Hard to imagine a less inaugural setting than this pastel daybreak on the Atlantic Ocean. No crowds, no risers, no gowns. “It’s strange,” said Mr UD to me last night, via cellphone. “I’m on Pennsylvania Avenue, and there are two sorts of people here. Women in very elaborate gowns, and big groups that look like they’re going camping.”

He was downtown late at night because La Kid suddenly called and asked him to bring her fanciest dress to GW. “You won’t be able to get past the lobby. No access for anyone except students beyond that for a couple of days.”

La Kid’s going to an inaugural ball. The George Washington University inaugural ball, where she’ll perform with fellow cast members of The Wild Party. La Kid called UD yesterday afternoon to tell her about it.

“I’m sure it’ll be great, but I’ve got a sinking feeling nothing else in my life will ever measure up to yesterday… I’m currently having trouble believing it happened…. Miss H-C [La Kid’s high school choral director] calls my right arm — the one Bono stroked — The Magic Arm.” She yawned. “I’ve spent most of today in bed. I’m about to order Thai food.” [Pizza? La Kid??]

From the excellent student newspaper at benighted Southern Illinois University:

… Reports from The Associated Press this week link trustee Frank William Bonan II to $30,000 his father and uncle donated to Blagojevich in November, a month after he was appointed to the board.

Those donations came during a one-day fundraising trip by Blagojevich to Mount Vernon, which netted him $42,000. Of that money, $30,000 came from Market Street Bancshares Inc. and its managers, J. Hunt Bonan and F.William Bonan I.

Records from the State Board of Elections show Blagojevich was the beneficiary of about $25,000 in donations from at least two other trustees between 2005 and 2008.

[The chairman of the board], who was appointed in 2004, contributed $10,000 through two separate donations of $5,000 in 2005 and 2006. Tedrick also contributed another $10,000 through two separate donations of $5,000 in 2002 and 2003.

Trustee John Simmons, a 2004 appointee who is an attorney from Alton, and his wife, Jayne, contributed three $5,000 donations between 2006 and 2008 for a total of $15,000….

The comments on the article suggest that, uh, everybody’s pretty disgusted with this disgusting board.

SIU had better watch it. Corruption levels like these … I mean… look at what’s going on in Greece. People can get really angry after enough of this.

The kid’s in Rolling Stone.

Thank you, Carolyn, for discovering that.

Also on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I got two copies. Thank you, Alan, for letting me know.

… maketh UD way nostalgic for her own times in Ireland.

Carolyn’s studying over there.

I don’t remember what I was doing, but it wasn’t studying.

Carolyn’s keeping a charming record. With photos.

So I’m just giving
thumbnails and links.
Click for bigger
pictures.

She’s wearing a
blue hat.

Youtube.

Worry about your obsolescence (if you’re a humanities professor) here.

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I had an incorrect link earlier this morning. Many thanks to Barb, a reader, for pointing it out.

From the Huffington Post slideshow.

UD thanks Jeff.

“When I walked out onstage and saw the crowd I started to cry. I’ve never seen or felt anything like that before, Mommy… The whole Mall full of people cheering… And there was the President, fifteen feet away… When we finished singing and started walking back to the tent, we were all crying…. I’m trying to walk back to my dorm now. Can you hear me over the shouting? … I think I’ve walked around the dorm a bunch of times… I’m not sure where I am… It’s hard to see. We keep getting stopped for motorcades. Eventually I’ll end up at my dorm…”

… under-attended loser football team at the mediocre American university. Sure, it’s an empty expensive nothingness — but what other game is there in town? Isn’t it cruel of people to suggest that funds should go elsewhere?

But sometimes you have to put aside emotion and ask the sorts of questions Joyce here’s asking in the Springfield News-Leader:

… According to official reports submitted by MSU, its total athletic spending was $13.9 million in 2007-08. The actual total is somewhat greater, but certain outlays are not covered by NCAA and federal reporting rules.

Slightly more than 45 percent of the total was financed by ticket sales, advertising, NCAA Conference distributions and other “student-athlete” generated funds. Only 17.5 percent of athletic spending was covered by private contributions and endowment and investment income.

The remaining 37 percent of athletics spending — $5.2 million — was the program’s deficit. This is the subsidy provided by students and taxpayers. During these times of financial stringency, it becomes increasingly critical for the university to reduce this subsidy and shift limited resources to academic needs.

It was for this reason that [coach] Bill Rowe spoke of the need for his replacement to excel in “fundraising” — i.e., increasing private contributions above 17.5 percent of program costs.

He particularly highlighted the incoming AD’s need to increase “support for the football program.” Reported costs of the football team were $2.4 million in 2007-08, while private donations were $90,510 – only 3.8 percent of total spending. Meanwhile, ticket sales covered only 7.1 percent of football expenses.

Analyzed as a business, well, let’s not go there. The annual football deficit is $1.3 million.

Analyzed as a sport, the team has produced a win/loss record of 50 percent or higher only four times in the past 15 seasons, and once in the current high-profile coach’s three seasons. (His cumulative record is 12-21.)

Analyzed as entertainment, attendance at home games averaged only 8,958 during the 2008 season, despite the fact that students receive free admission. Even so, nearly half of the stadium’s 16,600 seats sat empty. The situation would undoubtedly have been worse if MSU did not suspend its usual rule against alcohol on campus to permit tailgate parties before each game.

Analyzed from a fairness perspective, 56 percent of all MSU students are females, but they are forced to subsidize –through their tuition — this all-male sport. Also, MSU has ongoing problems achieving compliance with the Federal Title IX rules against discrimination in its athletic program. An appreciation for the spirit of Title IX would go a long way in revitalizing the women’s program.

Analyzed from an academic perspective, only a minority of MSU’s football players typically earn college degrees, and the graduation rate is among the lowest of all athletes on campus. Moreover, the program’s $1.3 million annual deficit dissipates scarce resources that could otherwise be available to bolster the university’s academic programs…

Blah blah blah. You’ve heard it all before on this blog. Team eats shit, mainly drunk students at the games, almost no one on the team graduates, program’s bleeding money, what the hell’s going on year after year…

But you know and I know that a boy and his delusions aren’t easily separated. MSU will stay in the game.

… at the University of Texas make?

… [Augie] Garrido, the highest-paid coach in college baseball, received a $160,000 raise this offseason that will bring his annual salary to $800,000. The five-year contract, which begins in September, calls for Garrido’s salary to be increased by at least $50,000 per year, meaning he is scheduled to become the first college coach to make $1 million or more by September 2012.

The contract also states that if Garrido was dismissed from his job, he would receive $300,000 per year for each year left on the contract. However, he would not receive that money if he resigned or was terminated for cause under the university’s “standard of conduct” provisions.

Well, ol’ UD‘s gonna draw on her years of experience with university coaches and make a prediction about that standard of conduct thing. Although UT just suspended him for driving his Porsche drunk as a skunk at one in the morning — he was too wasted to remember to turn on his headlights, which attracted police attention — Garrido, with the help of an attorney, will get that money.

UT probably won’t even try to cite the provision. Fans would be furious.

If you’ve just tuned in, UD‘s kid, a female personage, eighteen years old,  is singing (she’s an alto) in the chorus at the first inaugural event, the big public concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

UD just caught up with her for a rushed cellphone chat on her way to today’s rehearsal.

“We’re singing America the Beautiful [If you can sing this, thank an English professor.] with Beyoncé and The Rising with Bruce Springsteen.  We rehearsed with Beyoncé yesterday…  What was it like?  Minus one degree!  I’m putting on many more clothes today… Yeah, security’s pretty tight… You have to get there via these special buses… I’m in a hurry because I have to get to the pick-up point by noon… How am I?  Exhausted.  But the sound the chorus makes — it’s wonderful.”

**************************

Another update: She’s somewhere behind him, freezing her tail off.

***********************

Another, Really Important, Update: Just finished a longish conversation with the child, and you can see her in the video. Occasionally. She’s in the front row behind Springsteen, to the very far right. In the first few seconds, you can see her – white hat, playing with her scarf. Then she’s out of camera range. She comes back into range at the very end.

She’ll be standing in the same place tomorrow. You should have a very clear view of her throughout the Springsteen song.

And yes. I know you’re a lot less interested in tracking my kid than I am. I’m just excited, and I want to share this.

****************************

Mr UD’s out shopping for her. Chorus members have to wear black ear muffs and white scarves tomorrow.

More from my exclusive interview.

“Five of the kids in the youth chorus [La Kid’s in the adult chorus — the youngest member.] went to the hospital with hypothermia yesterday. I mean, we’re standing there, it’s nighttime, it’s insanely cold… Some of the kids were just in hoodies…. When the wind whipped up!

Springsteen was really nice. Met with us, chatted with us, and I’m in a couple of group pictures with him. He said he liked the sound we made. Told us to be way loud tomorrow.

We’re going to be in tents tomorrow, watching the show on monitors when we’re not onstage. Which sort of sucks. But it’s worth it to get to be part of it. Today, I didn’t remember any of the hassles involved in taking part — just the greatness of being up there, doing this thing… ”

*************************

Viewing details.

What La Kid looks like.

… so I can’t really talk.”

UD tries to call La Kid.

She’s in rehearsal.

… of the W.D. Snodgrass poem, April Inventory, is now available for viewing at Inside Higher Ed.

“Normally when you put a large transport plane in the water, most of the time they do not have a good outcome.”

The smooth slate sea and the wall of slate clouds resting on the horizon make a city.

Midsky, the clouds break up, and their different tops are the city skyline. Like this.

A little like that. Venice.

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“Some would say that there is no greater pleasure than to walk a deserted beach on a cold, sunny day in winter,” writes a woman at the Gulf of Maine Aquarium.

There are many greater pleasures. Yesterday, the wind bit into my right ear and no thickness of scarf kept it out. My eyes were too dry. I squinted at the sand, scouting black stones with white veins, and when I found one I smoothed off its sand with the wrong pair of gloves — I keep forgetting to wear cheap gloves, not the cranberry Coach pair I got for Christmas — and put it up to the light and then pocketed it.

This was a pleasure, to be sure — finding a stone whose lines would lengthen the mosaic something I’ve been writing here.

And being alone was a pleasure, walking the unprinted beach with zen sitting gulls on it. And then I wasn’t alone, because no matter how cold or late or gray it gets, there’s always someone else drawn like me to the beach, eyes down to the stones or up to the sun that now, thirty minutes after it made Venice, makes a little prayerbook illustration.