The wind storm ripped through Rochester, leaving some of the fortunate few in the dark for a night (and the rest still waiting for power).

Many residents have been told that it may be two weeks before they are able to have power again, leaving many households (like my own) to take in neighbors. We lack a shelter system or even so much as a motel, so many people who do not have immediate friends/family available to take them in have had to leave town.

Those of us that did have power, didn't have Comcast service available. Since most of the residents that have it go in for a bundled service package, many people were without phones.

Since there are few folks in this fabulous metropolis, it is not surprising that the resident computer addict (me) was the first to report a problem to Comcast.

This is when things got really fun.

My first call to the company involved navigating their menu and then talking to a very nice man who informed me (after asking everything from my name to the last four digits of my social security number) that we'd had a windstorm.

I was glad he could tell me such current news, and even more happy that it was so super secret that access was guarded appropriately.

I told him that we did indeed have a windstorm, and that we also had power but no cable. He went on to ask me if I was sure I had power, as cable wouldn't be available if electricity was not.

Read more:

    It's official. The Poor Peoples Union has voted unanimously in favor of moving forward with the referendum to over turn the pedestrian interference ordinance. The ordinance clearly targets poor and houseless people, puts unfair restrictions on struggling small businesses and violates all of our rights by privatizing public areas.

Here are some things that weren't brought up at the city council meetings but were written into the law:

- The ordinance would give police new powers to shut down ANY form of peaceful protest and give out newer more powerful tickets for simply standing in public space. A person can receive the same amount of jail time for 'pedestrian interference' as for trespassing. This section of the ordinance was worded to include demonstrations.

- According to the language of the ordinance, it appears that business owners will have to pay the city an additional fee to keep dumpsters behind their buildings and any dumpster in an ally way must be removed.

- Notifying business owners of the change in laws must be proactive, meaning the city must, before February 1st, go to every business in the downtown area effected by the ordinance and inform them. This is a logistical nightmare and will carry a heavy cost in city tax dollars.

    The referendum is a process by which a group of people can over turn a law or ordinance by petition. The city then has the option to spend upwards of 10,000 dollars to put it on the ballot, or they can simply drop the issue and rethink their plan. This ordinance is ineffective, costly, partisan and downright hateful.
    Yes there are issues with downtown. That fact is painfully clear, but this is not the way to solve them. This ordinance is a trap, a step towards gentrification and a green light to big developers who want to come into downtown and turn it into a strip mall for people from Lacey. Lacey is not a bad or evil place, but its also not Olympia. If we want to keep our independent businesses, if we want to have the right to demonstrate in our capitol city then we will over turn this ordinance and find a way to fix our problems without hate or prejudice.

bring your friends and food this is a potluck food builds community and helps thee flow of communication. please come so everybody can help change this society for the better.

please come to next weeks meeting. sat 3 p.m. 1009 e. 4th ave.
we are trying to make changes we need everybodys help in this please come next week.

Suzanne Swift Support Meeting
Monday, Dec. 18th
7 pm
The Olympia Center - Room 200
222 Columbia St.

Suzanne Swift needs our support now. She is currently serving a 30 day sentence in the Brig at Bangor near Bremerton, Washington.

After suffering months of severe emotional stress, Swift accepted a plea bargain requiring her to remain in the military until January of 2009. Her rank has been reduced to Private from Specialist, the lowest rank in the Army. Her abusers have not been prosecuted for the crimes of sexual abuse perpetrated against her. She is not receiving adequate mental health care for trauma inflicted upon her after experiencing command rape while serving in Iraq. For more information about Suzanne Swift's case, please visit www.suzanneswift.org.
 
We are having a meeting to organize ways that we can help Private Swift and her family during this difficult time and will be directly addressing how we can help.

Everyone is welcome to form this broad coalition.

For more information contact ammurano@gmail.com or call (360)485-5745.

Agency says its new site still could be in downtown Olympia
Matt Batcheldor/The Olympian

OLYMPIA -- When Pam Toal told the Olympia City Council in October that the United Way of Thurston County was planning to move from its downtown office, some people might have gotten the wrong idea.

The agency is planning to move, but not necessarily out of downtown, said Toal, the agency's executive director.

And the main reason it's moving is to find more space, not just because of aggressive panhandling and sidewalk-blocking downtown.

-It's nice to see the Olympian finally print the whole story-

First off, let me start this by saying that I have lived in a lot of places all over this country (and a couple outside it too).  I have travelled through and to even more places than I have lived. 

Yesterday, we were without power the whole day.  My husband had taken the day off of work so that we could get a tree for Yule (I am 9 months pregnant- so it wasn't a task I could handle on my own).  Since it was to be his only day off for who knows how long, we went & got the tree.  This involved driving through both the Capital Mall & Cooper Point intersections on Black Lake Blvd.  Neither one of them had power.

Despite the lack of power, everything was incredibly civilized.  People treated the missing stoplights like huge 4 way intersections, and everybody got a turn.  Sure, every so often someone would break the cycle, or sneak out behind the person in front of them, but for the most part, politeness prevailed.

Honestly, I was amazed.  It was another sign that Olympia is just the kind of place I want to raise my family.  Could you imagine Manhattan with no stoplights?  Well, they would have to put cops there because the people just wouldn't self organize so well.  How about southern California?  Traffic there is hellacious enough even with traffic signals!

So here's to Olympia, where the people can handle themselves pretty well under stress, and remain mostly civilized in a situation that can bring out the worst in people.