Michael Moore Stirs It Up At UNR

Michael Moore is scheduled to appear at the University of Nevada at Reno on October 13. His visit has stirred up controversy (You don't say?) amongst top business people. These guys are pretty blatant about wanting to stop him from appearing. Read the whole article at The Reno News and Review, Reno's alternative weekly.

An overweight, unshaven man in a baseball cap seems to be frightening some of the city's leading business people.

Reno businessmen Rob Winkel (Barker Coleman real estate), Len Savage (Savage and Sons plumbing supply), Rick Reviglio (Western Nevada Supply), John Madole (Associated General Contractors), and Larry Sankovich (Sankovich and Simkin accountants) spoke at a Sept. 23 Associated Students of the University of Nevada senate meeting, referring to "the likes of Michael Moore" (Sankovich) and the "naïve and misled" students (Madole) and later even offered money to the young officials to alter the event (Reviglio).

Trust me, these people are used to getting their own way. Big fish in a small pond.

Champagne said that whatever prospect of success the alumni and businesspeople had of convincing the students to cancel the event was probably eliminated by the tone they used.

"And so they came in to oppose the event, and the Senate didn't respond too well because basically they came in with an 'angry parent'-type attitude and really kind of talked down to the senators."

Kudos to those students for holdin' their mud.

Later, Reviglio told the students he went over their heads to university administrators to try to get the Moore visit cancelled and was rebuffed. That step deepened the feeling among students that the businesspeople felt they were dealing with children instead of adults.

Nevada legislative lobbyist Greg Ferraro says that when he was a student at UNR, there was an effort to cancel an appearance by Rolling Stone writer Hunter S. Thompson, but it failed. And then, Ferraro says, Thompson was so drunk that he barely completed his speech.

That quote was just for fun. I LIKE Hunter S. Thompson, drunk or sober, like that could happen!

Read our previous post about Moore's scheduled appearance in September at CSU