Rescued horses nursed back to help with love, care and healthy doses of Harry Potter

29 December 2013 — Serowna's been catching up on Harry Potter, Lisa and Kassy have been chowing down, and Needa has been making friends. The four horses — seized along with 35 others from a Graham farm more than a year ago — are much better off now, Pierce County animal control officers said recently. No more hard times — just lots of love. The horses were seized in September 2012 after they were found living in substandard conditions. Some were housed in rundown barns. Others lived in stalls that had up to 2 feet of manure pooling on the floor, and some were underweight and had cracked or overgrown hooves, animal control officers said. John Diller, the horses' former owner, originally was charged with 15 counts of animal cruelty. He pleaded guilty in November of this year to one count of second-degree animal cruelty. He received a suspended one-year jail sentence and was required to pay a $1,000 penalty and $50,538 in restitution.  Read more...

ParkerPup owner and trainers give 10 tips on training your canine

29 December 2013 — Sit. Stay. Good dog. Simple, right? Well, maybe. Dan McFarling and his adult daughter, Jennifer McFarling, both of Aloha, trained Dan’s six-year-old golden retriever, Parker, to be a therapy dog and part-time canine actor and model. He also claims 57,000 Facebook "likes" on his ParkerPup page and recently played Sandy in Theatre in the Grove's "Annie" production. Now they are training Jenn’s new puppy, Reser. At 15 weeks old, Reser is not ready for therapy certification yet, but he can hold a flag, spin and leave a treat on his paw at Jenn’s command.  Read more...

Cities battle to gain most Twitter followers

29 December 2013 — The city of Tigard is challenging other local cities to a duel. A virtual duel, that is. The city is competing against Hillsboro, Beaverton, West Linn and Washington County to see which government body can reach 2,014 followers on Twitter by the end of next year. “It kicks it up a notch for some cities that are trying to decide how much value social media has,” said Kent Wyatt, a senior management analyst and the man behind “,” the city’s official Twitter account.  Read more...

The eye-opening aerial photography of the U.S. military might

29 December 2013 — We first came across Josh Begley's clever approach at comprehending vast but often inaccessible infrastructure in 2012, when as an NYU graduate student he built a breathtaking database of aerial images of every correctional facility in the United States. That web project was an attempt to quantify the impact of incarceration on the American landscape, and the resulting visual was in many ways more powerful than any set of statistics showing the rise of the U.S. prison population or the proliferation of cell blocks needed to house it. More recently, Begley has now applied the same idea to another difficult-to-measure subject: the American military's footprint. This website – empire.is – draws on Bing and Google Maps satellite images of the military installations identified in media reports and the Department of Defense's property inventory. Unlike the previous project, this geography extends well beyond the U.S. And it reveals more varied aerial patterns, from crisscrossing runways.  Read more...

How to spot a whale on the Northwest coast

29 December 2013 — The week between Christmas and New Year’s is one of the best times of the year to watch grey whales migrating along the Oregon coast. It’s the height of their annual southbound trek from Alaska to Baja California. Just off Highway 101 at Boiler Bay State Park just south of Lincoln City is one of two-dozen spots along the Oregon coast where trained volunteers are posted during Whale Watch Week. They are there to help folks find a whale. I was greeted by two of them, Larry Hinton and his wife Marie. “We’ve been out here about 20 minutes,” said Hinton. “And just a moment ago my wife and I spotted two that are together.” Hinton said the key to spotting a whale is to keep your eyes peeled for the tell-tale upward spout of water. That’s a whale coming up for a big gulp of air.  Read more...

Our favorite maps of 2013

28 December 2013 — The digital maps we loved in 2013 didn't simply illustrate novel or useful information (how people travel, where they live, what it means to live without much money). They did it in ways we'd never seen before, manipulating time, dimensions, perspective, even the atmosphere. These maps weren't just interesting in content; they were innovative in design. That's our new bar for 2014. So this December, instead of sharing our top 10 maps of the year, we're looking at 10 ways we've learned to think about maps in entirely new ways. This may well have been the year when maps ceased to impress us for what they convey and began to stun us instead for how they did it.  Read more...

The top sustainable cities stories of 2013

28 December 2013 — It was a year of worsening news on both the climate front and global political efforts to reach agreement on curbing climate change; but of great strides forward by some leading cities and corporations on tackling the key challenges facing humanity in its increasing urbanisation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)' Summary for Policymakers expressed "near certainty" that humans are causing climate change. It calculated how much more carbon we can put in the atmosphere and hold to keep the world's average temperature increase since 1990 below the 2-degree warming limit agreed to by world leaders. (Although some scientists predicted that even two degrees is too much.) PwC said in its annual Low Carbon Economy Index that the amount of carbon produced for every dollar of GDP must reduce by 6% each year until 2100 to curb the worst aspects of climate change. Although challenging, this could be very profitable because of efficiency savings, argued WWF and McKinsey in their report advocating a 3% reduction in absolute emissions per year up to 2020.  Read more...

Come see A Locally Crafted Christmas and celebrate artistry and skill in the Northwest. Festive decorations, lights, and Christmas trees will fill the 16,000 square foot house November 25 – January 2.* Each year volunteers and professional designers lend their time and talents to transform the museum into a holiday wonderland. From professional artisans honing their skills to Portland’s do-it-yourselfers, more than 80 volunteers will make this locally-made exhibit extra creative. In addition to the stunning decorations, shoppers will find unique holiday decorations, jewelry, books, toys, and more in the Museum Store. Admission is free for members, $10 for adults, $9 for seniors (65+), $7 for youth (ages 6 – 18), and free for children ages 5 and younger. If you’d like help with transportation and parking, FREE shuttle service, provided in partnership with America’s HUB World Tours, will be available December 19 – January 1 from PSU’s parking structure #3. The shuttle will bring you directly to Pittock Mansion!  

• Just like an Advent calendar loaded with treats, the days leading up to Christmas in Portland hold an abundance of
  sweet memories in Pioneer Courthouse Square and stretching into the new year.
• Some of Portland’s bright spots include ZooLights, a display of more than a million lights at the Oregon Zoo, an awesome display at The Grotto, and the Christmas Ship Parade, featuring brilliantly decorated boats on the Willamette and Columbia rivers.
• Since the 1920s, each house in this quaint southeast neighborhood street has been decorating for Christmas. Mostly Tudors, the houses are adorned with not only beautiful sparkling lights, but also nativity scenes, rotating Christmas trees and stunningly life-like replicas of Santa and Frosty. Directions and schedule for the SE Peacock Lane show.
• All ages of sippers and shoppers enjoy the traditional holiday tea service at The Heathman Hotel’s Tea Court Lounge. Don’t worry — snacking on their devil’s food chocolate cupcakes won’t land you on Santa’s “naughty” list.
• Another Portland institution, Pittock Mansion, dresses up every holiday season with a themed exhibit; in 2013, it’s “A Locally Crafted Christmas” — the breathtaking mansion’s 16 rooms with be festooned with lights, trees and decorations made by more than 80 volunteer artisans and craftspeople.
• If your holiday spirit is a little feisty, the annual presentation of The SantaLand Diaries at Portland Center Stage is just the ticket. Humorist David Sedaris’ beloved account of life as a department store elf is both sweet and sullen, and is sure to deliver the gift of laughter. Traditionalists may prefer to ring in the season with the Oregon Ballet Theater presentation of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker — it’s the only Balanchine-choreographed production of the holiday classic west of the Mississippi.