TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2015

David Craig: Understanding our world through birds

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bio_headerIn city life, you may not see many wild ani­mals. A cougar sight­ing is com­mon­ly a sub­ject of a local news sto­ry — and much con­ver­sa­tion.

But birds? They’re every­where. Maybe they’ve nest­ed on your prop­er­ty or they’re eat­ing feed your neigh­bors throw out. Maybe they wake you up ear­li­er than you’d like, chirp­ing near your win­dow.

How often have you won­dered why a bird is in your neigh­bor­hood, ver­sus anoth­er part of the world? How often have you won­dered what the bird’s sto­ry is?

David Craig, a pro­fes­sor of biol­o­gy at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, has built a career around ask­ing and answer­ing these ques­tions.

Craig has been inter­est­ed in the world around him and the crea­tures that live in it since he was a child. He says most chil­dren are, and many grow out of it. Craig nev­er did.

Craig says answer­ing the ques­tions of why birds set­tle where they do and where and when they migrate can answer a lot of ques­tions about our­selves and our world.

“I think under­stand­ing our place in the nat­ur­al world is always impor­tant,” Craig said. “There’s a long his­to­ry of birds being able to  tell us real­ly quick­ly about the envi­ron­ment before peo­ple have to make deci­sions that are going to affect peo­ple.”

Ospreys and eagles were the ones who told us DDT, a pes­ti­cide, was harm­ful, Craig said, when their eggs stopped hatch­ing and their pop­u­la­tion declined. We lat­er learned that DDT was caus­ing can­cer in peo­ple, he said.

In recent years, hob­by­ists have been con­tribut­ing to sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge by tak­ing pho­tos of birds with tags that sci­en­tists else­where have put on them and help­ing them track them through the Inter­net.

The new tech­nol­o­gy and new twist on bird­ing is attract­ing a younger gen­er­a­tion of bird­ers, Craig said.
Want to learn more about how you could get involved? You can see his talk at TEDxSalem on Oct. 3 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Dr. Mark Davis: When waste becomes the cure

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Mark HeadshotThey say one’s trash is another’s trea­sure.

Dr. Mark Davis has built a med­ical career on this con­cept.

To many, poop means very lit­tle. It’s just waste, to be flushed away and rarely spo­ken of.

But for some peo­ple, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lem that severe­ly impacts their qual­i­ty of life. And the only solu­tion is more poop.

Let me explain.

Davis, a Port­land-based natur­o­path­ic physi­cian, has ded­i­cat­ed his career to help­ing peo­ple with stom­ach con­di­tions — espe­cial­ly those who have tried every­thing, to no avail.

At TEDxSalem on Oct. 3, Davis will speak about the work he is doing to improve the lives of those who have stub­born inflam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease and infec­tious col­i­tis.

Davis comes from a fam­i­ly of sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and he nat­u­ral­ly formed an inter­est in a career in the field, as well.

But unlike con­ven­tion­al med­i­cine, which he says is more focused on fix­ing bro­ken bones and patch­ing up bleed­ing parts, Davis was inter­est­ed in a more holis­tic type of med­i­cine.

When he dis­cov­ered natur­opa­thy, he knew it was right up his alley.

He got into gas­troin­testi­nal health because of the influ­ence of his men­tor, Dr. Steven Sand­berg-Lewis, who is a gut health expert, Davis said.

Davis found that while many peo­ple suf­fer­ing from bow­el dis­eases found relief through diet, nutri­ents and herbs, there were some peo­ple for whom noth­ing seemed to work.

He did some dig­ging into sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture, and he found an answer that has helped many peo­ple: fecal trans­plan­ta­tion. In oth­er words, he takes donat­ed fecal mat­ter from healthy peo­ple to trans­plant it in sick people’s intestines through an ene­ma.

Today, he runs his own donor bank at his prac­tice and con­tin­ues to help peo­ple who have tried every­thing to relieve their bow­el dis­ease symp­toms with no suc­cess.

You would have to attend TEDxSalem to learn more about fecal trans­plan­ta­tion, what Davis has done to make the process more — well, appe­tiz­ing — and the bar­ri­ers the gov­ern­ment has placed on peo­ple who would ben­e­fit from this treat­ment.

Tick­ets are avail­able at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Your FEARLESS back-to-school reading list

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There are only a few weeks left in sum­mer, and TEDx Salem 2015 is less than two months away! If you’re look­ing for some read­ing sug­ges­tions for that last camp­ing trip, road trip, or lazy stay-in-bed week­end before school starts, look no fur­ther!

Here are some staff-rec­om­mend­ed picks that are sure to please. In keep­ing with this year’s theme, these books explore what “fear­less” means to each of us…

 

Thin-Air-Jon-Krakauer

Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer

Saerom Yoo: “[The book] is about the dead­liest ascent to Mt. Ever­est [before the 2014 climb­ing sea­son] and tells the sto­ry of peo­ple who pur­sued a dream, risk­ing their lives. Read­ing it puts you on the edge of your seat and puts you right in the shoes of the climbers, who some­times can­not think straight due to their ambi­tions and delir­i­um. You don’t think, WHY DIDN’T THEY TURN BACK? You get it because you feel empa­thy for the char­ac­ters, even if you’re not a dare­dev­il at all.”

Stephanie Knowl­ton: “I think it shows the some­times thin line between fear­less and reck­less.”

 

daringgreatly_final525-resized-600

Dar­ing Great­ly: How the Courage to Be Vul­ner­a­ble Trans­forms the Way We Live, Love, Par­ent, and Lead – Brené Brown

Deb  Vaugh­an: “As the par­ent of a three year old, the con­cept of being vul­ner­a­ble with feel­ings in our house is a pow­er­ful way to approach con­ver­sa­tions as she learns how to process and express big­ger and big­ger feel­ings. And the idea that I am enough – Tell me that wouldn’t change most people’s lives. The quote I have on my desk at work is: “Quick and dirty wins the race. Per­fec­tion is the ene­my of done. Good enough is pret­ty effin’ good!” I quote it to my cowork­ers all the time!!!”

 

Rise of superman

The Rise of Super­man: Decod­ing the Sci­ence of Ulti­mate Human Per­for­mance – Steven Kotler

Bri­an Hart: “This book fea­tures some of the most amaz­ing high adven­ture ath­letes in the world and how they have over­come fear to reach “flow” states on a reg­u­lar basis. One of the best parts of the book is also one of the dark­est, and explains the dan­gers of being fear­less. In short, their addic­tion to being in the flow state, which is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to fire the same trig­gers in the brain as cocaine, hero­in and pot com­bined, end up lit­er­al­ly killing many of them. They become fear­less of just about every­thing…”

 

Born to run

Born to Run: A Hid­den Tribe, Super Ath­letes, and the Great­est Race the World Has Nev­er Seen – Christo­pher McDougall

Saerom: “Born to Run is close to my heart because I’m one of those peo­ple who nev­er con­sid­ered her­self a run­ner. But this book is so inspir­ing because it looks at a tribe of fel­low humans in a remote part of our world, run­ning for DAYS with­out any of the fan­cy run­ning equip­ment and no injuries. It explores the his­to­ry and sci­ence behind humans’ rela­tion­ship with run­ning, and you real­ize that WE’RE ALL RUNNERS. I read it while train­ing for my first half marathon, which was a very scary goal for me. It left me inspired and feel­ing strong. I still think back to it from time to time, when I’m daunt­ed by the phys­i­cal chal­lenge of run­ning. Oh, and I total­ly rocked the marathon, by the way. :-)”

 

face-music-life-exposed

Face the Music: A Life Exposed – Paul Stan­ley

Jay Shenai: “A some­what sur­pris­ing­ly infor­ma­tive auto­bi­og­ra­phy, quite intro­spec­tive for an indi­vid­ual so strong­ly iden­ti­fied with aggres­sive self-pro­mo­tion and masked, macho rock-and-roll. Along with the glam­our and glitz of this “back­stage pass,” Stan­ley also shares the anx­i­ety and trau­ma of his chaot­ic upbring­ing in New York City before join­ing Gene Sim­mons to form the band KISS.

Putting the group’s own efforts at mythol­o­giz­ing aside – How did some­one born with an ear defor­mi­ty (micro­tia), ren­dered deaf in one ear from birth, decide he could and would make such an impact on music? My favorite image comes rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly on, when an awk­ward pre-teen Stan­ley Bert Eisen sits on a bench wait­ing for his appoint­ment with his ther­a­pist, and unwraps a Blimpie sand­wich to eat in the park, alone. I like how he describes the soli­tude and the sand­wich. Imag­ine the feel­ing, of being ready to take on the world despite all the evi­dence to the con­trary, and all the doubters; not sure how, but just wait­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come.”

 

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

 

Harry Potter 6

The Har­ry Pot­ter series – J. K. Rowl­ing

Saerom: “Har­ry Pot­ter and his friends con­stant­ly face the risk of death fight­ing the evil Death Eaters and Volde­mort. Har­ry some­times does cross into reck­less ter­ri­to­ry, though. I’m read­ing it for the first time cur­rent­ly and I’m on book 6 (Har­ry Pot­ter and the Half-Blood Prince). I’m con­stant­ly amazed at the adult themes dis­cussed in the books.”

Edi­tor’s Note: If you see Saerom around, please don’t talk about the end­ing. We’re try­ing not to spoil it for her.

 

Center Cannot Hold

The Cen­ter Can­not Hold: My Jour­ney Through Mad­ness – Elyn R. Saks

Bri­an: “It’s an incred­i­ble auto­bi­og­ra­phy about how [the author] strug­gles to main­tain a ‘nor­mal’ life while strug­gling with schiz­o­phre­nia every day.”

 

Eyes Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God – Zora Neale Hurston

Stephanie: “Both the author and main char­ac­ter were fear­less at a time when women had lit­tle if any voice.”

 

Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Mean­ing – Vik­tor E. Fran­kl

Bri­an: “…hands down one of the most inspir­ing books I have ever read.”

 

 

- To get your tick­ets to TEDx Salem 2015, click here!

 

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.

 

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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.

Michael Davis: What we get from “Sesame Street”

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Author of "Street Gang"Ask Michael Davis what his favorite Sesame Street sketch is, and one comes to mind right away: “Bert and Ernie Fish Call.” In it, the laid-back Ernie con­founds Bert with his unortho­dox yet wild­ly suc­cess­ful method for fish­ing. It’s a sophis­ti­cat­ed and pret­ty fun­ny gag for such a sim­ple con­ceit: two Mup­pets in a boat, dodg­ing fish.

“I think they’re one of the great com­e­dy teams of all time,” said Davis, author of the New York Times Best­seller Street Gang: The Com­plete His­to­ry of Sesame Street, and speak­er at this year’s TEDx Salem.

Fun fact – Accord­ing to Davis, in Bert and Ernie you can see sub­tle hints of the real-life cre­ative ten­sion between the straight-laced Frank Oz, and the more mis­chie­vous Jim Hen­son, one that helped dri­ve the show for years.

You can also see how a sketch that first aired in 1982 endures to this day, and still appeals to view­ers both younger and old­er. Cur­rent­ly the clip has over 3 mil­lion views on YouTube.

“That’s the mag­ic, that they’ve been able to keep [the show’s suc­cess] rolling for so many years,” he said.

 

For his TED talk Davis will share how the show has evolved to main­tain its pop­u­lar­i­ty with mil­lions of chil­dren in its over 45-year his­to­ry. He will also dis­cuss how the show’s pro­duc­ers con­tin­ue to par­lay that pow­er into pos­i­tive social change both in the US and around the world. Accord­ing to Davis they are cur­rent­ly work­ing to bring aware­ness of san­i­ta­tion and hygiene to audi­ences in India and Pak­istan. In South Africa, the first-ever HIV-pos­i­tive Mup­pet, Kami, has helped bring AIDS aware­ness to a coun­try that has strug­gled to face the cri­sis. The Queen of Jor­dan Rania Al Abdul­lah also has cred­it­ed the show (Hikay­at Sim­sim) for empow­er­ing women in her coun­try.

It’s one of the key mis­sions of the Sesame Work­shop, the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion behind Sesame Street: to use the show’s con­cepts in hotspots around the globe, from North­ern Ire­land to the Balka­ns to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Davis said.

Every­where it is seen, the show serves to “help chil­dren cope, and to teach Street Gang Coverthem about their soci­ety,” he said.

Through a com­bi­na­tion of com­e­dy and tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing tech­niques, Sesame Street has impact­ed gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren world­wide, Davis said, expos­ing them to some­times tough lessons through intel­li­gence and wit — even if some­times the lessons and occa­sion­al­ly even the wit are beyond the grasp of the show’s core demo­graph­ic of 2- to 4‑year-olds.

Sesame Street has had the stay­ing pow­er and the patience to wait for them.

“When chil­dren get old­er and more sophis­ti­cat­ed, a light goes on,” Davis said. “They under­stand that some­body a long time ago taught them.”

Some­thing to think about, the next time you come across a fish­er­man out on a lake yelling, “Heeere fishy-fishy-fishy!”

– To see Michael Davis and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

Maya Kaup: Stepping Up to Stop Food Waste

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From music lessons to sports like gym­nas­tics and track, to vol­un­teer­ing with the Girl Scouts, Maya Kaup, 20, was raised to explore every oppor­tu­ni­ty, and to stay busy. Maya KaupTo find a niche. To get involved. It was only nat­ur­al, then, dur­ing her fresh­man year at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty that a Face­book video on food waste and com­mu­ni­ty hunger spurred her to action. Why not bring food recov­ery to her school?

Why not here? Why not me?

“Some­one had to do it,” the biol­o­gy major said. “I see it as a moral oblig­a­tion.”

For her TED talk, Kaup will share her expe­ri­ences found­ing the Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty chap­ter of the Food Recov­ery Net­work, a nation­al non-prof­it that focus­es on fight­ing food waste and hunger. Accord­ing to FRN sta­tis­tics, 17.5 mil­lion fam­i­lies nation­wide are “food-inse­cure,” not sure where their next meal will come from. In Ore­gon, 15 per­cent of fam­i­lies are food-inse­cure; the pover­ty rate in Mar­i­on Coun­ty is 19.5 per­cent. Mean­while, Amer­i­cans dis­card 35 mil­lion tons of food per year, or rough­ly 40 per­cent of all food pro­duced in the coun­try.

In 2014, Kaup along with 20 vol­un­teers helped the uni­ver­si­ty block 8,000 pounds of sur­plus, unsold food from the garbage to feed the home­less. 635521005049941726-SAL1123-Causes-FoodRecovery-ar-01Not only is good food not thrown away, but nutri­tious fruits and veg­eta­bles are saved for those who can’t often have them, Kaup said.

“It’s a win-win,” she said.

When Kaup isn’t man­ag­ing the FRN, she takes a full course load at school, and also helps care for orphaned ani­mals at the Tur­tle Ridge Wildlife Cen­ter. See­ing the suc­cess­es of her efforts moti­vates her to do even more, she said.

It “fuels my fire,” she said. “It makes me real­ize I can make a dif­fer­ence.”

To see Maya Kaup and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, buy tick­ets here.