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Breathe

If we worshiped water and air Things like Ohio wouldn’t happen Or Valdez, Chernobyl, Deepwater Horizon There would be no DAPL to protest...

The Parasitoid Port of Olympia

UNCENSORED: The Rev. Dr. John R. Van Eenwyk has retired as a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst in private practice, an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, a clinical instructor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and an Adjunct Professor at Antioch University. He co-founded the International Trauma Treatment Program here in Olympia.

We need to expand young voters’ access to the ballot

PERSPECTIVE: On April 20, Cleta Mitchell, a leading voice in conservative politics said this: Republicans should make it harder for young people to vote. On April 20, Cleta Mitchell, a leading voice in conservative politics said this: Republicans should make it harder for young people to vote. This brazen campaign of youth voter suppression is morally wrong. And it is especially high-stakes in this political moment, when youth turnout has been credited for electing presidents and staving off red waves.

Launching the Columbia Street Food Co-op

In 1977, the brand-new storefront Co-op downtown on Columbia Street was slowly coming together, the result of volunteers building shelves, laying flooring, and setting out food. I had moved out West to find my people—the hippies. The best place to look was near co-ops and collective restaurants that sprouted up wherever hippies had settled.

Dawud Halisi Al-Malik

Dawud Al-Malik’s story, Fifty Years in Prison for Crimes He Didn’t Commit, was told in a two-part interview with Wendy Tanowitz in the July and August 2018 issues of Works In Progress. An excerpt from his memoir is in this issue.

Growing up Black in Jim Crow Texas

An excerpt from a memoir, From the Depths of Darkness, by Dawud Al-Malik, (with James O’Barr), Mud Flat Shorts (mostly Fiction), Mud Flat Press, 2022 ...I was born David Washington Riggins—what I came to think of as my slave name...

People Over Pentagon Act

As politicians wrangled about cutting future spending on existing programs, in exchange for agreeing to raise the limit on US borrowing (“the debt ceiling”) it turns out that defense spending is untouchable. No cuts there, period. The weapons industry has institutionalized the permanent war economy...

Community Spotlight — Summer 2023

Arbutus Open Mics ♦ Juneteenth ♦ Olympia Zine Fest ♦ Young Producers at TCTV ♦ Lacey Youth Council ♦ Juice Box Theater ♦ Community Volleyball ♦ Ranked Choice Voting

Then this happened — Summer 2023

City officials blamed ill-informed voters. ♦ The US Navy deployed new low-yield warheads. ♦ Habitat for Humanity paid the city $1.00 for property. ♦ The state will for the first time set aside public timber acreage for carbon sequestering

Community Spotlight — Spring 2023

Download as PDF Krystal Two Bulls, Women’s Day Speaker. March 8, 11-12:30 on zoom.  Krystal Two Bulls is an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne water protector who is co-executive director of Honor the Earth (with Winona LaDuke). Two Bulls has opposed coal mining at Northern Cheyenne and an oil pipeline…

About the Cover — Spring 2023

The theme of this issue came from a line in a Robert Frost poem: “Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out…” When our cover illustrator Aicha El Beloui read that line, she thought about a Tetris: “It is one…

Worker ownership and empowerment in the home healthcare industry

The need for in-home care is growing rapidly. While the field of in-home care is known for low wages, cooperatives provide an alternative. Recently WIP’s Matt Crichton talked with Nora Edge, founder and past executive director of Capital Homecare cooperative, and CHC current executive director Paulette La Douceur.

When an employer steals your wages

If someone steals money from their employer, they could be guilty of a serious crime. But what if an employer takes money from their employee’s paychecks? Employers steal billions of dollars from their employees each year by working them off the clock, by failing to pay the minimum wage, or…

Walling in and walling out

In his book Myth and Reality, the late scholar of religion Mircea Eliade suggests that, contrary to the popular understanding of myth as a fiction, in early religious practice it defined both the constitution and understanding of reality—a line that defines the limits of belief or a wall that defines…

“Uncaged Art” transformative work by children who crossed a border

Uncaged Art is an exhibit of large-scale photographs of art made by adolescents, ages 13-17, from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The exhibit, including educational elements, was organized by members of local cultural and activist organizations. The young artists were detained at the Tornillo Children’s Detention center in El Paso County, Texas, from June 2018 to January 2019.

Thumbs down on more legacy timber sales

Proponents of saving Washington’s few remaining legacy forests testified at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) monthly public hearing wearing yellow caution arm bands. On the auction block were four large parcels of land including legacy forests—defined as forests containing trees over 100 years old.. The community action group showed…

The Heroico Batallón de San Patricio

During the years of 1846-1848, many Irish people were immigrating to the US due to extreme economic hardship and famine in Ireland. This coincided with the US invasion of Mexico, known as the Mexican-American War. Many new Irish-Catholic immigrants joined the US army to earn money and possible citizenship in the war against Mexico.

The Ecosystem Guild—Budswell and Springtime

The Ecosystem Guild is not an institution, it is a community network built of relationships in pursuit of a regenerative bioregional culture. The Guild has been emerging across the Salish Sea and Cascadia for generations. A website was developed by stewards in the estuary cities of Olympia and Tumwater, where…