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fuckin' Olympics

I can see the Olympics from my house. Looking out the west windows on the second floor, the sun sets over the Olympic mountain range on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, home of Olympic National Park.

My grandparents lived on that peninsula. My dad was raised there. If you visit Seattle, they're the mountains to the west of Seattle. East of Seattle - and the state capitol, Olympia - is the Cascade range.

But every time the fuckin' US Olympic Committee starts legal action against Washington state businesses and organizations with Olympic in their name, I find myself getting just a little more angry that an every-four-year circus is interfering with day-to-day life here in Washington.

Rationally, I know that the Olympic committee has to protect the legal use of the term "Olympics". I know that Congress gave them an exclusive license to the term with an exception for Western Washington only, and the pinheads who make the law assume that the dinky little other Washington can't possibly have businesses that, gasp, do business outside Washington State. The Olympics committee has to go after Olympic Cellars for selling outside the state, and get on OlympusNet's case, and Olympic Mountain Rescue, and or risk letting McDonald's not having to pay their licensing fees.

But emotionally, I'm at the point where I just want the Olympics to go the fuck away and leave us alone.

That takes moxie

This photo appeared on the front page of the Seattle Times website today, accompanying a story about the couples' parties being shut down.

A woman of size posing for a news photo while wearing only a sheet? That's hutzpuh, people. (It's newspaper-safe, but still.)

The other surprising thing was the matter-of-fact tone in discussing sex clubs in the area. Some quotes that raised my eyebrows.

Large swingers groups aren't unusual locally, but they generally meet in commercial areas or hotels and not close to other homes.
...
The parties catered to "big beautiful women" and "big handsome men," and to the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadomasochism) scene, they said.
...
The Hardwood Cabin was among about a dozen well-frequented sex clubs in the Seattle area, said Allena Gabosch, director of the Center for Sex Positive Culture, a nonprofit social club for the greater Seattle area.

Now, I'm not at all offended by this. I'm glad that they're [mostly] treating it like the neighborly dispute it is, and not pushing an "OMG kinky sex-crazed predators" angle.

Church shouldn't be master or servant of the state

Quoting from "Strength to Love," a collection of sermons by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state," King wrote. "It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."

This is quoted in a discussion of Rick Warren hosting Obama & McCain at his megachurch.

In reality, there is not one church, there are many, just as there are many faiths. But I do think it good for churches to stand apart from the state, and not just to enforce freedom of religion. Dr King was able to use his place in the pulpit to act against the state because his church was separate from the state. If his church had been a part of the state, it would have lessened his effectiveness.

It also takes buy-in from those not of a church for a church to really sway the state. This is also a good thing. Some "guidance" is pure snake oil. The state eventually had to follow Dr King. I doubt the polititians who supported Jim Jones pre-1978 still do.

(I'm not sure there's a problem with a church being just a social club, though. ;)