An enlightening nascent blog from Doug Parrow

Image by kk+ via Flickr

Doug Parrow is one of our unsung Salem advocates for a saner, better transportation system. He has a blog that he describes as "nascent" and he comments on that thusly:

One definition of nascent is "just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential." Certainly the blog is consistent with the first part of that definition. Time will tell whether that also is the case with respect to the second part of the definition.

If a few of the posts are up to the standard he sets here then it's already shown and delivered on some great potential.

Another must-see from Salem Progressive Film Series

Salem Progressive Film Series

Thursday, April 8, 2010, 7 p.m.
Grand Theatre-191 High Street NE, Salem (corner of Court and High St)

Secrecy

This film is about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets and the government’s ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, this film explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy. Secrecy can throw into the dark our system of justice and derail the balance of power between the executive branch and the rest of government. And we have learned that under the veil of classification, even our leaders can give in to dangerous impulses.

Guest Speaker: Steven T. Wax, Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon

Mr. Wax represented Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield, who was accused of bombing the communter train in Spain in 2001. And Mr. Wax represented men held as "enemy combatants' in Guantanamo.

For more information:
www.salemprogressfilms.net or 503-385-1876 or 503-779-5288

Unsolicited Plug 2010-2: 13th St. Nursery

Salem has a wonderful close-to-downtown nursery just a block east of the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store: The 13th St. Nursery at 13th & Wilbur. The nursery is a wonderful place and with the Re-Store right there, you've got yourself a happy Saturday afternoon of treasure hunting.

A number of their plant starts and some gorgeous raku plant pots (for bamboo) are making their way to LOVESalem HQ this year, and they've got a number of really nice garden art things that would be here if we could afford as much beauty as we'd like. Check it out.

UPDATE: The brains at LOVESalem HQ (she provides the brains; my role is to have a strong back to go with the weak mind) picked out some lovely cold-hardy gardenias, star jasmines, and daphnes today in the rain today. Somehow fitting to pick plants for Salem in a nice afternoon rain.

Wonderful new gleaners group: Neighborhood Harvest of Salem

Neighborhood Harvest of Salem welcomes you!

You are invited to join a new community organization, Neighborhood Harvest.

Our volunteers gather unused fruit from Salem’s backyards, share the bounty with families who are hungry, and take home free produce, grown right here. We seek to create community and strengthen neighborhood friendships, alleviate hunger, create awareness of our abundant edible landscapes, and promote sustainable lifestyles.

We are affiliated with Friends of Salem Saturday Market and linked to Marion-Polk Food Share through donations of produce.

Urban foraging is part of a growing movement that connects unused backyard fruit trees with people who have the time and energy to harvest them.

The basic idea is simple: Home owners register trees, vines or berry bushes that produce more fresh fruit than they can use. Volunteers join harvest parties to gather the fruit that might otherwise drop to the ground. We deliver half of each harvest to neighborhood food pantries affiliated with the Food Share, and harvesters take home the other half for their pantries.

Harvest parties begin in July with the cherry season, but for now we are seeking energetic, responsible volunteers. Sign up to be a harvest leader, neighborhood coordinator or site scout. We’ll show you how to organize a fruit-picking adventure while meeting neighbors and new friends.

To volunteer, contact Katherine.

Register your tree, vine or berry bush using our online form, or contact Dick.

For information visit our website or contact Lisa.

Free tour: the parts of the Library you normally don't get to see

Image by Jason McHuff via Flickr

Libraries are one of the most, if not the most, important civic offerings there are. Salem's impoverished library system is still a gem, albeit a very tiny one that's hard for most people to access and that offers very scant and limited hours. With all the vacant commercial space in Salem, every single one of Salem's 19 neighborhoods should have a library or library outpost where people can access library materials and offerings at least 84 hours a week. Alas, we're nowhere near that yet. But part of the reason is that not enough people know what libraries do or how they work. You can rectify that next month:

Public invited for Behind-the-Scenes tours at Salem Public Library

There’s more going on than meets the eye at Salem Public Library. Curious visitors have the chance to find out exactly what this is during National Library Week when Salem Public Library staff offers three Behind-the-Scenes tours at the Central Library.

Guided tours will begin at the Information/Reference Desk at:

10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 15
4 p.m. Friday, April 16
2 p.m. Saturday, April 17

The one-hour tours are designed to give visitors a look at how books and other materials are handled from purchase to preparation, the processes behind holds, check out, check in, and reshelving, and to share insights about library services, programs, and the facility. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers along the way.

Space is limited, so interested members of the public are asked to pre-register at the Information/Reference Desk in person or by phone at 503-588-6052.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Sonja Somerville, Salem Public Library Community Relations Coordinator, (503) 588-6083, ssomerville@cityofsalem.net

Speaking of the library: Got overdue fines?

Sunday, March 28-Saturday, April 3 only, both Salem Public Library locations will forgive fines for customers who bring in donations of non-perishable food items and other household necessities for donation to Marion-Polk Food Share.

Food donations are accepted during all open hours at the Central Library, 585 Liberty St. SE, and at the West Salem Branch, 395 Glen Creek Rd. NW. Hours and information are available at www.salemlibrary.org.

A $1 credit will be applied for canned items 12 ounces or larger. This applies to fines due only and does not include lost book charges, rental fees, video/DVD fees, collection fees, or fee cards. Donors are particularly encouraged to consider these high-need items:

· Soup (canned or dry)
· Chili
· Cereal
· Tuna
· Beans (canned or dry)
· Juice (canned or bottled)
· Canned fruit
· Canned vegetables
· Pasta sauce
· Pasta products (20+ ounces)
· Rice (20+ ounces)
·
A greater credit of $3-5 will be given for these larger high-need items:

· Laundry detergent
· Laundry softener
· Cooking oil
· Peanut butter (8+ ounces)

To be used, items must be factory-sealed, commercially processed, dent and rust free, and bear a future expiration date. Top Ramen products cannot be accepted.

The need at Marion-Polk Food Share is particularly high this year. Community members are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity. Food donations will also be gratefully accepted from those not owing fines, but simply wanting to help build needed supplies at Marion-Polk Food Share.

More information is available from the Library’s Circulation Division at 503-588-6090.

Concerned about water? You should be. Pay attention.

Image via Wikipedia

The good folks at Onward Oregon sent out a notice about some important water resources planning workshops coming up. The one in Salem is on Tuesday, June 8, at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Office, 3406 Cherry Avenue, N.E.

All open houses are from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
The program begins at 4:00 p.m. with a project overview and discussion and repeats again at 5:30 p.m.

Help Plan Oregon's Water Resources

Available water supplies have diminished across the West, and increased population and development are creating greater demand. Meanwhile, Oregon has been one of the few States without an integrated water strategy. Until now.

In the last session, the legislature passed the Water Investment Act (HB 3369), which includes a plan to make a plan — that is, the bill directs the Water Resource Department to develop a water strategy.

To inform that strategy, the Department is hosting ten Open Houses around Oregon to hear from you. We urge you to make your voice heard. The Department needs to hear that you are (choose one or more) concerned about

1. growing water demand,
   
2. protection of aquifers,
   
3. maximizing public value from state investment,
   
4. stream quality,
   
5. irrigation,
   
6. water supplies,
   
7. global weirding/climate change,
   
8. in-stream flows, or
   
9. something else.

You can find the schedule at: Preliminary Workplan.

Citizen responses helped pass the original bill. Now make sure that Water Resources Strategy is responsive to the people of the state.

Times and locations are available at Background Documents.

Water is our most important resource. Let’s make sure we plan smartly and for the public benefit.

Onward,
The Team at Onward Oregon
www.OnwardOregon.org

A poignant story: the $618k death

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/lessons_of_a_618616_death.html

Happier note: Friends of Salem Saturday Market springing back into action!

Image via Wikipedia

Salem's Saturday Market is a gem, and the Friends of Salem Saturday Market are helping polish it to make it even more attractive. This great group offers neat tours of market vendor operations, which really helps you connect with and understand how market crops and produce come about. Here's a preview of some of the early season action this year -- join the Friends and take part!

Thank you for your support of Friends of Salem Saturday Market! Our first season was a great success, and we couldn't have done it without you. We've got even more free classes, events, and programs planned for 2010. We value your support, and we hope you continue to find value in our mission!

As an FSSM a member, you are invited to our exclusive behind-the-scenes tours of local farms and facilities. Your [2009] membership expires on April 1. Please renew today so you can join us on the spring tours detailed below. Return the form that you received in the mail, or find it here: www.friendsofsalemsaturdaymarket.org/Home/about/membership.

Send a reply email with your RSVP for these wonderful member-only events:

Hamblin Nursery: Sunday, April 25, at 1 p.m. --- We will visit John Hamblin's Nursery in Dallas. John has been a longtime vendor at Salem Saturday Market. He and his wife, Calene, sell vegetable & flower starts, hanging flower baskets, and potted flowers. At the tour, we'll see how the nursery operates, how to grow such beautiful plants, and more. The Hamblins will provide a tour, and then you'll have an opportunity to ask John questions while enjoying snacks. The nursery is 20 miles from the Saturday Market. Please let us know if you would like to carpool with other members. RSVP for this tour by Saturday, April 17.

Fairview Farm Dairy: Sunday, May 16, at 10 a.m. -- Do you know how goat cheese is made? Now's your chance to find out! Laurie & Terry Carlson invite Friends of Salem Saturday Market to their dairy in Dallas, where they make a variety of handmade goat cheeses. You'll see how the goats and other lifestock are cared for on this Animal Welfare Approved dairy. (And you'll learn what "Animal Welfare Approved" means!) The tour will include a walk around the property and the cheesemaking facilities, a look at baby chicks, a chance to bottlefeed baby goats, and a taste of that fabulous cheese. The dairy is 17 miles from the Saturday Market. Please let us know if you would like to carpool with other members. RSVP for this tour by May 1. (Space is limited, and a second tour may be added if needed.)

We will email you directions once we receive your RSVP & membership renewal.

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you again!
Board of Directors,
Friends of Salem Saturday Market

PS: The FSSM booth will be open at the Market on April 17. Stop by to say hi or to renew your membership in person! We will return every Saturday beginning May 8.

Speaking of insanity: Why you should never back another Salem-Keizer Schools money measure

In the great tradition of the corporate pirates want to build monstrous boondoggles over the Willamette and Columbia Rivers and pave over French Prairie, the unguided missile known as Salem-Keizer Schools has condemned land in West Salem once owned by Governor Bob Straub (you might recall the gift he and his wife made that became the wonderful Straub Environmental Learning Center in the heart of Salem).

There is no justification for this project whatsoever except in the cozy world of contractor-school district relations, where spending money on boondoggle edifices and sports facilities is about the only thing administrators can do to feel like they've made a difference. The schools continue to operate on a model of a factory and a calendar of a farm, while failing to attain anything like the efficiencies of either.

A school district with its students' interests at heart would recognize that they are setting their students up for failure with their antiquated butts-in-seats-in-schools model of instruction and the huge expenditures on infrastructure -- shiny new buildings built with lots of shiny new money that ultimately does nothing but promote sprawl and the illusion that we're going to have a carburban future just like we've had for the past 50 years.

We won't. And the school district is guilty of gross malfeasance and willful blindness in condemning the Straub land. Of course, the present senior administrators will all be happily into their comfortable retirements before the chickens come home to roost on this one, and they'll get to be giving the tours for the shiny new buildings and they'll get to write the glowing press releases about how wonderful the buildings are and how they'll "facilitate enhanced world-class linkages and learnings" and other jargon-laden bs that is the distinctive hallmark of Edspeak, the language of a bankrupt elite. So it's all good for them -- even as Oregon and Salem's finances are swirling around the drain, they'll get to plow a bunch of money into shiny new buildings and when, later, there's no money for maintenance of the older buildings, their successors will cry poor and ask voters for more money "for the children."

Enough. The era of factory schools served by fleets of buses and armadas of parents ferrying their little snowflakes around is O.V.E.R. No more school buildings until the schools adopt a year-round, two-shift calendar and makes full use of the existing buildings and establishes small neighborhood school centers in the many vacant commercial buildings and school outposts in workplaces all over town.

Stop the Insanity: Protect French Prairie!

French Prairie s. of Champoeg -- now wouldn't that look much better with a fricking highway through it? Image via Wikipedia

One of the common traits of collapsing societies is a weird disconnect between what the elites do and what their societies needed in the final years before total collapse --- thus, you see in history once-mighty empires that dissolved into dust because the elites at the top would not do something simple and obvious, like safeguard the food or water supplies rather than spend their wealth on monuments to their own egos.

All over Oregon you can see this effect, where the elites propose ever-more grandiose highway schemes to destroy ever-more scarce resource land, even as the portents and omens saying that the end of the "happy motoring" years is here. Now comes this message of an absurd proposal to build a highway across one of the most beautiful and valuable lands in Marion County . . . a road that would be, like the pyramids, nothing but a gigantic sinkhole for wealth. Insane. Hunger is ravaging ever more people in Marion County and the rich see nothing in French Prairie but an opportunity to pave ever more farmland.

As Marie Antoinette supposedly said, "if they have no bread then let them eat cake." In Oregon it's "If they have no health care, if they have no job, if they have no food security, well, let them drive on roads destroying the land that could provide them with food and jobs and health."

Greetings;

Many of you have heard of a new development threat to French Prairie, namely the Coastal Parkway project--a proposal for a private, toll-road, freeway across French Prairie.

While there are east-west traffic problems, and this type of idea has come and gone over the past twenty years, the current one has some significant financial backing, and the promoters are hard at work trying to build support in local communities, with the county and the State.

Friends of French Prairie (FOFP) just put up a web page that contains all the info we've been able to collect to date, and we urge you to read it.

The promoters have scheduled a working session with the Marion County Commissioners on April 15, and we are running a petition campaign to deliver at that meeting showing opposition to this project from local farmers and residents.

Please contact us if you are willing to sign the petition.

All the best

Ben Williams
Friends of French Prairie