Objections to Bush library mount at Texas university

[meegbear]

As planners moved closer on deciding where in Texas to site President George W. Bush's library, members of the community at one candidate university expressed objections about the establishment of the facility at their school.

Southern Methodist University, along with the University of Dallas and Baylor University, is one of the three schools that may play host to the presidential library of George W. Bush. The blog of Paul Burka, the senior executive editor of the magazine Texas Monthly included excerpts of a letter written by "Faculty, Administrators, & Staff" of the Perkins School of Theology at SMU to the school's president worrying about siting the library at the university. In it, they say they would:

...regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends.

An article following up on the story in the journal Inside Higher Education by Scott Jaschik notes that SMU is considered the frontrunner of the three schools hoping to host the library. It also reports that the organizers of the letter and the critics of the library have been trying to make the debate on the library focus on academic standards instead of Bush bashing. They quote Susanne Johnson, an associate professor of Christian education, who said she "would understand the value of an archive of the Bush administration, and sees how many SMU scholars would benefit from having such a collection on campus. But she said that the campus has been left “uninformed and naive” about President Bush’s plans to create a policy center to promote his view of the world."

<snip>

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Objections_to_Bush_library_mount_at_1218.html

[LynneSin]

1. Can you blame the men who'd have to give up a bathroom stall to host the site

:shrug:

[BOSSHOG]

5. Went to an arts and crafts show

in New Orleans Saturday and one local artist had several pieces dedicated to trashing republicans. One had the devil sitting on a toilet giving birth to "another republican." Very appropriate.

[datavg]

22. But If You're From...

...certain areas in the South, that IS what you believe.

Moreover, there are probably more people who agree with them than agree with you.

This is why the issue of Electoral power in southern states has to eventually be dealt with by the Democratic party.

If it isn't, it will spell the end of the Democratic party. Either that, or the party will split along the lines of Blue Dogs and Progressives. Progressives will either form their own party or join the Greens, and what's left will make up the new party.

[Imagevision]

48. SMU “Faculty, Administrators, Staff” We Don't Want Bush's Library At Our School

Surprised the msm didn't find this a newsworthy event!

[TAPat]

2. Good for them. nt

[BOSSHOG]

3. It does seem strange

that any institution dedicated to learning, education, critical thinking and the advancement of mankind would want to have anything to do with george dubya bush. One might call it bizarre, as in belonging on bizarro world. His "legacy" belongs in a museum dedicated to hitler, idi amin, pol pot and others of similar stature.

[datavg]

24. Once Again...

...you don't understand Dallas and you don't understand SMU.

Southern Methodist University is basically a finishing school for rich kids, or really smart and hard working ultra-conservative kids on scholarship. Liberal arts suck but their business and law schools are excellent by southern standards. Kids go there with the right car and the right clothes and a wallet full of money to meet the right people. A lot of heavy duty, corporate networking goes on there...and their business grads make deadly bucks. Skilling (Enron) went there. I think half of Dallas' corporate elite are connected to SMU in some way.

If your daughter has great grades, is pretty and is very ambitious...fill out the loan papers, buy her the nicest car you can afford and send her there. She'll meet the right guy and he'll take care of her. That's the Dallas way.

That's precisely the road Jenna Bush is on. Ten years from now, Barbara Bush will be driving foreign policy. Jenna will be driving some dude's Suburban full of their kids.

I think half of Bush's staff went there including Harriet Miers. He hired them not because they are smart but because they will do whatever the fuck they are told to do...at pain of intense peer pressure from others in their social circle, which is probably made up of people they work with, which is probably the same people they go to church with, which is probably the same people they socialize with, which is probably the same people that live in their neighborhood. Bush and Cheney are both in this group. Harriet Miers is in this group. Condi Rice is in this group. She has to be, or she wouldn't be there. It wouldn't be allowed.

Get the picture?

[BOSSHOG]

30. Oh, now I get it

So the original poster must have made up the story about how some faculty members are opposed to the possible library; because according to you almost everybody at that school is just dying to have it shine mightily in the middle of Mustang Nation or oppose it at their own risk. Thanks, now I understand.

[datavg]

32. I'm Telling You...

...that I lived there for a number of years and I know how the place runs.

Most of their alumni are heavy hitter corporate or inherited money types and THEY WANT IT.

They'll build it.

Dallas has this reputation for being full of backward, idiotic, provincial, stupid rich people. Most of that is true but they ARE rich and they ARE powerful and if they want the damn thing they'll get it.

Keep in mind that Ravi Batra has tenure there. They tolerate him and he's a liberal but they don't let him run anything important. That's their philosophy.

If they don't build it, I'll be amazed. Stunned, even.

[BOSSHOG]

34. Your fourth paragraph

is right on the money. I went to U of Arkansas and was exposed to the silly lil rich boys and girls of SMU (and other SWC conference schools including Arkansas) during football season. Primmed and proper; smug, rich and lacking any discernible skills. You are most likely correct. But it is sad that an "institute of higher education" would want anything to do with him.

[datavg]

39. Oh...

...I still remember those preppy guys with their hair combed across the front and their blue blazers and smug little smiles. They need a two-by-four across the face.

We see a little of that here with the Pasadena and Beverly Hills crowd but the pretentiousness isn't there.

I was a state school kid, from Ohio. The wife and I were the first kids in our families to go to college. She was a college prof that never happened (couldn't afford a Ph.D. program) and I was a lawyer that never happened (couldn't afford law school) so we both went to Dallas with fresh degrees (hers was a Masters) and got trained at SMU for Unix and Oracle. That's how I know the place so well. My wife even taught there for two years!

[The Wizard]

41. Maybe the State Prison

where Shrubbush had all those prisoners executed would be a fitting location.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Who wants to honor an AWOL frat boy failure?

I don't want a dime of my tax money to go toward it, that's for sure.

Feed the hungry, let the AWOL frat boy escape to Paraguay since he has digraced himself and our formerly honorable nation.

[datavg]

25. Uh...

...people just like him?

The answer is Texas' corporate elite. They could buy and sell us at the drop of a hat. A cowboy hat.

[liberal N proud]

6. He could always put it in the out house on the pig farm in Crawford

It will only need to house 3 books

My Pet Goat and 2 coloring books

[Jim Lane]

52. There's at least one other book they'll need....

A copy of the Bankruptcy Code, just in case he decides to return to running an oil company after he leaves the White House.

[KansDem]

55. One more...the Sears & Roebuck catalog...

...for toilet paper.


Welcome to the George W. Bush Presidential Library! Please wipe your feet..

[Larry Ogg]

7. This is a no brainier; the best place to put his library is on the highway to hell.

Seeing as how, that’s ware all these warmongering evangelicals’ republicans and neo-cons are headed. They will be the only one visiting it. Oh but there could be some by passers that need to use the outhouse or use it as an outhouse.

[mnhtnbb]

12. And that would be--on the road from airport to Baghdad?

[ClintonTyree]

20. I was thinikng about a new wing added to the present library....

in Leavenworth Federal Prison. The George W. Bush wing in the ONLY place his "library" belongs. A library named after George Bush is like a Neurosurgery Hospital named after Dr. Seuss.

[WatchWhatISay]

29. How about the "Highway to Hell" in Iraq?

Thats the nickname for the road that runs from Baghdad to the airport.

[Pugee]

8. The comments after the article are pretty good, too. nt

[NV Whino]

9. Is any other presidential library

housed at or on a university campus? If he must have one, put the damned thing on his pig farm.

[datavg]

15. I Think...

...the Bush 41 library is at Texas A&M, in College Station. I've seen pictures of it.

[Contrary1]

10. Bwahahahahaha

Conan O’Brien:

“President Bush is putting together his presidential library and apparently the library is going to cost $500 million, which will work out to $100 million a book."

[saberjet22]

60. amendment to the bush library proposal

Clearly a library reflecting the readings of Geo. W. Bush is unnecessary as well as ludicrous. What will provide a welcome a needed relief to those demented enough to visit the site would be "The George W. Bush National Barbecue and Men's and Women's Lavatories." The food would, of course, be government-subsidized.

[mnhtnbb]

11. What a coup! Snag the library of the worst pResident in US History

[IndianaGreen]

16. Scholars would flock from all over the world to learn,,,

how not to repeat the same mistakes.

[datavg]

17. You Don't Understand!

Those people don't care what you or I or anyone else (especially anyone who posts here) thinks.

Dallas is a place that was so isolated for so long, and then became so wealthy so quickly (in 1938, when they found oil...(and yes, it's only been that long) that common sense many times goes out the window.

Then, in 1958, a guy named Jack Kilby invented something called the integrated circuit at Texas Instruments (in a building that still stands, at the corner of I-635 and US 75) and that resulted in much of the oil and gas and real estate money that was already in Dallas being invested in technology...which gave them Telecom Corridor (Nortel, Ericsson, Nokia) and all kinds of defense-related industry (Collins Radio which I think became Rockwell, E-Systems which became Raytheon, others), which gave them the money to build massive infrastructure on lots of cheap land without a state income tax...

They're just really hard to compete against, especially for the Rust Belt states. Ohio has been losing population to Dallas and Houston for years. I was one of those people.

I've had a theory that eventually a Democratic Congress and President would somehow force both Texas and Florida to put in a modern tax system, to stop Sunbelt corporations from skimming the demographic cream of the Rust Belt and recruiting all these bright young kids from northern colleges, leaving states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York literally unable to support themselves in the long term. I'd be interested in hearing what people think about that idea.

[imouttahere]

62. 20 years from now, no, even as little as 10 years from now....

as the effects of oil scarcity grip this nation, places like Dallas and Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, too, because their economies are built largely upon sustaining suburban sprawl, will be among the worst places to live. Especially the suburbs themselves. The suburban way of life is not sustainable beyond the first 20-25 years of this century.

[BikeWriter]

13. Hee hee hee! Good, the bastid son is a pariah.

[datavg]

19. Oh Please...

In your dreams. You don't understand Dallas, and that's because you've never lived there. I have.

Dallas is groupthink personified. The people who are the pariahs are the ones who object to the library.

We're talking about a culture that is so narrow and stiff and so insular, and the people behind it so wealthy and powerful...and Texas is so isolated that this shit actually works.

Why do you think Bush and his people are so belligerent? To them, this is normal.

If ten people stand in a circle and say that a dog is a horse, that doesn't make a dog into a horse...except in Texas and especially in Dallas. It's a very tight, thick, insular, immature, high school culture. I think this could be said of many southern states but it's especially bad in Dallas because it's so wealthy and so big and so isolated that those turds down there just seem to get away with this, year after year.

My wife and I say that high school football is such a big deal there because that's all the education most people have and for many people high school is their only social frame of reference. We lived in one of the better areas (Collin county) but it just got to the point where I didn't want to deal with it anymore. We found jobs out of state and moved.

[BikeWriter]

35. I was born and raised near Houston. It's hard to believe...

The folks in Dallas are that stupid. :shrug:

[datavg]

36. We Always...

...heard Dallas and Houston were diametrically opposed cultures. Dallas is pretentious and white collar. Houston is more blue collar (because of the oil, gas and chemical businesses) and is far more down to Earth. I'll bet the restaurants are better there, too.

As for universities, Houston has some good ones. They say University of Houston is a good school, and I had an excellent Poli Sci prof in college who was a Rice grad. Rice can be pricey but I understand it's worth it.

I don't want to offend, but the best university in Texas IS Texas. Sorry to say but it's true. Law, business, medicine, liberal arts...all are good there and it's SO hard to get in.

Even Texas Christian is a good choice. It also has a reputation as a rich kid's school for Fort Worth's elite but Bob Schieffer went there years ago and he's certainly no silver spoon kid. I think he'd be offended for anyone to think that way about him.

[BikeWriter]

42. One of my kids went to U of H for a Psych. Degree, he saw ...

the error of his ways and he's a journeyman plumber now.

[Catherine Vincent]

50. "Dallas is pretentious and white collar. Houston is more blue collar ..."

I always heard the only difference between Dallas and Houston was that Dallas was more hick than Houston. :)

[ninkasi]

54. You are right about Dallas

I'm a fifth generation Texan, born in Houston. My mother was born in Dallas, and her parents were born in Austin. Some of my mom's cousins stayed in Dallas, and it's absolutely true about the difference in the cultures of Houston and Dallas. None of my family is rich, but the attitudes of the citizens of the two cities are completely different.

Houston has a lot of rich people, too, and I'm sure they can be every bit as obnoxious as Dallas rich people, but the city of Houston is a lot less uptight. If I could live in any city in the state, it would be Austin, though.

[Paladin]

43. Thanks For Leaving

I guess it just wouldn't be a Texas-related thread on DU without at least one post of snide insults against the entire state. "High school culture"? I bet you're proud of that one, aren't you?

Hope you're enjoying the non-Texas nirvana where you are, now.

Regards,

Paladin
(One of 2.8 Million Dumbass Texans
Who Were Somehow Smart Enough To
Vote For John Kerry in 2004)

[Ishoutandscream2]

56. No kidding. A thread that shows positive light on Dallas and Texas

And it doesn't take long for the bashers to come in and exhibit their obsessive hatred. It's amazing, isn't it?

By the way, born in Dallas in 1961, lived in the metroplex area all my life, and I make no apologies about it. Assholes can be found ANYWHERE!

[derby378]

59. What in the wide, wide world of sports are you talking about?

I've lived in the Dallas area all my life. We have our share of wackos and idiots, sure, but to castigate an entire city over the actions of a handful of yahoos? That ain't gonna fly with me, Hoss.

If you've found a place to call home, I'm happy for you. Just take your Texas-bashing somewhere else.

[datavg]

14. I Can't Stand The Sum-Bitch...

...but I suspect they're gonna build that library at Southern Methodist University.

I lived in Plano for almost a decade, still have friends in Dallas and attended classes at SMU for almost a year, when I changed careers from sales to technical. Believe me...I know where ALL the good steakhouses, barbeque joints and boot shops are. It also has some of the best shopping (literally) on Earth. That's no lie.

There's a bakery in Preston Hollow called Stein's that is incredible. To this day, I'm not allowed to go in there without a guard.

I know the town fairly well and I'm gonna tell you right now, Bush has a lot of support there. They don't really give a shit what the gay community (or anyone else) thinks, and if you spout off your politics to the wrong person, you could get killed. I lived there. I know.

This is a group of people who are so wealthy and so powerful they can pretty well get anything done to anyone, anywhere. Highland Park (where SMU is located, extremely wealthy enclave in Dallas) is essentially a country club that's incorporated. Bush and Cheney both lived there. Ross Perot still lives nearby, on Royal Lane. Bob Crandall (former CEO of American Airlines) lives there. The Bush girls both went to Hockaday. Tommy Lee Jones and Boz Scaggs both went to St. Mark's, which is also very close and is in the same social circle as those I listed above.

He's their guy and they'll build it. In Dallas. Trust me.

This a state where if someone comes on to your property, you tell them to leave and they don't...you can shoot them! And it's legal!

It's also been known for husbands to come home early, catch their wives in bed with another man, shoot them both and many juries will refuse to indict.

I learned a lot about technology there but we left for several reasons. This was one of them.

[mnhtnbb]

18. They can take their money-grubbin', ignorant, bigoted asses

and just have a great time gushin' over themselves. Who gives a fuck?
That is one library I'll never enter. And the only time I'm ever in Dallas is when I'm forced to layover by American Airlines.

[datavg]

21. Well...

...and you know, they will.

And they do...year after year. I was there. I've seen it.

Problem is, they're starting to suck up a lot of the professional population and employment from around the nation.

Austin is building hundreds of miles of toll roads right now. Dallas and Houston have been building so many schools, churches, malls and freeways that it was creating a shortage of concrete and timber in that part of the country.

Clearly, these people know something we don't and that's the problem. They're literally bleeding the blue states dry and I don't think anyone's going to be able to stop it. It's been going on for too long.

In all fairness, Dallas has some GREAT shopping. My wife worked part time selling clothes at Dillards one Christmas, at a place called Willow Bend Mall that was so upscale most people have never seen anything like it. It's off the Tollway in the new part of Plano, and they have shops in there I've never heard of. I've got some foot problems and have to spend a good buck on my shoes, and they had an Allen-Edmonds company store...of which there are only about ten in the nation. It got to where the manager actually knew me by name.

Did you know that DFW Airport is larger than the island of Manhattan? They have their own police force, their own fire protection, their own zip code and a toll road! They just finished a multi-BILLION dollar international air terminal, complete with a high speed elevated monorail developed on land which they already had plenty of.

I looked at AirNav and they have FOUR 13000+ ft runways there:

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KDFW

I sound as though I miss it, and in a way I do. It was much cheaper to live there, it wasn't as congested as California and I miss the food but I DON'T miss the idiocy of the people who run that place. We had good neighbors and lived in an area that was mostly made up of relocated Yankees, but when we left that place...it was war. As soon as we opened our mouths and people heard that we didn't slur our Rs or drop our Gs...we became the enemy. After almost a decade of that, we had had enough.

[mnhtnbb]

23. You couldn't PAY ME to live in Dallas. I am happy as a clam

in the Berkeley of the South, Chapel Hill, NC. And I'm a NYC native, raised in northern Jersey, lived in So.Calif for 23 years before
regretting the moves to MO and NE for 12 years in the interest of raising kids. Going on 7 years in Chapel Hill and I love it.

[datavg]

26. Yeah...

...Chapel Hill is a damn nice place. I like Cary, too. Of course, Cary is just like Plano!

I live in Valencia, which is basically Orange County North these days. Housing and living costs are starting to get out of line, and foreclosures are through the roof. Methinks the real estate market is getting ready to adjust.

Come to think of it, NC isn't cheap anymore.

[Buck Laser]

27. I am an alumnus of SMU, and I have written the development department

...to tell them that I would no longer donate to SMU if they consented to be the site of the Bush Library. I went there on scholarship, and wasn't a part of the fraternity scene. But on the few occasions I've visited the campus since my last graduation in 1963, I've watched it turn into a haven for Bush wannabes. The campus is pretty much a paean to wretched excess now, with its precious architecturally matching buildings and manicured lawns. And the seminary where I learned to be a civil rights activist is now a haven for comfortable near-fundamentalists.

[datavg]

28. Yes...

...and this is precisely what I saw when I was there in 1996.

Neither Dallas nor SMU are the same place they were then. I think you know that.

You graduated from SMU in 1963? That's before I was born and I was 41 two weeks ago.

Did you know they're building McMansions as far away as Prosper and commuting to downtown Dallas?

We lived in Plano and that was far enough.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. How do the Alumni feel about it?

[datavg]

33. Most Of Their Alumni...

...are lawyers or business grads, and I'm sure they're gonna want it built.

SMU is a great place for the sons of idiots whose father or grandfather struck oil in the 1930s to meet the right people to grow (or sell) the family business.

One of the other posters here said the seminary used to have an excellent reputation but today is a haven for fundamentalists with funny looking haircuts and even stranger ideologies.

[drone]

37. 500 miles

I would drive an extra 500 miles to go around it.l I have no desire to see anything in Texas. Dallas/Ft.Worth airport is bad enough

[datavg]

38. Yes...

...and you almost have to do that to avoid it.

The drive from Dallas to Albuquerque is about twelve hours, and eight hours of that is from Dallas to Amarillo on two lane roads. US 287 has improved a lot but it's still narrow and dangerous in the smaller towns.

I-40/US 66 has been mostly reconstructed but it's still very desolate and probably dangerous at night. The nature of the road itself changes at the New Mexico state line...can't tell ya why.

[hyphenate]

40. I say, make it really simple

One of those house-like storage units should be about perfect, and they can erect it just about anywhere. After all, it's only going to house a handful of books, including My Pet Goat, and any of the books (if they haven't already been destroyed) remaindered by Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and other extreme right-wingers.

[durtee librul]

45. Why not use

one of those shipping crates that we have an excess of from China for his library (or as he would say, lyberry)? We have a lot of those thanks to him and we could even as Vincente Fox if we could have permission to build a fence around it using of course, illegals to build it all for him. I am sure that LA would love to get rid of one or two of those big steel crates...and it would be a fitting MONUMENT to his stupidity.

[badgerpup]

51. Use one of the FEMA trailers...

One of the ones that sat in the mud for months and weren't delivered to those who needed them...or maybe one of the ones from the FEMA prison 'gated community' with all the fencing and barbed wire that nobody is allowed to photograph because of 'security measures'.:eyes:
That would be appropriate, methinks.:sarcasm:...but not very much.

[talk hard]

63. FEMA trailer

good idea - poetic justice

[Gregorian]

47. Welcome to the Bush Bookmobile!

The trailertrash of libraries. On wheels! Featuring such favorites as How to Use a Comb When There's No Water. With foreward by Wolfowitz.

I really need to fire up Photoshop for this.






I knew there'd be some good ideas in this thread. Life has been way too serious lately.

[KamaAina]

57. Bush Bookmobile? That'd be a Yugo, right?

:rofl:

[AtomicKitten]

44. wouldn't it be cosmic retribution for someone to

create a counter-library for Junior? Unfortunately I don't believe Democrats are that petty.

http://www.counterclintonlibrary.com/ccl_contents/tour/page2.shtml

[PADemD]

46. Where can I donate to the counter-library?

[buddysmellgood]

49. Actually, if they take it, they could spend the next few decades repeating all

that they state in the article. Sort of a study in ineptitude.

[TexasProgresive]

53. If he wants it housed at a University the best site is--

The Bob Jones University.

[KamaAina]

58. I always figured it'd end up at Wossamotta U.

[opihimoimoi]

61. More like at an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL....The Pet Goat Level

And...this assumes he graduates/finishes his term....

Bullies don't need Libraries...they don't read....