Talking Waters Garden Revisited

I knew about the park. But until a tour of the Albany Wastewater Treatment Plant, the gorgeous and sprawling city park, was just unfamiliar.

Not anymore.

In Albany, at the east end of Front Street, Talking Waters Garden Park, is open daily, from sunup to sundown.

I've been riding my old Raleigh mountain bike, along the Dave Clark Bikepath, which leads to Bowman Park. From there, the Simpson Mill Trail leads to Talking Waters Garden. These photos were taken at Talking Waters Garden, with a Canon 7D. I used two lenses, the EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM and the EF 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM. All shots are handheld.

In late 2012, I was pursuing a local water story, and was offered a tour of the Albany(Oregon) Wastewater Reclamation Plant. The tour and the employees were accommodating, friendly, and very knowledgeable. The final stop on the tour was Talking Waters Garden Park. The park serves as a cooling stop for the treated water, in addition to being a wetland wildlife sanctuary. The views are non-stop at Talking Waters, and the engineers of the park(including Reclamation employees), incorporated lookout viewing areas. Multiple footbridges cross waters, including one that overlooks an old loading dock.

Talking Waters Garden has plenty of trails that include awesome views. In the myriad of the trails, are lookout points that have rock chairs and specific landscaping, meant to create a fun experience that is also educational. At the park information center, maps and identification literature are provided. This is especially handy, for learning about the park's plants and wildlife. Waterfalls are present throughout, and are great photo opportunities.

Although most folks walk the park, bikes are allowed and are easily accommodated on the wide, gravelly trails. Water, as well as fishing, are off limits, and dogs are required to be leashed.

The park is open daily during daylight hours. Enjoy and appreciate.

To view in "gallery mode," click any photo.








Thanks for reading this blog,
and thank-you for not littering.

A New Political Party

America needs a new political party. America wants a new political party.

It has to be The Reform Party.

No doubt about it. No other name would represent such a large number of Americans, and no other name would send such a dominate message.

"The court process needs review," a local attorney told me. Another, a college administrator said, "Education is begging for a stirring up." Everywhere you look, the idea of "reform" is evident. Some politicians talk about "debt ceilings" and others talk about filibuster reform. At the office watercooler, chatter about healthcare and taxes, fill the air. The examples could go on and on and on. Reform is on everybody's mind.

The old saying, "Think outside the box," could be our start. Maybe the comfort in the way we have done things for years, shouldn't be comfort. Maybe it should be energy. Social energy.

The new party should run like an open-source forum, with an emphasis on educated and wide-ranging input. A governing body would operate like an advisory board or even a board of directors. The problems we face today, could be problems that far more Americans could work on, and with that said, more solutions to problems would be reached.

Group-sourcing the party and even government itself, would benefit the public and humanity, as other projects have shown. Foldit, the online game(solves medical and scientific puzzles) is known for its sourcing capabilities. Nucor Steel, a shining star of business in a recession economy, has shown by sourcing all of its employees, that profit and job security are both reachable in even horrible economic conditions. In an age where people are connected and distributed in real time, a group-sourced political party could act swifter and more efficiently. Voting could be improved with a robust counting system that happens in real time, not in the Supreme Court.

We could start "reform" with government spending, and we could attack an outdated and in-need-of-review United States Constitution. America, ever since the first revolution against the British, has accrued debt. The federal government has mandated, via Article I Section 8 Clause I, that the powers of taxation include powers to "spend."

I disagree.

College education, "begging for change."

What we have witnessed(for far too long) is that not only are citizens unhappy about out-of-control government spending, those citizens are ready to do something about it. Cities like Detroit, which recently filed for bankruptcy, colleges like Linn Benton Community College(LBCC), which just cut three million from its budget(at least two dozen jobs lost), and the military, are in dire need of spending reform.

In the U.S.A., where debt is approaching 16 trillion dollars and has always been "in the red", a new ideology about spending would help lower the country's debt, as well as bring America's middle and lower classes into a more secure position on the socio-economic ladder.

At LBCC, group-sourced efforts in the school's operations, could have saved jobs in 2013. Instead, in the aftermath of the massive budget cuts, the school paid a Seattle photographer to "shoot archive photos" that the school uses in its brochures and websites. This sort of expense, in the face of outstanding group-source opportunity, is not the future. Like Detroit, it may prove to be the school's demise.

Responsibilities towards spending, and fiscal policy, have not been met here in Oregon, or at the federal level. Leaving the chore of fixing it, to the current government or the "non-affiliated" parties, is a mistake. Start group-sourcing now, and start fixing American economics, education, and her future.

But these reforms are not limited just to how spending occurs. Reform in areas like mass incarceration, voting, judicial powers, welfare, drug law, and healthcare is just the beginning. Tackling these problems now, with citizens rather than politicians, will provide the future with a robust and accountable America.

America's population is changing, and the white-power-status-quo is facing extinction. Corporate tax law needs reform. Healthcare for a burgeoning population, is in need of solution. By group-sourcing doctors, teachers, community advocates, and the people themselves, will prove more successful when America embraces reform in ideology.

"The shed roof needs fixin', and the '41 Chevy needs restorin'." - R. Bushnell

A local newspaper editor told me, when I asked in a meeting, "Why would you ask a college president how he voted? And how did you vote, sir," the editor responded to the second question by saying, " I prefer to let the experts write policy." This sort of disregard for local issues, especially from a local newspaper editor, is unacceptable.

Get educated and get informed. And then get involved. If you don't, the times will pass you by, leaving you in a cloud of oppressive dust. The internet, with watchdog sites and videos aplenty, can help inform. Government corruption exposure is at an all-time high because of the instant and archived news. When the public is informed, practices such as police brutality and government abuse, are significantly less.

The Occupy Movement was extraordinary in the fact that it has somewhat sustained itself, if but for a few sparse locations. The same principles that brought Occupy to the nightly news, will bring the U.S.A. into the next generation. The principle of group-sourced community is the task at hand. Albeit, the job is much tougher, real reform.

To accomplish real reform, we must look at the civil rights movement of the 1950s, and how it was formed into an undeniable force.

"We had to seize this opportunity and make our voices heard. Make those who are comfortable with our oppression- make them uncomfortable -Dr. King said that was the purpose of the march." - Harry Belafonte in Smithsonian's A Change Is Gonna Come by M. Fletcher.

There are some that would say that government accountability is things like Benghazi, or the bank bailout, has not been addressed, and has killed Americans. To debate those topics would mean debating Chief Joseph and the settling of Oregon and debating Bull Connor. It would mean debating the influence of religion in government, and gay rights.

I do not want to debate those issues here, nor do I wish to debate spending policy. What I do wish to accomplish, is creating a new and grassroots political party that is group-sourced and instantly capable of action. Bringing people to the table is the key. Getting educated leadership is the goal.

In the early 1960s, as oppression of blacks continued to permeate American fabric with their own blood, an educated force rose up to challenge the neanderthal thinking of not only the American government, but the American people.

Groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the influence of celebrities like Bob Dylan, along with an enormous organizing and structural effort that included 80,000 sack lunches prepared by volunteers, led the largest demonstration ever on American soil.

The effort to create such a powerful social movement, was enormous, and yet it was pulled off remarkably well. And impressively nonviolently. The reason for this is in the people. When the people group-source themselves, with organization and ethic, changes in ideology are indeed possible.

We like to pretend our judicial system works. It doesn't, according to a local municipal court that robs its handicapped citizens. Nor does it work for the lower class, as the judges, lawyers, and other staff, essentially have job security in the inadequate representation of the poor.

And in the south during the decades leading up to that historic march in 1963, the judicial system for blacks was non-existent. It simply was in the local jails and it was deadly. But the mood was public as well, and after Medgar Evers was killed, the black community decided to change it.

To change policy today, means forming the same coalitions of educated and energetic citizens. In today's America, where the public is forced to accrue massive debt, live without healthcare, withstand educational cuts every year, and survive brutal attacks by police, creating a sustainable force to combat the corruptness of the two-party scam, is up to you.

Our government has lost its credibility. Wendy Davis, the Texas senator who's 10-hour speech in defense of women is rare and ineffective, no matter how relevant and charming.

From defiance of Roe v. Wade, to spying on citizens to abuses of money, the only way to end the government's control of abuse, is to form a new political party, The Reform Party.

About six months back, a local sheriff in my state(Oregon), wrote a half-page letter to Vice-President Joe Biden, informing the federal government that he had no intention of following any gun control law that the White House or Congress enacted. The debate here is not gun control, but rather rogue local governments running amuck.

Observing local court processes and behavior recently has been like a movie about job security. The process of court itself, whether municipal or state, is a painfully slow arbitrary process. A local defense attorney, when I asked why the process is so slow, told me that budgets over the last 10 years had created an "understaffed courthouse." Yet, in Lebanon 10 miles away, a tiny court funds a half-dozen employees, on documented excessive fines.

The Law Library, Linn County, Oregon

More and more tight restrictions on Americans is in the way of journalism, photography, and the First Amendment. Journalists and citizens are subject to oppressive laws, and unless the people come together to stop this government, abuse of power will continue.

Military brass living in mansions, banks mismanaging money, government officials who were rich businessmen before politics living with taxpayer benefits, police corruption, annual educational budget cuts, laws that do not represent the people of America...

The list would take chapter upon chapter. To get involved, help start a people's revolution. One that is non-violent, educated, and persuasive. One that is relentless and moral, with an extraordinary regard for other human beings.

One that is called The Reform Party, and goes after real reform.

From the 2012 Albany Veteran's Day Parade, photo by R. Borst

Talking Waters Garden, built with employee created designs and labor's ingenuity.

Attribution:   
                      The Democrat Herald
                      The Commuter
                      The Washington Post
                      Aljazeera
                      Fold It
                      Smithsonian Magazine                     
                      CNN



Photos by R. Borst