Monday Mailing Quote of the Week: I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. - Lily Tomlin Oregon Fast Fact #24: The H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest is one of the largest longterm ecological research sites in the United States.
Year 25 • Issue 14 10 December 2018 1. Digging Deep Into Local News, A Small Newspaper in Rural Oregon Is Thriving (Michael Walker) 2. Native American Farmers are Growing a Sustainable Market (Carolina Negron) 3. How to redesign cities to fight loneliness (Corum Ketchum) 4. New governors plan aggressive climate steps (Michael Hoch) 5. Waste not, want not: Schools waste $5 million a day in uneaten food. Here’s how Oakland is reinventing the cafeteria 6. Microsoft to expand rural broadband access initiative to 25 states (Corum Ketchum) 7. Lost lands? The American wilderness at risk in the Trump era (Michael Hoch) 8. Restoring a River Park – Restoring Relationships: Improving Environmental and Community Health in Las Vegas, New Mexico 9. RESOURCE – The Other Oregon: A Voice for Rural Oregon (Michael Walker) 10. VIDEO – TEDxCambridge: How to motivate people to do good for others 1. Digging Deep Into Local News, A Small Newspaper in Rural Oregon Is Thriving The Malheur Enterprise was founded in 1909, and, like many other newspapers, was languishing. But in the past few years, its circulation has surged and it has won several national awards. Perhaps surprisingly, the weekly paper's turnaround and increased popularity happened in a part of the state that strongly supports President Trump, who continues to lash out at the media. The newspaper's recent success has meant an increased workload for the woman who delivers the papers. Wednesdays are delivery day for the Enterprise, which means 74-year-old Sheila Schroder is on the job. To access the full story, click here. 2. Native American Farmers are Growing a Sustainable Market Thirty miles south of Phoenix, green fields of alfalfa and pima cotton stretch toward a triple-digit sun. Hundreds of yellow butterflies dance above the purple flowers that dapple the tops of the young alfalfa stalks—to expert eyes, the flowers signal that the plants are heatstressed and should be harvested soon. Gila River Farms near Sacaton has been growing alfalfa and high-end cotton—which is named after the Pima people who inhabited the Gila and Salt river valleys—for 50 years. That’s a long time by current standards but merely a flash considering that the roots of Arizona’s agriculture reach back thousands of years. To access the full story, click here.
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3. How to redesign cities to fight loneliness Do you feel lonely? If you do, you are not alone. While you may think it’s a personal mental health issue, the collective social impact is an epidemic. You may also underestimate the effects of loneliness. The health impact of chronic social isolation is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is a global issue. Half a million Japanese are suffering from social isolation. The U.K. recently appointed a minister for loneliness, the first in the world. In Australia, Victorian state MP Fiona Patten is calling for the same here. Federal MP Andrew Giles, in a recent speech, said: “I’m convinced we need to consider responding to loneliness as a responsibility of government.” To access the full story, click here. 4. New governors plan aggressive climate steps New and recently reelected Democratic governors plan a series of aggressive steps to address climate change and bolster renewable energy industries in their states. The new climate plans come amid federal and international reports that show significant and immediate threats to the environment and the global economy as carbon emissions rise and temperatures spike faster than anticipated. To access the full story, click here. 5. Waste not want not: Schools waste $5 million a day in uneaten food. Here’s how Oakland is reinventing the cafeteria The red plum’s presence confounds the third grader. She didn’t want the fruit in the first place, yet there it is. She doesn’t want to eat it, but she knows that tossing it into the garbage at Oakland’s Hoover Elementary School is wrong. Standing before containers for trash, recyclables, compostables, and unopened entrees, milk cartons, and whole fruit, the girl’s decision-making matches her Disneymovie hijab — Frozen. Fortunately, Nancy Deming, the school district’s sustainability manager for custodial and nutritional services, is supervising the sorting line today. “If you’ve started eating your fruit, it goes in the compost,” she reminds the girl with a smile. “If you haven’t taken a bite, it goes to Food Share.” The girl glances at the plum, then carefully places it in the clear bin, from which students can take whatever unopened or unbitten foods they please. Anything left will either be offered the next day or donated to a local hunger-relief organization. To access the full story, click here. 6. Microsoft to expand rural broadband access initiative to 25 states There’s been increasing federal and business attention on the estimated 24 million Americans who lack broadband access, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Trump included $50 billion in his infrastructure plan for rural efforts, including broadband. A January report from a federal task force on agriculture and rural prosperity identified the "expansion of high-speed, high-capacity internet" as a "key infrastructure priority,” and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has distributed millions of dollars in grants to communities for internet connectivity. To access the full story, click here.
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7. Lost lands? The American wilderness at risk in the Trump era In the great expanses of the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument, the silence hits you first. Minutes pass, smooth and unbroken as glass. The smallest sound – a breath of wind, a falling rock – can seem as loud as passing traffic. Colter Hoyt knows this landscape well. As an outdoor guide, he walks the monument almost daily. Yet these days he is full of fear. This remote paradise of red rocks, slot canyons and towering plateaus faces an uncertain future, following a controversial presidential proclamation that removed 800,000 acres from the monument and opened land up for potential energy development. To access the full story, click here. 8. Restoring a River Park – Restoring Relationships: Improving Environmental and Community Health in Las Vegas, NM This year’s CIRD Workshop in Las Vegas, New Mexico, hosted by the Hermit’s Peak Watershed Alliance (HPWA) – a Las Vegas-based environmental non-profit with more than ten years of experience in watershed restoration projects – brought a new focus to active listening and drew upon the community's knowledge to drive the design and planning of the town’s future river park. By empowering independent voices, members of the town worked toward a foundation of communal trust and common purpose: what emerged was a shared love and value for the river. To access the full story, click here. 9. RESOURCE – The Other Oregon: A Voice for Rural Oregon Our aim: to create a stronger connection between urban and rural Oregonians. The Other Oregon is a quarterly magazine and monthly e-newsletter to address, from a rural perspective, the issues, values, culture and lifestyle uniquely important to rural Oregon. Content will focus on key areas, such as health care, economic development, water, workforce, transportation and education, along with impacts from federal and state legislation and the urban-rural interface. The magazine will also celebrate rural life by covering rural culture and the people that uniquely define the non-urban side of Oregon. TOO magazine will be distributed free of charge to key decision makers in state and federal government, economic development groups, chamber boards, and other recipients suggested by our steering committee. To access this resource, click here. 10. VIDEO - TEDxCambridge: How to motivate people to do good for others How can we get people to do more good: to go to the polls, give to charity, conserve resources or just generally act better towards others? MIT research scientist Erez Yoeli shares a simple checklist for harnessing the power of reputations -- or our collective desire to be seen as generous and kind instead of selfish -- to motivate people to act in the interest of others. Learn more about how small changes to your approach to getting people to do good could yield surprising results To learn more, click here.
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