Are you a Wileyware fan?
November 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Wileyware
Tagged: blown glass, glassware, http://wileyware.com, marcia wiley, sparkling glassware, Wileyware
A Graphic Simulation of the History of Human Population Growth
October 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment
A Graphic Simulation of the History of Human Population Growth © 2000 – Please forward this link on to friends and family. It’s crucial that everyone on this planet who cares watch this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_9SutNmfFk If you’d like to help work on this issue, please contact Population Connection @ http://populationconnection.org – many hands make light work.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: long-range planning · population growth
Tagged: human population growth, population, population growth, world population growth
BermPortland
October 9, 2009 · Leave a Comment
I have been thinking about this for years: to quiet arterial streets (and especially the homes that stand beside them, why don’t we install earthen (possibly planted) berms? I believe that this would be a great way to lessen the impact of car traffic in our City and beyond. So, I started a new site, BermPortland.com, for this cause/idea, and am seeking support – both financial and research, to prove that this would make sense to do on a grand scale. I welcome your participation!
Photo credit and great background info here!
→ Leave a CommentCategories: BermPortland · Gardening · albertideation · long-range planning
Tagged: berm, BermPortland, berms, increase home values, noise reduction, parking strip, planting strip, quality of living, quieting Portland streets, traffic calming
How to reach me
September 23, 2009 · Leave a Comment
albertkaufman@gmail.com
My Resumes
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
→ Leave a CommentCategories: albertideation · ideation · social networking
why do we continue to grow grass seed in Oregon?
July 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment
For years I have been encouraging people to remove their lawns and plant food instead. As the economy continues to sour people are growing more of their own food, but for a long while I’ve been wondering about Oregon as a whole, and what we grow. After watching Food,Inc., I was again reminded about our State’s food production system, or lack thereof. The soil of the Willamette Valley is considered some of the best farming soil in the world – and in it we mostly grow grass seed and Christmas trees.
As the article “Bean Man” in the Winter 2009 issue of Edible Portland points out “Today 95% of what’s grown in the Willamette Valley is non-edible”.
Ellen Jackson writes: “As recently as 50 years ago, the assortment of fruits, vegetables, and grains produced in the valley provided the region with the means to feed itself, an important measure of social and economic stability. The once robust regional food system has floundered in favor of planting profitable non-edible crops like fescue, rye grass seed, and Christmas trees”
Beyond the questions raised by groups like Food Not Lawns about how growing grass leads to pesticide use and pollution of our waterways there’s the question of grass and allergies. During the grass cutting season many complain of a constant state of sneezing, headaches and other symptoms, and the experience seems to worsen over the years. This is great news for the makers of anti-allergy medicines, but why are we willing to grow something that people are allergic to?
Food Security. Then there’s the question of peak oil. If it’s true that we’re running out of oil, then it behooves us to start growing more of our food closer to home rather than paying to ship it from far away. In this regard, Jackson writes:
“Changing agricultural philosophies over time has meant a loss of experience and expertise in growing beans, grains, and other valuable food crops in the valley, which is two generations deep in grass seed farmers, many of whom are at least 60 years old. The Bean and Grain project recognizes that reclaiming the region’s past agricultural knowledge and reviving previous growing techniques are critical steps to breathing new life into the regional food system. Converting large parcels of grass seed acreage into plots for organic beans, grains, and edible seeds is the next order of business.”
I think we should follow the lead of the Bean and Grain project which is the work of farmer Harry MacCormack:
“The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project is a step by step strategy to rebuild the local food system by increasing the quantity and diversity of food crops that are grown in the valley, evaluating deficiencies in the food system infrastructure, building buyer/seller relationships for locally grown food, incorporating the culture of community into the fabric of the food system, and compiling resources on organic and sustainable agricultural practices specific to this region. As the name of the project implies, central to the task is stimulating the cultivation and local marketing of organically grown beans and grains to provide a foundation for year-round food resources in the valley.”
As much as I’ve appreciated the Oregonian’s support for an end to grass-seed field burning during this legislative session, I think the real issue is growing grass-seed in the first place. I look forward to a healthy state-wide discussion of how our rich farmland is used and what makes sense long-term as we take into consideration changing fuel realities, global climate change and the need to strengthen our local food supply.
Oregon’s number 2 crop, Christmas trees, is also a crop that has a lot of problems associated with it – pesticide use (local watershed pollution), shipping trees in refrigerated trucks around the country, the carbon sequestration that is lost when the trees are harvested, erosion, the costs to municipalities to discard the trees (landfills…). This is another crop that needs a look at going forward. Considering that the planet is heating up, we might do well to pay Christmas tree farmers to just let the trees grow rather than cut them down as this article in today’s Seattle Times suggests for federal forests.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Gardening · christmas trees · dreamingoregon · grass seed · ideation · long-range planning
OLCV ED
July 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Today I applied for the Executive Director position with OLCV. Here is what I wrote to them:
To the members of the OLCV Search Committee <EDsearchcommittee@olcv.org> :
I am applying for the position of Executive Director for the Oregon
League of Conservation Voters. I have a long history of environmental
and legislative activism which I think will be a perfect fit with your
organization.
For the past 15 years I have been a tireless activist on numerous
levels – neighborhood, city, state, national, and international -
engaged in a wide range of issues. These experiences have improved my
capacity to move progressive, environmental agendas and issues
forward. From shutting down a neighborhood medical waste incinerator
in Seattle to leading lobbying efforts for increasing funding for
international family planning in Washington, DC, I have grown as an
activist and a leader. I bring strong writing, organizing, media
outreach, volunteer management, membership, fundraising, technical,
and speaking skills to any effort I engage in. I am well-connected in
Oregon and the Northwest with a monthly e-letter that I send to 2,000
people as well as active Facebook, Twitter, Linked In amongst other
social networking accounts with many connections. I consider myself
well respected in the environmental and political communities in the
Pacific Northwest.
I bring skills to the table which OLCV does not appear to be
leveraging to the extent I believe possible – yet! Presently, social
networking is being used increasingly by individuals and organizations
to successfully get their message out, fundraise and organize. I
believe that OLCV, as the biggest Oregon environmental group, could
exert a significantly larger influence on the State by harnessing
these technologies, and am confident I would be effective and
successful leading the organization in that direction. I also sense
that OLCV could be grown into a much bigger entity, through
fundraising, as well as capitalizing on the large numbers of talented
people who are available at this time in history to do great work.
Most importantly, I am dedicated to the work that OLCV does. I
believe that change can come through electing good leaders and working
with them to write and pass progressive legislation. My hope for the
next ten years is that we will see substantial increases in
environmental legislation in this state as we most certainly face
increasing pressures of population growth, water scarcity, species
loss, pollution, and the results of decisions that were made years ago
– such as the much needed cleaning of our waterways, and removal of
dams on many rivers. I am committed, and always have been, to healing
this planet, and to me that means working doggedly and consistently in
a positive direction with our friends and future allies – those who
have not yet come to an understanding of our position. Relationship
building is a key factor in the important work of OLCV, and I would
make that a centerpiece of my leadership. The work of OLCV is part of
a long effort that will take many many years to achieve, and the best
way to get there will be to build relationships that are strong and
consistent.
I look forward to speaking with you about these ideas and potential
new tools for effective advancement of OLCV’s goals, and expanding the
scope and breadth of OLCV in a personal interview. I have enclosed my
resume for your consideration and would be glad to provide you with
references and writing samples at your request. I look forward to
hearing from you and also wish you the best in this process. There
are likely scores of people who would make a great candidate for this
position, and I hope you pick the best person available, as I believe
OLCV’s work is the most important in Oregon.
Sincerely,
Albert Kaufman
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Uncategorized
Albertideation for the Summer of 2009
July 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Uncategorized
Tagged: albertideation, fruit trees, idling, Portland, rebirthing
Billboards and Oregon Byways
May 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Billboards and Oregon byways
by Max Ashburn
guest opinion
Friday May 15, 2009, 10:04 AM
The Oregonian editorial board appropriately calls attention to a deceptive and weak-kneed bill currently making its way through the Legislature (“A weak makeover of Oregon billboard laws,” May 9). Senate Bill 689 appears on the surface to be pro-beauty, by creating a program in the Department of Transportation that would “encourage voluntary removal of outdoor advertising signs from particularly scenic areas of scenic byways.”
In reality, the bill does little to encourage removal of signs along scenic roads and would in fact increase the total number of billboards in the state, by granting a sign owner two permits for removing a single billboard in one of the so-called “scenic areas” of a scenic byway.
The bill states that the DOT will establish the standards for what constitutes a “scenic area.” One has to wonder whether the makeup of that standards committee will be similar to that of the sign task force behind Senate Bill 689, a task force largely made up of members with interests in the outdoor advertising industry.
For decades Oregon was renowned for having some of the toughest billboard laws in the country, laws that helped preserve relatively unobstructed views of the state’s breathtaking natural beauty from its roadways. All that changed in 2006 when the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the state’s statute that placed restrictions on billboards in commercial or industrial areas violated free-speech protections. The statute, originally enacted to comply with the Highway Beautification Act, effectively capped the number of billboards in the state at just under 2,000.
After 35 years without a single new billboard, the state has seen over 200 new signs go up since the 2006 ruling. Senate Bill 689 also fails to address, perhaps intentionally (given the makeup of the sign task force), the emerging trend of billboard companies toward erecting digital or LED signs. These new signs are essentially televisions-on-a-stick, and are a growing safety concern along the nation’s roadways.
The Federal Highway Administration is currently conducting a massive study on the safety of these new signs, and the results are due late next year. The citizens of Oregon are deserving of strong legislation that protects their treasured landscapes and the safety of the motoring public. Senate Bill 689 accomplishes just the opposite.
Max Ashburn is online communication manager for Scenic America in Washington, D.C.
———
My LTE: To the Editor:
Thanks to Max Ashburn for his article about the threat to our landscape via more billboards in “Billboards and Oregon byways”. I too have noticed the sprouting of more view-blocking billboards along Oregon highways and it saddens me. Oregon is so beautiful – I often imagine I’m passing through the Irish countryside. But instead of recognizing our treasure and doing everything we can to protect it we seem to have a habit of despoiling it and blocking the view with billboards. When I see a billboard it generally makes me less likely to buy a product from whoever is represented there because I become angry that a company would spend money to advertise in such a manner. Billboards are advertising where the viewer has no choice in the matter. In a TV ad a person can change the channel or turn off their TV. With a billboard, the viewer is forced to view the ad which I think is an infringement on my rights.
One of the largest cities in the world, Sao Paolo, Brasil, has taken the step to outlaw all billboards in that city of 17 million people. I can imagine that it has improved morale and certainly made architectural beauty more visible along with other social benefits. Would that we had the foresight and political willpower to outlaw billboards in Oregon. Something is wrong when corporations like Clear Channel have more of a right to pollute the viewpoints than people have to stop them from doing so.
I agree with Mr. Ashburn that Senate Bill 689 should be reworked to strengthen our protections against billboards and encourage my fellow citizens to contact their State Senators immediately on this issue.
Sincerely, Albert Kaufman
→ Leave a CommentCategories: billboards
Tagged: billboards, Oregon
Some additional discussion of the phonebook issue
April 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/rotary-dials-are-gone-why-not-phone-books/#comment-202569
and
my post yesterday on BlueOregon: http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/04/the-end-of-the-phone-book.html#comments
http://nophonebooks.wordpress.com/category/printed-phonebooks/
→ Leave a CommentCategories: Uncategorized
Tagged: no to phonebooks, opt-in, opt-in system, phonebooks
Phone-book opt-in system for Oregon!
March 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment
At Crema this morning, I attended a town-hall meeting that my state Rep. Jules Kopel-Bailey was holding. I learned that he will introduce legislation for an opt-in system for phone books on Monday! This is something I’ve been interested in for a while, and should be interesting to see what happens with it. If this passes in Oregon, it could set a national trend going, which would be pretty amazing.
→ Leave a CommentCategories: albertideation · phone book opt in system
Tagged: albertideation, ideas, phone book opt in system
