STRONG Salem is for everyone who wants to help and participate in getting Salem, Oregon, to quit chasing Growth Ponzi Scheme plans and instead become a resilient, fiscally responsible place that lives by the wisdom that "Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit."
Fifteen-year-old photographer Marlin Shank was fortunate enough to capture several images of a rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird while in a park in Staunton, VA.
Very high quality photographs for such a fleeting subject...
Pass this on so others may enjoy this rare and beautiful sight!
Speakers |
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Mark Kitchell | Producer, Writer, Director Mark Kitchell is best known for Berkeley in the Sixties, which won the Sundance Audience Award in 1990, was nominated for an Academy Award, and won other top honors. It has become a well-loved classic, one of the defining documentaries about the protest movements of the 1960s. Kitchell went to NYU film school, where he made The Godfather Comes to Sixth St., a cinema verite look at his neighbors caught up in filming The Godfather II - for which he received another (student) Academy Award nomination. |
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Laura Stevens | Organizing Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal
campaign Laura Stevens, Organizing Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign in Oregon and Southwest Washington, works with concerned citizens to stop coal export projects and towards a coal-free northwest. Laura, a native Oregonian, obtained her B.A. from DePauw University, and has spent the past six years organizing for a number of environmental, human rights, and labor groups. After Laura launched and led the Sierra Club Campuses Beyond Coal campaign at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC made a commitment to move their on- campus coal-fired power plant off of mountain-top removal mined coal immediately, and set a date to move the plant off of coal entirely. For more information on how you can help stop coal exports in Oregon, contact Laura at laura.stevens@sierraclub.org or visit www.coalfreeoregon.org. |
The Friends of Salem Public Library
Monster Book Sale
- Thursday, November 7 (Members Only)
4:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Memberships offered at the door
- Friday, November 8
10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
- Saturday, November 9
10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.- Sunday, November 10
12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
($4 per bag day)
Sale will be held at:
A huge selection of materials, including rare and collectible books will be available. And parking is free!
Congress is often compared to pre-K, which seems defamatory of small children. But the similarities also offer hope, because an initiative that should be on the top of the national agenda has less to do with the sequester than with the A.B.C.'s and Big Bird.
Growing mountains of research suggest that the best way to address American economic inequality, poverty and crime is — you guessed it! — early education programs, including coaching of parents who want help. It's not a magic wand, but it's the best tool we have to break cycles of poverty.
President Obama called in his State of the Union address for such a national initiative, but it hasn't gained traction. Obama himself hasn't campaigned enough for it, yet there's still a reed of hope.
One reason is that this is one of those rare initiatives that polls well across the spectrum, with support from 84 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans in a recent national survey. And even if the program stalls in Washington, states and localities are moving ahead — from San Antonio to Michigan. Colorado voters will decide next month on a much-watched ballot measure to bolster education spending, including in preschool, and a ballot measure in Memphis would expand preschool as well.
"There's this magical opportunity" now to get a national early education program in America, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told me. He says he's optimistic that members of Congress will introduce a bipartisan bill for such a plan this year.
"When you think how you make change for the next 30 years, this is arguably at the top of my list," Duncan said. "It can literally transform the life chances of children, and strengthen families in important ways."
Whether it happens through Congressional action or is locally led, this may be the best chance America has had to broaden early programs since 1971, when Congress approved such a program but President Nixon vetoed it.
The massive evidence base for early education grew a bit more with a major new study from Stanford University noting that achievement gaps begin as early as 18 months. Then at 2 years old, there's a six-month achievement gap. By age 5, it can be a two-year gap. Poor kids start so far behind when school begins that they never catch up — especially because they regress each summer.
One problem is straightforward. Poorer kids are more likely to have a single teenage mom who is stressed out, who was herself raised in an authoritarian style that she mimics, and who, as a result, doesn't chatter much with the child.
Yet help these parents, and they do much better. Some of the most astonishing research in poverty-fighting methods comes from the success of programs to coach at-risk parents — and these, too, are part of Obama's early education program. "Early education" doesn't just mean prekindergarten for 4-year-olds, but embraces a plan covering ages 0 to 5.
The earliest interventions, and maybe the most important, are home visitation programs like Nurse-Family Partnership. It begins working with at-risk moms during pregnancy, with a nurse making regular visits to offer basic support and guidance: don't drink or smoke while pregnant; don't take heroin or cocaine. After birth, the coach offers help with managing stress, breast-feeding and diapers, while encouraging chatting to the child and reading aloud.
These interventions are cheap and end at age 2. Yet, in randomized controlled trials, the gold standard of evaluation, there was a 59 percent reduction in child arrests at age 15 among those who had gone through the program.
Something similar happens with good pre-K programs. Critics have noted that with programs like Head Start, there are early educational gains that then fade by second or third grade. That's true, and that's disappointing.
Yet, in recent years, long-term follow-ups have shown that while the educational advantages of Head Start might fade, there are "life skill" gains that don't. A rigorous study by David Deming of Harvard, for example, found that Head Start graduates were less likely to repeat grades or be diagnosed with a learning disability, and more likely to graduate from high school and attend college.
Look, we'll have to confront the pathologies of poverty at some point. We can deal with them cheaply at the front end, in infancy. Or we can wait and jail a troubled adolescent at the tail end. To some extent, we face a choice between investing in preschools or in prisons.
We just might have a rare chance in the next couple of months to take steps toward such a landmark early education program in America. But children can't vote, and they have no highly paid lobbyists — so it'll happen only if we the public speak up.
From: "Elizabeth Warren, Congress: Dont renew fast track authority Campaign" <noreply@list.moveon.org>
Date: October 26, 2013 at 6:56:14 PM PDT
Subject: STOP THE FAST TRACK TO CURRENCY MANIPULATION: National TPP Team Conference Call Sunday!
Reply-To: "Elizabeth Warren, Congress: Dont renew fast track authority Campaign" <lizwarrenmail@earthlink.net>
The world is buzzing now with trade talk - from D.C. to the Pacific Rim - and the pressure is mounting for Congress to grant the president fast track authority for the TPP. Be sure to join us this week and catch up on what's happening - and what you can do! Our National TPP Team Conference call is tomorrow, Sunday, October 27, at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, 7:30 Eastern.
AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS: Following activist updates from coalition partners and reports from organizers in the field, we'll fill everybody in on the status of mobilization plans currently in the works for a rapid response day of action in the event a Fast Track Vote is announced. (This would be a coalition event, with a number of organizations participating for maximum impact.)
TPP ISSUE OF THE WEEK: The second half of our call will focus on Currency Manipulation and the TPP.
GUEST SPEAKER: Jacqui Dunne, an award-winning economic journalist from Ireland, and co-author of Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity Into Prosperity, will walk us through the role our present currency plays in the inevitable flow of wealth to the 1%, and how policies buried in trade deals like the TPP will serve to accelerate wealth disparity. (The good news: she offers road tested solutions, beyond merely stopping fast track and the TPP, for fixing the problem.)
Jacqui is a regular contributor to print and online publications worldwide, and has appeared on both NPR and BlogTalk Radio. She is the founder and CEO of Danu Resources, and an emerging leader in helping entrepreneurs develop technologies and initiatives that restore the earth's equilibrium globally. A 15-minute Q & A session will follow.
You will need both a telephone AND a computer to participate fully in this conference call.
Phone in 5 minutes before the call time and then log in as instructed below. You'll need to have Adobe Flash Player installed to use the online meeting room. (You may also participate in phone-only mode if you wish.)
NATIONAL TPP TEAM CONFERENCE CALL
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 4:30 P.M. PDT/ 7:30 EDT
CALL IN FIRST from a land or cell phone, before you click on the link to log in to the online meeting room.Dial-in Number: (559) 726-1300 Participant Access Code: 536655 #
Be sure to enable cookies, then follow this link to the meeting room and follow the directions to log in: http://www.anymeeting.com/moveforjustice1
When the microphone and phone icons pop up, click on the phone icon (on the right.) When the next screen opens, go to the bottom right corner of the page and click on the shaded box that says "CLOSE." That's it.
Looking forward to talking with you on Sunday!
In Solidarity,
Liz :)
Elizabeth Warren
National TPP Team Coordinator
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-dont-renew-fast?mailing_id=16448&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=1545923
MoveOn Regional Organizer
North San Diego County
Land line: 760-305-7010
Cell: 951-203-2260
Email: liz.moveon@earthlink.net
Facebook: Liz Warren (Woyton)
Twitter: LizWarrenWriter
When the people fear the government you have tyranny...when the government fears the people you have liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Below is a new Op-Ed piece, just posted this morning on Oregon Live, by retired
Chief Justice Edwin Peterson.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/10/oregons_death_penalty_is_unjus.html
Subject: At long last...
...on this morning's NPR in an interview with a 5th generation Taft - John Taft - an accurate analysis of our current U.S. situation: We are in an era of zero growth - following decades of 3%/y growth - brought on by resource shortages and environmental degradation; therefore gains anywhere in the economy must come at the expense of everywhere else in the economy. Taft also translated that to be the cause of fruitless negotiations between Obama and Boehner as heads of the 2 major parties - in the past during growth, compromise meant that both sides could benefit (grow), but now it translates to one side losing if the other gains. While skeptical of that translation, I suppose it might follow in our age of corporatocracy, with the two sides actually representing different moneyed interests rather than 'dear fellow americans.'The reason for the interview was a Taft op-ed in the NYT by Taft flaming the current republican party:You can listen to the NPR interview here, and the zero growth analysis is near the end.If Taft is aware of the causes & implications he mentioned concerning a zero-growth economy, he almost surely is also aware of the other major corollary - that the current situation is but a way-point on a trend line that will take us into increasingly negative growth territory - again because of more severe resource shortfalls (peak oil etc.) and environmental degradation (climate change) to come.
This is the first time I've heard an NPR story related to peak everything, and hearing it from a coherent, 'genetic' republican was stunning. Who knows, maybe a 'genetic' democrat somewhere will pick up on it? And, how long before Wall Street muzzles this guy?cheers,Tooj
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