Naming Things

Posted on June 8, 2003 in Citizenship

While hiking in General Thomas F. Riley Wilderness today, a thought occurred to me: just who the hell was General Thomas F. Riley? A search of the Net revealed this site. From this and from my conversations at the park, I have to conclude that Riley got the Wagon Wheel Wilderness named after him mostly because of political pork-barrel.

There’s been a clamor — particularly by conservatives — to commemorate the obscure of their ranks as well as the not yet dead such as Ronald Reagan. This follows in the wake of a few spots being named after JFK, a fact that rankled many who had raised champagne glasses when they heard of his assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald and who now wield influence with our present administration. (You know: the one we’re not supposed to criticize or impugn because it’s unAmerican to do so?)

The naming of this park for an Orange County politician shows the degree to which the true achievers of the American environmentalist movement have been supplanted by politicians who have literally bought the names on the parks. Despite records of anti-environmentalism, men like Riley (a friend of those who despoiled the Orange County Coast) and former Governor George Deukmejian (the redwood chopper’s best friend) have been honored by rabid Republican shock troops eager to put a gloss over their dismal open space preservation record.

Let us not forget how quickly the Republican controlled Congress was to rename Washington’s National Airport “Ronald Reagan Airport” and how fat UC Regents conferred the names of the still-living Nancy and Ronald Reagan Altzheimer’s Research Institute at the University of California, an institution that he is responsible for ruining.

I propose a constitutional amendment — to both the state and federal constitutions — that would prevent the memorialization of any individual in the name of any government property for a period of fifty years following their death. Let history decide whether they deserve the praise, not big donors who buy park and school names like they buy trademarks.