I'm happy to say that the renegade code has been surgically removed from the site, and things should be looking better for you folks running Internet Explorer. Please report any information that is consistant with everything being fixed -- and withhold all information to the contrary.

-OlyBlog

From ChartAttack:

One of Old Time Relijun's biggest cult followings exists in picturesque Walla Walla, Washington, home to 57,000 people and an annual Hot Air Balloon Stampede.

"There were at least 150 kids who came to that show and at least 80 per cent of them were under 18," says OTR front man, Arrington De Dionyso. After playing a house show, indie kids picked up his records, began circulating and playing them on the radio. When he returned this year, he packed the club, whipping the teenage crowd into a frenzy. "They were singing along, requesting songs — all the ecstatic fan behaviour you get at shows. I think there's something about our band that elicits that response. There's something about our music that makes people feel really alive.

His interest in Tuvan throat singing grew from his tendency to make robot noises as a child and as an adult, he went to college for ethnomusicology. There he discovered the art and its roots in shamanism, nature and meditation while studying ethnomusicology, music therapy and butoh dance theatre at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He calls throat-singing another means of physically rendering the soul's voice as a musical instrument. He gives workshops every now and then, casting the potential of the singing voice in particular cultural contexts.

And this from 133th Street

He's [Calvin Johnson] on tour with Old Time Relijun, another K Records Olympia, Washington band. They're a lot of fun. The guitarist and lead singer wore nothing except a pair of boxers. My friend Katy claimed they were boxer-briefs, but I disagree. Whatever you think of their taste in clothing, though, this band is worth checking out. Their K records bio describes their music as "a nearly incomprehensible blend of primitive swamp stomp 'n swagger meets gutsy fucked up free jazz and throat singing punk gospel." That's a pretty accurate description.

I love throat singing. Did anyone else note the passing of Paul Pena last month?

in guatemala my sisters scream
and children are killed by the roadside
their blood makes me deeper.

mother myths of ancient times call me and give
me hope

shining i am myself
and all my sisters too
we are womyn
we bleed bright shining blood of positive force.

we bleed
blood in our hands is not death, but life
semen is a bullet scattering like shrapnel tearing
injury and insult
my sisters flesh quivers in surprise every time.

--Deborah Marcuse

Pretty heavy stuff. For all I know this poem was clipped and affixed to refrigerators in various student dwellings across town. But I'm here to tell you I was a witness to the creation of this work. And the young women who authored this poem were rolling on the floor with laughter. I mean really rolling. On the floor. Laughing so hard they could hardly breathe. "How about, 'their blood makes me deeper?' -- BwaahahahaHAHAHHAHAHA!" And then it would be five minutes before they could start talking again, that's how long it took them to regain the ability to converse. Each line went like that. The fact that the authors were Evergreen veterans tells us something, although I'm not sure what.

BY KATHERINE TAM

OLYMPIA -- A developer that's building a city hall in Redmond has emerged as the favorite for building a new city hall in this town.

One of the other two groups is Team Olympia, lead by the Rants Group. The other group is from Bellevue. The Olympian stated that Team Olympia "has worked on the Tumwater and Lakewood city halls, renovated the Lewis County Courthouse and Annex and constructed office buildings near Olympia Farmers Market". The City will be looking at all of the finalists before making a decision sometime this month, according to the Olympian.

I'd like to know how bringing in an outside developer is going to have an impact on our community. Wouldn't hiring a local group provide more good jobs to Olympians who desperatly need them than hiring an out of town developer? Perhaps the city would save money initially, but if W.R. & Co. were hired, and brought in workers already employed by them, would they spend their paychecks in Olympia? Most likely not, most likely they would go back home at the end of the day and spend their money in their communities. It seems that Team Olympia has experience with this kind of project, which makes me wonder if the Seattle group is the top pick because they're bidding lower. I would like to know more about this.

What do you guys think?

From the Tacoma News Tribune:

SAN FRANCISCO – The company that owns daily newspapers in Olympia and Bellingham – plus a large stake in The Seattle Times – is feeling some takeover pressure.

Knight Ridder Inc.’s largest shareholder wants the nation’s second-biggest newspaper publisher to seek a buyer, contending there are few other options left for a company that has been rapidly losing favor with investors as more advertising shifts to the Internet.

Private Capital Management LP, which owns a 19 percent stake in Knight Ridder, made the demand Tuesday in a letter addressed to the company’s board.

“In light of limited revenue growth across the newspaper industry and the difficulties the company has faced in realizing fair value … for its shareholders, we believe the board should now pursue the competitive sale of the company,

From eMediaWire.com:

In Olympia, Washington, USA, a local group which advocates for kindness, has organized proclamations proclaiming November 13th as World Kindness Day both locally and statewide. They are working together with Heartsparkle Players, playback theatre specialists, in producing an event in their area. In Japan, Nagoya Playback Theater is collaborating with an Osaka-based group – Theater The Fence – for a joint performance produced by the City of Nagoya. There will be four groups performing separately in southern India, three in New Zealand, and two in Hungary. Details on the locations of all performances are available on the group’s website, www.globalplayback.org.

From the Olympian:

Olympia soon could have something in common with Aberdeen, Centralia, Chehalis, Lacey, Tumwater and other towns with a ZIP code between 98501 and 98599 -- a Tacoma postmark. The Olympian - Click Here

That's according to the U.S. Postal Service, which announced Tuesday it would transfer mail cancellation services from the Olympia Processing and Distribution Facility in Tumwater to a similar center in Tacoma, affecting about 10 percent of the 150 workers at the plant.

Jobs won't be lost but transferred to the Tacoma distribution center, according to Ernie Swanson, a spokesman for the Postal Service.

But perhaps an even bigger issue, and certainly more symbolic, is that once the transition is complete -- it's expected to take place between April 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2006 -- the state capital will no longer have its own postmark.