"Oppose a political view, but don't try to suppress it"

Rossi sign vandalism in West Olympia, from Thurston Opinions


Rossi sign vandalism in Winthrop, from HorsesAss.Org
After years in the national political wilderness, Democrats are out for revenge and to make sure that they maintain a "permanent majority." The method they seem to have chosen to accomplish these goals is to destroy free speech, at least the free speech of those who disagree with them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports the revival of the "Fairness Doctrine," which would silence conservative talk radio and blogs. Presidential candidate Barack Obama has stated that he wants to "change the political climate" that allows people to criticize his wife. Obama supporters even managed to shut down blogs unfriendly to the Obamesssiah.

We've seen in it Washington as well, where Democrats have enjoyed a majority for years. In 2005, two Seattle radio hosts were successfully sued and muzzled by environmentalist wackos opposed to the initiative to repeal the 9 1/2 cent gas tax hike. Last year, the Washintgon Public Disclosure Commission considered putting regulations on political blogs.

Now, as Cav reported last week, the Democrats are going after the Building Industry Association of Washington, the only business group in Washington with the stones to stand up to Queen Christine.

I have never met BIAW Executive Vice President Tom McCabe, but we have mutual friends. It sounds like we believe in the same things and employ the same "tell it like it is" style. Richard Davis, writing in the Everett Daily Herald says:

BIAW executive vice president Tom McCabe has remained something of an Olympia outsider, rarely engaging directly in the city's collegial coalitions and compromises. In addition to battling with labor unions, state agencies and environmental activists, he has been known to throw sharp elbows at other business groups who pursue less combative strategies.

BIAW doesn't always play nice.

And why should they, when the opposition engages in lies, exaggerations, slander, fear-mongering, and vandalism? You can't play nice when you are dealing with ideological extremists.
As Davis states:

Now comes this lawsuit, another attempt to curtail BIAW's political speech. However you feel about the group, you should not want them silenced this way.

My God, is that we have come to in this country? "Liberal fascism" is not just the title of a book.

In any case, the Daily Herald resport that McCabe says the lawsuit "isn't going to slow us down." And reast assured, attacks on this blog aren't going to slow us down or shut us up either.

Democrats Push for End of Free Speech

To welcome Michelle Obama to Seattle yesterday, the Washington State Republican Party produced this video of Washingtonians stating how they were proud of their country (since Mamaobama stated earlier this year that she was proud of her country for the first time.)



Queen Christine called the video a part of "shameful attacks" by the Republican Party and demanded that Dino Rossi denounce them. The Obama campaign referred to the video as part of a campaign of "false and mean-spirited attacks."

Huh? How is expressing love of your country "shameful" or "mean-spirited?" These people are aware of Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and Move on.org, right? Pretty tame by comparison to what goes on there day after day. Heck, down in Moonbat Central, San Franciscans are going to vote this fall whether to name a sewage plant after the President of the United States as a demonstration of their contempt for him (and the office.)

So Michelle Obama makes herself a public figure by campaigning for her husband, and nothing she says on his behalf can be refuted or criticized?

Yep, thus sayeth the Obamessiah. In an interview published in this month's Glamour magazine, the Obamalord proclaims that, even if the McCain campaign isn't doing it

...but I would say that the apparatus of conservative columnists, blogs and the like. Talk shows, talk radio....When you see in the span of two or three or four weeks essentially the same talking points being used on a whole variety of shows or a whole variety of columns, over and over again....Hillary Clinton was subject to this, others have been subject to this in the past...It is part of our political environment that I'd like to change.

Change the political environment? In what way? Revoking the First Amendment? Thought crimes? Informers? Kangaroo courts? Reeducation camps?

Many Obamaniacs believe that the Dalai Bama is a "enlightened being" not of this world. It's only natural then that heretics and non-believers be purged in an Inquisition.

A cult of personality, a la 1930's Germany. Scary times ahead for the Republic, folks.

Aquiferealists vs. Aquinuts

The Lewiston Tribune has been runnning a series about water issues on the Palouse. What follows below is a compilation of quotes (Aquiferealists in blue, Aquinuts in red) from several articles that were published in the Sunday issue of the Tribune, along with my comments:

King Solomon vs. Science:

"It's a little scary," says Mark Solomon, a longtime water watchdog and current hydrology doctoral student at the University of Idaho. "There is a looming water crisis."

Even with state-of-the-art technology, no amount of scientific probing will ever provide total understanding of the groundwater supply on the Palouse, says a University of Idaho hydrology and water quality professor.

"There are geophysical tools that you can use," Fritz Fiedler says of equipment designed to collect underground data. "But they aren't very accurate. And they don't work well in deep systems like we have. The main aquifer on the Palouse, which is the Grand Ronde, is about 1,000 feet deep."

"There's always going to be uncertainty that we're going to have to manage around," Fiedler says. So while more scientific data is desirable, cooperation between user groups and agencies is much more critical at this point.

"I don't think there's a looming crisis," Fiedler says. "I really don't think we're about to run dry by any means. But in the future, maybe 15 to 20 years out there, it's much harder to tell."

"I'm not saying the decisions will be here next year. I don't think the situation is that dire at all," [Jan] Boll [director of the Univeristy of Idaho Waters of the West graduate program] says. "But it's a planning process that we all need. And that's what our process is trying to develop."

In the meantime, Boll says no crisis is imminent. In fact, he says, the aquifers may be much deeper than realized at this point.

Surface water is plentiful. Reservoirs could be built. Treated runoff could be injected into the aquifers. The technology is even available to pump and pipe water from the major rivers to the south. While perhaps costly alternatives, Boll says the availability of water is more than adequate for the region.

One thing for certain, warns Boll, no amount of scientific investigation will ever provide enough answers to erase all questions about how much water is available. "The thing we need to come to grasp with is the uncertainty we will always have. There is always going to be uncertainty about how much water is left and how much we can keep pumping."

I think in this case I'll go with the professors over the "student." And since there is no way we will ever know how much water is left in the aquifer, it only seems logical to implement thoughtful conservation measures and develop economical alternatives versus the radical growth-killing solutions advocated by King Solomon and his Knights of the Water Table.

Larry Kirkland vs. Bill French

Larry Kirkland, former PBAC executive secretary, counters that there is no shortage. "The water is here. It's just a question of how we can get it."

Enough precipitation, for example, falls on the Palouse to make the shortage debate moot, say Kirkland and other experts. They contend capturing runoff in reservoirs or injecting treated surface water into underground aquifers, while costly, would meet future demands.

Kirkland, after leaving PBAC and being able to observe the big picture, warns that fears about lack of water can be used as both political and legal levers. "Water can become sort of a spotted owl to establish what you want as far as social engineering."

The spotted owl became the focus of national attention decades ago when
conservation groups used the bird's endangered species status to block logging of old-growth forests.

The potential for alternative water sources aside, [Bill] French [of the Palouse Water Conservation Network] says there's something "obscene" about the current situation. "I just think it's ethically wrong to take a 20,000-year-old resource like pristine groundwater that got into the ground during the last ice age and dump it on lawns or flush it down toilets."

"Obscene? ""Ethically wrong?" Kirkland is right. The Aquinuts ARE comparing the "pristine 20,000 year old water" to a living creature like the spotted owl to block growth on the Palouse. Let's illuminate Mr. French about the water cycle, shall we?


There will never be any more freshwater on Earth than there is now. No new water is being made and water can’t escape from the Earth. The water we use is recycled over and over again. It is never "destroyed." It just changes states or moves somewhere else. So that "pristine" water that got into the Grande Ronde aquifer during the last ice age was on the Earth's surface for hundreds of millions of years in various forms (clouds, rain, snow, ice, rivers, oceans) before that. And when it gets to the surface again to water your lawn or flush your toilet, it will stay around for hundreds of millions of more years before going back into the ground, into the ocean, etc. Water is not a living creature that can die off and go extinct forever. That same water will be here long after we are dead and gone. Arguing over water on the Palouse is as silly as arguing over dirt would be. If we can't get water from the aquifer, we'll get it from somewhere else. As the scientists above stated, this is a region that has ample water supplies through rainfall, snowfall, and rivers.

Proof that the Aquinuts are all about anti-capitalist socialism and not water conservation (as if their rejection of any proposal to recharge the aquifer or build reservoirs isn't enough proof) comes from this April 2003 Moscow Co-Op newsletter (notice that Spokane attorney Rachael Paschal Osborn, who is leading the legal fight against the WSU golf course, was at the meeting being reported on:)

...the idea that a community can only thrive with unlimited growth and development is a notion that must disappear, hopefully before the water does.

Post-World War II economy was based on a planned scheme for consumerism—and it worked. The economy grew, people consumed and planned obsolescence became an accepted norm. We become anxious when we consider voluntary reductions of any type. But, we must begin to imagine a “restorative economy” where having less is truly more satisfying, more interesting, and of course, more secure.

In the relatively near future, we must achieve a balance between what we are consuming and the capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to provide, according to author and businessman Paul Hawken. “We need to create an economy… that is not an either/or argument, but a means to create the best life for the greatest number of people precisely because we do not know the eventual outcome or impact of our current industrial practices. In other words, we need an economy based on more humility.”

Bill French vs. Michael Echanove

Not that PBAC would curb pumping if it could, suggests French, who likens the pumping entities to foxes guarding the henhouse. "I think the whole concept of PBAC is flawed. I think PBAC was mostly formed to have the appearance of doing something. And it kind of fooled the state of Idaho into not stepping in to regulate water."

"The state of Idaho has a couple of designations they can put on a groundwater basin," explains French. His and other groups, in fact, waded in amid the Naylor flap to petition the Idaho Department of Water Resources to intercede and regulate pumping from both the Wanapum and Grand Ronde.

After another round of hearings, the state backed away in favor of a local solution. That solution, suggested by the IDWR, was to form an 11-member citizens group to offer advice to the 19 representatives of PBAC. The group, says French, had the potential to be a watchdog over PBAC. "But in practice, it (the citizens group) has just become a mirror image of PBAC. It's a group of people who get together once a month and talk about stuff but they never do anything."

Michael Echanove, chairman of the citizens group as well as mayor of Palouse, disagrees with French's assessment of PBAC.

More regulatory authority, however, isn't needed, Echanove says. What's needed is more scientific data about just how big and how full or empty the aquifers really are. "Until we get that data, it's just a bunch of people with opinions. And you've got universities that have their own projects. You've got counties that have their projects. I mean, I could make a career just thinking about it."

The politics of Palouse water, Echanove says, are perhaps best illustrated by the differing opinions of his mayoral counterparts in Pullman and Moscow.

"Remember, you've got to get elected. And you've got to be able to lead and you've got to be able to look at the big picture, as such, and you can't come in with one opinion and run with it, because you're not going to get anywhere."

Yes, the Aquinuts would love nothing more than to have an unelected body of envirocrats, who would of course have to buy into the idea of "looming water crisis," to beat back every new big-box store, golf course, highway, or housing project on the Palouse.

The fact remains that PBAC HAS been successful, greatly reducing water usage on the Palouse since 1992 (8.3% less than was pumped in 2006 than in 1992) through VOLUNTARY guidelines.

Nancy Chaney vs. Glenn Johnson

Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney was accused of social engineering when she leaped across the state line into Washington to legally challenge water rights for development of the proposed Hawkins Companies shopping center.

She defends her actions as an attempt to ensure water "sustainability."

"I come from a scientific background," says Chaney, who holds a master's degree in environmental science. "I get the scientific principle. I understand objectivity. But having entered the realm of politics, I've sort of straddled that line."

Ultimately, newly elected members of the Moscow City Council usurped Chaney's political power by agreeing to not just abandon the legal appeals, but to actually supply water to Hawkins.

Chaney laments that while the politics of water continue to vacillate, the groundwater supply will continue to drop. "It's certainly political. I think we should be informed by science, but there are competing interests. So we're sort of waiting out a cost-benefit analysis. We're looking at long-term and short-term values and things we can afford to gamble with and things we cannot afford. Unfortunately, political cycles don't coincide with natural resource needs."

Eight miles away in Pullman, Mayor Glenn Johnson declines comment on Chaney's tactics. "To be honest with you, I'm leaving that one alone."

As for the politics of water on the Washington side of the border, Johnson suggests they're quite different than in Idaho, and especially Moscow. "What we're trying to do is, we're not going to discourage growth over here. We're telling everybody that 'Yes, we know we have adequate water supplies, we've had plenty of research on that. But at the same time, we want you to conserve. We want to make sure you watch your use of water.' So that's the message."

Chaney comes from a "scientific background?" Oh, brother. She's a nurse, for God's sake. The only line she is straddling is the line between San Francisco hippie and all-out barking moonbat. The Queen's "realm of politics" will be over next year. meanwhile, Mayor Johnson's pragmatic political views have earened him two unopposed terms in office.

"You will be assimilated; resistance is futile"

Palousitics contributor Michael O'Neal had a must-read column about liberal collectivism in last Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

First there was Rev. Wright, but I thought, "Knaves on both sides of the political nave say goofy stuff, so we can't really pin any of that on Obama." Then there was the link with Weatherman bomber William Ayers, but I thought, "Well, gee, it wasn't like Obama was knocking back shots with the guy at Hooters."

No, what did it for me was this statement by Obama: "Our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation." Just eight words, but a trenchant summary of a sociopolitical philosophy that crystallizes the distinction between liberals and conservatives. For conservatives are more likely to take the opposite (and correct) view: that our collective salvation depends on individual salvation. Conservatives believe that the nation can achieve and sustain greatness only by liberating individuals to strive and reach their potential, without the coercive hand of government and haughty elites who believe that only they know the route to the Promised Land.

Since the Magna Carta, the trend line in the West has been the struggle for democracy. Through the American and French revolutions, to the end of slavery, to the liberation of the peoples of Western and then Eastern Europe, the goal has been to wrest power from the hands of those who arrogate to themselves the belief that they know best.

Yet in the West, democracy is fraying, and one is left wondering how long the great experiment in democracy, with its emphasis on the individual rather than the collectivity, can last. Tolerance - highly touted today - for the individual is waning, for individuals can be so annoyingly ... individual. Tolerance applies to my point of view, not that of my neighbor, who ignores the wisdom of the elites. The European Union routinely sniffs at the will of the people, expressed through the democratically elected governments of its member nations, and imposes the judgment and will of a faceless Soviet-style Eurocracy. In Canada, "tolerance" - a value of the collective - trumps the value of freedom of speech - an individual value. The result is statements like this from a member of that nation's ham-fisted human rights commission, which mercilessly hunts down and punishes any kind of perceived "Islamophobia": "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value." Or this from The Atlantic magazine: "The First Amendment is a peculiar and quite possibly outdated feature of the American political system, along the lines of, say, the electoral college or the District of Columbia's lack of congressional representation."

We see this notion - that we're to yield liberties to the collective - in ways large and small. People who claim to be "pro-choice" support ordinances proscribing the use of plastic grocery bags. The global warming scam is at bottom an effort to cajole us into relinquishing our liberties to the Borg, who claim to know better and want to achieve "collective salvation" by telling us what to drive and where to set our thermostats (unless, of course, you're an elite liberal whose yearly utility bills are 10 times the national average). Organizations such as the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development try to impose the will of a collective on the choices of benighted shoppers - those annoyingly individual individuals.

But there's hope. I had a conversation with a woman who lives near Sandpoint. She's an immigrant, but interestingly, not from an impoverished Third World hellhole. She's from picture-postcard-pretty Switzerland. Puzzled, I asked her why she would move from her beautiful, safe, peaceful, affluent homeland and settle in rough-around-the-edges north Idaho, where, rather than Alpine vistas, we see stacks of discarded tires and rusted '69 Corvairs parked in backyards.

Her response was instructive. Yes, she said, Switzerland is ordered and neat. So is Disneyland. Neighborhoods and city centers are pretty, trains run on time, and the nation's warts are hidden away from tourists and people on sabbatical. But all this comes at a price. You're constantly being watched. Neighbors watch you. Local authorities watch you. Behavior is dictated by codes and laws both written and - more oppressively - unwritten. The pressure to conform is enormous, and stifling. When I first came to America, she said, yes, it was messy, raw, unruly. It lacks the old-world sophistication of European cities, with their cobblestones, cafés, and cappuccinos.

And for the first time in my life, she said, I felt free.

"Change comes through education, not tax"

Brilliant Town Crier column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News from our very own Scotty Anderson. Very classy, Scotty, mentioning Don Pelton. I'd love to see some kind of memorial to him on Bishop Blvd. He did as much as anybody to see the growth there happen.

Stay tuned for my response to Mr. Civil Discourse's ludicrous attempt at recreating East Berlin on the Palouse.

Though I am thankful the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right to keep and bear arms, I am disappointed that it even had to go to the Supreme Court.

There have been many laws that have assaulted the right to keep and bear arms. Many of the laws are advocated by people exercising their First Amendment rights to trample on Second Amendment rights, when it is because of the Second Amendment rights we have been able to secure the First Amendment rights.

When someone thinks back to the time when America was getting organized and people were fighting and dying to make this country work, you can't help but realize some of the issues we face today pale in comparison.

One such issue is a Seattle-like mandatory 20-cent tax added to each and every plastic bag someone uses when shopping at a Pullman-area store. To think that people have enough time on their hands to petition the government to tax its citizens even more is embarrassing when compared to the founding of a nation.

On the other hand, there is a group of individuals who wear a pager day and night ready to drop what they're doing to help someone in need. Sometimes at 3 a.m. these volunteer firefighters are needed to clean up somebody else's tragedy.

Several times a year I see people standing outside of local grocery stores volunteering their time to collect food for the food bank. Others volunteer hundreds of man-hours to put together the Fourth of July celebration at Sunnyside Park.

In their own way all these people are giving up something of their own in order to make our community a better place. In all cases what they give up is time. In some cases these volunteers also give up their own money to help pay for materials or gas to get around. They give up a good night's sleep, and when asked to do it again, they do.

In their own way each of the volunteers is helping to make our community safer, more comfortable, and more fun. Our community is a better place because of these people.

Those petitioning the Pullman City Council to make grocers charge 20 cents per plastic bag used at the store probably think they're helping to make our community a better place.

A recent article in the Daily News mentioned someone seeing 22 plastic bags on College Hill, but there was no mention of an effort to clean them up.

It was suggested that residents start to carry reusable bags and use those instead of plastic bags. No one, however, has volunteered to hand out these shopping bags.

It is argued that we shouldn't view the proposal as elitist, instead we are showing respect and care for our community. But no one is standing in front of the stores to educate people.

It is suggested that we can use the new tax to donate the money to the local food bank or help pay for community improvements.

I would like to see this group of people go to the community and try to change their habits through education. Educating people is better than forcing the government to tax its citizens.

Some people see a need and they volunteer their time, their sleep, and their money to the cause. Others see a need and they want to use the strong arm of government regulation to further the cause.

Why stop at charging for plastic bags? Maybe there should be a tax on glass bottles, aluminum cans, and even "keg" cups. That tax could be used to clean up the broken glass, empty aluminum cans, and keg cups that litter some of the streets in Pullman. This may seem far-fetched, but I would wager targeting plastic bottles is the next item on the list.

Is this group of citizens using Seattle as inspiration? If so, the city of Seattle is no longer buying plastic water bottles. How long until that is proposed in Pullman?

Final thoughts: Don Pelton - the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development is done holding Pullman hostage and Wal-Mart's coming. I wish you were here to see it.

T-85 goes the countdown.

Quote of the Day

In a campaign stop in Oregon, Obama called for the U.S. to "lead by example" on global warming. "We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say 'OK.' … That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen," he said.

A President Obama apparently would decide how to regulate the pantries, thermostats and modes of personal transportation of his fellow Americans based on the emotional temperature of every non-American who happens to harbor an opinion on how we should live.

Steven Milloy, "Global Warming's New 'Consensus'", May 23, 2008

"Lesson was counterproductive"

Another great letter in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News from Terry Day:

WSU architecture Professor Ayad Rahmani makes some valuable observations about Pullman's Bishop Boulevard (Opinion, April 18); observations all the more important because we're about to see similar "architorture" practiced along the Pullman-Moscow corridor.

But with all due respect, I'm going to file his methods under "politorture."

Conjuring a protest unfortunately elicits media coverage, and there may even be some value in raising public awareness about these planning and zoning issues; but Rahmani's methods countervail his stated purpose of teaching architecture students a civics lesson.

Best he leave civics to someone better qualified to teach it.

The lesson he taught is counterproductive of his own aims, which is to influence Pullman planning and zoning in a direction that he believes will produce a people-friendlier built environment.

Better he teach his students to attend meetings of relevant city boards, and city council meetings, and perhaps develop an educational report on architorture instead of encouraging students to organize an in-your-face protest that likely will push the community further from the goals he espouses in his profession.

Terence L. Day, Pullman

"Bishop Boulevard growth fine as it is"

There was a great letter in the April 3 edition of the Daily News from Larry Hodge, a former member of the Latah Economic Development Council:

Friday's headline said 'Students protest city's 'architorture' " (Page 1A, March 28).

Students from professor Ayad Rahmani's WSU architecture class were protesting development of Bishop Boulevard.

Reading the article, one would believe that in the past, downtowns such as Pullman and Moscow were developed out of a very well-planned sense of cohesion, with only approved architecture being allowed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing planned was the road system with lots and blocks laid out in a rectangular system where topography allowed. The buildings were constructed by developers using their own designs, building one here and one there, infilling until most of the lots were taken.

Bishop Boulevard is being developed just as it should be. One model for urban development does not fit all situations. Just like we need large houses, small houses, and houses with different architecture we need more than a downtown offers. Downtowns are wonderful and none of us wants to give up on ours, but other types of development in different areas should not be viewed with such disdain. The people of Pullman should be proud of buildings like the Pullman Regional Hospital, Brelsford's University Pointe office complex, and Zeppoz. They all add a unique perspective to an environment that was never meant to be downtown.

There are many different views of what is appropriate building design and lot layout and there is always room for improvement, but organizing a design review board as professor Rahmani suggests is not the answer. Having someone else tell me what color I should paint my house is not what America is about and I hope it never will be.

Larry J. Hodge, Moscow

"WSU investigating 'architorture' protest; Demonstration organized by architecture prof causes concern among administrators, community members"

Rush has got "Operation Chaos." What should we call this?

Last week, I urged Palousitics readers to e-mail WSU president Elson Floyd about architecture professor Ayad Rahmani's "architorture" protest on Bishop Blvd. Apparently, we got results!!

That makes two victories this week, along with Ed Weber's proposal for more intellectual diversity at WSU. Let's keep up the pressure and take our campus and our town back from the academic extremists!!

From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Washington State University administrators are investigating a professor's conduct following a protest in Pullman last week.

Ken Vreeland, special assistant to the provost and executive vice president, said his office has received several e-mails from community members concerned about architecture professor Ayad Rahmani's role in a March 27 protest with more than 100 of his students on Bishop Boulevard.

"We are aware of the concerns and are reviewing them," Vreeland said.

Rahmani encouraged students in his sophomore-level architecture class to protest the lack of continuity, planning and design along the boulevard. He said the protest was relevant to the course work, which studies the built environment and includes buildings, infrastructure, sustainability and design elements and how they create a community.

Students carried signs that read "Stop Architorture in Pullman" and "The Show Starts on the Sidewalk" in the protest, which took place during a regularly scheduled class period. Participation in the protest was optional for the 200 students enrolled in the class. Credit was given to students who protested, as well as those who didn't as long as they justified their position in writing.

Rahmani said the protest was intended to pinpoint city planning issues "respectfully, not controversially."

"I made it clear to the students that this is a democratic option. This is not something that they have to do," he said. "I told them that, but I did say, 'I would like you to do it, to show the principles of the class.' I thought I really needed to do something to show the students what I'm talking about."

Vreeland said many WSU classes expect students to participate in community service or interdisciplinary learning projects.

"We encourage that ... but we expect that they're inclusive of different views and use sound education practices," he said

Vreeland said he is in the information-gathering stage of the investigation, collecting facts about the protest and the course work itself. Rahmani eventually will be interviewed, though no reprimand is expected at this time.

"It would be premature to say we're taking any action against the instructor," Vreeland said. "Right now, we're going to take a look at what we can learn from this."

Rahmani said he's not aware of any concern that has surfaced in the community.

"I think I did everything according to the rules," he said. "I may have done something new, but as a teaching method I think it was significant. It got students to talk and ask questions that weren't there before."

In Rahmani's opinion, the protest was a success if the community still is talking about it one week later.

"Obviously, that's why I did it," he said. "I wanted the students to perk up ... but also the community and the developers to know that people do care and it's important to do something about it."

The only thing that it is important to "do something about" is you Professor Rahmani. Hopefully after this, no other WSU professors will be tempted to take their liberal fascist agenda to the streets of Pullman at taxpayer expense.

A Real Architect Responds

A self-described former Pullman resident, WSU grad and architect has left a great post on Dnews.com regarding the "architorture" protest last Thursday:

As a former resident of Pullman, a graduate of the School of Architecture, and now a practicing architect, I’m glad to see Pullman growing, and slightly ashamed of this.

If the architecture students want to dedicate their lives protesting each thing in the public realm they find slightly abhorrent, they’re in for a long, frustrating, and largely pointless life. Don’t they know what it means to be “tolerant” of “diversity”? Or do they expect that everything around them should be built to their own pleasing? Their actions are somewhat dismissible; they have no clue what factors actually determine who builds what and why.

My real concern is with the professor and his ilk, for encouraging and promoting this sort of behavior. It’s easy to exist in the confines of a university, and think that your own architectural theories must trump the realities of your client, but it’s an unrealistic and unhealthy expectation to place on the shoulders of students looking for a career. Furthermore, the notion that more and more zoning and design review results in better architecture is fallacious. I wonder; has he worked with and through a building permit process recently?

With professors such as this, and activities of this sort passing as credit, is it any wonder that architecture is as irrelevant and thoughtless as it is today?

The Rantings of an Arrogant and Contemptuous Jerk

Your blood will boil when you read what elitist WSU archictecture prof Ayad Rahmani wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the October 27, 2007 issue of WSU Today. Some quotes:

WSU’s claims to “world-class” status, while true, ultimately ring hollow because the reality finds no match with those statements. World-class ambitions cannot be met with low-class ideas. High-class faculty will refuse to live in scattered and inconsequential buildings. [And after all, it's only the "high-class" faculty that matter in this town. The rest of us are just low-class. Oh my God. -tf]

The new housing stock in Pullman sadly represents the worst of the effects of a market economy; it has neither respect for art or the environment — or for that matter the fact that within a short walk there is an architecture school with graduates who have gone on to change the world. [So what's stopping them for developing houses with respect for "art and the enivonment?"? Oh yeah, money. It's much easier to tell someone else how to spend theirs. - tf]

Rather than taking clues from cities such as Portland and Seattle — whose architects and developers have joined forces to create a denser and more community friendly environment [and that obsession with "density and community friendly environment" has added $200,000 to the average price of a Seattle home - tf] — Pullman developers have made more suburbs. These offensive McMansions, with garages looking onto the streets, use materials and planning that are highly wasteful and unsustainable. [You mean like wood, which is a renewable crop? Concrete? Seems to me there is a virtually infinite supply of sand and gravel. Vinyl, which can be recycled? What's wasteful and unsustainable? - tf]

Rather than building inward and promoting walking and bicycling, these suburbs force those who live in them to use their cars. And rather than building with materials that have a low-carbon footprint and reflect an inventive approach to scarcity, these same suburbs persist with a cookie-cutter mentality. [So why did Pullman just get nationally recognized as a "pedestrian-oriented" city? And where in the hell are we going to build "inward" in Pullman??????? College Hill?? Downtown?? There's no room left but at the periphery of town. But in any case, there is no "suburb" in town that is more than two miles from the WSU campus. What a joke to call that "sprawl." And that "cookie-cutter mentality" is otherwise known as "affordable family housing." How dare you insult my home as "cookie-cutter" when that is all I can afford, you snobby asshole. - tf]

The university also cannot rely on the town to resolve this problem; the town is too bogged down in trying to increase tax revenues to worry about the role of architecture in improving matters. The university must lead the way in not only improving its own grounds but in transforming the town. [Oh sure. The poor townies are so plebeian wanting to pay the bills for parks, police, fire and emergency services, schools, etc., etc. Let the highly-educated solons take over. I have read some elitist and snobby crap before, but this takes the cake. - tf]

Urban Sprawl or Urban Decay?

So if WSU Professor Ayad Rahmani and his "volunteer" student protesters think these new developments on Bishop Blvd. represent "architorture" and "urban sprawl":







Then what do they think about this urban decay along Pullman's most traveled and visible road, Grand Avenue?:









Perhaps rather than advancing an elitist, liberal fascist political agenda, a better extra credit project would be volunteering the students' expertise/labor to refurbish/demolish these dilipidated structures, the true archictectural "eyesores" in Pullman. How about a carwash or bake sale to raise money for the Grand Avenue Greenway project?

"Socio-Cultural Characteristics of the Palouse Basin"

You're really going to enjoy this particular piece of professorial fluffery. It demonstrates considerable academic laziness, liberal bias, greatly oversimplified generalizations, and a general surrender to popular stereotypes. It's from the Palouse Basin Community Water Resource Information System, part of the Water Resources Program at the University of Idaho which provides a "platform for cross-disciplinary analyses of water resources sustainability within the eastern Palouse Basin watershed of western Latah County, Idaho, and eastern Whitman County, Washington."

I have highlighted what I consider the biased parts below:

A large proportion of rural residents in the area, especially those living outside of its population centers, were born in the Basin. Their customs and lifestyles are typical of those found in rural areas of the West, in that they tend to have resource-based and land-production occupations, and are comparatively more conservative in their values and perspectives. One crude indicator of this social characteristic is the number of campaign contributions made by residents of Colfax, WA, in the 2004 election: all but one were made to the Republican Party or its candidates – in a state where a minority (46%) of voters voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

However, in the Idaho portion of the basin’s rural areas, an exception is that some proportion of rural landowners either are faculty of the two universities or professionals attracted to the university-town of Moscow, and thus comparatively more liberal and affluent than their neighbors -- or they are even more liberal residents who have been attracted to the area as part of the back-to-the-land movement that began in the 1970's. One indicator of this social characteristic is the proportion of voters in Latah County that voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election – 50% -- in contrast to a state in which a majority voted for Bush (69%).

It might also be noted that a major segment of the Moscow and rural Latah County population, given a more liberal political orientation and the fact that they have come from other more populated, congested and poorly planned areas of the country, are more concerned than other residents with growth management and the use of government and public policy to advance economic and community development in a way that they see as being progressive and well-planned. Some are opposed to certain kinds of economic activity (e.g., "big-box" retail stores) and have been labeled by others as "anti-growth."

In contrast, some residents of the Basin, especially in rural Whitman County, are more conservative in their beliefs and preferences, and some (including many farmers in the region) are among the region’s most conservative, especially in comparison to their fellow citizens on the "west-side" of the state of Washington and in Latah County. These individuals tend to believe that the less government involvement in citizens’ lives, the better, and they espouse principles of free-market economics, despite the subsidies that some receive from the federal government. Of particular relevance for water resource management, they are generally in favor of community development through increased economic activity (i.e., "pro-growth"), and would like to see their communities grow in terms of the basic industries and retail outlets available for local services, consumer choices and purchasing options, and general local prosperity, through the jobs, income and economic expansion generated.

So, I guess we can interpret from that we conservatives are in favor of "poor planning" and "wasting water?"

And while there is some truth to this assessment, categorizing people as "anti-growth" and "pro-growth" by who voted for Bush and who voted for Kerry is embarassingly simplistic, insulting, and just plain wrong.

I know MANY Democrats who are in favor of Wal-Mart in Pullman. Pullman is around 55% Democrat, and yet Judy Krueger of PARD lost overwhelmingly in the 2005 city council race. I'm sure many of those folks who voted against Krueger voted for Kerry the year before.

Moscow is also strongly Democratic, yet the city council members who opposed big boxes were thrown out en masse last November. The same council that approved the Hawkins water deal went on a few weeks later to uphold a controversial measure granting health benefits to "domestic partners" of city workers, including those of the same sex, in violation of Idaho law. "Conservative?" You tell me.

On the flip side, I know of many conservatives who strongly oppose big-box stores in both Pullman and Moscow. And Whitman County is not underdeveloped because the Democrats have been in control all these years. Whitman County government has largely been a Democrat-free zone for a long time. No, it is in large part due to those farmers mentioned above who fear suburban development intruding into rural areas. In Pullman, it was business owners that chased away the Palouse Mall.

Until recently, Democratic Latah County had been the center of retail and housing development on the Palouse. Republican Whitman County had developed the anti-growth reputation. The opposition to big boxes is a coalition that spans political parties, the unholy alliance of liberal fascists and NIMBYists. The common thread with each group is that they want the government to decide what other people can do with their land. The NIMBYists just tend to be a little more quiet about it.

As an information system for those making decision about water, this seems to be a very poor resource. You would think they could do their homework and conduct some meaningful surveys on political attitudes about growth on the Palouse. They probably wouldn't like what they found.

"High-tech hits its stride"

Like Gerard Connelly, B.J. Swanson cannot be that ignorant of economics and be the vice president of a bank. I'd like to think that all the nonsense she expresses in this Lewiston Tribune article from yesterday is just claptrap for the masses to cover her left-wing snobbery. But nevertheless, let's hang her with her own words, shall we?

"The economy on the Palouse is stagnant?" The article states that between 1997 and 2007, the number of high-tech jobs increased from 322 to 460 in Latah County. That represents about 43% growth in 10 years. Not spectacular, but not exactly stagnant either.

Whitman County now has 1,363 high-tech, including 1,100 at SEL, which had 230 employees in 1997. That means the growth of jobs at SEL has been 380% over 10 years. That is spectacular sustained employment growth probably unequaled anywhere in the U.S., much less a rural county.

Has other growth in Whitman County kept pace? Swanson says that "each high-tech employee supports as many as four other jobs." So the growth at SEL alone should have created 3,480 new retail/service jobs on the Palouse, including about 1,392 in Whitman County (some 40% of new SEL employees live in Pullman/Whitman County.) There has not been anything like that amount of retail/service jobs created here in the last 10 years. The only thing "stagnant" in Whitman County is the retail sector.

According to the Washington Employment Security Department, there were 1,227 retail trade jobs in Whitman County in January 2008. That's DOWN from January 2000 when it was 1,250. You can see why retailers are so interested in the Palouse, particularly our side of the border. Can't Swanson and the Tribune reporter runs these numbers themselves and see the need for Wal-Mart and other retail? Exactly why is B.J. Swanson being allowed to speak for Pullman and Whitman County anyway? It's very biased reporting.

In what way does the effort, in Whitman County anyway, to capture these dollars by building a Wal-Mart believes keep us from "realizing more of our potential" in the high-tech sector? It's just the opposite. I mean if people make $50,000 a year, they're going to want to spend it somewhere, right? Trust me, if we had more retail amenities, SEL and other companies would have an easier time attracting potential employees. Swanson obviously forgets Ed Schweitzer is a big supporter of a Pullman Wal-Mart.

Yet liberal fascist Swanson claims that Wal-Mart is a threat because every time a new store or restaurant opens, another closes. Really? Is that why we have two Safeways, two Rite-Aids, two Les Schwabs, two Radio Shacks, two Subways, two Pita Pits, two Pizza Huts, four McDonald's, two Arby's and untold Starbucks in Pullman and Moscow? What closed in Moscow when Old Navy and Bed Bath and Beyond opened? Did Staples close when Office Depot opened? Did Snap Fitness and Absolute Fitness close when the Pullman Athletic Club opened? I would sure hate to ask Swanson for a business loan with a ridiculous zero-sum attitude like that.

High-tech hits its stride

MOSCOW - A building under construction at the east edge of Alturas Technology Park is one of the most tangible signs of the slow but steady growth of the high-tech sector on the Palouse.

The 10,000-square-foot building will house Alturas Analytics and Anatech Labs, which have outgrown their 7,200-square-foot space at the park in Moscow.

Anatech Labs began in 1992, doing water tests and other environmental work. About eight years ago its founders brought in a new partner and diversified into doing pharmaceutical testing under the name of Alturas Analytics.

Others are thriving too.

Economic Modeling Specialists is on the verge of outgrowing its leased space in Alturas. And EcoAnalysts is preparing to more than triple its office space with a move from downtown Moscow to Eastside Marketplace (see related stories), where it will be near another home-grown, high-tech Palouse venture, First Step Internet.

It's the kind of economic development that represents the brightest hope for Moscow and Pullman, says B.J. Swanson, commercial loan officer and vice president of AmericanWest Bank. "That's our quickest and easiest way to provide good-paying jobs."

Between 1997 and 2007, the number of high-tech jobs increased from 322 to 460 in Latah County, while Whitman County now has 1,363. The growth there reflects that of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, which in 1997 had 230 employees and now has 1,100 in Pullman, making it the second-largest manufacturer in the region.

Swanson believes more of the potential in the sector could be realized if members of the community focused on high-tech job growth more and worried less about real estate development and where Wal-Mart might locate.

The kinds of jobs the high-tech sector provides would strengthen weak spots in the economy at a time when it's unlikely significant expansion will occur at the universities, Swanson says.

Part of the reason Wal-Mart is such a threat is the economy on the Palouse is stagnant, Swanson says. Every time a new store opens, another closes. The same pattern happens with restaurants.

Each high-tech employee supports as many as four other jobs because the wages are so high and much of the revenue the companies generate comes from out of state, Swanson says.

The average pay of the 150 jobs at Alturas, where many of Moscow's high-tech businesses are located, is $50,000 a year, Swanson says.

The proximity to universities has made the success possible. Almost every high-tech company has some link to the universities, Swanson says.

The founder of SEL earned his doctorate from Washington State University. Basic research at the universities formed the foundation of other companies.

Once companies are up and running, the universities and Lewis-Clark State College provide a steady source of qualified applicants for the internships and jobs they have, Swanson says.

The availability of internships on the Palouse helps the schools because their students get on-the-job training and take classes in the same semester since they're not having to leave the area, Swanson says.

"It's our future if you look at our base and the assets the universities bring."

My Response to Chris Lupke

I'm sure some of you were wondering if I would respond to Loopy Lupke's latest Town Crier column with its embarassing hypocrisy and tortured circular logic concerning the Hawkins development. Well, I did, and here it is from today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Columnist changes stance

In a 2006 Daily News op-ed, Chris Lupke wrote that, "Wal-Mart and its surrogates have tried to pit Pullman and Moscow against each other in a 'divide and conquer strategy,' arguing a dollar spent in Pullman would have the 'added benefit' of not going to Moscow ... We should be thinking of ways in which growth in Pullman also can benefit Moscow and vice versa ..."

And yet, in his latest Town Crier column (Opinion, 3.5), Lupke does a volte-face, fretting about sales leakage and claiming the Hawkins "boondoggle" will "permanently situate the retail center in and near Moscow, miles from Pullman" and not "closer to our retail base." Incidentally, Pullman schools will benefit from taxes paid by Hawkins. City residents utilize county parks, roads, and law enforcement and emergency services that stand to gain as well. Pullman is, after all, part of Whitman County. Those taxes also will help pay Professor Lupke's salary.

The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development's position paper on Wal-Mart states that, "While we understand some people in Pullman who think it only fair turnabout to gain sales at the expense of Moscow at a time when the Pullman and Moscow governments are seeking to cooperate on a number of projects, including responsible development of the Route 270 corridor, this is no time for store wars to ruin good will."

Indeed. By PARD's standards, the Hawkins development is highly responsible, as it will be situated on the largest highway in the region far away from any hospitals, schools, retirement homes or cemeteries. Distance certainly can't be an issue either, as PARD member T.V. Reed has publicly offered to drive folks over to Moscow to shop. Plus, as PARD has repeatedly assured us, they are not against all large retail stores, just Wal-Mart.

We can only hope Target or Costco soon announce plans to locate in the Hawkins development.

Tom Forbes, Pullman

If Lupke and PARD wanted to covince everyone they were not against retail and not just Wal-Mart, this column was very ill-advised. But of course, they are against national retail stores. They are liberal fascists just like Chuck Pezeshki. As the late Don Pelton used to point out, the PARDners long for an economic model and lifestyle that disappeared in the 1920s, which is fine in itself, except they demand the government mandate it through land use regulations.

And inevitably, the "constructive community dialogue" the Daily News thinks is is fostering with the online comments just leads to more irresponsible lies from anonymous idiots like this:

Also, as I understand it, there won't be any tax benefits for anybody except the holders of the bonds Whitman County wants to saddle residents with for the next 20 years.

You understand nothing. First, as has been stated before repeatedly here and elsewhere, THERE WILL BE NO TAX LIABILITY TO THE CITIZENS OF WHITMAN COUNTY. The $10.5 million infrastructure bond will be paid off with the retail sales tax proceeds. And as far as tax benefits go, how about:

$4,207,500 for the Pullman School Distict over the next 20 years
$2,174,001 for Whitcom emergency communications over the next 20 years
$2,050,115 for Washington State schools over the next 20 years
$1,190,000 for Rural Fire District 12 over the next 20 years
$421,005 for Whitman County libraries over the next 20 years
$350,370 for the Port of Whitman County over the next 20 years

And that's just from property taxes, which are the same regardless of how much business the mall does. So let's hear some alternatives from our local leftists on what they believe could raise that much money.

Why exactly do people like Lupke think the Hawkins project is bad if it won't benefit Pullman (it will)? Would it be the end of the world if some of the smaller towns like Palouse, Colton, and Garfield in Whitman County benefit (they will also) for a change? How selfish and short-sighted. We're all in this together.

What the Big Box Battles On the Palouse Are All About

Even though his frequent self-congratulatory egocentrism makes me blanch (e.g. "I'm a university professor with a large, successful, corporate-funded program that advises them on their business,") I generally enjoy Chuck Pezeshki's online comments because he cuts through all the usual bullshit our local liberals spout and reveals the unvarnished thoughts of a leftist in public. Take for example this recent comment on Dnews.com:

It's pretty shallow to define life in America as some kind of enhanced shopping experience. I don't think that the Founding Fathers meant 'pursuit of happiness' to mean price-shopping in a small geographic area. Sadly enough, with the collapse of anything resembling an external life in this country, shopping and over-work have turned into the few available pastimes. Lest ye think that I lament only for liberal pastimes, look at the fate of groups like the Lions. And try to buy a beer in an outdoor venue in the US. Not allowed-- because we're all supposedly hooligans. Even though there are whole continents where such a simple pleasure is a way of life-- not an exceptional activity.

For the last 12 years, this country's hit the skids. People are afraid, and now many are queued up for losing their homes. The collapse is on its way. It ain't gonna be pretty...

Bubba definitely had something to do with it. But GWB hammered the throttle down.

Besides demonstrating a terminal case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, Chuck's comment perfectly illustrates what Professor James Twitchell of the University of Florida in an article in Reason magazine called "Marxism Lite:"

Since the 1960s, the primary "readers" of the commercial "text" have been the well-tended and -tenured members of the academy. For any number of reasons--the most obvious being their low levels of disposable income, average age, and gender, and the fact that these critics are selling a competing product, high-cult (which is also coated with its own dream values)--the academy has casually passed off as "hegemonic brainwashing" what seems to me, at least, a self-evident truth about human nature: We like having stuff.

In place of the obvious, they have substituted an interpretation that they themselves often call vulgar Marxism. It is supposedly vulgar in the sense that it is not as sophisticated as the real stuff, but it has enough spin on it to be more appropriately called Marxism lite. Go into almost any cultural studies course in this country and you will hear the condemnation of consumerism expounded: What we see in the marketplace is the result of the manipulation of the many for the profit of the few. Consumers are led around by the nose. We live in a squirrel cage. Left alone we would read Wordsworth, eat lots of salad, and have meetings to discuss Really Important Subjects.

In cultural studies today, everything is oppression and we are all victims. In macrocosmic form, the oppression is economic--the "free" market. In microcosmic form, oppression is media--your "free" TV. Here, in the jargon of this downmarket Marxism, is how the system works: The manipulators, a.k.a. "the culture industry," attempt to enlarge their hegemony by establishing their ideological base in the hearts and pocketbooks of a weak and demoralized populace. Left alone, we would never desire things (ugh!). They have made us materialistic. But for them, we would be spiritual.

To these critics, the masters of industry and their henchmen, the media lords, are predators, and what they do in no way reflects or resolves genuine audience concerns. Just the opposite. The masters of the media collude, striving to infantilize us so that we are docile, anxious, and filled with "reified desire." While we may think advertising is just "talking about the product," that packaging just "wraps the object," that retailing is just "trading the product," or that fashion is just "the style of the product," this is not so. That you may think so only proves their power over you. The marginalized among us--the African American, the child, the immigrant, and especially the female--are trapped into this commodifying system, this false consciousness, and this fetishism that only the enlightened can correct. Legendary ad man David Ogilvy's observation that, "The consumer is no fool, she is your wife" is just an example of the repressive tolerance of such a sexist, materialist culture.

Needless to say, in such a system the only safe place to be is tenured, underpaid, self-defined as marginalized, teaching two days a week for nine months a year, and writing really perceptive social criticism that your colleagues can pretend to read. Or rather, you would be writing such articles if only you could find the time.

See, the problem with Chuck's ascetic Waldenesque utopia is that he and his elitist and enlightened academic chums who share his vision don't just want to decide what goods, stores, leisure pursuits, lifestyles, thoughts, feelings and beliefs are worthy for themselves, they want to decide for you also. This is the path to a totalitarian society.

Another example of Chuck's line of thinking is the book "The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism" by Michael Lerner. This book and its message have been enthusiastically embraced by Hillary Rodham Clinton ("It takes a village to raise a child"), among others. Jonah Goldberg in his #1 bestseller "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" states that modern American "progessives," like Chuck, share the same nostalgic tradition as the communists and fascists in that they want to use political power to reestablish in the alienated modern city the lost innocence of community and kinship of the pre-modern village.

This is what the fight over Wal-Mart and Hawkins in our community is all about, not water, traffic, or stormwater runoff. I thank Chuck for reminding everyone of that.

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Liberal Fascist Quote of the Day

I recognize the subject of handguns, assault weapons and repeating rifles is controversial. The term "gun control" is a buzzword that seems to shut off all rational debate and thought on the subject. These are not proper hunting weapons. They are designed to kill people - as many as possible. Personally, I feel that ownership of them by ordinary civilians should be banned. If this means amending the Constitution - so be it.

- Lenna Harding, "Gun laws should be balanced with public safety," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, March 6, 2008

Very, very scary.