When rumors circulated that Olympia would install an ice rink on the isthmus once county buildings were demolished, no one could fathom it. But on November 16, a rink opened across from Bayview grocery. It turns out that it’s a temporary, seasonal rink built, installed, equipped and operated by a…
Posts published in “Issue: December 2018”
Quite a lot of Americans seem to be worried about the looming threat of Sharia Law—at least 14 states have adopted statutes that prohibit recourse to “foreign law” as a means to reassure their citizens that Sharia Law will not be allowed to encroach on America’s freedoms. In any case,…
Then the City of Aberdeen decided to make it worse. People experiencing homelessness in Aberdeen have been camping out and living on the banks of the Chehalis River for decades. More and more people have joined the encampment over recent years as they got squeezed out of a dwindling housing market....
The theme for January is "Political work in the context of the midterm election results". The February theme is "Rural life and the urban/rural divide". --
Elections are about power. They are a barometer of relative strength of different social and political forces; and within certain constraints, they can shift that power....
You can’t say ‘hereafter’ without saying ‘here’. The role of faith in our nation’s politics and governance has long been contested, even though the separation between church and state is a founding principle. In practice, the two, religion and governance, have always been intertwined. We might want to explore what that means by asking what we would be doing if we were a “Christian nation.” And then to contrast that with the direction that religion has prescribed for us....
In our secularized and technological society, religion is seen by some as superstitious nonsense, something people made up to explain natural phenomena and conquer their fears of the unknown. By others it is seen as the opiate of the masses, used to subjugate the lower classes with promises of eternal…
“Dig that man with the crazy tan; he’s our Dan from the Irish clan.” Frankie Warner made that up. It was a poster of a big-eared, freckle-faced eighth-grader running for class president. It hung at the back of the classroom in St. Anne’s Parish School in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood.…
Thousand Oaks, California: a city torn apart by wildfire and gunfire. Both are unnatural disasters. “This is the new abnormal,” Gov. Jerry Brown said in November at a press conference, talking about global warming and the three voracious fires that were tearing up his state, one of them—the Camp Fire,…
Last week, hours before the slaughter of 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, CA., our 307th mass shooting this year, the ever-judicious NRA denounced doctors and other health care professionals—those steadfast, often blood-soaked heroes who daily labor to pick up the shattered pieces from NRA-funded carnage…
The first installment of this series appeared in the November Works in Progress... At the end of the summer in 1988, I enrolled along with a carpenter named Gary, in the New School for Union Organizers, a program of the Labor Center at The Evergreen State College. I had been working for Jones & Roberts on a new middle school in Elma and Gary was the local’s Business Agent. There were about 20 of us set for 9 months of evening classes—members of unions, community organizations, and ...
Amazon workers across Europe walk out on black Friday over low wages and ‘inhuman conditions’ Amazon workers across Europe staged a walkout on Black Friday—when retailers offer major deals to holiday season shoppers the day after Thanksgiving—to protest low wages as well as “inhuman conditions” at company warehouses. “It is…
Gentrification, homelessness and the battle for public space -- On August 24, 2018, Olympia Parks, Recreation and Arts Director Paul Simmons made the dramatic and apparently unilateral decision to shutter the Artesian Commons Park. The park is a small, asphalt-covered area featuring tables and a basketball hoop and devoid of green space. It also contains Olympia’s Artesian Well, a natural spring, which remains open....
The Parliament of the World’s Religions is the oldest, largest, most diverse and inclusive global interfaith event. The Parliament was created to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and to foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions to achieve a just, peaceful, and sustainable…
Here in the US, the Oregon-based nonprofit, Our Children’s Trust is suing to force states and the federal government to take action on climate change. In that lawsuit, 21 activists aged 9 to 20 argue that the federal government’s actions violate their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, and the government has violated its obligation to hold certain natural resources in trust for future generations. In Washington State, petitioners aged 12 to 16 years old asked a judge to require the state Department of Ecology to come up with science-based numeric emissions reductions. That case awaits a ruling by King County Superior Court Judge Hollis Hill....
Part 2 Each month’s episode of the TV series “Glen’s Parallax Perspectives” explores issues from fresh perspectives. The November and December 2018 programs deal with how we see the world, and therefore how we govern our society. Specifically, I contrast the nasty worldview that has been dominating the U.S. with…
Darlingtonia, Alba Roja Left Bank Books, 2017 Darlingtonia is a mystery reimagined for the 21st Century. There’s a classic opening with a dead body and a person who doesn’t figure in the story. The main character, Dylan, is a graphic artist in the advertising department of OingoBoingo, a company with…
Rally at the Capitol in defiance of the failure of Ref. 1631 Sat, Dec. 1, 1-3 p.m., Youth sponsors Adventure speaker: Urban Trails Wed, Dec. 5, 5:30-9 p.m., Friends Meeting House Olympia Mountaineers potluck. Bring utensils & a dish to share. Chanukah Street Feeds Dec. 6 and 8 (see Holiday…