Video conference with ORSCP delegates in Rafah.

Four Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project delegates have just arrived in Rafah in the Gaza Strip where they are working to build connections between our two communities. On Tuesday, November 29th, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, please join us for an exciting live video conference from Rafah where we will hear from and ask questions of our delegates and also of residents of Rafah. This is a free event open to the public.

WHY NOVEMBER 29th? The United Nations General Assembly in 1977 declared November 29th to be the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" (resolution 32/40 B). It was that day in 1947 that the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)).

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT Help us show our solidarity with our friends in Rafah. We want to fill the room with people wishing them well as they continue to live under a tight military occupation that controls all aspects of life. Many people believe that the occupation of Gaza ended this summer with the pullout of Israel's 8,500 illegal settlers. Gaza remains a prison with closed borders. The Israeli military holds tight control over airspace and port access and all routes in or out of the area. The Israeli government continues to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage systems and the ability of people and goods to enter or leave the area.

Sister city relationships can trump these obstacles. In spite of the billions of U.S. tax dollars that fuel Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, people from Olympia and Rafah continue working together in friendship. You can be a part of this during the November 29 video conference. See you there!

More information here.

From The Olympian:

Near-freezing temperatures have made for several extra-busy nights here at the Devoe House men's shelter off Pacific Avenue on the east side of Olympia.

As residents check in, Kilmoyer greets each with a phrase that brings smiles to their faces: 'Welcome home.'

A school in N.J. has told all its students that if they blog, they will be suspended.

Committee to Protect Bloggers

A question of conscience

Chief Leschi, a Nisqually leader, was exonerated by a Washington Historical Court, 146 some years after he was killed.

The Treaty Trail

This photo says it all, Tony Overman photo of Billy Frank Jr. and Cynthia Iyall, murder conviction of Chief Leschi overturned. (Update: photo link is dead)

I figured this will be a good starting point relating to the recent Second Amendment discussions we have had in recent weeks.

From the Associated Press:

TACOMA — A record store employee said he's being held hostage after gunfire erupted inside a busy shopping mall, leaving at least six people injured.

"We're being held hostage," said Joe Hudson, who answered the phone and identified himself to The Associated Press as an employee at a Sam Goody store inside the Tacoma Mall.

Continued here

The film, budgeted at about $1 million, likely will be sent to film festivals some time next fall, according to Shirley Moyers, the film's producer and Schnack's wife. The couple previously collaborated on a documentary called "Gigantic," about the New York rock band They Might Be Giants. As with their previous film, Moyers said, they hope to be able to show the movie in Aberdeen, Cobain's home town, before it goes to general release.

"I think we'll have a rough cut ready likely in February, and we might make it for the summer festivals," Moyers said. "More likely it will be ready in the fall. On 'Gigantic,' we did a screening for friends and family of They Might Be Giants, but we paid for that ourselves. On this film, we have investors, and sometimes they're a little leery of who they show the film to before it goes to theaters. But it seems only reasonable that we could do a showing here for the community first."

The film has three sections, Schnack said, starting with Cobain's life in Aberdeen, then Nirvana's pre-stardom period in Olympia, then a final section covering Seattle and the band's explosion into international stardom.

Move available here.

Steven Pinker makes a case for just the kind of educational approach that we find at The Evergreen State College:

I would like to see required courses on the major analytic tools of logic, probability, and critical thinking, particularly those that serve as prosthetics for the limitations of everyday human cognition. The pedagogical challenge is to prepare students to apply these tools, since other research suggests that people often don't generalize abstract rules to new domains.

In sum, general education in science should stimulate a worldview grounded in our best understanding of reality, provide a complement to knowledge in other fields, and equip students with factual analytic resources to enhance their effectiveness as individuals and citizens. The best way to attain these goals, I think, is to develop synoptic courses that are organized around content rather than discipline, and ones that explicitly target the limitations of human cognition.