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Olympia Time #1: Welcome to Olympia

December 16, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

And, its about metonymic use of the term Olympia to mean “Washington State government.” Wow, big surprise, bet you can’t wait to read this one.

Elaine Nelson was kind enough to write a short introduction, basically so I could say at least one other person shares by pet peeve enough to claim it in print.

And, yes, a lot of what’s in there is already here on my blog under the metonymy of Olympia tag.

You can download the file here and print your own copy or just read it in the window below. I’m trying to find an easy way for folks to order their own printed copy, but I’m having some technical issues.

And, please, if you see any dumb typos, just let me know. I’ll correct them and post a new version.

In preparation for later tonight, some metonymy of Olympia tweets

December 15, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Its getting to be that time of year when the metonymy returns to Olympia.

And, if you were wondering, down below where I reply to a tweet about a post by Sarah Schacht about the budget bill over the weekend and how it appeared out nowhere? That post is simply brilliant. Sarah’s exactly the right type of person we need blogging, her stuff certainly needs more attention.

And, my little snarky exchange with her is exactly the reason why I sometimes go overboard caring about how people use the term “Olympia.” Christ almighty, Emmett, get some perspective. There are bigger fish to fry, you know?

Arg @seattletimes “Olympia knew the lucrative rip-off was going on, and said nothing” and its because we don’t like you #metonymy

MLAS: Pension Games, Seeds of Revolt http://is.gd/iN0JY #WA #Olympia #tcot #taxpayers #publicsector #p2

emettoconnell: @mlas seeds of revolt just in Olympia or across the entire state of Washington? I’m confused #metonymy

emmettoconnell: @SarahSchacht no offense but don’t peg #Olympia for a lack of sunshine in Washington state govt #metonymy

SarahSchacht: @emmettoconnell I don’t think you read my blog post; I documented a lack of public access to the budget bill, not transparency across WA.

emmettoconnell: @SarahSchacht I did, great post, I was replying to an earlier tweet of yours in which you used #Olympia in a metonymic fashion

pnwlocalnews: @GovGregoire proposes health care, pension modernization in biennium budget reform http://t.co/J5bpdVi #wabudget #olympia

emmettoconnell: @PNWLocalNews how about a hashtag for state politics that isn’t about just one town? #metonymy

Letting people know about whats going on with construction (City of Olympia vs. Thurston County)

December 9, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

It isn’t that the construction on Henderson Boulevard is taking too long, which it is. I understand that big public works projects hit humps and need delays.

Its how I learned about it that bothers me. I learned about it from the daily newspaper. I live right in the middle road construction hell right now. Between the Yelm Highway project (county), the Henderson sanitary sewer (city) and an apartment project, I’m surrounded.

But, I’m not in mystery with what’s going on with the Yelm Highway project, because between an active twitter account and blog, they’ve been doing a great job keeping folks up to date on developments: when its a good idea to brave the road, progress, and cool videos.

The City of Olympia, not so much. Southbound traffic is pretty much stopped during the day, and the work schedule is in constant flux (not always stopping at 4p as advertized on the web and reader boards). And, the worst part is, if you had been paying attention and checking their project webpage, you wouldn’t have learned any sooner that the project is going over the limit.

Its well passed time that local governments need to depend on the only paper in town to let people know about news. They have the ability now to create micro-channels on the neighborhood level to inform people about construction updates or crime in their neightborhood, or anything else really.

And, most importantly, it doesn’t need to be all that fancy. Free blogger.com blogs and twitter are about as easy as it gets.

Look at this cool thing, you can embed city of Olympia council meetings now

December 8, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I’m mostly posting this because I think its exciting that the city of Olympia’s vendor finally caught up and now allows you to not only embed city council videos, but choose where you want the video to start. This is something little old TVW has been doing for a couple of years now, but I’m glad the vendor folks have caught up.

For some reason, this embedding thing seems to be working here and not over at Olyblog, which is a shame, because I think there will be more people interested in watching these clips over there.

And, if you’re really interested in this particular topic, read Janine Gate’s blog. She’s good.

Washington historic districts that have crossed the Cascade Curtain

December 5, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Yesterday, I took a look at “Historical Atlas of United States Congressional Districts” at the Olympia Timberland Library and answered a question I had last time I thought about congressional districts.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any online digital historic congressional district maps online, so the 24 year old atlas is the best resource I could find.

So, in the past hundred years or so, since Washington gave up on at-large districts, there have been three instances where a congressional district spanned the Cascade Curtain:

In 1909 the 2nd CD
1969, the 3rd CD
1973, the 4 CD

All three crossed the Cascades along the Columbia, so there is no historic parallel what I do with the 8th CD (link above). Both the 1909 and 1969, it was the historic parrelell of the current 3rd crossing over, taking in a couple of east side counties. The 1973, an east side district came west and took in Vancouver.

I redraw your congressional districts so you don’t have to (Olympia is the center of the universe, no?)

December 1, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I know I said I’d avoid politics on this blog from now on, but this really isn’t politics as much as its playing around with cool maps. It all starts with this cool tool by Dave Bradlee that lets you manually redraw congressional lines. Its a bit clunky at first, but as soon as you get a handle on how it works, it is pretty awesome.

First, consensus is that Washington is getting an additional district after the census is done. Dick Morrill up at the UW makes a pretty good argument that the new district would be centered on Olympia (hey, have to be happy about that, right?).

What he doesn’t really do is show you how that Olympia-centric district would shift all the other districts around. So, after about an hour or so of tinkering, here’s what I came up with.

Statewide

Puget Sound detail

New 10th detail

Where I fudged the most, between Yakima and the Tri-Cities, using the population out there to balance out three districts.

A handful of thoughts on the work the redistricting commission has to undertake to actually redraw the districts next year.

Also, the here’s the actual file that you can upload to the tool above to really see the detail of the work I did. Its certainly not perfect, there are some unassigned areas still and likely some islands.

1. Morrill understates the impact the new district will have on the west side of the state. I used up all of Mason, Grays and Pacific counties, including all of Thurston and a lot of Pierce to get the new district.

I did take his advice and moved the 3rd across the Cascade Curtain towards Yakima and the Tri-Cities. But, I didn’t really need to take up much of those urban areas to balance out the 3rd.

The real impact came when I started balancing out impacts to the 6th and 9th made by the new 10th. I made up most of those eventually with the 8th, which in turn I made up by again crossing the Cascade Curtain into the Cle Elum and Ellensburg areas.

2. So, in the end, I solidified Republican seats in the 8th and 3rd by crossing over the cascades. Both east side districts were way over, so taking from them was easy. But, what I’m not sure of is whether a Washington congressional district has ever crossed the Cascades.

Will having two members of the federal caucus working for both sides of the Cascade Curtain help bring that division down?

3. On the other hand, I think I created a pretty safe Democratic 10th. Even though it seems pretty rural, except for Pierce and Thurston counties, the three rural counties mostly elect Democrats to the state legislature.

4. And, yes, I balanced this out by playing fast and loose with the area between Yakima and the Tri-Cities. Since I have the 9th CD currently breathing down my neck a few miles away, I don’t feel too bad about the crowded Interstate 82 corridor.

Notes and links for “Olympia Journalism Club”

November 26, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Over at Olyblog, a question from Chad Akins seemed to have reignited the hyperlocal journalism fire with some of us. At least to the point of some folks getting together next Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been pondering the creation of something like this proto-group for a few months now, thinking about the examples from Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus,” about how local groups (Dogtown for example) can help sharpen skills and projects.

Not sure I can make the actual meeting yet, but I at least wanted to put together some thoughts and notes:

Thad Curtz has always talked about putting together a wiki on local issues. This core group would seem like a natural starting point for a project like that. It would take a long while to get going, but I think we’d eventually fill it out and keep it updated.
The Leeds Community News hub seems like an interesting project to emulated. Interesting, though, they seem to have some institutional support from the Guardian.
Lakewood United and North Mason County Voice are groups that bring speakers in to talk about local issues. Seems like an interesting model to emulate, if we could do it. Especially if we made it a podcast as well.
Here’s my old list of “beats” that I posted on Olyblog almost three years ago (three years to the day this group will be meeting). Still pretty relevant, should be adding things to the list.
Here’s a small side project I’ve been working on, the Briggs Villager, a neighborhood based project for where I live now. Haven’t really launched it yet, but I’m getting there and just thought I’d share the link.

Skills, skills, skills. The more I think about it, the more I think that this group should be about sharing tips and tricks for people who want to do this sort of thing, but don’t have the chops. Little trainings on how to record and set up a podcast, how to find the information you’re looking for, how to conduct an interview or write a decent post.

So, in my mind, the group would have two purposes: teach skills and provide a place for collaboration and sharing.

Couple of thoughts on finding ourselves in Centralia on Veterans (Armistice) Day

November 13, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Based on that I’ve never been to Berry Fields (love their blueberry jam, favorite jam ever) and that we had an open morning Thursday, we found ourselves in Centralia.

It was on purpose that we went, but it was accidently that we found ourselves on that particular day, 91 years after the Centralia Massacre, when six people died in a riot between American Legionaries and Wobblies.

The events leading up to and following the massacre (riot) are well documented, the UW library even has an extensive digital library, so I’m not going to recount the larger universe around 1919 in Centralia

But, just a couple of thoughts:

1. Less than 8,000 people lived in Centralia at the time, a pretty small town. Funny note, Olympia was about the same size at the time.

Anyway, everyone who participated in the massacre knew each other and had some history between them. The two main characters of the massacre were lawyers who apparently had a decent personal relationship.

Even though there were meta-issues at play (radical labor unions vs. conservative veterans), it was the personal relationships that I think color the history. This made me think about the current debate inside the Olympia Co-op community over divestment.

2. One of my weirdest experiences as a reporter was running into a lady that was in Montesano to research one of her relatives that had (apparently) either participated in or died in the massacre. She hung out at the newspaper office for an afternoon looking through our archives and then showed up at a city council meeting in Elma later that night. The police chief realized she was a transient and gave her a bus pass to Olympia.

I hadn’t realized until she showed up at the meeting that she had no place to go and was literally living out of a backpack. She was originally from the Southwest (Arizona?) and traveled up here to simply research her relative’s connection to the Centralia massacre.

Its a pretty big thing that would drag someone up with no money from Arizona to Grays Harbor County.

What should Evergreen do with its athletic program?

November 11, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Thanks to @downwithpants for the conversation to kick this off.

Dave Weber’s seat was barely cold before his successor, Sarah Works is also heading out the door.

Weber left after eight years, because when push came to shove, the vision above him wasn’t the same as his vision for the program:

“It came to a point where my boss’ vision wasn’t mine,” Weber said.
There is a push toward recreation sports, intramural sports and outdoor recreation at Evergreen. Yet there are no regrets, just differences of opinion.

…

“We had good support in the sense that most faculty and staff want the teams to do well,” Weber said. “But when it came to stepping to the forefront and truly advocating for a more prominent role for our department, most of that does come from within the athletics and rec staff.”

Weber’s resignation and Works appointment and eventual resignation seems to indicate a flux in terms of what athletics at Evergreen are supposed to be. I remember growing up, when there were no varsity sports at Evergreen. My uncle played for the Geoducks soccer team, but at that point was a glorified club team playing locally.

Bounce that against the Quincy Wilder led Geoducks, packing the gym seemingly every night. If Evergreen wasn’t a good place for competitive intercollegiate athletics, why did it seem that that team (plus any other successful Geoduck team) was popular at the school?

The tin-pot band (anyone remember that?) made up of male 19 year old students came to the basketball games back then because the team was good and fun to watch.

Even though (we know the old tale of why the Geoduck was chosen) Evergreen was founded as a school that would never embrace big time college athletics, playing in the NAIA seems to be a way to a nice middle territory between Seattle University-esque small college striving and just not trying at all.

Weber did a great job for years towing this middle ground between “Undefeated since 1967” attitude and trading in being a college for being a sports franchise. I don’t think the Geoducks will ever sell out the way some schools have, but there is something to be said for putting some effort into it.

Another note: There is another model out there, just not one that many have used. The BYU Mens soccer team is essentially a club team and does not participate at the collegiate level. But, they’ve found a way to still participate at a higher level:

Paralleling their efforts to increase the level of competition , Brigham Young University Soccer left the Collegiate Club division of soccer, and purchased a Premier Development League franchise, where they began play in May of 2003. Part of the United Soccer Leagues, this league provides the year round competition necessary to develop individual and team skills that in hand will better prepare them for success in their international travels. We are the only University sponsored soccer program to ever purchase a franchise and that competes at a level considered higher than NCAA soccer in the pyramid of U.S. soccer development.

Is there some future in that model for Evergreen? Creating a side non-profit organization that receives grants from the school to offer athletic opportunities for students. But, can be separate from the school and be able to raise its own funds as well. And, by looking for opportunities to compete at a high level in non-college venues (PDL, WCCL or IBL), it could still play at a high level.

And, just another thing: Don’t you think an institution with its own blog farm could put up a simple RSS feed for its athletic department?

Olympia Time reborn! (and, did you notice the new header??)

November 1, 2010 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

Well, maybe not so strong as that. But, back to blogging on a regular basis here at my home blog.

I’ll try not to take such a long break next time, but 2010 has been sort of busy, and its not like I haven’t been blogging, just not over here so much.

The time off did help me refocus on what I want to do over here. In short, here is how I’ll refocus myself:

1. Politics, eh, not so much. Unless something is really interesting, I’ll not write about politics much here.

2. Deep map of Olympia. PrairyErth is one of my favorite books. Not because of the particular topic (Kansas, eh…) but of how the topic is treated. Williams Least Heat Moon drills down into each little portion of a Kansas County, exploring it from the inside out. That kind of treatment of a particular place interests me, so I’m going to try to write more history here.

By the way, the new header is a detail from a Sanborn Map of Olympia in the late 1800s. The detail is of a gulch that used to stab deep into the current capitol campus. The old greenhouse and sunken gardens are now on top of that now filled gulch.

Sanborn maps are pretty cool, and you usually have to pay to see them. But, the Timberland Regional Library grants you access to all of the maps for Washington.

3. A zine. Olympia Time, the Zine. This is more of a promise to myself than a goal, but since I’ve been getting involved with the library, I’ve fallen in love with the zine format. So, I’m going to start doing four zines a year based on things I’ve written about on this blog. Promise. I have an editorial schedule and everything. So, hopefully the first one will come out within a month.

4. Local sports. I have this concept inside my own head called “real sports,” which is the shadow land of competitive sports in between youth (including high school) and the kind of stuff you see on television (including affiliated minor league baseball). So, anything like small college sports, independent minor league baseball, or high level amateur soccer. So, now there are two examples of this (beyond the local colleges) around her: the Puget Sound Collegiate League and Capitol City FC. Hopefully, I’ll try to write more about these organizations.

Olympia Time