What’s the Mission?
Portland officially opened a cycletrack today on SW Broadway (downtown). What’s a cycletrack? Well, on this street, each side has one auto traffic lane. On one side, to the right of that lane is a lane for parked cars. To the right of the parked cars is a buffer zone for opening car doors and [...]
I recently wrote on my neighborhood blog about walkable communities and whether they exist or are possible in my area. This was inspired by a report indicating that home values are higher in walkable communities. Now, Sightline Daily’s Roger Valdez says that a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report is pointing out that walkable, mixed-use [...]
I don’t do many of these list memes, but I liked this one. Wendy (she’s my sister) started this one. And she didn’t make up any silly rules about tagging people, which is refreshing. Making lists is hard for me, though. Why this one, and not that one?
Five Books I Know Better Than I Know [...]
Cash for Clunkers is about to end (again). This fall, the U.S. is scheduled for a program of cash rebates for purchase of energy-efficient appliances, which of course is now being dubbed “Cash for Appliances,” even though it barely resembles Cash for Clunkers and has been done before.
It’s simple, really. People who buy new appliances, [...]
I’ve been seeing tweets from Portland’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) all morning. They’re tweeting about swine flu (H1N1 virus), because they’re attending the Oregon Flu Summit today.
I’ve been decidedly on the “let’s not panic” side of the swine flu issue. It hasn’t cause massive deaths in the U.S. so far (although I’m not sure [...]
August 17 was my birthday. Today, August 19, is my middle daughter’s birthday. The two are forever entwined; when I celebrate my birthday, I also recall the year that I was pregnant with her. My mother was already at our home in Sacramento, and she took us out for Mexican food, both because I like [...]
Grist food editor Tom Philpott has posted a brief, but good response to the Omnivore’s Delusion (which I posted about a few days ago). Among other things, he points out that while Blake Hurst and other farmers in Missouri have received millions of dollars in government subsidies, they’re probably not the ones getting rich off [...]
What do you think about this sugar shortage business? Here’s what AOL’s Walletpop blog is reporting:
On Aug. 5, General Mills, Hershey Co, Mars Inc., and Kraft Foods alerted Thomas J. Vilsak, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, of their combined forecast of low sugar supplies. These food companies warned that if the Agriculture [...]
