A real big inspiration for Salem

This is brilliant -- I've been trying to interest the Marion-Polk Food Share in this idea (training people to go around and adopt urban fruit trees and care for them to rescue them from neglect/ignorance and put the food to good use) for a while, and didn't even know we had a great model just up the road.  

Portland's Backyard Fruit — From Waste to Feast 

"We look forward to a time when we're really able to harvest all of the fruit trees in the city that aren't being fully utilized," envisions Katy Kolker, founder and executive director of Portland Fruit Tree Project. Volunteer groups harvest trees whose fruit would otherwise go to waste. Half of the fruit goes to neighborhood food banks, and the remainder goes home with the volunteers. Tree Care workshops offered to the public cover pruning, thinning and pest and disease control. They also train Tree Care Teams who adopt clusters of fruit trees in a neighborhood. From harvesting 8000 pounds of fruit in 2008 to three times that in 2010, this growing project is bearing fruit and benefitting thousands. Episode 217. [portlandfruit.org ]

Audio  | iTunes | Review: Community Group Harvests 25,000 lbs of Fruit from Unloved Trees | Janaia's journal: A Gleaning Project Shares Fruitful Abundance | DVD $20

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

Amen -- how TV wrecked our politics

I've had a version of this rant for years -- that the toxic seeds planted when TV pushed aside papers and radio in the 50s bore fruit in Reagan in 1980, the first true TV president, the guy elected because the electorate had been stupefied for thirty years and finally got to the point where any problem that couldn't be resolved within 22 minutes meant that you should just change channels (presidents) to find a better program; naturally, the more content-free you actually are, the more you fit in with TV's agenda, which is serving up the eyeballs to the corporate sponsors.

Begin forwarded message:

How television wrecked our politics

Sam Smith

With television, politics moved from Washington to Hollywood. The first beneficiary of this was Jack Kennedy, a handsome, unaccomplished senator whose ambitions were propelled by a  wealthy father of few restraints.

With television the voters' relationship with politicians changed dramatically. It was no longer a matter of stories formed in  a community, favors done for friends, or reports in the morning paper. Now the politician became a theatrical icon to be judged the ability to create a comfortable fantasy for a black and white screen. Kennedy was exceptionally good at it.

The shift from politics as a craft crammed with complexity and growing out of a community's experiences and myths towards a story externally controlled by those with little history or contact with the voter was a phenomenon of which Kennedy was the first beneficiary. His debate with Nixon, for example, was a clash of images and not ideas.

Talking with NPR, historian Robert Dallek said, "I think the most important moment was in that first television debate with Richard Nixon, when Kennedy came across as presidential,"

Given that Kennedy had few political achievements and few proposals that varied markedly from Nixon, how did he accomplish this?

Dallek said, "As someone who was poised, who was witty, charming, handsome and deserved to be president of the United States."

This was not some fan boy speaking but a historian outlining what would be come to be the standard for someone "deserving" to be president of the United States.

Similarly, in a recent two hour program on Kennedy's assassination on CNN, "handsome" was the most common adjective used to describe the president.

After her husband's assassination, Jackie Kennedy directly infused more of the theatrical into the story with the Camelot metaphor. The media quickly bought into it and thereafter became more than glad to supplant facts in political coverage with whatever fantasy was handy.

At least three of our subsequent presidents - Reagan, Clinton and Obama - were beneficiaries of TV soap operas concocted by organizations and the media that in no way adequately revealed either their roots or their reality.

And now we're headed for 2016 with Hillary Clinton's corrupt and dishonest past carefully hidden by the media as we're told to get ready for the first woman president.

Then we have rightwing stars like Ted Cruz, who comes out of nowhere (and significantly the son of an evangelical TV hustler).  These candidates are transformed into potential presidents for no other reason than the media tells us so.

None of this would have been possible without television.

And the money behind it.

From Joe Kennedy to the Koch brothers, vast sums going to TV advertising and the public relations manipulation of media stories, have caused massive damage to our political system. Even when the former system was corrupt, it at least included serious feudal obligations to voters. Today, constituents are owed nothing. They are no longer to be served or represented, but only manipulated.

A 2010 Los Angeles Timesstory by Meg James described it well:

For California TV stations, particularly those in Los Angeles, the midterm election has led to a gold-rush mentality. One campaign organizer said the cost of a 30-second TV spot has been soaring in the final days before Tuesday's election. A spot that went for $2,000 two years ago is going for $5,000 today.

Analysts who track political spending predict that TV stations nationwide will rake in two-thirds of the campaign dollars this year — about $2 billion. Commercial radio, another old-media staple, is expected to collect $250 million. At least $650 million will be spent on direct mail campaigns, those glossy fliers now filling mailboxes.

Internet sites should fetch about $50 million, less than 2% of the total.

"Television delivers a mass audience in a short amount of time and you don't have that same assurance with the Internet," said Wayne Johnson, president of Wayne Johnson Agency in Sacramento, which advises Republican candidates.

Several factors have contributed to this year's gusher, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that now allows unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. In August, a low-profile Federal Election Commission decision opened the door for donors to pool their money and give anonymously, which produced a bumper crop of ads from nonprofit political groups and committees trying to influence voters.

Because television campaigning has been with us more than fifty years, it is easy to shrug and say, well, that's the way it goes. But do we really want to live in a country led by those whose politics are so distant from what they claim? Where television reporters have no small part of their salary derived during a campaign from the very people they are supposed be reporting objectively about? Or where this money not only picks the candidates but brain washes the public into thinking that it is those who are sufficiently handsome and charming who deserve to be president?

When historians attempt to figure out what caused America's collapse as a democracy, an economy and a culture, high on the list of perps will be that it all went down the tube while we were watching the tube. 

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

Bean & Grain Project on Peak Moment News!

The Bean and Grain Project — Outperforming Chemical Agriculture. The Bean and Grain Project is exploring bean, grain, and edible seed varieties which can be added to those already grown in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Oregon Tilth co-founder and farmer Harry MacCormack shares wisdom and stories about farms transitioning from chemical to organic farming. His book The Transition Document: Toward a Biologically Resilient Agriculture is a compendium of organic practices, like using compost tea to feed soil micro-organisms. Dan Armstrong, the author of Prairie Fire, notes that the project aims to increase the diversity of staple crops and add resilience to the regional food system. Episode 248.

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

Great Stuff - Oregon Common Cause Rips Away ALEC's Cloak of Darkness

[ALEC is essentially the stormtroopers in the trenches for the Koch Brothers' war against democracy.]

Do you know who ALEC is? Chances are, your elected representatives do.

Join us Thursday December 5th for a special screening of The United States of ALEC, a documentary film narrated by Bill Moyers that examines how corporations and lawmakers are colluding to write laws and remake America one state house at a time.

After the film, you’ll hear briefly how ALEC model-legislation is playing out here in Oregon, including the special session “grand bargain” deal preempting GMO labeling, and upcoming ballot measures to undermine Oregon’s clean energy laws and weaken our right to organize in labor unions.

You won't want to miss out on this informative evening, please RSVP today!

WHEN:    Thursday December 5th, 7 p.m.
WHERE:    Grand Theater, 191 High St NE, Salem
TICKETS:    Just $5.00

Counting among its members some 2,000 state legislators and business executives, ALEC passes cookie-cutter pro-corporate model bills through state houses across the country -- without the public ever knowing who's behind it.

Bill Moyers describes ALEC as "the most influential corporate-funded political force most of America has never heard of."

Join us to learn how to combat this secretive special interest-funded effort to rewrite our state's laws.

Tickets for this event are a bargain $5. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Sincerely,
  
Kate Titus
and the rest of the team at Common Cause

Petition to demand Pentagon financial audit instead of cuts to programs for the 99%

Republicans have forced devastating cuts to vital programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels to safeguard against “fraud” and “waste.”

But here’s the real fraud: A new investigative report by Reuters shows that the Defense Department waste is so astonishingly bad that the Pentagon doesn’t know how much money it has, where it comes from, or where it goes.
Sign the petition telling Congress: Stop all spending cuts and audit the Defense Department.

We will hand deliver the signatures to Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) and Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) who have the subpoena power to start an investigation like this. Please click here to sign the petition.

Just how bad is the waste? Faulty and fraudulent accounting across the Defense Department is so bad that no one actually knows how much money the Pentagon has, how much of it is spent, how much is wasted, how much is stolen, or how much was spent on what it was intended for.

You read that right: No one knows how much money the Defense Department has or spends, or where is goes—not even the Defense Department itself.

And the accounting problems aren’t just money related. Apparently the Pentagon doesn’t know how many weapons it has either--leading them to buy more arms and munitions than they need because they can’t account for the ones they have.

The Defense Department receives one-half of all money appropriated by Congress every year—but it can’t account for any of it. Meanwhile, Republicans have been demanding more cuts to programs like food stamps. It’s outrageous and it needs to stop.
Sign the petition: No more cuts. Audit the Defense Department.

Keep fighting,
Michael Langenmayr
Campaign Director, Daily Kos

Texas Democratic state rep candidate Byran Boyko is big fan of PR / and gets into why he backs RCV as part of the case for RCV

http://www.boykotx.org/great-as-the-enemy-of-good/

Great as the "enemy" of good?

I wanted to address something quickly to Clay Shentrup and William Waugh on Twitter, specifically, who said that "FairVote errs in failing to promote Approval Voting for U.S. Presidency, U.S. Senate, and State Governorships"

I said (being limited to 140 characters and all) that all systems have pros and cons.

Clay Shentrup then posted that "I'd be curious to hear what you think the cons are." and linked me to this page: ScoreVoting.net/BayRegsFig.html - a link at "The Center for Range Voting."

Clay, William: You're not wrong.

Approval voting, Range voting, and other voting systems produce better, more accurate results.  I would have no problem if we voted using Range or Approval voting for elections where there can only be one winner – executive elections, like the Governorship or the Presidency.

But none of the voting methods analyzed on the ScoreVoting.net site have any sort ofproportional representation component.

This is the key.

We have to go back and look at why electoral reform is necessary.  To tell the truth, range and approval voting systems are mathematically superior to other systems.  And you're right – range voting is the best of all single-winner election methods.

But the problem is that range voting only produces a single winner. No matter who wins in Range Voting, there's going to be a significant number of people who feel they aren't represented at all.

You suggest that range voting would end two-party domination, but let's be honest, the vast majority of people in America are either center-left or center-right.  In order for a third-party to be elected in any sort of single-winner system, they'd at least need to be approved by 51% of the population (even if they were not approved as a first choice.)  That's just not going to happen, in just about any district in America.

Range voting does allow you to vote for a Libertarian or Green candidate, give them your full support, without hurting your "second choice."  It eliminates the spoiler effect.  But it still doesn't make third parties viable.  Third parties will still be unrepresented or at best, underrepresented in legislative elections. Indeed, I doubt that the actual results of any range-voting election would be any different from the results you would have gotten under plurality.

Quite simply, proportional representation systems address several things that range voting doesn't.

• Proportional representation systems allow for significant ideological minorities – Libertarians, Greens, etc. to be represented in proportion to their actual support among the populace.  
• Proportional representation systems provide viable alternatives to the two major parties which allows voters to better hold politicians accountable.
• Proportional representation systems tend to produce better representation of socioeconomic minorities and women. (We can see this in Australia, which uses single-winner for the House, and proportional representation for the Senate. The Australian House is 25% women, the Australian Senate is 40% women, and yet, these are the same voters.)
• Proportional representation systems eliminate (or at least, greatly diminish) the impact of gerrymandering.  Voters get to choose their representatives – not the other way around, which is what we have now.

At the core of everything I'm working for, the main thing I am trying to do is to empower voters.Quite frankly, I think proportional representation systems do the most to empower voters, compared to any single-winner system.

But you're arguing that FairVote, by throwing it's support to IRV instead of Range Voting, is not endorsing the best system for single-winner elections that must be single-winner by definition – Presidency and Gubernatorial elections.

I think FairVote is actually being extremely clever to support IRV instead of Range Voting, and here's my reasoning:

Changing electoral systems is possible, but difficult.  Only one country in the world has ever changed electoral systems without significant upheaval (war or crisis) prompting the change.  That country is New Zealand.  They moved from plurality to MMP.

So, if we do manage to change the electoral system, we might get one shot to do so within our lifetimes.

FairVote is pushing for Single Transferable Vote in the United States for legislative elections.  It's the system I support, and the one I think has the best shot of America adopting. It provides proportional results without using party lists. People still vote for a name.  Voting is simple (you rank candidates first, second, third, and so on) and easily understood.

What's interesting, however, is that a Single Transferable Vote ballot looks more or less identical to an Instant Runoff Voting ballot to the voter.  Both rank candidates in order of preference.  Both are "choice voting" systems.

IRV may not be the best system for single-winner executive elections, but in all likelihood, STV is the best system for legislative elections. Because of the ballot similarity, pushing for STV and IRV at the same time is a much more achievable option.

All systems have pros and cons, as I said.  The cons for range voting, for me, is that it won't produce proportional results in our legislature, something we desperately need.  And we're likely only going to have one shot at electoral reform.

Now, if we already had some form of proportional representation for our legislature, then I'd say the move to range voting would be a priority for our executive, single-winner, elections.  But we don't.  And that's the bigger problem.

Instant Runoff Voting isn't perfect.  But it's good enough for the single-winner election systems.  And in this case, knocking FairVote for supporting IRV instead of range voting is a case of "great being the enemy of good."  The problem is, compared to any proportional representation system, range voting doesn't even rank.  FairVote is supporting IRV because it is seen as a compliment to STV – to proportional representation. 

To me, that just makes sense..

__,_._,___

Rare pictures

Friend of mine sent these rare pictures of this albino hummer.  Isn't that a gorgeous bird.

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!

November Best Bet - "A Fierce Green Fire" - Salem Progressive Film Series, Nov. 14 7 p.m.

Thursday, November 14, 2013   7 p.m.   Grand Theatre

A FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change. 

Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, Academy Award-nominated director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep, the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2012, has won acclaim at festivals around the world, and in 2013 begins theatrical release as well as educational distribution and use by environmental groups and grassroots activists.

Inspired by the book of the same name by Philip Shabecoff and informed by advisors like Edward O. Wilson, A FIERCE GREEN FIRE chronicles the largest movement of the 20th century and one of the keys to the 21st. It brings together all the major parts of environmentalism and connects them. It focuses on activism, people fighting to save their homes, their lives, the future – and succeeding against all odds.
The film unfolds in five acts, each with a central story and character:

1. David Brower and the Sierra Club’s battle to halt dams in the Grand Canyon
   
2. Lois Gibbs and Love Canal residents’ struggle against 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals
   
3. Paul Watson and Greenpeace’s campaigns to save whales and baby harp seals
   
4. Chico Mendes and Brazilian rubbertappers’ fight to save the Amazon rainforest
   
5. Bill McKibben and the 25-year effort to address the impossible issue – climate change

Surrounding these main stories are strands like environmental justice, going back to the land, and movements of the global south such as Chipko in India and Wangari Maathai in Kenya. Vivid archival film brings it all back and insightful interviews shed light on the events and what they mean. The film offers a deeper view of environmentalism as civilizational change, bringing our industrial society into sustainable balance with nature.
• Website

Speakers
	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.
	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.

Weird calendar, but many great offerings anyway

One of the saddest things in Salem is that we have shrinking, underfunded library services, with far too few hours, and no service at all on Mondays.  Which is reflected on the calendar below.

Still, the library does great things with the scant resources they're given, many of which show up on this calendar.  Just be sure not to overlook the bizarre, Monday-less calendar and go on the wrong day.

Of special note in the upcoming weeks:

THURSDAY, NOV 7. - 
Ursula K. Le Guin @ Hudson Hall on the Willamette U. campus  This is a special benefit put on by the Salem Public Library Foundation, bringing one of the best writers in America (and native Oregonian) to Salem.

WEDNESDAY, NOV 13 -

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Salem Public Library’s Loucks Hall

Lecture Series
Cascade Summer:  Following the Ghost of John Waldo on Oregon’s Pacific Crest Trail with Bob Welch

Learn about Oregonians helped lead efforts to preserve the natural wonder in Oregon, despite being much less wealthy than we are today.

FRIDAY, NOV 15 (weirdly mis-classified and hidden away as a children's event):

Family Festival of the ArtsCelloBop with Gideon Freudmann
7:00 pm  - Loucks Auditorium

Gideon plays the Electric Cello and moves effortlessly from one style to another: folk, rock, classical, and funny songs. Everyone in the family will be asking for more! Doors will open at 6:45 p.m. and seating will be on a first-come, first-seated basis.  All shows are free and open to the public thanks to the support of the Friends of the Salem Public Library. 

Friends of Library Book Sale rescheduled to Nov. 7-10

Friends of the Salem Public Library has rescheduled its Monster Book Sale to Nov. 7-10 at the Cherry City Shopping Center, 4655 Commercial St. SE.

The sale had been planned for Oct. 17-20, but it was postponed when a last-minute problem arose with the contract for the space.

The sale has been held for many years in the library's Anderson rooms. However, the library purged about 15,000 little-used books this summer to free up space. Those books, plus the usual donations to the sale, meant that the Friends group needed a far larger site for the sale.

Friends of the Library members can shop from 4 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 7 (new members can sign up at the door). 

Public sale hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Nov. 8 and 9, and noon to 5 p.m. Nov. 10.

Paperbacks cost 75 cents; hardbacks, $1.25; rare and collectible books sell for marked prices. On Sunday, a bag of books sells for $4.

Information: salemfriends.org