Got my Sunday paper and my Mystic Monk coffee

First of all, peeps, the Sunday paper made me crazy today. People running around yapping about how Obama wants to take us all over like Big Brother and the gubmint just stomps on our liberties and controls our lives in minute detail... Then these same people, I bet you anything, I mean, practically I would bet my own soul if it were worth betting, that the staff, including the principal at Laramie Junior High School, who say a boy can't wear a wristband saying "I heart boobies" to support breast cancer awareness because the word "boobies" could offend someone... I bet these very same freaked out control freaks who are squandering an opportunity to do what the wristband is intended to do: bring up awareness and discussion of a pretty important and grave topic- are those same complainers about how the gubmint steps all over their rights.

And then these ranchers up in the Meeteetse area who want to keep a bunch of monks and their monastery out... ostensibly concerned about water, wildlife and traffic... I bet they bitch about the gubmint wanting to control them, too. Just like they want to control a few guys who keep to themselves for the most part. WTF, people? Come on, these guys roast coffee. And truly, do they look all that bad to you?

Then, to make the reading of the Sunday paper just about as unrelaxing as it can possibly get: The USA Weekend magazine or whatever it's called that arrives inside the local paper features an article about how brave Jon Stewart is for broadcasting the "fake" news. Argh?

These are strange times indeed. And really screwed up.

Told Ya

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious. -Samuel Butler

That is a sweet little mantra, right there. I was thinking, just yesterday afternoon, that sometimes it's just as productive to sit and daydream as it is to try to get something else done.

Just to let you all know, if you don't already, Buchanan defended his decision to can Bill Ayers from speaking on the UWYo campus last spring again yesterday, claiming safety as top priority. (Even though afterward he said the guy could come talk on Prexy's if he wanted to, right out in the open without police backup or anything.) ack.

He also said he will not institute a speaker policy on campus, and he is fully backed by the Board of Trustees. Hellz, that's great; keeps things wide open for him to deny someone again in the future, without a piece of paper for dissenters to point to him having signed saying he won't do that kind of thing.

Whatever. Politicians are politicians. Not that there aren't some cool ones out there, like Anthony Pollina and, right here in Wyoming, Chris Rothfuss. And others, too, but I don't have the time or inclination to go looking them up this morning. I mean, the FFM is right, even though he hates the peoples, in general, politicians get into that business for the power and money, not to serve in some civic capacity. God help us all. Oh, shite, sorry about that. I shouldn't talk about God in the context of American government. badbadbad

UWYo President Tom Buchanan to Eat Crow- NOT likely!

Peeps, I heard him on the radio this morning, recorded at the little panel discussion on freedom of expression in academia at the Hilton Garden yesterday (that's the upscale locale to make events look fancier than if they were just held in the Union Ballroom or something on campus.) Now, if you know me, if you know the fiasco that occurred when Bucky shut down the Geological Museum, if you have read this blog in the past or Keep Laramie Dinos or any of Meg Lanker's stuff about that or the Bill Ayer's fiasco that occurred last spring, you know that:

1) Our University President is just another businessman in a college suit (as are so many any more), who talks crap, and

2) I think he is full of shite and have confronted him personally on his heinous acts and have received nothing but his red face staring down at the table in reply (which, frankly, is almost satisfactory.)

So, he was saying, in this excerpt I heard on the radio this morning, that he will speak to the university community this coming Thursday about "lessons learned" from the Bill Ayers shenanigans. And do I believe he will own up to his irresponsible behavior? HELLZ no!

Then, to put the icing on the cake, Meg just posted on a favored social media site, a "Perspective" Buckster the Huckster (I like it; may keep it) wrote for the Casper Star Tribune just over a year ago, during the firestorm of protest over naming the Cheney International Center the Cheney International Center, called "Tolerance, Diversity Cut Many Ways."

(Aside, I find it more than a little disturbing that when I enter that building to visit a health professional here on campus, I am faced with a giant portrait of Dick and Lynn... Really, "Dick Cheney," and "health," whether his own, or that of say, US soldiers, Iraqi civilians, etc., just do not belong together, people.)

Anyway, in this "perspective," Bucky said the following:

"I have no quarrel with people expressing their views to UW. But good universities operate on principle, and the principle here is that tolerance and diversity cut many ways. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant, gay or straight, white or black, you are welcome at the University of Wyoming. Should we subject potential donors and the purpose of their gift to public referendum? I think not.

"If we do, we lose sight of the fact that our role is to teach, not to indoctrinate. Good universities cannot distance themselves from all that is controversial. To do so would require rejecting mortgage brokers, bankers, pharmaceutical firms, sports figures, fast food chains, political leaders, historical figures, energy companies, uncommon religious groups, and Middle Eastern countries to name just a few."

Hahahahahahaha.

I am sorry, but you did not welcome Mr. Ayers to campus, did you? DID YOU?

As the Cloud Lurker would say, and has more than once when either Tommy Boy or Dick is mentioned, ew.