[Vision2020] "My Town" and Eddie Haskell

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Visionaries:

What's the best way to bring a Super WalMart to Moscow?  If you're 
Wilson flunkies Doug Farris and Dale Courtney, you act like Eddie 
Haskell on "Leave it to Beaver."  You identify prominent and public 
opponents of the Super WalMart, you oil up your forked tongue, and then 
you get on the phone and call your opponents' bosses, colleagues, and 
boards of directors and you tittle-tattle your crispy little heart out. 
  What a pair of dweebs.  I can just picture those two in high school, 
hiding under the bleachers, peeking up the head cheerleader's skirt.  
No, wait -- they probably weren't that cool.   They were ones in the 
principal's office, reporting hall pass violations and complimenting 
the school secretary on her beautiful new hairdo.

Honestly, why do they bother?  It's foolish, it's juvenile, and as far 
as I can tell, it doesn't work.  Nevertheless, this is the oldest and 
dirtiest of the many dirty tricks in the Kirk's dirty bag.  As I 
recall, Doug Wilson and Roy Atwood tried a version of this on Sean 
Quinlan and Bill Ramsey back when the two UI professors wrote "Southern 
Slavery: As It Wasn't," a well researched and academically sound 
critique of Doug Wilson and Steve Wilkins' "Gone with the Wind" 
revisionist nonsense.  Wilson and Atwood complained to Ramsey and 
Quinlan's dean and to UI's president; they pissed and moaned to the 
Lewiston Tribune and the Daily News; they even tried writing to 
Governor Kempthorne, all in a vain attempt to get Quinlan and Ramsey 
fired.  Or perhaps they were hoping that teacher would make the 
professors stay after school and clap erasers?

Farris and Courtney are beyond a joke, but here's what I wonder: why 
are they so hell-bent on bringing a Super WalMart to Moscow?  What's in 
it for them?  Can they really not afford the high price of Winco toilet 
paper?  Or is this latest effort another part and parcel of Doug 
Wilson's "strategic plan" to hold the center of Moscow?  I don't think 
there's any doubt that a Super WalMart would have a profoundly negative 
effect on downtown retail -- even more negative, say, than having New 
St. Andrews' students hogging up the retail parking.  A truly dead 
downtown (or one that's been reduced to Cheyne-Stokes breathing) would 
go a long way toward making Doug's vision for his very own Trinity 
World Moscow much easier to enact.

But then again, I don't know.  Little Dale and Little Doug are engaged 
in some nasty work here, but I must give Doug Wilson his due.  He's a 
clever man; Dale Courtney and Doug Farris are not.  They are clumsy, 
oafish, ineffective and obvious.  Somehow, I find it hard to picture 
the bright pastor sending Laurel and Hardy to do the work of Mr. Tulip 
and Mr. Pin,* not when he has Jones and Atwood at his beck and call.

Here's my advice to the Eddie Haskells: get off the telephone, stop 
stirring the poop, and look to sorting out the mess in your very own 
households.  I think you might find that there's an illegal boarder or 
two (or four or six) in one or more of your back bedrooms.  More zoning 
violations, anyone?

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

*In case you were wondering, Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin are a couple of 
clever thugs in Terry Pratchett's novel, "The Truth."  If you don't 
read Terry Pratchett, you don't know what you're missing.  He's a 
terrific writer.

PS: It's my understanding that DVD copies of Michael Hayes' documentary 
"My Town" will be catalogued and available for borrowing at the Moscow 
Public Library beginning tomorrow.  Want to know about our very own 
little culture war from a neutral reporter who interviewed all sides?  
Then check it out!