The author of this poem gets an F-minus

I recently received one of those forwarded-forwarded-forwarded emails that causes me such great sadness. This was yet another email in which the author/sender's anger, frustration, and confusion in the face of economic and social change gets expressed in a way that does not attempt to unravel and understand complexity. Instead, the email text ignores important facts and makes statements that are uninformed at best, bigoted and racist at worst.

Feeling anger, frustration, confusion, etc., is natural. It often takes us a while to work through those feelings, which is also to be expected. Staying in that place of anger, frustration, and confusion, however, can be harmful to one's health, erode one's social ties, and undermine the basic levels of trust and respect that a functional democracy requires. Rather than try to foster understanding and generate solutions, these kinds of emails help perpetuate the kinds of ignorance that plague this country.

When I receive such emails, I am compelled to reply to all recipients. I do this as one small way to attempt to bring a deeper understanding to the issue; I also see my response as a moral obligation to speak up in the face of intolerance.

If you're interested, my response to the email is directly below the jump, and the email text itself is at the bottom of this post.

Vintage Roadside t-shirts

Pixieland t-shirt design, Vintage Roadside

About a year ago now I bought a t-shirt with the design above from Vintage Roadside t-shirts. I ran in to their booth at a Crafty Wonderland sale in the basement of the Doug Fir here in Portland. I ran in to the two proprietors of Vintage Roadside again back in April at the American Society for Environmental History / National Council on Public History 2010 conference held here in Portland.

Vintage Roadside produce a number of classic roadside advertisements on very high-quality t-shirts for a reasonable price, and they donate some of their proceeds to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I highly recommend their products.

Pixieland in Lincoln City closed before we moved to Oregon in 1978, so I never went there. I do recall driving by the Pixie Kitchen restaurant, however. You'll find other great images of Pixieland and Pixie Kitchen here and here.

On a somewhat related note, I also recall driving by Lil' Sambo's restaurant in Lincoln City. I think we even ate there once or twice. As I've remembered this restaurant over the past few years, thought that it was related to the Lil' Black Sambo's chain of restaurants that used to exist. After reading this, this, and this, it doesn't appear to be a direct connection between the two. Nonetheless, it seems a bit insensitive for a business to continue to use such racially pejorative names -- not that doing so is unique, by any means.

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"Historic Past / Proud Future"

Driving through the city of Monmouth, Oregon, on Highway 51 over the past few months, I've noticed some banners hanging from the light poles. The banners read:

"Historic Past / Proud Future"

I just checked the street views in Google Maps and don't see the banners in these images. I also ran an Internet search using the words "monmouth oregon historic past proud future," and did not come up with any relevant hits on the first couple of pages. I was hoping to find some information related to these banners through the City of Monmouth website or a local historical society.[1]

The motto "Historic Past / Proud Future" strikes me as amusing for the following reasons:

The way things used to appear

Wow. This is great.

I've long known, albeit only in outline, that statues, frescoes, and architecture in ancient Greece and Rome, and in Medieval Europe, were originally painted in vibrant colors. The examples of these works that we now see, weathered, in some instances, more than 2,500 years, lack these vibrant colors, and appear to us as bare stone, bronze, or cement. The link above will take you to a project to view these works of art and architecture as closely to their original creators' intent than has previously been possible. From the link above:

The findings of this research completley changes the commonly held modern ideas of the ancient world, and the way we view modern sculpture and art today . . . it is a wonder how it took us as long as it did to realize the colorful truth behind some of Man's oldest artistic relics.

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Veracity in the movies: Oregon Trail

There comes a movie, every now and again, that reflects the historical record so accurately and so thoroughly that nothing more needs to be said beyond the movie's trailer.

Enjoy.

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Thanks to dana @ EotAW for bringing this video to my attention.

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Noteworthy Blog: "Musing on Beaver Creek Marsh"

Michael W. Davis recently posted a comment on my blog post "Commercial fisheries bycatch mortality rates." He's a retired aquatic biologist living in southern Lincoln County, OR. I clicked through his profile page to find the blog that he and his wife Jackie have created and an article he wrote on the fisheries issue.

I'm bringing Michael & Jackie's blog to my readers' attention as the first installment of my "Noteworthy Blog" series, and as a way to keep this blog on my own radar.

In perusing his blog, "Musing on Beaver Creek Marsh," I see quite a number of links of interest to various topics relevant to the central Oregon coast. People who are interested specifically in the environment, cultural history, and natural history of this region will find many relevant links. As the sub-title of the blog states, blog posts themselves are the authors' "Observations of life on Beaver Creek Marsh . . . including art, wildlife, history, natural science, and other spontaneous topics."

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Follow in Ian Curtis' footsteps . . .

. . . though I would advise stopping a step or two before he hangs himself in his flat.

Ian's final few footsteps would be too morbid and final for me to follow, but the prospect of sauntering about Macclesfield to ogle locations central to Ian's formative years does sound like a fun time. The Silk Museum in Macclesfield has created a map of the area annotated with locations noteworthy in Ian's life. This map coincided with other community events through the summer 2010 commemorating the 30th anniversary of Ian's demise.

From www.joydivisionexhibition.com:

The Silk Museum [of Macclesfield] has released a map of Ian Curtis’ Macclesfield to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the singer’s death. Destined to become a real collector’s item, the iconic map guides visitors to the key sites in Macclesfield associated with Ian Curtis and Joy Division.

The reverse of the A2 fold-out map features a poster sized image of an iconic shot of Ian Curtis by long-time friend of the band Mark Reeder alongside a specially commissioned article by music writer Paul Morley.

The map, produced by designers Gary White and Colin Gardner of Pure Designs Limited, will be obtainable from the Tourism Information Centre in Macclesfield Town Hall (price £1.00) or the Heritage Centre, Roe Street, Macclesfield where a limited collector’s edition of 500 is for sale (price £3.00 plus P&P where necessary).

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Commercial fisheries bycatch mortality rates

I was discussing commercial fishing operations over the weekend while visiting family in Siletz. The conversation involved questions about how significant are the impacts of bycatch and release on fish mortality rates.

These questions arose after the presentation of an anecdote about a group of recreational fishers who took a trip out from Newport to catch some salmon recently. The fishers were not allowed to take hatchery-raised fish, which can be identified because of a clipped fin. So, they had to throw back twenty illegal fish in the process of catching the four legal fish. One point of the story was that the fish that were released during this trip would be tired and wounded; wouldn't these fish then be less likely to survive once they've been thrown back in the water?

This question implied an affirmative answer, and the implication, in my understanding, was to suggest that current state and federal fisheries management practices were not effective. A further, more subtle implication, I believe, was that the state and federal governments should not regulate fisheries, but should let individual sports and recreational fishers regulate themselves.

I will save for another post my commentary on the implied (libertarian) conclusions of the question, but the original question was quite compelling. My immediate response was that it seemed certain that there would be scholarship on this topic—these research findings may not be widely known beyond academics and specialists, but I was sure that people have researched this exact topic.[1] In this post, I've provided some research I've uncovered after conducting a quick search through the academic literature.

My history with worms

Earlier this spring I finally built a worm bin for our household. I was itching to build a worm bin for a long while. I had a worm bin from 2003 to 2005 while living in Bellingham, but haven't been in a position to have one in Portland until now.

We don't give our worms names, but they are valued members of our household nonetheless. The worms digest the bulk of our kitchen scraps, as well as a fair amount of our yard waste and grass clippings.

Our worm friends are amazing little creatures. They process food scraps and yard waste quickly to produce fertilizer that we use to amend our garden soil. This helps us save money that would have been spent on compost and enables us to keep food scraps out of the land fill. In this way, vermiculture is an important component of permaculture: "a system of cultivation intended to maintain permanent agriculture or horticulture by relying on renewable resources and a self-sustaining ecosystem." [link]

More info and some images below . . .