Andrew Knox

Final Humorous Speech

Note—This Outline is TOO WRITTEN OUT—IT NEEDS TO BE SERIOUSLY PARED DOWN TO REDUCE LOOKING AT THE NOTES.

Intro

A couple weeks ago we listened to a speech on the Basque secession; it got me thinking . . . Now I know what you’re thinking, and NO, I wasn’t thinking about arming the Basque separatist forces, nor teaching them how to hunt. Although, the idea of privatizing their healthcare industry did cross my mind. Nah, what I was thinking about was that the reason for their movement was a cultural divide between the Basque region and the rest of Spain. And well, we have that same divide here in Washington between the east and west sides of the state . . .

Wheat Fields

One of the biggest divides is between the environmentalists on the west side, and the people, well, who live in nature, on the east side. I feel that this divide is especially apparent on the Whitman campus. How many of you guys went to the wheat fields with your section as freshmen? Was it everything you’d ever hoped for in a wheat field? Did you frolic? Was it grand? What you don’t know is that Farmer John was sitting on his porch after a long day’s work in those fields and he’s sitting there, grumbling to himself, “Goddanm kids, they’re trampling my crop. Don’t people have any respect for private property” He may think, for a split second about getting up to go kick you guys off, but then he thinks, “Its just wheat, who gives a shit about wheat, I’ve got a thousand acres of wheat” I hate to break it to you guys, but there is nothing special about wheat. Its everywhere, its boring.

Vegetarians

It’s a very rare occurrence that you run across a vegetarian on the east side of the mountains. Most people over here just accept that a big juicy steak is what we humans like to call “food”. I did run across a little girl once and was quite appalled to hear her say that she was a vegetarian. I asked what her rationale was for not eating meat; fully expecting to hear a heart wrenching reference to Bambi; and fully prepared to tell her a fictional horror story about where Tofu comes from. She told me she was a vegetarian not because she likes animals, but because she HATES plants.

Lichens

It isn’t very often you hear people eating specific things in order to eradicate them. Sara, you have no need to worry, I’m sure she had nothing against lichens. As you pointed out, they aren’t plants, but rather a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. I don’t see how anyone could dislike lichens; personally, I LOVE LICHENS! Did you know that they’re the first organisms to inhabit a land after glacial recession? Did you know that they can be used as a perfume? Did you some people actually eat lichens? “Whoaaaa, slow down there Andrew, you’re starting to look like Eli. Remember, a good balance between content and delivery.” (Talking to myself)

CAUA

But back to eating things to eradicate them. There’s a Facebook group I found that would be quite interested to hear of this movement. Its called the Coalition Against Useless Animals and points out how some animals, such as the Panda Bears, Dugongs, and Sloths should be left to their demise. The group claims: “In the true spirit of America, this organization turns a blind eye to the interactions between organisms in an ecosystem. Animals that look useless, are, and must be smothered off the face of this planet.” Take that PETA! Muahahahahaha, Ooooh, now doesn’t that just boil your blood?

Beer VS Coffee

This whole thing kinda reminds me of the t-shirt that shows a nice frosty beer on the front of it and says, “The liver is evil, it must be punished!” You know the one, the kind always worn by Betas and disgruntled Phis. Right now Johnny over there is just caught between saying “Hell yah!” and attacking me by saying “Whatchu think you know about beer?”

Well, Johnny, as a response to the later hypothetical question; I happen to know all about beer. I LOVE crisp, refreshing, AMERICAN beers. We on the East side know how to support American business and put an end to outsourcing. We do that by spending all of our hard earned dollars on the finer things in life, such as Busch Tall Boyz, Forties of Steel Reserve, Milwaukee’s Best; and even, if we’re feeling romantic, we may splurge on wine: It’s called CARLO ROSSI and its beautiful thing.

How does the west side’s beverage of choice, organic, shade grown, fair trade coffee, help American business? It doesn’t! Its anti-American! By sending those dollars abroad they are strangling our nation. Our firefighters, the brave souls that they are, are unequiped because people like Josiah here advocate coffee drinking instead of boozing, Shame on you!

Religion

Being of a more conservative nature, the east side of the mountains has a higher religious following and its practice is more accepted as the norm. For instance: Back in middle school, we had a transfer student from the West side and she had quite the surprise when we started to pray at the beginning of class one day. She rose up and claimed that there shouldn’t be organized prayer in a public school and that her parents had taught her she would never have to pray if she didn’t want to. The teacher replied by saying, “We don’t do this every day, only on days which we really need it.” The girl persisted, wondering what made this day different from all the others. One kid whispered, under his breath so as to not draw attention to her ignorance, “today is math test day.” To this day I wondered why that little girl had never felt the need to pray before a big test. I finally understood last year . . . when I took my first soc. class.

Potty Humor

Even customs are different across the Cascade Mountains. Once upon a time I went to the distant land of Western Washington. I was in a bar bathroom using the urinal when a bearded man wearing tie-dye and smelling of pot pulled up to the urinal next to me (So, basically, resembling christoph . . . never smoked the reefer before, yah , right). He was in quite the mood to chit chat. Don’t you just hate it when people play co-pilot, especially when you don’t know them? Anyway he didn’t have much to talk about so he brought up the fact that his urinal was much shorter, one of the little kid ones, and wondered why it was here in a bar, where there shouldn’t be any minors. To answer his question I leaned over and looked down and said, “That’s why.” I finished up and headed for the door. He exclaimed loudly, “Where I come from we wash our hands after we use the restroom!” I replied quickly, “Where I come from we don’t pee on our hands . . . .”

Political

I would like to shine some light on the political differences between the sides of our state. The Eastern half is heavily Republican and the Western half, namely King County, is strongly Democrat.

Someone once told me an interesting anecdote with regards to the difference between Democrats and Republicans. They said that if someone was drowning 50 feet out a Republican would throw out a 25 foot rope and say “swim half way, its good for your character” and a Democrat would throw out all 50 feet of rope and promptly leave to go do more good deeds. Well I thought about this long and hard and decided that I wouldn’t have done either of those. I mean seriously, who seriously tells a drowning person that it’s good for their character. He’s probably sitting out there saying “You’ve got to be F-ing Kidding me, I was hoping for David Hasselhoff and I get this schmuk! And on the other hand you’ve got this other guy who is so absorbed helping everyone else that he never follows through with his original commitment. Who, I ask, besides politicians, could be so bull headed?

Conclusion

Whoa, does this mean that I’m not a true bred conservative? Last time I checked I was a card-carrying member of the NRA. I still like my tax cuts. It took someone to tell me that everyone is conservative to some degree and liberal to some degree. So I thought about it real long and hard and eventually concluded he might be right, I’m part liberal and part conservative, maybe it could work for the state. Maybe the divide isn’t as great as I’ve made it out to be. I mean, when it comes to crime I’m conservative, but prostitution, on the other hand, hell, I’m liberal!”