News Briefs

Globe Festival

The Widish Community Theater in Springfield will host the Round The Globe Film and Music Festival on Sunday, June 23rd at 2 p.m. The festival highlights the winners in short films, music videos, and original songs that address resilience, sustainability, and other areas of human interest. Submissions are received from all around the world and are represented in this exciting international event. Organizers say the artists of Round The Globe have an expressed intention to appreciate cultural differences and to respect shared humanity that mindfully unites us.

The Widish Community Theater is located at 630 Main Street. (541) 868-0689 [email protected]

Leave them alone

It’s calf and fawn season – keep your distance from elk and deer Oregon’s deer and elk give birth from May through July. It’s natural for mother animals to leave their young alone and hidden for extended periods while they go off to feed, so never assume a young animal is orphaned when you see it alone. The mother will return when it’s safe to do so—when people, pets, or predators aren’t around.

Fawns are sometimes mistakenly picked up by humans with good intentions, a problem that almost immediately reduces their chances of survival to zero. The doe has put half a year of intense effort into reproducing and will go to great lengths to find her fawn, often searching the area in a grid pattern. Please, leave fawns where they are.

If you encounter deer or elk, especially with young, give them space and enjoy viewing from a distance. If your presence disturbs wildlife, you’re too close.

Deer and elk see dogs as a threat to their young and may act aggressively in response to disturbance from a dog. Keep pets leashed and away from wildlife. Female elk with young calves have injured and killed pets in Oregon and Washington. It is their instinct to protect their young.

Whooping cough

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) isn’t telling states what to do, which means some continue to use humor in their highway safety messages, like New Jersey’s advice against “camping” in the left lane. (New Jersey Department of Transportation)

An FHWA spokesperson, Nancy Singer, said in a statement that “states may develop their traffic safety campaign messages” but they should avoid “messages with obscure meaning, references to popular culture, that are intended to be humorous, or otherwise use non-standard syntax.”

New Jersey is still using humor in its messages: A batch in May included “SLOW DOWN BAD DRIVERS AHEAD.”

Arizona sometimes gets the public involved in picking safety messages with contests. A campaign last fall led to a winning message: “I’M JUST A SIGN ASKING DRIVERS TO USE TURN SIGNALS” — a reference to a line in the 1990 film “Notting Hill” from actor Julia Roberts, whose character in the film says, “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

stateline.org