New way to remember our history
YAY: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY
Today (Oct. 12) marks Olympia’s first celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day with an event at Sylvester Park beginning at 4 p.m.
Mayor Stephen Buxbaum will speak, along with state Sen. John McCoy from the Tulalip Nation, and many other tribal leaders. The event also features the Squaxin Island Drum Group, storytelling and music.
Seattle and Minneapolis joined the growing number of cities celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day in 2014. Olympia followed.
Most of the country knows the day by another name. The second Monday of October is a paid holiday for federal workers known as Columbus Day.
BOO: WORK TILL YOU DROP IN 2115
We couldn’t help feeling deflated after reading the words of a top British expert on the future.
“Today’s children will most likely have to work until the age of 100 at 40 different jobs,” said the Washington Post, paraphrasing a London Times story.
Leading “futurologist” Rohit Talwar (in the future we’ll also use even more awful language) made these comments last week to a Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference in St. Andrews, Scotland.
It gets worse for those expected to live to 120 years: “You might be driving Uber (taxis) as part of the day, renting out your spare bedroom on Airbnb, renting out space in your closet, doing delivery for Amazon, renting out your driveway for somebody who wants to park their car there,” Talwar says.
Good grief. That sunup-to-sundown job we had with Chain Gang Construction back in the halcyon 1970s was a picnic, and we never knew it.
YAY: DISTRICT 22 SHAKE-UP
State Sen. Karen Fraser’s is running for lieutenant governor next year, which is shaking up politics in the 22nd Legislative District. That’s a good thing.
Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, says he’ll seek Fraser’s seat; and Rep. Chris Reykdal, D-Tumwater, is running for state schools chief. With incumbents out of the way for 2016, the two House seats are drawing interest. In 2012, the district serving Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater and north Thurston County had no challengers to the three Democratic incumbents. Last year drew nominal challenges.
This time, expect a battle. First to seek Reykdal’s position was Laurie Dolan, a former policy adviser to Gov. Chris Gregoire. Brad Banks of Lacey has also filed campaign finance papers to run as a Democrat.
Dylan Carlson, a longtime Democratic Party activist who works for a state employee union, is running for Hunt’s seat. So is Franklin Edwards III, a unionized construction worker, who lost in a previously run against Hunt.
The timing is awkward for Nathaniel Jones. He is running for re-election to the Olympia City Council but said he’s exploring a legislative run.
BOO: OH BERTHA, BERTHA, BERTHA
A two-year delay in Washington’s deep-bore tunnel project in Seattle means a $78 million increase in state costs that may be billed to insurers. The state Department of Transportation on Friday filed suit against the state Route 99 project contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners, in the continuing saga of Bertha, the deep-boring machine, according to The Seattle Times.
Poor Bertha has been stalled since December 2013 and was literally stuck underground for a period.
Insurers on the project are suing the contractor in New York over a $143 million cost claim related to Bertha’s travails. The state is asking that its suit — filed to preserve its legal rights — be held in abeyance by King County Superior Court at least until the project is completed — hopefully — in March 2018, The Times reported.
The Seattle waterfront project includes demolishing the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct and constructing a four-lane tolled tunnel. The tunnel is designed to run from the Sodo area to south Lake Union.
This story was originally published October 11, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "New way to remember our history."