Here's an opinion piece in the Washington Post: Aggression Under False Pretenses.  It was written by the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Ismael Haniyeh.

I think it is very important for Americans to read the words of our "enemies", and to understand their view of the world so that we can make informed decisions on foreign policy issues.  It is too easy to just blow off our opponents and say such blatheringly ridiculous things as "The terrorists hate us for our freedoms".

We all ought to be reading Al-Jazeera, as well as Iraqi blogs such as a family in baghdad and Baghdad Burning.

From my afternoon manning the booth for Olympia's Masonic Lodge (and Washington State/Territory's oldest continually operating non-profit group)

It was too hot (being over 100 F degrees), ugh, so there wasn't the crowd. The Olympian says that eight people were treated for heat stroke during the afternoon period I was there. I certainly heard and saw many firetrucks and Medic One units cruising down State toward the center of Lakefair.

Click on the photo for a short slideshow.

Blogged with Flock

As promised in a previous thread, I am posting about my personal experience with homelessness.  What follows are a collection of journal entries and essays I wrote reflecting on my nine month stint of homelessness as a teenager (as well as an interesting story of one of my regular road trips).

[From my submission to the Voice of Olympia]

Sometimes I am struck by the nostalgia I feel for the way that French fries wore themselves into the carpet at the Denny’s in Parkland.  I distinctly remember the sickly smell of cheap food, battered and deep fat fried, and how my empty stomach was comforted by the repugnance my nose felt for the slop.  Denny’s, noisy and filthy as it was, was my safe haven for the nine months that I was homeless.  Whenever I didn’t have a couch to crash on, and when the weather was too miserable to sleep outside, I’d panhandle enough money for a bottomless, gut-burning cup of coffee and stay up all night writing and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.

I first ran away from home when I was fifteen.  I had started using drugs, fighting – sometimes violently – with my parents, and skipping school.  As I became more rebellious, my parents became stricter, and our arguments escalated.

Read more:

I'm not able to report this story in precise detail, but here are the bare bones of the tale:

2 days ago around 5:30 pm, my friend was walking through the Planned Parenthood/IRS parking lot, carrying a six pack of beer. The Homeland Security guy drove in, almost hit my friend with his car, then rolled down his window and asked my friend what he was carrying.

My friend identified what he was carrying correctly as a six pack, the Homeland Security guy then said something about how people do drugs in that area. My friend replied that he knew that, he works nearby, and that the activity in question occurs later at night, which would be a better time to look for it if one was looking.

The Homeland Security guy is then reported as being flustered, he apologized, and told my friend something like "Take 'er easy".

And that's the story.

It’s strange to encourage people to save something that for all purposes has been dead for four years, but I'm going to do it anyway.

On Tuesday, the general government committee of the Olympia City Council will hear a report on whether to shutter the Library Board. The Library Board is a citizen advisory group to the Olympia City Council, giving them perspective on library services, much like other boards (the Planning Commission, Utility Board, Bike Pedestrian and Parks for example).

The rational is that the city has lived with a non-active board for four years, most of the duties of the board have already been downloaded to the staff of the city, and the city council and the Timberland Regional Library already have a close working relationship.

But, simply because the current situation can be extended, and that it is working for now, doesn't mean its the right one. See the attached file for the rest of the arguments for, which overall I don't buy.

For one, taking away the library board would lessen the chance we'd ever build a new library in Olympia. Through a library board, fully engaged in the decisions about the management of the library, we build a core group of library service evangelists.

How can we convince the rest of Olympia to eventually support a new library when we take away their only avenue of direct engagement in our current one? Even forgetting for now a new library, with no connected evangelists around, cutting library services would be even easier.

Secondly, we miss a chance to re-focus the library on a new mission, which ironically reflects the original intent of libraries in America. Last winter I wrote up a short memo to the city council asking them to not only revive the library board, but to reinvent it with a new mission of civic education.

Libraries have always had at their center the mission to create an educated citizenry:

HILLSBORO, Ore. (AP) — A 39-year-old man who had a robe with the words "Master Eric" and claimed that a psychic ability called "remote viewing" helped him locate runaways has been accused of sexually abusing a teenager, police said.

Story

I should qualify everything I'm writing with the fact that Eric J. Pepin hasn't been found guilty yet. If he is guilty as accused, his web site is even more creepy.

I'd like basic street smarts taught in grade and high school. Assertiveness training, safety skills, and warning signs of potentially unsafe individuals and groups would be ideal.

Of course this needs to happen at home too. And while I'm at it, can we please all stop treating each other so badly? Less abuse equals less vulnerability and trauma for predators to prey on.

Warning signs

[Check comment thread for long lost son reference]

A small reddish spider is weaving a web outside one of my windows. I discovered it while cleaning windows and I've decided to leave it alone for now. I assumed this spider would be easy to identify so I sketched out the shape and began googling away, only to find out that I was wrong, spiders are not easy to identify.

The Spider Myths site kept by Rod Crawford of the Burke Museum explains this and all sorts of other intriguing facts about spiders.

Here on OlyBlog we've had a past discussion on another type of spider: hobo spiders.

Every investigation needs a poem to accompany it, the poem The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt is perfect.

Olympian article: New hurdle

The feds now require that all Medicaid clients, current and future, prove they are citizens. Our state DSHS says they will have to hire new staff to implement this new law.

I personally don't agree with the new federal law. And no matter what anyone says, federal or state, some clients are going to end up not getting the medical help they ultimately are eligible for, because of the new paperwork and proof requirements.

The Olympian article has a link to a federal fact sheet on what is required. Documentation of both citizenship and identity necessary.

Adam Wilson of the Olympian did a good job of reporting on this.

An air stagnation advisory will be in effect from noon today to 11 p.m. Saturday. The advisory means that a limited movement of the air mass over the area could allow pollution to increase to dangerous levels.

Advisory
National Weather Service

[Borrowed title from Gothamist]