From One Pissed Off Veteran:

Chris Bliss has started something called the Foundation Foundation, and the goal is to place in public places in each state a copy of the Bill of Rights. They are starting with the states that have the Ten Commandments already on display, so people can do some "comparison shopping" and see which of the two sets of laws is truly representative of the rule of law we have in this country.

As the state capital, Olympia would be the logical place to locate such a monument.

From The Seattle PI:

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Mike Wood and his wife were just stopping by the bank, when they saw a man run out the door with another close behind. They quickly realized they were watching a robbery in progress and decided to drive after the fleeing suspect.

When they reached him, Wood jumped out of the car, grabbed the robber's arm and twisted it behind his back. Then he reached his other arm around the man's neck and wrestled him to the ground.

Wood's quick action and the skills he picked up watching his 15-year-old son, Harrison, in martial arts class helped nab a robber with a record.

It is to our credit that the animal most mentioned here is both our mascot and our scapegoat. This is testament to our fair and balanced view.

I speak of caimans, of course. As a New Year draws near, I propose a ceremony to be added to our evolving OlyBlog mythos.

Before midnight 12/31/2005, locate a caiman. Be cautious, they are foul and clever beasts. False promises of cute puppies and chubby toddlers may lure one forth. Once your choice caiman is located, shout (or whimper) all your 2005 frustrations at it. List your complaints and irritants. Make sure you are purged of all such discontent, then drive the caiman from town.

Imagine how cleansed Olympia will be if we all take part in this simple scape-caiman ceremony. We will then step smiling into 2006, lighter and less cranky.

#54

It's the only plate worth hanging on your bumper…

Buy an Evergreen State College license plate and support Evergreen scholarship programs!

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Check out how Christmas is going in our sister city, Rafah; via this much i can say is true:

I have been trying to write about these experiences for two weeks but have been wordless in attempting to explain the immense gap between my previous perception as understood by Hollywood movies and news accounts and the reality, the feeling of watching a machine made by your country drop a weapon into the community in which you are living. It is so different when you know families in the neighborhood under attack, when the store across the street where you usually shop is closed because the night before someone in their family was killed. When a missile is falling on the same neighborhood where earlier in the day you saw the simple beauty of a small child carrying his younger brother on his back through puddles, watched taxis swerve around a toothless old man driving a donkey cart loaded with fresh tomatoes, and where you sat with a family who insisted you eat more when you know they don't have enough food to feed themselves.

One of the great interior landmarks of TESC were the dragons in the main library building stairwell connecting the sub-basement and the top floor. Back in 1972 when the dragons were painted, the top floor of the building served as the cafeteria, so the stairs were busier in those days. By 1974 the food service had moved into the CAB.

An Evergreen coordinated studies called Man and Art supplied the labor. The idea came from faculty member Jose Arguelles. The end result was an amazing winding mural that effectively combatted TESC's 70's concrete blahness. But instead of Evergreen being in the belly of the beast, the beasts were in the belly of Evergreen. Whenever I showed newcomers around the College, I always made sure they saw this artwork.

Even though I knew they were there, I usually reacted as if they were unexpected when I used those stairs. And I saw something new every time.

Arguelles went on to become a controversial New Age author and co-founder, with his wife Lloydine, of the Planet Art Network. I understand the dragons have since vanished, but I'm not sure if that is true and if so, when it happened. Did they fly away, or were they just painted over? I like to think the former is more likely than the mundane explanation of the latter.

There will be an OMJP meeting tomorrow, Wednesday Dec. 28, at 7:00 at the Olympia Community Center. Here's a draft agenda. Are there other items that should be on it?

1) Introductions
2) Announcements
3) Request for endorsement for nonviolence training
4) Discussion about future action against torture

The student mentioned in Evergroove trivia pt. 47 now lives in one of those "instant neighborhoods" created outside of Redding, California. I went down to visit him a couple years ago. Being a morning person (note the time on this entry) I took an early walk before the July heat set in.

On the edge of the development I heard some sort of weird ruckus and followed the noise. In a small valley there was a chunk of land that was still serving its original rural function. The realtors had yet to gobble up this place. It was a poultry farm.

I'd say there were about 50 little A-frame coops all in a nice neat grid. On top of each coop was a rooster. And each rooster was crowing, trying to outdo the others. Imagine what 50 roosters all crowing at once, not listening to each other, sounds like. Every one them master of his little territory. It was a caiman's dream come true.

I thought of the Washington State Legislature, I thought of those shouting matches on political talk shows, and, sadly, I thought of Evergreen in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

When the external threats of closure subsided, and when the experimental edge had been considerably dulled, Evergreen began to enjoy a nationwide academic respectability. Part of this was due to having a true political maestro at the helm to market the product, but another part of it was due to the fact the College really deserved it. By and large the experiment was a success. But there was a flip side.

The early years of threatened extinction had created an espirit de corps in the TESC community. That was gone by the late 1970s, and when the 1980s rolled around the College was experiencing severe growing pains in attempting to define itself. By the mid-1980s the campus mood was downright ugly. Some of this was probably due to the inevitable evolutionary stages of any institution.

Today the College seems settled. Too settled. It might be time to bring in a caiman or two.

Choosers Can Be Beggars

Posted on Monday, December 26, 2005. From advice sent to people preparing for a “street retreat