We have a big week coming up! The coal trains (all mile and a half of them, 18 or more times a day) are planned to rumble through Seattle, tying up traffic, making it hard for emergency vehicles to get to folks in need of help and to hospitals, derailing, vibrating hillsides prone to winter landslides and polluting everything from Spokane to the Tri-Cities to Portland to Longview to Seattle and Bellingham and the air and waters from China to Boston to Paris.

A hearing is being held on Thursday, Dec. 13th at the WA Convention Center from 4 - 7PM with a rally beforehand just outside at Freeway Park starting at 3 PM. The hearing (and the others around the state) will tell the engineering firm doing the environmental impact study what it is that they should consider when conducting that study. We want them to consider ALL probable impacts. Join us. Watch. Listen.

That is the event around which many of your friends and fellow Movers are getting active all week.

We start tomorrow. Many of you probably have seen pix of Wisconsin's Overpass Light Brigade. They spelled messages out of individual letters made using battery-operated strings of LEDs. We and GMOP and the Backbone Campaign have worked together to create our Puget Sound Overpass Light Brigade. Several of us have been working for two weeks to create the signs, and a few have been working non-stop since Wed. to finish the signs and to build frameworks for the letter panels to make them easier to handle.

So, here is the call to action:

We will be displaying two messages. One on the overpass at 45th St, and another one at 50th. The first will read "Stop Coal Trains". The second will say "Hearing Dec 13". We need people to hang onto the signs.

Please join us. We will be doing this Monday, Tuesday for sure and probably Wednesday. We are meeting at 4:15 PM each evening at the east end of the 50th St overpass on I-5. From there we will split up with half going to 45th. Parking is available on the street on the west end of the bridge at 50th and in a free parking lot, I am told, at 45th. We will do this until about 6 PM. Come rain or shine. Only a superstorm like Sandy will stay these hardy activists from their appointed duties.

As I mentioned earlier, the hearing will be held on Thursday at the Convention Center beginning at 4 PM. We also have a big after-party happening Thursday at the Baltic Room 1207 Pine St (about 3 blocks NE of the Convention Ctr). Tickets are $5.00, available from Brown Paper Tickets or payable at the door. We will have a DJ and possibly a band or two for short sets. Food and drink will be available. This will be our time to PARTY!

So, there it is. Hold up signs M, T and/or ?W?. Testify. Party.

Joins us. Reply to me.

Any questions?

I have to splice together some ridiculously tiny wires for a couple of the signs.

Happy holidays!

Norm Conrad nsconrad@gmail.com