Template:News: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:30, 25 January 2011

News

Tuesday | January 25, 2011

Tobacco sales decline in Oregon
What is going on? Isn't smoking still cool in Oregon? Have those wacko doctors and scientists finally convincing people that it's unhealthy or something? Do some people actually dislike the taste it gives everything they eat? Well then why not respect the tobacco industry's marketing shift towards flavored smokeless tobacco. The additives mostly mask the tobacco flavor with something marginally more pleasant, and there's no law against spitting brown sludge constantly. My friend Phillip Morris says it's really sexy. It's still unhealthy though.

Go to story: Report Finds Tobacco Sales Down In Oregon

Monday | January 24, 2011

Life In The Bike Lane: East Burnside
From BikePortland.org: "It's great to have a wide bike lane on Burnside. It would be even greater to someday have real, world-class bike access on this street with physical separation from motor vehicle traffic. I'd love to enjoy the same level of safe access to this street that other vehicles enjoy. If I did, I'd be able to bike comfortably with my kids to the many interesting businesses in the area." So, uh, when do we install bike lanes on West Burnside?

Go to story: Photo essay: Riding the new Burnside bikeway

Sunday | January 23, 2011

Genuine Prosperity Begins In Community
We live in a world where most of us remain everlastingly duped by a perennial handful of folks who feel an absolute need to maintain power, domination and control. The relentless torrent of obscenities that result are too numerous to recount here. Even so, it's worth noting that in 2009--immediately after Wall Street's rampant criminality triggered the Great Recession--its "top 25 hedge-fund managers made a staggering $1-billion each...."^[1] Meanwhile, on average, "1 person dies every second as a result, either directly or indirectly, of hunger - 4000 every hour - 100,000 each day - 36 million each year - 58% of all deaths (2001-2004 estimates).^[2] At what point to communities of people begin rejecting absurd economic dogmas in favor of real-world initiatives that drive genuine, reasonably equitable prosperity into their communities? What will it take for folks at the grassroots level, working within their communities, to build economic and other social structures that deliver reasonable, healthy livelihoods to everyone in the community?

Go to story: "Growing Wealthier" report shows how smart growth can enhance prosperity

Go to report: Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity

Go to essay: Unequal wealth distribution: Cause and effect

Go to story: Job and Wealth Creation at the Grassroots Level – A Working Model In Cleveland

Go to "Who Rules America?": Wealth, Income, and Power

Go to "The Spirit Level": The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

Saturday | January 22, 2011

Building Bike Lanes Creates Twice As Many Jobs Per Dollar Spent As Does Fixing Roads
<tab class=wikitable sep=tab head=top> EMPLOYMENT PER
$1 MILLION EXPENDITURES Direct
jobs Indirect
jobs Induced
jobs Total
jobs Jobs
multiplier Pedestrian projects 6.0 2.2 3.1 11.3 1.9 Bike lanes (on-street) 7.9 2.5 4.0 14.4 1.8 Bike boulevard (planned) 6.1 2.4 3.2 11.7 1.9 Road repairs and upgrades 3.8 1.5 2.0 7.4 1.9 Road resurfacing 3.4 1.5 1.9 6.8 2.0 </tab>

Go to story: Building Bike Lanes Creates Twice As Many Jobs As Fixing Roads

Go to report: Estimating The Employment Impacts Of Pedestrian, Bicycle, And Road Infrastructure

Friday | January 21, 2011

It's All Downhill From Here
A few decades ago, Portland was just a dingy Northwest backwater largely ignored by the rest of the country. Back then it seemed that most of the folks one met on the street were born and raised here. Many couldn't wait to get out: to San Francisco, or to Seattle, or to New York City, or to London, or to anywhere that looked, felt and sounded more exciting than Portland. Housing was dirt cheap. Everyday folks suffered low self-esteem and utterly lacked all pretense. To Portlandians, the Rose City wasn't merely white, it was white trash. City government was irredeemably corrupt^[3] and P-Town's thuggish cops made even Bad Lieutenant^[4] look good. Everything was perfect. Then the hipsters came. Everything changed. The newly minted, self-consciously "cool" Portlandians flooding into Stumptown took their "high-minded, laid-back, arts-focused, sustainability-oriented" vegan and passive-aggressive selves a bit too seriously. Fortunately, Dave Knows that "Portlandia may be the high water mark for the national media's obsession with Portland...an ongoing source of amusement to locals since the mid-oughts."^[5] At last! Now we Portlandians can finally climb down from our self-absorbed pedestals and get back to the business of living life in an overlooked, thuggish, corrupt, passive-and-non-aggressive, white trash backwater.

Go to story: TV Weekend: Portlandia

Thursday | January 20, 2011

Free electric car charging stations may soon make electric cars more practical
Already, nine public, free charging stations exist in the Portland Metro area. However, Federal stimulus money will soon be deploying over 1,200 stations in Oregon, concentrating on urban centers from Portland to Eugene. 45 of these will be "fast-charging" stations that can charge a Nissan Leaf (currently on backorder) to 80% in half an hour, while the driver grabs a coffee or meal. Even without charging at home, an electric vehicle driver in Portland wouldn't have to worry about range as they pay a couple bucks (for the parking space) to fully charge their battery for the next 100 miles.

Go to story: Charging stations to reduce ‘range anxiety’

Wednesday | January 19, 2011

*The Economics of Happiness* screens in Portland at the First Unitarian Church (Main Street Sanctuary: 1011 SW 12th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97205) on Friday, January 21st, from 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

The Economics Of Misery vs. The Economics Of Happiness
Failing financial systems, imploding economic bubbles, massive corruption, widespread unemployment, radical wealth concentration, extreme poverty, resource wars. These social plagues and many more are all part of the economics of misery. Characterized by economic and financial "liberalization" (globalization), policies promoting the economics of misery are forcibly imposed on people everywhere by a tiny number of business and political elites. The motivations are as old as civilization: wealth extraction, resource expropriation, power, control, domination. The tactics for realizing these goals have also barely changed over the millennia: distract, suppress, divide and conquer. While this miserable science has certainly imposed untold misery and devastation on humanity from the dawn of civilization forward, it is only in the past three-quarters of a century (or so) that the economics of misery have threatened to snuff out all known life on our planet. Soon it will succeed. But there is another way: the economics of happiness. You have an opportunity to find out more about happier economics from Helena Norberg-Hodge, "an analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures and agriculture worldwide and a pioneer of the localisation movement." Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC).^[6] She will screen her new film, The Economics of Happiness in Portland at the First Unitarian Church (Main Street Sanctuary: 1011 SW 12th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97205) on Friday, January 21st, from 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Go to web site: The Economics of Happiness

More info: Find a Screening Near You

Tuesday | January 18, 2011

State bill would outlaw small children in bike trailers
Last week, State Rep. Mitch Greenlick introduced a bill to prohibit children under the age of 6 from riding in trailers behind bikes. Citing an OHSU study that found 5% of bike commuters in 2007 experienced an injury biking that required medical attention, Greenlick stated, "If I thought a law would save one child's life, I would step in and do it. Wouldn't you?" However, the biking community has resoundingly denounced the bill, countering that there was no evidence linking bike trailers to child deaths, and that discouraging family biking would reduce the "safety in numbers" principle, wherein the safety of biking is directly proportional to the number of bicyclists on the road.

PortlandWiki page: HB 2228

Go to story: Rep. Greenlick says safety concerns prompted child biking bill

Go to story: Oregonian Wants To Ban Young Kids From Bikes

(Go to older news stories >>>)

References

[1] Redirecting our rage at the real gravy train

[2] Starvation: Hunger mortality statistics

[3] Portland's Tarnished Penny

[4] ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Lieutenant

[5] January 21, 2011: Portlandia Premieres

[6] Helena Norberg-Hodge

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 __NOTOC__
 == News ==
+=== Tuesday | January 25, 2011 ===
+[[File:Dipping tobacco in mouth.jpg|thumb|Hot!!]]
+'''Tobacco sales decline in Oregon'''<br />
+What is going on? Isn't smoking still cool in Oregon? Have those wacko doctors and scientists finally convincing people that it's unhealthy or something? Do some people actually dislike the taste it gives everything they eat? Well then why not respect the tobacco industry's marketing shift towards flavored smokeless tobacco. The additives mostly mask the tobacco flavor with something marginally more pleasant, and there's no law against spitting brown sludge constantly. My friend Phillip Morris says it's really sexy. It's still unhealthy though.
+:''Go to story'': [http://news.opb.org/article/52387-report-find-tobacco-sales-down-oregon/ Report Finds Tobacco Sales Down In Oregon]
+{{clear}}
 === Monday | January 24, 2011 ===
 [[File:Eastbank Esplanade Bicyclist Bike Lane.jpg|thumb|[[Eastbank Esplanade]]: Unlike [[East Burnside]], it's a lovely and bike friendly bike ride.]]