Lots of senior leadership at the Tacoma News Tribune walked through the door. Mike Gilbert, a 21 year veteran and military reporter; Susan Gordon, 25 year veteran and environmental reporter; Casey Madison, the papers photo editor; Bill Hutchens (no idea what he does, but he's been around a long time); and photog Russ Carmack, who has been with the paper since the early 70.

The Olympian, for the most part, was spared the loss of senior people. Mary Tracy, a newsroom assistant; Kirk Ericson, a senior copy editor, blogger and 20 year veteran; Keri Bremmer, Thurston County and Health reporter; and Karen Crist, another copy editor are out the door.

Makes sense that senior people would take the buyouts, they're cheaper to replace and the packages were probably good enough to allow them to transition to retirement or some other career. Its probably good that even more senior folks didn't hit the door.

It will be interesting to see how the Olympian copes with the loss of two copy editors. You might see more mistakes and errors in the paper.

Also, anyone see the irony in letting go of the one person writing "health" news at the Olympian while the paper is "playing offense" with a new health website?

In the end, it might be that Ken Balsley is correct, the South Sound (south of Vashon) will be a one newspaper region:

News operations would be coordinated out of Tacoma, but McClatchy would keep a small contingent of writers and reporters in Olympia, to cover state government.  Most sports coverage will come out of Tacoma, as most of it does now.  More and more stories about the Mariners or the Seahawks carry a Tacoma byline.

Some odd things about this cycle of gathering UML license plates. First, I'm sure I saw Roger Moore driving 007 UML. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Sean Connery is the only real Bond, James Bond. I don't buy it. Roger Moore was actually a better Bond.

Also, right after I spotted 842 UML, I saw 824 UML. It's all in The Plan. Cue the Theremin music.

Here are the UMLs for today, all recorded on the handy-dandy grid: 007, 032, 065, 213, 216, 219, 266, 295, 303, 373, 429, 484, 518, 520, 586, 619, 690, 731, 791, 812, 816, 824, 830, 842, 866, 951, 974.

From TPM:

Who They Are, What They're About

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

See for yourself:

The look on McCain's face reveals that he in fact heard the man shout "terrorist," and yet he says nothing. As Josh Marshall appropriately says, it's the "Scare-Talk Express."

I've seen a few posts in regards to the desire of Olympia Businesses to increase the sustainability of lifestyle and would like to see something like this in town...everything is well-thought out, from plant based food choices to what happens with the waste.

I just saw this article and I couldn't resist. It almost raises my opinion of the candidate, except that it lowers the term "clowning" to its most dangerous level: a foolish show-off. I've tried to be a neutral and apolitical clown, but if I don't speak my truth I'll just explode.

Like a big ol' esploding ceegar!

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator

By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano / Los Angeles Times

....

Southern Spain, about December 1961

McCain was on a training mission when he flew low and ran into electrical wires. He brought his crippled Skyraider back to the Intrepid, dragging 10 feet of wire, sailors and aviators recalled.

In his 1999 autobiography, "Faith of My Fathers," McCain briefly recounts the incident, calling it the result of "daredevil clowning" and "flying too low." McCain did not elaborate on what happened, and The Times could find no military records of the accident.

Oh.

I see.

It is a dog.

And he is smoking a cigarette.

As usual.

OK. Fine. Go ahead little UMLs. Set me up. Knock me down. 

I don't care. I enjoy it. Ha ha! I'm laughing, see? Very funny. Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry funny.

Next time. Next time. We'll see. We'll see who laughs next time.

Look! Look you now! There they go! Almost like the stars of the Heavens above giving us a celestial image of cosmic awareness. What sort of wonderful and inspiring image will they create?

And now I remove the grid lines and the little UMLs are free from the rigid lines of regulation and mathematical measurements. They can reunite in some other form than boring straight lines. They can create an image with meaning. Something that plugs into the mystical collective id.

The most depressing part about the story a week or so back about the most recent buyouts at the Olympian was the horn tooting by the paper's publiser about how they're fighting back the tide:

The paper is pushing its advertising and circulation departments to drive revenue and it recently launched Vitality411 — http://theolympian. vitality411.com — a new health care Web site, Miller said.

“We’re not just playing defense; we’re trying to play offense as much as possible,” he said.

Vitality411, to put it nicely, isn't a local product. It may have listings for local resources, but by and large, it is a canned copy product the Olympian bought from MediResources, a company from Toronto that describes itself here:

We are at the forefront of creating new technologies that deliver health content. We differentiate ourselves from others, as we don't just create health information or just develop technology, we do both. This has allowed us to have a unique perspective and create more technologically innovative ways to deliver information that effectively improves health.

The copy that the Olympian is buying from Canada isn't even exclusive to the Olympian. This column on dancing is also available here and here. Actually, now that I think of it, the Idaho Press-Tribune's health website looks exactly the same as the Olympian's, minus the masthead of course.

You would be well served to check out his other work, too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVYfbKNgy04