Guns at the Capitol

Some guy from Alabama running his mouth on the Washington State Capitol steps.

This past Saturday, our local paper reports, about 50 people showed up to protest what they see as infringement on their right to carry arms. A couple of legislators showed up to support them, and nobody was arrested. Washington state, characterized in the media as a liberal haven of pot-smokers and same-sex-marriers, turns out to also be one of the few states that does not outlaw carrying guns into its capitol building.

Still, the good voters of this state did vote last November to require background checks on all gun sales. You can still buy guns, a bunch of 'em, all kinds,...the voting public here is pretty tolerant of gun owners, but We the People decided it's reasonable to try and limit gun ownership by violent criminals and the mentally ill.

And it really pisses off a few people. Maybe the dude in the colonial outfit worries he'll be deemed as crazy as he looks. Maybe the guys covered head to foot in "tactical" paramilitary costumes genuinely believe that a background check is tantamount to tyranny.

But of course, it wasn't the legislators that passed the background check referendum. It was the neighbors of the protestors. Initiative 594 was not the work of some liberal cabal, but the result of a popular vote. Think about it for even a second, and you have to realize that many of the people who voted for the measure actually own guns themselves. No, this was not a top-down clampdown.

Some guys from Seattle standing in ordered dignity.

Not that there's not some precedent for the legislature curtailing the right to bear arms. In 1969, another protest occurred in Olympia, also making its way to the Capitol steps. That time, though, it was the Black Panthers. And that time, they were protesting a bill in the Legislature that aimed to outlaw the public display of firearms, echoing the California Legislature's act, one that was squarely aimed at the Black Panther Party. The Seattle Black Panthers stood silently on the capitol steps, rifles and shotguns aimed at the sky. When the State Patrol asked that they unload and put down their weapons, the Panthers did so, and after about an hour, they left. [Here's the firsthand account, so you don't have to take my word for it.]

To reiterate, faced with legislative action directly aimed at a political party to whom 2nd Amendment rights were a core principle, that party protested peacefully. They did not attempt to enter the Capitol building (as recent gun rights protestors have), and even allowed their weapons to be unloaded by State Troopers (as contemporary gun rights protestors swear they would never allow).

In 1969 (as in 2015, sadly) young black men were shot by policemen for minor alleged offenses. The Black Panther Party included people who had directly experienced repression by The State. Not minorly incovenienced by a referendum-passed background check, but subjected to full-on harrassment and injury at the hands of law enforcement. Break-ins, frame-ups and shootings perpetrated by local, state and federal governments, not to mention the lack of enforcement when amateurs stepped in with murders and lynchings. Thus the Panthers' belief that they needed to police the police and to arm themselves for self-protection. Thus the February 1969 protest here in Olympia.

The crowd this past Saturday did not include any black people that I could see in the available photos. They were prevented from entering the actual legislative chambers with their arsenals of handguns and assault weapons, but no legislation was passed that targeted them, or even gun owners in general. Yet their statements and signs show that these modern protesters feel that they have been grievously wronged, and are being oppressed.

If the Black Panthers had showed up with military assault weapons, would they have been treated as civilly? The 1969 photos show a bunch of guys in berets and jackets holding rifles and shotguns, hands visible and not on triggers, not handgun in sight, no paramilitary "tactical" gear at all. Had the Seattle protesters insisted that the State Patrol could unload Panther rifles once they had--in the words of Heston and any number of white NRA advocates--"pried it from my cold dead fingers," the Panthers may well have been obliged. I mean this not as a statement about the Washington State Patrol, who in fact seem to have been equally adept at diffusing tense situations then and now, but about the relative value of black and white lives then and now.

The local paper also reports that protesters this past Saturday expected to be arrested (read, "martyred") and were selling hats to cover bail that said "Fight Tyranny--Shoot Back." I'm not sure they had Michael Brown or Eric Garner in mind, but what if black men did just that? We don't have to speculate about the answer, because history provides it: those black men would be jailed, beaten, shot. In my own lifetime, I remember rowhouses in Philadephia being fire-bombed--with men, women, and children inside--because they were black nationalists. Now that's oppression. That's being Tread Upon by the iron heel of The State.

But background checks? Get real, your rights are in no danger.

Backroads: Egg and I Road

At the intersection of a memory lane and a road not taken.

One day this Fall, as the leaves were changing color under clear blue skies, I drove out through the Chiumacum Valley, past he town of Center (location one of my favorite  government facility names, the Center Work Center), and up the west side the valley to look for archaeology. For my effort, I founf one abandoned house, rumored to be haunted, but that's another story.

Getting there requires a short jaunt on Egg and I Road. The Egg and I was a book by Betty MacDonald, who followed her new (and before long, former) husband on his cockamamie dream of leaving the city and starting a chicken farm. Hilarity ensued, as it often does in the memories of people who go through ordeals. According to an article at Historylink, Betty's sister had told a publisher that she was writing a humorous book, and so The Egg and I came to be to save sister Mary the embarrassment, along with the dedication "To my sister Mary, who has always believed I could do anything whe puts her mind to."

The book came out at the end of WWII, ideal timing for a funny book about anything but the war, and long enough after the Depression for its sorrowful depredations to fade under a patina of humor. By then, Betty had left the chicken farm and re-married (what became of her chicken-raising husband Robert Haskett at that point, I do not know; he was stabbed to death in 1951 by another woman's jilted husband). Millions of copies of the book sold, and it became a movie. The Ma and Pa Kettle characters from Betty's book spawned a whole series of movies.

In 1981, a road first built about a century earlier was officially named "Egg and I Road," memorializing the way to the chicken farm. It runs western slope of the western fork of Chimacum valley to Route 19 (aka Beaver Valley Road) on the east slope of the east valley. There are pastures and wooded slopes, but no chickens that I could see, and nary a porch-sittin' hillbilly to be seen.

The chicken farm that turned out to be so funny and lucrative is part of a larger story that didn't turn out so well (check out Richard White's "Land Use, Environment, and Social Change" for a more thorough telling). By the late 1920's the combination of railroad logging technology and a roaring economy had led to the clear-cutting of unprecedented swaths of land, which then seemed worthless. Attempts were made to present acres of stumps and now exposed and depleted forest soild as great opportunities for farming. Generally, people tried, failed, and left, because farming in glacial gravel full of stumps does not work so well. According to White, one of the few chances to make a go of it was to raise chickens, so at least Haskett was on the right track, even if it did not work out.

Not the barn, but a barn on Egg and I Road.

These days, the pastures around Egg and I Road feel idyllic. The  urban crow can be there in a 20-mile flight from the filthiest part of Seattle, but the Sound and the land's folds make it more remote. The presence of a quarter horse farm airport indicates that the neighborhood is not entirely safe from gentrification, but it looks like there are still regular people who live there. Between the Bremerton-Poulsbo sprawl and the long-urban Port Townsend entry to the Sound, the Egg and I's neighborhood is remote enough to retain its rural charm. It never was as isolated as the book made it sound, but it remains a back road.

ArchaeOlygy

What the hell is this? Ask an ArchaeOlygist.

OK, I held off saying so here until the Mission Spit salvage project was done, because I didn't want treasure hunters showing up at an unguarded pile of artifacts (even if they were all broken, and deemed officially insignificant by regulatory archaeocrats).

But there's an archaeology blog for Olympia now. Because I just cannot resist that kind of messing with words, it's called ArchaeOlygy. So far, it's mostly about a sand spit that contained evidence of the first Catholic Mission in the area, but I plan to branch out, if not go very far afield. Any other archaeologists in the area interested in contributing are welcome. I don't really care if you are a professional, as long as it's about the past down here in the South Sound, and does not talk about finding dinosaurs, use the word "treasure," or suggest that aliens of the Lost Tribe of Israel made the site you are writing about.

I may cross-post once in a while, and archaeology that has nothing to do with the Olympia area will still appear here, but ArchaeOlygy will exist until I'm bored or it's clear that nobody is reading it. I'll still be a smartass over there, but with more focus, and less trickery and fakelore.

It's the Fountain? An Olympia (and Tenino) Mystery Artifact

The front of a font, maybe.

Last Fall, I came across something that other people have probably seen for years, and others have forgotten about for even longer, but it was new and mysteriouis to me. Embedded in an old road berm on the Eastbay shore was a big piece of carved sandstone. Recently, I was around as a city crew pulled it free as they prepare for an environmental restoration project. In decades of archaeologizing, this stands out as one of the biggest and most interesting artifacts I've seen. It also holds a few mysteries.

Now that I've had the chance to look at it a few times, see the dirt it came out of, and talk it over with a few other archaeologists as we examined it, a few things are not so mysterious. Like, it was pretty obviously just dumped here along with concrete, asphalt, and brick rubble, part of the berm that blocked the mouth of a creek; a neighbor thinks the Salmon Club may have been involved, but it is also in a City park, at the bottom of an old road, and may have been deposited by them. I'll get to why I think that may be the case in a bit.

The stone is sandstone, and a partially obliterated inscription on one end is enough to convince me that it came from the Hercules Quarry in Tenino. The top features a square flanked by two octagonal basins, and a tunnel runs through it. There is rust surrounding one side of the opening, indicating that there was a metal attachment there, and along with pipes running from bottom to top, it suggests that this may have been a decorative fountain. The base, beginning immediately below the tunnel through the stone, at first appeared to be sandstones as well, but turns out to be stucco over concrete. The very bottom is unadorned concrete that contains glacial pebbles and bits of shell, more what you'd expect of a locally-mixed batch than what comes from commercial suppliers. More specifically, what you'd expect from a shoreline local batch than Tenino. (Ironically, the development of commercial concrete businesses is what did in the Hercules and other quarries in Tenino.)

The top.

And that's about it for what I know. A once fancy piece of stonework, stripped of metalwork and dumped on the Olympia shoreline. Maybe a fountain, and if my interpretation of the inscription (shown below, after considerable computer enhancement) is correct, it was a presentation piece. It just so happens that the abandoned road heading uphill from this spot leads to the former location of the "Swiss Chalet" that stood in Priest Point Park from not long after it's 1905 founding until the 1950s. Before that, the Chalet had been part of Olympia Brewing Company's pavilion at the Lewis and Clark Expo in Portland. A nicely carved fountain proclaiming a presentation and naming the quarry seems like just the sort of thing that may have appeared in that sort of setting, especially since Olympia Brewing even in those days was stating, "It's the Water."

Or, maybe the Hercules folks presented it to the park. Or, something else. Some sort of Park connection makes sense, though, given the proximity (seems like an awful big stretch to say that some Tenino resident hauled it all the way up here to dump it), and the fact that you need heavy machinery just to move the thing.

"PRESENTED BY HERCULES QUARRY, TENINO WASH" (Guesswork in grey).

Odds are, this modestly monumental stonework, dumped and forgotten for years, is likely to be recycled by the City of Olympia. Maybe placed in the park, or maybe elsewhere, but people once again see it as something interesting, worth using for some better purpose than shoreline armoring. Maybe it could be fixed up and one of Olympia's artesian wells could bubble forth from it.

In the meantime, if anyone out there knows about this, or has photos of the chalet in Portland or in our park, leave a comment and let me know. If I find out anything, I'll write an update. 

The Minimum Wage Wager Looks Worth It

This week, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage, causing many disdainful harrumph among the plutocracy's elephantine representatives in Congress. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25/hour; in Washington State, it is $9.10, highest in the country. The state's bottom of the barrel, then, is 25.5% higher than it is for the US.
So-called Conservatives would argue that Washington's wage structure is a disincentive to employment, but the data don't bear that out. From 1990 until now, when Washington's minimum wage has risen most every year, the state's rate has gone up and down according to the same macro-economic forces that have affected the federal rate. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the US was 7.8% in December, 2012. For Washington, it was 7.6%. Far from being 25.5% higher, it was lower. 

Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Rate*

Now, let's compare two states, Washington with it's "high" minimum wage and Georgia, where the minimum wage is a paltry $5.15. This is 44% below Washington's and 35% below the federal minimum wage. Has having the lowest minimum wage led to Georgia businesses offering everyone a job? No, not even close. 

Where's the harm in a higher minimum wage?*

Georgia's unemployment rate is higher, and has exceeded that in Washington throughout the past few years of economic crisis. From 1992 to 2007, to be sure, Georgia's rate was lower (in April, 2003, the WA rate of 7.7% was half again as high as in GA), but there is no evidence to suggest that an increasing Washington minimum wage contributed to this.
In fact, lower unemployment in Washington during the Great Recession shows that a higher minimum wage does not put a halt to hiring. In fact, a minimum wage that approaches a living wage may contribute to resiliency, if you think about it. More income, particularly at the lower end of the income scale, allows more spending, largely local, that keeps the consumer economy running. Georgia's working poor are likely to be pumping 44% less into an ailing economy than Washington's.

* Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics, charts generated on Google Public Data.

Waiting to Inhale

A Blue State Capitol Takes a Big Ol' Bong-hit.

We the People passed a law legalizing marijuana, and not just for 'medicinal' purposes, but for fun. Like alcohol, or football, or other brain-damaging pursuits. But unlike gun rights (the other cause celebree of NW libertarians), said populace must wait up to a year to satisfy their consumptive urges. That's how long the powers that be have to come up with a way for people to legally buy the demon weed. As if it weren't everywhere already.

Your Team is Called What?!

 

I don't think I've ever blogged about sports, and I guess I'm not really doing so now, but the upcoming NFL playoff game between the two Washingtons does get me thinking about teams, mascots, and logos.

Seattle's logo, according to a history thereof (here) was borrowed from Kwakiutl style artists representation of the osprey, or seahawk. It does not completely follow orthodox Kwakiutl style, and has even less to do with Duwamish or other tribes local to Seattle, but it's pretty recognizable as indigenous-ish Northwest style. Ospreys do live here, and although I don't believe any local tribes helped with the design (or collect royalties), the worst you could say is that the Seahawks football team appropriated the style. On the other hand, you could say that imitation is flattery.

But it's hard to find something good to say about the other Washington's team. Sure, the image of the Native American is not too obviously racist-looking. But the name? You may have noticed that none of the other teams are named for racist slurs. I checked, the Browns have an alibi and the Vikings logo is merely ridiculous. 

I know that NFL team owners are not the type of politically correct guys to go changing a name because it's offensive, but geez. I mean, when DC was the murder capital of the country, the basketball team changed from Bullets to Wizards. Football fans love tradition, maybe, but I'm guessing they'd still root for their team if they weren't known by an insulting name.


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