The future is the past in disguise, but it is also constructed from our hopes, wishes, and actions in the present. In other words, as this month’s WIP theme suggests, the future is something we create....
Posts published in “Issue: September 2019”
“You can’t be an environmentalist and consume animal products, period. Kid yourself if you want. If you want to feed your addiction, so be it, but don’t call yourself an environmentalist.” I was born in 1957, and I grew up on the Standard American Diet (SAD). My diet was characterized…
Olympia is fortunate to have long-time institutions that have for many years served the progressive needs of this community. Three of these are The Evergreen State College (TESC), Traditions Cafe and World Folk Art, and the Olympia Food Co-op (OFC). TESC continues to give us graduates who infuse creative liveliness…
Trying for another bite of the apple. Last month, WIP reported that the lawyer for the City of Olympia was asking the Growth Management Board to “reconsider” its rejection of the new “Missing Middle” ordinance. The GMHB denied the request, chiding the lawyer for trying to get “a second bite…
Green Cove Watershed could be the most cherished stream in South Puget Sound. Olympia offers art shows to promote “the importance of salmon to our community.” The Evergreen State College cultivates “creative, critical thinkers … for environmental work and leadership.” However, if I want to understand stewardship, I listen to…
It’s been 42 years since my husband and I fell in love while starting the first recycling center in the small town of Colville. People liked to do their part and brought us their stuff — from native born “rednecks” or the back to the land “hippies” who recently moved…
The political reality in which we reside is government of, for and by special interests. Today, the essence of government is that of a support system for a corporate welfare capitalism. At the federal level in Washington DC, we see that corporate lobbyists have become the regulators of their client…
In Thurston County we are experiencing what happens when market forces drive up the price of housing, leaving most people of ordinary means, as well as those one might think impoverished in the dust. We see people living on the street. We see grown–up children who can’t afford to buy…
The Seattle area is home to the world’s two richest people, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. And, as noted by a real estate pro, Seattle has a track record of being one of the best long term real estate investments in the nation. Under the influence of a tech boom…
South Thurston County is in danger of being transformed into a slightly smaller version of the Port of Tacoma (POT, Port). The Port is proposing to sell 745 acres of prairie habitat it owns near Maytown to an industrial developer. The developer’s plan is to construct an enormous logistics center (with as much as 6 million square feet of warehousing) where trucks and trains will swap cargo. Continuous operation will mean traffic, noise and light for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Listen to Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas: “The corporation—a creature of ecclesiastical law — is an acceptable adversary, and large fortunes ride on its cases. The ordinary corporation is a “person” for purposes of the adjudicatory processes, So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries,…
Racism. White supremacy. White nationalism. So many people are involved in conversations about whether or not President Trump can accurately be called a white supremacist that ABC news saw fit to publish an article providing essential definitions. In her August 19, 2019 article entitled “White supremacy and white nationalism have…
When Greta Thunberg’s UN speech first hit social media, her fiery words and powerful rhetoric gave me chills and a wave of inspiration. Afterwards, it didn’t take long for the climate justice movement to pick up speed and make its way to the US. When the Youth Climate strike took…
“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course,” said The Union of Concerned Scientists in their Warning to Humanity issued in 1992. Last October, thousands gathered to peacefully occupy five major bridges over the Thames in London. “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for,” activists chanted, superglued…
In 1787 Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention when a woman asked him what kind of government they had created. Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” .To protect us from tyranny, the nation’s founders created a Constitution with checks and…
This article asks you to imagine a place where elections are so different from what we experience in the US today that it’s almost unthinkable. Imagine election campaigns where candidates try not just to distinguish themselves, but also go out of their way to identify areas of agreement and points…
“There is no public education without a treasure and an educator like Toni Morrison, who gave life to Black consciousness through her words and her influence on generations of writers....
There are more jails and prisons —over 5,000—in the United States than degree-granting colleges and universities. State and local spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of funding for public education for preschool through grade 12 education in the last three decades,according to a report by the US Department of Education.
“Imagine tree-lined streets enhancing the beauty of your Olympia neighborhood,” read the flyer from the City of Olympia. That was 16 years ago. Since then our SW Olympia neighborhood is on its way to becoming one of the loveliest and most walkable parts of the city. Pacific Sunset maples joined…
Dear WiP, Did the mountain bikers build trails in Kaiser Woods illegally? They certainly do everywhere else in the world that has been infected by that extreme sport. Will the park remain attractive to people and wildlife after being turned into a race track? I doubt it! Will hikers and…
Olympia native Teresa Mosqueda was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2017 with a background as a labor advocate and all-around Pacific Northwesterner. This July Teresa was awarded the Progressive Champion of the Year honor by Local Progress, a national network of elected officials across the country. The award…
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain is one of the world’s most extraordinary intact wilderness and wildlife areas by any measure of ecological value or wilderness character. These internationally unique wild natural values have been officially documented and reported through decades of detailed studies and reported by those of…
Part of the work of the present is to prepare for a viable future—and so the Friends of Grays Harbor (FOGH) are passing on a task that has long occupied them—the fight to preserve the waters around Grays Harbor. In 2017 FOGH was the recipient of a Supplemental Environmental Project…
Climate Strike...Electric Vehicle Events... Plant a Tree... Walk for the Salish Sea... Native Plant Nursery... Harvest Party... Grant Writing... GRub Soiree... Detention Lottery live drama... Community Solar... Zine-making and Tabling Training... Jacobin Reading Group.... More