Two bills which impose increased penalties on those who take direct action to save trees and endangered species have passed the Oregon House and are on their way to the Senate -- HB 2595 and HB 2596.  Well-read Red Cara Dugas explains what's in them, what's wrong with them, and reads from Will Potter's book Green is the New Red which explores the threat to free speech in calling those who block environmental destruction "terrorists".  

These bills have not passed the Oregon Senate.  To call your state senator, go here to find his/her contact info.

Joe Clement hosts this episode, which includes:

1. Bill Resnick talks with Megan Hise and Shamus Cooke about the People's Budget Project for Portland.
2. Larry Bowlden reviews Elizabeth Strout's new novel The Burgess Boys.
3. Well-read Red Cara Dugas discusses Oregon bills that would ramp up criminalization of environmental protest actions.
4. Denise Morris interviews film director Deb Tullman about her film Born This Way and the Queer Documentary Film Festival coming to Portland this weekend.

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Frann Michel and Joe Clement review the documentary "Shift Change", directed/produced by Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young. The documentary surveys several cooperatively owned and managed businesses, mostly in the United States but also Spain's famous Mondragon. We hear from worker-owners, as well as activists who support the co-op movement in material and financial ways, about how working at co-ops is not just different, but better than regular wage jobs.

Bill Resnick talks with Barbara Miner about the neoliberalization of education generally and school-voucher programs in particular.  Barbara argues against even talking about "school choice" and defends her abolition of the phrase becaue of the way it obfuscates the abandonment of schools. They consider how the voucher-program will accentuate class divisions.

Barbara Miner has been a reporter, writer, and editor for almost forty years, writing for publications ranging from the New York Times to the Milwaukee Journal. The former managing editor of Rethinking Schools, and is the author of a "Lessons from the Heartland: a turbulent half-century of public education in an iconic american city".