Husky and Cougar football: Your government at work
Posted by Scott "The Piper" St. Clair - November 02, 2008
Watch college football this weekend, did ya? Nah – caught the Huskies and Cougars instead.
Smash-mouth banner headline on the sports page of Sunday’s Seattle Times: 114 to 0. That’s the combined scores of USC and Stanford against the UW and WSU. Uff da - where were the anti-genocide activists to protest against such mass slaughter?
It was like the old story of Farmer Jones whose entire property was devastated by a tornado. House, barn, outbuildings, equipment – everything – destroyed, smashed to smithereens, turned into splinters.
Yet, Farmer Jones sits on a stump laughing. When asked why, his response is to throw up his hands and say, “It’s the utter completeness of it all!”
So it is with football in Washington.
Pondering the imponderable, this question roiled: since sports are a metaphor for life, what lesson is to be learned from Saturday’s gridiron grossness?
The answer hit me like a bolt from the blue: It’s a manifestation of Washington State government.
Consider: both UW and WSU are state-financed, state-run schools; the football programs at each are but two state agencies in action (inaction?) – USC and Stanford, on the other hand, are private institutions.
There’s a cosmic message here that’s both comforting and grotesquely frightening. It’s comforting because it proves there is order in the universe – Saturday’s scores validate the premise that most of what government touches or runs eventually gets horribly screwed up.
Witness the state’s Department of Transportation, including Washington State Ferries. Consider also the looming $3.2 billion dollar budget shortfall, a fiscal equivalent of the butt kicking endured by both Washington schools only this time politicians, state workers and their unions, and other special interests will be the kickers while taxpayers will be the kickees.
Take your pick among state or local government agencies: Port of Seattle? Sound Transit? Child Protective Services? Secretary of State’s election division? Others? Use the comments section to out your favorite state or local cesspool.
It’s grotesquely frightening since you can’t pick up the paper, watch TV news, or surf the Net without finding news of a governmental scandal de jour. Of course, that news is accompanied by the rationalizations de jour: “These are complex problems; there are no easy solutions. Initiatives screw up our ability to spend your money better than you can spend it. You don’t understand – we’re protecting your values. State workers are so needy, and you have so much. It’s for the children.”
The stuck-record nature of it will go on, on, on, on, on – SLAP! – until someone, somewhere does something about it.
I’m reminded of a scene from my all-time favorite movie, Becket, which tells the story of St. Thomas a Becket and his feud with England’s King Henry II:
Brother John: I don't mind if I am just a grain of sand in a machine. Because I know by putting more and more grains of sand in a machine, one day it'll come grinding to a stop.
Thomas a Becket: And on that day - what then?
Brother John: Well, we'll have a fine, new, well-oiled machine in the place of the old one. And this time we'll put the Normans into it instead. That's what justice means, doesn't it?
Rough perhaps, and idealistic, but Brother John, a monk from the lowly peasant class, equivalent to today’s beleaguered taxpayers, knew that even if his efforts alone couldn’t bring oppression to a halt, they were a step in the right direction. The Normans, equivalent to today’s big-government, big-spending, big-bluster, big-baloney bunch, would be stopped through the concerted effort of individual grains of citizen sand from the vox populi beach.
The Huskies are sending failed coach Tyrone Willingham packing, which is a good start toward reforming the state agency that is Washington football. Would that we could do the same that easily for the heads of other state or local governmental agencies that post similar results.
We vote Tuesday – or at least those of us who still cling to going to the polls will vote – and for elected Willingham equivalents on both sides of the aisle, we can toss a few grains of sand into the status quo machine.
Lest anyone become discouraged after the votes are counted, recounted, re-recounted, then miscounted, take heart from another Saturday football outcome: Texas Tech 39 – Texas 33. Number One Texas got knocked off on the very last second of regulation time with a successful near-Hail Mary pass.
Irrespective of election results, the cosmic struggle continues – it ain’t over till it’s over.
The Piper
Add Comment -
UW Alum said on Nov 02 2008 at 12:16pm
Unlike most every other athletic department the UW self finances. They don't take money from the state. Fans, alumni and boosters support athletics at the UW.
Piper Scott said on Nov 02 2008 at 1:08pm
UW Alum,
Coach Tyrone Willingham is listed in the UW Faculty/Staff/Student directory - http://www.washington.edu/home/peopledir/ - as a member of the University of Washington faculty/staff, ergo he is an employee of the State of Washington.
Res ipsa loquitur.
The Piper
UW Alum said on Nov 02 2008 at 2:16pm
I didn't say he wasn't a state employee. Just that the athletic dept self funds. It has some degree of autonomy. It's much more likely to turn itself around before WSF or DOT.
Piper Scott said on Nov 02 2008 at 2:42pm
UW Alum,
On that score, then, we can find common ground. That athletics pays its own way, 100% from the farebox, it should turn itself around.
The only around for DOT/WSF and other state agencies, however, seems to be in circles as we subsidize the same old, same old.
Too bad Don James never ran for governor.
The Piper
Honest State Employee said on Nov 02 2008 at 7:01pm
"...only this time politicians, state workers and their unions, and other special interests will be the kickers while taxpayers will be the kickees."
Although it SEEMS that all state employees are worthless, slovenly goombas, there are some of us that are AGAINST unions and what they stand for. Some of us do work hard, and put in an honest day's work and are worth the taxpayers money. As a Republican working at a state institution, I know first hand how difficult it can be to stomach the in-efficiency, and political correct liberal BS that is so prevalent. It's hard to see employees that have been there 30-40 years, and should never have been hired in the first place, and then get protected by a union that blatantly lies to get employees to sign signature cards (as just happened in my unit). The whole system needs to be purged, to get the leaching, mooching scum out, and let honest people - people that would be an efficient use of taxpayer money - in. Dino Rossi still has my vote, although he lumps me in with all the other bottom feeding, union loving jerks in his ads. I forgive him...
km said on Nov 02 2008 at 9:42pm
Piper:
My word; where to begin. OK, on a positive note, one has to give credit to anyone who knows how to use "uff da".
The rest of the analogy is random fabrications. First of all, USC is a government school; only Stanford is a private school. So, that analogy is arbitrary at best.
As for the rest of the analogy, one could just as easily posit the end of the earth.
Piper Scott said on Nov 02 2008 at 10:09pm
KM,
From the USC Web site:
"Located in Los Angeles, a global center for arts, technology and international trade, the University of Southern California is one of the world’s leading private research universities."
http://www.usc.edu/about/ataglance/
As for the rest of the analogy, while one could just as easily posit the end of the earth, I'm more concerned with positing the end of our liberties that will come about as the result of increasingly intrusive, expensive, and ineffective government.
Like ports, any analogy in a storm...
BTW...might as well toss the quasi-governmental Seahawks into the mix since Qwest Field was a taxpayer bailout to to private entertainment enterprise. They were almost as bad today.
The Piper
