Two great jobs available: MPFS Seeking Applicants for 2 AmeriCorps VISTA positions

Marion-Polk Food Share is seeking applications for two AmeriCorps VISTA positions. These positions, sponsored by MercyCorpsNW, are 12 month, full time commitments based in Salem, Oregon at MPFS. They include a modest living stipend and an educational award.

 

Farm & Garden Program Developer:

The VISTA member will develop and support Farm & Garden initiatives that alleviate poverty through skill training, education and increasing access to nutritious food. They will:

• Support and expand the MPFS Youth Farm, a horticulture training program for at-risk teens. Conduct marketing, fundraising, tracking, curriculum design, volunteer recruitment and planning for the Youth Farm Program.
• Increase capacity of our Youth Gardens Program, a network of 6 after school garden educational sites at low-income elementary schools. Conduct volunteer recruitment and increase community engagement.
• Work to increase community garden participation among MPFS food pantry clientele through a Pantry to Garden program. Conduct outreach and support educational programming for families interesting in growing their own food. 

TO APPLY:

https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?id=55793&fromSearch=true

 

Nutrition Specialist:

The VISTA member will work to increase nutritional food security in low-income communities through developing programs that empower families, increase access to fresh produce and improve the MPFS emergency food distribution system.

• Expand MPFS's nutrition programs, including our diabetic-friendly food box, client-focused education (such as cooking classes), and nutrition promotion efforts at food pantries.

• Grow the capacity of our partner agency network to effectively serve their neighborhood through developing network maps, encouraging client-empowering pantry practices and developing an agency newsletter.

• Increase produce distribution to families in need through developing new distribution sites and improving internal capacities to give out more fresh produce. 

TO APPLY:

https://my.americorps.gov/mp/listing/viewListing.do?id=55794&fromSearch=true

 

For questions regarding the application process or AmeriCorps VISTA service, please contact Jimmy O'Brien with MercyCorpsNW at 503.896.5080 or jobrien@mercycorpsnw.org

 

For questions regarding the position descriptions or Marion-Polk Food Share, contact Ian Dixon-McDonald at 503-581-3855 x329 or imcdonald@marionpolkfoodshare.org

 

Ian Dixon-McDonald

Vice President of Programs

Marion-Polk Food Share

 

T: 503-581-3855 x329

F: 503-581-3862

E: imcdonald@marionpolkfoodshare.org

1660 Salem Industrial Drive NE

Salem OR 97301-0374

www.marionpolkfoodshare.org/   

 

Great questions from Paul Krugman, while grading papers

1. How can we incentivize students to stop using "impact" as a verb?

2. How can we impact their writing in a way that stops them from using the word "incentivize"?

3. Can we make it a principal principle of writing that "principle" and "principal" mean different things, and you have to know which is which?

That is all.

George Orwell knew the Salem Statesman-Journal well

The new drive-by corporate boss dropped into Salem briefly haz a sad.  Some of the rabble have noticed that it's hard to do journalism about folks you only approach on bended knees.  So Newguy recycles the old tropes about "conspiracy theorists" imagining phone calls to tell the paper what to print.

Well, anyone paying attention knows that nothing could be further from the truth than any suggestion that it requires a phonecall from the Chamber of the 1% to tell the Statesman-Journal what to cover, who to favor and who to marginalize. After all, as George Orwell observed years ago,

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip. -- George Orwell

Media Matters debunks Chamber of the 1% on class actions, shows why they're crucial to workers and employees

New head of Public Justice on a very misunderstood topic, one that the captive corporate press will never get right:

Media Matters regularly responds to Rush Limbaugh, Fox, etc., on a wide range of attacks.  Their blogs videos and whatnot are incredibly well done and professional.  They simply do fantastic work.  They take important progressive issues and make them entertaining, and educate people and change minds.

Just today, they've released a video explaining why class action lawsuits are important, how they help workers and consumers, giving several examples.  I'm honored and excited to have been interviewed extensively in the video, although they've added in a lot of clever animation, music, motion, photos, news articles, etc., so it's not just a talking head, it's something aimed at reaching a broader audience.  Here's a link to the video:

http://publicjustice.net/content/executive-director-paul-bland-talks-media-matters-america-about-class-actions-and-justice

Only rich kids should go to college. Discuss.

Only Rich Kids Should Go to College (via TIME)

"Suggesting that only the rich (or those who get full-ride scholarships and grants) go to college is about as politically incorrect as you can get... Yet more than a third of young graduates themselves do not agree that their education has paid off, and evidence keeps mounting that student loans are the equivalent of wearing lead sneakers in an economic foot race. At the very least, anyone taking out these loans should understand the full nature of their costs

May 22 -- Free film on an important awakening

http://brighidscircle.wordpress.com

http://brighidscircle.wordpress.comhttp://brighidscircle.wordpress.com

May 22nd, "Rebecca's Wild Farm: A Farm for the Future." Come join us for finger food potluck and discussion.

What the Chamber of the 1%'s policies produce

Since 1980, the country has taken a sharp and persistent turn for the worse, adopting measure after measure promoted by the wealthiest as "good for jobs" but actually just good for them, and terrible for everyone else.

Here in Salem, the Chamber of the 1% has thrown its weight and money around to great effect, winning excessive and unjustified power and influence over government policies. This year, the Chamber and its alter egos in the Sprawl Lobby (real estate and house building) recognized the threat that a rebellion against foolish spending on sprawl posed to them -- so they recruited four interchangeable candidates, and have pumped obscene amounts of money into their campaigns, which bid fair to succeed in keeping Salem in a terrible mess:  declining services for ordinary folks but fat contracts and nice tax gifts for the well-connected.

There's just a few days left to change this sad story, making sure that people know that we can do better, lots better. It's very difficult to do against the power of organized money, but we can do it if we try.  

Voters in wards 2, 4, 6, have very good alternatives who could easily pull off the win against Chamber's minions.  

Those candidates who deserve all of the support you can offer are 

Tom Andersen (2), Scott Bassett (4), and Xue Lor (6).  

All three are running against content-free platitude peddlers whose only apparent goal is to ensure that the Chamber doesn't face any serious scrutiny in Council chambers. And Lor is running against a guy with a very checkered past and dubious present, who is trying to conceal it.

(The other non-Chamber clone in Ward 2, Bradd Swank, seems to be a fine person, but the winner take all nature of the November race means that it's important to see an opponent best the Chamber clone candidate in the primary if possible, so that the Chamber House Organ, the unStatesmanlike-Journal can't crown the Chamber clone as the presumptive winner. Doing this is most likely with Andersen.  In Ward 8, the lightly experienced Proudfoot offers a decent alternative to filling that seat with another sprawl-booster, but it's hard to see that race turning out well.)

For Mayor, the best option seems to be to leave it blank.

Below is a good short summary of what listening to folks like the Chamber too much has wrought. It's by Nick Kristof of the NY Times, native of Yamhill, Oregon.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/blow-kristof-and-collins-39/

Yet today the American dream has derailed, partly because of growing inequality. Or maybe the American dream has just swapped citizenship, for now it is more likely to be found in Canada or Europe — and a central issue in this year's political campaigns should be how to repatriate it.

A report last month in The Times by David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy noted that the American middle class is no longer the richest in the world, with Canada apparently pulling ahead in median after-tax income. Other countries in Europe are poised to overtake us as well.

In fact, the discrepancy is arguably even greater. Canadians receive essentially free health care, while Americans pay for part of their health care costs with after-tax dollars. Meanwhile, the American worker toils, on average, 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and an astonishing 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Canadians and Europeans also live longer, on average, than Americans do. Their children are less likely to die than ours. American women are twice as likely to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth as Canadian women. And, while our universities are still the best in the world, children in other industrialized countries, on average, get a better education than ours. Most sobering of all: A recent O.E.C.D. report found that for people aged 16 to 24, Americans ranked last among rich countries in numeracy and technological proficiency. . . .

Undernews: Unanswered questions

http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2014/05/unanswered-questions_14.html

May 14, 2014

Unanswered questions

Are economists a leading cause of climate  change?

After all, they've convinced us to be the only species on earth to believe that over-population and over-consumption are the keys to survival.

Very cool! Wed., May 14: Citizen Science: Let's Do It!

May Lecture: Citizen Science:  Let's Do It! View this email in your browser Straub Environmental Lecture Series presents: Andrew Moldenke of Oregon State "Citizen Science:  Let's Do It!" **Date Correction** Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at Louck's Auditorium in the Salem Public Library 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm Few people recognize the potential of Citizen Science or the incredible effect it has had on the development of science. However, a growing number of scientists are starting to view it as a useful labor force and a way to generate 'groupies' interested in their particular questions. And, for an ever-increasing number of volunteers, it is a way to glimpse the world through a scientist's eyes, travel to some far off place and slave in the mud. The potential also does exist for scientific volunteerism back at home. US society now is characterized by a well-educated, largely retired, middle class that is looking for ways to become societally relevant and 'green'. Most volunteer ecological projects (i.e., weed pulling) do not address any sort of scientific question and often all the hard effort is wrong-headed. My colleagues and I have proposed scientifically-based volunteer projects designed both to quantify and answer relevant management questions and to teach volunteers about science while doing hands-on research in their own neighborhoods. Citizen science is a great and proven idea and we need to get back to it as a society. Now would be the perfect moment! Why wait any longer?? One of our most popular programs, the Straub Environmental Lecture Series provides an opportunity to hear and connect with some of the nation's most respected experts in the field of science and ecology. The Lecture Series brings leading thinkers to Salem to share their knowledge about current environmental issues. Recommended donation: $5/person Copyright © 2014 Straub Environmental Center, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you attended one of our programs and gave us your email address. Our mailing address is: Straub Environmental Center PO Box 12363 Salem, OR 97309 Add us to your address book

You gotta roll with it [feedly]

Salem has, so far as I know, only one true bread bakery of the sort described here, the wonderful Cascade Baking Company on State Street nearly to Riverfront Park.  

So steeped in traditional practices and craft are they that they only accept money for their products, not plastic!

(The other place that seems like a bread shop downtown appears to use the "half-baked" industrial method also described at the link.)

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You gotta roll with it
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