When: Friday December 8 @ 6:30 pm

What & Who: new work from

Abe Poultridge

Arthur Crews

Keely Foster

Kejana Carter

Lisa David

Ryan Buck

Jennifer Burlingame

Jacob Wooton

Jesse Moore

Julia Bork

These are the students and instructors of the Jefferson Street Studio, Mariah Art's middle school program.  Come and see amazing work from Olympia's youth and the people who teach them.  (Disclaimer, my son is on the list of exhibitors)

So, Mr. Whitlock was talking with me the other day about going shooting, and he really wants to shoot a tv...not just a tv but a running tv, probably displaying cnn or something. I think what he's going after is Internet media killing off TV media.

Right after the conversation this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnWGWabxkKs

pops into my head. It's good for a laugh if nothing else. So, with that starting us off ( the ability to go and pick out music videos on youtube is amazing ) would anyone like to discuss ideas on furthering independence from the television?

I'd like to start a gun control discussion. We all joke about it. But let's discuss it.  

First, let's talk about the registration and compare it to licensing a person to operate a motor vehicle. Require police sponsered education. Require re-licensing at intervals. Charge big fat taxes and put the same time and energy into developing the course that OPD put into developing the course on teaching officers to handle people with mental illness. I remember all the different involvements in designing that course. Get the same involvements around designing courses in gun use and safety. And test people before we consider letting them have functional guns. Don't just run background checks. Check their psychological status.

I remember getting driver's ed in this state and we had to watch these awful movies of people who had accidents to teach us driving safety. What if gun safety classes included the same kind of movies, and the same kind of training, per caliber. Take a simple little 22 handgun. It is an extremely dangerous weapon for the ricochet alone! And some of these bullets should be flat out illegal. They explode on entry and create wounds that are not repairable. We may need a good hard look at ammunition that is legal and illegal. And why not tax the you know what out of the gun owner privilege? The state needs money. Victims rights programs are woefully underfunded.

We also need to deal with existing gun owners and their rights. We might need a grace period pending reregistration where they are licensed for unloaded weapons. We might need to remove a few firing pins and parts that make a gun function; then return them later. Or give a separate license for the right to own ammunition. It could always be sold at firing ranges and at stations for hunters. Collectors don't need ammunition.

Also what kind of guns do we allow private citizens to have and what is the purpose? Do we really want any private citizen having the right to own an automatic weapon or a semi automatic? One that actually works?

The Kitsap Sun has a long and interesting article on the use of email by city officials. (You have to register to access the article, which is a huge *&^$%! hassle.) The article discusses many of the roadblocks that cities have encountered, and then concludes by referencing the approach that Olympia has adopted:

OLYMPIA’S SOLUTION

Overstreet now is working on guidelines for cities to follow to make sure their electronic records comply with the state Public Records Act. It’s due out in a few months.

Some cities haven’t waited.

About two years ago, at the request of Councilman TJ Johnson, the city of Olympia issued each council member a laptop and city e-mail address. Council members use their laptops solely for city business. At the end of the month, all of the exchanges are collected and put on a CD-ROM.

The reporter from the Olympian newspaper regularly reviews it, and the public has ready access to it. No public-disclosure request is necessary.

The problem with elected officials using personal computers vanished instantly and the system has worked well, Johnson said.

It set the stage for open government in Olympia, Johnson said.

"If they want to see it, they should be able to," he said of the public.

Other cities have done the same.