News

A 40-year-old Toledo man was transported to a hospital following a three-vehicle crash on southbound Interstate 5 near the Toutle River Rest Area in Cowlitz County early Thursday morning. 

A red 2002 Honda Accord driven by 22-year-old Sorenson M. Walker, of Toledo, reportedly struck the back of a green 2000 Jeep Cheroke driven by the 40-year-old while both vehicles were traveling southbound on I-5, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The Jeep came to rest in two of the southbound lanes while the Jeep lost control, rolled over the center median and came to rest in two of the northbound lanes, where it was struck by a northbound semi-truck.

The driver of the semi and the driver of the Honda were not injured.

Speed was the cause of the crash, according to the Washington State Patrol, which responded to the crash just after 4:10 a.m. on May 16.

What happens when you walk a route that you’ve driven for decades? You see your world in a new and better way. 

I recently set out on such a trek, strolling from Stan Hedwall Park in Chehalis to W.F. West High School. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve never walked this short route before. (In fact, maybe I did back in high school, but I don’t remember it.) 

Smartphone maps say it’s about 1.3 miles each way. From the time I left the picnic shelter at the park until the time I touched the post outside the gym entrance to the high school was 19 minutes and 30 seconds. The sun was bright and the weather was perfect. 

I highly recommend such a walk. If you have an hour or so free, just step out in any direction. You won’t know until you take that first step what all you’ll notice. I guarantee it’ll be a whole different experience than driving. 

I got a kick out of a large pine tree along my route with a sign labeled “free” on it — presumably referring to items placed on an empty table nearby. I’d rather think of the tree itself being up for grabs, like U-pick strawberries. Just bring your own shovel, and make it a big one. 

A slightly harrowing part of the trip was crossing the freeway at the 13th Street overpass. While there are sidewalks, at least technically, it would be inaccurate to call them generously wide. In fact, they’re more like catwalks. As cars and trucks rumble by on one side, the freeway traffic zooms below you. It’s not a place where one wants to linger. 

Someday, if and when that vintage 1950s-style overpass is replaced, I look forward to wide modern sidewalks. The route from the city to the park and out Rice Road is gorgeous and I think would be well-traveled if good sidewalks were available. For now, it’s a constriction that, I think, presents a barrier to Chehalis and its glorious nearby countryside. If you’re not convinced, get out and take a catwalk across it.

Productive students

The mid-point of my back-and-forth journey was the W.F. West Home and Garden Show. Students were showing off a wide variety of products they had made and grown. I picked up some T-shirts with creative designs that were thought up, laid out and screen printed by students. I bought some gorgeous flower starts grown by students in the school’s greenhouses. There were adirondack chairs made by the wood shop. Kids were selling jewelry. And so much more. 

It was really inspiring to see how so many teenagers in our public schools are learning practical skills. No matter what trade they end up pursuing, their practice in growing or building something for sale or use by the people of their community will be a huge benefit for them. 

While the sunshine of my walk was beautiful, seeing the bright light of these students building a brighter future for themselves was even more heartwarming.

Music and art

Speaking of creation with collaboration in mind, I enjoyed a great partnership this week at my son’s middle school jazz band concert in Chehalis. I have to offer kudos to the Chehalis Middle School art teacher, J. Travis Williams, for having his students create music-themed artwork to advertise and accompany the concert. As the middle and high school bands played, artwork from the middle school students rotated on display above them. 

The art took many forms, from abstract colors to curling keyboards to animals playing instruments. My favorite was the lamb in the top hat and bow tie playing a saxophone. 

Helping students in art or any other class see that they have an opportunity to create something cool as part of a bigger endeavor is a big part of what education, at its best, can do. The best answer to the perennial question students have of “why are we learning this?” is a project showing them how their education has a real-life purpose. 

I look forward to even more practical projects from our students as we teach them to see the potential in themselves to serve others through what they are learning. 

If you step out on a great walk this week, Brian Mittge would like to hear about it. Contact him at brianmittge@hotmail.com.

During the first half of May, administrators at the University of Washington patiently negotiated with pro-Hamas protesters about voluntarily dismantling their illegal encampment at the center of the Seattle campus.

Despite more than a week of engaging, the encampment remained. Then the situation escalated.

On May 12, the student newspaper reported, pro-Hamas protesters grabbed Israeli flags from pro-Israel demonstrators, then ripped or burned them. Three days later, antisemitic graffiti appeared on many major buildings on the main campus.

While the UW protesters were still establishing their so-called “liberation zone” and issuing their demands to university administrators, appeasers at The Evergreen State College’s (TESC) Olympia campus were already capitulating to that school’s protesters.

The concessions TESC made include a vow to quickly create an “Investment Policy Disappearing Task Force” to address “divestment from companies that profit from gross human rights violations and/or the occupation of Palestinian Territories.”

Somehow, the “Evergreen Gaza Solidarity Encampment” even managed to negotiate about oversight of the campus police. Unbelievably, TESC administrators agreed.

Now a protest and encampment has sprung up at Western Washington University in Bellingham, with its own list of demands.

Compare these situations to how the University of Florida is dealing with pro-Hamas protestors.

Florida president Ben Sasse put it clearly: “We will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly — but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended.”

That is decisive leadership. It provides guardrails to students so they know what will and will not be allowed.

The First Amendment means you won’t be jailed for standing in the public square and airing your grievances against the government. It does not protect lawless behavior.

There is nothing new about unrest on college campuses. UW’s own website proclaims the university’s “rich history of… radical activism.” But that doesn't justify the costly damage to the central campus.

On May 10 the UW administration had properly declared its “response to students’ call for change will not be based on an encampment.”

According to UW President Cauce, protesters admitted the graffiti attack several days later was meant to up the ante – an “intentional escalation.”

Destructive actions deserve meaningful consequences.

Let's remember what those of college age who have lived in our state for the past several years have likely learned about consequences.

They’ve seen how Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson and others stood by during the civil unrest of 2020. Want to occupy a park and burn a police precinct? Sure, we'll stay out of the way.

These young people watched as sidewalks and other parks and public property in many Washington communities were taken over by drug havens masquerading as encampments – again without action from the state’s chief executive and Washington's top-ranking law-enforcement officer.

The fact that pro-Hamas protesters are concealing their identities suggests they fear their reprehensible “from the river to the sea” rhetoric could bring unwelcome consequences in the real world.

Let me be clear. That jihadist Hamas rhetoric calls for the elimination of the state of Israel – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It is antisemitic. Full stop. Unless protesters want to be remembered as ideological allies of the Nazis they should cease and denounce this hateful chant.

Still, it's no wonder they feel entitled to occupy public property, harass onlookers and spray paint news-media cameras. They have no respect for authority.

Over the years I have introduced legislation to protect free speech on our state’s higher-education campuses. The most recent examples are SB 6103 and SB 6104, from this year.

The latter bill would require Washington’s colleges and universities to commit to promoting and protecting a “completely free and open discussion of ideas that maintains a climate of mutual respect.”

All of these bills were ignored by the current legislative majority. But now that we see the intolerance and aggression of the pro-Hamas crowd — I won’t call them students because not all of them are — maybe the next set of legislators will actually consider the idea.

The most effective protest I've seen as a legislator happened in January 2019, when hundreds of hairstylists and barbers converged on the state Capitol building to vocally oppose a labor bill that would have threatened their businesses.

No one camped, no one wore masks, no one broke anything. And it worked. The bill didn't pass.

“We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas,” says the University of Florida president. Absolutely right.

He goes on to explain that universities need to differentiate between speech and violence, and draw a hard line at unlawful action, because appeasing mobs emboldens agitators elsewhere.

They also must say what they mean and then do what they say. Don't make threats then fail to follow through.

Back in 1970, according to the UW’s website, university administrators became tired of the activists and unrest to the point that the president authorized faculty members to invoke the state’s trespassing law to deal with disrupters.

As of this writing, UW President Cauce had not followed a similar path – but she should be willing to, if that’s what it takes to end an illegal encampment.

The Washington Administrative Code includes the Student Conduct Code for the University of Washington.

Under the “prohibited conduct” section you'll find WAC 478-121-123, titled “discriminatory harassment.” It absolutely applies to what we have seen on the UW main campus.

If people want to protest for or against a war, fine. They have that freedom, which Republican legislators have all sworn an oath to protect.

But when protests become vandalism and harassment, it's no longer fine. The guilty parties should expect consequences.

Minds are changed by reason, not force, Ben Sasse writes. The UW protesters don't seem to get that, perhaps because they are being manipulated by others with an anti-Jewish and anti-American agenda.

There's too much lawless behavior in our communities already. Let's keep it off of our college campuses.

This is a time for decisive leadership. Speech must be protected, but illegal encampments on Washington’s university campuses must go.

•••

Sen. John Braun of Centralia serves the 20th Legislative District, which spans parts of four counties from Yelm to Vancouver. He became Senate Republican leader in 2020.

NEW YORK — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has died. He was 92.

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