Tonight's community forum at the Knox Center gave over two hundred Olympians a chance to share thoughts about the projected $2 million school district budget cuts. The event filled the Board Room and a spillover room hastily arranged upstairs. As the meeting began people stood along side walls and out in the hallway.

To start the forum, Jim Crawford, Assistant Superintendent and the night's emcee, gave a 15 minute synopsis of the budget process. In short, projected costs and revenues are both increasing, but costs grow faster. Combine this with a needed 5% contingency fund--$4 million--and we'll have to trim about $2 million from next year's expenses. "Reductions to balance the 2008-2009 budget will help forestall major additional reductions in 2009-10," Crawford's PowerPoint noted. Or, in his words: "Our outlook for the following year is another deficit... If we can solve this now, we won't be in this position next year."

Crawford also explained why the publicized cut sheet [pdf] wasn't as much cause for alarm as some think. "There are more cuts on this sheet than we're going to need to adopt, and that's very intentional... We want to hear from you before we [make cuts]."

Come join your fellow citizens, bloggers, and other concerned parties at the Olympia School District's Knox Center for a community forum to discuss the ongoing budget crunch. Be heard! (More info here.)

Civil Rights Leader, Leading Theorist of Nonviolent Activism to Speak at 7 p.m. on May 5 at Olympia’s Temple Beth Hatfiloh

(Olympia, Wash.) Civil rights leader and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. James M. Lawson will be speaking at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 5 at Temple Beth Hatfiloh, 201 8th Ave SE in Olympia. Rev. Lawson will talk about building a community that both values activism – to promote better quality of life and greater equity among citizens – and ensures civility and respect for the rights of all. The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the City of Olympia, The Evergreen State College, The Hispanic Women’s Network, Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation, Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, participating members of Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, The Port of Olympia, Unity in the Community, and Veterans for Peace. For directions to the temple, visit www.bethhatfiloh.org/directions.html

Lawson is a leading figure in the civil rights movement. On the eve of his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Lawson "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world."

The Olympia city council is rightly shy of opening up debate over the repeal of Olympia’s Anti-nuclear ordinance. As the editorial of March 1^st correctly observed “they (the council) are loathe to even bring the issue up because it is seen as a divisive, national issue that will only drive wedges in the community.” Such a debate will be divisive and distract the council from much more pressing issues. And yet the editorial goes on to call for just such divisiveness. Why this apparent contradiction? Money my dear reader, the ethics-free pursuit of filthy lucre as performed by our paper of record the Daily Zero. Witness the latest case study of our so-called newspaper’s practice of the fine art of yellow journalism.

Here are a couple examples. I’m sure my readers can name at least one issue the Olympian has mangled or chosen not to cover at all.

"The problem always is, how can you, as an individual activist, really make a difference? The world is so vast, so complex, sometimes you despair of making any kind of difference. I think the real lesson to be learnt from what Henry has done is that you can make a difference." ~Peter Singer

Stryker vehicles that returned from Iraq last November are being repaired and restored for "combat readiness" according to The Olympian.

Do you want the war to stop? If so, what are you doing about it?

I want your art!

I'm having an art raffle to raise awareness and money for Juan Ruiz's legal defense. This will be an amazing showing of local Olympia artwork. ANY original art welcome (paintings, collages, CDs, sculpture, etc...) You'll get your work showed for free and you'll get that fuzzy feeling you get when you help other people.

Juan is a good friend of mine who recently got arrested while peacefully protesting at the US/Mexican border. He is now facing life in prison and deportment (to a country he hasn't been to since he was 4). For more info about juan or to watch the video of him getting beaten by the police (he's the one with the drum), check out savejuanruiz.blogspot.com

for more info about donating artwork or about the raffle contact me, Tasha 703 303 2513, tashaglen@gmail.com

***I'll update in a day or two with more details about the party

I came across this quote about activism from a 2003 interview and it made me think of you folks on Olyblog. Bonus: the author quoted, Ursula K. Le Guin, is even semilocal! Oregon-based, I think she lives somewhere in Portland. Here is what she had to say:

[Interviewer Erika Milo]: I’ve read that last December you were part of a writers’ and artists’ anti-war delegation to Oregon congressman David Wu, and in April participated in a protest against the USA Patriot Act. Were there ever any responses to those protests, beyond the initial news coverage?

[Ursula K. Le Guin]: The response to such protests, to demonstrations and vigils, is mostly invisible and usually pretty slow-moving. We learned that, all the years demonstrating for civil rights and against atomic bomb tests and against the war in Viet Nam. If you want an immediate response you throw a stone. Civil disobedience may be the only way to address an urgent wrong, but it is likely to backfire and cause dismay and disaffection among the very people you are trying to win over. Walking and standing are awfully, awfully slow. You feel like a fool standing there with your sign saying Bush Lied, and people go by in cars yelling things like "Why do you hate America?" that they learned from Rush Limbaugh. But you go on standing there. It worked before. It will work again.

Anyway, I thought she expressed my feeliongs more elegantly than I ever could. From this article in the magazine West By Northwest.