Oregon

Latest Posts in Oregon

The Tree, the Bird and the Art

The first line of John Keats’ poem "Endymion" has long been quoted by pundits and other poets.  "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," wrote Keats. But I wonder if beauty provides lasting joy? I often think of beauty as something we experience in the moment. 


From Oregon: Building Democracy Around the World

Pat Noonan and Ron Schiffman are lawyers who have been working in international law reform in countries in transition. Pat’s first assignment was working on a project in Cambodia shortly after the UN sponsored cease fire, in cooperation with the University of San Francisco School of Law. Since then, Pat and her husband Ron have worked as consultants for United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D) projects. After the break-up of the former Soviet Union, Pat worked with legal professionals and judges from the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, lawyers, law schools, and non-profit organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. In the past few years, she has been working with Kosovo, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia on strategic planning, curriculum development, interactive teaching methods, gender equality, transparency, ethics and anti-corruption. 


Weed is not Green Energy

From Seattle

Weed is not Green Energy

Using marijuana for fun and relaxation or to aid healing for a medical condition is an issue as private as the decision to drink alcohol. It’s nobody’s business but your own. Marijuana use only gets fraught with complication when someone under the influence drives a car, operates heavy machinery or engages in every day activity that requires good...


Trashing McMinnville

We’ve come a long way in the 35 years since a small, local garbage dump called the Riverbend Landfill was allowed to be built near the banks of the South Yamhill River near McMinnville, Ore. Even then people understood that a pit filled with rotting garbage was going to leak out into the ground and water, especially in this semirural area between Portland and Salem, where it rains a reliable seven or eight months a year.

“The...


Waiting for the Big One

Author’s note: In July 2015, I was in a media conference in New York City and when one of the participants learned I was from Seattle, he looked at me and said, You’re toast!  I didn’t know what he has talking about until he referred to the article in The New Yorker magazine, The Really Big One by Kathryn Schulz that convincingly asserts an earthquake will destroy a vast portion of the coastal Northwest. 

A good way to sell magazines is by inciting high voltage fear that scares readers to death. Even though I’m a seasoned P.R. professional, who understands how well scary spin increases magazine sales, I too can succumb to electrifying fear when the probability of disaster strikes close to home.

Full Disclosure: I do live in Seattle with my husband and we also own a home on the Oregon coast in Manzanita that is located in the heart of the subduction zone. The signs we see on the Pacific Coast Highway 101 clearly note when we are entering the Tsunami zone.  Since 2003 we’ve lived here and while there is plenty of grave geologic certainty that this part of the world is marked for a natural disaster, the exact timing of death and destruction also invites a spiritual exploration where all roads inevitably point to “Waiting for the Big One.”