Stormwater on the Palouse - Time for an Ad Hominem Attack

Chuck Pezeshki had this rant published in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Stormwater on the Palouse — time for a positive vision

What’s really up with the storm-water situation in Pullman? According to the more conservative voices, it’s the fundamental unfairness of the Washington State Department of Ecology’s process for issuing a stormwater permit for the city of Pullman. Hillary Hamm, the Daily News reporter, dutifully states without reference that you won’t be able to wash your car in your driveway if you live in Pullman. Tom Forbes (Opinion, Nov. 15), avid Wal-Mart groupie, says that all this will be “bad for business” — his ultimate “kiss of death” for cleaning up the South Fork of the Palouse River. These regulations are supposed to be applied for the west side of Washington state, which cares about salmon. And since we don’t have salmon, we ought not be concerned with the fact that after every rainfall, we have a creek full of dirt and anti-freeze. Then, finally, we get the “since-the-other-guy-beats-his-wife,-it-should-be-fine-if-we-do,-too” line of reasoning. Moscow isn’t going to have to conform to any new stormwater regulations. Why should we worry?

First, a little background. Both Pullman and Moscow treat their residential and industrial sewage — the stuff that comes from houses and buildings. They conform to whatever the regulations are in their respective state. The treated effluent, which is pretty clean, goes into the creek. Fine.

But neither Pullman nor Moscow treat their stormwater, the water that flows down outside drains and gutters. That’s also typical for small communities. But as communities grow, and their industrial base expands, this also changes. Every city goes through a transition where storm-water becomes an issue and has to be treated. Spokane treats some of its storm- water. Typically, there are two lines into a stormwater treatment facility — one from the industrial base, and one from residential areas. In the case of a storm, the facility first manages the industrial run-off, because there is more bad stuff in it — toxics, motor oil, etc. They devote the remaining capacity to cleaning up the residential run-off.

In our case, it’s important to realize that the stakes involved with the South Fork of the Palouse are pretty high. It runs right through where we live. And we haven’t done a great job on the Palouse of having any creeks that aren’t open sewers at one time or another. Southeastern Washington has only one potential natural river environment — the Palouse River and a couple of tributaries. The fact that we’ve completely wrecked the entire basin is nothing to be proud of. We’ve wrecked it because we’ve allowed the agriculture industry, that employs only 1.6 percent to 3 percent of the population, at a $16,000-per-year wage to plow down to, and over the side creeks.

Instead of defending the status quo, why not engage all the stakeholders up and down the South Fork of the Palouse and its tributaries to clean up their act? Let’s collaborate with our upstream neighbor, Moscow, and get them to manage their stormwater. Let’s lead by building a storm-water facility of our own. Groups like PCEI, as well as agencies like the Soil and Water Conservation Service, have been working on fixing erosion in the upper watershed. Let’s tell our legislators that heavily subsidized agriculture must stop polluting our last local river, and demand larger buffer strips along the branches. As taxpayers, we are already paying out the nose to grow wheat that no one wants.

Finally, let’s dispense with the old canard that having a sewage ditch instead of a river in the middle of our community is somehow “good for business.” It’s not. People who will create the jobs are attracted here because of bike paths, river walks, and shady groves of trees along clean rivers. They aren’t drawn here by Wal-Mart Supercenters, and concrete rivers, and the freedom to dump your radiator fluid down the drain when it rains. And unlike days of old, it’s not a case of “jobs first, then people follow.” As documented heavily in the famous book, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” by Richard Florida, it’s “talented people come, and jobs follow.”

A clean river running through our town also would say a lot about our family values — that we have a vision of our future for our kids that makes things like natural landscapes where we live a priority — not more parking lots. And the cost is not that great. Forbes’ Town Crier column said the cost would run $9/month per household. That’s three bags of potato chips. Aren’t our children’s future, our economic growth, and a more beautiful world worth it?

You would think that Pezeshki, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering and chairman of the WSU Faculty Senate, could come up with a more learned argument for stormwater regulations than calling me names and hyperbolic claims that our local waterways are open sewers.

Pezeshki's disdain isn't just reserved for me. He apparently loathes the "$16,000-per-year" farmers who have worked the land long before he and his carefully coiffed facial hair graced the Palouse. The farmers are apparently not members of the "creative class," as the good professor apparently fancies himself to be. Plus, I'm sure he blames those damn clodhoppers for voting Republican as well.

I guess I should be flattered that I annoy the local left-wing intelligentsia so much. I have become their all-purpose bogeyman as of late. But it's not just me that believes that the proposed DOE stormwater regulations are ridiculous. So does Mayor Johnson, the entire Pullman City Council and the director of Environmental Health and Safety at WSU. I'd rather have their approbation than the elitist Pezeshki's.

Pezeshki does not explain where the money to fund his grand vision will come from. It would be a hell of a lot more than a bag of chips, I can tell you that.

Finally, Pezeshki writes of legislative priorities. That's funny, because I didn't see him at the Town Hall meeting last month with our legislators advocating that point. It's easier to pontificate from his ivory tower I guess.

Where in the World is Chuckie Sandiego?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of worthless comparisons of exotic foreign locales to Pullman… the thrill of erudite cosmopolitanism… and the agony of plebeian Wal-Marts… the human drama of preening intellectualism… this is Chuck Pezeshki's's Wide World of Socialism!

Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki was back today in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News with another travelogue, informing us that

Only a couple of weekends ago, as I sat in my hotel in New Hampshire, next to the seacoast, drinking bottled water because of the salinity of the tap water, I couldn't help but think of this inherent blessing of our region.

Pezeshki then proceeds to skewer the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee for not joining in the leftist hysteria about water on the Palouse and failing to implement a complete moratorium on growth. I knew it would too much for him to chide the greenies in Moscow on their latest stormwater hypocrisy.

I won't bore you with Pezeshki's standard arrogant, anti-growth drivel.

However, this paragraph is quite illuminating:

For many years, PBAC was led by Larry Kirkland, a nonlicensed geologist and self-proclaimed Young Earth Creationist. The water in the Grande Ronde aquifer is estimated to be somewhere between 23,000 and 12,000 years Before Present - a resource that exists totally out of Kirkland's viewpoint as someone who thinks the world is only 6,000 years old.

Now, that's what I call civil discourse. Impugn a man's professional credentials, and even better, his religious views. Pezeshki couldn't be bothered to provide facts or logic to support his allegation. He also didn't bother providing any proof on how Kirkland's beliefs have anything to do with the science of the aquifer or how they affected his perfomance at PBAC. Even Chuck said "it is estimated." It's the classic Straw Man Fallacy. For a liberal, if Kirkland's a Christian, he can't possibly know anything about science and all his views about water MUST be wrong..

Guess what, Chuck? You're not a licensed geologist either. And neither is Mark Solomon. Yet that doesn't stop Solomon from pontificating endlessly about water issues on the Palouse, heading his own little "water conservation metwork," being hired to conduct an aquifer study for Latah County, and trying to halt all development in the Pullman-Moscow Corridor. Your statement about Kirkland's beliefs are as disgusting and bigoted as if someone wrote that Mark Solomon was not qualified to speak about the aquifers because he is Jewish.

Gotta give Pezeshki some points for chutzpah though. As a professor and Past Chairman of the WSU Faculty Senate, he took a swipe at his employer's "monster golf course."

"Paying a 'hidden cost'; Pullman residents lead effort to charge 20 cents per plastic bag"

Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki stated in a recent comment on Dnews.com that Pullman was the most "anti-intellectual" town he had ever seen.

Is Pullman sui generis? Or is the antipathy he observes the result of the meddling efforts by Chuck and his liberal academic chums to introduce envirofascist Nanny Statism into Pullman, such as a tax on plastic bags modeled after what Mayor Greg "Hugo Chavez" Nickels has attempted in Seattle?

I'll have much more on this later as I contemplate mounting a counter-effort to shoot this absurd proposal down.

From Friday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Liz Siler counted 22 discarded plastic shopping bags during a recent drive through College Hill in Pullman.

Some bags were caught in trees, while others were lying on lawns or blowing in the street.

"None of those bags were obtained with the idea that it was going to end up on the side of the road, but that's where they end up," Siler said.

Siler is among a group of Pullman residents who want to cut back on the use and distribution of plastic bags. Nearly 80 community members have endorsed a proposal that stores be required to charge 20 cents for each plastic bag dispensed inside city limits.

Plastic bags used for unpackaged items, such as produce, would be exempt from the fee.

The group recently submitted the proposal to the Pullman City Council for consideration, with the goal of having an ordinance go into effect Jan. 1.

Siler said in place of plastic bags, shoppers could get into the habit of keeping reusable bags tucked in their car.

"We're not trying to make things harder for people," she said. "We're trying to make things easier."

The proposal shouldn't be viewed as elitist, said Pullman resident Chuck Pezeshki. It will encourage change and show that residents respect and care for their community.

Though the commonly used bags are compact and currently free, Pezeshki said "there's a hidden cost for society" because many recycling facilities - such as WSU Recycling and Pullman Disposal Inc. - no longer accept the bags.

"If we can't recycle, we've got to reduce and reuse," he said, adding that lightweight bags can travel quickly through the wind or waterways.

The bags are made from petroleum and do not biodegrade, Pezeshki said. In fact, the plastic bags "photodegrade" in the presence of light, meaning they break into tiny pieces and can be eaten by animals. The bags also pose risks to animals that can become entangled in them.

"It's basically spreading petroleum all over the landscape," he said. "When you use a plastic bag, it's like an oil slick all over the land."

Siler said the idea to limit plastic bag use isn't new. She points to Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' recent proposal to charge a "green tax" on disposable shopping bags, and added that San Francisco and communities throughout Alaska have banned the bags entirely. Ireland and China recently took similar action.

The Pullman group points to statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency to justify its cause - 4,630 tons of plastic bags, wraps and sacks were generated in the United States in 2006, of which only 8 percent were reused. The EPA also reports that a family of four uses about 1,500 bags per year.

Siler said the group has met some opposition from a few community members who are concerned they would have no way to pick up their pet waste or line garbage cans without plastic bags.

"No one's saying you can't have plastic bags," Siler said. "You're just going to have to pay for it."

Trev McCuaig, manager of Dissmore's IGA in Pullman, said the store is making strides to reduce plastic waste. Customers who want plastic bags get them, but there are other options. Inexpensive cloth bags are sold at the register, and many customers are eager to pick one up.

"Since we brought those in ... I think we've sold 700 to 800," he said. "I think there are a lot more people that are conscientious."

The store also uses recycled bags when they're offered by the supplier, and all plastic waste generated at the store is baled and sent to a recycling company in Spokane. McCuaig said the store also plans to set up a plastic bag recycling bin.

"There are things that we do at store-level to try to help out," he said.

Siler said the profits from bag fees could go to the Pullman Food Bank, which relies on the bags to package foods for area families. She suggests the money could fund an alternative method for the food bank to distribute food, or go to community beautification efforts.

City Supervisor John Sherman said the city frequently gets proposals and suggestions for change. They are forwarded to the City Council which ultimately decides whether the issue is discussed further.

Sherman said Councilman Bill Paul recently expressed interest in discussing the plastic bag fee proposal publicly, and the topic is scheduled for the council's Aug. 26 meeting. The delay is intended to allow interested residents who may be out of town for the summer to participate in the conversation.

Fat Bottomed Profs You Make the Rockin' World Go Round

In today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki wrote:

Much is made of the fracture between town and gown in Pullman...Part of the reason that Pullman has a problem with separation between the community and the university is because topographically, Pullman is separate from the university.

Wrong again, Chuck. The town-gown fracture in Pullman is created when tenured WSU professors make comments like this, not by four hills:

I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse.

I've never seen a more dysfunctional, irrational culture in a 1st World country than what's on the Palouse. Keep voting against your interests, and alienating your intellectual and real allies.

I believe that a good part of this is because most people in the region are wildly ignorant about who actually butters their bread.

The universities provide for the living, and also agricultural community support, for all of Latah and Whitman County.

Alex McGregor, president of The McGregor Company, had a few thoughts on Chuck's divisive and arrogant comments in a column in the Daily News back in December 2003:

Ag and WSU: Whitman County cornerstones

A Daily News Town Crier columnist, Chuck Pezeshki, called State Sen. Larry Sheahan "a liar" or a "dumb rube," largely because he has worked to strengthen the agricultural economy (Opinion, Nov. 19). Higher education "is our economic driver," Pezeshki said, while agriculture is "a minor player" in the county and state economy, with "poverty level" wages and "nonexistent sharecropper jobs."

Say what?

Family farms in Whitman County grow more wheat than do their counterparts in any county in the United States, and they've been doing so since 1910.

Growers in this area are leaders nationally in dry pea and lentil production.

Here's what the Washington Agricultural Statistics Service reports about their trade: Agriculture is the state's largest employer, offering jobs for 170,000 people, and it is the second largest industry after aerospace.

The $5.5 billion of raw agricultural commodities produced annually contribute, when processed, transported, and marketed, $29 billion, or 13 percent, to the Washington economy. Hardly a "minor industry."

Pezeshki claims only a small percentage of Whitman County jobs are agricultural. He ignores many whose livelihoods involve serving farm families -- those employed by grain companies, implement dealers, fertilizer firms, insurance agencies, trucking businesses, automotive dealers and so on.

As a land grant university, Washington State University employs many in its College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences whose professions are closely related to crop production. "Nonexistent" jobs? Try telling that to the more than 300 dedicated people of my family's Whitman County-based business, who have devoted their careers to serving farm families here and in nearby counties. There are many other firms whose success depends upon agriculture. "A minor player?" Get real.

The people of Whitman County agriculture have worked closely with dedicated university scientists for generations. Working together, we've made big strides forward -- yields have more than doubled, water-borne soil erosion has declined 75 percent and dust has been reduced six-fold.

Growers, and the businesses serving them, have won awards for their environmental achievements at the state, regional, and national level including recognition from the current governor for their progress in pollution prevention. As Donald Meinig puts it, in his historical study of our region: "the collaboration of scientist and farmer is now so close that one can glimpse the ideal of the future when every field is a test plot, every farm a laboratory, and every farmer a scientist."

Agriculture is a big business in terms of its regional importance but a special one, too -- no other trade is so dramatically a family enterprise, dependent upon sustained wise stewardship of natural resources, as is farming.

Let's give thanks this holiday season for our remarkable "salt of the earth" farm family neighbors and the bountiful foodstuffs they produce rather than, as my daughter Emily would put it, "dissing" them.

Working together, growers, university researchers, local business people and neighbors can achieve much in the future, as we have in the past. As Nobel Prize winning plant breeder Norman Borlaug puts it, if we allow misconceptions, not science and good judgment, to dictate the future of agriculture we as Americans will be guilty of "displaying a diminished gene frequency for common sense."

I remember personally -- as do many agricultural people -- working hard over the years urging legislators beyond the Palouse to join our local representatives in supporting funding for WSU. The building now under construction between Martin Stadium and Johnson Hall -- Plant BioSciences I -- is the first of six buildings planned as a plant science and biotechnology center, likely to be the finest such facility in the western states.

It speaks volumes about what our elected officials see as the importance of agriculture and of WSU in the days ahead. It is strong evidence the close working relationship between farm families and our land grant university -- begun at the end of the 19th century when it was called Washington Agricultural College -- is not only part of our shared heritage, but of our future, too.

I hope we can move beyond needlessly provocative rhetoric. Both agriculture and WSU are important to our economy and our future. We cannot succeed long-term without each other. All of us -- university, business, and farm families -- need to work together to keep the economy of the Palouse strong. It's a big task but, pulling together, we can do it.

Exactly. The recognition of the value of all players in the local economy will help bridge the town-gown divide in Pullman, not trams, bicycles built for four, $40 Schwinns, or stilts.

"Upcoming elections - whither shall we go?"

Pullman resident and globetrotting professor Chuck Pezeshki weighed in on the Moscow City Council elections (?) in his column in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News yesterday. (Isn't it funny how all the local libs, even ones that don't live in Moscow, are coming out of the woodwork to attack the Greater Moscow Alliance and its candidiates? They're afraid that their little Walden experiment in Moscow is about to come to an end.)

Normally, Chuck's arrogant rantings make my eyes hurt to read. But he actually made some fairly rational points today. For example, it is true that local politicians affect our day-to-day lives much more than those in Washington, DC. I made that same point to a group of UI students last week.

I'm also glad Chuck freely admits to shopping at Wal-Mart and dismisses the silly fear that Wal-Mart will somehow "destroy" downtown Moscow and Pullman.

However, I must take exception to Pezeshki's assertion that we don't need to lay down another huge piece of asphalt to replace what we already have." Pullman residents shopping at Wal-Mart and WinCo in Moscow hurts Pullman taxpayers and it hurts Pullman businesses. One of the reasons that people own a house "that they cannot pay the mortgage on" is because all the tax burden in Pullman is on home owners. Studies have shown that Pullman is underretailed in every category except restaurants and that as a result, Pullman and Whitman County lose $150 million a year in taxable sales to neighboring communities.

Like Pezeshki, I don't think everything needs to be duplicated in both cities, but each has to be self-sufficient, whether that means Wal-Mart or WinCo or whatever, before we can talk of cooperation. I know iberals are all about equivalent outcomes and therefore fear it, but competition is a good thing.

I don't have time to get into Chuck's theories on nationalized healthcare and how the economic salvation of the Palouse lies in more professors and more bike paths. Speaking of professors, Chuck has commented on the Daily News web site:

Honestly, the anti-intellectualism present in the two towns, whose bread and butter is vastly created by those with big degrees is overwhelming sometimes. You want to know what Moscow and Pullman would look like without the universities? Drive north to Tensed.

I guess he's hurt we don't fall down and worship Ph.D.s It's actually not anti-intellectualism anyway. It's anti-arrogantassholism.

Moscow's City Council elections are hotly contested this year. Good. Residents are waking up to the fact that local issues affect them far more on a day-to-day basis than who is president. It gives me hope that we can regenerate our democracy.

There are a couple of big issues. First, people have been debating the idea of development, arguing that since the Moscow Wal-Mart Supercenter has effectively been killed for the time being, the Moscow City Council is anti-development.

For me, the whole super-center concept is a real nonstarter. I can't see how a super center (or two) adds anything to the combined communities of Pullman or Moscow. We have a Wal-Mart. I shop there. The merchandise and prices are identical to the dozens of Wal-Marts, including super centers, that I have visited, other than the fact you cannot get your hair cut or do your banking there. Even the drive time from Pullman is only marginally longer for many of us on the north side of town than if we had a Wal-Mart on Bishop Boulevard. Why lay down another huge piece of asphalt in either community to replace what we already have?

With regard to a budget grocery store, we have WinCo. I shop there. Like the Moscow Wal-Mart, I like the people that work there. Shopping at either store is not a boutique experience, but both sets of employees have always been friendly to me.

As do the proponents of the various super centers, I do not believe that Wal-Mart will displace downtown business in either town. Both Pullman and Moscow have turned their downtowns into coffee shops and boutique marketplaces. For economic development, that's a good thing. Livable, lively downtowns that serve as entertainment districts are what attract the people who create growth. These people, labeled by author Richard Florida as the "Creative Class," are the individuals who are starting the businesses that will thrive through the 21st century.

People arguing that the Moscow City Council is anti-business are off-base. People arguing that we need to bring industry to Moscow, with all that implies as far as pollution and water consumption, are living 50 years in the past. The day of creating high-paying blue-collar jobs by siting a manufacturing facility in a community are gone. In today's world, if you want growth, build a livable city where people can walk, instead of drive. Build a community with bike paths, instead of cookie-cutter subdivisions. Complete large-scale, unique amenities like the Latah Trail that set us apart from other small communities. If jobs that provide health care for employees is the real issue, lobby for a national health-care plan, because the industrial infrastructure that used to provide those kinds of jobs is gone forever.

And instead of spending time attacking the people who work at the universities, arguing that they are overpaid, when by national standards they are not, prize those high-paying jobs, and help in lobbying efforts in both state capitals for pay raises for faculty and staff. Some perspective - for every dollar that taxpayers put into Washington State University, WSU researchers, professors, and staff generate seven. And some of those seven dollars circulate in this community.

Secondly, the City Council should can the so-called "boardinghouse ordinance." One of the key things that makes Moscow great is that growth is clustered in neighborhoods close to the city center. Anything that jeopardizes families wanting to live close to the city center should be disallowed. The main beneficiaries of any boardinghouse ordinance are people who live beyond their means, owning a house that they cannot pay the mortgage on. A word to the current City Council - in this part of the world, conditional use permits turn into permanent use permits pretty quickly. Anyone doubting this should look at such permits for uses on national forests. Though it is against the letter of the law, such permits are bought and sold with various businesses all the time. Expecting anything different with boardinghouse permits is foolishness.

Finally, both city councils need to kill the competitive talk between our two cities. The fate of Moscow and Pullman are intertwined. Let's talk more about cooperation instead of duplication of services. Both communities depend on each other.

Pest-o-crats Reduced To Fighting Plastic Bags

So now we need a tax on plastic grocery bags? Fresh from having had their fannies handed to them in the Wal-Mart wars, Pullman’s cadre of professional pests have chosen their next futile crusade. They now argue that the town they desire to tyrannize would find itself improved by a new tax. These Pest-o-crats are following their masters in Seattle and San Francisco as they seek to enact a tax on shopping bags. I am not kidding.


The problem, as the Pest-o-crats see it, is that disposable plastic shopping bags are so inexpensive that consumers dispose of them. Once consumers come home with their purchases, they either discard that bag or save it to line their restroom garbage cans. And that is a market condition that Pest-o-crats would like to alter. If consumers were forced to pay 20 cents for each bag, then the great unwashed would choose to lug around those reusable fabric shopping bags. I have no doubt that National Public Radio looks forward to the day when they can reward contributors with NPR embossed reusable grocery bags.

Where would Pullman’s self-anointed elite get such an idea? If you think that it’s original, then you don’t know Pullman’s Pest-o-crats. The inspiration for all such thoughts arise from the most enlightened cities on Earth, Seattle and San Francisco. The Pest-o-crats are simply drones of the great collectives. Because Seattle and San Francisco are the centers of the cultural universe that has given us so much in the past, like grunge rock, drugs, AIDS, Nancy Pelosi and Patty Murray, it makes sense to the Pest-o-crats that the rest of us should bow before the great wisdom that animates these cities. We rubes, who inhabit the east side of the state, have demonstrated that we lack the sophistication needed to make the proper decisions and so we require west side wisdom.

Okay, I will allow that Seattle’s attempts to exert hegemony over Pullman is slightly less crude than Russia’s interference in the Georgian Republic, but the west side’s desire to extinguish cultural diversity throughout Washington is no less determined than Vladimir Putin’s. Seattle already selected our governor and elects our US senators. Seattle raises taxes on the entire state and decides how little of that is permitted to trickle over the Cascades to the east side. For that matter, west of the Cascades, east side is defined as the strip of land that lies between Lake Washington and the Cascades. I’m really not sure what term Seatllistas use to describe the fur-wearing barbarians who inhabit this side of the state.

Like all great imperial powers, Seattle benefits from the advantage of fifth columnists, or native traitors. In Pullman, the fifth columnists are composed of a cadre of moon barking professional pests who move from cause to cause in their quest to impose their vision upon those of us who simply wish the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. And now that they failed to dictate their retail shopping preferences, they’ve moved on to plastic bags.

Chuck Pezeshki, the philosophical guiding light of the Pest-o-crats, demonizes disposable plastic bags as “wind borne litter” and “hazards to wildlife.”

Judging by the waistlines of Pullman’s Pest-o-crats, it is quite probable that I spend a great deal more time out of doors than any of the Pest-o-crats and I’ve never seen a wild animal harmed by a plastic bag. As a volunteer who picks up trash along highway 195 as part the Adopt-a-Highway program, I don’t really encounter as many bags as Pezeshki’s logic suggests should be found out there. Beer cans outnumber plastic bags by a couple of orders of magnitude. The complaints against plastic bags are like global warming, all theory without data.

It’s worth noting that Pezeshki identifies his anti-bag crusaders as consisting “mostly of members of the WSU community.” In my own experience, such is the composition of most such movements because tenured university faculty are free from the burdens of productivity that hobble the rest of the world and that leaves them plenty of free time that they can devote to telling the rest of us how to live.

If we let them get away with this, the Pest-o-crats certainly have other Seattle ideas waiting for us. For example the Emerald City’s mayor would now like to close off much of downtown to automobile traffic on Sundays. This would make room for artists to decorate the streets with chalk drawings. Really!

Chuck Amuck

Another slap down of Chcuk "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

HIS VIEW: 'Mother Nature' is not the best forest steward

By John Krebs

It is doubtful professor Chuck Pezeshki (Opinion, June 19) ever saw a commercial timber sale he could support on federal lands.

Trees are a very renewable resource and one need not go far from Moscow to witness some excellent examples of forest management. Yes, it takes roads to access, manage and protect the forest resources. These same roads provide access for all kinds of recreational activities and are used by many thousands of forest visitors throughout the year.

The jobs and industries associated with timber harvest are tremendously important to the local economy, to say nothing of the many industries dependent upon the products made from those trees.

When it comes to clearcuts, "The Butcher of the Targhee" (John Burns) and his successor, Jim Caswell, were pikers compared to Pezeshki's preferred manager - "Mother Nature." That sweet, gentle "woman" prefers treating a mountain of pine beetle infestation by indiscriminately burning millions of acres in a "stand replacement" conflagration. A "stand replacement" fire is Mother Nature's clearcut.

My knowledge concerning the clearcuts on the Targhee National Forest did not come from flying in a jet some 30,000 feet above the earth and viewing this ungodly, devastating mess created by the "butcher" and his successor.

Allow me to digress a bit. In 1995, I retired from a 36-year career with the U.S. Forest Service. For 22 of those years, I was privileged to serve as a fire behavior analyst on one of Region One's National Incident Management teams. Most of the summer of 1988 was spent on fire assignments in Yellowstone National Park. Had it not been for the clearcuts (a response to the mountain pine beetle outbreak), the North Fork fire would have been much larger than 900,000 acres.

I ask you, Chuck, was it a better decision to harvest those trees than to see them go up in smoke and introduce more green house gas into an already overloaded system? How much more responsive is it to actually store the carbon in something useful to mankind like the lumber in our houses, schools, churches and stores? (Didn't you write a book - presumably written and published on something other than papyrus?)

That harvest on the Targee, which you and other environmental "nonactivist" groups stopped, would have contributed 25 percent of the gross timber sale receipts back to the state to be used for schools and road maintenance. Now that you have succeeded in virtually stopping all national forest timber sales, these dollars have dried up. I hope you are as successful in persuading your "roadless advocating" buddies in Congress to cough up the payment in lieu of tax dollars that were to replace the 25 percent funds.

The effect of a few miles of roads on the Clearwater National Forest being washed out by the "storm season of 1994-1995," pales in comparison to the mass erosion that has occurred in thousands of acres burned by wildfire. I'm sure you must be acquainted with Jim Mital (forest ecologist for the Clearwater National Forest). Ask him about the tremendous soil loss resulting from the 2003 Pleasant Fire in the Powell Ranger District.

Jim Caswell is not responsible for the Clinton Roadless Initiative. It is the so-called environmental activists, such as yourself, who prefer to have mindless Mother Nature "manage" our natural resources. Here is a proposal for you, Chuck. Take those areas in Idaho that were already designated "wilderness" (and roadless) prior to Clinton's edict, and develop an environmental impact statement for a management plan consistent on the whims of Mother Nature. You will have to consider removing all trails, bridges, public and private structures, outfitter and guide permits, white-water pursuits, wolf and other predator controls, invasion of noxious weeds, smoke pollution, CO2 emission from forest fires, riparian and old- growth protection, massive erosion (remember, no measurable increases in sediment due to your proposal), etc.

While you write this EIS, turn the rest of the forest and rangeland over to the U.S. Forest Service, that was doing a darn good job of management in the 1950s through the '80s without the benefit of the "let nature do it" crowd.

Academic Freedom?

The great Milton Friedman wrote:

The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated.

By Friedman's definition, there is no freedom at WSU, as Foley Institute director Ed Weber recently pointed out, "hegemony of the left-leaning liberal viewpoint" has coerced him into not "inviting too many of 'the wrong kind' of intellectual."

Yet "academic freedom" is being used as a defense of Ayad Rahmani's "architorture" protest by Chuck Pezeshki and Chris Lupke.

A letter in Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News pointed out that absurdity:

Protest not the best way

Chuck Pezeshki (His View, April 12 & 13) does it again. He missed the point even after questioning it himself. And Ayad Rahmani, (His View, April 18) with somewhat reasonable explanation, also.

If a medical professor required a for-credit peaceful protest against abortion, a science professor for nuclear energy or against climate change advocates, a political science professor against anti-war protesters or for guns, or a religion professor for prayer in schools or against gays, and many more possibilities, there would not only be a tempest in a teapot, there would be tornado in a Starbucks latte.

You would never hear the end of it from liberals. Just think if this type of requirement became a trend in education. A more responsible, rational, less controversial requirement would have been for students to critically evaluate the good, bad and ugly of the situation, write a comprehensive article and send it to the newspaper and all concerned.

Joe Ulliman, Moscow

Indeed. The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure states with regard to academic freedom that:

Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.

And:

College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

There are a couple of comments on the Friday Rahmani column that are too good not to repeat:

"I have a great idea for Lupke, Pezeshki, and the architecture prof: If you don't like the way it looks, then you can buy the property and do anything they want with it. Just like the folks who own it now. The concept that the "community" should consider themselves stakeholders is ridiculous and elitist, and pretty parasitic to those who buy, develop, maintain, and pay taxes on the land. You do what you want with your stuff, and I will do what I want with mine. period!"

"I cannot believe the arrogance of some of these professors. Bishop Blvd was not developed for your walking/visual pleasure. It was developed to grow retail development for Pullman. For your walking and visual pleasure and in memory of Bill Chipman many of us worked very hard to gain funding to develop the Chipman trail and downtown walkways for that purpose. I also resent that you seem to think our elected/hired city officials do not know what our community wants and apparently are not as intelligent as you. I am very pleased that they are not making the mistakes of their predecessors and are moving in the direction the community has been waiting for."

"Time for community building at WSU"

This column appeared in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

The events of the past few weeks on the Washington State University campus have, once again, apparently spotlighted the issue of diversity and its effect on our isolated island in the middle of the Palouse. In short, on Nov. 2, the College Republicans put up a wall, or more appropriately a fence, to demonstrate support for recently passed national legislation for building a wall on the border with Mexico. Afterwards, in the middle of the controversy, two professors from the department of comparative ethnic studies were accused of shouting epithets at the students, and inappropriately demanding to see identification of some of the College Republicans.

Here’s the background, in short — the College Republicans had been warned by student leadership on the Pullman campus that putting up such a wall, with such a message, would be seen as highly offensive by many in the WSU community. And certainly, professors ought to know that yelling epithets at students who are demonstrating, using their First Amendment rights, is a profound lapse of professional behavior, regardless what First Amendment rights they also possess.

Let’s just get this out of the way right at the start. Everyone in this country has the right to yell out anything they want, and demonstrate the way they want, provided, of course, they’re not yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. The First Amendment is a bedrock principle in American society.

But how one uses their First Amendment rights is also a bellwether of where they want that society to go. And it matters even more in a small university community, where we all live together and, hopefully, are all growing together. There’s never going to be perfect harmony here — nor anywhere. But to what end, all of this behavior?

To the College Republicans — any wall built between two countries is a profound failure. There are no walls between France and Spain, nor most of the countries in Europe. Walls with barbed wire indicate both countries have failed to serve their people, and each other. Hundreds of Mexicans die trying to cross the border every year, and walls will probably increase this number. If you are a woman trying to cross illegally, you stand a good chance of being raped.

The drug traffickers are now into the traffic of illegals big-time. Walls only will increase this, as assistance will now be mandatory to get around that obstacle. The patron saint of the border is La Santisima Muerte — Most Holy Death, and there are chapels dedicated to her along the border. And there is no doubt in my mind for the Chicano-Latino students in our community, there are personal stories, filled with tragedy, waiting to be told about relatives and friends and their experience on the border.

To the professors in question — all of our students, at some level, are adults. At the same time, all of them are under our care. There is never a reason to curse at them. Apologies have been given, and more are in order.

I have found great joy, as well as great aggravation, in dealing with the age group. They are learning how to express themselves, and form beliefs. The most effective technique I have found is to model the change you want to see. It’s not an original thought — it’s paraphrased Gandhi. I don’t sit around smiling at my students all the time either, though. They know when I’m unhappy, when I want more. I’m no softy. At the same time, we need to model more of the behavior we want to see at WSU — more open debates, a higher intellectual bar that takes in and understands the validity of all of our students’ viewpoints, even the ones we find socially and morally reprehensible. They passed a law in Congress sanctioning the wall. If we really believe such a wall is a bad thing, then we should hold ourselves accountable for the lack of influence we have in society as a whole.

And to both groups — what kind of community are either of you trying to build? An erudite, knowledge-based society, based on reason, understanding the sophistication of complex issues and respect for the emotions of the humans that make up both sides? Or one where we end up screaming over symbols? Which one will get us to the better world? And to both sides — you are both privileged. You are here in the university. Get with it. To those whom much is given, much is expected. It is time to get to work.

Interesting that this comes from the chairman of the WSU Faculty Senate. I guess Pezeshki doesn't anticipate participating in any investigations or disciplinary actions.

Pezeshki asks to what end all of this behavior is leading. I'd like to think after all the previous free speech controversies at WSU, it would lead to reform. But I think we can see where the university is going with this whole incident: Nowhere.

Instead of reforming the CES Department and addressing the intolerance, lack of diversity and academic astigmatism created by "Political Correctness", it's time for "community building," whatever the heck that means.

"College Republicans had been warned by student leadership on the Pullman campus that putting up such a wall, with such a message, would be seen as highly offensive by many in the WSU community?" Does that mean what happened at the demonstration was justified? Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if a minority group at WSU had received a similar warning not to demonstrate?

Pezeshki seems to justify Streamas' and Leonard's action under the aegis of the First Amendment. Was what they said legal under the Constitution? Sure (although maybe not under the WSU code of conduct). Should there be consequences? Absolutely.

You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, but you can sure throw the N-word around. Just ask Michael Richards (Seinfeld's Kramer), who was also caught on tape using racial epithets. Richards (who incidentally attended The Evergreen State College) has profusely apologized, but his professional career (such as it was) is effectively over, First Amendment or not. That's the immutable law of consequences. Unfortunately, WSU seems to be a "Consequence Free Zone."

"I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse"

For those of you who doubt that professors are elitist snobs, I submit as Exhibit A the arrogant, bitter, socialistic rantings of Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki. If you don't have access to the online version of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Chuckie is posting comments on Dnews.com bitching about the Saturday article that reported poor ol' impoverished WSU profs only make on average $92,000 a year.

Pezeshki's comments are some of the most amusing pieces of left-wing intelligentsia fluffery I've read yet and pull back the curtain on how our faculty libs really feel about the issues. His comments demonstrate quite well why we have no reason to ever fear the campus moonbats getting into political power locally.

One thing that really has to change if the relationship between the towns and the universities is to improve is that the towns need to stop HATING the professors that have chosen to come here for their rank and salary. These professors drive the quality of life in our cities, and their taxes pay for many things that people with lower salaries cannot. The universities also profoundly boost the average income in the area.

Mind you, Chuck's happy with his salary. He's just pissed off there's not more genuflecting to our Ph.D. betters like him. And he wonders why people "hate" professors? Chuck forgets one very important point: IT IS THE "FILTHY WORKING CLASS" HE DESPISES SO MUCH THAT PAYS HIS DAMN SALARY AND FOR ALL OF HIS TRIPS TO LONDON, VIENNA, ET. AL. WITH THEIR TAXES! YOU DON'T LIKE SUCKING OFF THE GOVERNMENT TEAT? THEN GO GET A JOB IN THE REAL WORLD WHERE YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT AND PRODUCE RESULTS, RATHER THAN FLINGING DISDAIN FOR THOSE WITH NO LETTERS AFTER THEIR NAME LIKE YOU!!

Sorry, A G. You get no sympathy from me-- and I've gotten to the point where I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse as well.

If you poll most of the professors on campus, they are for higher taxes, which would predominantly affect the rich. Most of the professors are for socialized medicine, which would profoundly help the working poor and lower middle class in the area. Most professors would be for some form of low-rent, subsidized housing in the area. The one thing that the professors are mostly against is sprawl, and loss of community character, because that's the one draw we have going here.

But it's the working classes that are convinced that these things are the enemy. So be it.

I agree that people ought to be appreciative of the good fortune they have. But it's that doggone MARKET I keep hearing about from the lower-middle class that votes for Republicans that's supposed to raise them up and bring us down. It just doesn't seem to be working that way, though.

I've never seen a more dysfunctional, irrational culture in a 1st World country than what's on the Palouse. Keep voting against your interests, and alienating your intellectual and real allies. It's really worked great so far, hasn't it? Your children are being sent to war, your paycheck is dropping, and I can tell you from where the currency rate sits, the bottom is about to drop out from underneath the dollar, making those 'Guaranteed Low Walmart Prices' a thing of sunny memory.

I'm not happy about any of this. And having run for office to try to stop this, I've put my money where my mouth is. But it's exhausting, personally, the level of acrimony from the community. Myself, as well as others-- the ones that would really be interested in sharing community leadership, are really at the point of almost checking out.

Just remember, when the Gods want to punish you, they grant you your wishes.

Best,

Chuck

Are the arrogant, know-it-all, meddling, elitist, communist professors really going to check out of the Palouse? From your lips to God's ears, Chuck.

Say What?

I still don't get it. We have a Walmart 6 miles away. For some of us in Pullman, it's shorter and easier to get there than across to Safeway.

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, online comment regarding the Pullman Wal-Mart Supercenter at Dnews.com, December 6, 2007

So many of these decisions really benefit no one who lives here-- that's my point. They just create more sprawl, which, as gas prices go up, is really going to kill all of us five years from now.

And needless to say, no one is even beginning to look five years into the future.

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, online comment regarding the Hawkins development near the Moscow Wal-Mart at Dnews.com, February 24, 2008

I still don't get it either. Liberal man speak with forked tongue.

"Their own little pathetic White Trash world"

The blog "Alan Gregory's Conservation News" linked to an op-ed piece attacking Idaho Gov. Otter's proposal to reinstate public hunting of gray wolves to reduce the wolf population that Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki posted on Ted Williams Blog at Fly Rod and Reel Online in February. The same column also appeared in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Chuck dropped by Alan Gregory's blog and left some very illuminating comments.

Al Gore may have invented the Internet, but the always modest Pezeshki claims his book "Wild to the Last," published by WSU Press, led to President Clinton's Roadless Initiative:

Hi Alan,

We pretty much stopped them in their tracks. That book and the events in it were the lead-in to Clinton’s Roadless Initiative. The landslides in Idaho, and the associated pix, were the belly-punch in the stomach that the USFS got that led to the roadbuilding moratorium, which then led to Clinton’s rulemaking.

Of course we didn’t know it at the time. We were just hauling ourselves out of bed every day, determined to fuck with the machine.

And so we did!

Best,

Chuck

Yeah!!!! Stick it to the man, Chuck!!!! You pathetic Abbie Hoffman wannabe.

So how does Chuckie regard Idaho (and likely the rest of us great unwashed):

The point still stands– the Idaho State Legislature and the Governor operate as if they’re in their own little pathetic White Trash world.

Tales from the Vienna Woodenhead

I see Don Pelton eloquently rebutted blowhard Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki in the June 11 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Pullman is not Vienna

I agree with Chuck Pezeshki that Vienna is a wonderful city (Opinion, May 22). I like to stay at the Bristol Hotel, which is across the street from the opera house.

The advantage that Vienna enjoys over Pullman is that it has a population that can support many public amenities. Austria has a population density of about 260 people per square mile. To apply that density to Whitman County would yield a population of about 550,000 with two-thirds living in Pullman. Yes, Pullman would be a city of 360,000.

Following the Vienna example, most folks would live in multistory apartment buildings with the ground floors making perfect locations for many small shops supplying necessities to the residents living upstairs.

Sadly, Whitman County only can offer a population of about 42,000 or about 20 folks per square mile. About two-thirds, or 28,000, live in Pullman. Of these, about half live in the square mile next to the university. The others live within about eight square miles, or approximately 1,800 to a square mile. This is not enough population to support much mass transit. But, if Washington state were like Austria, our population would be 19 million and there would be lots of trams, highways, and maybe even a subway from the CUB to Bishop Boulevard.

For Pullman, I would rather have at least one super Wal-Mart-type department store with an inventory of upwards of 200,000 items augmented by many specialty shops instead of large numbers of nearly identical neighborhood stores with inventories of 5,000 items as in Vienna.

Donald D. Pelton

Pullman

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Where in the World is Chuckie Sandiego?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of worthless comparisons of exotic foreign locales to Pullman… the thrill of erudite cosmopolitanism… and the agony of plebeian Wal-Marts… the human drama of preening intellectualism… this is Chuck Pezeshki's's Wide World of Socialism!


This week, globetrotting WSU professor Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki checks in from the island of Kauai in Hawaii for another illustration of his illusionary socialist zeitgeist. In a column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News Chuck informs us that the friendly Hawaiians have no need for private beaches, so therefore we should do away with private ownership of farm and forest lands around here, and apparently, motorcycles and four-wheelers:

In our own little neck of the woods, we're running up against a lot of the same kinds of issues. Access across and to private land is big - from disputes on Moscow Mountain, to Potlatch Corp. selling passes for land access, to the recent closing of part of Sanders Beach on Lake Coeur d'Alene. People are flocking to our area to buy their own little part of paradise or ride their ATV on land someone else owns.

[...]

We're not as lucky here. With a few notable exceptions, we've set ourselves up under the screaming principles of "private property rights" or "we've always rode our dirt-bikes here," instead of accepting we all live here because it is a beautiful place...

Pezeshki mentions how expensive homes are Hawaii, without looking more deeply into why other than the old liberal saw of "real estate developers on one side and permanent residents on the other." I imagine the environmental and development regulations in Hawaii are pretty rigorous. That might have something to do with it.

I can hardly wait to see where Chuck visits next time! Perhaps a visit to the former East Germany or Poland might snap him out of his fantasy world of central government planning and no property rights...

Mr. Civil Discourse Bridges the "Town-Gown" Divide

New WSU President Elson Floyd will be absolutely thrilled when he reads former WSU Faculty Senate president Chuck Pezeshki's comments on the Moscow-Pullman Daily News website today.

There's not much I can say to change most of the conservatives in this neck of the woods' minds about what they read. I hate blanket statements about local people in the community, but quite frankly, many are strongly anti-intellectual and resentful of the universities. Not that the universities or professors have helped make the situation better-- but I believe that a good part of this is because most people in the region are wildly ignorant about who actually butters their bread. Most people believe that Latah and Whitman County run on agriculture, but the fact is that the percentage of income, and percentage of workforce involved is miniscule (3% for Latah, 1.6% for Whitman). The universities provide for the living, and also agricultural community support, for all of Latah and Whitman County. Those facts come out of the US Census data.

Chuckie Sandiego was defending a column of his that appeared today in which he bashed Gen. Petraeus and President Bush again like the mindless kneejerk moonbat that he is.

If you have a subscription to Dnews.com, check out Pezeshki's comments. Arrogant doesn't do them justice. It's megalomaniacal hubris.

But in any case, thanks Chuck, for confirming what we already knew about professors and so eloquently demonstrating why us non-PhD hayseeds are so "anti-intellectual" and "anti-university."

Say What?

But how one uses their First Amendment rights is also a bellwether of where they want that society to go. And it matters even more in a small university community, where we all live together and, hopefully, are all growing together. There’s never going to be perfect harmony here — nor anywhere. But to what end, all of this behavior?

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, "Time for Community Building at WSU,", Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 21, 2006

But to pick an issue that one might care about and do something legal and political once in a semester? These are young adults we're educating. We'd like them to become active citizens someday. Anything we can do to engage them and stop the inherent sleepwalking through the curriculum that too many of our students already do is a good thing.

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, "'Architorture' protest brings on tempest in a teapot," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, April 12, 2008

I guess Chuck's idea of where he wants the society in "our small university community" to go depends on whether it's the College Republicans protesting or one of his "hip," fellow elitist leftist professors.

By the way, Chuck, you can certainly do better than label anyone opposing Rahmani's PR stunt as mouthbreathing members of the local John Birch Society. Pullman residents were offended by Rahmani's overweening arrogance and snobbery, all funded on the taxpayer's dime.

Pie in the the Sky Island

There's another laughable, elitist, self-absorbed, solipsistic piece of Marxist excrement by Chuck Pezeshki in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

It’s interesting spending a week in a big, European city, especially after Pullman, with its sky island feel. I’m in Vienna this week, setting up collaborations for our students in engineering, with the intention of giving them the necessary experience to succeed in the global marketplace. This means that I have to succeed in the global marketplace — something that is not as easy as it used to be.

Vienna is an interesting city, in that it is relatively large — more than 1 million people live in and around Vienna — but feels small. The Viennese want their living spaces to be livable, and they have laws here that, while they would never make it in the United States, work together to make a city that is manageable on all levels. You can reach literally everywhere on the U-bahn, the subway system, and the trams. One ticket bought for a week costs only $15. The Viennese understand that if you want public transit to work, it has to be frequent, affordable and convenient. And because of this, buses and trains are always filled. You can even find parking downtown most of the time if you choose to take your car. Contrast this with our own situation, where we do nothing but cut back on the availability of public transit, and then wonder why it doesn’t work.

Because space is tight, stores are small. Grocery stores have a reasonable variety of items. The local Billa chain has everything you need, and it is of high quality. But there is only one way into the store, leading you past all the items, and only one way out. Beer is cheaper than soda pop. And because the stores are relatively small, there are lots of them—all within walking distance from somewhere. They’re not the only chain in the world to use the idea of walking availability to make a buck. Walgreen’s in the United States uses the same principle with their drug stores, so the notion of having hyper-sized stores to stay profitable in the U.S. market just isn’t supported by the evidence.

Even where space is available, super-sized stores don’t exist. We visited the small town of Murzzuschlag, two hours outside of Vienna, with Jutta, the young woman who arranged our business meetings. Murzzuschlag has 40,000 people, and by our standards is able to support multiple Wal-Marts. But they don’t exist. The largest store is a garden store — about one-quarter the size of our big-box stores. Zoning as we know it also doesn’t exist, and the steel plant sits on the edge of the business district. It is clean, because the citizens won’t tolerate living in a degraded environment. Surrounding the valley are neat, small, very alpen-style homes. I asked Jutta where the poor people lived. “We don’t really have poor people like you do in the States,” she replied. “If someone loses their job, they are supported by the government until they find another one.” She seemed not to show any judgment toward those people, giving me the impression that Austrians like themselves as a nation a whole lot more than we do.

Looking back at our own local battles across the sea, it’s clear that Austrians have some sense of what they want their future to be. They’re aware that change is coming, and they are planning for it. They know that automobiles aren’t going to be around forever, and while they use them, they don’t plan their cities around them. They know that parts of their cities should work together — and in order for that to happen, things have to exist in an appropriate scale. It’s impossible to imagine a fight over Wal-Mart here, because such a thing as a Wal-Mart doesn’t exist. Austrians aren’t extravagant spenders, and they’ve decided that living in the space that they have, and using it wisely is a better choice than the end alternative of running out of space — war.

As we Americans scale up everything that we do, with bigger freeways, bigger big-box stores, and bigger houses, we might stop and ask ourselves where the trajectory is really leading. Or where it has already led us. And we might ask, as our own wars drag out, if any of this is really worth the price.

I'm going to resist the temptation to rebut Pezeshki's ridiculous contentions of how "Sky Island" Pullman should be like a European city, or bring up the fact that for much of the time since WWII, Austria has been dominated by a socialist government, or the even more vile assertion that somehow American's love of Wal-Mart and big-box stores leads to war (it was an Austrian, by the way, that took the world into war over lebensraum, or living space: Adolf Hitler.)

No, I'm much too busy with more important things to do that. Instead, I'm going to quote yet again from Gregory Hand's superb column "Snobbish tendencies:"

Where do these people come from? Visit a college campus today and see what is going on there (not most of the professors, who tend to be culture snobs, to be discussed next.) No, the faux intellectual snobs, while including some professors and graduate students, are the teenage and early twenty something undergraduate students. These are the ones who are so brilliant as to be enlightened (indoctrinated) by the liberal orthodoxy taught at most schools today, but ironically not intelligent enough to realize that with all these rights that are demanded come corresponding responsibilities.

Look at the hooligans who just rioted at the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. It is true that many Europeans participated in the mêlée that ensued. The poor unfortunate chap who was shot dead thinking the Italian police would allow him to hurl a large fire extinguisher at them unchallenged was Spanish. But there were also large contingents of Americans as well, completing their parentally funded summer tours of Europe with a little bit of last minute rioting before heading back to the yacht club. I supposed it is something to tell their unfortunate colleagues at the posh private schools in the fall who didn't get to hang out in Europe on mommy and daddy's credit card. Isn't it just amazing the number of rich white kids who travel the globe lamenting the capitalism that allows them their nice homes, their fancy cars, and the extensive travel that they enjoy so much? Are they that ignorant?

To answer the question, yes, they are; and they are because of this supposed superior intellect that has given them an enlightenment that most dolts like you and I don't have, protesting for a variety of inane causes (Free Mumia! Save the suckerfish! Stop global warming!). It is unfortunate, but their grasp of the issues, despite their strenuous arguments to the contrary, is rudimentary at best. They have no realistic idea, beyond their utopian pipe dreams, of the ramifications of the policies that they advocate. It is difficult to rationalize with them, because they immediately snobbishly dismiss any opposing arguments as inferior ones coming from intellectually substandard people.

The most rapidly rising class of snobs are the cultural/society snobs. These are people who go to symphonies, operas, wine tastings, foreign films, coffee houses and various other stylish venues not because they necessarily enjoy it, but because they like to be seen at such events, and they enjoy bragging about going to those who did not attend. On the flip side they also get pained looks on their faces when discussing amusement parks, NASCAR, public beaches, Wal-mart, chain restaurants and any other place where Grubman's 'white trash' might be hanging out. How déclassé.

They tend to congregate either in San Francisco or LA on the West Coast or New York, DC or Boston on the East Coast, as anywhere not attached to an ocean is 'flyover country.' They love the words 'diversity' and 'culture,' and often praise both lovingly just because it makes them look more sophisticated to be discussing such things.

Like the intellectual snobs, the cultural snobs are part of the 'hate America' crowd, albeit for different reasons. The intellectual snobs hate America because they are all socialists and communists looking to create some naïve workers paradise and destroy capitalism. Cultural snobs, on the other hand, hate America only because it looks better when they travel to Europe to put down other Americans, and to lament to anyone who will listen that France is better then America because it is more 'diverse' and has better 'culture.' Besides, who are snobbier, and therefore can appreciate the attitude, than the French?

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"D'Souza: Affirmative action no longer needed; Former Reagan policy analyst tackles tough topics at WSU"

In today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Amy Gray does a decent job of providing a précis of Dinesh D'Souza's remarks at WSU last night. For the sake of clarity, I will add my comments after hers in red:

Conservative author Dinesh D'Souza told a packed house at Washington State University on Tuesday that affirmative action as it exists should be retired.

D'Souza is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India and came to America as an exchange student at 17. He was educated at Dartmouth College and went on to become a policy analyst for President Ronald Reagan and a Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

He was introduced at WSU's Smith Center for Undergraduate Education as "one of America's most influential conservative thinkers, a highly acclaimed scholar and true patriot." [No mention of the WSU College Republicans sponsoring this event at considerable cost? Come on.]

D'Souza said affirmative action was "conceived for one group - African-Americans, blacks - for a specific period of time." Other groups such as gay people and women eventually began to seek affirmative action to counter discrimination in employment and education.

He said blacks are a small minority in America - 10 percent. Hispanics make up another 10 percent of the population, and women make up 50 percent.

"Now we have a majority," he said.

He told the audience of a debate he had with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"Our skin colors were identical. Why do I and he have an opposite take on the same set of facts?" D'Souza asked.

He said the answer is he represents immigrants and Jackson represents indigenous minority groups such as blacks and American Indians - people who "have been here longer than the Italians and the Jews."

He said the difference in the two populations is that immigrants compare America to the rest of the world whereas Jackson "was comparing America to Utopia, to a garden of Eden, and America consistently falls short." [He also asked Jackson to specifically name where this discrimination that is supposedly being fought still exists; to name just one example from today. Jackson couldn't. How's that for "comparative ethnic studies?"

Dinesh didn't mention it, but I would imagine this also explains Barack Obama's poor polling numbers with Hispanic and Asian-American voters. D'Souza commented how Obama could be uniquely positioned to transcend racism. Obama is much more like the immigrant. His Kenyan father only attended college in Hawaii and then returned to Kenya. Obama's ancestors were never slaves. The only "indigenous" part of Obama is his white Kansas family. But, somewhat unexpectedly, race has become an issue in the presidential race, with Jeremiah Wright's sermons demonstrating the "typhoonic rage" of the indigenous minorities.]

D'Souza pointed out that 50 percent of National Football League players are black, and no one complains about discrimination in that case. [Dinesh didn't say the NFL was specifically 50 percent black. He mentioned several pro sports and several percentages. More accurately, 75% of the of NFL players and 85% of NBA players are black. His point was that blacks, comprising some 10% of the population, are overrepresented in pro sports. He wondered where are the protests about having more Koreans and Jews in pro sports. Pro sports teams pick players based on merit, not race. This merit standard results in the inequality observed.]

"They're outperforming everybody as a result of achievement, not social power or a game that's rigged in their favor," he said.

He countered notions that standardized tests are racially biased, focusing on math portions of tests that require absolute answers.

"Is it really possible that all these tests are conspiratorially based?" he asked. "In any test given to a group - reasoning, math, vocabulary, legal skills - I will tell you the results. Asian-Americans and whites will do the best. Hispanics will come in second and African-Americans will come in last." [Dinesh offered three theories as to why these test results happen:

1. The Genetics Theory - it's how you're born.
2. The Liberal Theory - it's all society's fault.
3. The Cultural/Behavioral Theory - it's up to you and your family.

He believes that the "Cultural/Behavioral Theory" is the most plausible and empirically proven. As an example, he talked about a study conducted of racial groups and the amount of time spent on homework weekly. Those numbers corresponded exactly to how well each group did on tests. Dinesh suggested this had to do with parental involvement. Asian-Americans have the lowest illegimacy rate and Hispanics and blacks have the highest. It could be that children from two parent homes have more parental involvement/supervision than children from single parent homes. Ironically, this is the same point that Chuck Pezeshki made in his column yesterday, even though I'm sure Pezeshki would disagree with most everything D'Souza said.]

Francene Watson, a doctoral candidate in the WSU College of Education, told D'Souza she believed he was oversimplifying race issues with regard to educational advancement.

"In 10 years as a public high school teacher, I've never had a student ask me to lower the standards," she said. "We're talking about something that's institutionalized. Public school has always been about oppression. I would like to hear a more critical analysis than saying everyone is a blank slate and they show up in a class and test."

D'Souza likened affirmative action to "lowering the net" for basketball players who are not as tall as Michael Jordan. [Dinesh discussed how much Michael Jordan himself would have resisted this. If that had happened, all of Jordan's records and accomplishments would be asterisked, much as Barry Bonds' will be. Affirmative action and lowered standards strengthen racist stereotypes. In essence, the liberals who claim to be racism's biggest foes are actually the worst racists, intentional or not, demonstrating a "plantation mentality."

For example, Pullman's Don Orlich had a column on the WASL that appeared in both the Daily News and Spokesman-Review earlier this year. Orlich pointed out what D'Souza pointed out last night:

Data for all 10th-graders – approximately 75,000 – who took the WASL in 2006-07 show the following: The percentages meeting standard — that is, passing an arbitrary score — were 80.8 on reading, 83.9 on writing, 50.4 on math and 36.4 on science.

White and Asian students exceeded those performances in all categories.

But the percentages for black students were 37 for reading, 39.3 for writing, 14.2 for math and 9.2 for science.

Orlich's solution? Dump the WASL, for everyone. Here are some reactions to Orlich's column from letters to the editor in the Spokesman-Review:

I find much of Mr. Orlich's commentary insulting, and suggesting that establishing a common standard of achievement and testing for it is inherently discriminatory against those who don't measure up ought to be insulting to them, too. Accepting that line of thinking will keep you right where you are – instead of reaching for the stars.

And:

Donald Orlich, for his scathing rebuke of the WASL (Jan. 31), gets my vote for poster child for the soft bigotry of race-based, lowered expectations, his allusion to MLK's "I have a dream" speech being completely inapposite, highly offensive rhetoric. It comes as a complete shock and outrage to read a WSU professor's admission that he has little hope of blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics and American Indians, ever competing academically with whites.

Of course, Orlich doesn't see himself as a bigot, but that's the perfect word for the person who, in giving up on minorities, indirectly labels them as inferior. I have seen this before in education, where the teacher who says somebody's got to work at Burger King is venerated, viewed as experienced and positive, and the one who pushes black, red, brown and white all just as hard called naive, not suited for teaching, counterproductive, even racist!

Spokesman-Review, don't you ever again trash a national icon like MLK by publishing plain racism, however indirect or subtle, racism purporting to have his endorsement no less! If MLK stood for anything, it is stop judging people by the color of their skin, his "I have a dream" speech being the best example of this conviction.]

"Racism in America is substantially different than it was in the past. In the South, it was systematic," he said, using segregated water fountains as an example.

"Racism today is not only less than it used to be but it is episodic rather than systematic," D'Souza said. "We may be in the best position to correct this. We must sometimes take responsibility for things we didn't do. Individual responsibility means you need to take the cards you're dealt and do the best with them. Policies need to be based on achievement, development and merit. Instead of trying to rig the outcome, invest resources to allow people to do better." [Dinesh referred to this as the two strategies that minorities could use: The "Protest Strategy" (or the "Cornel West Strategy"- West believes blacks face "existential angst" from their slave past and that accounts for their problems) or the "Assimilation Strategy."

Are a lot of school subjects not culturally "neutral?" Sure. It's AMERICAN history, for example. But shouldn't we all learn that as we live in America?

Yes, America was slaveholding longer than it has been free. But what's the point in bringing up the past? No one alive today was a slave, nor was anyone's parents or grandparents. Rather than protest against things in the past that cannot be changed, why not make the best of it now? He gave an example from his own experience in India. People would blame British colonialism for plumbing leaks and broken down trains. And indeed, it was the British that had originally laid those pipes and tracks. But if all the Indians did was to blame the British, nothing would ever get fixed. D'Souza pointed out how the stereotype 40 years ago of "eat your food, there are people starving in India" has changed to "be careful or an Indian will take your job." This has been accomplished by an assimilation attitude, not a protest attitude.]

D'Souza's comments were met with mixed reaction. As students exited, one shouted, "That guy's racist!"

WSU freshman Shera Shupert thought her fellow students were rude to D'Souza.

"He's a respected speaker at our university and people were yelling at him," she said. [Not hard to believe at all, considering just a year and a half ago, a WSU professor called a student a "white shitbag" and likened a College Republican demonstration to a "swastika in a Jewish neighborhood" and only faced minimal disciplinary action.

For the most part, the faculty/students asking questions last night weren't really asking questions or engaging in debate. They were making statements (one guy admitted as much); precanned statements regurgitating what they have been indoctrinated about concerning "white supremacy" from the likes of John Streamas, David Leonard, Richard King, TV Reed, et. al. (Were any of those guys there? I didn't see them, nor did I see Alex McDonald.)

The ad hominem argument is really about all the liberals have in their arsenal. Other commenters tried to imply that D'Souza was somehow "elitist" and "privileged," even though he is a dark-skinned Indian immigrant from a humble background. They chided his humorous comments as being "insensitive." That and a few straw man arguments thrown in here and there for good measure. There were implications that Dinesh was denying that racism had ever occurred or was somehow glossing over the damaging effects of racism. He made no such allegations. D'Souza just stated that those things are not happening NOW.]

D'Souza reminded the group that "In a university you also need racial, gender, cultural, and language diversity -- but you also need intellectual diversity and I hope I've tried to provide that," he said. [He did. I hope a few young minds were enlightened. The unenlightened ones were certainly embarassing to WSU, but I'm sure Dinesh is used to that.]

My Own Private Idaho

Camera shy "WSU Student" states on the Daily News website:

Can I add something to what you wrote? I emailed in about a week ago or so about this second Walmart in the area. It makes no sense. I live in the NE WSU apartments area. It's about 6 miles from there to the Moscow Walmart. A straight shot. It's about 2 miles from my apartment to where the new Walmart is supposed to be. Right through Pullman and all its traffic. That's a difference of only 4 miles. Plus, the thing this Forbes doesn't admit is that sales tax is lower in Idaho. I'm a student. I'm on a budget, as most of us are. There is no way a student like me living up here is going to drive across Pullman to pay more, with taxes, than driving from here to Moscow and not fighting traffic and stop lights. It just doesn't make sense.

The biggest allure of a Supercenter to students is discount GROCERIES. And the thing this Forbes DOES admit is that there is NO SALES TAX ON FOOD in Washington as opposed to Idaho. I think "students on a budget" will appreciate that fact, don't you? I think that is worth driving across Pullman "fighting traffic and stop lights" for. As far as sales tax on retail items go, there is a whopping 1.7% difference between Washington and Idaho. On a $100 purchase, you would save $1.70 at the Moscow Wal-Mart and spend $2.48 in gas to make the 15 mile round trip to Moscow with a vehicle getting the average of 20 MPG. Do the math.

Plus, a Supercenter is not merely "another Wal-Mart" It is a beast of a different color. Clearly these snobs have never been in one. Outside of food, a Supercenter has on average twice as many SKUs as the Wal-Mart in Moscow has. For exampe, the Pullman Supercenter will have an electronics section three times the size of the Moscow store. These offerings will bring in shoppers from a wide radius, much more than the "2 miles to my apartment."

But what would that matter to "WSU Student" anyway? He posted on an older thread:

And I like going to downtown Moscow because it is so much better than the sorry excuse for a downtown that Pullman claims to be.

Nothing like that "Cougar Pride," eh?

Then "WSU Student" writes:

It would be good to TRY to get a Target here. I mean REALLY try, not these mythical references from some time back when Reagan was alive or something that a few pot bellies wrote a letter to Target. I mean really put it together as a community to try to get a Target.

Here's a mindblower to "WSU Student" and all the other left-wing false dilemma crowd who say it's either Wal-Mart or Target. If you really, really want a Target so bad, what if you found out that efforts are underway to get Target in Pullman but that Target will come only AFTER Wal-Mart has been opened? What if your efforts to delay/stop Wal-mart are also delaying/stopping Target as well?

Then Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki chimes in:

I still don't get it. We have a Walmart 6 miles away. For some of us in Pullman, it's shorter and easier to get there than across to Safeway.

Why are you being deprived? How is not having a Walmart across from Safeway depriving you of Walmart goods?

Hmmmm. Let's see. What are we being deprived of? I'll let the No SuperWalMart-funded retail study from the CLUE Group answer that:

Pullman is experiencing sales leakages in almost all major retail categories, including a leakage of $4.0 million in groceries, $7.6 million in furniture/home furnishings, $9.6 million in apparel, and $1.3 million in pharmaceuticals/medical supplies (the only major retail category in which Pullman is experiencing a sales surplus is dining out).

While it is impossible to state with certainty without conducting consumer surveys where Pullman's residents currently shop for various things, it is highly likely, given Moscow's high per capita sales performance relative to Pullman's and the region's relatively isolated location, that Pullman residents often shop in Moscow for groceries and other consumer staples.

The 223,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter that has been proposed to be built in Pullman will attract approximately $100 million in sales - roughly the equivalent of all current sales in major retail categories in Pullman - according to Wal-Mart's current national sales averages. This will have an enormous impact on retail activity in the region - in Pullman, in particular, but also in Moscow, as some sales currently being captured by Moscow businesses will almost certainly gravitate to the new Wal-Mart Supercenter. Grocery sales are particularly vulnerable, as the proposed Supercenter will likely capture approximately $35 million in area grocery sales.

Do you get it now? Does that "stir" you? It certainly "stirs" our local merchants. Do you "feel sorry" for them? It's a hell of a lot more than "cheap toothpaste" at stake. And yes, people will not only come from Pullman to shop at Wal-Mart, they will come from Moscow and all over the surrounding area.

Remember, Chuck, how you PhDs butter our bread? How do you expect Pullman to get a slice if you all go over to Moscow to shop? Don't you love the Wal-Mart haters "Buy Local" program? "Buy Moscow" is more like it. And didn't you serve on the Jefferson Elementary PTA? Just having the Wal-Mart building in Pullman means an extra $112,784 a year to the Pullman School District from property taxes. Lastly, Chuck, aren't you an environmentalist? Does your disdain for Wal-Mart extend so far that you recommend more car trips to Moscow versus a Pullman Wal-Mart that would be accessible to shoppers via walking, bike paths and public transportation? By my simple estimate, every less trip to Moscow to shop is 20.9 pounds less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We could conceivably save millions of pounds of carbon emissions a year by having a Wal-Mart in Pullman!

Here's another mindblower that "shifts the paradigm." What if Wal-Mart doesn't keep the store in Moscow open after the Pullman Supercenter opens? That is an extremely likely possibility, as Wal-Mart is attempting to convert all their discount stores to Supercenters. That pretty much blows all the "One Wal-Mart is Enough" arguments right out of the water. And please don't cry for Moscow, They had their fair shot to get a Supercenter and Queen Nancy and her moonbats ran it out of town, with PARD's assistance. By the way, thanks for that PARDners! If you had not helped create the No SuperWalMart group, Moscow may have gotten a Supercenter and Wal-Mart would be less interested in Pullman.

Chuck follows that with:

Pursuing things in the courts is also part of the checks and balances set up by our Founding Fathers. It is legal, and it is part of the process. The courts are a resort that I've used very successfully many times to change public policy, and there have been a few of my efforts that have resulted in change of national policy (don't you love how these guys love to toot their own horns in these comments? Pezeshki is "changing national policy" and Lupke is a "national expert on China and Chinese culture." *LOL* - tf)

That's right, Chuck, there is no such thing as frivilous lawsuit designed to delay and manipulate the legitimate process. That never happens in the land of the free and the home of the brave. A group like Wal-Mart Watch, for example, would never advocate something like this:

Appealing a Pro-Wal-Mart Rezoning

If you can appeal a rezoning, or a special permit decision in your state—do it. It will allow you to gain half a year to a year’s worth of delay—during which time, land deal can fall apart of expire, Wal-Mart can move on, etc. Delay always works to your benefit as a citizen’s group.

Chuck concludes:

My concerns have always been local-- how any community could build a huge, high-traffic retail facility next to their new hospital, to provide essentially replacement services, is beyond me. And so it remains.

Boy, it's a really good thing they didn't decide to put the hospital right by the main entrance to campus where 18,000 students and 6,000 faculty and staff go to school and work each day. Oh, wait a minute......

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