Now I know why Washington State regularly elects lunatics to office

Oregon Magazine ^ | February 17, 2006 | Thomas H. Lipscomb

[WaterDragon]

I am an independent journalist who just got a good laugh over the latest "courageous stance" adopted by your student senate. Growing up in Oregon, I was always puzzled by why the lovely neighboring state of Washington seemed so heavily influenced by what I thought was a lunatic fringe. On the one hand William Gates and his baby boy Bill had produced two obscene monopolies, Boeing and Microsoft, and on the other your assorted elected officials seemed more at home in 1960s Communist Albania than the Wobblies "One Big Union" of sainted memory in the Northwest.

Now I know what the problem is. I don't know how I could have missed it for so long.

Your action --through something no intelligent student pays any attention to--"student government" --to deny former student, notorious Marine aviation hero, Pappy Boyington a place in "The University of Washington Hall of Fame" says it all. I gather you think he is not a proper role model for today's U of W student. Defending the US in a declared war initiated by a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor seems to be a problem for you. You may well be right. I don't think he has anything in common with you either.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Washington seemed so heavily influenced by what I thought was a lunatic fringe.

HEY NOW!!!

[zzen01]

Washington and Oregon have been throughly CaliPornicated.

[JustaCowgirl]

Not you. You're the Lunatic Fringe of North Texas, are you not? ;-)

[Supernatural]

Don't just blame the state of Washington. 'rats infest a lot of places, state, city and county.

[Lunatic Fringe]

That's me.

[MillerCreek]

"...Clearly the main problem is that what I thought was a 'lunatic fringe' is the mainstream in Washington State these days and its source is the University of Washington itself. Acknowledging that at last, I have some suggestions in line with your decision on Boyington---first, you should immediately consider a motion in your student government to change your mascot from the noble husky which is far too quarrelsome and individualistic for the current institution. rather like Pappy Boyington himself.

"In fact. I think a cocker spaniel might be more appropriate. It is in-bred, feeble minded, submissive, has a weak bladder, and is kinda cute. In the event of anything out of the ordinary, the cocker spaniel runs and hides, peeing all the way. In fact given the state of academia at the University of Washington. how bout an out and out fraud like 'Chief Seattle?' I mean maybe he didn't say that famous statement, but he should have. right? Dan Rather would approve. And that is what counts in your post-modern world these days."

EXCELLENT! Rejecting Boyington, a war hero among war heroes, from the Student Hall o' Fame of U of WA is astoundingly shameful...no, actually, it's an indication of astounding stupidity among supposed educated minds.

[muawiyah]

While redoubling the provisions to safeguard all federal properties in the place, the American defense perimeter should be withdrawn from Washington state as soon as possible.

[BlueNgold]

Regardless of what you may think ... Oregon and Washington are actually more liberal politically than California.

[cousair]

The statment about Pappy makes me wild! I have lived in the beautiful state of Washington for sometime. I also lived in Texas, and the people, history and independent feeling of the folks there stands in stark contrast to those from the Seattle area who control the Wasington state in every election. Our area near the southern part is quite different in temperment. This anti WW2 and those who fought and give their lives today and every day in history so we can live free is totally teasonous in my thinking. It is an abomination that these ideas exist at the Universtiy of Washington. One student said they didn't want to inspire being a Marine and in combat as honorable. It really has nothing to do with freedom of expression in this day and age. It has everything to do with defending our country against evil.

[microgood]

More proof that there is nothing more stupid than a liberal college student. My favorite comment was by one student who said there were already too many statues honoring rich white men.

Boyington was never rich and was a Sioux Indian. I guess they flunked history.

[bigfootbob]

We've been like this long before the Kaliforniacators started trekking North. Something in the city water supply, I suspect. Most rural folks with wells have more sense than our city counterparts.

[jazusamo]

Lipscomb is mostly correct and I'm a Washington resident.

[68skylark]

He is living proof that the tail never slaps far from the beaver.

Funny.

[econjack]

...William Gates and his baby boy Bill had produced two obscene monopolies, Boeing and Microsoft...

I tend to agree with most of what you said, but the quote above seems a bit off. My guess is that you're not aware of what the Justice Dept's definition of a monopoly is or recognize the stiff competition that Boeing has had over the years from AirBus, Northrop, McDonnel-Douglas, Lockheed, and others. Likewise, Microsoft has already been tried for monopolistic practices but prevailed. They, too, face competition from Linux, UNIX, MacOS, and others.

Too often, people forget that companies are successful because they did something right, not wrong. This is especially true after the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890.

[IslandJeff]

William Gates and his baby boy Bill had produced two obscene monopolies, Boeing and Microsoft

A slight historical inaccuracy, there. All Bill Sr. did was dominate the U-Dub law school by endowment.

Boeing well predates that august family.

[southernerwithanattitude]

If one of my kids did something this stupid I would march their a-- out in front of the TV cameras and make them apologize to the entire country!

[NRA2BFree]

Washington seemed so heavily influenced by what I thought was a lunatic fringe.

HEY NOW!!!

Ah hah! Soooo, now we know. We're gonna have to be watching you a little closer from now on. Is there anything else we should know? C'mon tell us EVERYTHING! LOL

[Fresh Wind]

I didn't realize Washington State had elections.

[billbears]

Perhaps Mr. Lipscomb can explain his knowledge of where federally sponsored organizations have found the Constitutional responsibility to waste tax dollars building statues to dead people. If a private booster wishes to donate the funds (including payment of design and upkeep of said statue) that's another thing. But I do not see the patriotism in wasting yet even more tax dollars in funding a statue. To say, well, it's been done before doesn't cut it. I could care less if it was done before, yesterday, ten years ago, by Democrats in the past, Republicans, etc. It is simply not the business of the national government to fund wastes like this. Rather sell off the property to private companies. If they want to keep it up, fine. If not, let them use that property as they see fit to produce a profit.

And yes this would include the practical mausoleum that seconds as the federal government's current center with all its monuments, statues, etc.

[Reily]

The way to handle this is by organizing the Washington State alumni to refuse to contribute any money to the school until not only is this shameful act rectified by the student government issue a apology !

[arjay]

I have often been puzzled by the fact that it was the independent people who valued freedom who first moved to the west, and yet, the far west is one of the hotbeds of Liberalism.

How did that happen? Where did those original values go?

Seems strange to me.

[45Auto]

Curtiss P 40 Warhawk

[45Auto]

AGF Flying Tigers

[45Auto]

That's American Volunteer Group, AVG.

[okie01]

If one of my kids did something this stupid I would march their a-- out in front of the TV cameras and make them apologize to the entire country!

But one of your kids wouldn't do what these kids did.

And whatchawannabet their parents are proud for their children having taken "a courageous stand against authority".

Which, I guess, is a way of saying "the maggots don't crawl far from the egg"...

[Eva]

I have been wondering if the girl who made the remarks in the student senate was an ethnic studies major. I have a friend whose daughter majored in ethnic studies at UW, and I can tell you that it is a complete waste of time.

[okie01]

Perhaps Mr. Lipscomb can explain his knowledge of where federally sponsored organizations have found the Constitutional responsibility to waste tax dollars building statues to dead people.

Perhaps Mr. billbears should gain more familiarity with the story before commenting.

The statue in question was not federally sponsored, nor were any tax dollars involved in the project. Nor does Lipscomb so propose. Instead, the memorial's student sponsor was seeking authority, so that he could then pursue private funding.

[45Auto]

My uncle who is now 85, god bless him, flew with the Flying Tigers in China in 1939; after Pearl Harbor he was reassigned to the European Theater to the 449th Bombardment Squadron, 322nd Bombardment Group (nicknamed the 'Annihilators'), and he flew in the B 26 Marauder known as Flak Bait, now displayed in the Smithsonian. Flak Bait

[null and void]

Regardless of what you may think ... Oregon and Washington are actually more liberal politically than California.

Oh. My. God.

[ridesthemiles]

Washington and Oregon have been throughly CaliPornicated""
Not all that can be blamed on Kalifornia.

They have their own special home grown brand of liberal creeps. Trying to do business in Portland is a disaster.

[billbears]

Perhaps you could provide to me the resource that shows this monument will be privately funded only. Of course from the student body president comes this tidbit

I would also like to remind you that as ASUW President I cosponsored this bill to create a memorial, it failed by one vote, and a good majority of those who voted against it wanted more inclusion of other alumni who were combat veterans who earned the Medal of Honor. This week a new resolution to that effect is being drafted and introduced. In the meantime the ASUW supports veterans in other ways, currently we are supporting state legislation that will hopefully pass and guarantee veterans tuition waivers. In the end, the buck stops here, I would appreciate further comments to be made to me. Please do not participate or condone the hate-filled comments and phone calls made toward individuals in our student government. It has been appalling to see what is being said to people. I too am nauseated.

Thank you for you statements.
Sincerely,
Lee Dunbar

Here

I should also note that you may want to read the minutes of the meeting (also linked there) before you post again. From the minutes of the meeting

Andrew Everett said he had drawn up funding proposals for the UWAA, several UW departments, and other private sources of funding.

You were saying....government waste is government waste, no matter how 'patriotic' it appears

[okie01]

Andrew Everett said he had drawn up funding proposals for the UWAA, several UW departments, and other private sources of funding.

Read it again, billbears. The Alumni Association, etc., that is private funding.

[Clodia Pulcher]

Sorry you didn't include Dunbar's email addy... it would be nice to respond to him.

My suggestion to one UW official who was whimpering about lack of space and who would fund it...is that at this point every Marine in the country would fund it... and I would suggest they crash a Corsair nose down in Lake Washington shallows just off shore and have a statue of Pappy climbing out of the cockpit happily waving a whiskey bottle...

It would be the most popular statue on campus...!

And Pappy would LOVE it.

[Lancer_N3502A]

We don't elect folks up here, they fraud themselves into office.

[Lancer_N3502A]

[billbears]

everal UW departments

What departments would that be?

[Ramius]

Good article.

Go Cougs. :-)

[billbears]

Secondly, where are they going to put this statue? On Washington University land. Land purchased by the taxpayers. Who will fund upkeep of this statue? The landscapers, janitors, etc that are employed by the University of Washington. More tax dollars to fund the upkeep of said statue.

Don't get me wrong. I am not arguing the point that this woman was correct. I just do not see the importance of any statue if funding comes from tax dollars in any form. It may be just one statue in this case. However consider this same push for a statue happening in every state at every university. The thousands upon thousands of dollars add up after awhile.

[Clodia Pulcher]

You are still sneezing at a gnat.

Read my Modest Proposal above.

This is a no brainer.

It doesn't require an amendment to the Land Grant Act

[okie01]

Secondly, where are they going to put this statue? On Washington University land. Land purchased by the taxpayers. Who will fund upkeep of this statue? The landscapers, janitors, etc that are employed by the University of Washington. More tax dollars to fund the upkeep of said statue.

However, consider the savings in grass no longer mowed...

[Veto!]

Washington and Oregon have been throughly CaliPornicated.

Maybe peripherally, but not in any important way.

When I moved to WA from CA in 1981, I felt I'd drifted into some remote shadowy belt of the Milky Way, where all common sense had sunk into a black hole, where excellence was blasphemy, where mediocrity was viewed with suspicion as a far, far rightwing concept, where every person had two left feet and two left hands. Really, CA is much more diverse culturally and politically. Reagan would NEVER have been elected in WA.

[KeyLargo]

Aero News.net
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm

Get Thee Behind Me, Pappy Boyington

Sat, 18 Feb '06
Univ of Washington Student Senate Slams "Evil" War Hero
Aero-News Opinion By Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

Student senator Jill Edwards spoke for the student body when she "questioned whether it was appropriate to honor a person who killed other people." She "didn’t’ believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."

Ashley Miller agrees. "Too many monuments commemorate white men," she sneered. They should probably tear some down until pygmies, eskimos and victims of gender dysphoria have caught up in the heroism department, then. It might take a while (The white guy, by the way, wasn't all white -- he was part Native American, Sioux specifically. But maybe joining the "evil" Marines bleached the red out of him?)

Jon Lee said he "didn’t want to see a campus inundated with memorials." Hey, they already have a memorial to someone with University values -- the Lincoln Brigade, a group of American Communists who fought in the Spanish Civil War. The survivors used to march in New York City in solidarity with Hitler, and then against him, oddly enough changing direction on June 22, 1941. That's University of Washington values for you.

The occasion: a meeting of the University of Washington student senate, in which Andrew Everett committed the moral equivalent of Danish cartooning, by proposing that the school erect a small statue to Marine Lt. Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, UW '34, who with 28 victories remains the Marine Corps' all-time ace. Boyington grew up in hard circumstances, and long before there was the sort of lavish student aid that makes college an extension of childhood for today's students, put himself through the University and went on to become one of the school's most distinguished alumni.

So Everett and a small group of students and faculty thought it would be a great idea to honor him, and to give today's students a reminder of a hero of days gone by.

As the reaction of Edwards (below right), Miller, and Lee show, it went over like an offer of a golden calf to a synagogue, or a statue of Satan in the Vatican, or, well, a Marine on a modern college campus.

Some students sought compromise. Deirdre Lockman said "the resolution focused more heavily on the negative aspects of war, and should instead focus on more positive aspects, such as the awarding of the Medal of Honor." Yeah, you know, like all guys who won the MOH for acts of genteel kindness, like Audie Murphy, or Bob Howard. (Look 'em up. You in the UW shirt, put down that bong).

Mikhail Smirnoff apparently thought he was seeking middle ground when he "understood the sentiment of not wanting to reward those who fought in the war," but he pointed out that "those who fought in WWII were heros [sic]..." unlike, he helpfully added, those who fight in Iraq. To quote someone with the same last name as young Mikhail, "What a country!"

Defending his decision to diss Boyington, Director of Student Senate Operations Karl D. Smith thought he was going for middle ground, commenting in a regional blog, "We also are home to civil rights leaders such as Gordon Hirabayshi and a major contributor in the eradication of smallpox William Foege, and the Nigerian statesman who worked for peace Alex Ekwueme." Yep, household names all, just like Boyington. I was just wondering today, what's Al Ekwueme up to these days? You hardly hear his name any more. By the way, I am not the Great Punctuator, but I'm willing to send Karl some commas. You know, to bring his writing up to the junior-high-school standard expected at UW.

Smith issued the plaintive call of today's university dweller, confused, intimidated, and relativistic: "How do we decide who is and is not deserving?"

Well, Karl, it looks like you just did, despite your girly-man waffling. Did you say that he was evil for shooting down enemy airplanes?

"I stand by my comments in support of removing the language regarding the Japanese planes shot down." (Geez, the kid talks like a bureaucrat already. He'll be making everyone's life miserable in the DMV some day). "In war, killing is a necessary evil. Because of this I am all the more grateful for those who endure the effects of war.
But I do not believe our honor of him should focus upon the evil, regardless of how necessary."

Yeah... make a resolution about Gramps Boyington, just don't mention that he was a Marine, and skip the bit about 28 planes he shot down.

It might offend airplane-Americans. ("He's really famous for something, but we can't tell you what, because this is a university, and we have to keep a lid on the information"). If this is the courage that they inculcate at UW, Boyington must have had all of his already, on the day he got there.

Or just maybe the campus has changed in seventy-two years.

The University of Washington student senate is a strange organization, with many seats reserved for particular races, ethnicities, and extracurricular activities. The seat that Jill Edwards represents belongs to -- I am not making this up -- the Honors Croquet League, which appears to be the pinnacle of the deep- thinking Miss Edwards's accomplishments at UW. (A personal page notes that she posed in a swimsuit for a calendar of UW women -- I won't comment but every male who reads this and sees her picture will make a snap judgment on what the dating scene is like at UW. Swimsuit, croquet, knowledge of history half as deep as a bird bath: she's the complete package, men).

Boyington died in 1988 and is buried in Arlington -- which is the national cemetery in Washington, DC, where we bury people that most in the nation think are heroes -- which detail we spell out for any of those suffering from a Washington (University of) education.
FMI: www.washington.edu, www.acepilots.com/usmc_boyington.html

[econjack]

Yep, I knew that. I was just repeating what WaterDragon said.

[Snardius]

I didn't realize Washington State had elections.

We don't. We decide who we want to win and count the votes until we get the desired result.

[Snardius]

Regardless of what you may think ... Oregon and Washington are actually more liberal politically than California.

Actually, the I-5 corridor is more liberal than California. The rest of the state is comfortably conservative.

[Snardius]

Reagan would NEVER have been elected in WA.

Perhaps not, but we do stand as the state who elected a model for all Democrats, Scoop Jackson.

[Spunky]

PING! "Your action --through something no intelligent student pays any attention to--"student government" --to deny former student, notorious Marine aviation hero, Pappy Boyington a place in "The University of Washington Hall of Fame" says it all."

[WaterDragon]

if you checked his student records I am more than certain you would have found the kind of letters from the Deans of his day that would have confirmed your thinking: "Boyington thinks too much on his own

There are plenty of Boyington's ilk in the Northwest....they just need to get together and make the sacrifices required to provide desperately needed leadership to Americans here.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to Spunky for the ping.

Evergreen State ping

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.