Oregon Humanities

I was sitting in my office last week reading a final report that one of our recent Responsive Program Grant recipients submitted when I realized how much I don’t know about war, especially how the notion of “home” changes so drastically. The Southern Oregon Goodwill Industries, in partnership with a number of other local organizations, recently hosted a conference focused on returning veterans. The conference responded to the social, emotional, and economic... More

26 August 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

Last night, my husband, Amos, and I were cruising around on Netflix when we settled on an instant-play movie called Boys Don’t Cry. When it came out in 1999, I meant to go see it in the theater but missed it. Even though I didn’t catch it on the big screen, it garnered enough media attention that I remembered generally what it was about. I knew it was a fairly popular indie film that had been nominated for several Academy Awards, I knew who it starred (Peter... More

13 August 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (2 so far)

Hmm. The moments that most changed the way I think about the world, o dear sweet jesus yes I can tell you those moments, with glee and gaping, still. There were three of them, actually. One was at about three in the afternoon, and the others, I remember vividly, were 1:14 and 1:15 p.m. Those were the moments when people I had never seen before came swimming, literally, their arms milling and their tiny trout mouths gasping for breath, out of the woman who had married me... More

05 August 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

If developments in science could extend your life by five or more healthy, vital years, would you opt in? Probably, right?

Ten weeks ago, my company took on a project for a New York publisher. A Pulitzer Prize winner had written a book about “the strange science of immortality.” The publisher knew that his resume would attract critical attention. They suspected, however—rightly, I thought—that the book would appeal to a much wider audience, not just readers of... More

02 July 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

After bicycling to Oregon Humanities to lead a weekly staff yoga session, our fearless yoga leader Maggie admitted that she was wearing borrowed pants. Not from her sister or her best friend, but loaners that were given to her by a woman in the class she was leading after a tragically wet bike ride. We laughed about what the world offers up to us when we are down. In this case, Maggie is pretty used to getting caught riding her bike in the rain; she gets around Portland... More

23 June 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (1 so far)

There’s an old joke: Did you know that in China they call Chinese food “food?” We could revise this joke to consider our current love affair with “local food.” It would go like this: Did you know that they used to call local food, “food?” Our contemporary vocabulary reveals a revolution in our relationship to what we eat. We have developed a new lexicon to combat the rise of industrial food production—“community-supported agriculture,” “locavore,”... More

09 June 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. | Permalink | Comments? (3 so far)

Last month, Sweden-based wikileaks.org published a classified US Army helicopter gun-camera video on youtube, and my inbox immediately filled with friends and acquaintances and people I didn’t even know asking me what I thought about it. The video showed an American helicopter attack in the “Sadr City” neighborhood of Baghdad. I was sought for comment because I had covered Iraq as a photojournalist in the early years of the war.

Like tens of millions of other... More

01 June 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. | Permalink | Comments? (1 so far)

When my family moved back to Haiti, I was fourteen, the reluctant daughter of a missionary. When I was six, Haiti had felt like paradise: mangoes fell ripe from trees, kamion drivers blared past our house with carnival-music horns, houses were the color of bubble-gum ice cream. But after living in the states and acquiring the knowing condescension of a teenager, I did not want to be dragged back to Haiti. This time, to make matters worse, we wouldn’t live on the... More

24 May 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)

There are some days that roll out like a promise. Other days you turn the corner to unexpected joys. And still others where the people you meet along the way surprise you into believing in humanity again.

Last summer, the time I spent in Eastern Oregon re-awakened my belief that preserving where we came from, charting where we’re going, and creating innovative ways to see the journey along the way are the essence of our humanity.

I witnessed volunteers who wear more... More

26 April 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (1 so far)

I’m reading Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart. I’d been meaning to pick this book up for about a year now and, as soon as I did, it felt immediately “familiar.”

Bishop starts by recounting his experience of choosing Austin, Texas, as his home. He explains that this was not an overtly political decision. He and his wife just wanted to live where they “fit in.” They wanted a “high-quality” life.... More

15 April 2010 | Posted in Inside O. Hm. New Ideas | Permalink | Comments? (0 so far)