This is a long post.

Over and over, Olympia City Council members have said they’ve received dozens of complaints from people about "pedestrian interference" downtown.

These complaints, at least the ones recorded in phone messages, written correspondence and/or e-mail or other written form, are public records and are disclosable, as are police reports and court records related to "interference".

Since The Olympian is failing in its civic responsibility to report on all sides of this issue by asking the City for specific information pertaining to the need for this ordinance, someone should. It could be one of the readers of this post.

If you choose to file a records request, please remember that these requests are a way of obtaining information to be disseminated to the public, and should not be used to beat individuals over the head in an attempt to change their minds, however tempting that might be. At their best, journalists such as yourselves are public servants who have a special duty to provide information people can use to make well-reasoned decisions.

So, were I to write a request for records pertaining to this issue, it would go something like this. The wording of the request is below, followed by some additional comments. If you are interested in pursuing this, you can take the request to City Hall, or mail or e-mail it to the City’s public records officer. Information on how to file public records requests may be found on the City’s Web site, www.ci.olympia.wa.us

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The only time I ever pick-up a copy of "The Economist" is when I'm flying. It's a great read and it's like they have the people from "Maxim" writing the photo captions and headlines.

For instance, a story on Afghanistan's auxiliary police is titled "There's marijuana in their socks and their feet point the wrong way." Doesn't make sense, right?

[General Nasrullah Zarifi, commander of the main police-training center in Kandahar] says he threw six men off the [police training] course for propagating Taliban ideology, and expelled several more after finding marijuana in their socks. Some recruits rioted after deciding that their beds aligned their feet with Mecca while they slept.

We talked about this when the rioting was taking place of the Mohammad caricature, but I'll never understand the beating Christianity takes for their rituals and beliefs when other religions are rioting over trivial matters such as which direction their feeting are pointing.

So there's a report on Germany and Angel Merkel, their chancellor. I've been needing to respond to a post from Rob Whitlock trying to further explain why military action on behalf of the international community is of little to no benefit to the United States and, in many cases, is carried out for just as dubious reasons as the current conflict in Iraq.

But for right now the reason I'm posting this portion of the article is because of the burden the American military has to carry in order for these international police actions to be executed.

The Economist: "Merkel as a world star" (18 November 2006)

These has seldom been any open talk about military dangers [in Germany]. And only low-risk missions are proposed.

You can guess which country is asked to take on the task of handling the "dirty work" of combat.

Most [Germans] see soldiers as little more than armed development-aid workers, who expend goodwill and good works, but do not get harmed.

Here's Olympia and the Black Hills Capitol Forest from Madison Scenic Park:

Photographs really can't do justice to this amazing view. I encourage you to check it out for yourself!

How Americans Are Living Dangerously

We worry too much about overhyped threats, and ignore the things that really put us at risk.

By JEFFREY KLUGER
Posted Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006

It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren't so many things trying to kill you every day. The problems start even before you're fully awake. There's the fall out of bed that kills 600 Americans each year. There's the early-morning heart attack, which is 40% more common than those that strike later in the day. There's the fatal plunge down the stairs, the bite of sausage that gets lodged in your throat, the tumble on the slippery sidewalk as you leave the house, the high-speed automotive pinball game that is your daily commute.

Other dangers stalk you all day long. Will a cabbie's brakes fail when you're in the crosswalk? Will you have a violent reaction to bad food? And what about the risks you carry with you all your life? The father and grandfather who died of coronaries in their 50s probably passed the same cardiac weakness on to you. The tendency to take chances on the highway that has twice landed you in traffic court could just as easily land you in the morgue.

Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we'd get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong. We agonize over avian flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the U.S., but have to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year. We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn't) in our hamburger and worry far less about the cholesterol that contributes to the heart disease that kills 700,000 of us annually.

Good public policy needs data. Use this thread to record all walking trips in downtown Olympia, including information about any obstructions encountered.

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For any folks interested in joining the Green Party or attending the Retreat/Convention December 1-3 2006 on Whidbey Island please see the links to learn more.

Joining/Membership info

Retreat/Convention Info

Olympia's Local Chapter

Thanks.

~Taryn Gearhart