A Lavender Conference, A Hotel + A Back-Story: Visit Mesa Marketing/Agritourism

Your MesaZona blogger was "on a mission" today and it somehow turned into a surprising direction right on Center Street to the visitor information office, talking to Rachel Semik, Projects Assistant at Visit Mesa

How did that happen?
A few weeks ago, as is often the case, a post was done to highlight a conference scheduled for January - The U.S. Lavender Growers Association to be held here in Mesa ... but Why?
The conference kicked-off with a welcome reception on Thursday evening, and offers pre-conference workshops starting Thursday morning and offers education and collaboration opportunities for lavender growers and will be expanding this year to offer a separate track for those who want to expand their knowledge of the use of lavender. This year's artisan track focuses on culinary use of lavender.
Mesa  is an area steeped in farming culture, with a focus on farm to table cuisine, innovative farming technology, and the agritourist. 
Here's a link to that post back on Jan 11 2017 https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2017/01/high-tech-sure-but-lets-keep-mesa-in.html

Rachel Semik

The answer became apparent today after some exchanges on social media and a quick telephone-talk with Kara Wasserbach [see note blogger's note below], who's organizing the logistics and conference details for USLGA responding to my questions emphasizing how that organization made the decision to schedule the conference here.
It was my pleasure to get off-track and take a jaunt for a couple of blocks to 20 N Center Street to "nose-around" the visitor information offices where the cheery and enthusiastic voice of Rachel greeted me.
Kera had point-blank told me that the marketing and sales people at Visit Mesa had convinced the group to have their conference here. That's a success story for sure.
Rachel and the staff began their efforts eight months ago when the lavender group was invited to come here to see what Mesa has to offer for on-site visits to Schepf Farms, Agritopia and Queen Creek Olive Oil Mill that are all featured in one of the twelve promotion areas for the boundless outdoors attractions here:

AGRITOURISM https://www.visitmesa.com/things-to-do/outdoor-activities/agritourism/

 

FARM RICH COUNTRY, Mesa's bountiful harvest is proudly shared with visitors.

 

Here's a link to the Facebook page for this conference

https://www.facebook.com/uslavender/

Kera Wasserbach

Good. Citizens Have A Duty To Protest

Published on Jan 27, 2017

Henry David Thoreau not only wrote Walden; he is also responsible for a small pamphlet titled Civil Disobedience, which recommends that – when a US president is taking a wrong turn – good citizens have a duty to protest. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): https://goo.gl/FJRy2N
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“In March 1845, the United States acquired a new president – James K. Polk – a forceful, aggressive political outsider intent on strengthening his country and asserting its pre-eminence in front of other world powers, especially Mexico and Great Britain. Within a year of his inauguration, he had declared full-scale war on Mexico because of squabbles over the Texan border, and was soon rattling his saber at Britain over the ownership of Oregon. To complete the picture, Polk was a vigorous defender of slavery, who dismissed the arguments of abolitionists as naive and sentimental...”

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Conversation With Great Leaders: Justice Sonya Sotomayor

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Who's An Urbanist Here in Mesa???

7 Podcasts Urbanists Should Be Listening to Now

By Jen Kinney | January 26, 2017

Podcasts, my editor wrote to me this week, are like “New Yorker” magazines: New ones are always piling up before you have a chance to appreciate the last one. As they’ve emerged over the past few years as a go-to medium for longform storytelling, unexpected takes on current events, and casual conversations among experts, celebrities, and besties, it seems there’s never enough time to listen to them all.

Jen Kinney has rounded up a list, in no particular order, of the seven podcasts urbanists should be listening to right now, focusing not only on design and planning, but also on the economic systems that undergird our cities. I hope you’ve got a lot of time on your hands.
Link to entire report >> Next City

The Uncertain Hour, from Marketplace An immersive documentary look at America’s welfare system 20 years after Bill Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it,” The Uncertain Hour was my favorite podcast of 2016.

Placemakers, from Slate Placemakers, hosted by Rebecca Sheir, focuses each 30-minute episode on one project, one person or one city. In its first 18 episodes, the show has taken on some classic urbanist topics — fighting blight, reforming the suburbs, designing walkable places — but often with a thought-provoking twist. The most recent episode, for example, asks why a dense, mixed-use community developed according to New Urbanism best practices also feels, well, pretty creepy.

99 Percent Invisible, from Radiotopia
99 Percent Invisible is the classic design-centric podcast. Host Roman Mars and a slate of excellent producers do a great job of conveying design concepts without being able to resort to visuals — no small feat.
With shows on everything from the history of credit cards to the future of nuclear waste storage, this podcast takes on a wide range of design topics, many of which touch on urban life. The show’s website also offers up transcripts of episodes and a vast trove of (predictably well-designed) articles on places and stories not featured on the podcast — visuals included. Users can browse by topics including infrastructure, architecture and cities.

The Urbanist and Tall Stories, from Monocle 24
The Urbanist, a 30-minute show centered around a theme or topic, and Tall Stories, 5-minute minisodes that each explore “one building, one statue or one park bench that reveals something about our cities,” both take a notably more global approach than many other city-focused shows.
The most recent episode of the Urbanist, for example, spans the globe to look at unsightly architecture, from Belgrade’s attempts to retain architectural integrity after years of attacks, to a Spanish city’s mushroom sculptures to Paris’ divisive Centre Pompidou. The U.S. crops up from time to time too.

Planet Money, from NPR
While not a strictly urban show, Planet Money does a better job than most of explaining the economy. Their tagline: “Imagine you could call up a friend and say, ‘Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy.’ Now imagine that’s actually a fun evening. That’s what we’re going for at Planet Money.”
And it works. One episode asks why the housing voucher program is a lottery — and such an underfunded one — when SNAP and other welfare programs are not. Another shines a light on the battle between states to lure jobs using corporate subsidies 

Third Wave Urbanism If conversational podcasts are more your style, Third Wave Urbanism is less slickly produced than the others on this list but has a casual, intimate feel more in the vein of the popular Call Your Girlfriend podcast. Urbanists Kristen Jeffers and Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman chat about what they call “the new normal of human-scale cities in today’s globalized world.”

Candidate Confessional Another not-strictly-urban podcast, Candidate Confessional has a conceit so simple and so smart I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. In each episode, Sam Stein and Jason Cherkis talk to people who ran for political office and lost. Or as they put it, “the only podcast that actually celebrates people who tried to achieve power and failed.”

Jen Kinney is a freelance writer and documentary photographer. Her work has also appeared in Satellite Magazine, High Country News online, and the Anchorage Press. See her work at jakinney.com.

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Doomsday Clock Set Ahead > World Closer To Nuclear TiK-Off

Published on Jan 25, 2017

Views: 2,729

Doomsday Clock - World set to move closer to nuclear armageddon after Trump inauguration

THE world is set to move closer to nuclear armageddon after the inauguration of Donald Trump and the threat from Russia and North Korea, according to the infamous Doomsday Clock..
Scientists are expected to move the clock's hands to two minutes to midnight on Thursday, with 00.00 representing the end of humanity.

The countdown, established in 1947 by experts building the first atomic bomb in America, was created to demonstrate in the simplest way possible of how much danger the Earth is in from nuclear war.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists currently has the clock pointed to 23.57 but as of tomorrow it will move to 23.58.
The move will mark the closest the world has ever been to global obliteration since 1953 when the United States boosted its nuclear capacity with the hydrogen bomb.

Are you a giver or a taker? | Adam Grant

Published on Jan 24, 2017

In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant breaks down these personalities and offers simple strategies to promote a culture of generosity and keep self-serving employees from taking more than their share.

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