Oregon Humanities

For nearly forty years, Oregon Humanities has provided Oregonians with new ideas and opportunities for O. Hm. moments—times of insight or surprise that change the way we see the world. As an independent, nonprofit organization, we need your help to continue offering dynamic humanities programs in every county to thousands of individuals.

“I’m a fifth-generation Oregonian so I care about this state and its communities,” says librarian and social scientist Janet Webster, who joined the Oregon Humanities board in 2012. Janet runs the research library at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and says, “As such, I deal with scientists and students interested in science as they look for information to inform their work and satisfy their curiosity.”

Janet has a special interest in the juxtaposition of art, the humanities, and the sciences. She supports Oregon Humanities because it provides forums for exploring this juxtaposition and because she believes that serving on the board is a “great opportunity to support Oregon communities.”

We invited Janet to spin the Wheel of Cogitation.

A riveting image you’ll never forget:
Paul Klee’s painting of a fisherman in a boat. In high school I was fascinated by Klee’s use of color and shape and really like this one in particular. On a high school exchange trip, our group went to the National Gallery in Berlin. I rounded a corner of gallery and came face-to-face with the original. It was breath taking and a moment when I realized that things in books could be real.

Describe a place you love:
The bayfront of Newport. I live there and don’t tire of the changing landscape of boats, water, and sky. I often walk to work along the bay front and over the Yaquina Bay Bridge. I delight in the sounds and smells of a working waterfront. The smell of crab pots and tidal flats isn’t for everyone.

A film that changed how you see the world:
Blade Runner. I’m not a science-fiction person, but a friend invited my husband and me to go to the movies at Newport’s old movie theatre—a traditional small-town one. The images of LA perceived through a polluted, wet haze were incredible, as was the storyline. I was fascinated by both and still will watch reruns of it with pleasure. Plus, Harrison Ford was great to look at.

A ridiculous idea you love:
World peace. It shouldn’t be ridiculous, but I’m not sure people are cut out for it.

“I love my job because it allows me to meet and photograph people from all walks of life,” says Kim Oanh Nguyen. A professional photographer based in Portland, Kim has a special interest in documenting the work of nonprofits.

Kim became familiar with Oregon Humanities on the job and recently decided to become a donor. “The programs that Oregon Humanities sponsors are amazing and invaluable,” she says. “I feel very fortunate to have documented some of the incredible moments these programs bring.” One such moment was the 2012 Humanity in Perspective class graduation. “It was very apparent how hard they had all worked,” Kim says. “This was their moment to shine.”

We invited Kim to spin the Wheel of Cogitation.

A decisive moment in your life:
My family fled from Laos to Thailand in 1976. It was a dangerous time. It was the end of the Vietnam War and the Vietcong had taken control of our city. We had to divide the family in two so that we could take two different routes and increase our chances of survival. We took a gamble, left behind everything we owned but we all made it into Thailand safely and for that I am extremely thankful. I remember the fear I experienced all too well. Waiting for my father, sister, and older brothers who had taken the alternate route to us and wondering if I would ever see them again.

Your first community outside of family:
My friends and family come hand in hand. I grew up in a family of eleven siblings. My parents took in five foster children from Vietnam. This experience shaped the way I treat others. When I was in the high school, a classmate needed a place to live because his father was abusive, so I asked my mom if he could come live with us. Her response was so natural. “Of course, yes.” So the total went up to twelve.

A riveting image you’ll never forget:
Wow, this is a tough one. Napalm Girl by Nick Ut is powerful. I cried when I saw it the first time. It motivated me to become a photojournalist.

Describe a place you love:
I went back to Laos a few years ago and found the farm my family owned when I was little. It was taken away by the communists when they took control of Southern Laos. Nestled on the Mekong River and surrounded by native plants and flowers, I found it a wonderfully peaceful place.

Who are your people?
My mother for her strength. (She was the one who planned our escape from Laos to Thailand.) Her motto growing up was, “Go to school, work hard, and love people.” And Mother Teresa for her immense love for the poor.

Bob Speltz is the director of public affairs for The Standard insurance company, which generously provides support for the Conversation Project. In the last year alone, more than 3,300 Oregonians have participated in free, public conversations through this Oregon Humanities program.

According to Bob, The Standard has a long history of supporting organizations like Oregon Humanities. “We know that the arts, heritage, and the humanities play a critical role in vibrant communities,” he says. “We want to see more organizations and programs that build audiences, stimulate thought, engage Oregonians, and help us better understand and cherish each other.”

Bob is also chair of the Oregon Cultural Trust, which supports Oregon Humanities.

We invited Bob to spin the Wheel of Cogitation:

Describe a place you love.
Forest Park in Northwest Portland. It’s near our home and has been a personal sanctuary for me. When the stresses in my life encroach, I journey to the park for walking, running, biking, hiking, and even pulling ivy. Each time I visit, I practically forget I’m still in an urban environment.

Superpower of choice? What would you do with it?
Hmmm. I’d say flight. I dream several times a month about having the ability to fly. Even though heights freak me out, I’d still love to just launch and land at will.

What book changed the way you see the world?
The Servant as Leader by Robert Greenleaf. I love what Greenleaf says about leadership. As a young adult, I saw myself and my role models largely in service to the needs of others but not necessarily leaders in the traditional sense who tell people what to do all day. Greenleaf says success comes to those who are both servant and leader.

“Growing up, I lived on a little sea island three miles long with a tiny library,” says Oregon Humanities supporter Lark Palma. “The librarian let you take books from any part of the library. I probably didn’t understand half of what I read, but it stimulated my imagination.”

A native of South Carolina, Lark Palma was drawn to Oregon by the educational philosophy of Catlin Gabel, where she has been the head of school since 1995. It didn’t take long for her to appreciate what she calls the “the independent spirit” of the state, and to join the board at Oregon Humanities, which she served for nine years.

Because of her passion for the humanities and education, she decided to include Oregon Humanities in her will. “I feel good knowing that my commitment will pay off,” she says. “This is something I really believe in.”

We invited Lark to spin the Wheel of Cogitation:

A riveting image you’ll never forget:
When I was on 101 for the first time. It opens up and you can see the Oregon coast. It’s so different from the east and so beautiful.

Superpower of choice? What would you do with it?
My superpower would be always winning horse racing. I would make a lot of money and give it all away.

To what do you devote yourself?
Family. School. Students. Colleagues. Animals. Books. Continuing to learn.

A childhood book that changed you:
Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind. All of her books were about horses. She wrote a bunch of them. I just loved them. They were set in different countries. I was kind of in love with horses.

A decisive moment:
I’d been teaching English for a while when I took part in The Writing Project, a method of teaching that’s more about the process and doing critique. Not needing the red pen. I’ve taught that way ever since. The sense of community and everybody having a voice had a profound impact on my teaching. It changed the power in the classroom, and I’m always interested in that.

Brian Doyle is an award-winning author, essayist, and editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland. He is the author of ten books, including his first novel Mink River, and a recent recipient of an O.Hm. Award.

Brian gives to support Oregon Humanities magazine because he says, “It’s a huge, wild net for catching Oregon stories, and stories are crucial to living here, and if we don’t share stories of grace and hope and courage and creativity and inventiveness and kindness and endurance and salt and zest, then we are just visitors, not residents.”

We invited Brian to spin the Wheel of Cogitation:

A riveting image you’ll never forget:
O my gawd, our children emerging from their tiny mother. I was horrified and awed. It was like she was suddenly a small apartment building and people were coming out the front door. Ever see the movie Alien? It was like that.

Superpower of choice? What would you do with it?
Hmm—probably the ability to instantly heal pain and brokenness—now that would be cool. I would go around fixing hearts and bodies and neuroses and charging an excellent bottle of wine per miracle.

A ridiculous idea you love:
The idea that someday we will damn well make a world where violence is a joke and war is something you have to visit in a fecking museum. By all the evidence this is a silly pipe dream but I think it will happen.

To what do you devote yourself?
My kids. Mine lovely bride, from whom said children emerged like a circus act. Witness. Stupid silly crazy defiant grace. Laughter as prayer and weapon against the dark.

A decisive moment in your life:
When my lovely bride said yeah when I proposed (not yes, I point out), everything changed.

Who are your people?
The human beings are the species I identify with. Cruel and greedy and violent as they are, they have the greatest imaginations, and they invented wine, basketball, bras, jazz, Robert Louis Stevenson, and giggling.

A childhood book that changed you:
Oddly enough, Johnny Tremaine, which made me want to live in Boston, which I did, and The Wind in the Willows, which gave me magic, from which I have never recovered, and Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story, which led to my basketball addiction, and Treasure Island, which I read a hundred times, and which certainly led to me being a scribbler, from which I also apparently have never recovered.

By increasing her most recent gift to Oregon Humanities, board member Sona Andrews has effectively doubled her impact on Oregon communities throughout the state. That’s because through April 30, 2012, the National Endowment for the Humanities is matching all new and increased donations, up to $10,000.

Sona supports Oregon Humanities because she believes in giving to organizations that make a difference in people’s lives and use their funds effectively. “I believe that everyone should be challenged to think about the world we live in and experience its past, present, and future,” she says. “Oregon Humanities gets people thinking and that is a good thing.”

Andrews has served as the vice chancellor for academic strategies for the Oregon University System since 2010, and this July she will begin a new position as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Portland State University. Later this month, she will deliver the commencement address for the 2012 Humanity in Perspective graduates. She says, “I can only imagine the determination it takes for Humanity in Perspective students to make the commitment the program requires. I will challenge them to do something with what they have learned.”

We invited Sona to spin the Wheel of Cogitation:

Describe a place you love:
I love going to visit my parents in the summer in Rhode Island. It is the state I was born in and even though I have lived in so many places, there is something tranquil about the sounds of the waves on the rocky shore and the muffled foghorn of a lighthouse, and the care and exuberance of my family.

Super power of your choice? What would you do with it?
I would live to be able to twitch my nose like Barbara Eden from I Dream of Jeannie such that I could eliminate the time it takes to get from meeting to meeting. I would much rather spend that time having a few minutes to be lost in thought instead of worrying that I might be late for the next meeting because I did not build in any travel time.

Describe somebody unlike you whom you’re curious about.
Thank goodness for everyone that no one else is just like me. It would be a boring world if that were the case, and I would lose all curiosity about others.

Please join Sona by increasing your support. With $7,500 in new and increased donations this spring, we are 75 percent of the way to receiving the full $10,000 match from the NEH. If you’ve been thinking about increasing your annual gift or becoming a first time donor, now is the perfect time.Give online today.

Poet Laureate of Oregon Paulann Petersen is an award-winning poet who has published several chapbooks and five collections of poetry, including her latest The Voluptuary. She travels the state, giving readings and teaching workshops for colleges, high schools, and libraries.

Paulann gives because she says, “The work of Oregon Humanities is basically the work of literature: to explore and relay what it is to be human, to be alive and aware at a particular place in a particular time. Who wouldn’t want to give to such an endeavor?”

We invited Paulann to spin the virtual Wheel of Cogitation:

To what do you devote yourself?

The everyday life of poetry.

Super power of your choice? What would you do with it?

The power of absolute persuasion. I’d use it to convince people that war generates only more war, and that peace will never prevail without justice.

A ridiculous idea that you love:

The idea that I—or anyone else—could possess such a super-power and not be corrupted by it. That’s a ridiculous notion, I’m sure, but I find it attractive, nonetheless.

A riveting image you’ll never forget:

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

—Antonio Machado
(translated by Robert Bly)

Describe a place you love:

The certain Victorian cottage in Sellwood I call home. Lucky me.

What book changed the way you see the world?

Every good book I’ve ever read. But I’ll mention three of them:

Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
Ellen Meloy’s The Anthropology of Turquoise
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

Medford resident Larry Slesser is a long-time donor to Oregon Humanities. Larry is a Vietnam veteran and former teacher and coach, who says he most values OH for its support of one of his core values: “looking at various facets of our world and the different people and ideas.” Here, Larry takes a virtual spin of the Wheel of Cogitation. 

Somebody unlike you whom you are curious about

I was brought up in a completely white, conservative, protestant, jock culture. As my mother lamented, I have always been like the bear that went over the mountain to see what he could see. I love to talk with people of different cultures and subcultures.

Describe a place you love

I love any place I am sharing with the people I love. People not places are love to me.



A riveting image you’ll never forget

While serving in the military in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, he and a fellow soldier were driving in a jeep when about 100 yards in front of them, “A Viet Cong rocket screamed in and landed on [a Vietnamese woman on a bicycle]. She simply ceased to exist. It drove home a lesson at a very young age how fragile life is and how chance plays such a role in life and death. I still think of her and wonder if her family ever learned what happened. We say education changes us, and I suggest war is an intense education.”

What book changed how you see the world

Out of the Night, the Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets by William P. Mahedy and When God Becomes a Drug, Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse by Father Leo Booth

Join Larry today as a supporter by making a donation.

Oregon Humanities donor Mary Rechner is the director of Literary Arts’ “Writers in the Schools” program, which sponsors creative writing workshops in Portland-area high schools.

A fiction writer herself, Rechner is the author of Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women, a short story collection published by Portland’s own Propeller Books. “I give to Oregon Humanities,” she says, “because I agree that imagining, talking, and writing about our experiences and ideas is what gives life meaning, and makes life worth living.” We asked for her answers to several questions from the Wheel of Cogitation:

What book changed the way you see the world?

Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich. This book of poems was a high school graduation present and occasioned the first moment I considered writing about the experience of being a woman.

The title of your memoir & its most interesting chapter?

I can’t imagine writing a memoir; my life is too boring. That’s why I write fiction!

A riveting image you’ll never forget.

The red breasts of a flock of robins flying over the cemetery in Lostine, Oregon, during my husband’s grandmother’s funeral this winter.

Describe a place you love.

The ocean is a source of origin and renewal.

Whose work consistently amazes and inspires you?

The work of artist Kara Walker; I am in awe of her complexity and bravery and willingness to express her singular vision, even when it is met with dismay.

Describe somebody unlike you whom you’re curious about.

Most of the people I meet.

A member of the Oregon Humanities board since 2009, Paul Duden was a trial lawyer for more than forty years. He practices mediation and arbitration of civil actions and is an active member of the Oregon State Bar.

Why does he give to Oregon Humanities? “I believe in the organization’s mission and its programs,” he says, “which promote civility through conversations exploring humanities-related issues.” Perhaps unsurprisingly for a seasoned mediator, Duden says a particular favorite is the Responsive Program Grant, which “brings speakers to a community facing conflict in order that differences may be aired in a civil forum.”

We asked Paul to give us his answers to a few questions from the Wheel of Cogitation:

What book changed the way you see the world?

U.S.A., a trilogy of novels by John Dos Passos. Wandering through life at age seventeen, I came upon this trio of historical and biographical novels that portray American life in the first third of the twentieth century. They no longer are viewed as “great” books, but the trilogy played to my fascination with history, to the importance of the historical context in which events must be placed, and to the need to be critical of societal solutions at odds with historical context. The absence of that world view, as Dos Passos related, left much talent, ambition, love, and idealism stifled and drained away by war, greed, prohibitions, intolerances, and oppressions. What have we learned, and what would Dos Passos say today?

Describe somebody unlike you whom you’re curious about

The Emperor of Japan. Why that person first came to my mind, I cannot say. I minored in East Asian studies in college, and was interested in the enigma of the hereditary monarch of an empire who had no political power.

A ridiculous idea that you like

In the belief that no idea is ridiculous, I propose a sales tax for college education in Oregon. The tax would provide every student who graduates from an Oregon high school a college education at an Oregon state school to which the student is admitted. The tax could either directly fund higher education, or fund a state tax credit for tuition paid by the student or the student’s family. I would not require any particular high school grade average. So many high school students are frustrated, confused, or immature that graduating should be enough. Isn’t having to incur a huge debt to obtain a college education ridiculous?

A riveting image you’ll never forget?

A photograph by a Danish journalist at the American War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. The photograph is of smiling US servicemen seated in front of a row of severed heads.

Describe a place you love?

Hanalei Bay, Hawaii: Incredibly relaxing, reinvigorating and beautiful.

Whose work consistently amazes and inspires you?

New York Times editorial columnists Gail Collins and Paul Krugman: I love Ms. Collins for her astute and very humorous take on our political farces. Mr. Krugman is a bulwark of economic sense against a sea of cynical political rhetoric.

In his own words, Bill Smaldone devotes himself to family, work, and community. In addition to being the husband of Jennifer and father of Sarah and Emily, Bill is a historian at Willamette University and former board member of Oregon Humanities. Bill makes a monthly contribution to Oregon Humanities. It’s a great way to spread your support over time and easy on your budget.

Bill says he supports Oregon Humanities because “all people, regardless of their level of education, spend quite a bit of time pondering their place in the world and thinking about the human condition.” He says that Oregon Humanities “can provide them with more tools to use as they consider their world and enable them to make more thoughtful choices for themselves and their communities.”

We asked Bill to take a virtual spin of our Wheel of Cogitation and tell us more about his inspirations, passions, and the things that intrigue him.

What book changed the way you see the world?

Different books have influenced me at different moments of my life. When I was a kid I read William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and have been addicted to German history ever since. When I was a student my reading of volume one of Marx’s Capital changed how I saw economic and human relationships. About ten years ago my encounter with Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate made me constantly think about the choices people face under duress and about the range of responses of which we are capable.

Describe a place you love.

One place I really love is the corner of my backyard under the grape arbor. I live in an old craftsman style house in Capital Park, one of Salem’s oldest “inner-city” neighborhoods. The lot is small (50 by 100 feet, I think) but there are lots of trees around and my shady yard is home to lots of urban wildlife. I love nothing more than to sit in the shady corner of my yard on a hot day watching the “action” and reading a book with a cold beer and good cigar.
You can read the complete story at our website.

Whose work consistently amazes and inspires you?

One of the people I am continually inspired by is George Orwell. Orwell’s great contribution to our world was his effort to tell the truth about the human condition under various circumstances regardless of his own ideological or political predilections. He was relentless in exposing the contradictions of life and politics in places as far flung as England, France, Burma, Spain, and Oceania. At the same time, he was willing to look at himself and come to grips with many (though not all) of his own prejudices. He did it with great literary skill and could be humorous and deadly serious at the same time.

Franz Fallada is another writer whose work I find inspiring. Writing in the midst of the Great Depression and the rise of National Socialism, in works like Little Man, What Now? and Every Man Dies Alone he showed how average people coped with terrible choices that were largely not of their own making. He was a man of many failings (in business, in a moral sense, and psychologically) and he made many poor choices in his life, yet he was relentless in his efforts to show the plight of the German “everyman” and the difficulty of remaining decent in that world. An alcoholic and morphine addict writing in the rubble of Berlin, he died in 1947 after completing Every Man in less then two months.

Describe somebody unlike you whom you’re curious about.

I am curious about a person who likes hunting. I can understand the necessity of hunting for food or to limit animal populations. I can also understand the fun of tracking an animal from place to place. But I am curious about what kinds of people actually enjoy killing an animal and commemorating the moment by mounting it on a wall. This is an activity that seems to set us apart from the animal kingdom, but not in a positive way!