mastodon 4.7.2blogger at Olympia Time, (former-ish) semi-pro history writer, Podcaster at the Olympia Standard, full-time local government (elections, document recording, etc) communicator.
Most average rec o40 central defender ever.
Views are my own
Olympia narrowly avoided a downtown I-5 in the 1950s, not for preservation, but because tunneling was too expensive. Had it been built, the city likely would've later needed a second bypass through rural south Thurston County, reshaping growth and doubling the damage.
It could have been much, much worse – Olympia Time
https://olympiatime.com/2026/07/18/it-could-have-been-much-much-worse/
Social Security's deficit is caused by inequality, not demographics. Policy-driven upward wealth redistribution stagnated wages and pushed high incomes past the tax cap. Aligning wage growth with productivity would eliminate most of the shortfall.
Social Security Deficits Are Caused By Inequality, Not Demographics
https://www.nationalmemo.com/billionaire-social-security
A local news website near me uses an AI too to write news summaries each day. Oftentimes they are so vague is barely counts as news, but sometimes they pick up news from another places and specifically place it near me. Like this shooting about Rochester NY that they place in Rochester WA
/1
Top Local News – Thurston County – July 25, 2026 - ThurstonTalk
https://www.thurstontalk.com/2026/07/25/top-local-news-thurston-county-july-25-2026/
Seattle’s World Cup win vs suburban stadium gridlock proves density rules. Urban stadiums integrated into transit grids aren't just better for fans; they're fiscally superior, yielding higher property tax per acre & avoiding the massive public cost of parking-lot sprawl.
How Seattle’s Urban Stadium Brought World Cup Success, While Others Floundered
https://www.theurbanist.org/how-seattles-urban-stadium-brought-world-cup-success/
While it feels surprising to see conservative arguments against Flock, it probably shouldn't. Libertarian and constitutional right-wingers are waking up to government overreach and 4th Amendment violations. Mass surveillance could unite the left and right
Flock Builds the Digital Police State
https://inlandnwreport.com/2026/07/30/flock-builds-the-digital-police-state/
This sounds like Asimov's Laws of Robotics, except it holds human creators legally accountable if they deploy engagement-maximizing features that foreseeably harm vulnerable users.
Why Congress Must Codify a Chatbot Duty of Care
https://techpolicy.press/why-congress-must-codify-a-chatbot-duty-of-care
Honoring Whitman with a statue is built on a historic falsehood to bolster a white colonial history of Washington State. We should take this opportunity to remove the statue from the Capitol altogether and deconstruct it.
Marcus Whitman statue will soon have a new home in WA Capitol
Developmental psychologist Candice Odgers argues there's little evidence smartphones are driving a youth mental health crisis. She points instead to economic stress, opioids, and caregiver mental health. Screen time has minimal impact, bans can reduce safety, and parents should prioritize trust and open communication.
Block 46 in Olympia has evolved from shoreline to rail hub to parking lot. Now, a 5-story apartment project replaces stagnation with density. Though tax breaks cost short term, they spur housing and yield far greater long-term revenue and urban vitality.
Turning the corner at Block 46 – Olympia Time
https://olympiatime.com/2026/04/11/turning-the-corner-at-block-46/
As local news corporate owners retreat from local editorials to avoid offending readers, journalists are being told to build direct social trust. You can't connect with a community if you refuse to stand for it. Real audience engagement requires having a voice, not abandoning it.
How America’s newspapers lost their voice
https://theconversation.com/how-americas-newspapers-lost-their-voice-285126
Telegram channels tied to white supremacist “active clubs” rapidly reshared the same Patriot Front rally video after its July 4 D.C. march. The coordinated timing suggests these supposedly decentralized groups may be more centrally organized and linked to Patriot Front than they claim.
White Supremacist ‘Active Clubs’ Might Be Less Decentralized Than They Claim
https://blog.openmeasures.io/p/telegram-active-clubs
"Economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI and to build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society."
We Must Act Now
https://www.wemustactnow.ai/
Social media harms kids, but broad age-gating risks ending the open internet. Age verification threatens anonymity and free speech, and instead we should target addictive algorithms, ads, and in-app purchases while giving parents better control tools.
Jonathan Haidt is wrong about age-gating the internet
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/jonathan-haidt-is-wrong-about-age
Thurston County is now majority incorporated, but annexations, not migration, drove the shift.
Plus: poetry, research challenging the phone-driven youth mental health narrative, AI in schools, election skepticism reshaping Central WA politics, and religion across the Cascade Curtain.
Subscribe: https://olympiatime.com/newsletter/
Annexing the Future • Buttondown
https://buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/archive/annexing-the-future/
Under all of the excitement this week is this fact:
Washington State and Seattle refused to shell out public funds to build a new arena.
Private funds eventually arrived and restored the arena we already had to apparently the standards the NBA and NHL required.
When they threaten you, don't blink.
https://mynorthwest.com/mynorthwest-politics/seattle-supersonic/4220811
The New York Times NYT and Wall Street Journal downplayed massive #NoKings protests, minimizing scale and pro-democracy framing, while local papers and some major outlets gave stronger, more prominent, and more inspiring coverage.
https://mediaanddemocracyproject.substack.com/p/new-york-times-and-wsj-editors-continue
I'm glad a statewide ban didn't pass. Device use rules should be balanced and as local as possible. Blanket rules remove agency and drive us into the moral panic frame that is framed on the parents rights campaigns that are about controlling teenagers than allowing discovery.
The WA response to phones in schools? Another study
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/the-legislatures-response-to-phones-in-wa-schools-another-study/
Free speech absolutists.
An Alabama grandmother faces trial after police arrested her at a “No Kings” protest for wearing an inflatable penis costume and holding a “No Dick Tator” sign.
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/03/penis-costume-no-kings-protest-alabama-censorship/
Critics who called Biden’s disinformation efforts a “Ministry of Truth” are silent as Secretary of State Marco Rubio directs U.S. embassies to run coordinated counter-propaganda campaigns using Elon Musk’s X, tied to military psyops and influencer networks abroad.
"If asking for a correction to a false factual claim counts as censorship, the word has been stretched so far that it no longer means anything. Which is probably the point. The more the term gets diluted, the easier it is to weaponize against anyone who challenges you on the facts."
Kentucky Republicans launched impeachment efforts against two judges, including one case against Judge Julie Muth Goodman for noting racial disparities in charging and sentencing.
https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/julie-muth-goodman-pamela-goodwine-impeachment-kentucky/
Free speech absolutists: weeks after Mark Zuckerberg criticized government censorship on Joe Rogan’s podcast, texts revealed he offered Elon Musk help removing content about DOGE staff.
Timberland Regional Library’s crisis reflects deeper structural issues: a 1% property tax cap, a $3.8M deficit, and urban Thurston County subsidizing rural branches. Trustee fights are a sideshow to a bigger question: levy funding, governance reform, or possible district breakup.
The Timberland Regional Library doesn’t face a stand-off, it faces some sort of evolution – Olympia Time
https://olympiatime.com/2026/04/04/the-timberland-regional-library-doesnt-face-a-stand-off-it-faces-some-sort-of-evolution/
From railroad regulation to the Sonics’ return, our history is a story of resisting corporate ransom: refusing subsidies, trusting the state’s value, and arguing public money belongs in community recreation, not billionaire handouts.
We Fought Iron Giants. And Won. We Fought Hardwood Oligarchs. – Olympia Time
https://olympiatime.com/2026/03/28/we-fought-iron-giants-and-won-we-fought-hardwood-oligarchs/
You were told that we should give the oligarchs what they want. They'd give us jobs. Good jobs. The kind of jobs that your grandfather had. Just give the billionaires more and it will all be better.
That was a lie.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/703280/worker-thriving-declines-job-market-pessimism-grows.aspx
Speaking as one of the local elections communicators that felt absolutely lost in 2020 and feels only a smidge better in 2024, the work @katestarbird@mstdn.social and @mikecaulfield@mastodon.social and the @uwcip@mastodon.ngo and Stanford's Internet Observatory was absolutely invaluable.
I have no idea what we're going to do if we don't have them next year
https://www.kuow.org/stories/kate-starbird-on-the-backlash-to-disinformation-research-online
In this week's newsletter: Second part of my new series on Olympia’s parking lots, plus TRL crisis analysis & local reads.
https://buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/archive/turning-the-corner-at-block-46/
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