Bob Geiger resurfaces with a new op-ed piece, in a posture as cranky and illogical as ever
Absolutely delightful and entertaining op-ed rant in this morning's Standard-Examiner, by Emerald City's #1 rabid gondolist, Bob Geiger. Responding to Tuesday's Std-Ex op-ed piece, within which Weber State University Provost Vaughn politely noted the broad and favorable national and international attention which Ogden has received as a recreational tourist destination over the past few months, Mr. Geiger inexplicably caroms into a stinging tirade against various Weber State University professors and administrators who stood on the front lines during our community's raging 2005-2007 gondola debate, which ultimately resulted in the WSU regents' April 2007 decision to hang on to the foothill raw land, which Chris Peterson had targeted for his Golf Course/McMansion buildout.
This Geiger article, which could have been alternately entitled "Lift Ogden Sour Grapes Redux," is a marvel of that special brand of Geigeresque illogic and passion, which has been missing from the Std-Ex for so many months. For our own part, we'll say we're glad to see little Bobby back ranting on the Std-Ex editorial pages. This morning's crabby contribution added greatly to our morning mirth.
We have a tight calender this morning. So we'll dispense with our usual microanalysis, and leave the picking of nits to our gentle readers.
Before we close however, we'll make note of our favorite Geiger morning non sequitur (paraphrased):
President Milner opposed the knuckleheaded Godfrey/Peterson landgrab/gondola plan, ergo, she's opposed to Ogden's economic rebirth.
Take it away, gentle readers. There's plenty of red meat to be plucked from this morning's steaming Bob Geiger op-ed carcass, we think.
Be sure to let Mr. Geiger know exactly what you think.
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40 comments:
Oh, my. Mr. Geiger The Younger is having a snit fit.
Mr. Geiger rants against WSU President Ann Millner for her not supporting what Mr. Geiger, mid-rant, repeatedly calls "the gondola."
Ah, me. They're at it again. Pretending that what was proposed for Ogden was a gondola, when in fact what Mr. Geiger and his cronies were touting was two gondolas, one built by the city [about $45 million], and another to be built privately by Mr. Chris Peterson if he got his hands on Mt. Ogden Park and WSU's east bench lands, and if his vacation villas real estate subdivision succeeded, and if he then decided to build a mini-ski venue in Malan's Basin. But somehow Mr. Geiger didn't mention all that as he editorially stamped his feet in this morning's paper and threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue because the grown-ups [aka President Millner and many many others] wouldn't give him his toy gondolas [plural] to play with.
Here is how Mr. Geiger's piece is headlined: "WSU's Millner opposes Ogden's rebirth." The headline is taken directly from lines in Mr. Geiger's op-ed rant ["she has opposed Ogden's rebirth from the start."]
What has Mr. Geiger particularly upset is that President Millner and others at WSU concluded that it was not in the University's best interests to sell the University's east bench lands to Mr. Peterson for private real estate development. Now, Mr. Geiger certainly is under no obligation to agree with that decision, as clearly he does not. But neither are President Millner and the University supervisors and others making decisions for the University required to agree with Mr. Geiger's opinions on the matter, as clearly they do not.
Mr. Geiger then leaps to the conclusion that because President Millner and WSU decided it was not in the University's best interest to sell Mr. Peterson the land he wanted so Bobby Geiger would have gondolas to play with, President Millner "opposes Ogden's rebirth."
This is all simply the latest version of Mr. Geiger and Mayor Godfrey's "naysayer" gambit. If you don't agree absolutely with them and their view of what Ogden needs, if you have other ideas about how the city can attain and sustain a better future, you therefor oppose everything and favor nothing. It's a rhetorical gambit that didn't impress many voters last time round... so few, that Mayor Godfrey, Ogden's chief Gondola/Gondola cheerleader, had to abandon his plan to deliver Mt. Ogden Park to Mr. Peterson in order to fund [in part] the city's end of the gondola/gondola scheme in order to secure, by the skin of his teeth, his re-election. Mr. Geiger manages not to mention that.
What is truly amusing is what triggered Mr. Geiger's temper tantrum this time. It was Provost Vaughan's recent column summarizing all the good ink Ogden has gotten in the national and international press, and urging Ogdenites to enjoy the city's growing good rep and improvements... or as Mr. Geiger puts it, the city's "rebirth." A rebirth that has managed to happen with not even one gondola, much less the two Mr. Geiger and the Mayor were hoping to build, in sight.
Finally, when he calms down a bit, perhaps Mr. Geiger might consider this: It is certainly arguable that what's good for WSU is good for Ogden, and that in acting in ways she believes are best for the future of Weber State University, President Millner is acting in ways that also, inevitably, benefit Ogden City. Mr. Geigher might consider, just for openers, that WSU has brought to Ogden, and will continue to, many many more good paying jobs than Descente ever has or ever will. WSU is an engine of local development and prosperity. And will, under continued sound management, continue to be for a very long time.
But I guess we should all feel a little sympathetic to Mr. Geiger. He didn't get his way. The grown ups told him no. So if you're walking around downtown this afternoon, enjoying the Ogden "rebirth" that has, it seems, inexplicably happened without gondolas, and you see a middle aged man stamping his feet, holding his breath, and turning blue, it will probably be Mr. Geiger. All we can do is hope that someday soon, he'll grow up.
Loved the part where Geiger reported that President Milner wheedled a $2500 University donation from the pack of newly arrived businessmen (translation: fly by night ski company execs) for a little bit of face time with a University President.
Ms. Milner has these dopes outclassed on EVERY front.
Short-deck has made me pee my pants again...because I'm laughing so hard. Neener, neener, neener! Gondolas, gondolas, gondolas! Daddy, daddy, daddy! I'm rubber, you're glue, what bounces off me, sticks to you, douchebag!
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
I agree with what has been posted above.
One thing that has not been mentioned yet is the nasty little threat implicit in the publishing of email correspondence, presumably obtained through a GRAMA request.
No wonder that legitimate GRAMA requests made to this administration have been stonewalled. The current administration, and their toadies such as Mr. Geiger, think that GRAMA is to be used as a vehicle for personal attacks, not to obtain information about the basis for government decisions.
The illogical and mean-spirited approach used by Mr. Geiger in today's Op-Ed piece reveals volumes about the small-mindededness of the mayor and his winged monkeys.
I wonder if any other newspaper would have published what is essentially an ad hominem attack on President Millner.
Aside from that, this is old news. Bobby, what is your point? Get over it! The current economic situation has hopefully put the last nail in the gondolas' coffins.
Short deck must have really got worked up in the Cavendish basement, pedophile torture chamber. He's like a blind man swinging wildly in the air.
He has no point or substantial argument to put forth.
Wahhh, short deck,,,,,,, rebirth is something that follows death, Ogden has never died. Sometimes reason and sanity win out over bull shit and felonious speculation.
The public is keen to the fact that your grand idea was nothing more than addition by subtraction, gaining something of little value in return for giving up our best amenities. The residents big losers in the process.
How can you even act like a bad decission been made when no one has even been afforded any specifics what so ever? The only fools seem to be the idiots you collected under your silly lift Ogden banner. One millionth of 1% is not really very good odds, 50/50 is too risky for City government.
Mayors and their administrative staffs should be engaged in performing there duties to the people, not gambling away the peoples assets in hope of enriching their buddies.
And about buddies, felons and frauds, is there an honest guy in your group?
Next time you guys concider High Adventure thrills, look at history and you'll see that the folks that were successfull knew enough to take it to the people, P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill took it on the road. High Adventure is an escape from normal everyday life, most residents prefer to have a better everyday life with a little high adventure of their choosing, when they want it. One size doesn't fit all in that regard.
Find some chamomile tea, join the hair club for men and sell some mittens, things will be all right.
Sorry Mono, I can't help it. Just what's high adventure about a gondola anyway? Seems to me it's a vey sterile uncomfortable way to transport lazy fat folks to some place they probably don't belong, or respect.
If they were to hike it, they'd have the high adventure thrill of possibly seeing snake, tarantulas, bobcats, cougar, deer and moose to name just a few things. They'd smell the diferent flora and be able to look at the smaller things in great detail, not knowing what lies around the next bend in the trail. That has an element of adventure, we needn't elaborate on degree.
Malans' Basin is so small, without the walk up and back it's not near as appealing, and serviced by a gondola it would be way too overcrowded to even enjoy in the summer.
Great skiing lies just over the mountain at Snow Basin, for me, Malans' Basin should remain as it is. A little adventure.
I suppose it's an honor to be quoted by Mr. Geiger--better than being ignored.
I stand by my statement to the NY Times reporter, that the Peterson proposal defied common sense. More than a year later, we've still seen no evidence to the contrary. The "feasibility" study that the mayor told us was being conducted has turned out to be nothing more than a fiscal impacts analysis, in which the consultants were told to assume that every aspect of the project was physically and economically feasible.
If Mr. Geiger truly believes that I was wrong about the feasibility of the Peterson project, then it's about time for him to show us the evidence. Does he really still believe that half the golf course could have been relocated onto 35% slopes? Does he really still believe that there's room for a ski area and 350 condos in Malan's Basin, and that the economic return from such a tiny resort would repay the tremendous cost of all the needed infrastructure?
Those who believed these things for a little while were merely foolish. Anyone who continues to make these claims today, without providing a shred of evidence, is committing outright fraud.
H. L. Mencken believed that, given the daily spectrum of comic behavior in these United States, only a man with a petrified diaphragm can fail to laugh himself to sleep every night. Mencken would've loved, as I do, Herr Professor Doktor Geiger's latest public imbecility in the form of a Valentine to WSU President Milner.
"I have emails," Geiger blusters, "substantiating Caldwell's claims" of threats against his tenure. OF COURSE Geiger has emails. He is incapable of not having emails. "I was in the room" ... "I know this for a fact" ... "He told me point blank" ... we've been reminded of the Geigerian All-Seeing Eye too many times to forget. We are perfectly aware that at any given moment Geiger huddles in cigar-chomping intimacy with Harrisville's, I mean Ogden's, power-brokers, Wal-Mart moguls, and fugitives from Cover-All, Inc., of Chatsworth, California.
Remember the Apartheid shacks on the U. of U. campus in the '70s? It's high time Geiger took the shacks of Ogden's dilapidation -- "boarded-up windows and all" -- right to President Milner's effete front lawn. Awake, ye slack-jawed, lukewarm pantywaists! Mobilize at once!
So goes the gondolaista's myopic vision of Ogden. They're losing it, what a sad sight. Too bad so many are still drinking from that Kool-Aid.
Record Profits for Exxon means record Tax Revinue from Big Oil...
According to the Tax Foundation, from 1977-2004, big oil made $643 billion in profits. Nice. During that same span, Federal and State governments made $1.343 TRILLION in tax revenues from big oil. Nicer. I think your liberal friends might be mad at the wrong people here.
The evolution of Bob Geiger:
1. Stimulating but wrong.
2. Just wrong.
3. Starting to sound daft.
4. Just boring now.
Nobody left in Lift Ogden but this strange, silly little man and his daddy.
short deck, how was that scam supposed to work? The people of Ogden give away their golf course and trail system to a thorazine addled, good for nothing shyster that could not hold a job working for his billionaire father in law, so he can bulldoze it and build expensive vacation bungalows for foreign investors, that would then open very upscale boutiques and eateries that would employ the children of the current residents and of course a substantial number of illegals. For this the residents would recieve the privilege of paying for the building an urban gondola, the purpose of which was to make the bourgeois foreigners feel very important and justify their being scamed into paying so much to vacation in a very blue collar community. If all went well for the thorazine sedated one after the total destruction of the foothills, he would consider building a gondola about 2500 ft up the mountain and urbanize the small basin there, depite the exsistence of a world class ski resort only a few hundred ft. and unaccessable just over the mountain.
Short deck, what's in it for the folks that live here? And what pray tell qualifies a mitten salesman to verbally accost and insult the president of the Univerity and the whole higher education establishment in the state? Stick to signage theft and headbutting locals of both genders, you seem more suited for that purpose.
It’s been intriguing to watch Godfrey reposition. In order to stay in office he was forced to commit to the residents of Ogden that he would not sell the golf course. This has hamstrung him in his effort to let Peterson have our east bench. Godfrey has to find a way to convince the people of Ogden to change their minds about the sale of the golf course while at the same time keeping Peterson’s interest up and moving the project forward. Either that or he needs to build the course to suit, i.e. meeting Peterson’s standards, and then lease it to Peterson while freeing up the surrounding land for Peterson development.
His original attempt to convince the residents to sell failed. His intent was to make the course appear to be a money pit to the city. The residents though didn’t think the drain on the city was large enough to justify the sale.
So now it appears he wants to accomplish two goals at the same time (from his hamstrung position), that of increasing the drain on the city coffers by redesigning the course at a cost of 6 mil, above its already inflated costs on the books while concurrently moving the Peterson project forward by moving the club house to the top of 36th Street. He must thinks that the increased red ink, from his continued mismanagement, added renovation costs and creative book keeping, will soften the residents resolve to retain the course. At which point, his white knight, Peterson, will graciously take the course off our hands if we let him develop around the course on the undeveloped land to the east. Or lease the course to Peterson to manage as he sees fit at a very low cost (after the residents have paid for the improvements, which Godfrey will write off) and sell him the adjacent unused land east of the course (or he may lease the course at reasonable rates at first and sell the land cheap). Gone then is the golf course and gone then are the trail networks, unless you call sidewalks trails.
Geiger’s rant in the paper today either indicates the start of a new push or an effort to keep what’s already in motion alive. Obviously Geiger has pointed out that Peterson and Godfrey still want the WSU land. Godfrey has no integrity of his word to the people or of his intent to the people and sorry Geiger but you and I have a different view about Ogden. I moved here for what is here not what I can change here.
There are many parts of Ogden that I personally do not want to see changed. Just to mention a few, the golf course and the trail networks.
Danny, there is one other member of lift Ogden still clinging on, it's founder. Yes folks, the one and only walking mothball, ed allen. Due to ed's run at getting lying little matty some legislative aid, he's not been overly vocal as of late. His strategy is to lay low, and hope that people in his religious persuasion are blind ignorant fools, too busy to pay attention to what's going on. Afterall, it seemed to have worked for his son in law, lying little matty gondola godfrey.
Curm, a vote for ed allen is no diferent than voting for a geiger.
Bill:
"A vote for Ed Allen is not different than a vote for a Geiger."
For what office? For city council, yes, I agree. For state representative, no, you are wrong.
You have any evidence to back up your claim that Democrat Ed Allen's main purpose in running for Lou's seat is to get legislative support for Mayor Godfrey, or are you just making it up out of whole cloth?
As for lying low, I haven't noticed any visible campaigning yet by either candidate. But I suggest once campaigning begins, you put the question you're concerned about directly to Mr. Allen and to his opponent in some public forum. Civilly of course. And see what they answer.
think logically here curm. connect the dots.
allen has and will support godfrey in any way he can if elected. he has been a very vocal supporter of his son in law godfrey and any hair brained idea that godfrey has come up with. show me one thing that allen has not supported of godfreys.
likewise geiger has supported every godfrey proposal.
if a = b and b = c then a must also = c.
i must agree with bill c.
It is too bad that the late great Sharon Beech isn't around to slap little Bobby's face again!
He really is a spoiled and stupid little prick with bad manners and an addled and mean spirited pea brain. His only contribution to Ogden has been the comic relief his idiotic ramblings provide.
No wonder the Marines got rid of his worthless ass.
Curm, if tricky dickie nixon showed up on a ballot with a D in front of his name, I suppose you'd forget all about his previous misdeeds and vote for him.
My dear friend, your excuse that in the legislature he's been a solid D holds no water. This baffoon founded lift Ogden with the intent of stealing public assets for the benefit of some frump that took his son in law to Europe. The purpose of this trip being to explore the high adventure romantic thrill of riding gondolas,(arial and marine) and getting psyched for their larcenous endeavor. He'd be lock step with Butters, Valentine and Curtis. He supports what Powder Mountain is attemping to do, as well as every other developer welfare issue that is paid for with your tax dollars.
Sir, I don't envy your predicament, but you must not cast your vote for this derranged barely mobile mothball, ed allen. If it's just impossible to vote for Rudi's man in that race, skip it, then just go get a little snockered, it'll pass in time.
The saddest thing about this published rant is that it indicates that the Standard is eager and willing to also keep the gondola manifesto alive. Would they print any old fools rant to develop any other non-proposal that has never had a single expert approve it? No they would not. Only ice towers and gondolas are allowed to live on and not be subject to the most common of scrutiny. Only in Ogden and fictional Springfield do the people gape in awe and the local newspaper foolishly keep alive an idea that is so unfeasible and ill-founded on so many fronts. The justification for such religious like fervor is always that Ogden must try something. Or if it contributes anything to the local economy it's fine regardless of cost(meaning the ends do not justify the means...a foundation of economics) The standard is as responsible for keeping the flame alive as the godfrey circle. They are one and the same. No objectivity, no leadership, no facts, no logic, no experts to finally put it all to rest. Same path that led us into Iraq, and the people sit slack-jawed soaking up Fox News/Standard-Examiner.
After-all they had the opportunity to voice some opposition to the war and give courage to more to speak out early on. Chicken shit small town newspaper. No one will own up to their responsibility for this mess and they would never have owned up to any responsibility had our mayor succeeded in selling off our most beautiful parklands.
bang on tec jonson
Bill:
You wrote: Curm, if tricky dickie nixon showed up on a ballot with a D in front of his name, I suppose you'd forget all about his previous misdeeds and vote for him.
Nonsense. Nixon didn't have have solid Democratic voting record in the legislature. Allen does. And yes, that does matter.
As for the rest --- He'd be lock step with Butters, Valentine and Curtis. Well, Bill, when you start likening Mr. Allen to Buttars, you've gone over the edge and left reasonableness behind.
As for "stealing public assets." Allen supported the city selling Mt. Ogden golf course to Peterson for a real estate project. That was unwise, and not in the public interest, and the voters let the Mayor know that to the extent that he took the sale off the table to save his re-election bid. But what Mr. Allen supported, however ill-advised and not good for Ogden, was not theft. It was bad policy which you and I disagreed with and fought every way we could. But it was not theft. Another example, Bill, of your penchant for rhetorical overkill.
Tec:
The op-ed page is where people not on staff get to submit opinion pieces for publication. What appears there does not [except perhaps when Mr. Porter or Mr. Gibson have pieces there] represent the views of the SE. Pro and anti gondola pieces, pro and anti Godfrey pieces have appeared there. Op-ed pages are where controversial opinion pieces are supposed to appear.
As for Mr. Geiger's childish "I didn't get my way!" rant appearing: I have no problem with the SE printing it. Whether you or I like it or not, Mr. Geiger is head of Lift Ogden, an organization which, however moribund and existing in name only it now might be, had the support of the Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce. It was touting, as an organization, a plan supported by the Mayor and the Chamber. You ask: Would they print any old fools rant to develop any other non-proposal that has never had a single expert approve it? No they would not. The answer is: if the old fool's non-proposal had been endorsed by the Mayor and the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce, yes, they would print it. And should.
I share your disappointment at the SE having initially drunk the gondola kool aid, and not having taken the time and put in the work to analyze the gondolisata pipe dream, to demand evidence of its feasibility, and not having in the end taken an editorial stand against it. They wimped out. On that we agree. But I don't see any reason to criticize the paper for, on it's op-ed page, running a classic op-ed piece of advocacy. That's what op-ed pages are for. Besides, I think giving Mr. Geiger a visible place to throw his temper tantrum and whine about having lost his campaign for the never-appearing "Peterson Proposal," and to attack the WSU administration for daring to think differently about the sale of the University's property than he did, will in the end not work to Mr. Geiger's advantage.
In fact, I'm almost tempted to say that, in giving Mr. Geiger a public stage on which to indulge [and display for all to see] his adolescent whining because the grown ups told him no, the SE has performed a public service.
Curm, you did not comment on mothball allens' support of the Powder Mt. incorporation and attemps to skirt all practical and reasonable zoning allowances. He's clearly shown that he's solidly in the developers welfare cabal, on the public dime. He was all for giving Myler what ever he needed, or wanted, gives full support to stu Reid, who by the way got that property for a song, probably payback for his service to lying little matty or some dirt he has on him. Severence package B.
How about his support of, and long term afinity for Val Southwick?
Your party sure has a knack for picking exactly the wrong candidates sometimes. This guy is toast, you'd fair better if you found a kid and ran him as a write in.
Curm, I am also a yellow dog Democrat. But I can not support Ed Allen, because of his past stand on certain developments in Ogden. Gondola, Mt Ogden Park, treatment of certain individuals because of their lack of support for his son-in-law.
He may have a perfect record on voting party lines, but he is not the type of individual I want representing me nor do I share his views on Ogden Politics.
Ahhh, Good Old (?) Curmudgeon, the remarkably educated and agile intellectual gymnast who is sometimes a practical brain-dead dolt. If Addled Dr. Ed advocates such abhorrent public policy as the nonexistent proposal from Wayne Peterson and his famed Squirrel Patrol, as well as the developer town incorporation law, what will the smug, self-important, arrogant, shit-eating Geiger Lift Ogden ahole champion as a state rep?
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
Fly:
Fair enough. To which I would only ask you to consider one question: is his opponent, another Republican likely to swell the Curtis, Bramble, Buttars majority in the Utah Legislature, likely to be better for Utah and for the district than Allen? The issues that you mention are all ones on which I opposed what Allen favored, and against which I campaigned when the occasion arose. But they are all issues addressed primarily by the City government, not by the state legislature.
As I've said before, Mr. Allen is not my dream candidate by any means. But what I'm faced with is Allen, who is dead wrong about a passel and a half of city issues, but who has an acceptable voting record as a Democrat in the Senate on the one hand, and yet another Republican spear carrier for Curtis, Bramble, Buttars on the other. Or, put another way, yet again I'm facing at the polls a "lesser of two evils" choice.
To get me to join you at the polls, you'll have to convince me that Mr. Allen would serve the state and the district worse than another Republican clone out of the Donaldson, Curtis, Bramble mode. Sorry, Fly, but neither your not Bill nor anyone has convinced me of that yet. Not by a long shot.
Jason W.
You ask: If Addled Dr. Ed advocates such abhorrent public policy as the nonexistent proposal from Wayne Peterson and his famed Squirrel Patrol, as well as the developer town incorporation law, what will the smug, self-important, arrogant, shit-eating Geiger Lift Ogden ahole champion as a state rep?
Putting your usual confusion of invective with discussion aside, here's my answer: based on his past performance, probably not the same whacko right wing wing-nut lunacy that Republican legislators have been voting for, year and and year out. You ask us to speculate about what Mr. Allen will vote for. We don't have to speculate about what Republican candidates will vote for when they get in. We know. To our sorrow. We know. So, again, if my choice is between a former Democratic legislator with a good voting record on the issues on one hand, and another vapid Curtis/Donaldson clone on the other, I know how I'm voting. It's not for the Curis/Donaldson clone.
The simple fact is that Peterson-Gieger-Godfrey didn't have the business skill to make the gondola dream a reality. They didn't have the capital; they didn't have a business plan; they didn't have a clue.
Now they can see that the gondola will never be built, and they are looking for someone to blame.
They are unwilling to take responsibility, so they have to point the finger at someone else.
The big bad university is the reason their plans failed.
"The big bad university is the reason their plans failed."
Exactly right, thtptf!
When a pack of dumbasses whose main talents are:
1) Marrying the Billionaire's daughter;
2)Selling mittens and ski underwear for a Giant Japanese ski company with a French name;, and
3) Bribing investors to move to Ogden with taxpayer money...
These three or four dolts met their match when they decided to tangle with Ogden's WSU acedemics.
The only hanging question:
How in the world did these mentally-deficient people ever think they could win that "sell Mt. Ogden Park to finance a gondola" battle?
We can chalk it up to Hubris, I guess.
Rudi:
I have to chuckle at folks who seem to think University administrators do... or even could... keep their faculties "in line" or "under control" on any public issue, on or off campus. Maybe at one of those religious colleges where you can be fired for disagreeing with the Pope or the Prophet or the Dear Leader they can. [Rumor has it there's one of them south of Salt Lake City someplace right here in Utah.] But at a public university, they absolutely can not, and do not, "control" what their faculties say on public issues.
Ask any administrator at a public university: "controlling" the faculty --- where egos are not in short supply [and yes, I include my own] --- is truly like herding cats. With 40 years teaching at ESU's [enormous state universities] in three states under my belt, I can think of nothing --- absolutely nothing --- more likely to produce open revolt among faculty members, parading their opinions in the public media, than an administrative attempt to "control" what they say on public issues or to "silence" them by attempted intimidation. Only a damn fool would try --- and though I rarely penetrate Officer Country at WSU, from what I've seen from my perch as an adjunct professor, President Millner is absolutely not one of those.
Any administration of a public college that tried to intimidate faculty into silence or to retaliate for speech it disliked, would be setting itself up for a whopper of a law suit on First Amendment grounds that it would probably lose. [WSU, being a public university, is an arm of the state, and since the courts have ruled a purpose of the XIVth Amendment was to extend the prohibitions on federal government actions contained in the Bill of Rights to state governments as well, any attempt by the university to muffle faculty comment on a public issue, or to retaliate for it, would be legally disastrous. Again, only a damn fool would attempt it.]
What's going on with Mr. Geiger is understandable and very common when folks get passionately involved in arguing public policy matters. Mr. Geiger and other gondola/gondola scheme advocates believe that they have looked at the matter of the University selling its land to Mr. Peterson, fairly and objectively, and they've concluded that the sale would be in the University's best interests. Therefor, anyone who reaches a different conclusion must have done so by illegitimate means... they made up their minds first, and never really gave it a chance; they ignored the facts; they had personal reasons; and so on nearly endlessly.
This tendency... to believe that people who reach a different conclusions than you do necessarily had to reach it by illegitimate means [since if they had looked at the matter in a fair and unbiased why, they would have reached the conclusion you did]... is very common. I have to try, consciously, not to slip into it myself when dealing with those who think differently than I do. And I'll be the first to admit, I don't always succeed.
The really sad thing about Mr. Geiger's whining rant is that he slipped to the level of launching personal attacks on those who had the temerity to think differently than he did, particularly [but not exclusively] President Millner. Sadly, as you have doubtlessly noticed, that tendency... to get personal about policy differences... is not entirely unknown among posters on WCF.
While the Bush administration has not been the best about the oil and energy issue, every American President and Congress from both parties back to the late 1970s has ignored the clear message the OPEC oil embargo of that time sent to our country.
All our politicians are in the pocket of the oil and natural gas industries. They don't want to see any change of engines until the last drop of oil and natural gas is in sight. These energy people feed money to every congress member to make sure we remain under the thumb of their products.
The American people don't help either. The next time you are on I-15 going to or from SLC, note how many cars have one person in them. Well, Americans are going to pay the toll now, get ready for 6, 8 or 10 dollars a gallon.
Curm:
I have some tentative good news for you. I've been asking around about Brent Wallis (Allen's opponent), and it doesn't sound like he's "another vapid Curtis/Donaldson clone".
Stay tuned--I'm sure we'll be hearing more as the campaign develops.
Dan:
As I've said here often: when the campaigning begins, we --- all of us, left, right and center --- should take the opportunity at whatever public forums are available to ask both candidates to address whatever concerns we have about their stands on legislative issues we think important.
From what I've seen of the comments here so far in re: Mr. Allen, I'm afraid at least some of what's going on could be called "the politics of personal retribution." Folks so angry about Allen's support of the gondola/gondola scheme and the Godfrey administration on city issues, that they will refuse to vote for him under any circumstances as a kind of pay-back, regardless of the consequences for the district and state. There is too much potential for "cut off your nose to spite your face" in the politics of personal retribution for me to accept it as the, or even a, determinant of my vote.
Curm:
Sorry, I don't see why your most recent post is addressed to me. I was talking about Wallis, not Allen.
But since you brought up Allen, I'll remind you again that much of my concern is over his questionable integrity and his expressed disdain for WSU. These concerns go well beyond his positions on any particular local issues.
Dan:
Sorry. Your post seemed part of the on-going conversation about Mr. Allen, and it gave me the opening to address, again, the matter of the politics of personal retribution which has been reflected in a number of comments here on WCF. Not yours in particular. Sorry if what I wrote seemed to suggest otherwise.
Good Old (?) Curmudgeon:
You are a brain-dead dolt. I no longer give a flying f??? about your vote. Vote for whomever you wish, Geiger. Only a Geiger would vote for Ed Allen, Geiger. Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger... you know the drill.
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
To paraphrase a line from a song from "Brigadoon" "Except for the grace of God, goes Ogden." The SE has had reports all week long on failing developments in Utah cities, Ogden included. I want to thank those stalwart Council members and Ogden citizens who stood their ground and wouldn't give in to the intimidating blubberings of the current Administration (from Mayor Godfrey to Greg Montgomery) and the wild accussations of the not-so-wise Geigers. At least, Ogden has been spared the embarrassment of bankruptcy from its irresponsible Mayor who is still trying to achieve that goal.
Bobby's rant in the paper is proof of his immaturity, imbicilic logic, crude manners and lack of any class at all. I see it as the cry of desperation for a failing cause.
Curmudgeon, you're supporting another loser with Ed Allen. He falls in the description as the Mayor and Geigers. He is not a nice human being, let alone a nice man. But then their is a saying: "Birds of a feather, flock together."
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