Almost 30 years since a tight-knit band of crazed alumni began the tradition of Evergreen Graduation Festivals, first at Mud Bay, and later in the legendary Meadow in the middle of Evergreen's forested campus, we come forward with a new twist on something that many feel was already adequately twisted to begin with: The first Virtual Meadow.

On Saturday, June 14th (after Evergreen's Super Saturday), we will bring together those legendary psychonauts, Heliotroupe, with up-and-comers and all-around swell fellows, High Ceiling, for a night of festive frivolity. To top it all off, we're going to throw in the mind-bending moves of the Troupe O-Wa belly dancers, beautiful processional decorations, throbbing multimedia mindscapes, and much too much more.

We'll have a beer garden for the over-21 crowd, staffed by volunteers from Media Island, the nonprofit whose social justice mission will benefit from every drop of frothy suds you swill.

In further solidarity, you will have opportunities to toss those evil Federal Reserve notes that are sullying your pockets into the Mushroom Richard Commemorative Inferno of Love, the proceeds of which will go to farm relief efforts from last winter's terrible floods.

The all-ages event begins at 7pm on Saturday, June 14th, in the Eagles Ballroom, 805 E. 4th, in downtown Olympia. And it's only $5. Better yet, it's completely FREE for 2008 Evergreen graduates!

Why free for them? Well, partly because they're cute as buttons and awfully fun to have around, but they're broke. Mostly though, because some of us alumni want to honor Evergreen's graduates and, in some little way, give our thanks to that amazing center of learning and weirdness. We can't begin to express how much we owe to Evergreen, how important it is to who we are today and to the quality of community we live in now, and how proud we are to be Greeners!

Please forward far and wide. And feel free to respond at maslauskas84@gmail.com. -Brendan Maslauskas Dunn

Student Power and the Sit-in at Evergreen

May 30th marked the 10th day of the sit-in of Evergreen State College administrator Art Costantino's hallway. Students are demanding the immediate reinstatement of Olympia SDS and have recently added the additional demands that Kelly Beckham, an SDSer be offered her job back as well as compensation for time lost, and a change in the process by which student groups lose their RSO (Registered Student Organization) status that is determined by those most affected, the students and members of > these organizations.

The banning of SDS as a student group is an indication of the current political climate at The Evergreen State College, one that has been increasingly suppressing student dissent, which includes the aiding of law enforcement agents in the arresting of students, the handing over of student records to law enforcement agencies, punishing students for their political beliefs and activities. This includes the firing of Kelly Beckham and the firing of students who were allegedly involved in the events of February 14th, but who have not been convicted or even charged as well as the selective enforcement of a "concert moratorium. The Evergreen State College is also on a path of becoming increasingly more mainstream which is pushing the college in a direction contrary to its original mission statement. The students sitting-in want to see an end to all of this.

Goal is to eventually gather most everything on OlyBlog concerning The Evergreen State College here in one place.

For more follow tags such as Evergreen, also run searches on terms such as TESC, The Evergreen State College, and Evergreen.

Civil Rights Leader, Leading Theorist of Nonviolent Activism to Speak at 7 p.m. on May 5 at Olympia’s Temple Beth Hatfiloh

(Olympia, Wash.) Civil rights leader and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. James M. Lawson will be speaking at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 5 at Temple Beth Hatfiloh, 201 8th Ave SE in Olympia. Rev. Lawson will talk about building a community that both values activism – to promote better quality of life and greater equity among citizens – and ensures civility and respect for the rights of all. The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the City of Olympia, The Evergreen State College, The Hispanic Women’s Network, Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation, Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, participating members of Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, The Port of Olympia, Unity in the Community, and Veterans for Peace. For directions to the temple, visit www.bethhatfiloh.org/directions.html

Lawson is a leading figure in the civil rights movement. On the eve of his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Lawson "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world."

Today the Evergreen Police Services Community Review Board, which is made up of students, staff, and faculty at Evergreen released its report on the incident on Feb 14.

It is attached in PDF format on this thread.

Basically, these were the major findings of the Board:

• that the Evergreen police followed protocol, but the officer should have attempted to leave sooner and park her vehicle so it could have a quicker exit route, and
  
• the initial arrest was justified and was not based on racial profiling, given the evidence and witness statements the officer gathered at the scene, and that the officer went beyond what was necessary to attempt to gather more statements, even when the crowd was growing more hostile
  
• their should not have been only one officer on campus, and back-up should have been called sooner
  
• that event staff were not trained and/or did not follow protocol, an
  
• their was little to no communication prior to the event, between the police on campus and the event staff/student activities people responsible for planning the event
  
  

It should be noted that this report is only for the campus police, and the scope can not include Olympia police actions.

Intercity Transit has nearly finished installing camera systems on all of its regular coaches – almost 70 in all. Most of these installations involve seven cameras, while some shorter coaches have only five. All of them record video and audio information in a digital form for storage on a removable hard drive on the bus. The system records video on the bus for approximately 7 to 10 working days.

According to news stories (and Verint’s own website) these camera systems also wirelessly transmit the imagery to anyone with the knowledge and tools to make a wireless connection to the bus’ WiFi system, located above the driver’s head:

“In the event of a security incident, Nextiva Transit will allow supervisor and police vehicles to view live video from within the bus, enabling more effective actionable intelligence and emergency response.” 1

“Verint Systems Inc., a leading provider of analytic software-based solutions for workforce-enterprise optimisation and security, announced an agreement with Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) to enable the use of Verint Nextiva™ Wireless devices on MOTOMESH broadband wireless networks. (…) By deploying Nextiva wireless video management solutions on a Motorola mesh network, private security, law enforcement and emergency response personnel have immediate, high speed access to security video and data delivering heightened situational awareness to enable a more effective response.” 2

With the ability of the system to monitored live by those with the access tools, these systems have likely become a prime target for detectives seeking to identify those responsible for the Evergreen Uprising (Feb 15, 2008). Recent late night extensions of the routes to Evergreen have resulted in more “face time” for those who travel via bus to TESC.

When I was logging camera installations in the post-uprising weeks I noticed only 3 of the 30 buses seen on the Evergreen routes were NOT ones with camera systems installed. Prior to the uprising, it was rare for the buses on the 41 / 48 routes to have cameras installed. It is not known at this time whether this intelligence “take” has proved useful to the Sheriff’s Department, but one can imagine others who would find its data quite useful.

I've already begun to exploit this data pool by requesting bus video and audio from IT Bus #808, which in November 2007 was used to move Olympia Police into the Port of Olympia. Their conversations were quite telling...

Starting April 4, The Evergreen State College, in contract with Intercity Transit, will begin a pilot project to provide late-night transit between the campus and downtown.

The Nightline will run on Fridays and Saturdays between Midnight and 3AM; on Sundays between 9PM and Midnight. The service will serve along the existing Route 41, with an extension through downtown up to Puget Street, then looping back down State to the Olympia Transit Center.

The late-night Nightline will be open to the public, when they pay the regular fare. Students with Evergreen ID can ride for free. The service is provided by Intercity Transit through a contract with the College, which is financed through a student transit fee enhancement, approved by over 25% of the student body at Evergreen last spring.

Audio from the TESC Valentines Day Uprising - Nine One One calls.

021808 TESC Riot 911 ph call (Error in date is original to the file):

021508 TESC Riot Call to EVPD:

021508 TESC Riot 2nd EVPD Ph call:

These are images made of the CAPCOM (Capital Communications) calls to 9-11 dispatch, showing who called and from what cell, where that cell phone was at the time of the call, and what dispatch did in relation to the call over the course of the evening. Enjoy!