Editor's Take: April 24, 2008
Credit: Mari-posa/Flickr
California Dreaming
Recession got you down? Maybe you’re cursing your grocery bill, or the chronic pain at the pump. Good news comes from California. No, not Silicon Valley. It’s the East Bay, where a green-collar job rush is helping people beat poverty and revitalize down-and-out neighborhoods. The American Prospect offers a great feature on what happens when a resilient community thinks big.
Editor's Top Picks
Your editor today is Kristin Kolb | View All Today's News
Green-Collar Central
The American Prospect
04/24/2008
As the number of green-collar jobs rises, pioneering activists are working to ensure that many of those jobs go to inner-city residents.
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BC Beetle Makes Us Hot
Christian Science Monitor
04/24/2008
A record infestation of beetles is turning western Canada's forests from a carbon sink into a CO2 source.
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Make Seattle Traffic Disappear!
Seattle Times
04/24/2008
Widespread tolls could make chronic traffic congestion in Seattle and other cities "a thing of the past," a pioneering study says.
Tolls could cut the average late-afternoon commute time from downtown Seattle to Tacoma by perhaps 40 percent. A typical rush-hour drive from Bellevue to Lynnwood could be trimmed by more than one-third, the Puget Sound Regional Council's "Traffic Choices" report concludes.
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Vancouver: Tiny, Happy Houses
The Tyee
04/24/2008
Oliver Lang adjusts a tray of tiny, carefully crafted house models as though it were a plate of hors d'oeuvres at a Kerrisdale cocktail party. Metaphorically speaking, perhaps it is. The PAC House model that Lang is preparing to unveil tonight at the Vancouver Museum could spark fresh thinking about the way we live.
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Highways and Sprawl in Eugene's Future?
Eugene Weekly
04/24/2008
Candidate Jim Torrey has raked in record-breaking donations from developer, land speculator, sand and gravel, construction, timber and other special interests who stand to make huge profits from the urban sprawl and freeways he envisions as mayor.
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Clinton Challenges Obama to Oregon Debates
Oregon Public Broadcasting
04/24/2008
Hillary Clinton's campaign has trailed behind Barack Obama's in field offices and fundraising, but with a challenge to debate Obama, she made it clear she's looking ahead to Oregon's primary, on May 20th.
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EPA Scientists Report "Political Interference"
Washington Post
04/24/2008
More than half the Environmental Protection Agency scientists who responded to an independent survey made public yesterday said that they had witnessed political interference in scientific decisions at the agency during the past five years.
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Warming Shifts Gardeners' Maps
USA Today
04/24/2008
Every gardener is familiar with the multicolor U.S. map of climate zones on the back of seed packets. A growing number of meteorologists and horticulturists say that because of the warming climate, the 1990 map doesn't reflect a trend that home gardeners have noticed for more than a decade: a gradual shift northward of growing zones for many plants.
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As Unions Fall, Lawsuits Rise
In These Times
04/24/2008
Wave after political wave of deregulation resulted in a substantial increase in individual and class action lawsuits. Attorney Tom Geoghegan tells us of a friend, a judge in collection court, who every day sits on the bench and goes through a morning's call of 1,000 to 1,500 cases.
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