Interestingly, the Ehl's have no detectable ethnicity!

Ehl country of origin

The nationality of Ehl can be very difficult to determine because country boundaries change over time, leaving the nation of origin a mystery. The original ethnicity of Ehl may be in dispute as result of whether the family name came about naturally and independently in multiple locales; for example, in the case of names that are based on a profession, which can come into being in multiple places independently (such as the surname "Carpenter" which was given to woodworkers).

http://www.ancientfaces.com/research/sur…

Who are these Ehls? Where do they come from? Is this some Lord of Rings kind of craziness?

@2 You have been getting weirder and weirder lately.

It'll be years before a web search for "Kathlyn Ehl" does not yield results for "shut up and speak english #asians." Good luck getting a job in the real world...

"It would be impossible to shut up, and speak English at the same time."

She obviously meant "Shut up, then speak English".

Daily Mail namecheck o' the day! Woot!

file this story under hash tag who fucking cares

If there's anything that will sound the 'all hands on deck' alarm at the Stranger it's the whiff of a potential 'hate crime'. They've probably already paid the $50 entry fee to put their 'breaking story' into the next round of Pulizter's.

A commenter at the Times writes that Ehl's father was Slade Gorton's chief of staff. So if that's accurate, she's clearly well-connected.

Well, Kathlyn Ehl "should be fired" if he wants to snuff out this story and not give anyone reason to believe that either McKenna or Republicans in general harbor animus either racial or against the elderly.

But he won't because he doesn't think he should have to. And that will hurt him.

Fuck that. She said something dumb on the internet. Big fucking deal. Shouldn't cost her her job or future.

I think "The Seattle Times" should credit Slog Comments for the "zinger" in the op-ed because it was plagiarized from a Slog commenter.

"here is where my name goes" posted yesterday: "I'm almost more offended by how it doesn't even make sense. Shut up AND speak? Oh, the whole thought isnt there. I think the long version must have been "shut up your ching chong talk and speak english #asians"
..Posted by hereiswheremynamegoes

@15

I don't know. To be honest, I think it was a fairly obvious point--something I notice right away but didn't bring up.

So should doing stupid like this cost her her job, even though it was a past post? I think yes. When you get hired, a lot of times your character counts. That's why it looks bad on your job application if you have to admit that you were dishonorably discharged or if you have a criminal record. As for Ehl's racism, it's not like she's part of a community of British occupiers in Hong Kong in 1900--making her remark then would still have been a dick move, but at least one could say that it was just an expression of the common attitudes of her community. Instead, the point to note is that she was a college senior living in a diverse society in Seattle that considers racism wrong, and yet she still thought it was fine to tweet this to the world.

As for her ageism, it's just plain stupid and insensitive, like some young, able-bodied person on the bus bitching loudly when the driver asks her to give up her seat for a senior making his way slowly into the bus.

@2, that's boilerplate, nimrod. The site produces an almost identical paragraph for "Bailo."

I'll bet if you sent 'em some money, though, they'd be happy to "research" it, and for just a small additional investment, send you an embroidered tea cozy with the Bailo coat-of-arms.

...I'll save you the investigational fee, but you might have to pay to enlarge this for the t-shirt iron-on.

I'd rather she keep her job, than McKenna fire her and hire someone who is competent enough not to fill their twitter with dumb bigoted shit.

It's always sort of adorable when The Stranger hyperventilates about some granular, irrelevant story, thinking it has a scoop. How many posts did they devote to the stupid employee at Thornton Creek who told a couple patrons about the [insert spoiler here]? For fuck's sake, you'd think it was Watergate...

@22, reading the coverage on Slog I thought this was bigger than Watergate

@2 That's the one more worthless links you've provided. I checked my last name 'Morris', which is one of the most common in the English speaking world and it gave the same vague answer as 'Ehl'. What I was looking for is one of the easiest facts you can find. They couldn't even find it.
Did you even check 'Bailo'?

We already know "what behavior would he tolerate in the office of the governor". He's deeply anti-gay. http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/20…

The real lesson here is that McKenna's goons should have just let Goldy into the fucking presser.

Remember the right wingnuts harped on one of Obama's campaign aid for "disparaging" Mitt Romney's wife ("never worked one day in her life", which is true) ? Then this racist ignorant aide is fair game and she should get fired.

What she did is not just saying something stupid on the internet. We say stupid things, sure, but what she said is hateful, and saying something like that doesn't just come out of a void. It presupposes an entire set of values and privilege that she obviously hasn't investigated or questioned.

@16

You made the following comment about Imperialist dickwads in the 1800s, but that statement is still true of white folks TODAY.

"making her remark then would still have been a dick move, but at least one could say that it was just an expression of the common attitudes of her community."

@31

Oh, yes, I absolutely agree; there are people who do live in such insular communities or self-involved worlds that they do think there's nothing wrong with such attitudes. I think was trying to suggest that one should be aware enough today that you're going to get called on this stuff.