ONLINE CHATTER >>>

Yesterday's comment of the day came from Chris Van Vechten — Rule 9 Municipal Prosecutor (criminal) at the city of Lakewood — in response to Aaron T. Sherman's op-ed "Online translations vital for equity in Tacoma Public Schools" posted on the Weekly Volcano's new political and policy blog, Town Hall Tourist.

Van Vechten writes,

I really think you should compare the technology in Tacoma's Public Schools to our Private Universities (UPS & PLU). I can't speak to PLU, but UPS is way behind TPS and has been for quite some time.......Students with non-English speaking parents overwhelmingly lack access to the internet and tech skills. We still don't have universal internet, and the poorer you are, the less likely you are to have access to these technologies. These are problems bigger than the school district, requires Federal Intervention. I've long thought this is something where the GOP and Dems could work together on if they were willing to ignore some people. If I were in charge, I would completely defund the US post office, and use the revenue currently going to that service to provide every family in America with a laptop, wireless internet, a fax-machine, printer and scanner. We'd bring every household in America online, we'd reduce needless energy costs by communicating exclusively via email and online billing/banking, and we'd preserve resources likes fuel and paper. The post office mostly exists today to provide junk mail and credit card applications to people with zero credit. It's employees have expensive benefits. It's been an amazing service to the country, but it's use is no longer obvious. We could do more by providing universal internet access to America, and allow package delivery to be conducted by a number of private competing delivery companies.

MOVING ALONG >>>

Lisa David, owner of the Nineveh Assyrian food truck on the corner of Plum and Fourth in Olympia is about to go national. Yes, the local bartender, DJ and artist - who serves outstanding Fattoush and fried cauliflower from Nineveh - will star in a web series based out of Chicago. The interactive cooking talk show Assyrian Kitchen launches Wednesday, March 27 as an eight-part series featuring David cooking 10 popular Middle Eastern appetizers.

David has been working with Assyrian Kitchen over the last year, flying out to Chicago for live and taped shows.

"The taped version is for a greater audience that can't make it to the live shows. The Assyrian community is spread out all over the world, so this will reach out to many of them this way. On top of that it crosses over well to a general audience who is genuinely interested in our Assyrian cuisine."

This opportunity puts David in a unique position to share a passion.

"Many of the participants in the live demonstration are non-Assyrians with a love for good food," she says. "I think that has been a major part that is really exciting for me, reaching out to people and introducing them to the food I grew up with and love so dearly. Seeing the enjoyment they get from tasting it and the satisfaction they get from learning to make it. This is an aspect of what makes our Nineveh Assyrian food truck so dear to me, that feedback you get from someone who has never tried something like a shawarma before and who is truly tasting something unique for the first time."

David is also excited to preserve her culture.

"Assyrians are a very small indigenous minority in the Middle East and are spread out wide in a Diaspora due to political persecution and ethnic cleansing in our homelands," she explains. "Any culture that is so spread apart is bound to assimilate into the adopted countries where people have settled. I think an effort like Assyrian Kitchen will help preserve an important aspect of being Assyrian, and that is the food we eat. Creating these videos, doing the live shows, and posting recipes online will go a long way in helping people, especially so many young people who were born or raised outside of our traditional native lands, to maintain this part of our cultural identity. That is something that brings me great satisfaction."

THIS IS MY JOB >>>

Browsing the net is part of a blogger's job. While some people like to peruse Huffington Post, Reddit or in the Weekly Volcano's case - Twitter, I prefer to browse old school - Craigslist. And I'm not talking the back page hook-ups - the kind former Volcano scribe Brett Cihon described. I'm talking about the obscure and interesting, the weird and absurd, and my favorite - the free.

Below are a few precious items I recently discovered on Craigslist.

Eighty free toilets are up for grabs in Lacey. Why in the world does someone have a surplus of 80 toilets? 

Need beer and wine bottles? Judging by the picture of feet in the photo, and the barrel of bottles, Bilbo Baggins has had some late nights tossing back the brewski - and now the bottles can be all yours - for free. 

There are also cool paying gigs on Craigslist: 

"Award-Winning Filmmakers from L.A. Looking to film in OLD houses in TACOMA area":

"New tattoo shop opening on 6th Ave looking for artists";

"Wedding party looking for a folk/rock band".

And, the community section always has a few awesome postings. This week I found a group of performers in Tacoma looking to collaborate and bring live entertainment to senior citizens and other members of the community who may not experience it otherwise.

Also in the community section is a charity wedding dress sale where money raised on designer dresses on the cheap will help provide weddings and vow renewals for individuals facing terminal illness and other serious life-altering circumstances.

Or maybe you are interested in Irish Hurling, which is not what you do leaving O'Malley's at 2 a.m. It's a sport. And of course there's an ad for Irish Hurling on good ol' Craigslist.

Oh, you can also find all the medical weed you could need on Craigslist - sometimes even ones that will deliver.

What have you found?

South Sound Sidekick series offers advice from experts living in the, well, South Sound. It posts every Friday. Today, Wikipedia expert and Olympia resident Adam Fletcher has advice and tips on how to do good work on Wikipedia.

Adam Fletcher writes,

It's a quiet night in the middle of winter when you surf Wikipedia on your favorite subject. Lately you've been obsessed. Reading the regular "blah, blah, blah" you'd expect in an encyclopedia, suddenly your eyes come across something you know is wrong, and you want to fix it.

Stumbling through the clunky interface of the world's largest online collaboration, you manage to edit one of the website's 4,000,000 English language articles. With renewed vigor, you start reading again when you notice there isn't a link to someone you know is really, really important for your subject. Using the poor search engine on the site, you figure out there's nothing for this person. Suddenly, you decide that you will write the article that Wikipedia is missing. Wikipedia wants you to.

This was my story nearly 10 years ago. Since then, I have created more than 500 articles on "the free encyclopedia," volunteering thousands of hours of my life to improve this virtual database of human knowledge. I was a younger hell raiser then, bent on sharing what I'd learned through my career as a consultant for government agencies and nonprofits. Looking specifically at youth engagement, I found a gaping hole in the fields of youth development and education, and began writing rampantly.

However, despite trying to write articles that sounded like they knew it all, I immediately got smacked down. Beautifully grandiose pieces that I knew should've won the Pulitzer were deleted, and on the back channels of Wikipedia other editors said mean things about me.

Determined, it wasn't long before I learned the form. I started reading good articles about topics I wasn't interested in just to figure out what to do, and studied my detractors' comments for insights I might need. Most importantly, I learned how to find sources to support the new topics I was introducing to Wikipedia.

I grew comfortable with the site. After a while, I began writing about anything that interested me. In the waning hours between being a fulltime dad and running my own business, I studied and wrote about the histories of New Mexico, Washington, New York and Alberta; I plumbed the depths of the micro-history of North Omaha, Neb., the neighborhood that I grew up in; and I contributed to other topics I cared most about then.

Since then, I have gained a reputation for writing about topics that are controversial, apparently inconsequential, or otherwise chagrined by other editors, and because of that I keep going. It feels good to stand up for the underdog, online and in the real world. This is how I change the world, sometimes.

What I have learned about Wikipedia is this:

Don't volunteer on Wikipedia for the recognition. On its surface, a large part about Wikipedia is the anonymity. Because of that, there isn't a lot of recognition for hard work. While editors can give each other badges and access, there's no explicit volunteer recognition program, awards or ceremonies. Don't expect anyone to wave your flag for spending days on in at the website.

Editing feels like dog-eat-dog sometimes. Because of the anonymity and the nature of the Internet, editing can get cutthroat sometimes. Editors aren't generally warm and fuzzy, or particularly supportive toward newbies and topics they don't know about. I even experienced many to be suspicious. Stay strong and committed and your work will make it through.

Wikipedia successfully raises the general public's knowledge about topics. After working in my field for more than two decades, the topics we address are more known than ever before. That's in no small part the fault of Wikipedia, and I'm confident that my contributions have helped.

I had to lose some of my ego to be a successful editor. Hidden in the harsh editing climate of Wikipedia is a desire to build a substantial contribution to the world's knowledge. Grammar, style, citations, and reputation are invaluable for that, and I may not be the absolute hottest writer to ever contribute to the project. I have learned to accept feedback and even criticism so I can write better.

Learn to work the system. Wikipedia wants to be spectacular, and in so doing has its doors wide open. Learning to work the system - including the guidelines, editing environment, and processes - can allow you to influence the world, if you work it right.

There's more than a million ways to start. Ready to do it? The biggest advice I can share is to start anywhere and go anywhere. There are a million entry points for contributing to Wikipedia, including editing existing content, creating articles, adding citations, checking verifiability, working with topic-based projects and many other ways. The most important thing is to simply start.

As my story shows, anyone can add to Wikipedia. I really think that if you want to change the world, the website is a great place to go to do some good work. There are so many opportunities there, and your contributions can have a real impact on other people, no matter how small or insignificant they might feel.

Instead of spending more time reviewing the site, I would suggest that you stop reading this and start editing. Look me up on the site if you want, and happy editing!

Learn more about Adam's editing and contact him on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Freechild

LINK: Make film gore with household items

LINK: Parenting advice for punk rockers

LINK: How to improve your photography skills

LINK: Get fit the Dungeons and Dragons way

LINK: Roommate advice

LINK: Marijuana smoking advice

LINK: How to harvest geoducks

LINK: Music business advice

LINK: First tattoo advice

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SOUTH SOUND STARTUP >>>

Tacoma has brought many wonderful products, resources and people into this world: Almond Roca, Dale Chihuly and the 253 Heart. Now, there is one more side of awesome to serve up - GIVINGtrax. Never before has giving or receiving donations been so nifty.

Originally founded in 2010, but officially launched at Consumer Electronics Show 2013 in Las Vegas, GIVINGtrax was co-founded by Tacoma businesspeople Karrie and Lance Hungerford, and Internet marketer Courtney Titus of the Bruce Titus Automotive family.

"GIVINGtrax provides web-based and mobile-based tools for managing donations, corporate giving, cause marketing, volunteerism, and fundraising," says Titus. "In a way, GIVINGtrax.com plays matchmaker to local businesses, nonprofits, and individuals who otherwise may have never met."

Along with managing your own giving, the service is all about connection and awareness - simplifying and consolidating the donation receiving and giving processes. Among the system's many capabilities, it allows nonprofits to thank their donors or business partners, ask for donations, or submit donation requests to a cloud and find others who are likely to give to their cause. Individuals can join and affiliate themselves with their employers, and both keep track of their donations as well as get notifications about employee-matching programs.

"We have launched our GIVINGtrax BETA here locally in the Puget Sound and will be rolling out the product Nationwide and hopefully globally," says Titus. "As we expand we will continue to keep the local aspect of GIVINGtrax - giving the businesses, nonprofits, and individuals that use GIVINGtrax the ability to see their social impact in their community."

Already, several Tacoma businesses and nonprofits are on board, from the Harmon Brewery to Round Table Pizza to the Tacoma Art Museum.

THIS JUST IN >>>

The city of Tacoma just sent this exciting news to the Weekly Volcano World Headquarter:

TV Tacoma, the City of Tacoma's government access television station,  is now utilizing web streaming technology and services provided by Granicus Corporation.  This technology provides support for PC and Apple users, as well as support for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.  And it provides closed captioning online on programs where closed captioning has been made available, for viewers who are hearing impaired. ??The City of Tacoma began utilizing this technology Jan. 1 for TV Tacoma's live web stream, and will also use it moving forward for all newly produced TV Tacoma programming content that is made available on tvtacoma.com.

TV Tacoma is carried on both the Click! Cable TV and Comcast Cable systems. TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 in the Tacoma City limits and in Pierce County on Click!, with the exception of University Place, where it can be found on Channel 21. On Comcast, TV Tacoma can be seen on Channel 12 in the Tacoma City limits and on Channel 21 in Pierce County. For programming information or program streaming, visit tvtacoma.com.

BOOK RELEASE >>>

What story were you told about how babies are born?

This is the question local author Rebecca McCarthy posted on her Facebook page to facilitate a conversation about sex. 

"Out of the mother's tummy, I was puzzled how I got there."

"From a seed of some type."

"The cabbage patch."

"Mom and dad rolled around naked and tickled each other."

"The stork."

These are some of the answers, and a few of the many reasons McCarthy wrote her new book, Writing the Diaphragm Blues & other Sexual Cacophonies. 

McCarthy has organized an online launch party for her book Wednesday, Dec. 12 at noon. Yes, 12-12-12 at 12 p.m. The online launch includes a Google hangout, live streamline from Youtube and Facebook.

There are no barriers on who can be there," she says. "From Mississippi to Japan, all areas can participate."

Choosing to do an online launch is significant to McCarthy because she feels like it's a safe place for people to say what they want. 

"To use social media at that moment in time is important," she says. "We're usually talked at, or we react. It allows woman to talk about these things without feeling unabashed. It's a resource."

The book rolls humor, playwriting, sophistication and science into an accessible book for everyone.

"You can't speak for all woman," says McCarthy, "but can speak about your own experiences and open the door for other woman to speak about theirs."

Rebecca McCarthy is a writer, educator, artist and roller derby skater with Tacoma's Toxic 253 League. She holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from Florida Atlantic University. Her published works include the influential Origins of the Magdalene Laundries: An Analytical History (2010), which traces women's plight in the laundries from the Middle Ages to modernity.

You can also add author of a compelling perspective on modern sexuality.

BAKE OLYMPIA >>>

With the popularity of food blogs these days, local bloggers are using their reach to positively affect their community. Bake Olympia, a bake sale to fight hunger, will be doing just that at the Make Olympia Street Market this Friday, April 27 during Olympia's Spring Arts Walk. The proceeds from the sales of the baked goods and donated food items and produce will go to Thurston County Food Bank.

As a food blogger that focuses mainly on fresh produce, bake sale organizer Jenni Crain (of The Plum Palate) is well aware of the price of food and that not everyone can afford to eat what she's eating and blogging. "It makes sense to turn that around, even a little bit, by organizing people who are passionate about food to help alleviate hunger," Crain said. She hopes to raise $1,000 for the food bank, as well as collect food and raise awareness of the issue of hunger in the community.

Crain was inspired by Seattle bloggers' Will Bake for Food, an event that raised over $2,500 for the Emergency Feeding Program. "We don't have the star power Seattle does, but we do have a small group of committed food bloggers and the Thurston County Food Bank, which is working to eliminate hunger right here," she said.

Some of the anticipated treats include salted caramel brownies and s'mores bars (from Krista and Jess), chocolate cherry big cookies (from Fresh Scratch) and lavender meringues and macarons with mango (from OlyEats). Jenni Crain's blogging partner, Chie Okazaki, is working on a savory gluten-free scone.

You may purchase or exchange fresh produce and non-perishable food items for these baked goods and more on Friday, April 27 at the Make Olympia Street Market (100 block of Columbia Street, downtown Olympia) during the Arts Walk 5-10 p.m.

GRAB A CUP OF COFFEE AND A NOTEPAD >>>

Tacoma has a bustling art/culture scene. Most "in the know" Tacomans know this, as do some of us deserters. Dozens of art galleries and workshops. A secret society of cartoonists. Talented videographers. Wonderful restaurants. A rocking indie music scene. Way cool. It's so awesome to live in Tacoma, right? I mean, I know exactly what's cool all of the time because there's a centralized way to experience Tacoma. Wait a second. There isn't? You mean, I have to actually know the right people or scour Facebook groups and local rags and attend tons of conflicting events to really experience "art city?" Well, my friends, you've come to the right place, because I'm going to present Tacoma (and you) with an opportunity it doesn't even know it needs. What's more, this could potentially be one of the most engaging and fun opportunities available to any Tacoma enthusiast. This could become your life. This could become your job. Here it is, 253's blueprint for an Internet television show.

Yes, the Internet. Al Gore's gift to the multiverse. Why the Internet? Because it's everywhere and can be accessed by everyone. Why is an Internet television show valuable to Tacoma's cultural identity? Because with so much excellence and innovation going on it Tacoma, it's hard to keep track and focus in. Where would comedy be without SNL making the faces of today's biggest comedians? Where would our understanding of politics be without Stewart and Colbert? Where would America's music lexicon be without American Bandstand? OK ... bad example.

Outside of actually experiencing something (which, with so much to see, is hard to do), video is the most comprehensive medium there is (outside of smell-o-vision of course). Yes, there are a bunch of excellent magazines/newspapers/blogs out there like the Weekly Volcano, Exit133 and The Melon that highlight what's up, but to really experience it you need to see it. You need to hear it. In our world of chaotic day-to-days, sometimes making it out to a show isn't possible. With video you can reach people on their own clock. People who are afraid to leave their homes or are just too damn tired from all that living.

Imagine a monthly (or ideally weekly) online show that anyone could tune in to. A show that features local bands, interviews local politicians, presents local artists and filmmakers. A show that visits restaurants like Infinite Soups or gets a haircut at Supernova. A show that samples the local brew at The Red Hot, or sees a new show at the Tacoma Little Theatre. Hello, McFly! The possibilities are endless. Every week there's something new. Every week people would rely on the show to highlight something amazing about art city. It would be a beacon. The flag that perpetuates art/culture/life in the city to better itself. Tacoma has usually been smart about not trying to be or live up to any other city's expectations. This is an opportunity to unite everything that makes Tacoma special.

So how can you (yes, you! who else is going to do it?) make this happen?

The Blueprint

Step 1: Form your team

This is the hardest part. To make this happen you need the most creative, hyper-energetic go-getters you can find. They don't need to be the smartest people in the world, but they need to be hard workers and most of all they need to be reliable. Reliability is a key to success here. You'll run into a lot of people who say they're interested in the idea, but end up not answering emails or texts or sexts. Starting any project needs people who do what they say and say what they do. These are the people you need:

Producer: You or your head honcho of creativity. Your Lorne Michaels. Someone who can direct this production and will be the little engine that can, will and does.

Staff: Your talent scouts and bookers. Your staffers and organizers. Your dedicated folks you can rely on type something up, to email someone and get things done.

Host: The face. The talent. The Johnny Carson. The Dave Letterman. Someone respected in Tacoma, or charismatic enough that people will want to see him or her week after week. Needs to be a talented interviewer and speaker. Funny is a must.

Reporting Crew: Additional host-like folks who can host features.

Promoter: Your Facebooker. Your inviter. Your gossiper. Your marketer.

Business Manager: This will come in later. This person will keep books, come up with your budget and do other businessy things. Surprise, you're giving birth to a business.

Every person on your team will be wearing multiple hats and will have multiple responsibilities at first. But that's what it takes.

Read more...

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WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Tacoma Takes The High Road: Cheney Stadium Sustainable Stormwater Project is actually cool. (Weekly Volcano)

Checking In With Wily Washam: Pierce County Ethics Commission says Pierce County assessor-treasurer Dale Washam used public resources for campaign purposes in an effort to unseat county Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. (News Tribune)

Oh Lovely: Anders Behring Breivik, who admits killing 77 people in Norway last summer, used the video game Modern Warfare 2 as training. (CNN)

Oh Lovely II: India successfully launched a missile with nuclear capability and a 3,100-mile range, giving it the ability to strike Beijing and Shanghai. (The New York Times)

Pulitzer or Peabody?: Colbert and Huffington debate. (Poynter)

Families And Flying: Should airlines offer children-only seating areas and flights? (Huffington Post)

Which Cities Are Setting Music Trends?: Not the ones you'd think. (Time)

Because 50 Isn't Enough: 53 reasons why we need a new Star Trek TV series. (Huffington Post)

Record Stores: Popular musicians come clean with their favorite records stores. (Pop Matters)

Got 99 Cents And Love Craft Beer?: There's an app for that. (Craft Beer App)