The Jefferson Exchange

It's a natural fit for the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission to bring in singer Cecilia St. King. 

She is billed as an "inner peace troubadour," providing songs of peace and hope to audiences in many places. 

The Culture of Peace Commission brought Cecilia to town to take part in the "11 Days for Peace" events beginning September 11th.  She has her own story to tell about living in New York on 9/11/01. 

Fall marks the end of the growing season, the time to reap what we sow.

But hang on, there's some sowing to be done as well.  Spring is not the only season for planting, and there are a few things we can be putting in the ground now for next year. 

Christie Mackison of Shooting Star Nursery in the Rogue Valley is well-versed in planting, no matter when it takes place. 

There wasn't even supposed to be a race for Oregon Senate District 3 this year. 

But the sudden death of Sen. Alan Bates required a special election to fill the final two years of his term, so district voters will pick a new senator in November. 

The major parties moved quickly to choose candidates.  Alan DeBoer and Tonia Moro will appear on the ballot.  Moro is an attorney and board member at the Rogue Valley Transportation District; DeBoer is a car dealer and former Ashland mayor. 

There's no getting around grief.  If someone we love dies, we're going to feel it somehow, sooner or later. 

Ashlander Jack Wiens wanted to provide an easy-to-read guide for people experiencing grief.  So he wrote and drew Tending Our Grief. 

It marries Wiens' expertise both as a psychotherapist and as an accomplished artist in a slender volume. 

We've been tasked with interviewing John McWhorter.  It's not that big an ask, and he literally will not be here in person. 

Do those first two sentences remind you of how CONSTANTLY our language changes?  And that we're not always happy about the changes? 

That's what John McWhorter writes about, in his book Words on the Move: Why English Won't--and Can't--Sit Still (Like, Literally). 

He points out the ways in which English is already different from what previous generations spoke. 

Some people have a reason to truly fear bees, because they're allergic to bee stings.  But everyone on the planet owes a debt to bees, because of the critical role they play in putting food on our tables. 

They pollinate the crops that provide our food. 

Dr. Gabriela Chavarria can probably recite bee benefits in her sleep; she is renowned as an expert on bees and other pollinators. 

And she works at the National Forensics Laboratory run by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service in Ashland. 

Another day, another dollar; another studio, another guitar.  Guitars are common in our culture, and the usual accompaniment of our musical studio guests. 

But we get a SITAR once in a blue moon, and this is one of those times.  Deobrat Mishra from India can trace sitar players back 11 generations in his family. 

And he shares his skills as the director the Benares Academy of Indian Classical Music. 

Caitlin Shetterly certainly knew that GMO crops existed.  But she had not intended to write about them. 

Until her health, and her son's, began to suffer.  She says the health issues trace back to the consumption of GMO corn, which is nearly ubiquitous in the American food supply and extends to non-food products, too. 

Shetterly writes of her experience and her broader findings in her just-released book Modified. 

Presidential candidates aren’t the only ones hitting the pavement until November, trying to understand what Americans are thinking and how to reach us in the most private of spaces: the voting booth. 

 Mike Schlitt is also on a national tour timed with the election, sharing his art in each town along the way. The LA-based writer and performer visits Ashland this week with free shows and workshops at SOU. 

The abuses in the illicit marijuana industry are well-documented: abuse of water rights, environmental abuse of land and water, and more. 

The "more" includes evidence of sexual abuse inside the marijuana trade in the Emerald Triangle of California's North Coast. 

Investigative reporter Shoshana Walter talked to many women forced into sexual acts while they worked as pot trimmers. 

The abuse extends to sex trafficking. 

The Keenest Observers are often the people who stand outside a group or situation.  So that's the name we've given to our occasional explorations of conditions and experiences of minority communities within our region. 

Robert Goodwin returns to host The Keenest Observers with members of the LGBTQ community; there's never a shortage of topics, from "bathroom bills" to the coming SO PRIDE festival (October 1-9). 

Guests include Southern Oregon University Queer Resource Center coordinator Thomas Arce and Evan Mouldeoux of Lotus Rising.   

Nearly 80 years and counting.  Amelia Earhart made as much news by vanishing as she did by flying planes when few women did so. 

Now an expedition is getting ready to follow Earhart's trail as the 80th anniversary approaches in July 2017. 

The Archaeological Legacy Institute based in Eugene plans to send a film crew to document the search for Earhart's plane. 

The heart of downtown Medford owes much of its current look and configuration to the presence of Rogue Community College. 

RCC continues to demonstrate its value to the community--in this case, both Jackson and Josephine counties--in multiple ways.  And a (relatively) new leader is in charge. 

Cathy Kemper-Pelle took the reins of RCC as president over the summer. 

It is possible that one in seven American children have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? 

Because that's how many are diagnosed, and it is an issue that continues to roil physicians, mental health experts, schools... and parents. 

Alan Schwarz steps into the debate with ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic.  He comes to the issue with no axe to grind, but a long career as an investigative reporter, now with the New York Times. 

Jack Ohman took his considerable skills in art and satire right past us. 

He was the Oregonian's political cartoonist for years, then skipped to the Sacramento Bee. 

We've admired his cartoons for decades, even the ones that didn't make the wolf OR-7 look so darned cute. 

It looks like craziness to the non-kayaker, but people DO paddle kayaks over waterfalls.  Though... generally not NIAGARA Falls. 

And yet a kayaker planned just such a suicide event, as documented by kayaker/filmmaker Rush Sturges in a movie called "Chasing Niagara."

Did we mention that taking vessels over Niagara Falls is illegal?  That's one of many revelations in the movie, showing at the Jefferson State Flixx Fest in Sturges' native Scott Valley (September 22-25).