Is Olympia beholden to a neo-liberal cabal of kontrol freaks?
Declined — Try Again?
Olympia, WA — Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were luminaries in fighting for the right of performing artists to fully exercise their inalienable rights pursuant to 1st Amendment principles. Not surprisingly, they were pursued and persecuted for doing so–Hell hath no fury like a scorned prude…so much so that Lenny succumbed to the badgering by ending his own life. Although a seminal figure in the free speech movement, and a turning point in American jurisprudence, this historical fact seems to have fallen on tin ear in Olympia’s environs.
(http://amicuscuria.com/wordpress/?p=15987)
At a jazz jam session in Olympia’s Traditions Cafe (3rd Sunday of each month @ 2:30p – 5:30p) across from the Capitol Campus Heritage Park, a participant recommended Oly’s Jazz Central website to stay in touch with the local jazz scene and venues calendar. It seemed like a good enough idea to invite a very polished local jazz trumpet player, C Davis, to check it out. C wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about those behind the digital site. The conversation instantly came to mind when ‘Oly Jazz Central’ sent an e-mail declining the bid to join the menage because the chosen avatar (above image) was deemed ‘inappropriate’. [That’s a euphemism for “my biases are more important than yours”.]
The following retort was sent and is posted here by way of educating the public as to how the rights we hold as inalienable in America must be exercised or we will lose them. Olympia is a classic example of how this erosion of fundamental liberties takes hold in fact.
Message:
Olympia Jazz Central, in truth, is hardly the only malcontent when it comes to the free speech of others in Thurston County. The State’s Capitol is rife with latte’ swilling, gun snatching, gender bending sanctimonious hypocritical constipated kontrol freaks and…performing artists, no less. One example can be seen in Heather Wood, an aspiring professional vocalist, artist, and bee colony environmentalist who recently graduated from TESC.
Heather Wood
Prior to a tempestuous parting, Heather was greatly indulged to help her meet basic needs for herself and 7-year old daughter, including 2 bicycles, purchase of a TCTV membership, tools for her bee hive production, dinners, transportation, business consulting, and a mutual pledge of cooperation. As a small recompense, a pop-up ad containing the above avatar image was accepted by her on her evergreen bee sanctuary web site, only to be deleted without notice upon the 1st criticism by a complete stranger in an internet cafe. Loyalty, gratitude, and respect for free speech/expression are foreign currency in Olytown.
Censorship, it would seem, goes hand in glove with Olympia’s march toward becoming a virtual gated city, not only in law, but culturally and in spirit. The State Capitol’s mean streets are replete with criminalizing an entire underclass (the homeless) by definition, skyrocketing property crime rates, deliberate failure to provide public restrooms after hours as a vacuous effort to bring law & order including censorship by this bastion of privileged upper middle-class white swells who stand as gatekeepers against the uncouth and great unwashed.
I see you refer to “gender benders” a lot on your blog. What are you referring to exactly here? Are you talking about people who dress or act outside of culturally established gender norms? Or are you referring to transgender people? Could you elaborate a bit more on this? Thanks!