Saturday, June 10, 2023

Harvard This Ain't

With the boats back in the water and lessons posted for a new season, the darker side of Hoofer Sailing Club rears its ugly head again too. Misbehavior is present year-round, but it peaks in the summer months.

With the return of summer comes the return of crooks and con-artists who ensconse themselves in various Hoofer positions and operate with near impunity. Former Hoofer advisor Jim R., former commodore Lukas D, instructors like Georges Daniel S., and many others have broken the law while employed at HSC. We're not talking about violations of club rules--those happen all the time. We're talking about actual crimes and civil rights violations, not to mention other abuses, racism, etc.

Of course it's possible to violate club rules and the law at the same time, e.g. former commodore Peter Grimmer drinking beer on a J-boat in violation of club rules (and the law if he was under 21 at the time). Here is a funny article from a few years back that quoted him talking up the club.

"Sailing is often a rich, white person sport," Grimmer said. "It's almost like a fraternity or sorority."

Ha! Petey wasn't so dumb after all. (Note: If you can't see the whole article, just view the page source in your browser.)

Grimmer also boasted that "past Hoofer Sailing Club members have won Olympic gold medals, coached Olympic sailing teams and entered the Collegiate Sailing Hall of Fame at the US Naval Academy." What he didn't mention was that HSC employees have also committed crimes, everything from theft to slander to false police reports to sexual abuse to various white collar crimes (see the rest of this blog).

That's in addition to gross criminal negligence that led to the gruesome deaths of Hoofer sailors in 2015 and again in 2017.

The article also quoted former instructor Daniel Sutton as saying, "There is no race, culture or age demarcation at all (in HSC)." Alas, King Georgio never was very perceptive. There is, unfortunately, a big grey area for state employees, which all Hoofer employees are.

For example, is it a crime to grab a girl's butt in a crowd when she's not looking? Not if you ask LukasD. It's only a crime if you don't work for the state. What real harm was done anyway? She probably enjoyed it, even if she yelled "sexual assault!" right? Was it a crime for King George to make a false police report about someone he viewed as a competitor for the same woman he was interested in? Never mind that he was married and she was less than half his age, and taking lessons from him too. That's a dirty tactic well-known in some frats.

Was it a crime if he put his hand on a female student's shoulder as he stepped down into the cockpit, and let it "accidentally" slip down onto her chest..? Nothing you could likely prove. Is it a crime to relieve Hoofers of an outboard motor in the middle of the night? You bet. In Wisconsin, property is worth more than people.

With all that in mind, we've added a new button to the menu at right. Click on it to report any misbehavior you observe by HSC staff or other Wisconsin Union employees. It might seem alarmist, but Hoofer employees get away with far too many criminal acts. Slander in particular is widespread and difficult to catch. We are considering posting excerpts from some of the internal Wisconsin Union and other documents that we've obtained but will hold off on that for now.

And why not Harvard..? Because that's a private school and their employees have to follow the law. The UW, on the other hand, is a big state school and its employees seemingly can do whatever they f@cking please.