And this caiman don't need no daddy, 'cause he answers only to the Caiman Master himself.

Oh, yeah. The Caiman Master has trained me well, and I'm ready to rock your nutria-infested world. You thought nazis were repugnant. Well, ha! You ain't seen nothing yet!

Most everyone I know has a sunburn right now. I've been feeling all virtuous and special because I myself was not burnt, but today, all that is behind me, because I unwisely wandered around in the sun without sun screen. Now I too am feeling the burn.

Aloe vera works for many folks, I've had an allergic reaction to the bottled stuff, plant works fine for me, though I don't currently have one. Fortunately I don't think the light sun burn I got is all that bad. But it is enough to encourage me to look up the facts on sunburn treatment, of course the best thing to do is to stay out of the sun and prevent all this to begin with:

• In cases of sunburn, cover the exposed skin and get out of the sun.
• Treat heat exhaustion or heat stroke appropriately.
• Cool showers may decrease skin pain. Do not apply ice, as this can cause further skin damage. Also, acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen may be used for pain.
• Topical lotions to keep the skin moist can reduce pain and reduce dehydration . (The normal barrier to water loss through the skin may be disrupted.) Aloe plants are a good source of soothing salve and can decrease the pain from the burn significantly.
• Drink plenty of fluids (several liters per day), especially in cases of large areas of burn (entire trunk or legs, for example). Water loss across larger burns can be significant.

I took my daughter to the Thurston Animal Services this morning so she could submit a volunteer application. The shelter is clean and today was well staffed.  There were a lot of baby kitties, and some beautiful dogs.  But anyways I digressed from the point of my post.

From the volunteer handbook, on the section entitled Foster Care Exotics I discovered the following:

Program Description: On occasion the shelter receives "exotic" animals which may not be able to find proper housing here at the shelter. Most commonly these include iguanas, boas, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs, caiman, birds and ferrets.

I kid you not. I'm glad our shelter is responsive to our community's current issues. The caiman problem deserves this level of attention. And thank you courageous volunteers who risk life and limb to help keep our community safe.  Stevenl this might be another ripe volunteer opportunity for you.

The parks department is holding a meeting on Monday the 24th from 6 to 8 pm in rooms 101 and 102, at the Olympia Center on Columbia in downtown Oly.
This is an exciting development for discgolf in the south sound, which is one of the fastest growing sports in America.  There is long history with disc golf in this area begining with the opening of Stelicom Disc golf course in 1984.   Since then courses ahve opened in Lakewood, Bremerton, Seattle, Seatac, and  Auburn to name a few.  A new course is being planned for the Dupont development. OLY/LA/TW has a least 100 regular discgolfers who travel to Steli and other courses 2 to 5 times a week.   A course here would be assured of a core following quickly.  A course would provide a wonderful mixed use for one of our parcels of acerage in the city.   Dog walking, baby/ kid walking, picnics, biking and low impact hiking can all be accomplised with aplomb in the friendly and safe enviorment of a disc golf course.   The low start up and upkeep costs of a course make this a very effective way to put our limited park funds to use.  Show your support for the sport of disc golf in the Oly/LA/TW area by posting your name, address and the reason for your support to olyblog.net and show up for the meeting on Monday.  Contact the parks departmant through Terry Rogers @753-8061 with any questions about this matter.   Stay alert for more updates on discgolf in the OLY/LA/TW area.

For Immediate Release:
Contact: Josh Elliott (847) 732-1723

gnuewegruve2@hotmail.com
Larry Mosqueda (360) 280-6198

Local Peace Group to Host a Panel Discussion about US/Iran Relations

Olympia, WA– Wednesday, July 19th the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (OMJP) will be hosting a forum entitled The US Crisis with Iran. The event, which is open and free to the public, will be held at First Christian Church at 7th and Franklin in Downtown Olympia, beginning at 7 p.m. and lasting until about 9 p.m.

The panel will include a presentation by Professor Mark Jensen from Pacific Lutheran University of a historical survey of Iran, with particular emphasis on relations with the United States. Professor Char Simons of The Evergreen State College, who has recently visited Iran as a member of a delegation traveling with local peace and justice group the Fellowship of Reconciliation, will provide a testimonial of her experience along with photos from the delegation.

This will be followed by a an open discussion, facilitated by Professor Larry Mosqueda of The Evergreen State College, where the panelists will field questions and comments as well as having an open discussion among the attendees.

Iran has been identified by President Bush as a member of the "axis of evil" and as a critical battlefield in the global "war on terror." It has long been a focal point of U.S. geostrategic policy, being located in a region of vital significance to US ‘interests’ and because of vast oil reserves. Currently Iran has been receiving increased attention within policy circles, presumably due to their attempt at developing a domestic nuclear enrichment program.

As a result, OMJP feels it is crucial to engage the community about the possibility of future military assaults taken by the United States. We seek to find peaceful solutions to international affairs.

We are anticipating a productive evening of historical and political exploration, hoping to increase community awareness and knowledge about the Middle East, specifically Iran. This event is designed with the intent of providing attendees with the tools to participate in sustaining a vibrant peace movement that clearly conveys that foreign matters must be resolved peacefully and diplomatically, with attention to securing economic, social, and racial justice.

I'm half way through the book Fear less: real truth about risk, safety, and security in a time of terrorism by Gavin De Becker and I quite appreciate it.

Lots of good stuff in here, including this bit on page  51:

1. When you feel fear or any intuitive signal, listen.
2. When you don't feel fear, don't manufacture it.
3. If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why.
   

This week in the Olympia City council packet, the city staff outlines what options are ahead for the Chmabers Lake area, and what we can expect as the city prepares for a public hearing on large scale retailers (read Big Box (read Wal-Mart)).

This is a weekly review of the city council packet that I typically do over at Better South Sound, but that website isn't working, neither is its host Bluehost... so I'm confused and will do my review here. If you think you missed something in my review, go ahead and download the packet here.

1. I haven't heard anything about this until today, but the public hearing on Olympia Big Box rules will be Tuesday night.

The Big Box stores moritorium has been in effect since February of 2005, and since then the city has been working on a long term response broader than "you can't build those here." That may very well end up being the response, but the city is going to make it official by holding a public hearing and finding out what the rest of us think.

Here is a bit on the draft regulations the city is thinking about:

The proposed draft regulations would add an additional level of requirements for “Very Large Scale” retail facilities. The Planning Commission proposes that the threshold for these added standards would vary by zoning district, since large buildings would impact some commercial areas more than others. For the very largest of facilities, the review process would change from a mostly staff-level “permitted use” review, to a public hearing process for a “conditional use” review. (All commercial buildings of over 5,000 square feet will continue to go through Design Review as well, which involves a public hearing by the Design Review Board.)

The proposed draft regulations would require very large scale retail facilities to be designed to accommodate remodeling for multiple smaller tenants. The size of the modules for potential smaller tenants would vary depending on the zoning district.

Before Jim Lynch gave his recent public reading of The Highest Tide, it was noted that he recently sold the movie rights to Fisher Stevens, a partner in GreeneStreet Films.

Most recently GreeneStreet is noted for bringing to the big screen "A Prarie Home Companion," so on first blush it seems like a fitting sale. That the uber-Olympia book may very well make it to the big screen as an independent film is also pretty cool. I'm assuming that it will include filming the final scenes without the aid of CGI technology.

(By the way, thanks to Zhonka's surfbreak, I'm Highest Tide blogging at low tide at the Dockside).

That thought, led me to start thinking about other parts of the film. Or, how they would film the film.

For one, would they do it here? It would be hard to do some of the Olympia scenes withouth actually coming to Olympia, but I could imagine them sticking further north in Port Townsend or Bellingham. In the same way, the scenes out at Miles' house could be done up in Canada.

In terms of what actors would play what characters, Stevens himself seems strangely suited to play the Evergreen professor behind the "bio blitz," while another actor who has played in a GreeneStreet Film, John C. Reily, could easily play Miles' dad. He'd be spot on actually.

So what about the judge though, or more importantly, the judge's daughter Angie?

Florence the next door neighbor? Or the JZ Knight knock-off?

If you can't get on natural birth control, you might as well forget buying organics, you might as well eat sewage sludge, you might as well get on prozack too for fun, you might as well fork over all your wages to the hospital now while the prices are low.

Chemical constituents are dangerous, costly, artificial, less effective than all of the natural constituents combined, and when you put chemical hormones in the body it encourages the body to stop making hormones which causes depression and a long slow cycle of more health problems.

Just because health problems have not been reported to you does not mean that they do not exist.

We all know cigarrettes cause lung cancer finally right? Duh.

But did anybody tell you that cigarrettes are a leading cause of Leukemia because the smoke contains benzene? No way. The last thing Phillip Morris needs is another lawsuit from yet another group of citizens who spent too much time around tobacco smoke, so nobody really reports it, although it is very true.

It is also very true that there are natural alternatives to chemical birth control and that chemical birth control changes the body's natural production and regulation of hormones.

Why are activists allowing women to be test rats for pharm corps that want to test the effects of altered hormone production in females in secret long term studies that have only recently begun?

Hiya All,

Please use this resource to help inform Stormans of our feeling as a community with regards to their decision to not stock "Plan B".

Example I did:

The Better Business Bureau serving Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington

Complaint System

Thank you for using the Better Business Bureau's Online Complaint System.
Your complaint has been assigned case # 22081765.
Correspondence regarding this complaint will be emailed to : chad360@myuw.net
Please print a copy of this for your records.

Filed on : July 14 2006

Filed by :
chad akins
609 Frederick Street SE
Olympia WA 98501

Filed against :
Stormans Inc
1932 East 4th Ave
Olympia WA 98506

Complaint Description:
Stromans Inc refuse to stock "Plan B" contraceptive so that Stormans can reserve the right to refuse service on filling Plan B medical prescriptions. They are refusing to fill any/all Plan B prescriptions based on "pro-life" choices expressed by the owners (Kevin Storman).

Your Desired Resolution:
Make Stormans carry Plan B if they intend to offer pharmacy services.

This case will be reviewed by a complaint specialist at the Better Business Bureau, and then forwarded to the business for their response. You will be notified when the business has responded.