Jennifer Harbury spoke out against U.S. torture practices long before the Iraq war. Harbury's husband was tortured and murdered in Guatemala in 1992. Since her husband’s death, Harbury has urged the U.S. to disclose involvement in abuses in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Some defend torture as the only means to access vital information that can save lives. Harbury makes convincing arguments against the use of torture in any circumstances. She spoke November 7th, 2005. University Temple United Methodist Church and University Book Store sponsored the event.

(On radio tonight at 10PM, Audio also available via web.)

Starting this past Monday, the Olympia Library started offering free wireless access:

Timberland Regional Library (TRL) is pleased to offer free wireless Internet access to patrons in 24 TRL libraries in Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston counties. Service began Monday, December 12. Access is available during each library’s regular open hours.

Wireless networking in the library offers patrons numerous benefits:

It allows patrons to bring their own laptop computers to the library where they can access the Internet and the library’s research databases, catalog, and other TRL Web page resources.

Patrons do not need to wait for an available library Internet computer.

It allows the public more computer and Internet access in the library, while saving the library the cost of buying additional computers.

Patrons can use their wireless computers in most areas of the library; they are not restricted to the designated library computer areas.

There is no charge for the service and it is not necessary to schedule time in advance.

This is not only important for us tech nerds who would like to hang out at the libraries more with our computers, but also for people who are interested in building viable Third Places in our community that aren't a Starbucks.

Now all we need to do is to convince them to follow in Palo Alto's footsteps and start loaning out laptops.

I'm reading through the 12/13 statement from the Olympia Local American Postal Workers Union, and this quote really jumps out at me. Best to read it all in context, hopefully the quote also works as is.

I haven't used an actual post office in years, I use a contract station that is near by. Partially because of location but mostly because they are faster. Now I know why.

Another example of the privatization that has occurred with the Postal Service is in window services. The Postal Service has been successful in driving many customers to contract stations to do their mailings by deliberately short staffing the amount of window clerks at the Post Office. In fact, the Postal Service actively advertises for customers to use the contract stations.

With consolidations, the Postal Service plans to essentially break current service commitments to the community, which will provide the opportunity for private business to fix the situation in the future.

What caused all the mysterious piles of churned up earth? I walk through Decatur Woods Park relatively often, today found new mystery piles all over the park. I assume moles are responsible. 

There is so much I do not know about moles. Do they hold to any sort of seasonal patterns? How many holes can one mole produce? Do moles have family groupings? Tribes?

I can tell I've been reading too many murder mysteries lately, because the more I examined the disturbed earth, the more concerned I got that possibly I was about to see something much more disturbing. Fortunately all is well.

Decatur Woods Park (10th and Decatur) is a wonderful park, a paved path loops through the woods,  and a playground/picnic area is set up. The park boasts public art also. One public art piece used to mean "X marks the spot", but part of the X has been broken off, unclear what it means now.

I encourage folks to take a stroll through the park and to let us know if they solve The Mystery of Decatur Woods Park.

Evidently the German government has called in the Iranian diplomat to protest President Ahmadinejad's comments and Chancellor Merkel is calling for the UN to condemn Iran.

Of course, the US and EU are also going to be uneasy with this since Iran so very persistent that they be allowed to go nuclear, ignoring every diplomatic route which has been offered (led by the EU so, as I said before, this isn't the US simply flexing muscle).

I'm sure one reason the West is concerned about these "peaceful" purposes is because the EU has offered to sell Iran enriched uranium, the very product Iran is attempting to create. Iran has rejected this offer.

The word from Israel is that Ariel Sharon has called on Israeli military forces to be ready by the end of March to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

Not very many local dailies do a good job covering local sports. To many gloss over high school teams in favor for more space given to major league teams and major colleges. Give credit to the Olympian for hiring a high school sports writer, and for giving him some pretty good placement in the paper the last couple weeks.

Brian's story this morning on the Tumwater/Aberdeen wrestling match is a good example of quality preps coverage. First, wrestling is very hard to cover in Washington because instead of just one game, there are sometimes over a dozen matches a night all wrapped into one event. Choosing to cover one match, or just a handful, is a tough choice for a reporter.

Second, because most don't follow preps closely, wrestling isn't a high profile sport. Because there aren't many college wrestling programs in the Northwest, there are also very few high profile wrestlers on the high school level. Covering wrestling and covering it well, is a hard choice for a newspaper in a low attention area.