History, politics, people of Oly WA
1. This is one of the most unique and touching covers of Olympia, WA.
2. Cascadian meadows in spring can be pretty, from Mojourner Truth.
3. Little late in the linking, but I always appreciate Russ Lehman’s take on local politics.
4. And, Mark’s take on downtown.
5. Those who can be rebels by bus do and teach.
UPDATE 9/29/12: A few smart folks took a close at the precinct level numbers and came up with some pretty solid evidence about race based voting patterns. I stand by my take below, but this research is much more significant and relevant to the election.
Since State Supreme Court Justice Steve Gonzalez won a full term last week, there have been questions about how Bruce Danielson — who didn’t raise or spend any money in a campaign — was able to get more than 40 percent of the vote.
Initially mentioned by Eli Sanders, there have been claims that Gonzalez didn’t get more of the vote because of racist tendencies of rural Washington voters against candidates of Hispanic background. Here are clips from Tacoma News Tribune, Seattle Times and the Everett Herald that show some of the discussion.
It may very well be true that a certain percentage of people voted against Gonzalez because they don’t like minorities, but this doesn’t necessarily bear out against historical context. In two other state Supreme Court races in 2000, candidates that spent no money at all got at least 38 percent of the vote.
Here is a spreadsheet that puts these three races (two in 2000 and Gonzales vs. Danielson this year) in terms of vote percentages and campaign expenditures. Just a side note, these two 2000 races were the only two when one literally unfunded candidate opposed a well funded candidate in a state Supreme Court race.
One of the 2000 races, Jim Foley lost to Tom Chambers, but received over 43 percent of the vote in the November general election.. Similar to Danielson, Foley was ranked as not qualified to serve on the bench. But, in a sort of opposite name phenomena of Gonzalez-Danielson, the scuttlebut in 2000 was that Foley did so well because voters confused him with former Spokane congressman and Speaker of the House Tom Foley:
Chambers, 57, who raised more money, $355,947, than any of the other candidates, said he at times found himself hard-pressed to compete with Foley’s familiar name.
Although he beat Foley by a wide margin, he said he wished the margin had been even greater.
“It would give me greater comfort,” he said.
When Foley ran unsuccessfully against Faith Ireland in 1998, he said he had a “million-dollar name” because voters mistakenly link it with former U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley, to whom Jim Foley is not related.
Here is another Seattle Times story that discuss the dynamics of that race.
In the other race (the deciding vote took place in the September primary), Bobbe Bridge defeated a Tacoma lawyer Scott Schweiger. Like Gonzalez, Bridge has earlier been appointed and had already been serving on the court when she won. She also spent $153,000 in a race that ended months before November because she was able to knock off her only opponent in the primary. But, despite her opponent not raising or spending any campaign funds, Schweiger received 38 percent of the vote, very close to Danielson’s total. This article indicates that there was little, if any, discussion at the time how Danielson finished so well against a well-funded candidate.
A significant difference between the 2000 races and Gonzalez-Danielson is the lack of a statewide voters pamphlet. It is hard to gauge the impact of the lack of this information had on voters this year, but you also can’t discount information available now more readily available from the internet and from newspapers.
What we should be able to take from this information is that there seems to be a floor that literally unfunded state Supreme Court candidates won’t fall below. And, Danielson performed within the normal range of similar candidates in recent years.
1. One particular slice of the Return to Evergreen features Morty the Dog. Sweet.
2. Does anyone want to help out with Olynews.org? I like Olynews.org, but like a lot of small web projects around here, it suffers from people like me who fail to have a lot of energy. So, if you have energy and no particular project, why not right?
3. Accidental Naturalist reflects on the closing of Fireside Books. Or, rather, “Amazon Attacks Olympia!” MWWWAARG!!!!
This wonderful, small, independent bookstore in downtown Olympia has been owned and operated by Jane Laclergue since 1995. Jane has many fans and friends in town, many dedicated readers, grateful authors, and fabulous staff–many sang her praises at farewell/retirement party of Jane Wednesday night. Her passion for books, her charm, her personal approach to book buying has made Fireside a favorite place of mine to buy books over the past several years.
Though Jane is of retirement age, the closing of the Fireside Bo
okstore comes at time when fewer people seem to consider reading a priority pastime and more readers are acquiring digital books or ordering from online distributors such as Amazon.…
Every book we buy on Amazon or other online booksellers is one less book sold at a bookstore. At the end of the month there will be one more empty store in Olympia, one less place to visit. Is Orca Books next? Our only remaining independent bookstore? What about the other used book stores tucked into our downtown? What about Barnes & Noble, our only remaining chain bookstore in the great Olympia area? Oh, and what about all the other stores that offer products that could be acquired online?
While I agree that its sad to see a local bookstore (or any type of local store) close, I don’t necessarily blame ebooks. While the newspaper column that AN links to doesn’t spell out whether Fireside has lost money (does say the recession has been hard), it does point out that Fireside lacks an even basic website.
Not to get into a long response on a link post, but I’m more inclined to believe that people who read ebooks are more likely to buy more books overall (so the one ebook for one local book think doesn’t stand up).
4. This is a very old post from a looks like dead blog, but it is so so very epic: “San Francisco Street Bakery and the Problem with the Left.” Bam!
When I walked through the wide open door of the brightly lit establishment I was greeted by no one even though several people were scurrying about doing baker-type things. It wasn’t until I had walked across the room and taken the cream cheese from the refrigerator that a fellow with a stupid indie rock beard and wearing the tight black uniform of a Northwest leftist/anarchist/post hippie type finally took notice of me. It took him a second, seemingly, to muster up the wherewithal to tell me in his passive/aggressive way that, “Um, sir, the bakery’s not open for another half hour.” What he meant was:
Hey weirdo, what’s wrong with you? Get the fuck out of here.
No, really what he meant was that the place wasn’t open for business yet. Eh, anyway. This post is a great example of the Olympia vs. everyone else culture shock thing. Read the entire post.
2. grsshpprkm has a pretty epic take on the storm on Friday. From hours into minutes:
3. Elaine over at epersonae is back bike commuting:
Yesterday…I went a little crazy. I had PT in the morning, and decided to take the Xtracycle “just in case” I wanted to ride further towards work than usual. I rode ALL THE WAY in, 10 miles altogether from PT, with a stop at a grocery store for water & baby wipes. I was exhausted but euphoric. Riding home was somewhat more stressful. Google Maps recommended a different route coming home, and it looked feasible. However: the trail part was bumpy & buggy; I had to make a left turn across a five-lane, 45MPH road; a lot of it was bike lane on a fast busy road; I had to cross another major arterial at a crosswalk at a complicated intersection; and I hit a stretch so steep that I walked about 3 blocks. Coming up the hill the other side of downtown I was going so slow I realized I could walk faster than that. Sigh.
Still, I’m glad I did it. I know it can be done, and I know I’ll do it again. (Almost certainly NOT taking that route home again. C made a suggestion that sounded good that I’ll try next time.) Hopefully by the end of summer I’ll be riding more of the route more regularly.
4. Not the first time someone has taken a photo of the titular cross street. But, its nice every time someone does.
1. This is Olympia. This is not a Thurston County Thumbs Up production, though it is tourism related.
2. Its fun to read the run-down of the local issues suggested to someone who hasn’t been paying attention trying to write an English paper. But, I would tend to agree with this guy.
3. Andy at Thurston Pundits (a conservative blog, to say the least) writes why he likes George Barner for county commission.
Basically I think he’s coming from an assessment that government at all levels has overstepped its bounds and is now stepping on more people than its helping. While a lot of Democrats are running away from their party to keep their office, I have a degree of certainty that this not a calculated power grab because he’s likely going to be running against the local Democrat machine on this run, and that is a strong machine here in Thurston County.
4. I like taking random drives through the countryside. So, this video by rtpwyk is nice.
5. Given the now dead Olympia Views’ commentary on the Cooper Point Journal (implosion, Kafkaesue, sucks), Seth Vincent’s self eval on his time as CPJ staff adviser us super interesting.
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| The author’s fiancé drew the covers of #3 and #4. Very much worth pointing out. |
I wondered if that was an inherent quality or if character grew over time. From Zack’s point of view, the architecturally plain setting of strip malls and apartments in West Olympia are alive with his memories and emotions.
Funwater Awesome, while centered on Tumwater, is a long reflection of a young person’s attachment and relationship with urban northern Thurston County. While Zach speaks almost solely as the local being “Funwater” (Tumwater), his stories and essays are seamlessly set throughout the contiguous Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater community. His introduction and construction of characters
It’s shocking to me how much Zach reminds me of Douglas Coupland. Actually, almost the exact opposite of Douglas Coupland, a mirror image. Alex and the Giants from Funwater Awesome #2 seems the flip in mood and telling (while maintaining the same fresh style) of the doom and dread of Coupland’s Life after God. Zach’s father character in Giants could practically be Scout in the final story of Coupland’s God, years after submerging himself in the forest stream pool.
Funwater #3 and #4 (release simultaneously in summer 2009) show a lot of promise not just for the zine series, but for Zach as a writer.
The fiction elements are the opening chapters of what I hope is still a forthcoming book length book called My Brother! This work maintains the hopeful Coupland-esque elements of Funwater #1 and #2, but enough hand holds to keep a story going for the length of a book.
I’ll leave you to read the non-fiction parts of #3 and #4 when you either buy the zines or check them out from the library (information on that below). But, they’re a great mix of actually useful information and history for any resident of Tumwater. But, I’ll at least offer the best selection from the non-fiction portion of #4:
Tumwater was born then, as they built their homes along the Deschutes River. Funwater was born when someone put a decorative curtain across a knothole in their log.
Also, one last note. Zach’s fiance (wife now?) drew the cover of #3 and #4, very much worth pointing that out. They’re great.
Here is also a nice one minute zine review of #2.
Funwater Awesome #1
To buy: zachboyofdestiny *at* gmail *dot* com
To borrow:
Funwater Awesome #2
To buy: http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/3141/
To borrow:
Funwater Awesome #3
To buy: http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/3142/
To borrow:
Funwater Awesome #4
To buy: http://msvalerieparkdistro.com/zines/funwater-awesome-4
To borrow:
I’ve spilled more than a few pixels in the last few weeks whining about how Olympia doesn’t have a real baseball or soccer stadium. I’ve presented options for $4 million stadiums.
But, you know, in the end, what I really want is one small $600,000 stadium to call my own.
I was down in the Portland area in the last few days, and I was able to take in a few innings of a Northwest Independent Baseball League (which I wrote about earlier here) game between the Portland Titans and Royals at Schavone Stadium. Schavone is a nice little park.
Built in the early 1990s for what would today be $600,000, Sckavone sits on the site of an 1940s era wooden stadium with the same name.
Walking to the stadium through the park setting.
Maybe its that I expected so much more from MXPX. Or maybe its the combination of a Orange County venue with that venue being the ironically named House of Blues. But, as a person that collects these covers, this is the worst version of Rancid’s Olympia, WA ever.
This is a post born out of this question at Mark’s Notes on the State of Olympia blog on what places in Olympia (and I assume broader urban North Thurston) are too empty for my tastes.
The almost empty parking lot in the north west corner of the mall is a forgotten little pocket of Lacey. It used be to where the Woolworth’s backed up into that side of the mall. I also remember Olympic Comics starting on that side.
Anyway, its empty now, except for maybe people learning to ride motorcycles on Sunday, the parking lot is a waste of impervious surface, reflecting the dead commercial nature of that part of Lacey.
It is also now left without its only lasting civic contribution, as the host of Lacey’s July 3rd Fireworks.
The owners of the mall seems to realize the lost potential back there. Coincidentally, they also own a few properties in the residential neighborhood right next door in Olympia. And, in 2008 CDC proposed to the city to redevelop that neighborhood into a south Tumwater-like collection of state office buildings.
The proposal didn’t get picked up by the city, but I’m sure the need is still there. It wasn’t that solid of a proposal, not even a project. Just a request for a designation that could mean state office buildings would be built there at some point.
But, for me, obviously, the best and highest use of the space would be a soccer stadium. Nothing fancy, 2,000 seats would make me more than happy.
What I do find striking is the years when every single PCO slot had at least one candidate. Competitive races were somewhat rare (though sometimes as high as almost 70 percent), but the full ballot implied a desire on the parties’ behalf to have as many PCOs as possible.
Anyway, seems like this year on the Republican side, the PCO races are of high interest across the Northwest again. Here are some links noting the PCO battles that are going on between Ron Paul supporters and long time Republicans.
Ridenbaugh Press: The Precinct Wars.
In Twin Falls County, the Republican Liberty Caucus ran a slew of challenges to often-veteran precinct officers, and won almost a third of the seats. The mainstream party leaders expressed relief that the challengers hadn’t won a majority, but they’d better not count on the fermet to ease off soon. Many races were competitive; one was decided by a coin flip.
Spin Control: County awash in PCO candidates
In theory, Democrats and Republicans should each elect a PCO for each of Spokane County’s 314 precincts every two years, although in many years the parties often go begging for willing candidates, and when they find one, there’s no contest for the job.
Not this year. In 105 precincts, about a third of the county’s total, there will be contested elections. Almost all, 101 races, will be for Republican positions. In one precinct, a South Hill precinct near Roosevelt Elementary School, both parties have contested PCO races with two Democrats and three Republicans.
Clark County Politics: My Mistake: a FOUR way race in the 620 precinct.
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