Aberdeen Port Protests
Just as with the Port of Tacoma protests, we would like any and all information you have regarding the Port of Grays Harbor protest in Aberdeen.
We will be linking to all of that information at one of our member sites,
The Tahoma Activist, where we are compiling updates from the news media as well as blogs and citizen reports.
Northwest Media Action wants your stories about the Port
As you may already know, the Port of Tacoma is planning to ship hundreds of Stryker armored vehicles over to Iraq as part of the planned "surge" that Congress is debating. If you have any eywitness accounts or photos, please send them to us here at
Northwest Media Action, and we will post them as soon as we can.
Public Access Working Group meeting
This from Public Access Unit organizer Heather Carawan:
"The Public Access Working Group met last Friday, December 8th, to strategize about gathering information and approaching city council members about the growing desire for Public Access television in Tacoma / Pierce County. Please consider attending our next meeting, Friday, January 12th at 6:00 p.m. at King’s Books (218 Saint Helens Ave, Tacoma, 98402 - (253) 272-8801), where Melanie Cunningham will discuss previous efforts to bring Public Access to Tacoma."
New meeting for combined print/online efforts
To everyone in the club who would like to help direct the course of our online and print efforts, please try to attend the next meeting. Here's the link with all the requisite information.
If you won't be able to attend, please send us any information about what you think should be done in these areas to
northwestmediaaction@gmail.com - thanks for all you do!
Pictures from Thom Hartmann's appearance at King's Books
Special thanks to our newest member, Rick Landry, for these pictures taken at
Thom Hartmann's book signing at
King's Books this last Saturday. To see more of Rick's work, check out
his member page.
Categories: Member Artwork
Watch Mike Honey's latest video on Lt. Ehren Watada
Tahoma Activist has set up a new You Tube Channel called
Freedom Nation as a clearinghouse for all the stories the mainstream media doesn't want us to know about. First on our playlist:
"A Soldier's Duty? The Ehren Watada Story", a 16-minute video just produced by Mike Honey and Paul Lovelady.
Come on by Freedom Nation and express your support for
Lt. Watada and the Northwest's own Mike Honey, who was one of the first local figures to support our efforts to transform local media.
Categories: Independent Video,
Member Artwork
Tahoma Progressive Media Conference was a huge success!
Congratulations, organizers! You did it! The Tahoma Progressive Media Conference surpassed all expectations. We had over sixty people in attendance, the speeches were great, we learned a lot and we made the magic happen in five different working groups. We really have a lot to be proud of!
I would encourage everyone who attended the conference to send your impressions of the event here to me at
tahomaactivist@yahoo.com, so I can work them up into a post about it. You may also comment here at will, or write in about any number of subjects.
The most important bit of news I have for you all is that we now have a Northwest Media Action Internet Unit, who will be working on developing a top-flight website for Tacoma, as well as improving this site to highlight all your great new work in the field of media! Send everything you have, or links to anything larger than a megabyte (1000 K) to
northwestmediaaction@gmail.com - there we can transform your raw material into something spiffy for web viewing, and link it right here to the main page.
Even better, we are building a next generation web portal to serve as the central hub for all of Tacoma and the Northwest Media landscape.
Come to our temporary site, register and begin discussing your ideas for what this new site should look like.
Also, if anyone has any pictures of the event, send them to me at
tahomaactivist@yahoo.com so I can add them to the site!
P.S. Thanks once again to
dickeatsbush.com for making a video specifically for the conference - sorry we didn't have the tech set up to play it at the conference, but it sure looks great! I urge everyone who came to check out the video,
"Waiting for the Fall", right here on Northwest Media Action!
Categories: Announcements
Michelle did a great job on "Equal Time"!
Michelle Pizzo, moderator of the Progressive Roundtable and one of our Lead Organizers, performed admirably on Frank Blair and Audrey Chase's
"Equal Time", the progressive talk radio show on KLAY 1180.
This show is probably the only show of its kind in the Northwest, a truly progressive talk show that is totally super-local. It's just one hour a week, Noon to 1 on Fridays, featuring local candidates like Darcy Burner, local issues like land use and zoning issues, and features ads from the Pierce County Democrats and other progressive organizations and small businesses, which means he's been doing for years exactly what we're planning to do.
The interview is great - check it out
right here.Categories: Announcements
Watch DickEatsBush.com's latest video on Iraq
Special thanks to
DickEatsBush.com for creating this stirring video of wartime in Iraq, set to David Rovics' "Waiting for the Fall", from his most latest album
"Halliburton Boardroom Massacre".
Here's the link:
http://www.dickeatsbush.com/wat4fall.htmIf you like what you see, feel free to leave a message for the creator in the comments section, and we'll be sure he gets it!
Don't forget, the
Tahoma Progressive Media Conference is Saturday, October 7th, from 10 to 2 PM at the IBEW Hall - 3049 S. 36th, Tacoma, WA. Be there or be left out of the process of building a true citizens' media, committed to improving the lives of all Americans and building real, livable communities where real peoples' stories or highlighted. The slogan for this event: "Don't hate the media, become the media!"
Marilyn Kimmerling
Marilyn Kimmerling is fifty-eight and a mother to two terrific grown sons she would like to pass a better world on to. She has worked as a counselor to children and families in the community mental health system for the past 21 years, was born and raised in the DC area, moved to San Francisco during the 60's (of course!) and came to the Tacoma area in 1971.
Her journeys in activism have led her down many paths, but all have the common thread of promoting a greener, more peaceful and more just local, national and world community. She has been involved in: the Counter-Inaugeral Bawl and march against the reelection of Nixon, planting sod in People's Park in Berkeley during the anti-Vietnam war movement, protesting the nuclear plant at Satsop, picketing the Ruston smelter for the very first Earth Day and generally protesting against violence whether domestic, national or international. Marilyn was also responsible for bringing the Liar-Liar-Pants-on-Fire-mobile to the Tacoma area for a fun-filled week of voter registration and levity on it's cross country tour in 2004.
In addition to her paid job as a counselor she is currently a member of United for Peace of Pierce County, America in Solidarity, Jobs with Justice, The Tacoma Raging Grannies, the Progressive Democrats. Marilyn is a founding member of the Progressive Roundtable and also a PCO for the mainstream Dems - she supported Kuchinich for President (of course). Although she has no expertise at all in TV or documentaries, she loves to write and she DOES bring enthusiasm and energy to what she is passionate about and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring true public access TV and real information about the community and the world to the Tacoma/Pierce County area.
In Marilyn's words:
"I am willing to do whatever it takes because I know that the current arrogant, destructive fascist administration must be held accountable and stopped, and this can only be done when enough people know the truth and get mad enough to do something about it. I believe that what it will take is an informed population that consists of each person realizing that they are not powerless, each refusing to have his or her voice silenced, reaching out to find others and standing up TOGETHER against the abuse of power that typifies our current administration."
More Bios
Rick Landry
Rick Landry is an accomplished writer and photographer, as well as the co-owner of Affairs Bakery in University Place. He comes to us via a fairly circuitous route: the
Thom Hartmann show chatroom! Rick has written several interesting pieces, including
this one about nail polish and Madison Avenue's new obsession: exploiting the poor to sell high-end consumer products. Rick had a regular column with The Tacoma Reporter for a year and a half. Rick plans to use his skills as a photojournalist to help our fellow citizens' learn about what's happening in the community. If you have any ideas for stories or need Rick's expertise on a story, contact him directly at
rlandry@wamail.netRick runs Affairs' Cafe with his wife, Gay, and his son, Jesse. Rick is particularly proud of his graduation from
The Evergreen State College at age 48.
Other work:Rick's websiteAffairs' websiteMore Bios
Jeff Richardson
Jeff Richardson, AKA
The Tahoma Activist, is a radical left-wing moonbat with a thirst for truth.
He was a fairly bookish wallflower at Gig Harbor High and Tacoma Community College, came out of his shell at Fairhaven in Bellingham and became a full-on leftist at The Evergreen State College, followed by an 8 year stint with the United States Postal Service. His passions are organized labor, anti-war protest, blogging, and writing revolutionary screeds on a myriad of issues.
Jeff presently serves as Reading Clerk with the Pierce County Central Labor Council, where he gets to take part in the labor movement's efforts to improve our community and defend the rights of all working people.
He also volunteers with America in Solidarity as chair of the Education Committee and serves on Northwest Media Action's Internet Unit Editorial Board. Contact him if you have any questions about NMA or organized labor in Tacoma, or would like to get involved with Internet activism in the Tacoma area.
Links:The Tahoma Activist - local news and views with a radical perspective
NMA Internet Unit's temporary news page - Come and help us plan our new central hub site
Northwest Media Action - you're swimming in it!
America in Solidarity - the Voice of the American Worker
IWW.org - the World's Best Union
National Association of Letter Carriers - Your Neighborhood Mailperson's Union
Geov Parrish on why we need independent media
Here's
a short speech by our keynote speaker, Geov Parrish, on why we need independent media.
Contact him and let him know what you think of it - he'd love to hear from you!
