MSNBC:

The jury said Thursday that Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital would have to buy the 60-year-old brick duplex for $200,000 — it has been appraised at $50,000 to $60,000 — and give the tenant $51,000 to help her move from her home of 26 years.

I'm happy this woman was able to win, especially since her property is only being taken as a day care center for employees. Hardly a case where her property is being seized for public use.

This is why we have to keep eminent domain as narrow and as seldomly used as possible.

I am getting ultra-excited for the Turin Winter Olympics to kick off! Since i am not attending, I've been posting a blog series called SLC Winter Olympics Flashback using some of the hundreds of pics and video clips i assembled during the full month during which i saw 25+ events in 13 days. I cheer for Team Canada but saw many teams and a variety of events. If you are an Winter Olympic enthusiast, check it out!

Gabrielle Roth, creator of the 5 Rhythms Movement Medtitation practice is coming to Olympia. She will teach a movement meditation workshop -- Slow Dancing With Chaos -- with Jonathan Horan.

The sharp-witted, insightful, self-proclaimed Shaman is an author, musician, actress and director. She wrote the best selling Sweat Your Prayers .

The workshop will be May 26-28.
Friday 2-7 pm
Saturday 2-7 pm
Sunday 1-5 pm.

Jonathan Horan offers Riding the Wave Fearlesly on Thursday May 25 from 7-10.

Register with Waves Studio, 705-9100,
info@waves-studio.com
or online at: www.waves-studio.com

Monthly Drum Jamms
at the Eagles Underground
3rd Tuesday of the month
7 to 10pm

3 hours of continuous dynamic drumming Bring your drum, percussive toys and endurance Or just bring your bodies and dance

All ages welcome in this smoke and alcohol free venue All levels will benefit from the experience Fade in and out at your leisure Don't forget your water

Any questions, please email Robin Toye offline at robintoye@hotmail.com -- see you all there Tuesday, Feb 21st!! (mark your calendar for March 21st as well!)

From International Herald Tribune:

At 40, Spiotta is a generation away from the fugitive radicals of the early '70s. She grew up in many different places, she said. Her father, Robert, an oil company executive, often had to relocate because of his work. He eventually became president of Francis Ford Coppola's studio, American Zoetrope.

Spiotta came east to go to Columbia University. But during a difficult period in her sophomore year, when her parents were divorcing, she dropped out and returned to the West Coast, to Washington State.

She began participating in political protests, including a demonstration against U.S. involvement in Central America, an experience she called "very empowering." She supported herself by waiting tables in restaurants.

In 1992 she graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a center of counterculture activity, and moved to New York. She kept on waitressing and also got a job as co-managing editor for The Quarterly, a literary magazine.

From The Seattle PI:

The reprinting of the cartoons in Europe was done with "intentional hatred" toward Muslims, said former Army Muslim chaplain James Yee of Olympia. He was imprisoned for 76 days as part of a government espionage investigation and ultimately exonerated a year ago.

Many of the rioters are "so disenfranchised," he said, that for them, "what good does it do to respond by legitimate means?"

From the Tacoma News Tribune:

Rapper Kool Keith is bringing a full 100-piece marching band to his two local stops, Sunday at Neumo's in Seattle and Wednesday at Olympia's Bar Code. He also plans to throw pies and condoms into the audience. Maybe he'll auction the jacket off his back while he's at it.

Hearing those sorts of outlandish declarations from just about any other artist, I'd assume he was joking. But not Kool Keith, one of the most eccentric, and maybe demented, minds in hip-hop -- a guy who actually has been known to toss weird party favors into the crowd. (Granted, he's favored fried chicken and triple-X movies in the past, not pies.) So I held off on the grain of salt.