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Voices in the Change: Health Care Reform

“The principle of taking care of our children is vital.   I can’t accept that we wouldn’t want to take care of our own children. As a country, they are our children.  They  are our future. If we take care of them, we’re making our lives better.” Rudy Suwara San Diego, CA 03-21-2010 “And now the House is coming into session.  Thanks for being with us.” CSPAN commentator “The long waiting is over. … Read More

Weather Report

I tried all day yesterday to write this blog.  My distraction:  Weather. Three days ago in Portland, Oregon the sun shone and the temperature hit 65.  Very unusual. Ultimately adaptable Portlanders were, of course, into it – rollicking in skimpy tops and wielding hoola hoops, Frisbees, bocce balls, and even croquet mallets. Two days later…that would be yesterday, the morning started out sunny with hints of warming but by afternoon, when I was walking… Read More

Change and Topography

Last year by this date, the EX:Change project had taken me, via Mini Cooper, across about 5000 miles.  That’s a lot a lot of miles…and I was only half way. Already and more times than I can begin to recount, I’d been swept into that American road trip bonus:  The mix of surprise and awe at another unfolding of landscape – even the stretches I’d seen so many times before.  The land of this country… Read More

ROAD TRIP!

  “When life has been given to you, you must take it very seriously.” Calvin Hecocta   There’s something about the open road.  Something about road trips.  Something about how there is just no way any amount of planning and dreaming can remotely predict what will happen in the way a road unfolds time. A year ago today I drove out of Portland.  I had organized my small bag, small supplies and… Read More

“I can’t do this alone.”

       “Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”       Howard Zinn        Last night in the State of the Union Address, President Obama said these five words.  “I can’t do this alone.”  He said many notable things.  Two in particular match well with what many of the people who make up the 100 voices of EX:Change were saying this time last year. The public officials elected by… Read More

EX:Change 2.0

           He could say, “We need change.  We need change. I’m going to change this.”  He can say all he wants, but actually without the people out here, nothing’s going to change.   Art Garcia Jan 21, 2009   A year ago today headlines read: “Antarctica Is Warming,” “Relatives Say Peltier Beaten Following Prison Transfer,” “Israel Completes Gaza Withdrawal,” “Brazilian Midfielder Kaka Stays Put,” “Sen. Kennedy Hospitalized After Suffering Seizure.” Then there were… Read More

Home — 70 Days In

3-27-2009 Just South of Division Ave. Portland, OR Home a week. I’ve slept for most of it. And I’ve walked. Home again to the neighborhoods, to the stretches of bank on both the east and west sides of the Willamette River, and to the downtown streets – careful, clean and bustling. Aaaaahhhh. Portland, Oregon. Home sweet home, indeed.