Not everyone enjoyed it, since it was more a campaign speech than a commencement address.
At the time, two things puzzled me about the speech, why the UW had picked Dicks, who is not a scholar, and why he hadn't bothered to prepare (or buy) a real commencement speech.
We may have an answer to both questions in this list of Norm Dicks' defense earmarks. Norm Dicks has "contributed", though not from his own funds, $5.5 million dollars to the UW in just one year. (And possibly more through non-defense earmarks.) When a man is that generous — though not with his own money — one can understand why the UW might want to honor him, and why Congressman Dicks might think he did not have to come up with an actual commencement speech.
Not all earmarks are pork, but many are, and nearly all are suspicious. If they are good uses for our tax money, we would expect that a congressman, especially one as senior as Norm Dicks, would be able to convince a majority of the Appropriations Committee to fund them directly, instead of using the back door of earmarks.)
(Thanks to NW Republican for pointing me to this data.
And, in turn, I will give a tip to our local journalists: As I mentioned in this post, Roll Call, a very respected publication, found that Dicks' earmarks tended to go to those who contributed to his campaigns. I still plan to dig into that interesting relationship, but I would be delighted if one of you beat me to this story.
But perhaps you would prefer to be scooped — again — by Sound Politics.)
Posted by Jim Miller at September 26, 2007 06:01 AM | Email ThisCan you spell Boeing?? Osprey???
And do you suppose that Mississippi gets so many defense dollars because it is located in a not bed of technology?
And we subsidize corn for ethanol because??? I am utterly shocked.
Posted by: SeattleJew on September 26, 2007 07:52 AMWhere Norm is best known (and revered) is through his funding of the defense infrastructure. Kitsap's Navy bases, in particular, are rapidly showing their age and are a critical element in the defense of the west coast. Many (if not most) of the buildings, drydocks and machinery at these facilities are well past their prime and in need of replacement or repair. Congressman Dicks, in the absence of U.S. Senators who give a damn, uses his position and political savvy to fund critical projects. I doubt Murray and Cantwell could find any Washington's military bases if they were standing at their respective front gates.
Norm's politics, outside of national defense, are far to the left of mine, but he (unlike most his Washington-based House and Senate colleagues) performs a much-needed function in D.C.
Posted by: Saltherring on September 26, 2007 08:14 AMDo you really want to say "Can you spell..."
and are you located in a "not bed of technology."
Touche'
Yip Yip
Posted by: Coyote on September 26, 2007 11:14 AMI think you need to take your irony detector in for major overhaul. "Not bed of technology" was a clever play on "hotbed", though I'm not at all familiar with the MS area so I can't really agree or disagree with the content of SeattleJew's putdown of it.
I wasn't surprised at all tha Dicks was selected to speak. He is a hands down outstanding UW alum and perhaps the best and hardest working Congressman in the nation.
You can argue with his politics. You can't argue with record and reputation and work ethic.
I'll take Norm Dicks any day. But I sure hope the UW is getting more earmarks than are being reported here.
Posted by: redflag on September 26, 2007 04:43 PMYou are absolutely correct. This issue is not spelling, exactly, but typing. I never learned to type properly.
2. Norm Dicks and McDermitt
There is a real example of an issue that should go beyond Right vs. Left. From what I can see Jim McDermott, and for that matter our State delegation in general are not very effective when it comes to issues that matter to the UW.
I met with McGavick early in his campaign and urged him to meet with the faculty and make the relationship of the UW to our congressional delegation a campaign issue. Few Washingtonians are aware of either the huge prominence of the UW in national research or the huge role the UW has in our state's business activities. Previously, it seemed to me, that Sens Jackson and Magnuson were far more prominent in issues that are important to the UW.
While some of this may be pork, as I understand it, not all pork is unkosher (pun). More importantly, there are many national issues that have a huge effect on this campus. And, I would suggest, most of these issues are neither right nor left:
a. Biotech. patent rights. The public poorly understands that a vast amount of the profit made by Pharma is built on the basic research done by Federal funds. In theory the laws allow the University to pursue patents, but the costs of doing so are prohibitive. Moreover, patent law is tricky stuff. Much of what we do creates new concepts that leads to patents that companies can own but is not patentable itself.
Especially irritating to me as an American is watching foreign companies buy uo American comopanies that had been buitl of tax payer funded research.
There is a major need for reform,
b. Publication. I find it highly disturbing that for-profit-journals place copyrights on the research we have all funded aa taxpayers! There is, in my community, an effort to end this practice but this is going slowly for the obvious reason that many of the most prestigious and profitable journals want to kee their profits. Again, the tax payer paid for this and it should be free to all!
c. Regulation. The costs to research of excessive federal regulation are immense. I have seen estimate that the costs of HIPAA (patient privacy act) alone runs in the billions and I can tell you that a massive part of what has happened is of no benefit whatsoever to patient privacy.
The same issue is true of animal rights. Contrary to a lot of propaganda most of us highly value the rights of our animals because these issues usually mean better experiments. However, the regulations we all face now are so onerous that a lot of research can not be done.
d. Training. This has become a frightening issue. In many cases today American labs are staffed to large part by foreign esp. Chinese trainees. A major reason for this is that so few American kids are choosing science as a career. There are many issues here that reflect on our education system but a major one is that funding for training and especially of early carear development is hard to get and the time required to get the needed education is onerous. There are many young American physicians whose debts for education are so high that they can not afford to choose a research career.
There can be no question that we are subsidizing the future industries of the whole world.
e. Resources. You have all read of the human genome and similar wonderful achievements of federal research. What bothers me is that a lot of the benefit , the fruit that should come from this, ends up in companies where it becomes proprietary because the public sector lacks the funding to make top quality resources generally available.
f. Indirect Costs This is a very hard issue. As a rule industry estimates that every dollar spent on research requires one dollar spent on support. The contracts with the government for Universities provide far less than this.
Anyhow, I have focussed on the area I know best. I am sure that some here will see all of this as "bad" because it relates to how fed. money is spent. That is fair enough. The issue here is that the UW, like Bangor, Coulee Damn, and even the National Parks is a nationwide issue that effects OUR state in particular. Isn't is reasonable to expect our Congress people to pay a lot more attention?
g. Politicization of the NIH. The NIH ia lot like the Balkans ,, gerrymandered into institutes based on political clout. A large part of our research dollar goes not to where a good scientific planner might take the finds and effort, but to focus on diseases because of the political clout nof one or the other problem, but the efficacy of a lobby effort.
Anyhow ...
I hope this will serve as meat for a less partisan discussion for the the roles of our res.
Posted by: SeattleJew on September 27, 2007 01:24 AM