PERSPECTIVE: In 2023 Washington legislators proclaimed a housing crisis. Their solution? Build more housing! Nothing to stabilize costs for families or support affordable housing. Our legislators assume that developers are the solution—when in fact they are the problem....
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PERSPECTIVE: On April 20, Cleta Mitchell, a leading voice in conservative politics said this: Republicans should make it harder for young people to vote. On April 20, Cleta Mitchell, a leading voice in conservative politics said this: Republicans should make it harder for young people to vote. This brazen campaign of youth voter suppression is morally wrong. And it is especially high-stakes in this political moment, when youth turnout has been credited for electing presidents and staving off red waves.
In 1977, the brand-new storefront Co-op downtown on Columbia Street was slowly coming together, the result of volunteers building shelves, laying flooring, and setting out food. I had moved out West to find my people—the hippies. The best place to look was near co-ops and collective restaurants that sprouted up wherever hippies had settled.
Dawud Al-Malik’s story, Fifty Years in Prison for Crimes He Didn’t Commit, was told in a two-part interview with Wendy Tanowitz in the July and August 2018 issues of Works In Progress. An excerpt from his memoir is in this issue.
An excerpt from a memoir, From the Depths of Darkness, by Dawud Al-Malik, (with James O’Barr), Mud Flat Shorts (mostly Fiction), Mud Flat Press, 2022 ...I was born David Washington Riggins—what I came to think of as my slave name...
As politicians wrangled about cutting future spending on existing programs, in exchange for agreeing to raise the limit on US borrowing (“the debt ceiling”) it turns out that defense spending is untouchable. No cuts there, period. The weapons industry has institutionalized the permanent war economy...
Arbutus Open Mics ♦ Juneteenth ♦ Olympia Zine Fest ♦ Young Producers at TCTV ♦ Lacey Youth Council ♦ Juice Box Theater ♦ Community Volleyball ♦ Ranked Choice Voting
What is it about children? They can melt the hearts of the most curmudgeonly misanthrope, test the patience of Job, and show astounding awareness of the world around them—at the same time.
We speak of children as “hope for the future.”...
City officials blamed ill-informed voters. ♦ The US Navy deployed new low-yield warheads. ♦ Habitat for Humanity paid the city $1.00 for property. ♦ The state will for the first time set aside public timber acreage for carbon sequestering
Download as PDF Krystal Two Bulls, Women’s Day Speaker. March 8, 11-12:30 on zoom. Krystal Two Bulls is an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne water protector who is co-executive director of Honor the Earth (with Winona LaDuke). Two Bulls has opposed coal mining at Northern Cheyenne and an oil pipeline…
The theme of this issue came from a line in a Robert Frost poem: “Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out…” When our cover illustrator Aicha El Beloui read that line, she thought about a Tetris: “It is one…
The need for in-home care is growing rapidly. While the field of in-home care is known for low wages, cooperatives provide an alternative. Recently WIP’s Matt Crichton talked with Nora Edge, founder and past executive director of Capital Homecare cooperative, and CHC current executive director Paulette La Douceur.
New legislation mandates zoning in cities statewide to allow multiple housing units on a single-family lot Every piece of legislation begins with words like these: “The legislature finds that…” What follows is free from any grounding in evidence or constraints of logic. “Findings” are not a place to recognize reality…
If someone steals money from their employer, they could be guilty of a serious crime. But what if an employer takes money from their employee’s paychecks? Employers steal billions of dollars from their employees each year by working them off the clock, by failing to pay the minimum wage, or…
In his book Myth and Reality, the late scholar of religion Mircea Eliade suggests that, contrary to the popular understanding of myth as a fiction, in early religious practice it defined both the constitution and understanding of reality—a line that defines the limits of belief or a wall that defines…
Uncaged Art is an exhibit of large-scale photographs of art made by adolescents, ages 13-17, from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The exhibit, including educational elements, was organized by members of local cultural and activist organizations. The young artists were detained at the Tornillo Children’s Detention center in El Paso County, Texas, from June 2018 to January 2019.
In an attempt to blunt an impending budget shortfall, South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) has offered employees a $25,000 incentive to leave their jobs.
Proponents of saving Washington’s few remaining legacy forests testified at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) monthly public hearing wearing yellow caution arm bands. On the auction block were four large parcels of land including legacy forests—defined as forests containing trees over 100 years old.. The community action group showed…
At a time when the probability of nuclear war is as nearly as high as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is crucial that we recall the story of Vasili Arkhipov, a Soviet submarine officer who prevented a Soviet nuclear strike against US surface warships during that very…
During the years of 1846-1848, many Irish people were immigrating to the US due to extreme economic hardship and famine in Ireland. This coincided with the US invasion of Mexico, known as the Mexican-American War. Many new Irish-Catholic immigrants joined the US army to earn money and possible citizenship in the war against Mexico.
The Ecosystem Guild is not an institution, it is a community network built of relationships in pursuit of a regenerative bioregional culture. The Guild has been emerging across the Salish Sea and Cascadia for generations. A website was developed by stewards in the estuary cities of Olympia and Tumwater, where…
The owner of Traditions Café in downtown Olympia hopes rentals can sustain this community venue that never recovered from Covid. The café, connected to New Traditions, a fair-trade store located on Fifth Ave., has been known for hosting concerts, fund-raisers and other events for 26 years. On Dec.31, the café…
In 1975, one of Olympia’s social spots for young adults and students was, oddly, the local crisis clinic. Many Evergreen and Saint Martin’s students looking for ways to connect volunteered there.
A local college is again offering discounted auto repairs to the public, and applications are easier than ever with a new online form. The automotive department at South Puget Sound Community College is offering auto repair for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The public is invited to…
The sentence for attempted murder in Washington state is between 308.25—411 months. You might expect therefore that a teenager who shot his marijuana dealer during a drug transaction would be charged with attempted murder, and if found guilty could face up to 35 years in prison.
An election this April could impose the biggest increase ever in property tax bills for people in these two cities Olympia and Tumwater voters will decide in a special election this April whether to merge their fire departments into a new Regional Fire Authority (RFA, Authority). Proposition 1 requires approval…
WIP has new funding for our “Readers Review” offer. Each month we publish a list of books (here). If you’d like to be considered to review one of them, email us and put BOOK REVIEW in the subject line. We will buy the book (or reimburse you if you buy it)…