Help Rename Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium

Good for California's Governator!

After the extreme left and Europeans became angry that Gov. Schwarzenegger acceded to the courts and California's death penalty and after his home town officials began the process to strip his name from the sports stadium honoring him, the governor said in essence, "Let me help you" --and, it doesn't sound as if he'll "be back."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday told officials in his hometown in Austria to remove his name from a sports stadium and stop using his identity to promote the city. The governor's request came after politicians in Graz began a petition drive to rename the stadium, reacting to Schwarzenegger's decision last week to deny clemency to condemned inmate Stanley Tookie Williams.

In the letter, Schwarzenegger also said he would no longer permit the use of his name "to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way" and would return the city's "ring of honor." The ring was given to him in a ceremony in Graz in 1999. At the time, Schwarzenegger said he considered it "a token of sincere friendship between my hometown and me." "Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail," the governor wrote.

Reactions over this issue from Europe and the governor's home town included these comments:

From one German magazine came this:

Williams was executed on Monday night after spending 24 years on Death Row during which he wrote children's books encouraging kids to shun a life of crime.

Italy's chapter of Amnesty International called the execution "a cold-blooded murder" and added:

His execution is a slap in the face to the principle of rehabilitation of inmates, an inhumane and inclement act toward a person who, with his exemplary behavior and his activity in favor of street kids, had become an important figure and a symbol of hope for many youths.

Got it? They wanted Crips founder and murderer Tookie Williams to live for the children. Schwarzenegger hates the children!

From a commenter in the "guest book" at the Graz tourism site:

The point is Tookie hadn't the right (to kill) and so hadn't Arnold Schwarzenegger,by the way whose name the Americans can't even pronounce. And to react to some statements, Arnold Schwarzenegger does care about this stadium, because he is egocentric and already ordered to rename this stadium and I, as an Austrian, am fine with that. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have acted in some cult-movies, but he isn't and good politician and worse he is republican.

Don't you love moralizing from the righteous left--especially that in Europe, which has all the answers to our problems? I'm not making a statement one way or the other on the death penalty. However, I do get tired of smug comments from other nations, obviously envious of the U.S., telling us that we have to be more like them to be civilized.

Well, if the stadium isn't going to be named after Arnold Schwarzenegger anymore, we can help the town council of Graz to find a fitting new name that represents their system of values. Might I suggest "Tookie Williams Stadium?"