Earlier tonight I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Alice Rothchild speak at St. Martin's University. Dr. Rothchild spoke about her book, Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience. She also spoke about her experience traveling to Israel and Palestine, and her position on the conflict, as a Jew. She discussed the immoral nature of many aspects of the current occupation of historically Palestinian territory. The Doctor spoke of a moral obligation that people of all faiths (or lack thereof) and ethnic backgrounds, but especially Jews, have to speak out about the tragedy of violence, and the criminal policies of Israel, which are doing such grievous harm to both the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples.

For those of you who don't know, I advocate for the idea of our built landscape as an interactive tool for our artists. This Monday (March 3) I will be talking about some aspects of the movement as a part of the Arts Roundtable series held at our downtown library. My desire is to see Olympia help its artists realize our city. I am daily amazed at the amount of artistic talent coursing through Olympia and I think creating our city's expression is integral to establishing our identity as we move toward a further development of our downtown core. Art often treads the fine line between disgust and heart stopping. Art is not just like every other city. Art is not homogeneous.

I've decided to pre-publish the slide show on OlyBlog that I've created for the presentation. This is for those of you who are interested but cannot attend, or those who like to see the outline without the fill.