Works in Progress, or WIP, is transitioning. The workers of the past few years will no longer be with the paper; also, a key philanthropist has died and we must adjust to the loss of his funding. Until other sources of funding can be secured, after this WIP will be an online paper.....
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Since 1996 Traditions Fair Trade has provided a special space for community gatherings, concerts, and justice events in downtown Olympia. The cafe closed in January, but the international fair trade shop is a robust business. Events of all kinds take place many times a week. “We’ve been working with community…
In vain I search for words to wrap around genocide and slip the truth of it inside the human heart....
OPINION: Most people assume that violence solves problems. Actually violence only makes problems worse. We must replace the cycle of violence with fresh nonviolent strategies and actions. Some people think that nonviolence is too weak for the real world. Actually, violence does not work. Nonviolence is the truly practical alternative that really does work....
That sounds like a crazy question! Most people love trees, especially mature ones. Besides being beautiful, trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon and emit oxygen, reduce air pollution, cool houses and neighborhoods in summer, reduce urban heat sinks that cause deaths from cardiovascular disease, retain soil moisture, reduce flooding and…
PERSPECTIVE: The roots of the current conflict did not start in the past week nor was it “unprovoked” as the mainstream media would have us believe. 2023 is the 75th anniversary of the violent creation of the state of Israel. Palestinians and much of the world call this event the “Nakba” or “The Catastrophe.” For 75 years there has been...
Native Art Exhibition, Past, Present and Future, TESC ♦ Native Art Exhibition: Chehalis Baskets, SPSCC ♦ Olympia's History
Is there a market for serious reporting that seeks the truth? You might think the Olympian would be a robust and widely read paper. It covers the state capital, after all...
Ask about the public’s appetite for local news, and journalists naturally reach for a nutritional metaphor. People say they want local news, but plenty of tastier fare vies for their attention online...
The first time I submitted an article to Works in Progress, I was nervous. I had no idea who the editors were, or what the process for reviewing submissions was. Much to my surprise, a very friendly and encouraging person—Sylvia Smith—reached back to me. It turned out that, in contrast to what I was imagining, Works in Progress ran on a shoestring. A shoestring and at least a hundred hours per month of unpaid labor from the managing editor, plus the contributions of writers, artists, poets, photographers, tech savvy students, advertisers, proofreaders, distributors and many many others.
In the Natural Climate Solutions provisions of the WA Climate Commitment Act, Washington legislators for the first time affirmed the carbon storage benefits of lowland forests, acknowledging that Legacy Forests are critical to the health and wellbeing of the broader ecosystem.
READER WRITES: The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is selling off trees to be logged on public land that includes mature (legacy) and old-growth trees. Three parcels with legacy trees in Capitol Forest may be auctioned in the next eight months. For many reasons, the sale of the Juneau, Carrot and Evergreen Gold parcels must not go forward. .
Thelma Jackson will be the keynote speaker for the YWCA 2023 Women of Achievement awards gala. The year 2022 was a very busy year for Dr. Jackson. In February, she published a book titled “Blacks in Thurston County, Washington, 1950-1975: A Community Album.”
“Olympia’s Hidden Histories” is a collection of self-guided multimedia walking tours that make visible the stories of Olympia’s diverse communities, natural ecology, and connections to the world.
For many years, POWER (Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights), an Olympia Welfare Rights non-profit organization has worked tirelessly to educate our community on the struggles and strengths of low-income parents in our community, and to fight the stigma tied to parents on welfare. Monica Peabody, former Executive Director…
Ann Vandeman is in her kitchen on 6th Avenue in Olympia. She is making me dinner and I’m asking her questions about what it was like being involved in the Communist Party here in the 1970s. The actual CPUSA...
Those who “round up for CSF” at the Olympia Food Co-op are “walking the walk.” Generous donations totaling $3600 meant that this Spring, the community provided grants to strengthen the fabric of people, environments, and habitats throughout our Thurston County. 100% of contributions go directly into the fund’s twice-yearly grant cycles.
Peace proponents opposed to nuclear weapons joined forces recently to display a quote from the pope on four billboards in Seattle and Tacoma. The Poulsbo-based Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action joined with an international Catholic group, Pax Christi USA, to pay for a billboard ad, in an effort to reawaken public awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons in the Puget Sound region, said the release. The billboards stayed up for four weeks...
BOOK REVIEW: In his detailed history, subtitled The Great War: A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, Adam Hochschild guides the reader through an extensive examination of the turmoil in American society during the period of the Wilson administration before, during and after World War I.
PERSPECTIVE: The City of Olympia has no code of ethics. But a movement is afoot to urge Olympia’s City Council to establish an Ethics Code and Commission. This will help ensure that our elected officials and government agencies are transparent and act without bias--free of commercial or political interests that can influence them to make decisions that improperly benefit one group over another.
LETTER FROM FRED: I am a proud citizen of our quaint city and a witness to the changes which have come downtown over the twelve years I have resided here. For the most part, we have held our own in the battle of civic pride vs. uncivil behavior, but the spectre of “gentrification” has overtaken those in authority, bringing a new set of problems and solving few of the old ones.
OPINION: Authorities now practice top-down control, often ignoring citizen opinions for Olympia parking, public-safety, etc.
In its 33 years as a print newspaper, WIP has routinely published stories that were overlooked by local papers --- or that failed to offer readers serious truths. Even with unpaid, volunteer contributors, our “citizen reporters” dug into issues and provided our readers with accurate information and critical context. In this article, we’ve printed three stories of consequence from past issues of the paper.
What disturbs us so much about wild places? Is it that they seem to have little concern for our needs? Do they challenge our obsession with mastery and control? Maybe wilderness just terrifies us.
BOOK REVIEW: Hey you guys. Climate change is going to kill us. We are going to fight each other to the death in violent uprisings and wars over water. Of course. But have you considered the role that antifascist Norse warrior ghosts (don’t call them vikings) might play in the world of tomorrow? How about lesbian mermaids? And how are those Free Orcas of Cascadia going to handle it all? Oh, you haven’t considered that? Well Margaret Killjoy has...
Students and student movements have played a major role in struggles for reform and revolution in the United States and around the world. Here are a few examples of student organizing and protest on campus since I came to Evergreen in 1987.
Workers’ wages at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have declined dramatically over the past 50 years. Today temporary workers at GM start at $16.67 and top out at $20, half as much as workers five decades ago.