Althouse: "Recording booth will capture memories of Sterling Hall bombing."

August 23, 2010

"Recording booth will capture memories of Sterling Hall bombing."

"The booth will be located in the Memorial Library, 728 State St., from Monday, Aug. 23-Sunday, Aug. 29, and is open to the public. Representatives of both the UW-Madison Oral History Program and Wisconsin Story Project will be on hand to assist community members with sharing and recording their stories."

37 comments:

a psychiatrist who learned from veterans said...: The 'things are spinning out of control' low point of the 'revolution.' Sill an unsolved crime?; 8/23/10, 10:15 PM
AC245 said...: Odd. The linked "news" story glosses over what the bombing involved, who perpetrated it, and why.

So I checked the wikipedia summary:

The Sterling Hall Bombing that occurred on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on August 24, 1970 was committed by four young people as a protest against the University's research connections with the US military during the Vietnam War. It resulted in the death of a university physics researcher and injuries to three others.
...
Sterling Hall is a centrally located building on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. The bomb, set off at 3:42AM on August 24, 1970, was intended to destroy the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC) housed on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors of the building. It caused massive destruction to other parts of the building and nearby buildings as well. It resulted in the death of the researcher Robert Fassnacht, injured three others and caused significant destruction to the physics department and its equipment. [1][2] [3] Neither Fassnacht nor the physics department itself were involved with or employed by the Army Mathematics Research Center. The bombers used a stolen Ford Econoline van filled with close to 2,000 pounds of ANFO (i.e., ammonium nitrate and fuel oil).[4] Pieces of the van were found on top of an eight-story building three blocks away and 26 nearby buildings were also damaged; however, the targeted AMRC was scarcely damaged.[5] Total damage to University of Wisconsin–Madison property was over $2.1 million as a result of the bombing.[6]
...
The bombers were Karleton Armstrong, Dwight Armstrong, David Fine, and Leo Burt. They called themselves the "New Year's Gang", a name which was derived from a previous exploit from New Year's Eve 1969. Dwight and Karl, with Karl's girfriend Lynn Schultz driving the getaway car, stole a small plane from Morey Field in Middleton. Dwight and Karl dropped homemade explosives on the Badger Army Ammunition Plant, but the explosives failed to detonate. They successfully landed the plane at another airport and escaped. Before the Sterling Hall bombing, Karl committed several other acts of terrorism, including arson attacks on ROTC installation at the Red Gym and one meant for the state Selective Service headquarters which instead hit the UW Primate Research Center. Karl also attempted to plant explosives at the Prairie du Sac electric substation which supplied power to the ammunition plant, but was frightened off by the night watchman.[3]

Oh.

I think I see why they glossed over those details.; 8/23/10, 10:16 PM
KCFleming said...: How very strange. Moreso that the article mentioned nothing about, nor linked to any articles that fleshed out, who killed the man or why.

Still, I am glad he is not forgotten. Better the evil that killed him were named, but at least the curious might wonder WHy....? and seek out the truth.; 8/23/10, 10:17 PM
traditionalguy said...: It would not be that surprising if an old fat guy shows up and records a confession that he helped do this deadly bombing to punish Wisconsin for participating in the USA.; 8/23/10, 11:06 PM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/23/10, 11:06 PM
JAL said...: "The movement against the Vietnam War reveals the double standard of government...It was a remarkably nonviolent movement. There was one instance, so rare that it must be noted, where antiwar protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, planted a bomb in a military research building, timed to go off in the middle of the night, when no one would be in the building. But one man was working there, and he was killed." - pg. 143 of Declarations of Independence, by Howard Zinn

From the wikipedi article.

"It was a remarkably nonviolent movement."

Oh hi Mr. Duranty! Have you met Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn? Or Marilyn Buck? Kathy Boudin?

In the 1960s and 1970s, Boudin became heavily involved with the Weather Underground. The Weathermen bombed the Pentagon, the US Capitol, the New York Police Benevolent Association, the New York Board of Corrections, as well as the offices of multinational companies. Boudin, along with Cathy Wilkerson, was a survivor of the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion, the premature detonation of a nail bomb that had been intended for a soldiers' dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.[2] Boudin was 27 at the time. Both women were awaiting trial, out on bond for their alleged actions in Days of Rage in Chicago several months earlier. Wilkerson had been released on a $20,000 bond and Boudin was out on a $40,000 bond.

I wonder if Karleton Armstrong will take time from his deli and stop by the recording booth to share his memories so the Fassnacht kids can appreciate why dad didn't come home to take them on vacation. Or say good-bye. Or write letters they could read for the next 45 years.; 8/23/10, 11:12 PM
Anonymous said...: My buddy Kev (fresh off two deployments to the war) will stop by to record a warning that left wing butthead jackwagons better never try no shite like that again. WTF is wrong with these people? It was a terrorist act that killed an innocent human being, and one of the dirty scum who did it still sells freakin' smoothies on campus.

Cordially,

Uncle J; 8/23/10, 11:32 PM
Anonymous said...: I have confidence that recorded memories will be sanitized to emphasize the proper viewpoint before inclusion in the "documentary theater project."

The university press release is poorly worded. Casual readers are given the mistaken impression that Fassnacht was working in the Army Math Research Center at the time.; 8/23/10, 11:56 PM
Emil Blatz said...: I got your Sterling Hall memory right here:

I was a 7th grader elsewhere in Wisconsin when this happened, and I recall coming to Madison for a football game that fall and looking at the damage. Later I attended UW Madison as an undergrad starting in the fall of 1975. Sometime in the Spring of 1976 David Fine had been arrested for his role in the bombing and I opened my dormitory room door one evening to be greeted by some students who were working for the Daily Cardinal and who were going door-to-door to raise money for the David Fine Defense Fund. I let them have it. It was typical of the Madison environment that a mere 5 ½ years after the bombing – it was the normal expectation that you would contribute to the defense fund of one of the bombers.

Years later while a graduate student at UW I was pleased to read that the State Bar of Oregon had refused admission to David Fine – who had served a ridiculously short sentence, completed an undergraduate degree, graduated law school and passed the Oregon Bar Examination. Thank god they didn't let him in. I read the decision a few months ago and it seems surprising – but they focused more on the apparent contradiction in his explanation of events (an inconsistent and perhaps untruthful application), rather that the essential evil of what he had done. I think this is that moral turpitude thing that some folks find so elusive. No matter, just as long as he is never admitted to practice law in any jurisdiction in the US. And I hope Leo Burt has already been run over by a bus.; 8/24/10, 12:07 AM
rhhardin said...: I'd recommend Indian talk ("many moons..").; 8/24/10, 4:21 AM
Bob_R said...: I was one of the last postdocs at the MRC (formerly the AMRC). We were out in the WARF building in the mid '80's. It was mostly a center for research in partial differential equations. Basically pure mathematics with no direct military applications - if you don't count all the applications to fundamental physics. DOD funds lots of basic science research and the center in Madison was one of the best places in the country for PDE research.

So the Sterling Hall bombing is a good example of how brain dead and ineffectual the antiwar movement could be - not just how mindlessly violent.; 8/24/10, 5:45 AM
pst314 said...: "Peace Movement" the author says? They weren't for peace, they were for the other side. The Progressive will never cease to fall in love with totalitarian monsters.; 8/24/10, 5:48 AM
AllenS said...: The people who did this stuff could have cared less about human life. Not now, not then.; 8/24/10, 6:05 AM
lemondog said...: re: Non-violent, Guerilla War in the United States, 1965-1970; 8/24/10, 6:06 AM
KCFleming said...: "Recording booth will capture memories of Sterling Hall bombing."

Robert Fassnacht was unavailable for comment.; 8/24/10, 6:43 AM
KCFleming said...: "Recording booth will capture memories of Sterling Hall bombing."

Will one of those memories in the Wisconsin Storybooth be a recording of a really big BOOM?

Will one of those memories be the sound of a man breathing his last?

Did I mention that I really really hate these therapeutic performance art pieces?; 8/24/10, 7:11 AM
Opus One Media said...: Michigan State had a "Math Research" center as well. After Kent State and our student unrest it had armed guards 24/7 on patrol and the walkways to it had checkpoints.; 8/24/10, 7:15 AM
Opus One Media said...: pst314 said...
"Peace Movement" - The Progressive will never cease to fall in love with totalitarian monsters."

I think many thought that the totalitarian monster of the time was in Washington running the government and lying their heads off to the public...that was part of the point..obviously the part you may have missed.; 8/24/10, 7:18 AM
Michael said...: HD House: "I think many thought that the totalitarian monster of the time was in Washington running the government and lying their heads off to the public...that was part of the point..obviously the part you may have missed."

No, I think that is the point, HD. The members of the "movement" were as clueless about the world then as "progressives" are today. Then they thought the US was the source of the world's problems and ignored the devastation and death in the communist world. Not only ignored it but praised the leadership responsible for it.

You have it quite right. No difference then from now. A completely stupid movement led by fools. Progressive.; 8/24/10, 7:25 AM
KCFleming said...: "many thought that the totalitarian monster of the time was in Washington running the government"

Well they were wrong. Again.

Here's a clue: whatever the left supports, it's opposite is usually the more humane, successful, just, and civilized solution.; 8/24/10, 7:25 AM
KCFleming said...: Tom Wolfe wrote about people like HDHouse in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.; 8/24/10, 7:27 AM
Paddy O said...: Will there be a table or section that celebrates the anti-war movement?; 8/24/10, 7:42 AM
Opus One Media said...: @Michael and Pogo (now there is truly a pairing)

Naw. I don't think that we missed much of anything back then and history pretty much has come down on our side of things.

Everything in your view seems to be an on/off switch. I'm rather surprised that after 40 years you would still fall for the Viet Nam/communist dodge or in a more direct way, you would tolerate the nonsense that flowed from the Johnson/Nixon years.

It is certainly true that there were any number of radicals who were just in it for the sport - but they were pretty easily seen for what they were just as there were boundless good hearts in government service, the ranks of which were subverted by power mad politicos who had contempt for both the American people and the constitution for which they supposedly stood.

I'm sorry your world is so black and white that you can just put post-it notes saying good or bad up on every situation.; 8/24/10, 7:58 AM
lemondog said...: I think many thought that the totalitarian monster of the time was in Washington running the government

More was going on than a grudge against the lying totalitarian Washington monster. Attacks on police at local levels were a clear attempt to foment a societal breakdown.

This add'i info is from a popup screen on the Guerilla War in the United States, 1965-1970 map link posted above:

Additional Information
This map, derived from the suppressed issue of Scanlan Monthly's January 1971 census of domestic guerilla actions, is not exhaustive. Our selections are intended to convey the scope of action resisting the invasion of Indochina that is largely written out of the popular history of "hippies" with peace signs.
We also included a small number of attacks against the system, but no map of this scale could do justice to the intensity of attacks on police as well as, surprisingly enough, attacks on grade schools, largely by adolescents.

Couldn't properly copy stat matrix but bottom line from '65-'70 screen shows:

Attacks on Police: 423

Grade Schools: 192

Attacks on Military: 101; 8/24/10, 7:59 AM
Cedarford said...: Is Sterling Hall "Hallowed Ground"?

Or, were too few killed an injured to sanctify it as such?

Hamburg or Nagasaki, where 80,000 died in a single night, aren't. But a McDonalds here with 23 victims was supposed to have been made Holy by the blood shed. Victim advocates in CT demanded that ANOTHER workplace massacre (a lottery officials HQ) be relocated as the murder site was supposedly a monument to victims.
The WTC, obviously...
The roadside monument to where a druken Manolo Ibarra and 3 fellow drunk illegal aliens smacked into a tree is hallowed to two women of the men and their 5 anchor babies, and one of the reasons they are appealing deporation in California. They would lose shrine visit ability..

What is the threshold and circumstances that lead to "hallowification"?; 8/24/10, 8:02 AM
KCFleming said...: "...the Viet Nam/communist dodge ..."

The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were ardent commuists, hdhouse.

So, 'dodge' means what exactly?; 8/24/10, 8:15 AM
KCFleming said...: "What is the threshold and circumstances that lead to "hallowification"?"

A useful rule so far is that when it pisses Cedarford off, it's hallowed ground.; 8/24/10, 8:16 AM
Cedarford said...: I also note that fans of "tolerance! beautiful tolerance!" can draw inspiration from the Sterling Hall bombing and apply it to the Cordoba Mosque.

Karleton Armstrong, the bomb builder and ringleader, was caught, convicted, spent 7 years in jail - then opened a food cart called "loose juice" at Library Mall on Madison Campus. 4 blocks from his bomb site.

Liberals showing true tolerance! Unlike the Imam who had nothing to do with 9/11, Karleton was an actual terrorist.
How much nobler and human is the Left!!!
I imagine a terrorist on campus selling bean sprout sandwiches did not escape notice altogether..or when he was joined by his convicted brother to start up a restaurant in Madison called "The Radical Rye".
I imagine all the standard Leftist talking points came out that they practice regularly save when demonizing their opponents as not to be accorded tolerance because the to-be-demonized have impure motives rooted in racism, classism, bigotry, and phobias.

All Saul Alinsky is, for his recent fame, is just another radical jew echoing the 1st masters of this double game, the Jewish Bolsheviks.

But for the terror brothers, I'm sure the message when theSterling Hall bomber-brothers came back to set up shop that was sent was: "Dissent is patriotic, the US and the Vietnam War is to blame, not the brothers." "Nixon is really at fault." "What about all the innocent N Vietnamese killed??" "We show our moral superiority and Love of Constitutional free speech and free expression by welcoming and above all TOLERATING the covicted bombers back on campus!!"; 8/24/10, 8:36 AM
Michael said...: HD House: Tens of millions of people were killed under communist regimes. You could care less. Thousands were killed in 9-11. You could care less. Cambodia after the fall of Vietnam was the scene of untold deaths.. you could care less.
Go back to your memories of triumphing over "the man," go back to the days of your struggle with the imperialists in Washington, fucking, D.C. oh brave one, oh knight jousting with the dark forces.; 8/24/10, 8:52 AM
Scott said...: Harold hasn't had his morning poop yet. He's a little grumpy.; 8/24/10, 11:40 AM
Opus One Media said...: hi Michael...

how's the view with your intellectual (ooops) head up your ass?

dark huh?; 8/24/10, 5:59 PM
Opus One Media said...: Pogo said...
"The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were ardent commuists, hdhouse."

ahhh yeah but we were talking about Viet Nam..remember? ooops...short term memory falls like shit from pigeons with pogo.; 8/24/10, 6:00 PM
Opus One Media said...: Scott said...
Harold hasn't had his morning poop yet."

CONTRARE...how'd it taste this time idiot?; 8/24/10, 6:01 PM
Opus One Media said...: you pieces of shit on the right got NOTHIN'!!! NOTHIN'

how lame can my opposition be? soooo easy...laughable.; 8/24/10, 6:02 PM
Michael said...: HD House: In addition to the straw man rhetorical fallacy there is another called ad hominem. Don't use it. You are an educated man with a love of music which I would recommend you turn to to stave off the pain and anger of contemplating the looming end. Childish writing is not helpful to your health. Or sobriety.; 8/24/10, 6:04 PM
pst314 said...: "Ho ho Ho Chi Minh! The NLF is gonna win!"

I guess you've forgotten about that, HD.; 8/24/10, 6:17 PM
JAL said...: @HD I don't think that we missed much of anything back then and history pretty much has come down on our side of things.

Tad arrogant there, HD.

I'm sorry your world is so black and white that you can just put post-it notes saying good or bad up on every situation.

Ha ha. Look who always posts EXACTLY the same stuff.

And yes, I was in college back then ....; 8/25/10, 8:41 PM