TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

Stefanie Knowlton

Revolutionary Summer Reading

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July 14, 2016 by Ste­fanie Knowl­ton

Aww! No TEDx Salem until Jan­u­ary? Don’t wor­ry, we have 10 books to get you ready for rev­o­lu­tion by win­ter.

TEDxSalem asked sto­ry­tellers and speak­ers to share their favorite read­ing based on this year’s theme: Rev­o­lu­tions. The beau­ty is that it can mean any­thing from a polit­i­cal upris­ing to rethink­ing pover­ty. Two read­ers rec­om­mend­ed books by an author renowned for spread­ing peace, a rev­o­lu­tion­ary idea indeed.

Check out their rec­om­men­da­tions, and feel free to share your own.

A hole in the flag1.  The Hole in the Flag: A Roman­ian Exile’s Sto­ry of Return and Rev­o­lu­tion by Andrei Codres­cu.

Codres­cu tracks his jour­ney as a self-exiled Roman­ian liv­ing in New York back to Roma­nia just days before the 1989 rev­o­lu­tion. Roma­ni­ans from all walks of life came togeth­er and top­pled the Ceause­cu regime. Codres­cu is wit­ty, artic­u­late, sen­si­tive and exam­ines not only how the rev­o­lu­tion hap­pened but how Roma­nia found itself in a state where rev­o­lu­tion was absolute­ly nec­es­sary.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem speak­er Gina Ochsner, an award-win­ning author and writer in res­i­dence at Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty

2. The Pover­ty Indus­try: The Exploita­tion of America’s Most Vul­ner­a­ble Cit­i­zens by Daniel L. Hatch­er

Hatch­er sug­gests that the prob­lems plagu­ing pro­grams such as fos­ter care and Med­ic­aid are deep­er and more trou­bling than most real­ize. Hatch­er, is also a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Baltimore’s School of Law. In today’s protests for #Black­Lives­Mat­ter most activists focus on the root caus­es of pover­ty and state-sanc­tioned dis­crim­i­na­tion.  This book seems to sup­port sev­er­al the­o­ries and expe­ri­ences of those most vul­ner­a­ble lead­ers on the front line.
Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem speak­er Ter­es­sa Raiford, a con­tem­po­rary civ­il rights leader and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er

 hunger games

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

It is a great dystopi­an sto­ry that blurs the lines of good guys and bad guys. It’s dis­turb­ing but also pret­ty real­is­tic in the sense that there’s a lot of nuance in the issues of our days. Even the peo­ple who appear to rep­re­sent you might have cyn­i­cal motives to attain pow­er. Also, Kat­niss Everdeen is a great, com­plex char­ac­ter who helps you under­stand post-trau­mat­ic stress.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller Saerom Yoo, an award-win­ning jour­nal­ist

 4. The Mind­ful­ness Rev­o­lu­tion: Lead­ing Psy­chol­o­gists, Sci­en­tists, Artists, and Med­i­ta­tion Teach­ers on the Pow­er of Mind­ful­ness in Dai­ly Life by Bar­ry Boyce

This is a col­lec­tion of essays on mind­ful­ness, explain­ing what it is as well as how and why we should prac­tice it in dai­ly life.

 5. The Art of Pow­er by Thich Nhat Hanh

This book does not men­tion rev­o­lu­tion, and yet it is about per­son­al pow­er and that is where the rev­o­lu­tion begins!

Num­ber 4 and 5 rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem speak­er Jer­ry Braza, For­mer pro­fes­sor, Bud­dhist teacher, author and con­sul­tant

 peace is every step6. Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Some­times a rev­o­lu­tion doesn’t erupt in a crash of mor­tar fire or artillery shells. Some­times it’s the qui­et shift­ing of every­thing inside a sin­gle per­son. This book was that rev­o­lu­tion for me. It’s where I final­ly under­stood that peace doesn’t come from the absence of suf­fer­ing, but in the face of it. Zen mas­ter Thich Nhat Hanh shares sim­ple ways to prac­tice mind­ful­ness in every­day life.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller Ste­fanie Knowl­ton, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and bel­ly­dancer

7. Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe

Sev­er­al crit­ics have sug­gest­ed that Howe is rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing British poet­ry by includ­ing strong ele­ments from Chi­na (she has an Anglo-Chi­nese back­ground). The selec­tion of this book for the T.S. Eliot Prize ear­li­er this year has been chal­lenged by some in a male-dom­i­nat­ed estab­lish­ment. A num­ber of women (and men) have come to her defense in response. These gen­der dynam­ics, tloop of jadeoo, remind us of the rev­o­lu­tion with­in the lit­er­ary estab­lish­ment as more women join men as poets, crit­ics, and prizewin­ners as we gain more con­trol over our life choic­es.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem speak­er War­ren Bin­ford, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Law at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, Direc­tor of the Clin­i­cal Law Pro­gram

 

 

 

8. The Book of Float­ing: Explor­ing the Pri­vate Sea by Michael Hutchi­son

I have bTEDxSalem book covereen inter­est­ed in sen­so­ry depri­va­tion tanks, (float­ing) for at least 5 years, but did­n’t try it until last fall just before my first 10-day silent med­i­ta­tion retreat. Float­ing takes away all of your sen­so­ry inputs and helps you focus your mind inward. When you’re float­ing in 800 to 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt and water that’s the same tem­per­a­ture as your body while in com­plete dark­ness, you quick­ly lose where you are in time and space. It sounds kind of woo woo, but it is tru­ly an amaz­ing and unique expe­ri­ence. This book talks about all the ben­e­fits float­ing has on your mind and body. It has a ton of sci­ence, too, so that helps legit­imize the woo-woo fac­tor. One float shop has opened in Salem this year and anoth­er is open­ing in August. It is def­i­nite­ly start­ing to become a rev­o­lu­tion!

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart, half of the dynam­ic duo that brought TEDx to Salem

 

9. Jonathon Liv­ingston Seag­ull by Richard Bach

I believe that this book rev­o­lu­tion­izes the way we think. It encour­ages mankind to find a bet­ter world through knowl­edge. It teach­es us that it is impor­tant to pur­sue your pas­sion no mat­ter what, even if it makes you an out­cast. It is through this love of learn­ing and explo­ration that we reach enlight­en­ment and bet­ter under­stand who we are and what we are meant for. I rec­om­mend this book because it inspired me to think in dif­fer­ent ways to face the prob­lems I encounter.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem speak­er Megha Joshi, stu­dent and inven­tor

  1. The Art of Ask­ing: How I learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Let Peo­ple Help by Aman­da Palmer

Aart of AskingAman­da Palmer is an incred­i­ble, cre­ative per­son and her book is just a small look into the life of an artist. Snip­pets of music fills the space between chap­ters and sto­ries in the audio book, mak­ing this more than just a “read­ing” expe­ri­ence. I found myself wak­ing ear­ly for my morn­ing walk and los­ing myself rapt in her words. I felt like she was speak­ing to me, singing for me, play­ing at me. There were days my walks went extra long just because I did­n’t want the book to stop, and when it came to the end, there was almost a sad­ness that it was over because it tru­ly was one of those moments you just want to go on for­ev­er.

Rec­om­mend­ed by TEDxSalem co-cura­tor Car­lee Wright, the oth­er half of the dynam­ic duo that brought TEDx to Salem

 

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Read­ing

1 The Hole in the Flag: A Roman­ian Exile’s Sto­ry of Return and Rev­o­lu­tion by Andrei Codres­cu 2. The Pover­ty Indus­try: The Exploita­tion of America’s Most Vul­ner­a­ble Cit­i­zens by Daniel L. Hatch­er

  1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  2. The Mind­ful­ness Rev­o­lu­tion: Lead­ing Psy­chol­o­gists, Sci­en­tists, Artists, and Med­i­ta­tion Teach­ers on the Pow­er of Mind­ful­ness in Dai­ly Life by Bar­ry Boyce
  3. The Art of Pow­er by Thich Nhat Hanh
  4. Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  5. Loop of Jadeby Sarah Howe
  6. The Book of Float­ing: Explor­ing the Pri­vate Sea by Michael Hutchi­son
  7. Jonathon Liv­ingston Seag­ull by Richard Bach
  8. The Art of Ask­ing: How I learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Let Peo­ple Help by Aman­da Palmer

TEDxSalem

TEDxSalem will be held Jan. 7, 2017 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Dis­count­ed advance tick­ets go on sale Sun­day, Aug. 7, 2016. Reg­u­lar tick­et prices begin Aug. 21.. Watch the blog for details. E‑mail partners@tedxsalem.us to learn about spon­sor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties or Mindie@tedxsalem.us to vol­un­teer.

What is TEDx

About TEDx, x = inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nized event

In the spir­it of ideas worth spread­ing, TEDx is a pro­gram of local, self-orga­nized events that bring peo­ple togeth­er to share a TED-like expe­ri­ence. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speak­ers com­bine to spark deep dis­cus­sion and con­nec­tion in a small group. These local, self-orga­nized events are brand­ed TEDx, where x = inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nized TED event. The TED Con­fer­ence pro­vides gen­er­al guid­ance for the TEDx pro­gram, but indi­vid­ual TEDx events are self-orga­nized. (Sub­ject to cer­tain rules and reg­u­la­tions.) 

 

TEDxSalem speakers: Where are they now?

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elaineEvery year, TEDxSalem speak­ers inspire us with their unique ideas that shed light on the world around us, but where have these ideas tak­en them since leav­ing the stage?


We caught up with sev­er­al past speak­ers to see where they are now. Here’s what they had to say:

Jonathan Chase, who spoke last year about the inner work­ings of the autis­tic mind, is con­sult­ing at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty to help sci­en­tists bet­ter under­stand research par­tic­i­pants on the autism spec­trum. He has also kept busy pre­sent­ing at con­fer­ences, uni­ver­si­ties, work­shops and offer­ing train­ing for par­ents, pro­fes­sion­als and JCPlayingBassedu­ca­tors.

“TEDxSalem was a great expe­ri­ence and led to a lot of inter­est in what I do and my unique approach to autism sup­port,” he said.

Travis Jank, who talked about Bit­Coin , a type of dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy, start­ed a new com­pa­ny with fel­low speak­er Richard Sur­roz , called the Nerdy Nin­jas, to pro­duce show­case PCS and to do events includ­ing the Vanil­la Ice Project.

SIMON_TAMSimon Tam, who talked about mak­ing every word count in 2014, has done four more TED talks and is tour­ing the coun­try with his band, The Slants. Cur­rent­ly he is head­ed to Wash­ing­ton DC for a case that might expand the First Amend­ment. Plus he devel­oped a great new taco recipe.

Jef­fer­son Smith, who talked thank­less jobs last year, has con­tin­ued to build XRAY.FM, a start­up radio sta­tion vot­ed Portland’s Best Radio Sta­tion this sum­mer. He is also work­ing with a crew of fel­low vol­un­teers to orga­nize a sto­ry­telling series focused on rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty grat­i­tude. The crew is called SuperThank, and they have start­ed a pod­cast and radio show.

“Sept. 21st is World Grat­i­tude Day,” he said, “and we’ll be doing some ridicu­lous things.”

Patrick Spencer, who talked about the Cork For­est Con­ser­va­tion Alliance in 2013, has helped expand its pro­grams to all sev­en cork-

Patrick Spencerpro­duc­ing coun­tries. The Alliance’s cork recy­cling pro­gram now has more than 1,000 drop-off loca­tions across the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

“The most excit­ing news is that we have launched an eco-tour of the cork forests in Spain,” he said. “We were very hon­ored to have the eco-tour fea­tured in the New York Times Trav­el sec­tion.”

Thank you to all our speak­ers who shared updates. This year’s line­up of TEDxSalem speak­ers promis­es to be just as excit­ing. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Speaker fights for social justice on and off the clock

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CM Hall a proud native Oregonian committed to equality and social justice and a fierce Words With Friends player. She is also a 2015 TEDxSalem speaker.
CM Hall is a proud native Ore­gon­ian com­mit­ted to equal­i­ty and social jus­tice and a fierce Words With Friends play­er.

Being a sign lan­guage inter­preter gives you a win­dow into the most inti­mate details of people’s lives and can put you on the nation­al polit­i­cal stage. Just ask CM Hall, a 2015 TEDxSalem speak­er.

She served as a mem­ber of John Kerry’s senior staff dur­ing his run for pres­i­dent in 2004, includ­ing mak­ing sure ASL inter­preters signed every speech. She has also inter­pret­ed for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. Five times.

“That’s a pret­ty good gig if you can get it, right?,” she said.

If it sounds like she’s try­ing to recruit inter­preters, it’s no acci­dent. She helped launched a nation­al cam­paign to inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of ASL inter­preters to help fill a short­age.

Now she works as project coor­di­na­tor of the West­ern Region Inter­preter Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter at West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty. She teach­es Deaf­Blind Inter­pret­ing and LGBTQ Stud­ies.

When Hall dis­cov­ered ASL inter­pret­ing in col­lege, she was drawn to the ges­tures. It remind­ed her of the­ater because it embod­ied a con­ver­sa­tion, but it was the social jus­tice piece that hooked her for good.

“When I start­ed to learn about Deaf cul­ture, it sparked my social jus­tice bend. This isn’t about a com­mu­ni­ty with a dis­abil­i­ty,” she said. “This is about a com­mu­ni­ty that is lin­guis­ti­cal­ly and cul­tur­al­ly oppressed.”

Despite ded­i­cat­ing more than 23 years to learn­ing the lan­guage and earn­ing awards for her advo­ca­cy, she still rec­og­nizes that she’s an aud­ist, some­one who behaves or is treat­ed as if they’re supe­ri­or based on the abil­i­ty to hear. If you’re a mem­ber of the hear­ing com­mu­ni­ty, she said, you’re an aud­ist. You can’t help it.

That doesn’t stop her from fight­ing for equal access.

For exam­ple, she coor­di­nates a men­tor­ship pro­gram that match­es sea­soned inter­preters with new inter­preters in 11 states and ter­ri­to­ries to boost qual­i­ty access for the Deaf com­mu­ni­ty. She also fights in lit­tle ways. In July, she start­ed a change.org peti­tion to add the ASL “I Love You” emo­ji to mobile tex­ting appli­ca­tions. She said she feels lucky to do the work that she does.

In her free time, she advo­cates for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty. Yes, she does social jus­tice for fun, too. Cur­rent­ly she chairs the Equal­i­ty PAC for Basic Rights Ore­gon. To learn more about Hall’s life as a sign lan­guage inter­preter, LGBTQ advo­cate and self-described queer, catch her TEDxSalem talk Oct. 3. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

What does fearless look like?

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Von_GlitschkaVon Glitsch­ka, cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, want­ed to cre­ate a logo as fear­less as this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

“The theme “Fear­less” made me think a lot. Fear is nat­ur­al, but it’s also a choice so if I’m going to brand an event that is declar­ing peo­ple should be fear­less,” he said, “I need to be authen­tic in my approach.”

Glitsch­ka designed the last two TEDxSalem logos, which he described as aes­thet­i­cal­ly clean. It’s a look that didn’t seem to fit this year’s theme, he said, so he tried some­thing new.

Fearless_ProcessHe grabbed some black paint and a few brush­es and began paint­ing all the let­ters he need­ed. Then he arranged them in Pho­to­shop. It looked good, but some­thing was miss­ing.

“That’s when I read the word dif­fer­ent­ly. I’d nev­er noticed that the word fear­less is actu­al­ly two words “fear” and “less,” he said. “I want­ed to play off of “fear less,” and put fear aside and all that it implies.”

Fearless_Type

 

He decid­ed to asso­ciate fear with dis­or­der and rearranged the word so its let­ters were back­wards.

“In con­text of design, fear is main­ly about the fear of fail­ure,” he said. He thought, “What if they don’t like it?”

 

 

Once he added the col­or red, he liked what he saw. And so do we. Thank you for being fear­less in your design Glitsch­ka. T‑shirts with this year’s logo will be on sale at TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

 

FLOGO_COLOR1

 

Learn what it means to be fear­less at TEDxSalem Oct. 3

The all-day event is $40 for stu­dents and $50 for the gen­er­al pub­lic and includes talks, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day (break­fast, coffee/tea/water, snacks and lunch), a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies. Be fear­less and find your tick­ets here.

Von Glitsch­ka is the cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, a small bou­tique design firm in Salem. Its diverse range of illus­tra­tive designs have been used by some of the most respect­ed glob­al brands. The stu­dio cre­ative­ly col­lab­o­rates with ad agen­cies, design firms, cor­po­rate art depart­ments, and small busi­ness­es to pro­duce com­pelling illus­tra­tive design.

Lou Radja: Everyone deserves the opportunity to dance

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Motivational speaker Lou Radja will share the lessons he learned growing up in the Congo and getting his education in the United States.
Lou Rad­ja will share the lessons he learned grow­ing up in the Con­go and get­ting his edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States.

“Jam­bo!”

Lou Rad­ja announces the Swahili greet­ing wher­ev­er he goes in his deep boom­ing voice and broad smile. It’s almost impos­si­ble not to smile back.

Rad­ja, 39, grew up in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, Africa, and, like his par­ents, attend­ed col­lege in the Unit­ed States. The gift of edu­ca­tion changed his fam­i­ly tree, and his life’s pur­pose is to return the favor.

“It’s essen­tial for our own sur­vival to take care of one anoth­er. There’s noth­ing spe­cial about it,” he said, “except human beings giv­ing every­one an oppor­tu­ni­ty to dance.”

One of his favorite say­ings from his vast col­lec­tion, is “when you take the ele­va­tor to the top; always send it back down for some­one else.”

Near­ly 50 years ago, mis­sion­ar­ies gave his father a chance to go to col­lege, not because he was smarter than every­one else, Rad­ja said, but because he was lucky.

“That’s when you real­ize that every­one has this organ­ic bril­liance but not every­one has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case it,” he said. “That moti­vates me even more to give oth­ers the same oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

“I already know they are bril­liant,” he said, “all they need is a dance floor.”

Rad­ja found­ed EduCon­go, a U.S. based non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that helps more than 2,000 under­priv­i­leged chil­dren in the Con­go get a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. It’s his way of send­ing the ele­va­tor back down for some­one else.

Rad­ja is also a moti­va­tion­al speak­er who draws on his expe­ri­ence grow­ing up in Con­go and his edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States to inspire peo­ple to be more and give more. Rad­ja will share his talk “Africa, my roots. Amer­i­ca, my wings” at TEDxSalem Sat­ur­day, Oct. 3, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

To hear Radja’s talk and lis­ten to oth­er TEDxSalem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

A few of Radja’s favorite quotes:

“Life isn’t about wait­ing for the storm to pass…It’s about learn­ing to dance in the rain.”
‑Vivian Greene

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with oth­ers.”
‑African proverb

“Twen­ty Years From Now You Will Be More Dis­ap­point­ed By The Things You Didn’t Do Than By The Ones You Did Do…Explore. Dream. Dis­cov­er.”
‑Attrib­uted to Mark Twain

TEDxSalem speaker has big ideas for small houses

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Photo courtesy of Eugene Weekly
Pho­to cour­tesy of Todd Cooper/Eugene Week­ly

The Rev. Dan Bryant didn’t set out to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less, it just sort of hap­pened.

Bryant is one of 13 speak­ers at this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3. His home base is First Chris­t­ian Church in Eugene where home­less and low-income res­i­dents go for help, meals and an empa­thet­ic ear down­town. So when Eugene strug­gled with an influx of home­less res­i­dents in 2011, the city invit­ed Bryant, along with many oth­ers, to brain­storm solu­tions.

“A place to be” topped the list of needs.

Then in walked Andy Heben, a guy who spent his sum­mer vis­it­ing home­less tent cities around the coun­try to under­stand what works and what doesn’t. Bryant hired Heben and togeth­er they per­suad­ed the city to let them pilot a home­less com­mu­ni­ty on one acre of unused city land in 2013.

That’s the gen­e­sis of Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene, the city’s first suc­cess­ful self-gov­erned home­less com­mu­ni­ty.  As many as 35 res­i­dents and five dogs call the vil­lage home at any one time.

“This isn’t some­thing I set out to do,” Bryant said. “I was more of a peace and social jus­tice guy work­ing on glob­al issues.”

Now he describes him­self as an acci­den­tal hous­ing wonk, and he has big ideas for the next evo­lu­tion of hous­ing for the home­less: Micro Hous­ing.

Cur­rent­ly there are few afford­able hous­ing options for home­less res­i­dents ready to strike out on their own. There is a five-year wait­ing list for sin­gles and cou­ples to get Sec­tion 8 Hous­ing, a fed­er­al hous­ing pro­gram for low-income res­i­dents.

But Bryant hopes to pilot a solu­tion this year that involves 1.2 acres, tiny homes and big ideas that pick up where Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene leaves off.

“It’s a game chang­er in many ways,” Bryant said, “They have their tiny ver­sion of the Amer­i­can dream.”

To hear how Bryant plans to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less and to lis­ten to oth­er TEDx Salem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.