Zimmerman founded and wrote all the material for the comedy folk quartet The Foremen, who recorded four albums, two of them for Warner/Reprise Records. The Foremen toured extensively, playing the nation's major folk venues, a lot of fancy Progressive benefits, Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival (under an overpass in the rain) and CBGB. Zimmerman wrote over five hours of satire for the group. "We never did it all at once," he reports, "but we kept it ready in case we had to filibuster."

The Foremen were featured on NPR's "All Things Considered," and many other syndicated talk radio shows. They shared the air with Al Franken on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." They got to sing Zimmerman's lampoon of Oliver North, "Ollie Ollie Off Scot Free" directly to the colonel himself on North's own syndicated show. "Friends," said North, "this is a very weird group."

Roy's satirical revues "Yup!" and "Up the Yup!" written and performed for The San Jose Repertory Company in the 1980s, became the longest-running shows in San Jose history. Later, Roy rode the Comedy Boom as a member of the duo, the Reagan Brothers. His partner, Stevie Coyle is now a major light on the folk circuit.

Steeped in musical theatre, Roy was fascinated at an early age with the ingenious economy of Irving Berlin, the witty innuendo of Cole Porter and the high-wire rhyme and reason of Stephen Sondheim. You can hear The Beatles and The Beach Boys in there, but folk influences loom large as well: Phil Ochs' unapologetic blend of humor and politics, Pete Seeger's unflagging commitment to social justice, The Roches' eccentric soulfulness.

So come in from the fog. Climb down the narrow staircase into the dimly lit brick-walled basement where the air is cool and filled with espresso and conversation. Take a seat at the tiny round table near the stage. Woody Guthrie famously emblazoned his guitar with the words, "This Machine Kills Fascists." Pete Seeger adapted the phrase for his banjo to "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender." Now, it's lights up, and a singer takes the stage in a white shirt and tie - "Bobby Kennedy meets Bobby Dylan" - strumming for all he's worth and singing, "This Machine drives neocon, jingoistic, war-mongering, xenophobic crypto-fascists from the room!"

This is Roy Zimmerman, Live from the Starving Ear!

**************

"Roy Zimmerman lifted the evening with his song 'Chickenhawk' ridiculing the military policies of Bush administration officials who didn't serve in the armed forces. Zimmerman's squawking and clucking conveyed his scorn with contagious irreverence."
-- The New York Times

"Zimmerman is a guy on the left skewering folks on the right with rapier-sharp lyrics ... underneath the caustic satire is a man who is surprisingly optimistic." -- Sing Out!

"It was great to hear all those old Foremen songs again, and to be reminded of your lyrical brilliance. Just excellent." -- "Weird Al" Yankovic

"...this was no ordinary man. This was Roy Zimmerman, a unique type of superhero who possesses the power to nearly coax urine from the unwilling bladders of his audience members (via laughter). He delivered some of the smartest satirical songs that I'd ever heard." -- Jeff Penalty, lead singer of The Dead Kennedys

"Roy Zimmerman has a rare gift for songwriting -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Bobby Kennedy meets Bobby Dylan"  - The Marin Independent Journal

"You're brilliant. Just brilliant!" -- Terry Jones, Monty Python

**************

Zimmerman lives in Northern California with his wife and frequent co-writer Melanie Harby.

Protect the Priceless Jewel, fertile, uncontaminated Willamette Valley Farmland

Genetically Tampered Canola threatens to destroy the
Willamette Valley specialty seed growers livelihood -
Thanks Oregon Department of Ag!

It is truly, staggeringly, astoundingly, chart-toppingly stupid-to-the-point-of-insane to imperil a singular world resource of the exact conditions needed to grow precious specialty food crops that command top dollar and provide food security insurance in a threatened world, simply in order to grow a near-worthless commodity product (canola oil) that is only hot because of outrageous and unjustified subsidies as fuel for cars.

If this wasn't so deadly serious you would be justified in thinking this was like a "Candid Camera" skit, where the idea was to propose something so outrageous that people would be justified in tarring and feathering anyone who proposed it.

Below is an email from Kendra Wolf, a MoveOn member in Beaverton, who created a petition on SignOn.org, the nonprofit site that allows anyone to start their own online petition. If you have concerns or feedback about this petition, click here.

Dear Salem MoveOn member,

Oregon is a major producer of the world's seeds for European cabbage, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga and turnips. Recently, our Department of Agriculture decided to allow 2500 acres for the growing of GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

The introduction of genetically modified canola would not only threaten the livelihood of seed farmers but would also pose serious dangers (such as increased pesticide use and herbicide-resistant superweeds) to the environment.

That's why I created a petition on SignOn.org to the Oregon Legislature, which says:

Stop the Oregon Department of Agriculture's decision to open 2500 acres to genetically modified canola.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Genetically modified canola has been genetically altered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, allowing farmers to spray more herbicide without destroying their crops. The cross-pollination of genetically modified crops with weeds creates superweeds that are also herbicide resistant.

The Huffington Post reported that more than two dozen weed species have become "resistant to Roundup's chief ingredient glyphosate, causing farmers to use increasing amounts both of glyphosate and other weed killing chemicals to try to control the so-called 'superweeds.'" This dilemma facing farmers is now driving up the "volume of herbicide needed each year by about 25 percent," and farmers are forced to use older, more dangerous herbicides as a result.1

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Kendra Wolf

Source:

1. "Genetically Modified Crops Have Led to Pesticide Increase, Study Finds," The Huffington Post, October 1, 2012.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=285870&id=60259-19567772-L3ffAYx&t=4

This petition was created on SignOn.org, the progressive, nonprofit petition site. SignOn.org is sponsored by MoveOn Civic Action, which is not responsible for the contents of this or other petitions posted on the site. Kendra Wolf didn't pay us to send this email—we never rent or sell the MoveOn.org list.

Want to support our work? MoveOn Civic Action is entirely funded by our 7 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

The 2013 Transportation Proposal Salem DOES Need

The Oregon Passenger Rail Project is studying options for improved passenger rail service. The study area includes the segment between the Columbia River in the Portland urban area and the Eugene-Springfield urban area. This 125-mile segment is part of the federally-designated Pacific Northwest Rail Corridor. ODOT is leading an environmental review process that will inform a number of important decisions, including selection of the general rail alignment and communities where stations will be located. The project will also determine several service characteristics, such as the number of daily trips, travel time objectives, and the technologies to be used (for example, whether the trains will be powered by electric or diesel‐electric engines).

To learn more, attend one of these open houses:

Salem Open House

Jan 17, 2013 - 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Chemeketa Center for Business and Industry, 626 High Street NE, Salem, OR, 97301

Learn more:

http://www.oregonpassengerrail.org/

Priority work: Get rid of the Death Penalty before it bankrupts us

The death penalty is dying a slow and lingering death. Unfortunately, there are still people in our state who want to keep it on life support.

With your help, we can put it out of its misery.

Here are the facts for the past year: 

In Oregon: 

• No one was executed;
• No one was sentenced to death; and
• Five death sentences were overturned on appeal.

In the United States:

• Only nine states conducted an execution, and over 3/4 of the nation's 43 executions took place in just four states: Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Arizona;
   
• A projected 78 death sentences have been or will be handed down nationally, about the same as last year, down from a high of 315 in 1996; 2011 and 2012 are the first years since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 that there have been fewer than 100 new death sentences;
   
• Connecticut repealed its death penalty, becoming the fifth state to do so in five years; California voters narrowly lost a ballot measure election to do the same;
   
• Despite the reduction in executions and death sentences, murder rates continued to drop substantially, confirming research findings that the death penalty has no measurable deterrent effect on violent crime.
   

Even though the death penalty is becoming an anachronism, fails to provide any public benefit, and has been rejected by most civilized nations in the world, we continue to waste millions of dollars on it.

You and I can end this pointless practice.

If your mailing address is in the OADP database, you should have received Ron Steiner's letter last week asking for your financial support of our mission.  Please use the envelope and response form in that letter and make the most generous contribution that fits into your budget.

If you didn't get Ron's letter, you can read it, along with our December newsletter and other articles, at our website, www.oadp.org.  And while you're there, we'll be most grateful if you'd click "Donate" to learn how you can support our work either on a credit card or by check.

The death penalty truly is in terminal decline.  It's time for us to end it in Oregon and put our nation one step closer to complete abolition.  The goal is worthy, and we'll be most grateful for your support.

Best wishes from all of us for a safe, peaceful and prosperous New Year!

Sincerely,

David McNeil
OADP Board Secretary

Donate to OADP

Visit Our Website

Another Don't-Miss Film at Salem Cinema

Speaking of runaway melting glaciers (see Salem Cinema info below), here's a letter sent to the Salem City Council and Cherriots boards today:

Salem City Council members,
Cherriots board members:

I encourage you especially to view this film, as you consider the wisdom of an $800+ million dollars commitment to business as usual and constantly increasing carbon emissions. 

Take your kids and grandkids with you.

A physicist friend reports that this film was immensely powerful and sobering.  I hope that every member of every agency with a representative on SKATS goes to see this and realizes the direct connection between our decisions today  (pursuing transportation and land-use policies that ignore the need for dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions) and the catastrophes we are experiencing and will bequeath to future generations -- which will continue to worsen if we don't change course promptly.

Chasing Ice
Friday 6:15 8:30
Saturday (*1:15) 6:15 8:30
Sunday (*12:30) (*3:15) 7:45
Monday (*12:30)(*3:15) 7:45
Tuesday 7:45
Wednesday (*5:20)
Thursday (*5:20)
(*Bargain Shows)

Short summary of arguments against Bridgasaurus

There are 800+ million reasons to oppose "Bridgasaurus Boondogglus," the fossilized relic of 1950's style auto "planning."  Here's a good, short summary of just a few of those arguments.

Astoundingly great website/blog: Strong Towns

It would be nice if, instead of creating AstroTurf campaign groups like the "Third Bridge Alliance (for tolls and higher taxes)" the Chamber of Commerce had all its members spend a few weeks analyzing the arguments that a real conservative makes against projects like the Bridgasaurus Boondogglus, Salem's pet dinosaur of antediluvian thinking.

The guy behind he Strong Towns blog is my new hero ... An actual rather than a pretend conservative, someone who thinks the road to reasonable tax policy starts by avoiding the absurd investments that consume all the revenue while producing an unsustainable overhang of aging, inefficient infrastructure:

Mechanisms of Growth

Today, there are four primary mechanisms that have fueled the current growth pattern within our towns and neighborhoods. None of these are financially sustainable.

1. Transfer payments between governments.

Nearly every city in America is reliant, to one degree or another, on intergovernmental subsidies to finance infrastructure. Whether the money comes through an established program, an earmark or a block grant, the result is the same: a land use pattern that does not reflect local economic realities. Local values and priorities are distorted when there is little pressure to generate a return on public infrastructure investments. The result: inefficient growth patterns that cannot be financially sustained.

At the same time our infrastructure maintenance liabilities are ballooning, our federal and state legislatures are struggling to reconcile huge budget shortfalls. Even if it were good policy, the reality is that we do not have the ability to build Strong Towns with intergovernmental transfer payments as they are currently designed.

2. Demand-driven transportation spending.

Transportation improvements today are made primarily to increase safety and reduce congestion. After two generations of trying to build our way out of congestion, we not only have massive maintenance liabilities but congestion is actually worse. An approach to transportation spending that pits federal and state priorities (transportation) against local priorities (land use) when we should be linking them is a recipe for waste and inefficiency.

To add to this disconnect, federal transportation policy actually rewards states with additional funds for building additional roads, regardless of their efficiency. Political meddling, often in the form of earmarks, further distorts transportation spending by prioritizing improvements based on political clout, not overall return on the public investment. 

3. Debt, both public and private.

Where we once paid for infrastructure improvements through direct taxation, we have increasingly shifted to debt to finance maintenance and improvements. While the policy implications of indebtedness may be debated on many levels, it is clear that the ability to easily wrap the cost of infrastructure into government bonds and home mortgages has allowed us to make inefficient decisions about how to grow our towns and neighborhoods. As our ability to leverage is diminished, we are left with fewer options for maintaining the bloated systems debt has allowed us to create.

4. The Growth Ponzi Scheme.

New growth is often thought of as the salvation for a struggling town, but when that growth is fueled by new and inefficient infrastructure, it is simply a Ponzi Scheme waiting to collapse. Whether it is the town or a developer that fronts the cost of infrastructure, the catch is always that the public assumes the long-term maintenance liability. This gives local governments a short-term revenue boost in exchange for greater, long-term maintenance liabilities. The cycle demands ever-increasing growth rates to maintain bloated and inefficient infrastructure systems, a pattern that cannot be maintained. (Read more on the Growth Ponzi Scheme).

America will not have continued prosperity using these mechanisms for growth. We need to come to grips with how they induce inefficient development patterns that may provide a short-term gain but, in the end, severely limit America's long-term potential. Reliance on these four growth mechanisms has committed us to maintaining costly and inefficient systems, with incredibly low rates of return on the ongoing public investment. We have, ironically, grown our way into stagnation and decline.

We must find the courage to systematically address the problems of our current approach to growth if we want to have competitive, Strong Towns in the future.

A trip down memory lane: D-Day, 2008

Here's a post about the Bridgasaurus Boondogglus from June 6, 2008.  The only thing that has changed is that the price tag of the monster has jumped up 66%, from $500 million to $800 million.

Join the fight against $800 million Bridgasaurus Boondogglus!

There's a listserv you can join to stay informed about the effort to restore sanity and stop the absurd $800+ million 3rd Bridge project.

To join this listserv and others opposing this Bridgasaurus Boondogglus, just send me a note at gearjm (at symbol) gmail.com  and request an invite to join the No3rdBridge list, so that you can participate in the campaign and be informed about the issue.

    Remember, you can control for yourself how much mail you get from this list-- you can set it to send you every message as they are posted, or you can get one daily digest (containing all of that day's messages), or you can even set to "no mail" which would let you view the messages at the website but not fill your inbox.

    Another thing you can do is use filters/rules to automatically move the mail you get from this list to a folder in your computer's email program.  (Ask a young person how if you don't know how to tickle your mail program to do that for you.)

And don't forget to sign the petition and to share it with your friends, neighbors, and fellow taxpayers -- all throughout Marion and Polk counties (it's not just a nightmare for Salem -- we'll all be hit hard by this monster if it's not stopped).