Catering to the Automobile is helping bankrupt Salem

Image by Sister72 via Flickr

Now we get to learn how bad the collateral damage will be. The low-budget model fire extinguisher to the right is just an example of the kinds of creative adaptations we'll be experiencing in Salem for the foreseeable future.

Here's a more global look at how various states are faring and what we can expect as the double-dip of the Great Recession really gets underway. Forecast: Severely grim. And we all know how closely tied Salem's economic situation is tied to the overall health of Oregon's budget. Which is to say, Forecast: VERY severely grim.

Best Salem politics joke of 2010 thus far: Mayor Taylor, resolutely mum during the failed Cherriots bond campaign last year, attacking Cherriots for having cut Saturday service entirely.

One Fair World's "Pennies for Peace"

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One Fair World Asks for your help in the "Pennies for Peace" Project Dear Walker, Just a quick note to let you know One Fair World is sponsoring a "Pennies for Peace" drive to raise money for education projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The effort is being organized by a girls 6th grade writing class at Parrish Middle School in Salem. The teacher behind it all is Sue Luft. This class was inspired by their study of the young reader's edition of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. They have learned that pennies (or larger amounts) make a real difference, as follows: 1 penny = a pencil 2-3 pennies = an eraser 15 pennies = one notebook $20 = one child's school supplies for one year $50 = one treadle sewing machine and supplies $100 = maternal healthcare supplies for one year $300 = one advanced student's annual scholarship $600 = one teacher's annual salary $5000 = support for existing school for one year $50,000 = one school building and support for up to five years Children in over 400 mountain villages in remote northern Pakistan and Afghanistan are on the waiting list, hoping to learn in a new school. The hope is to help build a bridge of peace, one penny at a time, offering alternatives to the cycle of terrorism and war. If you would like to contribute to this project, please come in to One Fair World and add your pennies to the donation can, which is hand-decorated by the girls in the writing class. The drive will run through March 31. Thank you for your consideration. From all the volunteers at One Fair World, 474 Court Street NE (downtown Salem), 503-585-1636.

Check out Salem's best Neighborhood Association website

Thanks to Kristi and Matt Neznanski, Northeast Neighbors has one of Salem's best neighborhood association websites. Check it out.

Word

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." -- Voltaire

A LOVESalem foreign correspondent sends: "I just bought me a rat . . . "

Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr

Her message was headlined: "The most awesome charity thing ever."

I just bought me a rat . . .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8549681.stm

Another beauty - from Going Around in Circles is a Good Thing

The "10 most beautiful" pictures of objects in our solar system

Important Ebert blog post: A glimpse at Salem's future

Image by lassi.kurkijarvi via Flickr

From Roger Ebert's blog (where there are much cooler storm pix):

. . . As Thomas Friedman phrased it so elegantly in The New York Times, our free lunch is over. The United States caroused like a drunken sailor in the postwar years. If you were doing well, that could mean two cars in every garage. A bedroom for every family member, and an office or den, and a living room, plus maybe a family room, plus a dining room or "area," and a finished basement and a deck and a kitchen full of appliances. Yes, America has poor people -- way, way too many. But the household I just described, which in 1950 would have been a rich family's mansion, became a reality for a many middle-class families, and you know it.

Not long ago I revisited my own childhood home and found it to be, gee, a lot smaller than I remembered. Chris Jones in Esquire, who paid a visit to my home town, described 410 E. Washington as "little." It didn't seem little then. And if we never paid to have a concrete driveway poured, my dad said gravel made for better traction in the snow. Anyway, I'm not thinking about how we lived. I'm thinking of how we're all not going to live. You know about the economy and the housing crisis. Now I read an additional four million suburban families are facing not only foreclosure but in many cases actual homelessness. Not in their worst nightmares did these people imagine such a future.

The best part:

As it now stands, if it's any more watered down, Obamacare will be homeopathic. It incorporates so many compromises with the Republicans that anyone voting against it isn't opposing the language -- they're just opposing Obama. We can't afford that. The American voters are pretty smart, and they're figuring that out.

For more warnings, try this sobering look at our condition.

amazing -- Going Around in Circles is a Good Thing

Calendar: 3/12-14: Friends of the Library Book Sale

FOR MORE INFO, CONTACT: Sonja Somerville ssomerville@cityofsalem.net

Phone: (503) 588-6083
Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale coming up March 12-14

Great deals are easy to find at the Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale, coming up soon, March 12-14. Book lovers can load arms and bags with low-cost reading and all the proceeds go to support special programs and projects at Salem Public Library.

Sponsored by the Friends of the Library and operated entirely by volunteers, the Spring Book Sale will be open from

• 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13.
• The best bargains of all are available from 1-4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 14, when shoppers can fill a bag to take away for just $3.
  

The sale takes place in Anderson Rooms A&B at Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty St. SE

Spring sale offerings include thousands of excellent books sorted by genre and topic to make it easy for readers to find what they're looking for. Categories include mystery, biography/autobiography, travel, cooking, fantasy, Westerns, hobbies and crafts, romance, large print, and more.

Prices are, as always, excellent, with paperbacks and children's books for 50 cents each; hardbacks for $1. A long list of AV items is available, including CDs, tapes, records, videos, posters and more, all for 25 cents each. Romance paperbacks are also 25 cents each.

Twice annually, the Friends host a major sale, offering thousands of books sorted by genre. Items available are a combination of books donated by library supporters for this purpose and items that have been withdrawn from the library shelves. All incoming books are sorted for quality and type to ensure quality offerings at the sales. Used books and other items are also sold year-round by the Friends of the Salem Public Library in the Friends Book Store, located on the main level of the Central Library, 585 Liberty St. SE.

More information about the sale, the book store and the Friends organization is available at 503-362-1755 or online at www.splfriends.org.

WORD: An apt description of our "health care" "system"

. . .

We are left, finally, with a so-called health care system so cruel and unjust that the Devil himself in consultation with the most demonic lobbyists, and perhaps a little input from historical politicians such as Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Heinrich Himmler, and Pol Pot could not construct a worse way of deploying the fruits of modern science. It has gotten to the point for most of us where we dread a visit to the doctor more for the bureaucratic consequences than the health issues themselves. Your gall bladder may have to come out, but it's much harder to face the booby-trap clause in your health insurance that will result in you getting stuck with a $123,000 bill for surgery and attendant procedures (including the $500 tylenols). Three months later, of course, the re-po man is towing your car and the mortgage "servicer" has foreclosed on your house, and your life (even without that pesky gall bladder) has become a permanent camping trip next to a drainage ditch. . . .