Ok folks, I'm tired of the protest protests and the protest protest protests, therefore, I submit the following:

 Wise men don't need advice.  Fools don't take it. - B. Franklin

Always obey your superiors.  If you have any. - M. Twain

Rise early. Work late. Stike oil. -  J. P Getty

It is fatal to look hungry.  It makes people want to kick you - G. Orwell

and my personal new favorite....

Life is a shit sandwich.  But if you've got enough bread, you can't taste the shit - J. Winters

Have at it, people

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/11/09/area_news/doc473415cbe0fa6508019909.txt

A candid dialog took place between Aaron Mason and me. Rather than paste portions, I'll publish the link to the blog for all to read as they wish.

Now, before I go any further, there is no secret that Aaron and I have had some issues, and frankly I've addressed that with him in private message. That is not the point of this blog.

I think it would be interesting to hear what the community thinks on the subject of professional and private lives. As you'll see, Aaron's contention was that when he is not at The Olympian, he speaks only for himself, which I suppose is true. I also feel that when he IS at The Olympian, some of what is his personal conjecture is part of his job description, therefore it is tough to separate the two.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm a Big Brother, as well as an employee of the agency. If I, the private citizen, am accused of wrong doing in terms of interaction with a child, my employment IS taken into consideration. If I were accused of wrongfully raising funds, again, my employment IS taken into consideration.

Dan Kimball's parenting was called into question, by The Olympian, because he is the county sheriff.

John Darby, Lacey councilperson, was questioned on an ethics issue, in terms of annexation of property where he was building, but was identified by his day job (which I'll not do here). This, too, was in The Olympian.

TJ Johnson is, this morning, referred to as Councilman TJ Johnson, when organizing meetings for protestors. Should he be a private citizen when protesting and a councilman only when at meetings or representing the city?

Although I'm not sure that Olycop would have minded (and maybe someone got private information saying he did), I'd like to compliment the docents on the decision to pull that blog.

I didn't get to know him that well, but I do recall he had a fairly sharp sense of humor and I'm thinking that he could probably have taken the ribbing, but it was close to harassing and a little too personal. Olyblog doesn't need to open that can of worms.

Now someone find the post where either Norm, Gug, or Merwyn posted the picture of me disguised as Wilford Brimley and delete it.  I don't want to hounded by photograph and autograph requests.

No one has encouraged me to do this.  I want equal treatment for all.

"I'd tell you to start your own paper Rob Richards but you're too lazy to get off your butt and earn more than $200.00 a month working at Bread & Roses.

You'd need tons of advertising too because nobody would pay for anything coming from you!

If you don't like the olympian, don't read it! Somebody as simple minded as you should have been able to figure out that simple solution!
Fire Up | 11.10.07 - 11:27 am"

I'm calling for Aaron Mason to take immediate action and ban "Fire up" for attempting to disclose the identity of someone that chose to use the moniker of "somebody" in their post in the Olympian threads.

Since the conversation is about ethics, lets see who REALLY has ethics.

I attended the kick off breakfast for Sam Reed's re-election for the position of Secretary of State for the State of Washington.  Knowing Sam on a personal level, I take pride in supporting him.  He was the lone Republican on my voting ballot in 2004.

My real intent for this blog is to not raise the flag in honor of Sam, but to point out that St. Martins was full of people from BOTH sides of the isle.  I came in thinking I'd be the token Democrat only to find that probably at least 40% of the audience were people that I know and share similar political views.  It was a non-partisan event in the truest sense of the word.

Mike McGavick, a fairly conservative Republican admitted that many of the hard Right were unhappy with the outcome of the Governor's race and felt that Sam's party affiliation should have swayed the results.  It will be interesting to see if there is a GOP that will possibly surface for a primary run at Sam.

Jeff Kingsbury made an inspirational introductory speech before Sam took the podium.  Nothing more be said.

I just wanted to share that in these times of the "great divide" there stands at least one man that is able to reach to both sides of the political spectrum and either reason or lay down the law, as needed.

One of the speakers pointed out that during the arguments being presented by the Democrats and the Republicans during the Governor's race recounts, David Horsey, well known political cartoonist, was published depicting Sam as the teacher and the respective state political party chairs as the students, with the caption "This is "WASHINGTON".  Note that there is no "D" and no "R" in the word "WASHINGTON".

Thanks to Sam and his campaign for a great start to my day.

I just attended a program at my grandchildren's kindergarten class.  They attend a Christian school in Centralia.

The teacher is getting them to memorize scripture, the preamble to the Constitution, the Ten Commandments and other information.  What really caught my eye, was the flag salute.

First, we did the Pledge to the American Flag.  Then they recited a pledge to the Christian flag (something new to me) that was hung in a superior position to the American Flag.

A couple of thoughts came to my mind - (1) the American flag is always to be positioned higher than other flags displayed and (2) pledging to a Christian flag would see to be somewhat of a worship of idol.  It seems that some Christian denominations avoid the American flag pledge because "nothing is superior to God", thus a "Christian Flag" (which I know doesn't represent ALL of Christianity would be somewhat idolatry.

Can anyone provide me with additional information of this?

I thought I might being attention to this Olympian story.

I remember they raised a bit of a fuss over somone's use of their logo on Olyblog. It seems they might have been better served to focus on their business practices.

Leavenworth calls.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!