News & Profiles

Slide Show: Ancient Oddities from OMSI's 'Mummies of the World'

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:04:00 -0700

Mummies of the World is the largest traveling exhibition ever assembled of mummies and artifacts, featuring 150 never-before-seen real human and animal mummies and objects from South America, Europe, Asia, Oceana, and Egypt. The exhibition was developed by American Exhibitions, Inc., in association with the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum (REM). For more information: www.mummiesoftheworld.com.

Technology & Children's Health

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:15:00 -0700

Image: Luke Bott

In some circles, technology has gotten a pretty bad rap—smartphones, video games, movies, and TV have been blamed for everything from rising levels of childhood obesity and ADD/ADHD to sleep disorders, classroom temper tantrums, and risky adolescent sexual behaviors. But technology serves a positive purpose, too: sending a child out of the house with a cell phone in hand and Mom’s number on speed-dial calms the nerves of many a parent. Kids are asked to do their homework on computers increasingly often, and are no longer limited to the research they can do in their school library. And whether we like it or not, much of the crucial social development that used to take place on the school playground has migrated to Facebook walls and Twitter feeds.

News headlines lament the loss of a “real human connection,” while others celebrate the new opportunities for communication and collaboration offered by media and technology. “There are a lot of people in this discussion with very strong opinions,” says Darren Janzen, a pediatric psychologist at OHSU’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and a father of two. “But it’s not going away. We can’t fear technology, but we can be mindful of it, and we can decide how our kids will interact with it.”

“Background media use—that is, parents’ consumption of media—distracts them from interacting with their children.”

This isn’t to say there aren’t serious concerns to address. Managing the role that technology use plays in rising child obesity levels is a difficult job for parents of kids who would rather exercise their thumbs on a video game controller than kick a soccer ball around outside. “Obesity is complicated, but at some level it’s calories coming in versus calories going out—and if kids aren’t active, they’re falling behind,” explains Carrie Phillipi, a pediatrician at OHSU Doernbecher and a mother of four. She encourages parents to advocate for recess and free-play at their children’s schools, where children can get the person-to-person social interaction and the physical exercise they need.

Image: Luke Bott

Attention deficit disorders have been a hot-button issue for parents, politicians, and pediatricians for years, including rising worries about the relationship between technology use and these health issues. “Access to media doesn’t cause ADHD—the vast majority of these cases are related to genetics,” Dr. Janzen explains. “But because ADHD is a deficit of self-regulation, kids with it can get sucked into TV and video games much more intensely than other kids can. It’s not causing the disorder, but there can certainly be greater challenges in pulling away from media and moving to other important activities.”

While overexposure to media may not cause clinical attention disorders, it can breed attention-jumping habits. Rather than learning to focus on one task or subject for a long period of time, kids can jump from video to video on YouTube, or scroll through a Facebook feed looking for an interesting snippet of entertainment. “Too much media time may take away from the practice of other important skills or activities,” Dr. Janzen says.

Parenting a child in an increasingly technology-saturated world means navigating the ins and outs of rapidly changing communication devices, social media sites, and entertainment options. Restricting access to age-inappropriate material, limiting time spent parked in front of a TV (or smartphone, computer, or tablet), and limiting where and when they access those screens are all crucial aspects of fostering children’s healthy relationship with new media and technology. What, where, when, and how much media kids should consume is hotly debated by technology advocates and adversaries—but pediatricians are on the front line, dispensing useful advice to curious and concerned parents.

Image: Luke Bott

START SLOW

Today’s children spend an average of seven hours a day tuned in to some kind of entertainment media—televisions, computers, and smartphones are virtually unavoidable, from the screens lining the walls at some restaurants and retail stores to the new computers appearing in grade school classrooms every year. While some exposure to media is unavoidable, parents should be in control of the bulk of the time their children spend engaging with technology.

For children under 2, doctors recommend no screen time at all. Sorry, parents—this means no “Baby Einstein,” either. “Infants and young children learn by playing and interacting with humans, not screens,” says Dr. Phillipi. But keeping young kids away from screens is only half the battle. It’s especially important in these early stages of development for parents to unplug from their own devices. “Background media use—that is, parents’ consumption of media—distracts them from interacting with their children,” she says.

After 2 years of age, doctors recommend a maximum of two hours of digital media a day, a guideline echoed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. “This can be hard to follow, though, especially as kids are asked to do more of their schoolwork on the computer,” says Dr. Janzen. “I usually start by encouraging parents to limit kids to two hours of media for entertainment purposes, outside of what’s needed for school.”

Even when media access is carefully controlled at home, kids may have additional exposure elsewhere. Communicating with children, their friends, teachers, and other adults in their lives about the activities that take place when parents aren’t present can provide a clearer snapshot of their actual media consumption.

CONTENT IS KEY

After their children are 2, parents should be vigilant about small doses of age-appropriate media. “With young kids, it is best when content is slower-paced, sends a pro-social message, and is educational in some way,” Dr. Janzen says.

“Content is a big concern for me,” says Dr. Phillipi. While the cool factor of on-screen smoking has been tarnished by the aggressive campaigning of anti-tobacco groups, that still leaves the violence, sexual promiscuity, and other risky behaviors that feature prominently on popular TV shows, websites, and video games. She counsels parents to communicate very clearly and directly about inappropriate media use, and to familiarize themselves with the content and storylines of their kids’ favorite shows and games.

There are rating systems in place for movies and video games, which can serve as helpful guidelines for what may or may not be appropriate for your child. “But don’t take their word for it—just because a movie is rated PG-13 doesn’t mean your 13-year-old is ready for it,” Dr. Janzen says. “Similarly, some kids can handle content rated slightly above their age level when appropriate guidance and oversight is provided.”

Image: Luke Bott

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

An easy way to demonstrate healthy interaction with technology is to set rules for common areas of the house that all family members have to follow. “No phones at the dinner table, no checking your e-mail while you help with homework,” says Dr. Phillipi. Watching TV with one eye and a third-grader practicing handstands with the other means both your favorite show and your gymnast-in-training aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

It may seem simple, but parents should be wary of the content they watch while kids are in the room. Even if they’re busy with another activity, kids who aren’t ready for “grown-up” jokes and plotlines can easily misinterpret the snippets of information they pick up.

Watching shows and movies as a family is an easy way to enjoy time together, while keeping watch on the ways kids react to different types of content. If themes or issues are presented that kids respond negatively to or have questions about, parents can address them right away.

SCREEN-FREE ZONES

Designating “screen-free zones” in the house can also help a parent keep track of the time kids spend with their devices, and what kind of content they consume. Dr. Phillipi recommends setting up a computer for doing homework in the living room or kitchen, where parents are likely to pass by often.

“It is important to consciously reward good behaviors in our children, rather than giving in to bad ones.”

For children of all ages, it’s important to cut off screen time at least an hour before bed. Set up phone chargers outside of the bedroom, so kids and teens aren’t awakened in the middle of the night with a text from a friend (or tempted by the sudden urge to post a photo of their footie pajamas on Instagram).

Image: Luke Bott

STRIKING A BALANCE

Dr. Janzen is no stranger to temptation. When his kids’ energy levels are a little too high to be safely contained inside a moving vehicle, the flip-down TV screen in the backseat looks better by the minute. “Doctors struggle with the same things everyone else does,” he says. He advises parents to set clear and consistent rules for technology use, and follow them whenever possible, to make saying “no” easier—even in the middle of a full-blown temper tantrum.

Sometimes, though, long-term parenting goals have to yield to surviving a trip to the grocery store—and that’s OK. “We try to save screens in the car for long rides, not short trips around town,” Dr. Janzen says. “Every once in a while, these things are
nice to have. However, it is important to consciously reward good behaviors in our children, rather than giving in to bad ones.”

For better or for worse, much of the younger generation’s social development is wrapped up in media. Complex social interactions take place on Facebook, and profound personal revelations are shared on Twitter. Kids who are completely cut off from social media and other technologies may have trouble relating to their peers, or keeping up with conversations.

Walking the line between too much media, not enough media, the right kinds of media, and media in the right places, at the right times, is a big job—but one that, if managed carefully, can ultimately benefit the entire family.

“Technology isn’t all bad,” says Dr. Phillipi. “My daughter just left for college, and it’s great being able to talk or text with her regularly. We use technology to connect as a family, and I love that.”

MEDIA OVERLOAD: WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Increased Aggression: Kids exposed to violent content can exhibit more of these behaviors when they aren’t in front of the screen.

Flexibility: Can they follow the rules parents have set, or do they throw a tantrum? If kids consistently have a hard time tearing themselves away from the TV, it’s time to reevaluate their technology access.

Sleep Problems: If children have difficulties “winding down” or going to sleep, it may mean screens need to be turned off earlier in the evening.

For more on raising active kids in a tech-heavy world, check out
the Healthy Families blog from OHSU Doernbecher experts.

Adulting Tips from Kelly Williams Brown

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:32:00 -0700

Image: Nicolle Clemetson

In April 2011, while working as a columnist at the Statesman Journal in Salem, Kelly Williams Brown came up with the kernel of a book idea: a beginner’s guide to adulthood, from writing a condolence card to buying a used car. This month, Grand Central Publishing will release Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps. Her companion blog has already racked up more than 100,000 dedicated followers. A TV adaptation is in the works with J. J. Abrams’s famed production company, Bad Robot. And along the way, she even conquered her fear of bleach.

•••••••••

I think from the outside, my life looks pretty successful. I have a job, I have a cat that I’ve kept alive for seven years—but I’m prone to these feelings that I’m not really a grown-up. There are these things that other people know and they just do, but I don’t know them or do them, and it makes me feel like a failure. What I realized is that everybody kind of feels that way.

When I was in Mississippi at the Hattiesburg American, I had three older friends in the newsroom, and they kind of took me under their wing. One day, one of them took me aside, and was so, so kind, and said, “You know Kelly, you always look really beautiful at work, and this is a beautiful dress. But it is a little bit of a cocktail dress.” And so that was the day I learned, just because you look great in a dress does not mean it’s a work dress.

Being an adult is being really decent to people, including yourself. It’s correctly discerning the things that need to happen, and then doing them.

I’m a really anxious person. I tend to see doom and gloom and worst possibilities in everything. I attribute that to a lot of things: to having been a hard-news reporter and often surrounded by chaos; and to having the formative experience of going through Hurricane Katrina; and also just being kind of a neurotic girl.

Bleach is terrifying. I had never used it until I started the “cleaning” chapter of the book ... and then I was kind of amazed. And I went a little bleach-crazy. I had pictured it as a menacing cloud that would just get into everything, and I’d breathe it in and die. But no, it’s really useful—you just have to dilute it. That’s it.

When I met with Bad Robot in la, J. J. Abrams was saying that one of his favorite sitcoms of all time was The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He just loved its humor and its optimism—and then he said that he sort of has the same feelings about this [book]. And then my head exploded.

I feel lucky to have had a book idea that directly stokes the fears of the New York Times–reading, concerned-about-millennials audience. And it just happens to be this time when comedic voice, especially of females in their 20s, is kind of a zeitgeisty deal. But I think that no matter what, growing up is a challenge. The passage of time is not easy for humans. That’s just how evolution works. I think that people grow up when they want to or when they have to.

THe audience for this book is really me—when I was 22. It’s for people for whom, up until now, the progression of life has been obvious ... and then you get to the end of that line, and all of a sudden everything opens up and you just don’t know. And also you probably have a disgusting, filthy fridge.

I’ve only ever been a millennial. I’ve only ever had the experience of right now. It would make me really happy if people who were of a different generation read the book and felt like they got some useful perspective. But I also hope that it’s something that maybe someone in their 30s or 40s or 50s could read with that little cringe of recognition, remembering what it was like.

My professional goal is that I want to write things that are funny and I want to write things that are useful. And hopefully at the same time.

Watershed Politics

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:29:00 -0700

Lawrence Halprin’s drawing of opening day at forecourt (now Keller) fountain in June 1970

The distance between Keller Fountain and the farms and vineyards of the Willamette Valley can be measured in miles, or the inches between the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s ears.

As Oregon celebrates the 40th anniversary this month of the legislation that protected much of the valley’s agricultural lands, it’s worth a pause to ponder the ways in which one designer’s creative vision helped shape both a city and a region.

Between 1963 and 1970, Halprin and his San Francisco firm completed a series of fountain plazas in Portland’s South Auditorium District loosely based on the idea of a watershed, starting with an artesian spring and ending in a waterfall. Called Lovejoy Fountain, Pettygrove Park, and Forecourt (later renamed Keller) Fountain, they instantly became people magnets, earning photo spreads and critical plaudits across the globe. The final plaza, Keller, with its 13,000-gallon-a-minute cascade, New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called “one of the most important urban spaces since the Renaissance.”

Two years after Keller Fountain opened, Gov. Tom McCall hired Halprin to help sell a vision for another watershed: the Willamette Valley. Halprin’s study, The Willamette Valley: Choices for the Future, would play a pivotal role in McCall’s efforts to pass Senate Bill 100, the law that laid the groundwork for urban growth boundaries. Without the bill or the study, the valley today would almost certainly have fewer farms and vineyards, and more sprawl. But for Halprin, a watershed was a watershed: design metaphor or breadbasket, both deserved to be nice places for people, and for that, you needed to maximize interaction.

Until Halprin’s plazas, Portland public spaces were passive, tree-lined parks. The new fountains offered a hybrid of the town square and the swimming hole. As Halprin wrote in his notebooks, they were designed to “say come in not stay off.” Within months of the opening of the first one—Lovejoy—Portland’s citizens decided they wanted more, holding protests and votes that eventually led to transforming a riverside highway into Tom McCall Waterfront Park and a parking lot into Pioneer Courthouse Square.

The study of the Willamette Valley also invited citizens to “come in”—to the political process. It offered two scenarios for a million more people living in the valley: one developed on the 5- and 10-acre lots much of the valley was zoned for; the other with tight urban growth boundaries. In dozens of town hall meetings Halprin’s team led across the valley, they asked the citizens to get involved and imagine what kind of future they wanted.

With their high, poured-concrete precipices and plunging waters, no city would build these fountains today: liability lawyers and ADA regulations wouldn’t let them. Similarly rowdy political risks would scarcely allow a 21st-century governor to commission a designer like Halprin or a study like Choices for the Future. Even at the time, skeptics in McCall’s administration likened Halprin’s simple, hand-drawn scenarios to the cartoonish world of the Beatles’ still-fresh movie Yellow Submarine: strip malls propagated by “Blue Meanies” in contrast to the “euphoric utopia” of controlled growth.

Yet, four decades later, the Willamette Valley looks a lot more like euphoria than the land of the Blue Meanies. And the first of the statewide planning goals adopted under Senate Bill 100? Citizen involvement. Or as Halprin might have said, “Come on in.”

For our in-depth exploration of urban growth and the Willamette Valley, see our feature article Pushing Boundaries.

The Lost City of Portlandis

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:29:00 -0700

Image: Lukas Ketner

PDX Index: Cinco de Mayo

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:28:00 -0700

Image: Nomad

Babysitters of the Future

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:28:00 -0700

Image: Michael Schmitt

All parents know the moment. They need to get something done. (Or just want to do something; never mind what.) Babysitters don’t just appear. Nannies require commitment. Day care isn’t Happy Hour care.

Karen Beninati believes she has a solution. The clientele of WeVillage, the drop-in day-care business she started in the Pearl District and plans to expand, seems to agree. In three years, WeVillage has watched about 4,000 kids, whose parents can leave them at Beninati’s fully certified facility on the spur of the moment.

The model is simple—two-hour minimum, $12 an hour, any time there’s an opening—one might think WeVillage–like businesses would be ubiquitous. They are not. Or, as the 40-year-old single mother might put it, not yet. This winter, she launched a 2,700-square-foot outpost in Orenco Station, Hillsboro’s growing urban-style district. With investment lined up for national expansion, she’s scouting locations in LA and Seattle and weighing franchising models.

“I started this business because I saw the need so clearly,” she says. “I lived it.” As an independent film producer in LA, Beninati found “flexible schedule” actually meant constant child-care woes. “I was dragging my son around everywhere,” she says. “Production meetings. Agent meetings.” She found daycares depressing. “How can people like me insist that restaurants be beautiful,” she says, “yet leave our kids at these awful places?” There was also a personal dimension: “When can I go on a date?”

A relationship landed her in Portland, where she launched in the Pearl, a neighborhood not usually associated with kids but full of hyper-empowered consumers. “People who live in the Pearl are smart,” she says. “Not snobby, but they just want more.” The location also attracts parents who seek a little nightlife of their own; it’s open until 11:30 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

“Just because busy people have kids doesn’t mean we have to die.”

—Karen Beninati

With a tiny capital stake from an investor, she rented a Gregory Building storefront and secured the arduous state child-care permits. Revenues tripled in three years, and this summer the cramped prototype will give way to a 1,800-square-foot location a block away.

At Orenco Station, Beninati aims for a dream demographic: international talent drawn to once-bucolic Hillsboro by Intel. “We have clients from India, Saudi Arabia, France, Pakistan,” she says. Moms’ nights and a bright, Vanillawood-designed interior make the Orenco location a community hub.

“One for the city, one for the burbs,” Beninati says. “Different communities, but the needs are similar. Just because busy people have kids doesn’t mean we have to die.”

A New Future for Oregon Forests

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:28:00 -0700

Image: Michael Brophy

The ride to the future of Oregon timber winds through its past. The route from an I-5 exit near Corvallis passes stacks of two-by-fours outside the Georgia Pacific mill in Philomath, then twists into the Coast Range toward the Siuslaw National Forest to a patch of trees called Jeep Thin.

Logged two years ago under a contract between Georgia Pacific and the Forest Service, these 276 acres are now a light-dappled glade of skinny 50-year-old Doug firs stretching down a hillside carpeted in ferns, underbrush, and downed snags intentionally left behind.

The 630,000-acre Siuslaw, where Jeep Thin stands, now produces more than 35 million board feet every year—enough to build a small town. It also provides the Forest Service with about $1 million for habitat restoration projects up and down the Coast Range. One green advocate calls the Siuslaw “a magical, happy place where loggers and environmentalists get along.”

“What you see here, most conservationists would accept,” says Chandra LeGue, a 10-year veteran of the environmental group Oregon Wild. “You thin out young second-growth trees to let the remaining trees grow bigger and encourage diversity. Hopefully, this evolves into old growth.”

Before microbrews and microchips, forests defined this state. Just 40 years ago, timber accounted for 13 percent of Oregon’s annual GDP. Over time, 90 percent of the state’s ancient forests fell to the blade. The ’80s “timber wars” pitted environmentalists, old trees, and endangered owls against timber companies, dying milltowns, and unemployed loggers. That battle grew into a local, nonviolent (usually) version of the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. Today logging sales account for 11 percent of Oregon’s economic output. Just this year, a governor’s panel failed to broker a bailout of rural counties once bankrolled by timber money. To many environmentalists’ horror, Eugene congressman Peter DeFazio, a Democrat, is pushing a plan to designate over 1 million acres for logging to fund those beleaguered counties.

But amid such throwback politics, Jeep Thin and the Siuslaw represent one of the emerging, more complicated futures for timber that may be better than the clear-cut past.

“The Chinese government wants to build 36 million homes. We’re in a perfect position.”
—Roger Nance Jr.

The industry would, no doubt, love to cut more trees; the Siuslaw once produced 200 million board feet a year. But the new paradigm isn’t bad for business either. Marc Barnes, a consulting forester who works on the Siuslaw, points out that the Georgia Pacific mill is one of the forest’s biggest customers. “This model creates a lot of jobs,” he says.

Up the coast, another, more controversial new timber business has emerged. Since 2010 Westerlund Log Handlers has shipped millions of board feet of raw logs directly from Astoria’s docks to Asia. Cut from private land usually within 75 miles of the port town, the trees feed booming construction in China, South Korea, and elsewhere. Not everyone is a fan of this new export trade. “When logs aren’t milled here, we don’t get nearly as many of the added-value jobs,” says state Rep. Paul Holvey, a Eugene Democrat, who authored a bill that would tax every tree chopped down in Oregon—but refund the money if the wood is milled in-state.

Regardless of criticism, Westerlund’s operation is a classic example of strategic location meeting voracious new market. “Astoria has the shortest trans-Pacific shipping distance on the West Coast,” says company cofounder Roger Nance Jr. “The Chinese government wants to build 36 million homes over the next five years. We’re in a perfect position.”

Portland, too, is evolving new woodsy business models. Nine years ago, Ecotrust launched a $30 million investment fund that buys private woodlands and makes money (and creates jobs) through selective harvesting, selling conservation easements, even trading carbon credits, such as those being sold on California’s just-launched cap-and-trade exchange. And in an aromatic Southeast Portland warehouse, the nonprofit Sustainable Wood Northwest is developing new products made with so-called “junk” trees traditionally ignored by the industry, reaping about $1.4 million in annual sales.

“There are mills out in rural Oregon that need new markets,” says Sustainable Wood NW’s Ryan Temple. “There’s an urban crowd that wants to buy local wood. We bring them together.”

That might be the most hopeful idea out in the underbrush: that Oregon’s forests—still a robust 40 million acres—could again unify the state. As the politics play out, new ways of working and living with our trees can thrive.

“I tell my guys that trees you leave standing are more important than trees that you send down the road,” says Lee Miller, the logging contractor whose company cut Jeep Thin’s trees. “And we’re booked solid.”

The Perfect Party May 2013

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:28:00 -0700

Image: Nomad

THE MILL ENDS PARK TREE About the time the tiny tree in downtown’s two-foot-wide Mill Ends Park (the world’s smallest!) disappeared, we found this lovely centerpiece. Coincidence! Anyway, the missing tree reappeared a few days later. Or at least a tree that looked like the original.

CHANDRA BROWN Head of the table goes to the erstwhile chief of Estacada’s United Streetcar, recently tabbed by the Prez as deputy assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing. Chandra, everyone joked about United’s repeated delays on delivering Portland’s streetcars. But congratulations! We’ve prepared a slow-food appetizer plate in your honor ... OK, we’ll stop.

MARCOS UGARTE An extra helping of dessert is reserved for this 15-year-old Troutdale hero who rescued a child neighbor from a fire. Marcos, your story filled us with pride in Greater Portlandia. On the downside, it made us too nervous to barbecue. We ordered out.

BARBARA BANKE For a first toast, cue the chair of California’s 35-brand wine behemoth Jackson Family, who is buying nearly 400 acres of prime Willamette Valley vineyard land. We’ll grant you a pass, Barbara, until we slurp your first pinot.

CRAIG BERKMAN This former Republican gubernatorial candidate needs a stiff drink after the SEC accused him of telling investors they were buying pre-IPO shares of Facebook, Groupon, and other companies, then using their money to pay his own bills. Craig, let’s talk about how to define “innovation.”

JACK BOGDANSKI The ever-grumpy Lewis & Clark prof and one-time tiresome blogger is looking to stomp November’s successful ballot initiative to support arts education and institutions with a lawsuit arguing its $35/person assessment is unconstitutional. Jack, how ’bout you bring dessert . . . maybe some candies from the pockets of small children?

Word on the Street: Yawn Voyage

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:27:00 -0700

Yawn voyage (yahwn voy-aaaaahj, n)

Blasé Portlanders’ travel experience when they hear about other cities’ chef’s tables, pickling scenes, bike-friendliness, etc.

In a sentence: “I went to Cincinnati specifically to get away from Portland—to sleep by a highway and eat at a strip mall. But I kept ending up on bike tours to artisan supper clubs in some neighborhood called ‘Over-the-Rhine.’ Total yawn voyage.”

Antonym: Dalles disorder (n)—Some Portlanders’ anxiety on the far side of an imaginary line, defined by the 85 miles from here to The Dalles, where they fear they won’t find good coffee.