Spanaway is not a city, but its population is larger than any town in Pierce County’s part of the Second Legislative District. The largest governing entity in southeast Pierce County is the Bethel School District, and often serves as the connection between students and health care services. Four decades ago, most of the area was rural and consisted mostly of large family farms. As property taxes rose, these farms were broken into parcels, eventually becoming gated communities. While the population continued to grow, services did not follow. Various doctors served the community individually, but could not meet the need for comprehensive care. The Affordable Care Act has made a difference for this community by helping to expand care to those who need it without requiring travel to Tacoma or Puyallup. Read more
BOOK REVIEW
Arlie Russell Hochschild, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, sets out, according to the narrative of her book Strangers in Their Own Land, to discover how to scale the empathy wall between people like herself, West Coast liberals, and the Tea Party conservatives. She picks Tea Party advocates in the state of Louisiana, because she expects them to provide fertile ground for her research on how people make decisions when experiencing emotional dissonance. On the one hand, they see petrochemical corporations destroying their beloved environment and risking their health. On the other hand, they hate government regulation, (which could force those corporations into better practices and force them to clean up the damage they have caused). Read more
From
The Mountain News
Azure Standard, the world’s largest supplier of organic wheat and grains, has been accused of improper management of noxious weeds growing on some of its wheat fields located in Sherman County, Oregon. As a result, it is facing a threat to its organic farming practices and food products. The local county government, based in Moro, Oregon issued a show-order to Azure and its owners, David and Nathan Stelzer, to appear for a public hearing May 17, 2017, and demanded a revised weed-management plan. If found out-of-compliance, Azure’s organic farm fields may be chemically treated by court-order, possibly with potent herbicides like Roundup or Milestone, and then forced to pay for it. Read more
In this year's trip to the market, the Washington state legislature is faced with a significant challenge. To understand that challenge we must first fall back to the state constitution where the "founding fathers" sought to explain the reason for wanting to create a state and be allowed to share in the tax money that Washington DC had previously claimed, when what was to become Washington state was clearly an uncontested part of the United States. As a part of the explanation, they included in their constitution of the state of Washington our forebears thought that a fundamental of the duties of the new state would be education. Specifically, ARTICLE IX – EDUCATION: SECTION 1 PREAMBLE. “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.” Read more
FILM REVIEW
James Baldwin had planned a book about his friends: Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Remember This House. He never finished it, but Raoul Peck attempts to do that in his new film, I Am Not Your Negro. The film's narration by Samuel L. Jackson comes entirely from the manuscript. We hear also Baldwin himself in various historical film clips. Baldwin says in the narration, "History is not the past. It is the present." Peck takes Baldwin at his word and intersperses film clips from the Rodney King beating, the riots in Ferguson, and other more recent examples of brutality against blacks with clips from Baldwin's time. Read more
When i* was farming in Kentucky, my neighbors would go down the "hollers" to the heads of the creeks to "gig" frogs. Upon their return home, they would proceed to cook them for dinner. Instead of bringing a pot of water to a boil and then putting their catch into it, they would put the live frogs into a pot of cold water and raise the heat. That way, the frogs would not jump out of the hot water, but would get used to the increasing temperature until it was too late and they were cooked. Pretty ingenious, but what does that have to do with our rights as citizens of this country? Read more
Woody Guthrie was a Progressive and is now here again, when we sorely need him. His music, life and politics is playing at the Seattle Repertory Theatre until January 29, previously performed to rave reviews by the Woody Sez company touring since 2010. In these days when we are experiencing a descent into the abyss, Woody Sez recalls a time in the 1920’s and 30’s when Progressives fought back and victories were won. Read more
When I was younger we would hide under the covers and listen to the radio. Our heroes were the Green Hornet, Tom Mix and an assortment of other radio heroes. Then came the movies and John Wayne shaped some values and fought the enemies of Good. Wayne became Yoda and the real world finally drowned out fantasy. Now the firmament is filled with Oligarchies and Corporations and little people get trampled. Banks gobble up the peoples’ houses and paychecks shrink and jobs that once paid $26.00 an hour are moved to Mexico where they re-emerge at $3.00. Read more
Yes, Life has given us bushels of lemons recently, so this is a wonderful opportunity to turn them into something positive, constructive, and restorative. What can we do to ensure our progressive ideals are not trampled by the incoming elected officials? How can we turn back the tide of their vocal supporters who rabidly and vehemently demand the denial of human rights to all sorts of people and groups? Who want even more benefits for the wealthy? Who believe climate change is a hoax? Is there any hope for the continuation of democracy in the U.S.? Read more
In preparation for the 2017 Legislative Session, it’s important that we learn something about what the citizens of Washington State want done this year. A new poll released by Elway Polls, Wed., Jan. 4, 2017 gives us some insight into that. I have found Elway Polls to be among the most accurate in predicting election outcomes from their voter focus groups, so I place great store by the data Elway shares. Read more
