I see them. A cross section of Washingtonians brought together by some random license plate designation. UML. An artificial family. Yet, unknowingly united to bring us an image ...

Another look at the Criss Cross Circus from Hampshire College.

Sometimes I wonder if any other UML owners in Thurston County are aware they are part of this grand experiment? All 999 of them?

UMLs spotted this round: 032, 049, 065, 081, 205, 216, 263, 297, 325, 369, 400, 429, 498, 609, 637, 656, 740, 765, 813, 816, 842, 854, 868, 933, 951, 976.

J.R. "Bob" Oman has the distinction of being the last (to date) member of a third party to hold office in the Washington State Senate. He is also the last third party gubernatorial candidate to receive enough votes to place him in the double digit percentages (40,073 votes, or 10.27%).

He was born June 11, 1883 in Iowa, the oldest child of Nelson J. and Francis Oman. His father, a Norwegian immigrant, worked on the railroad. The family lived in the area of Oelwein, Iowa. Sometime after the turn of the century they moved to Washington State. Bob had already earned some experience as a machinist by this time.

Oman had apparently started out in Washington working on railroads. Historian Hamilton Cravens wrote that "Oman was an eastern Washington railroad union leader." And historian Richard Fisch called him "a former railroad foreman." In any event, this was apparently not a long-lived occupation for him. He married around 1907 and by 1910 was settled in south Tacoma, where he was starting a family and running a garage and service station.

Although the Farmer-Labor Party was already falling apart after the 1920 election, it still enjoyed support in Pierce County-- more from labor than from farmers. Bob ran for the State Senate under the FLP banner in 1922. An Oman political advertisement stated:

The space(s) that S6 left are like rotted teeth, gaping & sore (and got me thinking)...

I have been a "docent" in meat-space (actually called a "visitor service manager" if you dig that =), and perhaps I can share in a way tonite that will "help" (...if that is the correct word)...

...OlyBlog has a fair share of egos, but what concerns me is the ability of someone in a directional role (like a docent) to become objective when confronted on something that evokes strong feelings (to recognize internal bias and not let that bias or opinion stand in the way of facilitating respectful exchange).

Understanding bias is key to communication, but I see little effort made to extend this basic courtesy here, especially when tempers flair (in my opinion this trait is shared equally by site helpers and users, trollish or otherwise)...I have yet to see any compassion in all this nasty labeling...and to what end?

OlyBlog is not valuable if it is not used and shared, regardless of the "quality of content"...

...and I'm pretty skeptical that any of us are "experts", or even really know what we are doing, so I'm concerned with where all the ego does come from, and concerned that OlyBlog will just turn into a "me too" club (plenty of that to be found elsewhere).

On "the Rules":

Either rules were made to be broken, or adhered to, so if for instance someone makes a call on whether or not something is "hyper-local", then a process should be followed, or just toss the whole bunch of BS out-

I swear, if half of you tried this kind of hot/cold behavior in my D&D game, I'd kick-you out

Make a call and stick to it, or stop the charade.

July 1st marks one year of taking a picture of the Free Wall from (almost) the same spot (almost) every day. It's been a pretty incredible experience. I've learned a lot about that alley, taking pictures and graffiti in the space of that year and thus far I've only had one person yell at me in public for doing it.

Some fun(?) things about the alley from the past year: photos of it have now been a part of a show at MOMA, it is currently the center of a disinformation campaign by Olympia bicycle police who have been stopping by and telling people that the Wall is going to be shut down, it hosted a fashion show and several concerts, for the past several weeks it has sadly seen its dumpsters pressure washed by Olympia work crews and pieces of it have been distributed around downtown. It's an amazing space of incredible value to Olympia past, present and future. I look forward to seeing what it brings tomorrow...

photo by enpen

Bob Shirley resigns a few days ago and then Russ Lehman.

Via email:

I resign from the OSD Board of Directors effective 9:00 am. June 30 2008.

If you are interested please see attached resignation memo explaining my reasons.

My ideas, and a budget proposal, which I originally sent on June 19 is also attached. This memo, it became clear last Tuesday night, was moot as the board was informed then that it’s already too late to make any substantive changes (with regard to anyone in the OEA and any administrative staff) to the superintendent’s proposed “budget”. It turns out that we had to act BEFORE we even got the superintendents budget.

Please feel free to distribute widely

Thank you very much to all the great people who I have worked with and come to know through this experience.

Russ Lehman

His resignation letter lays out his reasons, which seem to be a combination of health and his relationship with the rest of the board:

It has become clear to me now, that my recovery would be best served by resigning my position on the board. The stresses inherent in serving on a board that continues to suffer severe leadership and organizational problems are at this time, simply too disadvantageous to my health. I believe that my final responsibility as a resigning board member is to identify the specific leadership/organizational issues that, from my perspective, are rendering the board ineffective. The most critical of these issues is the lack of understanding or conflicting views about the role of a school board member.

Read the entire thing here.