History, politics, people of Oly WA
The local DL Chapter will be a the the Tumwater Bar and Grill this Monday at 7 pm:
There is lots to talk about. With the new Congress finally in session, the debate now is “will they or won’t they?” Will the new congress have the guts to de-fund the Iraq war? Will they do the “Kahuna Katrina Dance” and start an investigation into the inept (and most likely illegal) federal response?
Hope to see you there for a fascinating Drinking Liberally discussion of “Will they or won’t they?”
This morning Orbusmax, the Drudge Report knock-off of the Northwest, added the following headline to their rotation:
‘BLUE WAVE’ POWER ENTRENCHMENT IN OLYMPIA? STATE HOUSE SEEKS EXPANSION OF TERMS TO 4 YEARS:
If you follow the link, you’ll learn that HJR 4203 is not actually a Democratic bill, but rather one of the few bi-partisan bills introduced this year, hardly evidence of “Blue Wave” excess.
Hey Orb, for the record, Rep. Tom Campbell of Roy? He’s a Republican.
The Police Department is putting their daily reports online.
The city council is thinking about raising parking fees. When it gets to this point, its usually a sure thing.
A handful of new and old blogs that I’m going to be reading over the next few months.
Rep. Kirk Person is blogging at “Session Notes.” No comments enabled (crap-oh), but he seems to know what he’s doing.
Paul Shinn’s legislative assistant, Jim Freeburg, is blogging at “Forever Flippant.” Mostly looks like a personal blog, but he’s writing a bit about his job in a general sense. Should be good reading.
Jim does give a pretty good peak into an LAs life:
In 2 days, nearly a dozen lobbyists met with my boss. Not all were from big business: some represented “special interest” groups such as the environmental community, municipalities and education groups. Time is scarce however, 15 minutes max for meetings, scheduled back to back to back to back. We also got some big news, my boss will be the chair of the new Senator Higher Education Committee. Democrats, as the majority party, have the power to choose committee structure so they decided to split the Early Learning, K-12, and Higher Education committee into two. This is done by Democrat leadership in the form of a Committee on Committees. This is a group of powerful Senators who decide who will head up each committee, rewarding loyal friends, and leaving independent Democrats out of positions of power.
With the new committee assignment, I’ll be having a whole new challenge: trying to figure out how to properly fund our institutions of higher learning while also coming up with funding to get a new 4-year college in Snohomish County.
And, of course, there is the great Uptheblog by Rep. Dave Upthegrove. I’ll let Noemie at Washblog tell you about this one. Its pretty sweet. You have to like a guy who can make fun of his own pretty silly sounding name.
Upthegrove is Chair of the House Select Committee on Puget Sound, and here he is quoted in a recent Seattle Times article on the legislative agenda for the environment. Here’s his My Space page. I subscribe to it and occasionally follow the links to the blog entries, which tend to detail days packed with meetings with teachers, environmentalists, journalists, lobbyists, business people, other legislators and government officials, etc. He notes meeting blogger, Andrew Villeneuve, founder of Northwest Progressive Institute at a recent event. One of the entries not too long ago recounted a triathlon he completed: running, biking, swimming. Then he dried off and went to a meeting or panel or something. How cool is that!
Here’s an old post of mine where I reflect on how important it is that he posts at MySpace.
There was something I heard about the person with the longest title…
Anyhoo, Brendan is now “Majority External Relations Leader,” which at 13 syllables, bests Rep. Joe McDermott’s “Caucus Education Policy Leader” at 11 syllables.
My fears where not realized. The march for peace will not target Rep. Brian Baird.
On the library front, the meeting to figure this out will be on hold for a bit, there were some sick people.
There is going to be a peace march on January 27 in Olympia, and some folks involved in the planning want to make a short detour and involved Rep. Brian Baird’s Olympia office. That Baird has voted for funding the Iraq War after voting against authorizing it seems to be the issue.
Protesting in front of, inside of, or occupying the office of Rep. Baird is a bad idea. Its about as a bad idea as I’ve ever heard.
I’m convinced the only reason its being considered is because his office is directly on the parade route. Had the parade gone a different direction or had Baird’s office been up on the west side or even down on Plum St., no one would be talking about involving his office in the protest.
Baird is a target of convenience, not conscious.
Baird voted no on authorizing the war.
It is also bad politics. The WSDCC is also meeting in Olympia that day (several of the members are taking time out of the meetings to participate in the march) and several local Dems are helping organize the march. Including a protest of a Democratic elected official, you put the Dems, at least in Thurston County, in a bad place.
Apparently, the desire to include Baird’s Olympia office in the protest is coming from the national level of one of the organizations that is also helping put together the march. This just may be an example of something that may seem like a good idea thousands of miles away, but when you look at it close up, isn’t that good of an idea at all.
There will be a meeting on Monday where this will all be hashed out, hopefully in favor of not treading on Brian.
“Libraries aren’t quiet anymore,” said Chapple Langemack, managing librarian at the Bellevue library.
Indeed, today’s libraries are morphing into the new town halls. It’s a change spurred by technology and the need to stay relevant.
The King County Library System and Seattle Public Library are embracing this change and pursuing, within most of their branches, the “Third Place” concept — an idea that people like to hang out at a location other than work or home.
Its almost a mistake of history that libraries ever became about “books on shelves.” Libraries in America came about in the early 1800s when books were the most important way of conveying information, while at the same time being mostly unavailable to most Americans. In the interest of democracy and an informed citizenry, libraries were established.
So, libraries were about books only in that books led to a healthy community. Now, it is about more than books. So now, a libraries role as a “Third Place” is just as important as the availability of books.
This sort of thinking is what I’m hoping comes out of the conversations I’ve been having with my local branch library and the Friends group.
Read about it over at (printer) Democracy.
I’m sitting in the house gallery, waiting a few minutes for my appointment with Rep. Sam Hunt. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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