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katied's comments:
on Farmers Market Economy
I also don't care if they are selling their neighbor's produce with their own, or insted of their own, as long as it is clearly marked so I can decide on that basis and ask questions. I probably do care about wholesale resellers, but as long as it is clearly marked, again, I can decide for myself what to buy.
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Farmers Market Economy
I shop at the farmer's market all the time but I get to know the sellers and am selective about who I buy from. I NEVER buy from the stands set up just outside the market itself, who have not gone through the market's vetting process.
I am in favor of tracking produce because problems can occur anywhere for any reason. But I think the costs should be pro-rated according to the income of the farm. If the proposed cost os $500 then a small family farm should pay $50 and the multi-million $ concern should pay $5000. Or let's say 0.5% of gross income.
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Downsizing as a Senior
I had a plan 15 years ago with my mother. When the time came that she could not live alone we would both sell our houses and buy a enabled duplex so that we would have our own spaces, but be able to ceep track of each other. That didn't happen because my mother died unexpectedly. But the same plan has been transferred to my sister, who is also single. When we retire, we plan to live near each other if not in a duplex and support each other.
Maybe it seems normal to me since my grandmother and her sister lived together for 40 years after my grandfather died and my grandmother only moved to assisted living after Alice died.
posted 3 years ago
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on Fishing for Answers
Although I would assume that everything would be long cleared out of their system by the time they come back as adults, I would also worry about the use of antibiotics, fungicides and other chemicals to keep the hatchery fish "healthy"
Plus, on the table, hatchery fish are NOT farmed fish, there is a real difference between wild caught (whether they are true wild or hatchery) and farmed.
posted 3 years ago
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on Fishing for Answers
Are the hatchery salmon genetically different than the wild salmon? I always thought they were hatched from eggs milked from wild salmon, but if they are genetically bred to be more adapted to a hatchery environment, then I would worry more
As long as they are genetically the same, then the differences are environment and I'm not particularly worried. A generation or two of no hatcheries will filter back to wild adapted fish.
posted 3 years ago
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on Northwest Passages: Ursula K. Le Guin
At 56 I still read a lot of fantasy, including animals that talk. BUT I expect more now than I did as a teen-ager. If a dog is going to, it should think and talk like a dog, not another person, but in a dog suit. I also expect more depth and complexity from the real people than I did as a kid.
posted 3 years ago
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on Redesigning Portland Schools
I have several unrelated comments
First - it bothers me to see what seems to be a one-size-fits-all solution to complex and highly personal student challenges. It sound like it will make it much harder for Portland students to find the solution that works them.
No transfers - interesting to see us go back to issues that we were moving away from. This rule will significantly affect home prices in different neighborhoods and, long term, will affect the racial and social mix of different neghborhoods.
School size - in the internet age, WHY do schools need to be large so that students can get the classes they want? Whay about centralizing the specialty educators and providing onsite moderated online classes to all the schools
It seems like, in an age where we need all our people to excel individually and creatively, that Portland is working toward the mediocrity of the herd
I'm disappointed that the solutions all seem to be old-think. Could it be that the people making these decisions are the ones who were formed in the kind of system they propose, and can't see other options because those options would not have helped THEM?
posted 3 years ago
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on The Big One
One thing my family finally updated after Haiti was our emergency contact list (large and small).
1. How should people contact you in an emergency?
2. If someone can't reach you, who can they call to come check on you?
3. Who will you contact outside your area to let people know how you are?
I have water, food, money, etc. set aside. Probably not enough (or the right) medical supplies, but you cannot know how well prepared you are until the disaster happens and you see what you have left and what you need. The thing on my list that I don't have yet is a solar battery charger. I actually do, in a pinch, because I have back yard solar lights, that run off rechargeable batteries and I could use those, but it would require a ladder and tools every time.
Which reminds me, the one thing I would like to see changed is with alternative power. Right now, in Portland you could have your house covered with solar panels, but if the grid goes down, you don't have power. The power you generate goes to the grid and you cannot switch it to run your house while the grid is down. That makes us more vulnerable than we need to be.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Turf Wars
And I have an eco-lawn. If it is there, I mow it. From any distance it looks pretty normal, especially now. There is lots of grass, which tends to go dormant in the summer, but lots of other things as well, which don't. I also don't use pesticides or fertilizers. I weed by hand, if I don't like something. I don't water deliberately although, in the summer, I do wash things on the "lawn" area rather than on some impervious surface, or inside where the water just goes down the drain.
I like having some green open area.
posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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on Questioning the Census Boxes
As a person doing genealogical research on my family, I would say fill it out, and accurately for future generations as well. It tells the future who we are now.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Reducing Harm
teens & drinking - I can understand, and even support, letting your own kids drink at home in a controlled environment. Growing up, my parents occasionally let us try the wine or beer they were drinking but never to excess or without supervision, although it was never presented as a big deal. I cannot vouch for my siblings but, for me, this approach meant that I trusted my parents more than my peers on the subject of alchohol and/or drugs.
However, I have never understood the leap from that to letting someone ELSE'S kids drink at your house without their parent's explicit permission, and even then: They Are Not Your Kids!
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on RX: Health Care Costs
I'm already among the uninsured because, when I lost my job, it just became a matter of throwing my money down a rat hole, so I live with the risk. I have tried to maintain insurance for what I think it should be for, covering risk, not covering care, but now it is too expensive for even that. And it is just annoying to have to jump through massive and elaborate hoops with my insurance company and my doctor to get basic care, when I don't expect to even come close to my high deductible. So I've gone back to paying my doctor directly for my visits (which he is OK with - I checked) and hoping nothing drastic happens which I won't be able to afford.
Nobody in the discussion has even mentioned what I want, which is a national single payer for wellness and preventive care, and insurance, if you choose to have it, for serious illness or catastrophic care.
I don't get the system as it stands right now. How absurd would it be if I had to go through my car insurance every time I wanted a tune-up or an oil change? or if I had to go through my home owners insurance to paint my bathroom or replace my refrigerator? When did ALL health care start going through insurance?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Our High School
OK, my question is now, why we are still scrambling to make an old model work in a new world? I know increasing numbers of people getting higher education remotely.
I do not think totally remote learning is necessarily a good idea for high school or lower, but why can't we have smaller schools with core curricula provided on site and moderated remote teaching of specialty or advanced courses? That way you can concentrate your specialty teachers in one location and they could move from school to school virtually?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Our High School
As a board member of the Grant Park Neighborhood Association, I would have to say that another important problem is that our schools (Grant & Beverly Cleary) are NOT involved in the community at large. We have tried consistently to connect the schools to the community and have gotten very little traction unless individual students, parents, teachers, or administrators help us, but when we loose those people, we have to start all over. There is not a culture of connection.
There are LOTS of community members here who do not have children. You really need them to be invested in the process as well, and they won't unless they feel that the school and the students are an important part of the fabric of their community, not just a separate feature that excludes them.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Indian Trust Settlement
If the tribes will be getting the rights and responsibilities of their own lands back, will that include water rights?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on End of the Special Session
In my opinion, a short session means that the loudest least complex voices on any issue get heard first and most, which means that money wins.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Going to School Online
I would like to see Portland Public Schools consider some of the online options to cerate a combination online/B&M school, rather than keep closing smaller local schools and forcing students to travel farther and farther to be warehoused in larger schools where they have no community connections or, alternatively, to loose the options for expanded learning.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Chief Sizer Speaks
Comparing 10-20 years ago to today as some callers have done, does Chief Sizer know what the ratio of officers to members of the public now as compared to then. Because I think part of the problem is how few officers there are to deal with many more people, and a different mix of people, now.
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Banning BPA
I want to mention, since the news stories about taxes and your story on BPA were more or less juxtaposed this morning, that we can't have it both ways.
If you want lower taxes, then you want less of this kind of protection. No more banning, no more enforcement, no more testing, no more publicly funded research. Take your chances that corporations which work SO much more efficiently than government will have our best interests at heart.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Banning BPA
As with trans-fats and many other hazards of modern life, I prefer clear labeling and good information to bans.
As a society, I think we rely to much on others to make us safe instead of learning a little judgment. And we are inconsistent in our risk-prevention applications anyway. We don't ban alchohol or cigarettes or even thin film plastic bags, the components of which are showing up everywhere. We don't even THINK about banning gasoline which puts way more proven-to-be dangerous chemicals into the air we breathe.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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