Well, apparently this is a weekly blog -- or so it seems. Many important things have been happening, though.. One of my personal heroes, Tony Adams, has decided to retire. A loss for the Gunners, but a good plan for our favourite donkey. In perhaps more important news, I've been informed by yet another History department that there's a budget crunch on. Could this perhaps have something to do with Washington state's own permanently offensive Tim Eyman? In a way, I suspect. Eyman is one of those people who gets voters to believe he's helping them, while he's secretly helping them take one in the shorts. For those of you who don't live in Washington, you should know we don't pay income tax here. We just get nickeled and dimed to death with sales taxes, use taxes, etc. Eyman and his group (from which he embezzeled thousands of dollars) are interesting, because they claim to be 'for the little guys' and "a grass-roots movement." If you ask me, they're downright Un-American. You see, when I grew up, back when schools had funding, we learned about representative democracy. The theory was, you elected legislators who would represent the interests of your community. If your elected representative didn't represent you, you voted the bastard out! Eyman and co. believe that we should run everything via initiative. Basically, this means that people who don't have the time to really look into issues vote their wallets -- and then bitch about the reduced services they're getting from government. Eyman himself doesn't want the responsibility of being in office -- oh -- and his "grass-roots" group? They hire people to collect signatures. Not really very grass roots.
What does this have to do with history departments? Well, Washingtonians are an interesting group. They regularly vote to lower taxes and increase spending. The government will of course "reduce waste" and everything will come out even. The sad fact is that the Washington state community colleges charge (no joke!) about $700 PER QUARTER for in-state tuition. These are community colleges, folks, not universities. You remember, places where people can afford tuition? When budget crunches hit, they hit schools. That's how it is. This is at a time when enrollments are up and rising every year. Now you know why I'd rather just read the football news.