At Safeplace tonight there is a community forum. We are gonna sit down and talk about sexual assault in our greater Olympia community and come up with some strategies and plans to address it.

5:30 pm /314 legion way olympia 98501/360 786 8754. repost widely.

You are cordially invited to the 1st annual Olympia Anarchist Bookfair! We will be gathering from Friday, April 18th to Sunday, April 20th to share skills, give workshops, and to nurture the growth of our communities. We welcome those interested in becoming self-reliant and developing healthy, radical, anti-authoritarian alternatives to the dominant social order. Those who are curious about or new to anarchism, or may not identify as anarchists but have similar goals are especially welcome. There will be limited housing available to travelers and lots of free food!

At The Eagles Hall 805 4th Ave (on the corner of 4th and Plum)

Friday - 2:30pm-6pm
Saturday - 10am-10pm

For a full schedule, or more information, visit The Olympia Anarchist Bookfair:
on the web
and on myspace

or contact olympiabookfair@gmail.com

Maybe a discussion of the Linux software model with benign dictator and operating license would give us some ideas about how this community should work?

We are not going to be bound by a contract that says we can't market our ideas in the way that the Linux kernel is a commons, but maybe our social contract, the ethics of citizen journalism and basic blogging ethics are analogous?

The Women's Guesthouse is transitional housing for women in Olympia designed to empower women while developing sustainable permanent housing plans. The Women's Guesthouse is a duplex- one side provides housing for women and children, and the other provides housing for single women.

We are trying to provide a comfortable space for the women on their journeys to self-sufficiency. The women have made a list of several items that would help them out a great deal.

*Kitchen supplies: can opener, cookie sheet, pizza tray, pizza cutter, cheese slicer, food storage containers, spatula, serving spoons, whisk, potato masher, ladle, mason jars, canisters for flour/sugar/etc, silverware

*Towels: dish towels, hand towels, wash cloths

*House supplies: night lights, flashlight, desk lamp, storage bins, shoe boxes, shower mats, shower curtain liner, door mats, curtains, batteries, house plants

*Tools/supplies: Hammer, screwdrivers, and basic tools, ceiling hooks, nails, screws, wall anchors

*Furniture: 4 dressers, bathroom shelf, bookcase, computer desk, office chair, tv stand, 5 laundry baskets

Small items such as these can make a huge difference in the atmosphere of a house. Please help us turn the Bread and Roses Women's Guesthouse from a house into a home where women can prosper and grow. Contact the Bread and Roses Advocacy Center at (360) 754-4588 during business hours, 9-4:30 M-F, visit us at 1009 4th Ave E Olympia, WA, or contact Sarah after hours at (630)336-8000.

I spent an hour and a half at the free coffee event at Olympia Coffee Roasting Company on Cherry Street. The place has a wonderful character with mosaic tile inlaid floor and dark wood furniture. Two bands played with very different styles...one more along the folk line and the other high energy. Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. was generous with the coffee and their claim to have well-trained baristas is well-founded.

There is a table with chairs on the sidewalk outside with a view of the Olympics. I enjoyed the coziness of the place and would definitely meet with friends for a great cup and a chat.

Olympia Coffee Roasting is giving away Free Coffee Today! Don't miss out!

For those of you still patronizing Starbucks in a town with the great roasters we have, (Like Olympia Coffee Roasting), I wag the wiggling finger of shame at you! ;)

Cosmo

Briana Waters Pretrial Conference Hearing is 9 AM tomorrow. Please come bear witness to this process. The judge starts a prompt court and will start at 9am sharp. Please come dressed and act appropriate for the court. The Tacoma Federal Courthouse is located at 1717 Pacific Ave near downtown Tacoma.

Carpools will leave Olympia at 7:35 AM from the Grocery Outlet parking lot on the westside.

Briana Waters was indicted in 2006 for the UW Center for Urban Horticulture arson that took place in 2001. Briana Waters is maintaining her innocence and her trial is to start February 11, 2008, in Tacoma, WA.

This is part of the green scare. Refer to the "Green Scare" page for more information. It is important that our community bears witness to this process. Much of the information in the trial will pertain to the our community and our civil liberties. This will be a precedent setting case for our time.

dropping knowledge encourages social change. Using advanced web technologies, the initiative with offices in Berlin, Germany links the voices of individuals and organizations. The web-platform enables the global public to ask and answer questions, exchange ideas, and start initiatives around the most pressing issues of our time. Events like the Table of Free Voices, campaigns like "ask yourself" and projects in cooperation with different partners create a meaningful bridge between the on and offline worlds.

(see full view of my post to learn more)

I've been thinking about this whole debate around gun culture on OlyBlog, and I've got a couple of questions. The first is, what exactly is the point of posting so much gun-related material on OlyBlog? Does anyone really think that there are going to be converts to the cause? I was looking on the NRA website and I noticed something interesting: there isn't a shooting range in Olympia, Lacey or Tumwater. Hmm. Why is that? I'm guessing that the population here wouldn't generate enough business to support it. So, first question: What's the goal?

Then, I think about the response to my offer to set up another blog for the gun folks to have their own chat-space. Why isn't this of interest to the local gun lobby? The only thing I can come up with is that they don't actually want to talk to each other, they want to argue with the rest of us. Is this possibly the case? Why would it be more attractive to continue to battle about these issues with a group of hardened pacifists (or folks otherwise resistant to gun culture)? I'd really like to know.

I want to emphasize (again) that I'm not against the occasional post about gun-related events or occurrences that are local in nature. That's what OlyBlog is for. I am against the evangelizing about the benefits of gun ownership.

If there is no resolution around this issue (like the creation of another blog for that stuff) then here's what's going to happen: I'll begin making posts that catalog the senseless and entirely avoidable deaths that occur as a result of easy access to handguns. I'm absolutely certain that I can exceed by a factor of 10 the number of lawful uses of handguns for self-defense. In short, we can use statistics, or we can do it the hard way.