Results tagged “olympia”

The Evergreen State College takes great pride in the geoduck. The school has so much admiration for the animal that they made it their mascot and the school's motto, Omnia Extares, (Latin for "let it all hang out") is at least partially intended as a reference to the creature's phallic appearance. Even the school’s alma mater sings the geoduck’s praises.

Not so fast on the Mayor Nickels-bashing, claims the P-I. Turns out charges that he costs the city by not playing well with Olympia may be overblown, because Seattle’s legislators aren’t very good at helping Seattle themselves.

There will be no special legislative session to take care of lawmaker odds and ends. What kind of fun are our legislators missing out on?

Publicola is feeling grim about the legislative session's taxes vs. deficit paralysis, and boils down the basics with a look at Rep. Eric Pettigrew’s (D-37, S. Seattle) sales tax bill. It called for an increase of three-tenths of a percent, and Publicola says its failure—"with a $13 million cut to children’s health care, a $75 million cut to low-income care for hospitals, a $28 million cut to mental health care among other cuts—defines the 2009 session."

Moving beyond the easy teabagging jokes, Publicola has a nice report on the anti-tax demonstration in Olympia today. Top honors for hyperbole go to State Sen. Janea Holmquist of Moses Lake for her zinger: "You know what, being a little bit Socialist is like being a little bit pregnant...Pretty soon you give birth to a full blown Marxist." See here for the full report.

Do you prefer one or two lumps of conservative sugar with your tea? Today, around the nation, conservatives are joining together for the Tax Day Tea Party, (TEA stands for "Taxed Enough Already") to protest the government's spending and tax motives. Naturally, Seattle (and many other Washington cities) will be holding myriad tea party rallies throughout the day. While the group of conservative Seattle bloggers, who claim to have ignited the new "revolution" nationwide, will be drawing crowds (and singing tax songs!) in Olympia.

Seattlest headed south on I-5 this past weekend for our annual Oregon coast getaway. Instead of boring you with details about rugged ocean scenery, we thought we’d detail what must be the least beautiful of the major interstate commutes from Seattle.

• Hella Bus has an engaging, creative, relevant (and short!) video episode about politics in Olympia--including the best fifteen seconds of political film we've seen in ages tucked in at the very end.
• Videogum wrote about 'Nightline's Great Satan Debate--apparently it was a laugh riot!
• The Daily Weekly got a hot tip about a man wearing a jacket printed all over with Asian call-girl ads. Weird.

It's probably a good thing that the most interesting headlines this morning have to do with flowers. It means soldiers survived the night, no heinous crimes were public enough to catch the attention of journalists, and the economy still exists. Up in Kitsap County, intrepid blogger Josh Farley investigated recent anecdotal reports of graveside flower thefts and concluded, "It appears for now that such theft isn’t a problem. Vandalism in cemeteries, I should add, is an appalling crime, and I’m sure happens once and awhile." The deer are eating the flowers. News! And down in Olympia, the capitol grounds will plant fewer flowers this year than last, and the flowers will be more daffodils than the traditional tulips, because they last in the landscaped patterns longer.

(via Publicola, who stick their noses into politics so we don't have to)

State House Speaker Frank "Grumpypants McMegamall" Chopp and 43rd District Representative Jamie Pedersen (the Fightin' 43rd) tag team tomorrow to host a town hall on the current legislative session. It's at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at First Hill's Seattle First Baptist Church, located near Harvard and Spring. They'll fill you in on all the news from down Olympia way.

Publicola has the news this morning: a controversial bill that tried to raise density standards around 40 light rail stations has failed to make it out of committee and is dead in the water. The bill, supported by city councilor Sally Clark and generally a good idea, is a casualty of competing progressive interests between poverty activists and environmentalists. John Fox, the head of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, has effectively solidified his reputation as the "local Ralph Nader," in Publicola's estimation, by going against other housing advocates in opposing the bill for not offering enough affordable housing guarantees, while the mayor's office eventually came after it because its affordable housing guarantees were . So now we have nothing, furthering Seattlest's impression that the Democratic leadership in the State government is a joke and that local activists are incapable of delivering on virtually anything. (Read Josh Feit's assessment of the impasse.)

A couple days ago, we received an email plea from the Washington Homebrewers Association to help get State Senate Bill 5060 (PDF), which eases some restrictions on homebrewing, passed. While homebrewing is perfectly legal, currently it is illegal under state law to transport or provide any homebrewed beer or wine outside the home of manufacture, except for competitions, in which no more than one gallon may be transported and provided free, and only to judges. Easing these restrictions helps pave the way for homebrewers to find a public and will help promote the local craft-brewing industry. Anyone interested in supporting (or opposing) said legislation can attend a public hearing before the the Commerce, Labor, and Consumer Protection Committee tomorrow in Olympia, currently scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Check here for details.

It's opening day of the 2009 duck-hunting season state legislative session, and all signs point towards an interestingly contentious set of months in Olympia as the legislators deal with a deepening budget crisis. The Times notes that since Gregoire isn't campaigning anymore, state Democrats are now free to complain as loudly as their hearts desire without fear of giving an advantage to Dino Rossi's camp. For more information about the agendas of each committee meeting today, check Access Washington's calendar page.

Via Twitter, the House Democratic Caucus alerts us to their Capitol snow day photo break. That snow was meant for us! Stay tuned, though. You can follow first-flake reports at #seatst. Did we mention that already? Can't hurt to repeat.

Part of the Capitol's holiday display, an "atheistic billboard" from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that caught the eagle eye of Bill O'Reilly and caused Gregoire some embarrassment on national television, was filched and delivered to a radio station here in Seattle this morning. What radio station did the thief deem worthy to possess said billboard? KMPS, naturally: 94.1, the country station. Yeeeehaw, let the games begin!

Frank Chopp, Olympia's favorite stubborn uncle, decided many years ago that something should be done about the viaduct, and because he lives in Seattle he was able to wait seven years before actually announcing his plan.

...If you work for a select few state agencies. This week, the Olympia offices of three state departments are moving to four-day workweeks in an attempt to save energy; participating are the State Department of Community Trade and Economic Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Archaeology and History Preservation. After a trial run with Fridays off for these offices, the government will reassess to see if the program saves enough energy to make it a worthwhile policy for other state-run offices to adopt. If the new schedule isn't effective at energy conservation, the folks in the guinea-pig offices probably won't be too angry about getting the chance to enjoy a few months of three-day weekends.

Governor Christine Gregoire was denied entrance to an Olympia bar last weekend, when she couldn't produce valid ID proving she was over 21. Sure, she is 61 years old and the Governor of Washington, but you got to give it to the brand new bouncer for being vigilant about not letting un-ID'd patrons in. After being denied entrance to the bar, the governor called it a night and headed back to her home--the Governor's mansion--which can't be too bad. We imagine they have better liquor there anyway.

That's what an Olympia mail carrier said about wearing a kilt on the job...to prevent chafing. We wonder what the problem is with the National Association of Letter Carriers who, according TNT, gave his desire to wear a skirt to work a "cool reception." Considering he made his request during their meeting in Boston, we're left shaking our heads. If anyone in this country understands kilt-wearing, we'd expect Bostonians to be a welcoming crowd. Go figure. Olympia kilt-wearing mail carrier, we salute you!

      

Twenty minutes south of Olympia we take exit 95 off I-5 towards Little Rock. The road changes name a couple times until we're on 28th Ave SW, which ends at Waddell Creek Rd. SW. This was the closest point we could map to where we were going: the Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve. From here, we take a right and drive down Waddell for about a mile, just like the article in the told us, and then just barely noticed the turn in time.

  

As 7:30 a.m. rolled around, we were ready for breakfast and tired of slowly following the STP riders through Kent, so we made our way back to I-5 and headed south to the first of two stops that took us away from the bicyclists' course.

There was a woman, born in Germany, who thought Hitler was about the best thing to happen to Germany since, well, ever. Though she never joined the Nazi party, she became a "close personal friend" of Hitler. He supported her work: the documentaries Triumph of the Will (about the 1934 Nazi rallies at Nuremberg) and Olympia (about the 1936 Oympics). She shot a lot of film during the war. Sometimes the extras were trucked in from a concentration camp. When she got married in 1944, she introduced her husband to Adolf. She was a woman who both didn't know about the camps, and only cooperated with the Nazis because she didn't want to be sent to one.

This Seattlest just returned from Austin, Texas, for the annual South by Southwest music festival. While enjoying Austin, we were struck by one thing over and over again--how much Texas really wants to be its own nation. Nothing drove that point home more than comparing Texas' Capitol building to our very own Capitol. The state building in Austin is easily three times the size of Washington States and rivals the size of the Capitol building in D.C.

Photo Taken by beloved Flickr Contributor, Slightly North

Here's something you don't see much anymore, outside of reservation smoke shops: display cases of cigars. Cohibas, Coronas, Partagas. Romeo y Julietas, Macanudos, Rocky Patels. Sure didn't expect to come upon this lineup at the Spar, a traditional lunch counter & pool room much loved in Olympia.