The Jefferson Exchange

Long before Interstate Five, the railroad was the main artery of commerce in the region.  Railroads remain important to the working of the nation, and bring excitement to trackside observers.

The Grants Pass branch of Josephine Community Libraries will host a series of programs on trains and railroads called "All Aboard" in the coming months.

There's high culture, and then there's something else.  We'll assume Ashland's Ed Polish is drawn to the "something else."

Polish is the head of Ashland's Bad Film Society, and he's preparing a music special for JPR (on April Fool's Day, natch) called "Sleazy Listening." 

Brad Willis roamed the world covering wars and other difficult situations for NBC News, before a broken back and failed surgery sidelined him.  And that was just the beginning of his difficulties. 

A diagnosis of cancer made him believe the end was near.  So he changed his focus.

It's not a happy memory, but it's an important one: a tsunami wiped out downtown Crescent City, California on this date in 1964. 

A huge earthquake in Alaska caused the tsunami.

By all rights, we should be stuck between a rock and a hard place as a society. 

We have more gadgets--electric cars included--requiring energy. 

And the burning of fossil fuels to create electricity contributes to climate change. 

While we stayed focused on heroin and other illegal drugs, prescription painkiller leaped to the top of the list of most-abused drugs in America. 

Efforts to bring the so-called "opioid" (synthetic opium) drugs under greater control led to the formation of the Opioid Prescribers Group in Jackson and Josephine Counties. 

The rains returned to the region this week, but for how long?  Unless they continue for a very long time, much of the region is looking at a drought this year. 

California declared a statewide drought in January.  Individual counties in Oregon have been following along in the weeks since.  Jackson County joined the list just last week. 

The handling of the drought by governments/individuals and the idea of free tuition at public institutions are our topics on this week's VENTSday.

We do not schedule guests for Wednesday at 8:30, because that's the time for VENTSday, your chance to vent (politely, please) on a pair of topics in the news.  We bring the topics, you bring the opinions. 

There may well be cautionary tales for people and parts of our region in this year's crop of movies at the Ashland Independent Film Festival.

Take "Rich Hill," for example. It's about a small town in Missouri where a coal mine played out decades ago, and the town continues to struggle.

The old buildings that give downtown areas character in places like Ashland are often made of brick.  

And there's a potential problem: older buildings made of unreinforced masonry are prone to heavy damage in earthquakes.