I drive a 1996 Oldsmobile Ciera (Series II). It was a "Program Car," meaning a rental, before I bought it in 1997 or 1998 from the now defunct Hulbert group that was on Plum St. At the time there were only 34000 miles on the odometer. Today it has 168450 miles tallied up.

This car has been rear-ended twice, but held up well since it was hit by little econobox vehicles (you should've seen the other guy). It has a cassette, not a CD, player. When I open the front doors, the interior lights do not work. They do in the back, but not up front. The driver's window will electronically go down, but only go up an inch at a time with five minute intervals. The cheap plastic little cup holder has long since vanished. Recently, fine wisps of foul burnt plastic smelling smoke have gracefully risen from the steering column, and this probably explains why the turn signals work at random. The front brakes need replacing since the whole car starts shaking violently when I tap them at 60 mph. The Elma Les Schwab guys lost my left front hub cap, which makes the car look really classy, but I have a replacement on the way courtesy of eBay. So where did my old hub cap go? (Esoteric reference= Rubin Farr's headgear? Points for who recognizes this reference, V-Ster and Rick excluded). Oh, yeah, the automatic gear shift lever occasionally falls off. It will no longer shift into any gear below "drive." The "Service Engine Soon" dashboard light has been more or less permanently on for a few years.

From The Billings Gazette.com [via olyunity]:

Montana's history is full of examples of racist and anti-government bullies trying to run roughshod over communities. In the early 1990s, a group of neo-Nazi skinheads terrorized Billings' Jewish community. It began with cemetery vandalism and escalated to a brick being thrown through the front window of a Jewish family's home. In the mid-1990s, the Montana Freemen formed their own illegal courts and issued death warrants for criminal justice employees in Eastern Montana. In 2001, David Burgert and Project 7, a militia group, compiled hit lists containing personal information about criminal justice employees and their families in the Flathead area. Beginning in 2004, Kevin McGuire, a racist recruiter in Bozeman, posted false and misleading propaganda about local citizens on racist Web sites before running for the local school board.

Not in our state

The logical question to ask in all of these cases is: What happened? With the Montana Freemen and Project 7, group activists were arrested and sentenced to prison. In Bozeman, Kevin McGuire remains on the streets. However, thanks to the network and its Bozeman affiliate, the people of Bozeman have a clear picture of who McGuire is and what he represents. The community of Billings came together and opposed the neo-Nazi skinheads in the "Not in Our Town" campaign, which has been replicated in cities across the nation. The citizens of Billings emphatically stated that racist and anti-Semitic beliefs did not represent their values. They stood up to the neo-Nazi bullies together.

Nazis don't go away if you ignore them, they run for elected office.

From The Tacoma News Tribune:

The SeaDoc Society is sponsoring free Pacific Northwest fish and invertebrate identification classes in Olympia on April 29. These classes will be of interest to divers and others who are interested in marine ecosystems.

Janna Nichols, of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, is the instructor. The classes, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., will be held at The Evergreen State College 2700 Evergreen Parkway N.W., Olympia, in the Seminar II Building, Room E1107.

From Tesc Library:

This is a listing of coloring books published by Federal government agencies..a great way for kids to learn about the world around them through color.

Film Benefit for The Nica Greentruck Project: Support Nicaraguan farmers’ real struggle in the face of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Sunday, April 16th: The Nicaraguan Documentary on CAFTA: El Tigre Suelto & El Burro Amarrado, The Tiger on the Loose & The Tied-up Donkey
Show starts: 7:30 PM
Q&A and teach-in after the film.
Capitol Theater in downtown Olympia. (206 E. 5th Ave. SE, Olympia, WA, 98501)

Admission Price: Anticipated $4.50 OFS members/ $7 general (benefit event). Additional donations for Nica Greentruck Project graciously accepted (all donations are tax deductible; all proceeds benefit NGP, a project of SPEECH, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. ) (Please make checks out/mail to NGP c/o SPEECH, 209 E. 4th Ave., Olympia WA 98501)

The Nica Greentruck Project (NGP) is an international solidarity effort between Evergreen students and Nicaraguan farmers cooperating to combat poverty and build local food economies in Nicaragua, by creating a farmer-to-farmer, person to person exchange of information and technology on renewable energy (biofuels) transportation.

The Benefit for NGP will include:
* The Nicaraguan film "El Tigre Suelto y El Burro Amarrado" (The Tiger on the Loose & The Tied-up Donkey), a documentary about CAFTA and its reality for small farmers. The title is a metaphor for U.S. neoliberal trade policy (the tiger on the loose) attacking the common Latino farmer (the tied-up donkey). Spanish with English subtitles. One hour running time.
*A community teach-in, including Q&A, will follow the film.

All are invited to attend an event in the Longhouse at The Evergreen State College this Friday, April 7.

We will begin the evening with a performance by local Skokomish singers and drummers. The night’s feature is a one-woman show written and performed by Diane Benson, a Tlingit woman hailing from Southeast Alaska.
***THE EVENT IS FREE OF CHARGE.***

An acclaimed poet, playwright and actress, Diane has performed "Voicing Tribal Women" locally in Alaska as well as nationally, including this past month at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. This piece features "When My Spirit Raised Its Hands," a true tale of Native Civil Rights in the 1940s through the lens of Elizabeth Peratrovich, a Tlingit forerunner of Native women taking a stand against oppression. Diane portrays other characters with a quick wit, along with an underlying message that gives voice to the Native woman’s perspective in the crazy world we live in today.

Please join us in the Longhouse at Evergreen from 6pm-9pm and help us out by spreading the word! Do not hesitate to email us back with any questions or just give us a ring at 360.867.6105.

Gunalscheech
("Thank you" in Tlingit),

Cary Jensen Turkon
Native Student Alliance