From the Alliance for Democracy, Portland Chapter

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On-going Events.
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The Kinton Grange is sponsoring a Film Series on Agriculture and Food starting Wednesday, Jan 20 and continuing on the 1st and 3rd Wedneday through April.

The Kinton Grange is part of a national organization created for the benefit of farmers and eaters in 1868, a time of national crisis and recovery following the War Between the States.

Please come early and stay late for informal discussions over snacks and desserts. Topic the movies will cover: CSAs, Community Supported Agriculture, GMOs, Genetically Modified Foods, Food supply chains, Surplus and shortages, Food and life styles, farm methods. Movies are mostly documentaries, some are foreign, a few are quite old, but still relevant. "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" is humorous as well as revealing. Goal is to promote discussion and greater awareness, so we invite your suggestions for additional titles.

Free, but $5 donation is requested. Refreshments are pot-luck.

Other movies may include but are not limited to: King Corn,The Real Dirt on Farmer John,The Gleaners, ., Harvest of Shame, Our Daily Bread, Grapes of Wrath, Supersize Me, Of Mice and Men, Botany of Desire

www.kintongrange.org" Link to our website at www.KintonGrange.org for more info.

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February
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Monday, Feb. 1, 7- 9 pm, Portland Providence Cancer Center, 4805 Northeast Glisan Stree

Health Reform 2010: Where do we go from here?

This special event is co-sponsored by Providence Portland Internal Medicine Residency Population Based Health Elective and City Club of Portland. Panelists include:

Oliver Fein, M.D., President of Physicians for a National Health Program
Eric Fruits, Ph.D., Cascade Policy Institute
Rajiv Sharma, Ph.D., Ass. Professor of Economics, PSU
Moderated by Paul Gorman, M.D.
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Monday, February 1, 5:30 - 8:30 PM
Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center, Billy Frans Jr.Conference Center, 721 NW 9th Ave.

Earth Care Summit

A gathering to support, celebate, inspire and connect congregations on the path of earth care and stewardship.
Join Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon's Interfaith Network for Earth concerns and co-sposnors for a locally gorwn dinner, keynote speaker, informationtables, auchtin of green products and services, and presentations form congregations about their earth care efforts. Meet in roundtables iwth communit representativs from groups and agencies to discuss a variet of topics applicable to congregations including sustainable purchasing, starting a green team, food and faith, watershed stewardship, zero waste gatherings, green liturgies and more.

Learn what's working and how you can save money while caring for creation. Registratoin forms can be found at http:www.emoregon.org/emo_events.php or call alison at 503.221.1054 ext. 210.

Re-registration is required. Cost: $25/person ($22 by January 8th) and $15/students and seniors. Discounts are availble for groups and scholarships are also available.
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Tuesday, Feb 2, 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30) First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park, Portland

Illahee Lecture Series
The Power to Change Our Minds, Jonah Lehrer

Jonah Lehrer is a Contributing Editor at Wired and the author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. He graduated from Columbia University and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He has written for The New Yorker, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. He is also a Contributing Editor at Scientific American Mind and National Public Radio's Radio Lab.

More info and to purchase tickets, go to http://www.illahee.org/lectures
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Thursday, Feb 4, 7-9 pm, Oregon Jewish Museum, 1953 NW Kearney St, Portland

J Street Portland Kick Off

Free admission to the museum during this event!

Please join us on Feb 4, 2010 at the Oregon Jewish Museum as J Street Portland – along with dozens of other J Street Locals across the country - celebrates this exciting moment in the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.

To RSVP for this event, click here (if clicking doesn’t work please copy and past into your browser)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEE0Mm9SQkxlX1JzNHRzbWF...

The kick-off event will include a live video broadcast with J Street’s Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, as well as an opportunity to meet existing and new J Street activists. We will also spend some time sharing ideas and planning for our work in the months ahead around the following: advocacy, media and communications, events and programming, community outreach, and data and technology - so bring your energy and your ideas!

This is also an opportunity to visit the Oregon Jewish Museum’s new location and see the opening landmark exhibit The Shape of Time: accumulations of place and memory, as well as five other exhibits: Arnold Newman’s Street Scenes, the Berger Collection of Ceremonial Judaica, Deanne Belinoff’s Book of Keys, Alex Appella’s Janos Book and Shelley Jordon’s Family History.

Uncle Yascha will be there with his accordion for your further enjoyment. AND, in the museum’s comfortable theatre, we’ll show West Bank Story, the 20-minute-long winner of an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. Light refreshment will be served and schmoozing will be in order

Host committee (in formation): Rabbi Benjamin Barnett, Rabbi James Greene, Rabbi Daniel Isaak, Rabbi David Kominsky, Rabbi Joshua Stampfer, Rabbi Ariel Stone, Rabbi Joey Wolf, Senator Jeff Merkely, Representative Earl Blumenauer, Commissioner Jeff Cogen, Gloria Borg Olds, Dr. Gerald Cogan, Professor Nathan Cogan, Lee Gordon, Jeffrey Lang, Michael R. Levine, Muriel Lezak, Toinette & Victor Menashe, Steve Novick, Hilde Price-Levine, Elden & Margie Rosenthal, Patricia Schechter, Lynn Taylor

More info: 503 249-1957, portland@jstreet.org, http://JStreet.org/Portland
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Tuesday, February 9, 7:00 pm , Board Room, Multnomah County Building, 501 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland

Creating a Sustainable Future

The League of Women Voters of Portland will host a panel discussion on sustainability efforts in the Portland region on February 9th at 7pm. The event will be held in the Board Room of the Multnomah County Building, 501 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland. The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

Sustainable living is the practice by which consideration for the environment and the economy is balanced with the needs of current and future populations. In the past few years Portland has received international attention for its sustainability practices. How will the local government and the community approach sustainability as the metropolitan area continues to grow? What current efforts are they making to increase, promote and practice sustainability?

Panelists include David Bragdon, Portland Metro Council President; Susan Anderson, Director of the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning & Sustainability; and Dianne Riley, Equity Agenda Coordinator for the Coalition for a Livable Future. Panelists will discuss policies and programs that promote sustainability, future plans and goals, and ways that local government and the community can work together to implement sustainable practices.

Portland Community Media will broadcast the discussion on Channel 30 live on Tuesday, February 9 at 7 p.m. Repeat broadcasts will be aired on Channel 30 on Friday, February 12, at 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, February 14, at 2:30 p.m.; Tuesday, February 16, at 5:30 p.m.; and Saturday, February 20, at 7:30 a.m.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government.
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Firday, Feb 10, 6 -9 pm, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway

Carl Rove debates Howard Dean: America;s Role in the World

Welcome Carl Rove Protest at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall,

6-9 pm outside! Lecture begins a 7 pm inside. Bring a sign, the only condition is that you be pround of what you write, you will be holding it.
More info at lonevet2008@comcast.net
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Thurs. Feb. 11th, 7 PM, Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 298

Eating Animals: A Roundtable Discussion,

We are animals who must eat, but should we eat animals? If we eating animals are to be sustainable, is eating animals sustainable? This roundtable assembles a diverse group of experts from the fields of philosophy, law, and gastronomy for alively discussion of what is increasingly being recognized as one of the most vexing issues of our time. Participants: Kathy Hessler, Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark College; Camas Davis, Portland Meat Collective; and Ramona Ilea, Philosophy, Pacific University.
Sponsored by Portland Center for Public Hum nities: 503-725-9662orpublichumanities@pdx.edu , or www.publichumanities.pdx.edu .
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Friday, Feb 19, 6:30 to 8:30 PM, First Unitarian Church, SW 12th and Main in the Buchan Building

Ingredients followed by spearker Laura Masterson

What we eat and where it comes from are critical components of our helath and have serious impacts on the environment.

Come learn more about Community Supported Agriculture or CSAs throught a viewing of the locally made movie Ingredients , followed by spearer and urban farming champion Laura Masteson. Laura has been working for her dream of unban farming for years and works on the 47th AVe Farm located here in Portland.

Sponsored by the Community for Earth of the First Unitarian Church.

Event is open to the public. Donation of $5 suggested but no one turned away.
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Fri. Feb. 19th-, 7 PM, Reed College, Vollum Lecture Hall, FREE.

Black History Month lecture: Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, recently a member of the Obama Campaign, and a regular on Bill Moyers' Now, is an associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University. er academic research is inspired by a desire to investigate the challenges facing contemporary black Americans and to better understand the multiple, creative ways that African Americans respond to these challenges. She received her BA in English from Wake Forest University, her PhD in political science from Duke University, and she is currently a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York. For more information, visit the Black History Month websitehttp://www.reed.edu/bhm. For up-to-date details, visit http://events.reed.edu or call the evnts line , 503.777.7755
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Fri. Feb. 19th, 5:30 PM, University of Oregon, White Stag Block, 70 NW Couch St,

Seymour Hersh: The Question of Torture,

Presented by U of O in partnership with OPB, for this lecture by the fabulous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War and, more recently, reported on the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Seating is limited, so R.S.V.P. by calling 1-800-280-6218 or visit the U of O Web site http://center.uoregon.edu/conferences/WSB/2010/registration/reg_general.php
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Saturday, Feb 20, 10 AM, First Unitarian Church, SW 12 and Main

The Greening of Nuclear Power, Fact or Fiction?

With the growing awarness of global warming and subsequent climate change, we realize we must move from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources.
We hear increasing calls for the use of nuclear power as a substitute for fossil fuel.
Many are calling for the development of nuclear energy as a major part of the solution to our energy needs and a way to stop or remedy our environmental crisis. Others find this to be a false path.

Is nuclear the new green or just an illusion?

Lloyd Marbet - long time opponent of nuclear power and Executive Director of the Oregon Conservancy Foundation
Duane Ray - Retired Physicist, concered for our future.

Cost: No charge but donations gladly accepted

Sponsord by Community for Earth of the First Unitarian Church, Alliance for Democracy, West Hills UU Fellowship Green Sanctuary Committee and Oregon Environmental Council.
Download the event flyer.

More info: David Delk, 503.232.5495, davidafd@msn.com
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Monday, Feb 22, 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30) First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park, Portland

Illahee Lecture Series
Power, Change and Energy, Richard Heinberg

Senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute, Mr. Heinberg is best known as a leading educator on Peak Oil—the point at which we reach maximum global oil production—and the resulting, devastating impact it will have on our economic, food, and transportation systems. But his expertise is far ranging, covering critical issues including the current economic crisis, food and agriculture, community resilience, and global climate change. Heinberg is author of nine books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the newly released Blackout.

More information and to purchase tickets: http://www.illahee.org/lectures
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Thursday - Sunday, Feb 25 -28,University of Oregon Law School, Eugene

Public Interest Environmental Law Conference

this is the world's most important environmental law conference. The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference is the premier annual gathering for environmentalists worldwide, and is distinguished as the oldest and largest of its kind. The Conference historically unites more than 3,000 activists, attorneys, students, scientists, and concerned citizens from over 50 countries around the globe to share their experience and expertise.

The four-day Conference includes over 125 panels, workshops, and multi-media presentations addressing a broad spectrum of environmental law and advocacy. Topics include: forest protection and ecological restoration, grazing and mining reform, labor and human rights, air and water pollution, Native American treaty rights, globalization and "free" trade, environmental justice, corporate responsibility, marine wilderness, international environmental law, water rights and dam removal, oil and gas litigation, genetic engineering, and urban growth.

Each day of the Conference culminates with keynote presentations from preeminent activists, scientists, politicians, philosophers, and authors. Past keynote speakers include Robert Kennedy, Ralph Nader, David Brower, Terry Tempest Williams, Ward Churchill, Vandana Shiva, Paul Watson, Winona LaDuke, Gerry Spence, Ramona Africa, Paul Hawken, and several recipients of the international Goldman Environmental Prize.

More Information on their website at http://www.pielc.org/pages/home.html
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Thurs. Feb. 25th, 7 PM, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, SW Broadway at Main st.

The Global Financial Crisis: Made in America? with Joseph Stiglitz

2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Stiglitz has taught at Princeton, Stanford, MIT. He is now University Professor at Columbia University in NYC and Chair of Columbia University's Comm. on Global Thought. He is also the co-founder and Executive Director of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with symmetric information, and he was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.Stiglitz was a member of the ouncil of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. In 2009 he was appointed by the President of the United Nations General Assembly as chair of the Commission of Experts on Reform of the International Financial and Monetary System, which also released its report in Sept. 2009. Stiglitz helped create a new branch of economics, "The Economics of Information," exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but of policy analysts. He has made major contributions to macro-economics and monetary theory, to development economics and trade theory, to public and corporate finance, to the theories of industrial organization and rural organization, and to the heories of welfare economics and of income and wealth distribution. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance. His book Globalization and Its Discontents has been translated into 35 languages. His most recent book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, was published in March 2008. He is currently working on a book entitled, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, to be ublished January 2010.

Tickets at http://www.worldoregon.org/events/iss.php. Presented by World Affairs Councill.
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Friday Feb. 26th, 7 PM, First Unitarian Church, Eliot Chapel, SW !2th and Salmon

Empowering the People: Paul Cienfuegos Lecture and Reception

6:00 p.m. Doors open; 7:00 p.m. Lecture by Paul Cienfuegos; 8:30 p.m. Reception

Sponsored by: Alliance for Democracy, City Repair, Economic Justice Action Group, First Unitarian Church of Portland, Real Wealth of Portland and Transition Towns PDX

"Is a truly sustainable society achievable as long as corporate rights trump the rights of people?"

Amercians already want better environmental protection, and they are willing to pay for it according to polls. But our elected officials continue to allow the rapid degradation of our environment. Americans are strongly in favor of bold legislative responses to the climate crisis, but our elected officials hem and haw. Why? Because we, the people are no longer the primary constituents of the people we elect...corporations are! Why? Because corporate constitutional "rights" trump the rights of people. And how do we tend to respond to this travesty? By continuing to struggle against one corporate harm at a time, one corporation at a time, mostly via the regulatory agencies. We cannot possibly win in these arenas. We MUST change our tactics and start boldly challenging the constitutional RIGHTS of corporations to participate in American democratic processes. Only then can we achieve a truly sustainable society.

Paul is the founder of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County and is active in the movement to dismantle corporate constitutional "right." in order to create a people's democracy.
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Fri. Feb. 26th, 6 PM, Reed College, Vollum Lecture Hall, Free

Lecture: Tom Hayden “Obama and the Sixties”

Tom Hayden gained national awareness as an activist during the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. To this day, he remains a leading voice for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, erasing sweatshops, and saving the environment. His book Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama is due out this fall. For up-to-date details, visithttp://events.reed.edu or call the events line, 503/777-7755.
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March '10
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Wed. March 3, 6PM, Knappa High School Gym, 41535 Old Hwy 30, ASTORIA

DEQ permit processes for the Proposed Bradwood Landing Liquefied Natural Gas Terminal and Pipeline.

At the meeting, the Oreogn Depart. of Environmental Quality will provide current information about environmental permits that will be required for the proposed Bradwood Landing Liquefied Natural Gas Termimal and Pipeline project. This is an informational meeting only, not a formal public hearing , which will be held later. You will have the opportunit to ask questions and provide comments related to DEQ permitting consideratons and processes. There will be additional opportunites for public comment after this meeting as the DEQ permit processes continue.

More infor at http://www.deq.state.or.us/news/publicnotices/uploaded/100128_119_3%203%...
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Monday, March 15, 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30) First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park, Portland

Illahee Lecture Series
Power, Change and Food, Wes Jackson

Wes Jackson is founder and President of The Land Institute. He is the author of several books including New Roots for Agriculture and Becoming Native to This Place and is widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, a 1992 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2000 Right Livelihood Award recipient. Jackson's focus is the development of natural systems agriculture and the transformation of our food systems.

More information and to purchase tickets: http://www.illahee.org/lectures
nd a 2000 Right Livelihood Award recipient. Jackson's focus is the development of natural systems agriculture and the transformation of our food systems.
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Friday - Sunday, March 26 -28, University of Portland

Confluences: Water & Justice Conference

bringing together some of the nation’s leading experts to examine various perspectives on water, including environmental justice, protection, science, theology, business, history, law, and the Native American perspective.

The Confluences: Water & Justice symposium opens Friday afternoon, March 26, with a lecture and cruise on the Willamette River followed by a screening of The Water Front, a documentary film on water rights in Michigan. Afterwards, director Liz Miller answers questions.

On Saturday, March 27, and Sunday, March 28, over twenty experts share their expertise in concurrent sessions. Most sessions pair speakers of different viewpoints to promote discussion.

Maude Barlow – author, activist, and senior advisor on water to the president of the UN General Assembly – gives the keynote address on Saturday night.

Conference registration for Confluences: Water & Justice is free. Tickets for Maude Barlow's keynote are $10 per person; free for ILLAHEE season ticket holders, conference hosts and sponsors, and University of Portland faculty, staff, and students.
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Friday, March 27, 7:30PM, University of Portland

The Water Front, with director Liz Miller

Part of the Confluences; Water & Justice conference, the Water Front is Liz Miller's documentary about the fight for water rights in Highland Park, Michigna. The viewing will be followed by a Q&A with Miller.

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Saturday, March 27, 7:30 PM University of Portland,

Water Warrior, Maude Barlow with introducory remarks by Oregon Attroney General John Kroger

Keynote speaker for the Confluences: Water & Justice conference March 26-28 at the University of Portland More infor on conference at https://pilots.up.edu/web/confluences/1

One can easily picture Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, outside the corporate headquarters of Suez or Veolia, all alone, bullhorn in hand, shouting to the executives on the 47th Floor, "Come out, I have you completely surrounded." But one can also picture hundreds of corporate executives coming out with their hands up. Because Barlow isn't alone, she has millions of people behind her.

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April '10
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Monday, April 12, 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30) First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park, Portland

Illahee Lecture Series
Power, Change and Money, Jessica Jackley

Jessica Jackley is a co-founder of Kiva.org, the world's first peer-to-peer online microlending website. Kiva lets Internet users lend as little as $25 to specific developing world entrepreneurs, providing affordable capital to help them start or expand a small business. Kiva has been one of the fastest-growing social benefit websites in history, connecting hundreds of thousands of people through lending across over 150 countries.

More information at http://www.illahee.org/lectures
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Friday-Monday, April 16-19, Hood River

NW Strategy Conference: Challenging Robotic Warfare and Social Control

Predator. Reaper. Hellfire. These are the names which developers choose for their high-tech automated killing machines, the missile-armed pilotless drones that now prowl the skies of SW Asia, raining death and injury on tribal villages on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier.

Yet these machines are only the first advance guard of the robot legions now being rapidly developed and manufactured in a little-understood emerging new era of himan history, a trend documented in Brookings Scholar P.W. Singera 2009 book, Wired for War. People of conscience need to take action now, before it is too late, to resist the unexamined progression of thes invasive and dangeous technologies into both military action and civilian life.

The strategy conference will explre the implications of and resistance to development of robotic technology for use in both warfare and civilain social control. The conference will conclude with a nonviolent witness action at the newaby Boeing/Insitu drone development facility.

the conference is sponsored by the Alliance to Resist Robotic Warfare and Society and the Columiba Rier Fellowship for Peace. for more info, contact resistroboticwar@gmail.com on online at www.robotic-warfare-watch.blogspot.com, 509 447 4250.
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Monday, April 26, 7:30 PM (doors open at 6:30) First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park, Portland

Illahee Lecture Series
The Nature of Power, Robert Greene

Maybe it's time for sustainability advocates to toughen up, in which case they might want to talk with Robert Greene. He doesn't preach “random acts of kindness.” In fact the release of his book The 48 Laws of Power prompted New York Magazine to declare “Machiavelli has a new rival. Greene is a sought after management strategist and has consulted to businesses in the U.S and abroad about image-building and strategy. He has been invited to lecture by Google, Microsoft, and the US Olympic Governing Body among many others.

More information at http://www.illahee.org/lectures