We're taking risks if we get to the end of July in our region and we have not prepared a "go-kit" in case of evacuation. The dry landscape is actually on fire in many areas, bringing firefighters in and forcing nearby landowners out. Local and state governments have put in some work in recent years, identifying evacuation zones and distributing inf…

Not every part of our region is as flammable as the next. There is some variation, meaning wildfire risk is just higher in some places than in others. And when the state of Oregon said so with the release of a wildfire risk map in 2022, landowners in high risk areas complained, loudly. The state withdrew the map until just recently, offering in its…

There are many places on the map where people once lived and worked that faded into history. But Maxville, Oregon may be one of a kind. It was a timber town, and there were plenty of those, but Maxville was integrated: Black and white workers inhabited the town and worked in the mill. The Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center works to preserve, int…

We expect things to move on highways; that's what they're for. But not the highway itself, which has long been the problem at Last Chance Grade on U.S. 101 in Del Norte County. The highway is located in a landslide-prone area, and frequent work is required to keep the highway from sliding down the hill. Caltrans, the state department of transportat…

Any community of a reasonable size has a few people with some dollars to give, and some places that will gladly take them. Josephine County--and western Jackson County--have an entity that helps collect givers with receivers. The Four Way Community Foundation is closing in on its 50th birthday, having spent nearly half a century now helping givers …

[Tue 9 AM | Keeping journalism alive by staying truly local in coverage] Staying in business in the journalism field has grown tougher in recent years, with newspapers taking the loss of paid subscriptions and classified advertising especially hard. For some journalism entities, the key to survival has been to go hyper-local: focus heavily on the n…

The recent saga of the efforts to protect the forest around Pipe Fork Creek in Josephine County ended with a whimper, not a bang. But it may not be over. Fans of the forest, led by the Williams Community Forest Project, worked to protect the land currently owned by Josephine County. They even lined up a buyer in The Conservation Fund, which planned…

Maybe it's a rare writer who gets rich at the craft... but writers can find other kinds of rewards like inspiration and technical growth in their work by taking part in residencies and retreats for writers. The Lost in Place Nature Writing Intensive, held at Summer Lake Lodge in the Lake County (Oregon) backcountry is that kind of opportunity. It i…

(Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons) He's the Republican candidate for Vice President now, but last time we talked to JD Vance, he not only had his doubts about Donald Trump, he did not think Trump would win the election. That was in 2016, and many things have changed. The occasion for Vance's appearance on the JX was a conversation about his highly…

Sculpture by Hank Thomas Willis: "Raise Up"(Ron Cogswell / Wikimedia Commons) Activism and community organizing are generally about getting people to move: move to demonstrate on an issue, move to vote on an issue, move off dead-center in thinking. One way to move people is by inspiring them, through art. And there's a long history of the intertwin…

Suicides by young people in Oregon hit a peak in 2018, with 129 deaths. And while the overall numbers have dropped a bit in the years since, the rate of youth suicide remains high when compared with the rest of the country. And there's another note: youth suicides by white people are dropping, while deaths by people of other ethnicities are on the …

The Supreme Court had its say, and then the residents of Grants Pass weighed in. The SCOTUS ruling that rousting people from camping on public property is NOT cruel and unusual punishment gives the city--any city--more tools to clear encampments of homeless people from public property. And a council "listening session" after the ruling featured doz…

As a society, we're deeply invested in rocks and minerals, whether we realize it or not. From engagement and wedding rings, and many others kinds of jewelry, to building materials, countertops, landscaping, and just the fun of skipping rocks across a lake, we seem to be obsessed with rocks, minerals and gems. Crater Rock Museum in Central Point boa…

Maybe it's a rare kid who misses school in the summertime, but there are plenty of kids who would miss meals in the summertime without school-based nutrition programs. The programs ensure that children don't go hungry because the meal they normally get at school come to an end. The Oregon Department of Education Summer Food Service program provides…

The storms of winter are long forgotten by now on the Oregon coast. And the summer heat (usually) doesn't get as severe as it does inland. So it's a great time to take in some music, and several organizations are lined up to provide the tunes. Oregon Coast Music Festival is in the middle of its two week run (July 13-27), and Redfish Music Festival …

The Internet has made searching for family history far easier than it used to be. Still, the gobs of records and documents and papers--or the absence of them--can make it necessary to ask for a little help now and then. The Rogue Valley Genealogical Society offers that kind of help to its members. It is throwing an open house (July 20) to get more …

College or not? The question tends to be focused upon students graduating from high school, but there are many more people out there who can answer it. Older students could provide a large portion of the enrollment at community colleges, as the high school-straight-to-college pipeline delivers fewer students. The Oregon Community College Associatio…

Pride month just ended, but there are other celebrations of the LGBTQ+ community scattered throughout the year. Those include Southern Oregon Pride, celebrated in October in and around Ashland. Even before that series of events, there are others to raise money and get people reconnected with the queer community. The events include an "Everybody's O…

Claudia Chotzen has lived in several places, but she also lived for a time outside of her own body. That's how she describes the way she coped with sexual abuse in her childhood. It was a deep, dark family secret, one Chotzen brings into the light in her book The Dark Room: A Memoir of Triumph. Claudia Chotzen is a former resident of Ashland, and s…

Maybe you have days when it feels like the whole world has gone crazy. Maybe it's more than days, as it is for Jon Mills. He's a Canadian philosopher and psychologist who has thought many times that humans were losing their grip, either on reality or the fate of the world, or both. Mills takes up the challenges and how we've responded to them, and …