History, politics, people of Oly WA
At least for one comment thread, here and here.
She’s doing it right this time, simply restating the facts of the incident as she sees them, not getting wrapped around the axle. And, trying to be funny about the cookie thing.
Also, I think SMASH is joking here. He/she actually wants does want elected officials “coming around here, acting like regular people.”
I’ve read histories of Olympia and of early Washington Territory, but nothing like Confederacy of Ambition. Really good book. William Winlock Miller showed up in Olympia in 1850 and the path of his life is pretty much the path of Olympia for the next 26 years. If he didn’t have a hand in it, we probably don’t remember it.
The Google Books version has a pretty healthy preview, so I’d suggest thumbing through it before you check the book out from the library.
It reminds me a lot of the communal history told through a single person type format that was Skid Road.
Also, reminds me of the questionable scholarship that goes into a lot of local histories. I pretty much trusted what I read in CoA, mostly because the author wrote the book based on all of the correspondence of the topic of the book. Therefore I’m pretty sure that while William Winlock Miller was a general in a marginal sense (served as quartermaster for the Territorial Volunteers), he did not serve in the Civil War and was not a hero.
Actually, he never even left the west coast during the war at all. Also, while Winlock is named after him, Millersylvania State Park is named after another Miller.
All of these facts (Civil War reference, Winlock and Millersylvania) are all packed into one paragraph in the local history book “Olympia High School.”
Anyway, if you like Olympia history, read CoA.
The last few days “Jim Jekyll” has been dropping down the wisdom in the comment threads here, picking apart some of my new media posts with a rapier-mind.
For some reason, I typically know 90 percent of the people who comment on my blog. Well, “for some reason” typically is I write posts for certain people and beg them to comment, but Jekyll’s comments have come totally out of the blue, and for an unsolicited commenter, he’s freaking good.
Here’s his latest on my favorite new topic, the now dead Sitting Duck:
Yeah, it’s too bad the Sitting Duck was so poorly executed and generally sophomoric, although that can be done well too, except it wasn’t. It seemed like it could have been a good publication if it really tried.
But hey, why does it have to be The Olympian, or any other newspaper for that matter, that brings these issues to the forefront. Newspapers are dying, so wtf now?
And, a few minutes later, he reposts:
And to follow up on that thought …
Is an alternative publication really even viable in the Olympia market? Seriously. I’m not questioning the need for one but the print model takes loads of cash and a few good martyrs. That was in better days. Now, it’s just not viable. The advertising market was shifting away from print long before the current economic downturn and the cash cow of classifieds has long since disappeared since Craig’s List.
So everyone can be a publisher now with the internet but it takes a certain level of professionalism to do it well and who is going to spend the horrendous amounts of time to do good investigative pieces for FREE? Google’s CEO was just bemoaning this ironically enough but also saying they won’t try to prop up the dying print industry, even though they could, because the industry is no longer economically viable. Everybody wants the news, everybody wants an alternative voice but no one wants to pay for it due, in large part, to Google.
Seriously, what is the answer?
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m sure I’m going to be thinking about it more now.
Here’s the rest of Jim’s recent comments:
Jim on New media outcroppings
Jim on the shrinking capitol press corp
He’s obviously someone familiar with being a reporter or editor, maybe one of the dozens of recently unemployed newsroom people sadly let go in the last year. Either way, he’s a sharp mind, and I wouldn’t mind it much if he set up shop and start spewing his own blog. Though, I have a feeling that he wouldn’t like having to do it for free.
Which does sort of get to Jim’s central question, how we move past the current model of journalism and into what we’ll have next. I’m thinking it revolves around two things: freedom of association (that bastard step child of political freedoms) and the good ol’Pioneer and Democrat.
Anyone catch my drift?
1. #wafloods is a revolution in Washington media. The more we can create cross news room standards like this, the better.
2. Lewis County Buzz is back for the floods as well. Originally started in response to the 2007 floods, the Chronicle shuttered the forums after things got out of hand back in August. It might have been the nature of online forums, but I’m sure a little moderating (whether imposed by the Chronicle or by the community) would have done some good.
Lets hope that they either keep the forums open this time, or a user has the foresight to start a new forum in the expectations that the Chronicle will close the Buzz in a little while anyway.
3. The Olympian turned their site blog into a breaking news blog. Nice touch for the floods.
I skipped the National “Championship” Bowl last night in favor of a recorded FA Cup 3rd Round game and UW beating Stanford. Mostly because I didn’t watch any bowl games this year, not wanting to encourage the entire system.
The only bowl game I even remotely tried to watch was the Rose Bowl, it has too many emotional ties for me to completely ignore it. But, if they got rid of it for a playoff system, I’d be ok with that.
Its weird to me that a ten year old article from World Net Daily would express my feelings so well on this topic:
If the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was supposed to make college football fans drop their demands for a national championship playoff, it is a complete and utter failure. If the BCS was supposed to bring meaning to the post season bowl games, it is a complete and utter failure. In fact, the only thing that the BCS has done is drive the last nail in the coffin of the old bowl system.
College football is the most exciting team sport in America. No other sport fills stadiums with more than 100,000 fans at a time, week in and week out. No other sport can match the excitement of last week’s UCLA-Miami or Kansas State-Texas A&M games.
However, college football is seriously ill and those who are responsible for its health have taken leave of their senses. They have sacrificed everything that makes college football wonderful at the altar of egocentric coaches and advertisers who want to waste their money for meaningless bowls.
We did all of this so far (hat tip, 1889 Washington Constitutional Convention):
That the person appointed to fill the vacancy must be from the same legislative district, county, or county commissioner or council district and the same political party as the legislator or partisan county elective officer whose office has been vacated, and shall be one of three persons who shall be nominated by the county central committee of that party,
Now, we’re in for this (apparently):
and in case a majority of the members of the county legislative authority do not agree upon the appointment within sixty days after the vacancy occurs, the governor shall within thirty days thereafter, and from the list of nominees provided for herein, appoint a person who shall be from the same legislative district, county, or county commissioner or council district and of the same political party as the legislator or partisan county elective officer whose office has been vacated,
So, the governor has to choose from the list the PCOs prepared two nights ago and she has 90 days from the beginning of January.
Now, I’m thinking that its raining outside, there’s going to be state emergencies declared, legislative sessions starts next week and the state budget is not in good shape, to say the least.
I mean, can’t the governor spare a few minutes to make a decision for us?
I think Ken hits the nail on the head:
I find it hard to believe that just 24 hours after getting the names from Jim Cooper, that the commissioners are at an impasse. This whole thing looks preordained to me; arguably an abdication of responsibility, given the lack of time given to reflect on the vote by the PCOs. Part of politics is being able to compromise, but it looks like minds were made up before the PCOs voted.
I would never argue that just because the PCOs are PCOs they would obviously make the right decision. I happen to think otherwise, but in this case I think they might the best choice. Not going through the process of interviewing the three candidates, but just immediately throwing up hands just seems really weird.
This also reminds me of the last time a local government gave up the ghose on choosing some replacements. The Olympia School Board at least put up a huge fight trying to pick a name, but they eventually kicked it up to a higher power as well. Jim Anderson did some great blogging on that process here. This is a particularly good post.
Maybe commissioners Romero and Wolfe don’t have the fight in them, but it would have been nice to at least see them try.
In his instantly out of date piece today, Ken says:
Thurston County is unique in politics. It’s become the norm that women run and are elected. As a matter of fact, being a woman on the ballot, here in Thurston County, gives the candidate a five point edge before the campaign even starts.
So Brendan William’s absolute shellacking of not only Ann Burgman, but also sound defeat of three other Democratic women in the primary in 2004 is based on what?
I guess you could argue that the Democratic women split the “Ken Balsley +5 percent vote,” but could you honestly say that a sitting Lacey city councilmember who ran an aggressive, centrist campaign would have done worse if she were a man? Hardly, she lost because the 22nd LD is strongly Democratic and even a well funded Republican gets shellacked, no matter their sex.
Thurston County happens to have a lot of succesful women politicians, because their happen to be women in politics.
TVW has a blog (hat tip their twitter), but not with comments:
On the point of accessibility, one thing you won’t find here is comments. Why? If we do our job right, you’ll be a more informed citizen after reading The Capitol Record. That might make you want to share your opinion with someone. But the office of your elected official is the more appropriate place to do that. We’ll help facilitate that direct communication by providing links to the Legislature’s web site, where you can find the contact information for your elected official.
I have a problem with this because it assumes that engagement is best between a citizen and an elected official. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think the more valuable engagement is between citizens, and TVW is giving up on that.
Yes, its much much easier not have to moderate comments from readers, but they’re shutting off communication between their readers.
Another interesting thing about the TVW blog is it makes TVW a defacto media organization, more along the lines of what a real, post newspaper, media organization would look like. Original musings here.
The PCOs voted tonight and the ranked list we’re sending to the county commissioners is:
1. Karen Valenzuela (Tumwater city council member) 164 points
2. Susan Bogni (current commissioner’s assistant, who endorsed her) 109 points
3. Walt Jorgenson (former Tumwater city council member) 87 points.
The PCOs were allowed to rank three of the applicants, with six points to divide among their first second or third choices.
Don’t worry Mark, I respect your opinion, despite your non-PCO status:
I would not vote for Susan Bogni. At the forum on Saturday, she struck me as one who felt she was due the appointment by virtue of employment for the current commissioner. The only other political adroitness she seemed to possess was the ability to say Barack Obama’s name, and if I remember correctly, she said she wanted to implement his vision in our corner of the worthld.
When did central planning become the mantra of our political age? She may be the most qualified candidate (though I didn’t take that from the forum), but she fails to grasp a very simple concept in a representative democracy, that the country doesn’t belong to its leaders, be they Barack Obama or Susan Bogni. I hate the concept of benevolent overlords, and I hate it when politicians (even more so, aspiring politicians) embrace it. Obama’s tagline certainly did not aspire to such lunacy look to the right of Joe Biden and read what it says.
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