The diversity of businesses in the Rogue Valley is surprising. Until you realize that the businesses started to serve a particular human want or need. In Pickled Planet's case, it addresses the desire for (need for?) sauerkraut and other fermented foods. Courtland Jennings started the business and visited once before to talk about the products in our food segment. He returns for our entrepreneur/business segment, The Ground Floor, to talk about the business side.

The Internet was supposed to be a powerful force for good and democracy in the world. And it certainly opened up the world in new ways... until it didn't. A few big players rule the Web, Google and Amazon among them. Ramesh Srinivasan, who teaches information studies and design media arts at UCLA, sees a future with further democratization, and a lessening of inequality. He describes the vision in his book Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating

Concerns about offensive place names arise from time to time, mostly because the names persist. Oregon has a long list of places with "squaw" in their names. Netflix star Hasan Minhaj put out a video a few months ago questioning the persistence of racist place names, and renewed the focus. The Oregon Geographic Names Board is an advisory group for the naming of geographic features within the state of Oregon.

In the world of fermenting, Kirsten and Christopher Shockey are rock stars. They were among the headliners at the recent "Live Culture Coast" events on the Southern Oregon Coast. In fact, the culture part was a double (maybe triple) entendre, with an eye on the living culture of fermentation included. The Shockeys return to The Exchange for this month's edition of Savor, our food segment. Food stylist William Smith, our partner, rounds up the first-rate fermenters for a chat.

The mass murder at Columbine High School was hard to experience even from a great distance. It was an issue right in in Sue Klebold's home. Not only did she lose her son, he was one of the two people who planned and carried out the act of carnage. She tells the story of life torn apart and rebuilt in the book A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy .

Anyone who did not already know a few things about the Kurds learned a few more when President Trump withdraw military protection for them. Timothy Dolan of Ashland is very familiar with Kurdistan and its people, having worked as a university teacher there. He has been watching with interest as the states around the stateless Kurds take action.

The heart of the television season, the advent of the holiday movie season, the constant beat of news from Washington... yeah, we can find a few media issues to talk about. And we do, in a specialy monthly segment we call Signals & Noise. Two members of the Communication faculty at Southern Oregon University , usually Andrew Gay and Precious Yamaguchi, join us to talk about a short list of the highs, lows, and headscratchers of our vast and ever-expanding media landscape. This month, Chris

"If you build it, they will come." A great line for a movie ("Field of Dreams"), but not necessarily a good principle in urban planning. Witness the constant building of roads and other infrastructure in American towns, and how they don't necessarily make those towns better places to live. Chuck Marohn, civil engineer and city planner, started and runs a nonprofit called Strong Towns , advocating for the building and nurturing of resilient communities. He lays out the case in his book Strong

The teen years are always tough. Homelessness, family crisis and other social ills can make those years even more challenging. Hearts With A Mission has been providing faith-based family services for a number of years in Jackson and Josephine Counties. The organization is nearing completion of a new youth shelter to give teens in crisis a safe place to go.

They look alike, they live in the same areas, and they have even mated upon occasion. But barred owls and spotted owls do not generally co-exist, and that's a problem for the meeker spotted owl, already present on the federal endangered species list.