A walk through the good old days....

Some of you may remember when I was tossed off The Olympian (supposedly forever) for calling an ass, an ass. This introduced me to Olyblog. I must admit I've drifted from Olyblog and probably just as well, as I didn't fit the 'intellectual" mode expected there. I think you all know, I call 'em as I see 'em. Rick has done well with his blog, but he really didn't want me to be honest and frank. That didn't work for me.

Anyway....I tripped across this while googling "Aaron Mason". Aaron was once The O's moderator and was the one that executed my lifetime banning, that lasted a few months. What made me think about this was the present moderator telling me that if I feel my privacy is violated I have to report it. She got 8 such reports this weekend. Mason pulled the same deal and when he got 15 reports in a week, he went crying to the Publisher, at that time John Winn Miller. John, although an associate in philanthropic endeavors, sent me a scathing email and cut off relations with my agency.

So....here is a walk into the time machine that is Olympia, 2007....

I mentioned in the Open Thread
Submitted by Anonymously Larry on Sun, 11/11/2007 - 7:24pm.

The stark differences between Aaron Mason's comment -
Pretty much every single one of those protestors behaved in a confrontational, disrespectful, and aggressive manner.

And the quote from the Mayor's office -
While most demonstrators have been respectful of the rights of others and have expressed their views lawfully

This contrast brings me to several questions. Is the Mayor's office just patronizing the masses? Was the Mayor's office correct in their assessment? Is Mason wrong, mistaken, biased or absolutely correct?

Here is the tricky part - media is a powerful tool. We watched in 2004 how a medal winning veteran could be turned into a treasonous traitor if the right words were said over and over enough times. I respected the soldier in the video as he seemed very thoughtful, all the time remembering the Non-Com quoted in Sarah's thread that said soldiers are not allowed to comment negatively about the military. Thus, that fine soldier in the video was sort of locked in on that interview. I've witnessed Jeff's idea of the First Amendment and have noticed that if he isn't able to get a rise out of someone, he loses interest fast. The other gentleman was pleasant and heartfelt, but seemed to lack depth in his dialog. Meanwhile many people will walk away with an opinion of our community based on what they see, read and hear in a 3rd party sense, concerning these protests.

We have but one choice - research. We all owe it to ourselves to seek as many sources of information as possible to formulate the opinion and story that we take into our lives about our community.

Now is not the time to seek the quick and dirty answers, folks.


I hope those of you remembering the atmosphere during the Port protests can reflect.