Salmon Ground is Holy Ground. As bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, my territory is home to the Columbia River, one of the great rivers of our continent. Whenever I have time and the Spirit allows, I travel throughout this region learning about its history and cultures, and studying its blessings and gifts. In Christian terms, this is called “theology of place,” in which our understanding of the Divine comes through the beauty of the natural world. One site where I feel most deeply connected to God is the Hanford Reach National Monument. Through a sometimes-open gate off Washington's remote Highway 24, a gravel road leads to an overlook where visitors can see the only undammed portion of the Columbia River left in the United States. The Columbia River is indeed holy ground and not a machine, though it has long been treated like one. None of the 15 Columbia Basin tribes were party to the 1964 treaty.
Salmon and steelhead have fared no better. The Rev. Why death won’t keep me from biking in the city. The Saturday after Christmas was balmy in Baltimore, drawing the bicyclists out into the north part of the city, where grand old trees stretch over broad, Olmsted-designed boulevards. Among them was Tom Palermo, a 41-year-old software engineer and former bicycle mechanic who built custom bike frames when he wasn’t chasing his two young kids around. The ride was Palermo’s last. Cyclists and neighborhood residents found him, hit by a car and dying, on the pavement on Roland Ave., a lightly traveled street lined with well-marked bike lanes. The driver, who initially fled the scene, was Heather Cook, the second highest ranking official with the Episcopal Church of Maryland.
Cook has a previous DUI conviction. I know Roland Ave. well. Palermo’s death was just the latest reminder of the risks cyclists take while pedaling through U.S. cities, often just to get to school or work. If the stakes are so high, why do we do it? First, the why. Plan to save monarch butterflies backfires. It started with the best of intentions. When evidence emerged that monarch butterflies were losing the milkweed they depend on due to the spread of herbicide-resistant crops in the United States, people across the country took action, planting milkweed in their own gardens. But a new paper shows that well-meaning gardeners might actually be endangering the butterflies’ iconic migration to Mexico.
That’s because people have been planting the wrong species of milkweed, thereby increasing the odds of monarchs becoming infected with a crippling parasite. Habitat loss in both the United States and Mexico has long been the main threat to the North American monarch population. After decades of effort, Mexico curbed deforestation in the butterflies’ winter habitat in the oyamel fir and pine forests of Michoacán and Mexico states. That's why many monarch buffs swung into action. The problem is that tropical milkweed—at least when planted in warm environments like southern Texas and the U.S. National Study Confirms: "Washington State Has, by Far, the US’s Most Regressive State Tax System." | Slog. Five years ago, The Stranger ran this chart showing that Washington State had the most regressive tax system in the nation.
Guess what? We're still the most regressive when it comes to taxes. A new national study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy confirms that Washington State's "morally bankrupt" tax system remains the worst in the nation when it comes to unfairly taxing the poor. "Washington state has, by far, the US’s most regressive state tax system, taxing the poorest residents at 16.8 percent while taxing the top 1 percent at only 2.4 percent," the study says.
Back in 2010, when we were yelling about this same problem in the context of a failed push for a statewide high-earners income tax, the numbers were slightly different. Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Kansas, Indiana—those backwardly-taxed states are our peers, according to the new study, though of course we lead the pack when it comes to backward tax systems. How can we fix this? Why Portland's roads are so bad: City Council ignores spending targets, funds other priorities. Portland leaders blame the poor condition of city roads on many things: stagnant gas taxes, powerful business opponents and the cost of police, firefighters and parks.
They could also blame themselves. The City Council has ignored its own spending guidelines for the past 27 years, redirecting nearly $200 million targeted for transportation projects to unrelated efforts, according to an analysis of city financial documents by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Instead of tending to Portland's crumbling roads, the City Council approved nearly dollar-for-dollar spending on arts programs, downtown beautification and school bailouts, among other so-called "special appropriations," the review found.
As a result, Portland streets have plummeted into disrepair, with more than half now rated in poor or very poor condition. "I'm not trying to second-guess everybody for the past 20 years. That's not fair for me to do," said U.S. Rep. Paving way for dedicated money Portland has long faced paving problems. Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ Clmate change: A severe drought plagued a third of Queensland, Australia in 2013. Destabilizing the global environment could make Earth less hospitable for humans. (David Gray/Reuters) At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings.
That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world. The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean. Forest cover and land system change: Farming, mining and infrastructure projects are consuming the Amazon rainforest. The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. It’s not just a list of F’s. Event: Innovative Solutions to Money in Politics. How Oregonians can reclaim democracy. Next Thursday, join our executive director Alan Durning to discuss how unfettered money has changed the political landscape and what Oregonians can do to make sure their voices are heard.
Deb Field, executive board member of Main Street Alliance, will be joining Alan. There will be a live jazz performance by the Mel Brown B3 Organ Group after the event (note that even though the “Innovative Solutions to Money in Politics” event is free, there is a $6 cover charge for the concert). When: Thursday, January 22, 2015, 6:30-8:00 PMWhere: Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave, Portland (map)Tickets: The event is free and open to the public. Please reserve your seat.Host: City Club of Portland For more information about the event, click here.
Check out the ongoing Sightline series, What Democracy Looks Like, which aims to map a path to political reform. Weekend Reading 1/16/15. Serena Teju Cole nails it again. He had an excellent piece in the New Yorker on the Charlie Hebdo massacre. He describes how it is far easier to mourn the freedom-representing victims of a few unhinged individuals—and even easier if the killers are Muslim—than it is to name and challenge the violence against free speech and action carried out every day by our own Western governments. I love Aziz Ansari. I love him even more when he lambastes Rupert Murdoch for his Islamophobic comments after Charlie Hebdo. Bad day? Anna This routine is all too familiar: Woman coworker comes up with a great new idea in a meeting. It’s not just annoying. Sadly, I guess I’m used to this kind of thing for myself. I missed this one last month, but it’s definitely worth a read right now as Washington State has the chance to go forward with some serious and smart climate change solutions: Bill Moyers and Company gives us an inside look at oil companies’ strategies to kill West Coast climate and energy policy.
Alan. Understanding the North American Tar Sands. What it takes to "Fight Goliath": a radio documentary. “You put a big black blob in the middle of Canada, and you reach out a tentacle to every part of the Coast, there is a giant octopus that is essentially wrapping its tentacles around North America.” Last year, Portland’s KBOO Community Radio profiled what is “the largest industrial project on Earth”: the North American tar sands. Typically, one hears of the “Canadian tar sands,” as if the issue is one that lives only north of the US national border and need not concern American citizens.
But reporter Barbara Bernstein’s documentary, “Fighting Goliath,” revealed an alarming and very real threat that deserves the same scrutiny as the coal export and oil train schemes better known in the Northwest and Plains states. It’s the most riveting hour of radio you’ll hear for a while, guaranteed. Fifty Years of Oil Spills in Washington’s Waters. Washington’s coastlines and waterways are at a threshold. Battered by a legion of insults—polluted runoff, shoreline development, carbon-induced acidification, and more—there is no guarantee that the Northwest can continue to support the vibrant natural systems it is known for. The region’s native orcas are struggling; key populations of shellfish and herring may be dying out; and even its flagship species, the salmon, are endangered in many places.
And what is perhaps the biggest threat of all looms like a specter: a catastrophic oil spill. The risk of oil spill is with the region every day. Though Washington officials have been more diligent in their preparations than their counterparts elsewhere, there is good reason to believe we are not prepared. In fact, a review of the record shows that our business-as-usual approach has let us down at many times and in many places. Here are a few of the worst. Pacific Coast (March 1964) Shi Shi Beach (January 1972) Fidalgo head (January 1988) Which Washington Legislators Take the Most Coal, Oil, and Gas Money? The 2015 Washington legislative session promises to be one of the more contentious in recent memory. Governor Inslee is advancing bills to reduce carbon emissions and better regulate oil transport, while the Republican-dominated Senate vows to obstruct his agenda.
Both issues will pit fossil fuel companies—and especially Big Oil—against the governor. It is, then, an opportune time to daylight the fact that the major opponents of the proposed legislation are also the state’s biggest recipients of dirty energy money. We analyzed records from the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, as well as several national political funding online databases, to track campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry to every elected official in the state during the last election cycle. Direct donations The top three recipients are all member of the state Senate, the chamber best positioned to block the governor’s bills. Who are these legislators? Lobbyist contributions PAC funding.