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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem V

Brad Burge has an ‘idea worth spreading’ for a solution to help with PTSD

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Brad BurgeTEDxSalem is proud to announce anoth­er sur­prise speak­er for our Jan­u­ary 6, 2018, event “Through the Look­ing Glass.”

A few months ago, Brad Burge returned from Burn­ing Man, the tem­po­rary city of artists and cre­ators in the Neva­da desert. He was there vol­un­teer­ing for the Zen­do Project, a group that sup­ports peo­ple who are hav­ing dif­fi­cult episodes with psy­che­delics or oth­er drugs.

Brad is Direc­tor of Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­che­del­ic Stud­ies (MAPS), an asso­ci­a­tion that rethinks the role of psy­che­del­ic drugs in our soci­ety. The Zen­do Project falls in line with the first part of MAPS’ mis­sion: edu­cate and reduce harm.

“We don’t call it a bad trip,” Brad said, “because every psy­che­del­ic event brings up infor­ma­tion that needs to be dealt with. The Zen­do Project has found that they can pro­vide sup­port in a way that offers the best out­come pos­si­ble.”

Tra­di­tion­al respons­es of police or med­ical per­son­nel, while well mean­ing, he said, can make a bad trip worse. Those respons­es don’t allow a per­son to fin­ish pro­cess­ing the thoughts and mem­o­ries that have come up. At Zen­do Project, in con­cert with law enforce­ment and med­ical staff, they sit with the per­son, offer sup­port and lis­ten until they are safe to return to their friends. Brad reports that the ser­vice is so suc­cess­ful that Burn­ing Man is plan­ning for a sec­ond Zen­do Project facil­i­ty next year.

The sec­ond part of MAPS’ mis­sion is to pro­vide research into new ways of treat­ing psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders with psy­che­del­ic drugs. Rather than being counter-cul­ture, MAPS works with­in the sys­tem to explore the legit­i­mate ben­e­fits psy­che­del­ic drugs may have in treat­ing men­tal health.

Brad describes the results they are see­ing in their work with PTSD as “real­ly promis­ing.” So promis­ing that the FDA grant­ed them break­through ther­a­py des­ig­na­tion, which means pre­lim­i­nary clin­i­cal evi­dence indi­cates that the drug may demon­strate sub­stan­tial improve­ment over exist­ing ther­a­pies. They are now mov­ing into phase III of clin­i­cal tri­als.

Brad’s per­son­al sto­ry brought him to MAPS while he was work­ing on his doc­tor­ate at UC San Diego. After study­ing both psy­chol­o­gy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Stan­ford, Brad’s mas­ter’s research on psy­che­delics inter­sect­ed with his own jour­ney of men­tal ill­ness.

He had been on lithi­um for near­ly 11 years when he had his first expe­ri­ence on a psy­che­del­ic drug. Brad’s train­ing and edu­ca­tion on the evils of psy­che­delics stood in sharp con­trast to his expe­ri­ence.

“For my whole life I had been raised to believe that men­tal health phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals work like keys in a lock… that I was some­how bro­ken and need­ed to be fixed… For the first time in my life I felt like I could be a whole per­son… I felt like I had been miss­ing out on oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow.”

Brad’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence of the impact that ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly guid­ed psy­che­delics could have has moti­vat­ed him to edu­cate peo­ple about the pol­i­tics of drugs in our soci­ety and to pro­mote the legal research of the ben­e­fits that these drugs can have.

Come to TEDxSalem and hear the rest of Brad’s sto­ry as he offers us a glimpse into an unex­pect­ed future for psy­chi­a­try in Amer­i­ca.

Speak­er: Brad Burge

Pets: “My part­ner has a pet, a beau­ti­ful lit­tle cat, Maho, that is very talk­a­tive, and I have effec­tive­ly adopt­ed her.”

Favorite Movie: “Sci-fi always works. I am super into imag­in­ing what the future holds.”

Favorite Book: “Dune”

Favorite Music: Grate­ful Dead or glitchy tech­no. Brad also con­firms lis­ten­ing to Alaba­ma 3 “for sure.”

Favorite Food: Sala­mi. “Because it keeps for a long time out of the fridge.”

Favorite Drink: Guaya­ki Yer­ba Mate

Hob­bies: Big time back­pack­er: “I just got back from a 45-mile hike through Sequoia and King’s Canyon in Cal­i­for­nia Sier­ra. I hope to find some back­pack­ing or hik­ing while I am in Port­land.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Mas Blue comes to TEDxSalem in January

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TEDxSalem is proud to announce one of the first of our sur­prise speak­ers —

Mas Subramanian

Mas Sub­ra­man­ian trans­formed the world’s col­or palette in 2009 when he dis­cov­ered the first new blue pig­ment in near­ly 200 years.

The world respond­ed with won­der for YIn­Mn Blue, a bright, elec­tric hue. Cray­ola released its “Blueti­ful” cray­on as a cel­e­bra­tion of his dis­cov­ery. Artists have embraced the new blue, which was recent­ly released as an oil paint by the Shep­herd Col­or Com­pa­ny.

Many refer to it as Mas blue, a nod to the inventor’s name and the word for more in Span­ish. Artnet.com even announced that this dis­cov­ery will be chron­i­cled in Har­vard Art Museum’s pig­ment col­lec­tion.

“I have filed a lot of patents in my life,” Mas said, “but none have changed my life like this one.”

Mas, a pro­fes­sor of mate­r­i­al sci­ences at Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty, first sub­mit­ted his research to the Jour­nal of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety  in 2009. Since then he has been fea­tured by The New York Times, NPR, the Ore­gon­ian, Men­tal Floss, Quartz, Busi­ness Insid­er, Fast Co. design, The Tele­graph, Forbes, Today, NY Mag, and even Cos­mopoli­tan.

But Mas didn’t just dis­cov­er a new blue, he dis­cov­ered a new way to pro­duce pig­ment for both blue and many oth­er col­ors as well.  YIn­Mn blue is non-tox­ic, has heat-reflec­tive prop­er­ties and is set to rev­o­lu­tion­ize indus­tries from home and auto paint to roof­ing.

As a young boy in India, Mas was inspired to pur­sue the life of a sci­en­tist by the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which he con­sid­ered one of the great­est movies ever made.

“What was fic­tion in the movie became real­i­ty. The movie showed a tablet-like device which resem­bled the iPad of today. That was amaz­ing!”

Mas earned a Ph.D. in Chem­istry from Indi­an Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, Madras, India and was a post­doc­tor­al fel­low at Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty. He has writ­ten sev­er­al books and worked as lead researcher for DuPont Chem­i­cals.

Mas was raised in the Hin­du faith, which has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on his life and giv­en him val­ues to pat­tern his life after.

“I con­sid­er Hin­duism a “phi­los­o­phy” rather than a reli­gion. Respect is an extreme­ly val­ued com­po­nent of the every­day life in India.”

Mas says the val­ues of renun­ci­a­tion, giv­ing, ded­i­ca­tion, truth and non-vio­lence have helped him to live well and be a bet­ter per­son. Mas also makes a point to influ­ence his com­mu­ni­ty.

“One of my pas­sions is to inspire young minds (both boys and girls) to become sci­en­tists.”

Mas also invites two to three local high school stu­dents to his lab at OSU each year to gain hands-on expe­ri­ence in sci­en­tif­ic research.

Mas and his wife love trav­el and learn­ing about oth­er cul­tures and cus­toms. They recent­ly spent three weeks in the Aus­tralian out­back learn­ing about Abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralian cul­ture.

Mas says trav­el is the best kind of edu­ca­tion he has expe­ri­enced.

“Trav­el gives me time to think, observe and learn new things — cul­ture, food, his­to­ry.”

TEDxSalem is excit­ed to wel­come Mas and his ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Rose Barker: The Value of Identity

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TEDxSalem speak­er Rose Bark­er is equal parts world trav­el­er and safe­ty guru.

 

She spent a year in Ecuador doing every­thing from vol­un­teer­ing at a church and orphan­age to get­ting her kite­board­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and swim­ming in the ocean near­ly every day.

 

“It was a full expe­ri­ence,” she says.

 

She also lived in Mex­i­co for about a year, vol­un­teer­ing as an inter­preter for sev­er­al non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions.

  

Yet she bal­anced her desire for adven­ture with an empha­sis on safe­ty. A self-described “para­noid trav­el­er,” Bark­er invent­ed a ‘Pass­port Pock­et’ to safe­ly and com­fort­ably con­ceal pass­ports, mon­ey and oth­er vital doc­u­ments inside one’s cloth­ing.

 

Despite her focus on safe­ty and pro­tec­tion, her out­ward dis­po­si­tion is friend­ly, open. The first word that comes to mind is ‘ebul­lient.’ Not only in the way that she greets vis­i­tors with a hug and insists on offer­ing them some­thing to eat, but in the way she talks — thought­ful­ly, ani­mat­ed­ly.

Bark­er believes strong­ly in social jus­tice and liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ty. She worked at CAPACES Lead­er­ship Insti­tute, a Wood­burn-based non­prof­it geared toward devel­op­ing advo­ca­cy in Oregon’s migrant farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty. It was dur­ing her time at CAPACES that Bark­er got inter­est­ed in increas­ing access to legal ser­vices, which she calls “empow­er­ing.”

“You have to know what your rights are in order to stand up for your­self,” she says.

Her inter­est in advo­ca­cy and safe­ty even­tu­al­ly merged and led to a career as a cer­ti­fied risk man­age­ment con­sul­tant. She gives talks to employ­ers and state agen­cies about the impor­tance of, and use­ful tech­niques for, pro­tect­ing one’s iden­ti­ty from hack­ers and thieves.

 

“Our iden­ti­ties,” she says, are “one of the most valu­able things we own.”

 

And reclaim­ing your iden­ti­ty is a tough bat­tle. Vic­tims can have a chal­leng­ing time prov­ing that some­one else stole and assumed their iden­ti­ty to com­mit a crime. Iden­ti­ty theft, she said, is one of the few crimes where the vic­tim is guilty until proven inno­cent.

 

She hopes to help oth­ers pro­tect them­selves before it’s too late. If you want to learn about the inter­net of things and how to keep your­self safe, check out Barker’s talk Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at TEDxSalem.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Seth Tichenor: Why philosophy?

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“Why phi­los­o­phy?” Seth Tichenor has been answer­ing that ques­tion for more than 20 years.

For Seth, it’s just the way he thinks. He remem­bers hav­ing his first philo­soph­i­cal thought at age 3, but it wasn’t until col­lege that he real­ized it was what he want­ed to do.

“I was talk­ing with a friend,” he recalls, “when he point­ed out that what­ev­er I do, I’m going to approach it from a philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive.”

Seth, a 2018 TEDxSalem speak­er, real­ized that he would always ask ques­tions such as “why do we do it this way?” “how might oth­ers do this?” and “even if we could, should we?”

Now he talks phi­los­o­phy to any­one will­ing to lis­ten, whether it’s part of his work as a phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor, life­guard, swim instruc­tor or dri­ver for vis­it­ing musi­cal acts.

Seth describes him­self as an Ore­gon native and a for­mer All-Amer­i­can swim­mer liv­ing in Asto­ria with his part­ner Gad. He finds a way to use all his pas­sions to bet­ter the com­mu­ni­ty. He spends a lot of his time as a life­guard and swim instruc­tor. With all the water sur­round­ing Asto­ria, Seth sees it as a pub­lic ser­vice.

But the Philosophar­i­an project is his pas­sion.

The Philosophar­i­an project aims to bring phi­los­o­phy into the lives of every­day peo­ple. It start­ed with pro­mot­ing local phi­los­o­phy talks and grew into a larg­er project that includ­ed a road trip of prac­tic­ing “guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics.”

Seth bemoans the fact that study­ing phi­los­o­phy doesn’t finan­cial­ly pen­cil out for most stu­dents. The Philosophar­i­an vision treats phi­los­o­phy as a nor­mal part of the real world. It was inspired by stu­dents who were inter­est­ed in phi­los­o­phy, but who didn’t have room for it in their class sched­ules and Gad’s back­ground in Alter­na­tive Edu­ca­tion and Kines­thet­ic Learn­ing.

In his free time, Seth stays active with hik­ing and water sports. He is a com­pet­i­tive swim­mer in mid­dle dis­tance but­ter­fly and freestyle.

“I’m like Seabis­cuit,” he said, com­par­ing his water skills to the race horse. “I’ve got finesse.”

His swim back­ground also influ­ences the way he thinks. Seth describes his world and his phi­los­o­phy as being dynam­ic and emerg­ing, much like water.

“Water makes its way into a lot of my think­ing,” he said. “My class­room looks out over the Colum­bia, and I will make a ref­er­ence to water at least once a week in my lec­tures.”

Seth also enjoys paint­ing and doing cos­tum­ing work with Gad. He has been a pro­fes­sor of phi­los­o­phy for 23 years and teach­es at Clat­sop Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. He was named teacher of the year in 2015. He has an M.A. in Phi­los­o­phy of Reli­gion from Boston Uni­ver­si­ty and is a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii at Manoa in Com­par­a­tive Phi­los­o­phy.

If you have ever won­dered how phi­los­o­phy might be rel­e­vant to you, come see Seth at TEDxSalem and expe­ri­ence his guer­ril­la phi­los­o­phy tac­tics for your­self.

Speak­er: Seth Tichenor

Favorite Book: The Glass Bead Game by Her­mann Hesse: “It real­ly dis­cuss­es the strengths and lim­its of for­mal intel­lec­tu­al aca­d­e­m­ic work.” Or Can­nery Row by John Stein­beck.

Favorite Music: Chet Baker’s jazz, Arcade Fire and art rock, old punk, under­ground hip hop such as Dead Prez.

Favorite Food: “Thai or Indi­an food with vibrant tastes – I’m aes­thet­ic, but not a good sense of smell. I also got a taste for that kind of food while attend­ing grad school in Hawaii.”

Favorite Drink: “I’m very fond of Fort George Vor­tex IPA, or a well-made Man­hat­tan or a Moscow mule.”

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Evelin Dacker: Let’s talk about sex, bay-bee!

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Dr. Evelin Dack­er wants to talk about sex, and she’s not afraid of your hang-ups because she is in it for your health.

“I feel like if peo­ple are going to black­list me because I’m talk­ing about sex, that’s OK,” says Evelin, “because some­body has to do it.”

Evelin, pro­nounced “Ev-uh-LEEN,” is a doc­tor of fam­i­ly med­i­cine and the own­er of VIDA Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine and Behav­ioral Health. Born in Cal­i­for­nia and raised in New York, Dack­er attend­ed school at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty in Cleve­land, Ohio. She moved to Salem 21 years ago, when she came to work for NW Human Ser­vices at the West Salem Clin­ic doing com­mu­ni­ty med­i­cine (Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine and Obstet­rics).

Sex is a large part of holis­tic human health, says the 52-year-old, but very few are will­ing to even acknowl­edge it. Dack­er is though, and she’s ready to get your atten­tion.

“I’m a loud­mouth,” she says. “I’m not scared to have a con­ver­sa­tion with peo­ple about it.”

The sta­tus quo is not get­ting it done, she says. With­out frank and open dia­logue, the risk of dis­ease and abuse only increase. That’s why talk­ing about sex with her patients is part of her inte­gra­tive care.

This isn’t the first time she’s been out­spo­ken, either. It’s part of her per­son­al­i­ty. Dack­er was a mem­ber of the Cher­ry City Der­by Girls (now Cher­ry City Roller Der­by) from 2009–2011, where she was apt­ly called “Dr. Smack’r.”

And now, cre­at­ing a “sex-pos­i­tive cul­ture” is her mis­sion.

“Even if I just stop one or two peo­ple” from suf­fer­ing, she says, “then I’ve done my job.”

Speak­er: Evelin Dack­er

Name Pro­nounced: “Ev-uh-LEEN”

Favorite Movie: Heat, and also The Shel­ter­ing Sky; dra­mas that pro­voke thought. “I like to go deep with things.”

Favorite Book: The Unbear­able Light­ness of Being, by Milan Kun­dera

Favorite Music: 1980s new wave, alter­na­tive and jazz; also EDM, Bol­ly­wood and Latin danc­ing music.

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.

Kaydee Kreitlow: Sanctuary amidst skyscrapers

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“Sanc­tu­ary is a state of mind,” says Kaydee Kre­it­low from behind a lat­te dur­ing a Sun­day after­noon rush at Archive Cof­fee & Bar.

“But the built envi­ron­ment can either encour­age or dis­cour­age that.”

Amid the bus­tle and noise of bused tables, the 34-year-old Salem res­i­dent and licensed archi­tect recalls a moment dur­ing her trav­els in Europe when she says she found her sanc­tu­ary, at an urban renew­al project in the Nether­lands called Silo­dam.

A for­mer run-down dam and silo in an indus­tri­al area, the site had been repur­posed and restored as for­ward-think­ing liv­ing spaces ris­ing direct­ly above the waters of the Ams­ter­dam har­bor. It was not a typ­i­cal place to find seren­i­ty, she says, but sit­ting alone there on a deck and tak­ing in the sights, some­thing moved her.

“I had this moment of pure joy and hap­pi­ness for being there in this spot,” she says. “There was nobody around, it was just me and the build­ing and the water.”

Knowl­edge of archi­tec­ture can help dis­cov­er sanc­tu­ary in non-tra­di­tion­al places in the built envi­ron­ment, accord­ing to Kre­it­low, and cre­ate it our­selves in our own sur­round­ings.

For Kre­it­low, who grad­u­at­ed from Pratt Insti­tute in 2006, archi­tec­ture has always been a pas­sion. Hav­ing grown up in a geo­des­ic dome in Beaver­ton, she has always had an eye for what’s pos­si­ble with cre­ative lay­out and design, she says. She jokes that when she trav­els, all her pho­tos are of build­ings.

“The way that I look at the world is dif­fer­ent from most peo­ple,” she says. “When I’m in a space, I appre­ci­ate the lay­out of the space, think­ing of how some­thing could have been done dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Accord­ing to Kre­it­low, archi­tec­ture has a unique abil­i­ty to influ­ence our sense of peace.

Dur­ing her trav­els, Kre­it­low spent a few months in Rome where she would wan­der the streets of the ancient city, using a famous Giambat­tista Nol­li engraved map from 1748 as a guide.

“Rome is a city of 500 church­es,” she says. “Almost from any street you’re in, you’re going to see anoth­er church.”

It was a pro­found expe­ri­ence, she says, sens­ing the seren­i­ty radi­at­ing out­ward from the foun­tains and ancient edi­fices.

From the streets of the Eter­nal City to a Salem alley­way, even to a sin­gle bath­room stall, says Kre­it­low, sanc­tu­ary can be made any­where.

“It’s going to be dif­fer­ent for every­one,” she says, but there are a few spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics all sanc­tu­ar­ies pos­sess.“Sanc­tu­ary is a time and a moment where you’re very much in the present.”

“You can get that in any city.”

Speak­er: Kaydee Kre­it­low

Pro­fes­sion: Licensed archi­tect

Pet: How­land, Ger­man Shep­herd / Retriev­er mix

Hob­bies: Draw­ing, sewing, DIY

Favorite Movie: Robin Hood: Men in Tights — “If you’re watch­ing it and you’re not pay­ing atten­tion, you miss some of the humor. I like that.” Also Rata­touille.

Favorite Music: Alter­na­tive, tech­no and ambi­ent music, includ­ing the music of Eman­ci­pa­tor – “I’m the kind of per­son who needs back­ground music all the time. It helps me focus.”

Favorite Book: The Foun­tain­head, by Ayn Rand — “It reminds me to always do my best… I can sep­a­rate the ide­al­ism of Howard Roarke (the book’s pro­tag­o­nist) from the one-per­cent phi­los­o­phy.”

Favorite Meal: The roast­ed Whiskey Riv­er salmon and gar­lic mashed pota­toes at the Best Lit­tle Road­house in Salem

Favorite Drink: The moji­to by Giles at the Hos­tel Tevere in Ver­mont

Get your tickets for TEDxSalem V

TEDxSalem V is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag that takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan. 6, 2018, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Pur­chase tick­ets here. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com.