Month: August 2014

Here we are now in Olympia (Charles Cross left something out of Kurt Cobain’s cities)

August 28, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Here We Are Now by Charles Cross is a fascinating book. Twenty years after Kurt Cobain’s suicide, Cross takes a look at how Nirvana and Cobain changed the world, from music to our own region to how we talk about suicide.

For me, the most fascinating chapter was where Cross took a look at the towns most associated with Cobain, his birthplace in Aberdeen and the city he’s most associated with, Seattle. Of course, Olympia is in that mix too. Cross’ own biography of Cobain includes five chapters set in Olympia, spanning arguably Cobain’s most formative years between 1987 and 1991.

Screen shot of Nirvana – Live in Olympia

But, in this trio, Olympia has always been the silent partner. Olympia isn’t like Aberdeen, it isn’t the town that he was born in, isn’t the town that is the source of Cobain’s legendary youthful angst. It also isn’t Seattle, a town with a profile large enough to envelope Cobain’s legend as soon as it was ready.

Cross seems to acknowledge this silent partnership when he mentions Olympia only in passing in his chapter on how Seattle and Aberdeen have been impacted by Cobain twenty years on. In this chapter, Olympia is a bridge between Cobain’s Aberdeen roots and his false association with Seattle. At least using Cross’ logic, if Aberdeen spit Cobain out and Seattle sucked him up (once he was good and famous), Olympia was the only place Cobain was truly at home as an artist.

But, that is a pretty over-wrought statement.

Cross in Here We Are Now wasn’t making a point about what city impacted Cobain the most. He covered that in Heavier Than Heaven. In this most recent book, the equation is the opposite, what city was most impacted by Cobain?

And, it is worth asking that question about Olympia.

So, if Aberdeen has finally come to terms with their troubled product and have embraced him as a part of their own culture. And, Seattle has become one and the same with a certain type of everyman do it yourself music culture. What is Olympia’s Cobain impacted legacy? How did 1987 through 1991 and Kurt Cobain impact Olympia?

Olympia and Thurston should follow Poulsbo and Kitsap’s lead (at the very least) and what your PUD candidates think about that

August 25, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Internet connectivity should be a basic utility, like sewer, water and garbage. Directly speaking, that isn’t possible in Washington State. Some local governments can, but PUDs cannot directly connect their customers. They can provide service to businesses that sell retail connections to customers.

So, in Kitsap County, the PUD up there is wiring up the cities of Poulsbo and Bainbridge Island, which then are turning on municipal wifi:

There were four antennas placed in downtown Poulsbo.

“Which was not enough,” Jones said.

An upgraded system will likely equate to more antennas throughout a coverage area.

“I’m willing to put a tower on my house,” joked Poulsbo Port Commissioner Jim Rut-ledge, who attended the May 28 meeting.

“I’m willing to wear one,” quipped Councilman Ed Stern.

Improving the system may require KPUD to further expand its fiberoptic system to accommodate additional antennas.

A few weeks ago, I asked various PUD candidates what they thought about the Thurston PUD rolling out not only internet service, but reaching out to customers.

Here is my question:

PUDs are allowed by law to become wholesale internet service
providers. With the already limited number of private companies providing internet access abandoning net neutrality, we have the opportunity through our PUDs to help provide inexpensive and fair access.

Do you think the Thurston PUD should enter the broadband market?

Here are their responses.

Chris Sterns:

I would say yes, if we could do it with a successful business
plan. Each county PUD has entered the Telecom/Fiber Optic wholesale
marketplace under their own different business model. This reflected
whether or not they were already an electric utility, how big they are
and whether or not their model was successful. Noanet is the consortium
of PUD’s that provides the main conduit of the internet fiber-optic
system that everyone already uses including the private telecoms and the
cell phone towers which are now hooked up to it! It passes through our
county along side of the federal BPA transmission lines. Electric
utilities utilize fiber to run their electric utilizes more efficiently
(connecting up all their electric substations) that a water utility
cannot do. Both electric and water utilities have cut back on Noanet
participation due to revenue losses that their electric customers made
up. Some had more secure private sector participation, others dropped
out since customer density was low in rural counties. I will not enter
this business to become a loss leader (lose money just to get into the
market). Some other counties had residents who felt this was a good
idea, I don’t and their commissioners rejected the federal grants to
start up services because they felt they couldn’t make it work
profitably. I have attended along with Commissioner Russ Olsen
Washington PUD Association meetings on how each PUD runs their fiber
optic system. We are looking closely at what would work best here. The
first place to go would be the densest areas in the north county cities.
These cities have already laid down dark fiber when they dig up their
streets for water line replacement. All it needs is to be connected and
lit up. Other areas can be added from a profitable core area. C.S.

P.S. The federal regulators (FCC) are considering overriding our
state law that limits us to only wholesale service, we are the only
state with those direct restrictions and yet cable remains unregulated.
They have better lobbyists! The only other proposed systems are
government to government services.

Brian Hess:

I am still researching this issue and have found some things that I
think the PUD can do to assist with the challenge. One way to assist
is being the repository of information not only about
telecommunications, but also water and power. The PUD should have
available data for all within the county to look at and research and
then be able to make educated decisions about their choices. The PUD
currently puts out a newsletter, but only to those that receive services
from it. I believe that the newsletter should go out to all residents
within the county. While campaigning it has occurred to me that not
many know that there is a PUD and what it does. This is wrong since
each property owner within the county pays taxes to the PUD.

One of the challenges we face with
telecommunications, or any other utility, is the infrastructure of such
utilities. I have read a story about how cities are being challenged by
the telecommunication companies when the city wishes to install fiber
optics within their limits. I am still researching this issue, but my
first response is that it is not right that a city cannot provide
infrastructure for its residents. I am still researching this issue and
will hope to have a better response soon.

I have also read about a city in Washington
that set-up free WiFi for all within the city limits. I am trying to
find that article again to share with you. I am also wanting to
follow-up on it to see how successful it has been. This is another way
that telecommunications can be provided to all.

Hess went on for a lot longer than that, but didn’t end up coming back to the internet issue at all.

Basically, Sterns seems more versed on the topic, and makes a great point towards the end. The urban part of the county seems better suited for connectivity soon. Fiber has already been laid and it would just take the PUD to light it up. Since the PUD right now is a somewhat disconnected water utility, it doesn’t have the built infrastructure to just add on internet.

But, why did the Indian Shirt Story change?

August 21, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Heather Lockman does a great job sketching out the Indian Shirt Story in Olympia (the actual story) and how it changed over the years.

If you don’t end up watching the video (but you should), the gist of it is that the details in the story get more sinister and anti-Indian as the years go on. So, why over time, did people telling the story of an Indian who wants a shirt change details to make them more scary?

It probably has to do with how we related to Indians when the story actually took place (1850s) and when the final details of the Indian Shirt story were finally added (in the early 1900s).

In those initial years, the relationship with Indians and non-Indians was certainly and violently one sided. Most of the murder victims between 1854 and 1857 were Indians being killed by white people. Yes, we now have stories of farmers abandoning their homesteads for towns and blockhouses, but when you look at the details of the Puget Sound War, you find the Mashel Massacre, Quiemuth and Leschi. You also have the internment of hundreds of other non-combatant Indians during the war.

There were certainly victims of the war on the non-Indian side, but in those years, you could hardly imagine the majority of whites (especially pre-Puget Sound War) being afraid of an Indian asking for a shirt.

The rest of this post will be a long log roll for my own book “Oyster Light,” (here or here) so I apologize. I do suggest you buy Heather’s book. Its a good one.

Even after the war, roving bands of whites walked into Indian reservations and murdered people, seemingly without punishment. From Oyster Light’s “All the Bunting Trails”:

George McCallister (the late James’ 21 year old son) headed the group to bring in Too-a-pi-ti. The young McAllister, between the murder of Quiemuth and going out to track down Too-a-pi-ti, had also reportedly killed another Nisqually Indian on the tribe’s reservation, who had bore some guilt for his father’s death.

The era of the original telling of the Indian Shirt Story was a violent time, mostly for Indians. But, as the years go along, the relationship changes. Mostly to an attitude of glorifying the past and bringing to light actual fears whites had of being murdered themselves, and ignoring their own violence.

In her talk, Heather points out the phenomena locally in the early 1900s of beginning to worry about the imminent deaths of that original pioneer generation. Many of our first historical monuments date from the first two decades of the last century.

Looking at those years deeper, it also shows how the Indian/non-Indian relationship had changed. Mostly, the concern was “why didn’t these Indians just go away?”

From Oyster Light’s “E.N. Steele”:

The local anti-Indian sentiment surrounding the cases is encapsulated in an editorial in the Olympia Recorder that ran the same day as the Kennedy v. Becker news.

Coverage of Peters’ and James’ case was typically sprinkled with terms like “squaw,” “pow wow,” and “Papooses.” While Steele himself wasn’t immune to language like this, the Recorder editorial shows that defending Indians for fishing and hunting was not a popular task:

The Indian thinks his ancient treaty rights give him the authority to shoot a deer or spear a salmon at any time he contends that the game laws do not affect him. He declares that the white man is trying to go back on his bargain… Of course the supreme court, in holding that the game laws abrogate the treaty, is ruling that the laws were passed to govern all the people, white, red, black and yellow, and that the treaty is superseded just as all former laws that conflict with new ones are repealed.

If it is non-Indian history, it is a vital cultural heritage to be preserved. If its a treaty with Indians, it is “ancient” or in contrast to modern living.

Non-tribal society at this point had moved on. It remembered the blockhouses and their own telling of the Puget Sound War, so naturally, the Indians in the shirt story would be violent and scary, approaching at night, threatening a young mother. The implied context in the early 1900s is that the non-Indians in the 1850s heroically defeated the violent Indians. They forget about George McCallister and others like Josepth Bunting and Jim Riley.

Hoo boy. You should read about Jim Riley. He’s a piece of work.

Statues, bees, food and punks (Olyblogosphere for August 18, 2014)

August 18, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

1. The Olympia’s Plinth Project from OlySketcher.

2. Bees from that Amicus blog.

3. Our best local food blogger was out. Back in now? I dunno, she showed us a pi pie though. That was cute:

Besides, we’ve all dropped out of life at some point during the
course of it, but no one likes to admit to that. I could brag about
finishing my Master’s degree; I could tell you stories about the US
healthcare systems and a crazy neurologist that would make you want to
emigrate to a cold, dark Scandinavian country; I could say that I was
running out of recipes, which would be entirely true; I could just
pretend it didn’t happen like I do with some of the jobs I leave off my
resume, but I think I’m just going to admit to it. I dropped out. I gave
out. I burned out.

4. A small piece of Olympia music scene, RVIVR playing Party Queen at the Flophouse from Campfire Island.

There’s no paywall to public records in Whatcom County

August 14, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

So, there shouldn’t be one anywhere else.

If you’re looking for public documents from the Thurston County Clerk (or from practically any other county clerk in Washington State) you need to pay exorbitant fees. Like almost $30 for downloading a 16 page document from a public database.

But, not in Whatcom County. The Whatcom County superior court maintains a public database that offers direct access to court filings with no charge. As it should be.

Here is a link to the Whatcom County Superior Court database. Before searching for court documents, you need a case number, which you can search by individual name or business name here.

Once you plug in a case number you’re interested in, you are given direct access to the entire court record.

What in most counties is an unnecessarily arduous and expensive process, is simple and free in Whatcom County.

I emailed the Whatcom clerk, Dave Reynolds, about his county’s choice not to charge, and he responded:

This system was in place before my time, but I fully support it. We feel
it saves on both staff time and foot traffic into the court house to
obtain documents. We wouldn’t charge for someone to come into the office
to look at a file. If they chose to make copies, there would be a cost
and staff time. I believe it actually saves money by freeing up staff
time to do more important tasks. We have had significant reductions in
force over the past several years. Further, it provides equal access
regardless of financial resources.

Providing for free what should already be free not only makes it easier on the clerk but provides equal access. That sounds great.

This county shows that we don’t really need to charge $4 transaction fees plus $.25 per page for public documents. Even though state law allows clerks to collect expensive fees for public documents (much more than what you’d pay for a document from any other part of government), Whatcom County doesn’t.

An interesting wrinkle is that what also makes Whatcom County different is that it doesn’t have an elected clerk watching over court records. Whatcom County rewrote its county charter in the late 1970s and rolled the function of the clerks office into the superior court. I might be reading into that fact a bit too much, but having to support an entire other office aside from just the courts probably justifies keeping open as many revenue streams as possible.

I emailed both candidates for Thurston County Clerk about what they thought of the public records paywall, neither of whom have written back yet.

What Whatcom County shows is that there is really no reason (other than just bringing more money into a specific county office) to charge so much for public records.

These aren’t private documents, there is no reason the clerks’ offices should be charging so much for them. From RECAP the Law:

We are a nation of laws. Our law is created not only via legislation,
but also through the adjudicative process of the courts. Whereas we
generally have open and free access to the statutes that bind us, case
law has had a more mixed history. Earlier experiments in secret proceedings did not go well. Western law subsequently developed strong precedents
for access to judicial proceedings — citing the importance of
transparency in promoting court legitimacy, accountability, fairness,
and democratic due process. When the law is accessible, “ignorance of
the law is no excuse.”

The public interest is not served when only those who can afford it can have access to what goes on in our courts.

Why does the Olympia Oyster House mean so much to us?

August 11, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

James Tallman on flickr.

The Oyster House will open back up tomorrow after more than a year closure because of a fire.

After a false start of an announced opening near Lakefair weekend, the Oyster House posted up last week August 12. And, Olympia caught fire.

I don’t think it would be a stretch to expect a line out the door when they reopen.

But, why does the Oyster House, seemingly more than any other restaurant (short of maybe the Spar) hold such a high place in Olympia?

It certainly isn’t the food. I’d agree with most that the food there is good, decent, but generally unexciting. I suppose that works because it remains accessible to most people. It is a pretty standard, fairly priced, Cascadian seafood place. But, certainly below the standard of the other shoreline seafood places even in Olympia.

You have to admit, the Oyster House has a pretty nice location. Practically all the traffic crossing Olympia is funneled right in front of the Oyster House. And, no other business on that stretch (sorry green Vietnamese place) has the sense of the Oyster House looming over that corridor, sitting crisp and smartly on the southern edge of Puget Sound. Everyone who lives here passes by the Oyster House often enough to get it stuck in their head.

Unlike a lot of place, the Oyster House has grown up with Olympia. Other places that compete with the Oyster House’s stature in Olympia either stayed stale for too long (the Spar, only recently updating under new ownership, aren’t that old (Darby’s) or appeal to a broad enough group (Ben Moore’s).

The Oyster House has evolved, is widely acceptable and has a long history.

A history so long, I’d say it is effectively been the restaraunt that grew up with Olympia.

My unified field theory of Cascadian history holds that (come on now, stay with me) that we either turned a major corner or that our history really started in the 1940s. While the foundation of the region was set in the first 100 years, my theory is that we didn’t really start building the house until World War II crossed off all the failed efforts in our start and stop history after statehood.

Since the 1940s, our history (even locally here in Olympia) has been a straight shot in one general direction. We’ve left behind the resource extractive industries, and grew in at a regular pace into a generally professional, quasi-government and college town.

And, the Oyster House has been there since our growth started. It left its own resource extractive history behind, switching fully from an oyster plant to a restaurant. Three since then, the restaurant was destroyed by fire. Each time, it came back, updating itself as it went along.

The most recent update in the early 1990s, when the now ubiquitous floor to ceiling windows and clean floor plan were added, were reactions to the closure of the Oyster House that I remember as a kid. I only went in there only once or twice, mostly because it wasn’t a place for families.

Tall backed chairs, hardly any windows and dark. It seemed like a place where men and women would come together outside of a family setting and speak as men and women do. It was a cigarette era place and by the 1980s, that sort of place was not the centerpiece of our town.

This was the Olympia that in the 80s had won the Olympia marathon trial, had build the Washington Center and shelved their old form of city government. Finally, the added benefit of Evergreen was growing shoots in town, and we’d moved past the Oyster House being a smokey dark gathering place.

And, after this most recent fire, the Oyster House is coming back again. It looks like the same general layout is still being used, the large windows are still there as well. Which makes sense. I feel like Olympia is so much more of the family centered place that killed the old cigarette Oyster House in the 80s.

I understand that the Oyster House isn’t accessible to everyone. For a town that isn’t very diverse, it is diverse enough in taste for
people not to like the Oyster House in the same way they don’t like Lakefair. In exactly the same way. But, Lakefair is crowded and so will the Oyster House tomorrow.

My less than meaningful Top Two primary (Imagining a better WA10 candidate)

August 7, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

On my primary ballot, there was only one race that really mattered. Even technically mattered. I live in the central portion of the county, so neither PUD race that actually had a primary was on my ballot. I also don’t live in Lacey, so a very important fire levy was also not on my ballot.

The only race that had more than two candidates was the congressional race, incumbent Denny Heck versus a Republican (Pierce County councilmember) and two independents.

I was going to write this post to criticize those two independents, but I really only think one actually deserves criticism. Sam Wright is a typical crank sort of candidate. Not putting much of any effort into campaigning, shooting for a high profile position with no real effort behind his campaign. Enough about him.

On the other hand, Jennifer Ferguson is fascinating. She only ended up getting just about 5 percent of the vote, but I hope this doesn’t end up being her last race. Like Sue Gunn two years ago, I think Ferguson should aim lower next time, and get her foot in elected office somewhere else.

In some pretty interesting ways, Ferguson really does represent the WA10. I wrote awhile back how WA10 really is a military base community district, and in a lot of ways she speaks to that community.

From her website:

Do you want someone to serve you that values people and quality of
life? Would you want someone to represent you that has a community
track record of service and commitment such as volunteering 2500 hours
in less than 13 months at Madigan with soldiers in acute distress and
other mental health disorders to include PTSD? Would you like someone
to serve you and represent you that believes in standing up for what is
right and has shown it over and again such as going to congress when the
PTSD program at Madigan was shut down causing a congressional
investigation? Would you want someone to serve and represent you on a
large scale that has served and represented their entire life as a
volunteer in the military community and in University Place PTA,
President of UP Soccer Association, University Place Sheriffs Academy,
and the list goes on?

In her work as a mental health provider, Gigi has worked with youth
on drugs, youth in gangs, women as domestic violence victims, and
families who have lost their children to the state for many reasons.
Jennifer is a hard worker and committed to making this a better place
than she found it. Jennifer is committed to her faith which causes her
to touch hearts, minds and lives where she goes.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Denny Heck. I voted for him this week and I’ll vote again for him in November. He does a great job on JBLM and other WA10 issues and is a polished and intelligent politician.

But, there is something about Ferguson that strikes me as very authentically WA10. We’re a very new congressional district, so our political identity is still being developed. But, she seems to speak much more clearly to the concerns of base communities.

So, not this time around, but I think she should take a crack at another local office. Like, who is taking on Doug Richardson next year?

Bridges, woods, and waxwings (Olyblogosphere for August 4, 2014)

August 4, 2014 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

1. From Olympia WA (via olynews), the Rainbow Bridge. I wish I knew where this was. I can’t place it.

2. Also from Olympia WA, a blog post about LBA Woods, and balanced:

So yes, Olympia could purchase the properties, but we wouldn’t even have
a park. We’d have another project on add to our ever increasing to do
list. I’m not outright saying Olympia shouldn’t try to purchase the
properties, but Olympia already has a lot of unfinished projects. It’s
important to consider what else we could do with that money. And before
die-hard park fanatics demand my head on a plate for suggesting that
Olympia shouldn’t save the LBA Woods, in the future I’ll write a piece
about potential compromises and other reason why I’m torn on the
subject.

This is the Olympia blog I’ve been waiting for.

3. “It’s like they put an amusement park in the middle of downtown.” YDHWM covers LakeFair and other parks of fun. The only thing you’ll need to help you remember LakeFair.

4. Cedar Waxwings is a pretty cool name for a bird:

That is why I was surprised once again to notice something intriguing happening there: a whole flock of birds flitting on and off the wood pile. What was going on? From far away, these birds looked rosy in color, so I thought at first they might be finches. But in checking them out through binoculars, I discovered they were cedar waxwings, and they were “hawking” – catching food on the wing.