Tonight

Women 5:30 Men 7:30 Vs Corban College

Saturday

Women 5:30 Men 7:30 Vs Concordia University

$6 for adults

$3 for seniors, military personnel and teens 13-17

$1 for kids 12 and under
Evergreen Students Free with ID

Season tickets are $75 and include admission to all men's and women's basketball home games, including 11 doubleheaders when both teams will play!

http://www.evergreen.edu/athletics/

Mah weighs mayor race

 

Matt Batcheldor
The Olympian

 

OLYMPIA - City Councilman Joe Hyer said Thursday that he won't run to replace Mayor Mark Foutch, but he knows someone who will - Councilman Doug Mah.

 

"Everybody knows it," he said. "He just hasn't announced it yet."

 

Mah was noncommittal Thursday, saying that he would make his decision this month. "My family and I are still discussing our options," he said.

 

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In my personal opinion, Mr. Mah has no grasp on what Olympia needs and doesn't deserve to even be on the city council, forget about mayor. He will run, however, I've known this for a couple of months now. If anybody out there is interested in keeping big business money and special interests out of our local government, please write a letter to the Olympian explaining why you feel this way. There are many issues in which Mr. Mah does not represent us, from land-use to the terribly oppressive and disempowering anti-homeless ordinances that he would surely try to push through as mayor, and has already tried as a councilperson. This is a critical election for Olympia and will decide which way our town goes in the next few years. Tired of the Rovian political games on the national level? Doug Mah offers that, and nothing else. Tired of our reactionary and divisive city council? Doug Mah will only give you more of the same. Tired of a city council that thinks curing social diseases with "band-aids" is a good idea? Well, you get the point.

For everyone that showed up to the last Town Hall meeting to talk about downtown and some other not so important stuff, here is your next chance to get your civic on.

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

Here is the city's description of the event:

Councilmembers will be in listening mode. They want to hear … What's important and what isn't? Parks? Police? Fire? Streets, sidewalks, bike paths? Community Events? Social Services? Code Enforcement? Community Planning? Etc, Etc? How much are you willing to pay for your priorities? What programs or services would you cut to balance the community checkbook?

This will be great opportunity to discuss Olympia City service and funding priorities outside the pressure of the Council's annual budget discussions.

Anyone is welcome to come for all or a part of the evening.

Also, they put together a nice movie to brief everyone on the city's budget.

Another nomination for the book club:

Lee Drutman writes in the LA Times:

"Barnes is at his best in diagnosing the structural maladies in today's iteration of capitalism, which has created a "world is awash with capital, most of it devoted to speculation" but "healthy ecosystems are increasingly scarce." The main problem, as he sees it, has to do with the three algorithms that drive market behavior: Maximize return to capital; distribute property income on a per-share basis, and the value, or price, put on nature is zero. And, he notes, 5% of the world's people control half the property shares."

Two announcements regarding the IWW:

1. Workplace Organizing Training:

There will be a workplace organizing training held at The Evergreen State College Sat Jan 20th and Sun Jan 21st. This training is being set up through the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The training starts both days at 10am, but people can meet as early as 9am at Red Square for free breakfast both days. Signs will be posted in Red Square to further direct people where the training will actually take place. The training lasts until 5pm on the 20th and until 3pm on the 21st. Free lunch and materials will be provided. Two seasoned labor organizers from Portland and San Francisco will be giving the training.

some topics that will be covered:

• how to organize your workplace
• solidarity unionism
• workplace democracy
• labor law
• industrial workers of the world (IWW)

2. Wobbly Fest 2007:

An injury to one is an injury to all!
(A benefit show for the “Flag 3

The legislative session starts Monday and WROC hopes to see some action from legislators toward ending poverty.  Some things we are hoping they will do this year is:

1.  Increase the TANF/GAU grants (14 years with no increase is shameful)

2.  Stop full family sanction.  Children will start to lose their cash grants in March 2007 under current rules.  DSHS is still sanctioning families illegally and caseworkers need to be held accountable for following state laws before hundreds of families are put on the streets.

3.  Increase access to education, fund Opportunity Acts, Representative Kinney's bill that would increase financial aid for the first two years of college.

4.  Living wage bill, Representative Miloscia hopes to end poverty in 20 years.

5.  Regulate payday lenders, SPAN is taking the lead on this issue, see below.

6.  Do something about health care!  The Governor has been talking about this a lot lately, let's hope her actions make a difference.

WROC will be holding a legislative training at WROC Night Out on Monday, February 5th at the First United Methodist Church, 1224 Legion Way SE.  We start with a potluck at 5:30, the training will be from 6 - 8.  We have on site childcare.

“Effective Communication with Legislators” workshop answers: “How do I get these people to listen to me??”

 

The Evergreen State College MPA Alumni Association announces a workshop to help people work more effectively with their legislators.

 

“Effective Communication with Legislators (or, How do I get these people to listen to me??)” will help public and nonprofit administrators and concerned citizens make their voices heard with their elected officials.  Topics will include:

 

• How does the legislature make decisions?
• When, how and why to communicate with legislators and legislative staff
• How to write and deliver effective testimony
• Letters, phone calls, emails, personal visits—what works?

 

The workshop is aimed at government and nonprofit agency staff, volunteer advocates, and interested citizens who have limited experience in working with legislators and legislative staff.  It’s scheduled to coincide with the January 8 convening of the Legislature.

read more

Food for thought in the double-oughts, here's to 2007

Why Do We Dress Our Daughters Like Skanks?

Lactating men video! Courtesy of Mama's Big Old Blog

World Sex Laws

The Home Realm - This lady is pretty radical!

And a bunch of cool shit from Daddy Types:

When Men Are Involved In the Care of Their Own Infants the Cultures Do Not Make War

A Soldier Dad's Journal to His Son

Germany engineers a family-friendly car-free community!

Text from onthecommons.org.

Two leading scholars on the commons, Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, have just published a great anthology of essays, Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (MIT Press). The book brings together some varied perspectives on knowledge as a “shared social-ecological system.

Today's history lesson, really good commentary by Amy Goodman:

Thursday, January 4, 2007
Impeaching, prosecuting Nixon could have elevated the nation

AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

One of the high points of the U.S. media was the investigation into the Watergate scandal. Now, 30 years later, with President Ford's death, the media are contributing to the cover-up they once exposed.

Most people get their news from television, yet there has hardly been any explanation of what the Watergate scandal was. This is of particular concern, given that roughly half the U.S. population was born after President Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. Gerald Ford would pardon him a month later. Rather than explain Watergate, we hear the same chorus from all the networks, that the nation needed to move beyond Watergate, needed to "heal," and that the pardon, while controversial, was needed. The pundits agree that prosecuting Nixon would have led the country in a downward spiral.

But there is another scenario. Impeachment and/or prosecution could have shown Americans that no person is above the law, that all governments must be held accountable.

Let's review the history: Nixon was running for re-election in 1972 against anti-war Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP -- their acronym, not mine) had been conducting a campaign of dirty tricks against potential Democratic presidential candidates. In May and June 1972, Nixon operatives, called "The Plumbers" (so-called as they both plugged up and generated information leaks), broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters, based at The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The burglars, including an ex-CIA man and several Cuban American veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, were planting bugs and photographing documents. An address book on one of the burglars linked them to the White House...
...

link to remainder.