http://www.fark.com/go/8270846
A great insight -- if we want to claim the proud memories as belonging to us or saying something about who we are, we have to claim them all.
(A tremendous read and a perfect complement to the free "Color of Wealth" talk at Loucks Auditorium on Saturday, June 7.)
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Sat, June 7 -- Event: The Color of Wealth
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." -
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A great follow up to the recent David Cay Johnston talk on the rapid rise in inequality in the US.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Two great jobs available: MPFS Seeking Applicants for 2 AmeriCorps VISTA positions
Marion-Polk Food Share is seeking applications for two AmeriCorps VISTA positions. These positions, sponsored by MercyCorpsNW, are 12 month, full time commitments based in Salem, Oregon at MPFS. They include a modest living stipend and an educational award.
Farm & Garden Program Developer:
The VISTA member will develop and support Farm & Garden initiatives that alleviate poverty through skill training, education and increasing access to nutritious food. They will:
- Support and expand the MPFS Youth Farm, a horticulture training program for at-risk teens. Conduct marketing, fundraising, tracking, curriculum design, volunteer recruitment and planning for the Youth Farm Program.
- Increase capacity of our Youth Gardens Program, a network of 6 after school garden educational sites at low-income elementary schools. Conduct volunteer recruitment and increase community engagement.
- Work to increase community garden participation among MPFS food pantry clientele through a Pantry to Garden program. Conduct outreach and support educational programming for families interesting in growing their own food.
TO APPLY:
https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?id=55793&fromSearch=true
Nutrition Specialist:
The VISTA member will work to increase nutritional food security in low-income communities through developing programs that empower families, increase access to fresh produce and improve the MPFS emergency food distribution system.
- Expand MPFS's nutrition programs, including our diabetic-friendly food box, client-focused education (such as cooking classes), and nutrition promotion efforts at food pantries.
- Grow the capacity of our partner agency network to effectively serve their neighborhood through developing network maps, encouraging client-empowering pantry practices and developing an agency newsletter.
- Increase produce distribution to families in need through developing new distribution sites and improving internal capacities to give out more fresh produce.
TO APPLY:
https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?id=55794&fromSearch=true
For questions regarding the application process or AmeriCorps VISTA service, please contact Jimmy O'Brien with MercyCorpsNW at 503.896.5080 or jobrien@mercycorpsnw.org
For questions regarding the position descriptions or Marion-Polk Food Share, contact Ian Dixon-McDonald at 503-581-3855 x329 or imcdonald@marionpolkfoodshare.org
Ian Dixon-McDonald
Vice President of Programs
Marion-Polk Food Share
F: 503-581-3862
E: imcdonald@marionpolkfoodshare.org
1660 Salem Industrial Drive NE
Great questions from Paul Krugman, while grading papers
1. How can we incentivize students to stop using "impact" as a verb?
2. How can we impact their writing in a way that stops them from using the word "incentivize"?
3. Can we make it a principal principle of writing that "principle" and "principal" mean different things, and you have to know which is which?
That is all.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
George Orwell knew the Salem Statesman-Journal well
The new drive-by corporate boss dropped into Salem briefly haz a sad. Some of the rabble have noticed that it's hard to do journalism about folks you only approach on bended knees. So Newguy recycles the old tropes about "conspiracy theorists" imagining phone calls to tell the paper what to print.
Well, anyone paying attention knows that nothing could be further from the truth than any suggestion that it requires a phonecall from the Chamber of the 1% to tell the Statesman-Journal what to cover, who to favor and who to marginalize. After all, as George Orwell observed years ago,
Well, anyone paying attention knows that nothing could be further from the truth than any suggestion that it requires a phonecall from the Chamber of the 1% to tell the Statesman-Journal what to cover, who to favor and who to marginalize. After all, as George Orwell observed years ago,
Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip. -- George Orwell
Media Matters debunks Chamber of the 1% on class actions, shows why they're crucial to workers and employees
New head of Public Justice on a very misunderstood topic, one that the captive corporate press will never get right:
Media Matters regularly responds to Rush Limbaugh, Fox, etc., on a wide range of attacks. Their blogs videos and whatnot are incredibly well done and professional. They simply do fantastic work. They take important progressive issues and make them entertaining, and educate people and change minds.Just today, they've released a video explaining why class action lawsuits are important, how they help workers and consumers, giving several examples. I'm honored and excited to have been interviewed extensively in the video, although they've added in a lot of clever animation, music, motion, photos, news articles, etc., so it's not just a talking head, it's something aimed at reaching a broader audience. Here's a link to the video:
Only rich kids should go to college. Discuss.
Only Rich Kids Should Go to College (via TIME)
"Suggesting that only the rich (or those who get full-ride scholarships and grants) go to college is about as politically incorrect as you can get... Yet more than a third of young graduates themselves do not agree that their education has paid off, and evidence keeps mounting that student loans are the equivalent of wearing lead sneakers in an economic foot race. At the very least, anyone taking out these loans should understand the full nature of their costs
May 22 -- Free film on an important awakening
http://brighidscircle.wordpress.com
May 22nd, "Rebecca's Wild Farm: A Farm for the Future." Come join us for finger food potluck and discussion.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
What the Chamber of the 1%'s policies produce
Since 1980, the country has taken a sharp and persistent turn for the worse, adopting measure after measure promoted by the wealthiest as "good for jobs" but actually just good for them, and terrible for everyone else.
Here in Salem, the Chamber of the 1% has thrown its weight and money around to great effect, winning excessive and unjustified power and influence over government policies. This year, the Chamber and its alter egos in the Sprawl Lobby (real estate and house building) recognized the threat that a rebellion against foolish spending on sprawl posed to them -- so they recruited four interchangeable candidates, and have pumped obscene amounts of money into their campaigns, which bid fair to succeed in keeping Salem in a terrible mess: declining services for ordinary folks but fat contracts and nice tax gifts for the well-connected.
There's just a few days left to change this sad story, making sure that people know that we can do better, lots better. It's very difficult to do against the power of organized money, but we can do it if we try.
Voters in wards 2, 4, 6, have very good alternatives who could easily pull off the win against Chamber's minions.
Those candidates who deserve all of the support you can offer are
Tom Andersen (2), Scott Bassett (4), and Xue Lor (6).
All three are running against content-free platitude peddlers whose only apparent goal is to ensure that the Chamber doesn't face any serious scrutiny in Council chambers. And Lor is running against a guy with a very checkered past and dubious present, who is trying to conceal it.
(The other non-Chamber clone in Ward 2, Bradd Swank, seems to be a fine person, but the winner take all nature of the November race means that it's important to see an opponent best the Chamber clone candidate in the primary if possible, so that the Chamber House Organ, the unStatesmanlike-Journal can't crown the Chamber clone as the presumptive winner. Doing this is most likely with Andersen. In Ward 8, the lightly experienced Proudfoot offers a decent alternative to filling that seat with another sprawl-booster, but it's hard to see that race turning out well.)
For Mayor, the best option seems to be to leave it blank.
Below is a good short summary of what listening to folks like the Chamber too much has wrought. It's by Nick Kristof of the NY Times, native of Yamhill, Oregon.
Yet today the American dream has derailed, partly because of growing inequality. Or maybe the American dream has just swapped citizenship, for now it is more likely to be found in Canada or Europe — and a central issue in this year's political campaigns should be how to repatriate it.
A report last month in The Times by David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy noted that the American middle class is no longer the richest in the world, with Canada apparently pulling ahead in median after-tax income. Other countries in Europe are poised to overtake us as well.
In fact, the discrepancy is arguably even greater. Canadians receive essentially free health care, while Americans pay for part of their health care costs with after-tax dollars. Meanwhile, the American worker toils, on average, 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and an astonishing 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canadians and Europeans also live longer, on average, than Americans do. Their children are less likely to die than ours. American women are twice as likely to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth as Canadian women. And, while our universities are still the best in the world, children in other industrialized countries, on average, get a better education than ours. Most sobering of all: A recent O.E.C.D. report found that for people aged 16 to 24, Americans ranked last among rich countries in numeracy and technological proficiency. . . .
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
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