Our very enthusiastic 8 year old member of the bread and roses guest house is on the look out for new clothes. She has grown out of all her clothes and needs some for back to school and staying cool in this heat. She is going into 3rd grade this year and is hoping to remain stylish and comfortable, her only request is “anything but tie-dye” please. Her mother can not work due to disability and wants her daughter to have gently used or unused clothes this school year.

These are two amazing people and really could use the help of this community.

If you can help out with vouchers, gift certificates or donations please call bread and roses advocacy center at 360.745.4588 or 360.754.4085

• Her sizes are shirts size 12, or large,
• jeans size 12,
• shoes kids 3,
• underwear size 12.

Thank you!

Be the Revolution - Are you the revolution?

Wow (from Ken):

I was saddened to hear that the Thurston County Chamber of Commerce owed the IRS $200,000 in back taxes and penalties.  It’s tough enough for a non-profit to operate on a daily basis without having to pay large sums of money for back taxes.  Thank goodness the Thurston Chamber had reserves it could draw from and the back tax issue shouldn’t impact the future operations of the organization.

In the Ann Arbor Library after finding the Fairy Door... while the ants were finding the apple...

Pick the one that's different and throw a pie at the clown

This technologically literate kid just learned LOL in chat today.

Orion and I took Grampa Dave's Camry into Ann Arbor to check out the Fairy Doors. It's got some issues: the driver's side window won't go down and it doesn't have air conditioning.

We'd gone shopping, and I'd picked up a bag of Granny Smith apples... from Washington. I'd packed his lunch box with some bananas, a PB&J, a protein bar and an apple.

On the drive Orion yells, "There's an ant in the car! There's two! I see them!" I let him know that it's no big deal. Later he's complaining that he can't get his lunch box zipped back up. I let him know that it's no big deal.

Then we park the Camry and start traipsing around A2 looking for fairy doors.

Left in the car the ants are traipsing too. When we get back I notice the unzipped lunch box. I reach in and pull out his half eaten apple.

It's covered black in ants. I scream, "Ahhh!" and throw it into the bushes, "How do you like them apples!?"  Then I do the heebie-jeebie shiver.

Later, Grampa Dave puts down bug powder to kill 'em. He's not too surprised. The Camry has had previous tenants: mice, squirrels, snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails.

Dad's all about killing bugs on our trip. He's got an elaborate set-up to attract, stick and poison the vicious deer flies. Apparently, they love the color blue.

an earlier version, later the cups grew to the size of plastic gallon pots spray painted blue

I just received this from the OLY 2012 Newsletter...

Olympians Must Think Hard about What Makes the Best View

By Peter Stroble

Global Warming. Geo-Political Conflict. Epidemic Disease. The Rising Cost of Living. Famine. Obesity. Classism. Racism. Political Polarization. Social Entrenchment.

The root cause of virtually every problem in our world today is Suburbia - enabled by our 20th century car culture. It's easy to simply blame it all on George W., kick back, and wait for Obama to make it all better. But until we take responsibility and change how we live at the community level, we shouldn't be pointing our fingers at anyone but ourselves.

Density is the answer. It mitigates the threat of war and global warming by reducing our reliance on the oil-dependent automobile. It lowers our transportation costs, which lowers our overall cost of living. It enables us to eat more healthfully because less sprawl equals more local farmland.

Density also brings communities together and helps address social ills. Suburbia has polarized our society; density will moderate it. In our suburban culture today it's easy for the haves to ignore the have-nots: homelessness isn't a problem to a typical suburbanite – it's merely a once-in-awhile inconvenience. Density offers us the opportunity to change this by bringing us closer to one another.

But density is not as easy as simply building high rises in urban cores. In order to make a community function with density, the built environment must be designed with both humans and the outdoor environment in mind. This is what the term Smart Growth is all about. If we ignore the questions of where and how to accommodate more people living in our urban core, density could actually do more harm than good to our downtown. The activist and renowned urban critic

Around 12:30-1pm today, I was driving for work, getting ready to take a left on cooper point road, when someone chucked a little orange kitten from their driver's side window. It hit the street pretty hard, dodged a bunch of cars, and ran into the ivy in front of the texaco on cooper point and black lake blvd.

I don't know what the car looked like or what the plate number was, all I could do was watch in horror as a kitten no more than 4 weeks old bounced off the pavement and dodged cars.

I turned around to go look for it, but when I got there, me and two other people at the texaco searched for it and could not find it.

If anyone saw what happened, or who has seen the kitten, PLEASE get the kitten to the shelter or to a veterinarian and call the police!!! Any information would be great.

If you haven't seen the kitten, PLEASE keep an eye out for a small orange kitten around a month old, which may or may not have injuries. Feel free to call me at 360-556-2933 with any information. THANKS!

Official Launch of the Olympia-Rafah Mural Project

Saturday, August 23, 2008, Labor Temple Building North Wall 119 Capitol Way, Olympia WA 98501

The first brushstrokes have been laid for the Olympia-Rafah Mural Project. A joint endeavor of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and Break the Silence Mural Arts Project from San Francisco, the mural is an expression of the sister-city relationship between Olympia, Washington and Rafah, Palestine, and will be completed cooperatively with artists from Rafah and around the world. Throughout the year, Olympia community members painted over 500 leaf-shaped clay tiles with their visions of social justice and peace; these leaves will “grow” on the tree this spring. In addition to tile leaves, images will be painted on canvas by local organizations with images of linkage between struggles. The mural will illustrate connections between the Palestinian issue and social justice movements for fair housing, land rights, the rights of indigenous people, and environmental justice both locally and the world over. At over 4,000 square feet, the Olympia-Rafah Mural will be the largest mural in the United States to focus on Palestine.

It has been awhile since I covered a Republican Ungovernor. Not since John Frink in 1900. 1932 was an exceptional election year in Washington State history. The Republican Party's domination over state government, which had been nearly total for most of the history of the Evergreen State up to this point, was brought to a grinding halt by the voters. It was the last time both major gubernatorial candidates came from east of the Cascades. And the winner, Democrat Clarence Martin of Cheney, was the first Governor who was born in Washington.

In a strange way, economic depressions gave John A. Gellatly his political start and political demise. The Panic of the 1890s sent him to Wenatchee, where he immediatly took public office. The FDR/New Deal sweep of 1932 finished his career as an elected official.

John Arthur Gellatly was born July 6, 1869 in Grass Valley, California. His parents, Andrew and Isabella (Lyle) Gellatly were natives of Scotland. In 1870 the family moved to Benton County, Oregon where they started a large farm outside of Philomath.

John grew up in Benton County and started attending agricultural college until his father's blood poisoning illness brought him back home around 1888. He married Laura J. McDonald, the daughter of Canadian immigrants, July 17, 1891 or Jan. 31, 1892 depending what source you want to believe. As they were starting their new family, John was elected on the Republican ticket to two terms (4 years) as Benton County Recorder (Auditor). During the hard economic times of the 1890s, Gellatly was forced into bankruptcy. This, combined with his father's death in March 1898, made John look north to Washington State for greener pastures in 1900.

The Gellatlys were headed for Waterville, where they planned to grow wheat. But during a steamboat layover in Wenatchee, Oct. 1, 1900, John was offered a job as the Deputy Auditor of Chelan County. They never made it to Waterville.

John's rise in Wenatchee's civic and business affairs was dizzying. He served as County Auditor, City Councilman, School Board member, Library Board member, first president of the Chamber of Commerce, manager of the Wenatchee Reclamation District, and he served four terms as Mayor. In the last job he created a name for himself in his efforts to combat prostitution and make Wenatchee a dry city. His successful pro-Prohibition policies made him a sought after speaker across the state and acted as a springboard for his regional, then statewide political career.

In his Mime FAQs Mike Lee asks (rhetorically): "Isn't a mime a type of clown?"

"At one time clowns and mimes were like brothers, in the form of court jesters and buffoons.

Around 1850 the clowns found their home in the circus; the mime arrived at the theatre.

Clowns try to make us laugh, but the mime actor explores the full range of emotions through dramatic portrayal of characters in many different situations."

Does this open a can of worms? Probably. Many clowns will claim to express more than jokes and humor, but levity is their main goal. Performers in niches sometimes shared by clowns have to differentiate themselves and put distance from the taint of clowns. However, watching Mike I realized that an even more important difference was the superficial one: less make-up (if any), less costuming (if any), fewer words (if any), and fewer props (if any).

It was a little like Sage had said about his Cirque du Soleil audition.  Eventually the guy told him to work without any props or costume and drilled him through the emotions.

My act had become prop-heavy. I was searching for my voice and was wondering whether I might just try giving it up altogether. It would come back in discretely manageable amounts. One or two words in clown-speak will tell a story just fine if accompanied with the right gestures and expressions.

What can I do for you? asked Mike