When I first started blogging here I had never even touched any html and I honestly was intimidated by it. But I really wanted my posts to look right, so I doggedly persisted, and I appreciate Rick's patience during that process. 

Html cheat sheets  were a start, I could figure out some things from them, there are many variations of these online. But I still didn't even really get what I was doing, I did not understand, everything was mystery land for me for quite awhile. Would doing x help format my text or would it blow up the blog? These were my concerns.

Dogged peristence and lots of poking at things got me the next step or two along. What really helped was and is using Firefox as my browser and Xinha Here! as my text editor. Once Xinha Here! is set up, you then can right click where you want to post and choose from the context menu how you want Xinha to appear, I use it as a bottom bar to work from. It helps me set up links, images, font changes, etc. Once I like what I see, I press Apply and all my work plus the raw HTML is pushed back into the destination text box. I may fuss with it a little there, preview, then once I'm done I then publish to OlyBlog.

Lots of new folks have joined in recently, welcome to you all. I've not had time to entirely catch up yet, especially with all the news being made lately in our fair town. Our downtown is practically a war zone of military convoys, protesters, Homeland Security, Coast Guard, police, reporters, and all manner of participants.

One name I do recognize and want to specially welcome is HistoryMike, I first found his blog while doing some initial research on the National Socialist Movement. His blog is about much more than those boys, he covers quite a bit of ground and it is all intriguing stuff. Michael Brooks, a Midwestern "writer who travels between journalism, academic writing, and iconclastic rumination". His blog is worth following. Plus now we can also compare notes about the boys in brownshirts who want to take over Olympia.

Welcome HistoryMike and everyone else new to our local blog.

At 4 o'clock Wednesday teachers from Olympia's public schools marched up Legion from Sylvester Park to the Knox Administration Building, Olympia School District's Headquarters.

There they dropped notes into a ballot box saying they were teachers and supported the ongoing effort to bring a fair working contract to teachers in Olympia.

They are trying to get compensation for all the overtime that they work, the average teacher spends at least two hours of their own time preparing for their classes that they don't get paid for.

They have only had a .5% increase in pay since 2000.

Over 200 teachers and supporters made the walk.

Joahna Vaughn who works at Olympia high said, "I've been in the district twenty years and I can't recall this ever happening."

Deflate!: See Poink! Doink! Plop! Deflate!

Delete: The Big G returns to his office after a short vacation and finds 5 trillion messages on his telephone answering machine. Here's what happened to message #1:
Message: "Please, please, just bail me out this one time and I'll never again ..."
Big G: "Yeah, right ..." (hits the delete button, hence creating the "Delete" sound effect)
(Cranium Frenzy 8 (1995))

Detour!: See Eeee Blunk! Eeeeeeee Rattle! Detour! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Dien Bein Phu!: See Coo Coo! Haiku! Sez You! City Zoo! Dien Bein Phu!

Dig! Dig!: See Snort! Snort! Dig! Dig!

Digest:
See Chew Chomp Digest
See Toss! Scarf! Chomp! Chew! Digest!

My goal is to shine a light on Neo-Nazis, specifically on their ongoing harassment campaign against myself and quite a few other people. The hit page text is archived here thanks to Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, so we don't have to wade through all the images of Hitler. Other names have been added since. We the targets are in about the fourth month of this rather novel experience.

We've been visited by odd phone calls and even odder emails. Because the hate mail I've gotten is not for family viewing, I posted on my other blog the details.

The National Socialist Movement doesn't like our blogs. They don't like our articles. Jim Ramm doesn't like me to use the word "database". They don't like our newspapers. They don't like that we have meetings or where we have meetings. They don't like Viking Fest. They don't like that statue of Lenin in the Fremont Neighborhood of Seattle. They don't like the granite steps of the capitol because it makes it hard to tape good audio. They don't like us, though they haven't met all of us. So........here is the question...........what DO they like?

Click picture for slideshow. (Thanks kid.citizen!)

A man in the passenger seat of a large white pick-up truck rolled down his window and began screaming at us. He was very angry and wasn't really making any sense at all. I was kind of embarrassed for him. T.J. actually responded to him, trying to explain what we where doing and why. The man screamed some more about war being the only way and demanded that we look into his eyes. Finally he rolled his window up and stared at T.J. intently until the light turned green.

All in all, it was nice. No one was hurt, no one's rights where violated while I was there and we got some great responses from the folks driving by. My biggest hope coming out of it is that next time 60 people show up.

Join us to assure that there is justice for the people of Central America, the people of San Salvador de Atenco and the people of Mexico! President Vicente Fox will be appearing as a guest of Governor Gregoire. Vicente Fox is not welcome in the Northwest. We want to point out three very important issues why he is considered a person non-grata:

1. We understand that Fox is traveling to Seattle to talk about the issue of immigration. Fox's very aggressive application of US immigration policies to border control in Mexico has caused the abuse and mistreatment of thousands of workers in the southern border region of Mexico. (see http://www.worldpress.org/0901feature22.htm)

2. The atrocities committed by police against the people of San Salvador de Atenco this month were vicious. Two children were killed as a result of the brutal repression by the government forces against the people of Atenco. (Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Uprising_in_San_Salvador_Atenco)

3. The Mexican populace has been plunged into the worst economic crisis in years under the Fox administration, driving millions of Mexicanos to seek employment and a better life in the United States. Although there have been large investments by US companies under NAFTA, the people of Mexico are not benefiting from the "riches being made from trade". (please see http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/ffd/2003/0322mexico.htm)

Viva Mexico! Abajo con el Mal Gobierno!

TONIGHT, May 24th, 7pm,

SemII B1105

for more info please go to

http://www.counterpunch.org/events.html