[Vision2020] Michael O'Neal's blathering

[keely emerinemix]

I'm sure the fearless Mr. O'Neal thinks that we "hippies" will take a break from our crying to, ohhhhhh, I don't know -- maybe meditate en masse for a harmonic convergence of fire-preventing energy to settle around Hawkins.  It's about as practical and logical as his ideas for healthy growth and municipal co-operation.

Keely




> Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:30:47 -0800
> From: rhayes at turbonet.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Michael O'Neal's blathering
> 
> >
> 
> Reading Michael O'Neals tripe made me laugh. It is obviously satire. No 
> one could make so many errors in logic without out having their tongue 
> firmly in cheek.  But here's another real thought from a proud aging 
> person (sorry, not a hippie). What happens if, in the case of a fire at 
> this sprawl mall if Moscow cannot supply the vast quantity and 
> sufficient pressure legally contracted? Hawkins will sue our city "Big 
> Time."  Oh, they wouldn't do that, some would say. There too nice of a 
> corporation to injure this little town, eh? Think again folks.  In 
> order to prevent this from happening Moscow water may have to set aside 
> a quantity agreed to. This might adversely affect our own city's 
> ability to deal with its own emergency needs. In perpetuity!
> 
> Roger Hayes
> 
> 
> >
> > Michael J O'Neal, MPDN 1/19/08
> >
> > It's hard to keep crybabies quiet.
> >
> > The back story to this scrap of wisdom runs thus. An out-of-area 
> > developer,
> > the Hawkins Companies, wants to put in a retail development just west 
> > of
> > Moscow. Five Moscow councilmen, three of them recently elected after 
> > running
> > on an openly pro-business platform, are now officially a nefarious 
> > cabal,
> > the "Hawkins Five," dubbed so on this page because they voted to sell 
> > water
> > to the developer after closed-door mediations.
> >
> > Now *the United States has this thing called representative 
> > government*.
> > Voters, expressing preferences at the polls, elect people to office, 
> > then
> > turn over to those people decision-making authority. That way, 
> > everything
> > doesn't become a referendum. Every time a decision has to be made, we 
> > don't
> > have to run to the polls, or sit in hothouse meeting halls picking up 
> > the
> > flu from the guy with the wet cough behind us.
> >
> > But *there's a class of people in Moscow who don't like representative
> > government, for it gives misguided little people license to vote*. 
> > Those
> > voters in turn have *the temerity to elect to office candidates who 
> > are not
> > aging hippies whose notion of economic development is coffee stands 
> > (which
> > use water) and tattoo parlors*.
> >
> > What's their problem? For starters, the developers are from Boise. 
> > That must
> > mean they're curly-mustachioed, cigar-chomping carpetbaggers, in town 
> > to
> > offer the rest of us 40 acres and a mule in exchange for our water.
> > Reasonably, though, *the developers believe that business owners might 
> > want
> > to tidy up after us and that employees and shoppers should wash their 
> > hands
> > after flushing*.
> >
> > But *these are all salutary activities*. People would presumably be 
> > doing
> > them anyhow, somewhere (one hopes), thus using water from the same 
> > aquifer,
> > unless of course they're really good at holding it so they can go use 
> > water
> > from someone else's aquifer. But then they'd be burning gas, melting 
> > the
> > polar ice caps, and drowning the giant Palouse earthworm - the point 
> > being
> > that *we all exist, so every single one of us uses resources no matter 
> > what
> > we do and where we do it. And if we don't have to leave carbon 
> > footprints
> > between here and Lewiston or Spokane to do it, something's been 
> > gained*.
> >
> > *Further, these establishments might sell things people actually want, 
> > need,
> > and can afford, without turning to the Internet, as many currently do, 
> > thus
> > shipping away dollars and the tax revenues they generate*. It's likely 
> > that
> > *most of the products they'd sell won't be made of hemp or bamboo - or 
> > made
> > in co-ops redolent with patchouli*. So that means they represent 
> > sprawl.
> >
> > The usual gambit employed by people who don't like a decision is to 
> > grumble
> > about process. Closed doors for them are always a bad sign, as they 
> > are for
> > my cat. But as I've tried to explain to my cat, mediations are always
> > closed. People are more inclined to mediate (another salutary 
> > activity) when
> > they know that a card they show behind closed doors won't get trumped 
> > later
> > in a lawsuit.
> >
> > *So the crybabies, who didn't get their way in the last City Council
> > election, want to "recall" the newly elected councilmen*. They intone
> > solemnly that there should have been more "public discussion" and that 
> > the
> > Hawkins Five (one quakes at the very name) has "betrayed the public 
> > trust" -
> > by doing what the little people elected them to do. *Of course, the 
> > process
> > included no vigorous "public discussion" when the mayor unilaterally 
> > filed a
> > petition to quash Hawkins, but this mote of hypocrisy escapes the 
> > notice of
> > the hemp-and-bamboo crowd*.
> >
> > Meanwhile, the little people are cattle. We're told that the 
> > councilmen who
> > voted in Hawkins' favor were "ushered into office by the Greater Moscow
> > Alliance," more cigar-chompers bent on selling off the Palouse in 
> > pieces to
> > the highest bidders. *Many of us little people find smug, elitist 
> > comments
> > like this a slap in the face. The council members were ushered into 
> > office
> > not by the GMA but by the citizens who chose to vote for them*. The GMA
> > didn't even exist when two of the Hawkins lapdogs were elected.
> >
> > *But the voters, lobotomized by the GMA, were wrong. The people the 
> > voters
> > voted for voted in favor of something some people don't like. So of 
> > course
> > we must throw the sonsabitches out*.
> >
> > *Get out the (organic) teething biscuits*.
> >
> > Tellin' it like it is
> > GS
> > -
> 
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