Here's another idea for the Salem 

"Billion Better Ways to Spend a Billion Bucks (than on an unnecessary Third Bridge)" list 

-- a year-round, sliding scale public dental health clinic.  

We could put it at the North Salem Hospital parcel in a repurposed structure, part of saving all those structures and turning them into productive uses, such as housing and medical clinics for people struggling to keep sheltered and fed.  Turn the unbuilt land into an urban farm food and skills growing project.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/24668-free-dental-clinics-attract-thousands-of-volunteers-millions-of-patients.html

Free Dental Clinics Attract Thousands of Volunteers & Millions of Patients

spirit of america / Shutterstock.com

August 8, 2014; Charlotte Observer

In a 2012 report, "Dental Therapists: Expanding Care to Every Community," the Kellogg Foundation reported that "roughly 83 million Americans face barriers to dental care." Dental care is critically important to people's health and well-being but it is often either priced out of sight or just not accessible so not only are community health centers offering the services more often but also free health clinics are popping up across the United States – as here in the Carolinas

...

Mission of Mercy also offers free clinics in many other states including Oregon where at dawn on July 14th, there were already about 300 people lined up, some having waited for 24 hours. The first two in line were Kory Brown who needed a root canal and his wife Leslie Bowers who was hoping for a removable partial denture, to replace a dead tooth.

According to the same Kellogg report there are good financial reasons why access to dental care should be a priority issue. "In 2006, Americans made more than 330,000 trips to hospital emergency rooms primarily due to tooth pain or other preventable dental problems. These ER visits cost nearly $110 million.For states, the financial penalty is severe. A study of Medicaid enrollees found that in-patient ER treatment for dental problems cost nearly 10 times more per patient than preventive care in a dentist's office."

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Perovskite solar

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/08/woolgathering/perovskite-solar/

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Good buzz: Urban bees to the rescue?

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

>
> http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/08/13/rooftop-bees

How Boondoggles Take Over

Great article explaining why absurd ideas like the Bridgasaurus Boondogglus and blowing millions of dollars to extend the runways at the Salem airport are the ones that get the most attention from the politicians, while the real needs of the people of Salem don't even get a mention at City Hall..

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

August 12, 2014, 06:00 am 

Who rules America?
By Allan J. Lichtman, contributor

"The public be damned!"
— William H. Vanderbilt, railroad magnate, 1882

A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country. The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.

This study should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government. To reclaim the promise of American democracy, ordinary citizens must act positively to change the relationship between the people and our government

The new study, with the jaw-clenching title of "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is forthcoming in the fall 2014 edition of Perspectives on Politics. Its authors, Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University, examined survey data on 1,779 national policy issues for which they could gauge the preferences of average citizens, economic elites, mass-based interest groups and business-dominated interest groups. They used statistical methods to determine the influence of each of these four groups on policy outcomes, including both policies that are adopted and rejected.

The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic elites and organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registers at a "non-significant, near-zero level." The analysts further discovered that rich individuals and business-dominated interest groups dominate the policymaking process. The mass-based interest groups had minimal influence compared to the business-based interest groups.

The study also debunks the notion that the policy preferences of business and the rich reflect the views of common citizens. They found to the contrary that such preferences often sharply diverge and when they do, the economic elites and business interests almost always win and the ordinary Americans lose.

The authors also say that given limitations to tapping into the full power elite in America and their policy preferences, "the real world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater" than their findings indicate.

Ultimately, Gilens and Page conclude from their work, "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

Rich individuals and business interests have the capacity to hire the lobbyists that shadow legislators in Washington and to fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. Ordinary citizens are themselves partly to blame, however, because they do not choose to vote.

America's turnout rate places us near the bottom of industrialized democracies. More than 90 million eligible Americans did not vote in the presidential election of 2012 and more than 120 million did not vote in the midterm elections of 2010.

Electoral turnout in the United States is highly correlated with economic standing: The more affluent Americans vote in much higher proportion than the less affluent. A study by Ellen Shearer of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern found that 59 percent of 2012 voters earned $50,000 or more per year, compared to 39 percent of non-voters. Only 12 percent of non-voters earned more than $75,000, compared to 31 percent of voters.

Ordinary citizens in recent decades have largely abandoned their participation in grassroots movements. Politicians respond to the mass mobilization of everyday Americans as proven by the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. But no comparable movements exist today. Without a substantial presence on the ground, people-oriented interest groups cannot compete against their wealthy adversaries.

Average Americans also have failed to deploy the political techniques used by elites. Political Action Committees (PACs) and super-PACs, for example, raise large sums of money to sway the outcome of any election in the United States. Although average Americans cannot match the economic power of the rich, large numbers of modest contributions can still finance PACs and super-PACs that advance our common interests.

If only they vote and organize, ordinary Americans can reclaim American democracy and challenge the politicians who still echo the view of old Vanderbilt that the public should be damned.

Lichtman is distinguished professor of history at American University in Washington.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/214857-who-rules-america#ixzz3ACQfuVnA

Meanwhile, Salem's airport still spews leaded gas poisons

Lead is a potent, permanently crippling neurotoxin.  Most people don't even realize it has never gone away, because most people don't fly small civilian aircraft, the little Cessnas and others.

And that's the principal new exposure source in the USA today: civil (small plane) aviation. 

The industry fights for the right to keep spewing lead emissions all over populous areas, even though there planes that fly fine with unleaded. 

 

Take Salem. Planes in and out of our money-losing, corporate-welfare queen, subsidized airport, spew poisons with every flight. 

The response from City Hall?  Zilch, except to talk about blowing even more money by extending the runway.

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/08/economics/lead-evil-and-corporate-free-speech/

Lead, evil, and corporate free speech

Kevin Drum, who's been doing Pulitzer-quality science and policy reporting on the behavioral effects of environmental lead, has yet another item today, once again reporting a new paper by Jessica Wolpaw Reyes of Amherst, who's been doing the fancy number-crunching on the topic. No real surprise: in addition to greatly increasing rates of criminal behavior, lead exposure also increase the risk of other consequences of poor self-command, such as early pregnancy. Kevin draws one of the right morals of the story: that biology matters, while liberals and conservatives tend to unite in blaming everything on society, economics, and culture:

It's a funny thing. For years conservatives bemoaned the problem of risky and violent behavior among children and teens of the post-60s era, mostly blaming it on the breakdown of the family and a general decline in discipline. Liberals tended to take this less seriously, and in any case mostly blamed it on societal problems. In the end, though, it turned out that conservatives were right. It wasn't just a bunch of oldsters complaining about the kids these days. Crime was up, drug use was up, and teen pregnancy was up. It was a genuine phenomenon and a genuine problem.

But liberals were right that it wasn't related to the disintegration of the family or lower rates of churchgoing or any of that. After all, families didn't suddenly start getting back together in the 90s and churchgoing didn't suddenly rise. But teenage crime, drug use, and pregnancy rates all went down. And down. And down. Most likely, there was a real problem, but it was a problem no one had a clue about. We were poisoning our children with a well-known neurotoxin, and this toxin lowered their IQs, made them into fidgety kids, wrecked their educations, and then turned them into juvenile delinquents, teen mothers, and violent criminals. When we got rid of the toxin, all of these problems magically started to decline. This doesn't mean that lead was 100 percent of the problem. There probably were other things going on too, and we can continue to argue about them. But the volume of the argument really ought to be lowered a lot. Maybe poverty makes a difference, maybe single parenting makes a difference, and maybe evolving societal attitudes toward child-rearing make a difference. But they probably don't make nearly as much difference as we all thought. In the end, we've learned a valuable lesson: don't poison your kids. That makes more difference than all the other stuff put together.

But there's another moral to be drawn.  The toxicity of lead has been known for at least a century. The introduction of tetraethyl lead into gasoline in the 1920s sparked a controversy, which the automobile industry, the petroleum industry, and Ethyl Corporation (a GM/Esso joint venture) won, using the usual mix of dirty tricks including lying and including threatening scientists with lawsuits. A similar battle was fought over lead paint in the 197os, with the lead-paint vendors in the bad-guy role, and over lead emissions from smelters, with the American Iron and Steel institute trying to destroy Herb Needleman.  Then, mostly by the accident that leaded [gas] fouled catalytic converters, the battle was rejoined over lead in gasoline, with the old pro-toxin coalition fighting a drawn-out rearguard action to delay regulation as much as possible. . . .

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Why Are So Many Low-Income People So Overweight? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Profound article. Economically precarious people -- say, people at the bottom end of an increasingly unforgiving and intolerant economic regime that constantly stresses and amplifies social insecurity -- take comfort in a feeling of immediate subconscious abundance provided by junk foods that deftly hit our biological triggers.

Essentially the first world poor today still live in our caveman past, where the imperative was always to load up on calories whenever available because famines were frequent and lasting. Having evolved that internal command, why are we surprised that those who are constantly under threat of having what little they have obliterated obey the ancient command to load up on calories because deprivation is close by.

Seems the solution to obesity among the poorz is to ignore the obesity as much as possible while addressing the insecurity.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/many-low-income-people-overweight-87379/

We might begin this process by trying to understand diet as a psycho-socioeconomic phenomenon rather than as a matter of food access. There's a critically important aspect to McMillan's story that's essential to this shift in perspective: the people she profiles live lives defined by persistent scarcity—not necessarily food scarcity, but a generalized and even traumatizing kind of material instability. Absolutely nothing about their lives is secure.

Critics of McMillan's piece complained about how the low-income cohort she profiled possessed houses, cell phones, decent clothing, and televisions. Nobody mentioned how precariously close these people were to losing those things, much less the anguish such anxiety entails. One unexpected medical bill, one glitch with the car, one minor brush with the law, one argument with your shift manager—all these events could have sent the entire edifice of material life crumbling. And that's terrifying. The subjects pictured and videotaped in McMillan's story are not just overweight. They're scared out of their minds.

And being scared out of your mind affects how you eat. In their book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir write that "scarcity captures the mind." Scarcity, they note, "has its own logic." It doesn't take much imagination to hypothesize that, if your entire material existence teetered on the edge of loss—that is, if you were obsessed with scarcity because you had to be—that you'd likely blow your limited food budget on a bag of cookies and fried gizzards rather than a peck of apples and sweet potatoes. Nobody's saying such a choice would be advisable in terms of maximizing personal or public health. To the contrary, buying crap over carrots means that you are driven to eat by a scarcity-induced craving for the most immediate and gratifying satiation—the kind that sugar, salt, and fat excel at providing. But you remain, in fact, a victim.

Of what? Critics of the American diet frequently note that obesity rates have spiked over the last 30 years. They tend, as they should, to excoriate food companies churning out obesity-inducing processed junk. But do note: The problem is much bigger than our sinister food corporations. Consider the political economy of the United States in the 30 years before our waistline started to expand epidemically. Between 1945 and 1975, wages increased in proportion to worker productivity, the federal government maintained progressive taxes and expanded social service programs, and—while not all Americans had everything they wanted—a majority of us lived lives in the middle class, mercifully free from the distorting logic of scarcity.

Comedian John Oliver Produces Remarkably Strong Piece of Journalism (Albeit Completely Profane) on Payday Lending

Word.

Payday lenders are like giant leeches on the neck of low-income working Americans. This corrosive product, that drains the resources of so many people until they have nothing left, survives because the industry spends crazy amounts of money on political influence and is able to convince consumers of a bunch of false premises.

Kudos to John Oliver for shining light on this problem in such an incredibly effective way. - See more at:

http://www.publicjustice.net/content/comedian-john-oliver-produces-remarkably-strong-piece-journalism-albeit-completely-profane-p#sthash.NUbyUKTv.dpuf

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

BOOM! Earthquake Researchers Blow Up the Ground Beneath an Abandoned Suburb [feedly]

Salem has liquefaction zones too -- most notably right where the Chamber of the 1% wants to blow a half a billion dollars of our money on a Bridgasaurus Boondogglus.  Great plan, guys! 

----
BOOM! Earthquake Researchers Blow Up the Ground Beneath an Abandoned Suburb
// Next City Daily

Due to liquefaction, many neighborhoods had to be abandoned after Christchurch's 2011 earthquake. (Photo by Charles Anderson)

Christchurch resident Martin Howman was not shy about detonating 900 pounds of gelignite explosives under the homes of his former neighbors.

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For a long time he was one of the few people still living in his suburb. Most of his neighbors had fled in 2011, when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake left the community devastated. Now, however, Howman was helping to rebuild that community and others like it – by blowing up the very ground beneath it, with the blessing of the Christchurch authorities.

When the 2011 earthquake struck, "liquefaction" was a concept few residents of New Zealand's second-largest city were familiar with. But in the catastrophe's aftermath, they came to know it all too well as they helped shovel silt out of each other's sinking homes. Liquefaction occurs when an earthquake strikes a specific type of terrain, one where soft soil is topped with a layer of much harder earth. When the friction from the shaking shuffles the soft soil below, the weight of a harder top layer presses down onto it, forcing the soft stuff to the top, like liquid. The process renders the land unstable – after it happened in New Zealand, thousands of residents had to abandoned their neighborhoods.

As the area's only remaining resident Howman was given the curious honor of doing his bit for a research project that sought to better understand how liquefaction works and how to prevent it. On October 25 last year, at the appointed time, he pressed two buttons simultaneously, triggering a series of below-ground explosions where engineers had placed a variety of concrete and gravel columns. These columns change the makeup of the soil by stiffening it and, theoretically, help mitigate the effects of liquefaction in the event of an earthquake. This test was to see how the system would perform.

As he pressed the buttons, a piece of Howman's old neighborhood, long since abandoned, jumped and jostled just like it had the day of the 2011 quake. Cameras inside the homes showed floor boards shaking and kitchen benches being thrown from their foundations. Drones hovering above captured images of roof tiles being shaken loose and shock waves thudding through the earth. Signs had been placed throughout the wider area to reassure passersby that the sounds were just science in action. Many gathered at a safe distance to watch the spectacle unfold.

The techniques the research team were testing have been used before in the construction of heavy infrastructure like airports and dams, but never before in a sprawling suburban setting.

"These trials are the largest and most sophisticated of their kind ever undertaken," said Hugh Cowan of New Zealand's Earthquake Commission. "The lessons learned will be every bit applicable around the world."

Liquefaction is an ongoing problem faced by hundreds of cities. Seattle, Vancouver, Portland and Memphis all have the right mix of land type and seismicity to put them at liquefaction risk. Which is why this experiment was so significant – and why it had been aided with funding from the United States' National Science Foundation. The Earthquake Commission, which led the project, had been joined by scientists and engineers from Cornell and Texas Universities along with experts from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands.

"It's tragic, but Christchurch was also the ideal natural laboratory," Cowan said. "We experienced the damage which highlighted the problem, but it also created the context in which to learn."

Indeed, University of Texas PhD student Julia Roberts dubbed it "a once in a lifetime chance."

"People will be talking about this for decades," she said.

While about $8 million was spent conducting the trials, Cowan said the research could save untold billions in the future. Not only are the researchers learning how to reinstate damaged property, but also about preemptive actions that could help cities avoid huge costs in the event of a disaster.

The methods appeared to work. The liquefaction that was produced after the explosions seemed less intense than without the stabilization system. The columns confined the effects of liquefaction, and the denser ground meant the houses appeared to be stable on the earth.

While the final results of the tests are still being internationally peer reviewed the methods have already been transferred to a pilot program for landowners who have been stuck in limbo. Both insurers and builders have been reluctant to risk rebuilding on unstable land. For some, these techniques should change that.

"For those that have participated, they have been on a fast track to resolution," Cowan said.

----

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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Salem: AWOL in the struggle for a livable planet - Mayors Climate Protection Center

Oregon cities that have pledged action to prevent loss of life and property from climate chaos and who are working to protect the residents of their cities from economic harm by reducing reliance on fossil fuels:

Albany OR 

Ashland OR 

Beaverton OR 

Bend OR 

Corvallis OR 

Eugene OR 

Forest Grove OR 

Gladstone OR 

Gresham OR 

Hillsboro OR 

Lake Oswego OR 

Lincoln City OR 

Milwaukie OR 

Oregon City OR 

Portland OR 

Vernonia OR 

A singular shameful absence among Oregon's largest cities:  Salem

http://www.netadvisor.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/List-of-Participating-Mayors-Mayors-Climate-Protection-Center.pdf

For Salem: 9/21/14 -- People's Climate March – Organising Guide

It's well past time for Salem to make it into the 21st-century and for the Salem city leadership to recognize and begin responding to the threat of catastrophe caused by global climate destabilization.

Peoples of the world will be rallying on Sunday, September 21, to demand real action on global climate destabilization. 

We hope to organize a rally at the eco-ball at the south end in Salem's Riverfront Park, to send a clear message to the Salem City Council that the time for business as usual is over, and that we demand leadership on action to cut carbon emissions meaningfully and prepare Salem for a post-carbon future.

Salem's City Council disgraced itself a few years back by refusing to sign the mayors climate action letter. Now, even cities like Gresham are leaving Salem in the dust, and in the heat. It's time for Salem to get past the flat-earth denialism, recognize the problem, and organize for a better future. In other words, it's time for Salem to stop clinging to the carbon-spewing, fossil fueled past to embrace a better, healthier, resilient and ecologically sensible future.

"Mayors are already fighting the impact and costs of extreme weather caused by climate change. The actions they take to protect their cities and people can and should help states meet Clean Power Plan pollution limits," said Danielle Baussan, Managing Director of Energy Policy at CAP. "Developing low-carbon energy policies underscores cities' importance to critical national goals: reduced carbon pollution, increased consumer savings, and a healthier future for everyone."

The Center for American Progress released an analysis of how cities can prepare for the carbon-pollution standards and help reduce their emissions. These include: reduce the carbon impact of municipal utilities, update building energy codes, promote distributed generation of renewable energy, consider tax credits and rebates for renewable energy and develop clean energy loan programs.

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Gresham, Ore., Mayor Shane Bemis won the 2014 Mayors' Climate Protection Awards the the conference, which recognizes innovation in increasing energy efficiency and reducing GHGs.

"Mayor Goodman and Mayor Bemis are changing the energy future of their cities and the nation, showing how local innovation can offer solutions to our growing climate challenges,"said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, president of The U.S. Conference of Mayors

http://peoplesclimate.org/organising-guide/

ORGANIZING GUIDE

Whether you are a seasoned activist or a first-time organizer, here is a simple guide to get you started. Not all these steps may apply to you. There is a very simple and relatively easy way to participate in PCM. Check it out first, and you'll be on your way to planning a creative, engaging, and powerful action in your community or city!

1) Bring together a coordinating team

Bring together a core team of people with the necessary skills or expertise that you require for your action. Remember to involve partner organisations who can either be part of your core team or will be tactical allies with whom you share ideas and information.

2) Invite People to join you

Invite your friends, neighbours, and local organizations to assist in sponsoring, organizing and participating in the action. Reach out to the local church, mosque, synagogue, labour union, sports team, university, or arts cooperative that would be interested in getting involved in the issue.

3) Planning

Decide on the message, the action and the location. Ensure that you have a clear and well articulated message that you wish to communicate to your audience, whether they be media, government, partners, or community members. For the People's Climate Mobilisation specifically here is a very simple and relatively easy way to participate:

Share a group photo from an iconic site, such as a fossil fuel extraction zone, a specific fossil energy plant, areas under threat from climate change effects, or other locations connected with the climate struggle using #peoplesclimate hashtag. One common slogan that can be used (on banners, etc.) in photos is 'Action, Not Words: …..!' (add your local, national, or regional demand in dotted area at the end) or the local equivalent if it translates well into your language.

The beauty of global days of action is the variety and creativity of actions organized across the world. Common action ideas include organizing a walk or a march through your town or city, a rally with speakers and music in your central plaza, a hike, a potluck, a community discussion, or a service project. Whatever your action, be sure to think about the best photo opportunity to capture your action and everyone who attends – photos are the primary way we link up actions worldwide and tell our story.

4) Logistics

Take care of all logistical details as soon as you can, including the timing of the action, directions, transportation, bathrooms, sound system, permits for use of public spaces, sponsorships etc. if you need them.

5) Spread the Word

Make a plan to reach out. Set a goal for how many people you'd like to see at the event and try to create a plan for reaching far more than that number. Ensure that you register your event. Invite and link up with partner organisation interested in your action. Talking to schools, religious groups, community meetings, putting up posters around town, sending emails through listservs, getting a public service announcement on the local radio, share on social media, send out emails, write editorials for local newspapers, get on community calendars, ask organizations to include the action information in newsletters and bulletins and put up posters all over town.

6) Create your visuals

Signs, photos, banners are key to getting the message across to passers-by and the media. If you can, host a time to paint banners and signs before your action, and invite volunteers to come. Banners and signs with the local equivalent of 'Action, Not Words: …..!' (add your local, national, or regional demand in dotted area at the end) would help link all the PCM actions together.

7) Inform the Media

It's important to contact local, state, and national media to make sure they report on PCM actions in your area. Think about what print, radio, television, and online sources you'd want to have cover your event and start getting in touch now!

8) Take Action

The months of planning culminate in this moment! Share your photos on Facebook and other social media such as Twitter and Instagram with the #peoplesclimate hashtag.  Also send it to your friends and press contacts. Have a fun and meaningful day, knowing that you're part of a global effort to create pressure to solve the climate crisis.

9) Report Back

This part is very important: As soon as your action is over, be sure to select your best photo, video footage and written stories from your action and submit them here. This will enable the communications team to deliver the strongest possible message to the media and to the world's decision-makers.

Thanks for being a part of this important movement for change!