Audio Blog: Jack Hirschman, poet laureate of San Francisco, reads his work at The Evergreen State College. His reading challenges his audience to awaken to the injustices around them, but also to the possibilities of a new kind of society. Link.

Audio Blog: Four interviews with activists at a rally outside the North West Detention Center in Tacoma, WA, which holds immigrants (esp. Arab and Muslim) whose status is under review. Protestors then march to the North West Security Forum. Link.

Down the road from the Bangor submarine base are green privately owned farms and dirt turn offs that lead to homes set back in the trees. Should one of the 240 warheads stored at the base ever go off, due to accident or attack, the entire area will cease to exist, its very dirt and grass disappeared into a cloud.

Performing an act of civil disobedience to protest the weapons, 13 protesters were arrested at the base a little after five this morning.

I arrived in Bangor yesterday around one thirty. A Mothers Day action organized by Ground Zero was going on a few hundred yards from the base.

Since its foundation in 1977 Ground Zero has been opposing the nuclear missile base in Bangor.

Activists had climbed down a hill from the highway above and were lining the road leading to the base. There were two Buddhist monks in orange ropes. People were banging on drums and chanting. There were a few children and a number of dogs.

As I got out of my car a man in a neon yellow vest came up and said his name was Mack. Mack told me he was responsible for making sure everybody kept to the side because cars came down the road towards the base fast and they didn't want anybody to get hurt.

I asked him if he planned to get arrested the next morning.

No, he said. He was a teacher and had to go to work.

I asked if he'd ever been arrested protesting at the base.

Proudly, he told me he had.

I asked him about the reactions from the people driving into the base.

"Mostly they ignore use," he said. "Sometimes they give us the one finger salute. You know…"

He raised his middle finger.

A large man with a mustache came down the hill on the other side of the road. He started taking photos of the protesters.

"Whose that?" One of the protesters asked.

May 17th, Wed. First Christian Church, 7 PM

Agenda:

1) July 2nd event planning

2) "Not in Our Town" 7 pm Wednesday, May 24th at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, sponsored by Unity, the City of Olympia and the Olympia School District Diversity Watch.

3) Poster & Sticker Distribution  Lots more to distribute, (how about a sticker for your car?) contact posters@olympiaunityinthecommunity.org

4) Unity in the Community Names Ad in the Olympian: gathering names and contributions for an ad in the Olympian to be run close to the date of the anticipated July 3rd Nazi rally.

5) June Call to Celebrate Diversity events including Stonewall Youth Theater project, youth concerts, OMJP Festival of Freedom, Pride Day, launch of Study Circles on Race and much more!

For more information please contact us at info@olympiaunityinthecommunity.org

Olympia CISPES Delegation Report Back on the political, social economic, and anti-repression struggles in El Salvador

LA LUCHA CONTINUA!

Nine Olympia-CISPES members recently returned from a delegation to El Salvador to meet with groups involved in the struggle for social and economic justice and to observe the recent elections.

We would like to share our experiences with the community!

Join us to get a first hand report about the current struggle in El Salvador against globalization and US dominance in the region.

Free to the public. Please inform others also.

Featuring...

JOSEPH HATCHER, Iraq War veteran

DANIEL TSAHOR, Israeli refusenik

JOE HATCHER served in the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq from February 2004 until March 2005. During this time, he and his fellow soldiers set up the anti-war blog, Fight To Survive (http://ftssoldier.blogspot.com), to convey their experiences in Iraq and their opposition to their roles as soldiers. Joe is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

DAN TSAHOR is a former Israeli soldier in the "Nahal" infantry regiment. He was imprisoned in 2003 for refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Dan has been active in the Israeli refuser movement through Courage to Refuse, as well as Combatants for Peace (http://www.combatantsforpeace.org), a new organization of former Israeli and Palestinian combatants who have joined together to work nonviolently against Israel's military occupation.

********
You can view an excellent BBC documentary (22 minutes) about an anti-war march led by Iraq war veterans from Alabama to New Orleans. Joe Hatcher participated in the march and is interviewed in the film:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12552.htm

And here is an article on the joint Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace, a group which only recently went public:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0406/p13s02-wome.html

Anarchist Movie Night! Mondays at Media Island 9 PM
Its about time Olympia has our own anarchist social gathering! Anarchist Movie Night (aka Anarchists After Hours) will be at Media Island, 816 Adams St. Monday nights at 9 PM. Bring your own movies and anything else you would like to share. Anarchist Movie Night is an informal social event in a comfortable, loungy atmosphere where you do not have to spend money to have a good time!

The first Anarchist Movie Night is Monday, May 15 at 9 PM!

From TheNewsTribune.com:

If you have a conversation about public business in cyberspace, it might be considered a meeting. And firing off a quick note could be a violation of the state Open Public Meetings Act.

An official from the state Attorney General’s Office says recent e-mail traffic between Lakewood City Council members appeared to cross the line.

It happened earlier this month when Lakewood Councilman Ron Cronk sent an e-mail to City Manager Andrew Neiditz and the other six council members with a question about the loss of parking spaces at City Hall.

The city manager responded to Cronk and included the rest of the council. Councilman Pad Finnigan responded and copied in the rest of the council.

Neiditz then cautioned Finnigan:

“You need to be more careful, Pad, in not responding ‘to all’ in your e-mails, because it could quickly become a violation of open meeting rules,” Neiditz said in an e-mail sent only to Finnigan, which Neiditz later provided to The News Tribune.

[...]

three Lakewood council members said the e-mail discussion should have taken place in public.

“This is a meeting,” said Councilwoman Helen McGovern. “We’ve been told this is wrong.”

Councilmen Neary and Doug Richardson agreed, though neither believes the mistake was intentional. Neary said it was driven by council members’ desire to get information for constituents, a good trait.

[...]

The City of Olympia archives all council e-mails and makes them available to the public, said spokeswoman Cathie Butler.

“This is an issue cities all over the state are grappling with,” Neiditz said, “because open public meetings laws were written long before e-mail was around.”