La Kid and Ed Fitzgerald
(Irish boyfriend; La Kid
moves to Galway soon)

exhausted and sunburnt on the
New York City subway after a
long day showing Ed NYC.

… method.

Tragedy in Texas as a brand new taxpayer funded sixty million dollar high school football stadium which “rivals college facilities in grandeur” is shut down because of structural flaws.

It’s impossible to know when the local lads will be able to concuss themselves grandeurly, since we’re talking years of complex litigation plus massive repair payments, some of which will almost certainly have to come from taxpayers.

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

Not that UD is really worried about whether local taxpayers will pay millions more to fix the stadium. Of course they will. Either you’re willing to pay through the nose to watch your kid get the shit kicked out of him or you’re not. In Texas they’re willing.

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

UD thanks JND.

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More in the God Hates Football thread.

… Doctor Who.

In my film and philosophy class, for example, I have to insist that students put their devices away while watching movies that don’t immediately engage their senses with explosions, sex or gag lines. At first they see this as some old guy’s failure to grasp their skill at multitasking, but eventually most relearn how to give themselves to an emotional and intellectual experience, one that is deeply engaging partly because it does not pander to their most superficial habits of attention.

UD‘s getting whiplash trying to follow this one. It’s incredibly postmodern.

But I’m sure the courts will sort it out.

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

Meanwhile, though, and purely for comparison purposes:

Jonathan Hart.

Jacko and Sainfort.

He’s Number Two, so he tries harder. Haverford’s back-up choice after a small group of students and professors hounded out Robert Birgereau as commencement speaker was William Bowen, who has been president of Princeton and the Mellon Foundation. Ol’ Bill got up there at the event and let it rip.

He directly addressed the people who demanded that Birgereau apologize for calling out the police during an Occupy protest at Berkeley, and that he meet nine conditions that they set in order for him to be able to come to Haverford, including “publicly apologizing, supporting reparations for victims, and writing a letter to Haverford students explaining his position on the events and ‘what you learned from them.'” Quoth Bowen in his speech to Haverford graduates:

“I am disappointed that those who wanted to criticize Birgeneau’s handling of events at Berkeley chose to send him such an intemperate list of demands… In my view, they should have encouraged him to come and engage in a genuine discussion, not to come, tail between his legs, to respond to an indictment that a self-chosen jury had reached without hearing counter-arguments.”

Actually, the real story here is how Haverford blindsided the Nine Conditions people. Did they even have time to find out that Bowen is a “Trustee on the Board of the Trust Committee that oversees the Rockefeller family trusts”? Even if they had time to find this out, did they have time to set forth a series of conditions (‘Write a letter to Haverford students explaining your position on robber barons and what you have learned from consorting with them.’) Bowen needed to meet before he could appear at Haverford?

Jill Abramson has elected not to attend commencement ceremonies at Brandeis University, where she would’ve received an honorary degree this weekend…

… Brandeis previously canceled plans to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s rights activist who frequently criticized Islam.

Dear me. Between various cancellations and regrets, Brandeis seems headed for an all-male commencement.

… at the University of Michigan.

… softcore.

In the matter of Christine Lagarde
Take notice, heads up, et regarde:
The College of Smith
(To get right to the pith)
Has been hoist by its very petard.

True, when Brown University students (and others) called foul on Ruth Simmons’ activities on the board of Goldman Sachs (under her watch, “the company which invented the $68.5 million CEO bonus”) she totally refused to engage her critics. As the writer I quote in my headline suggests, she’s used to the muffled rooms of America’s top corporate suites; why should she descend from those to the larger democratic community of dissent?

… Oh, whoops. The writer is referring not to Ruth Simmons, who to this day has said nothing about the Blankfein Bonuses she rubber-stamped, but to muffled, fearful Christine Lagarde, a dame who’s got absolutely nothing to say. Go to YouTube and search her name. Nothing.

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

Now that Christine Lagarde has decided that Smith College is too silly for words, quite a number of faculty are expressing their embarrassment.

My prior post about the curious business of choosing a capitalist tool (Smith has chosen to replace Lagarde with “snowed by Lloyd” Simmons) over one of the world’s most powerful and admired women is here.

… on all counts of fraud. He’s a former football coach at the University of Georgia.

CNN ran the material through plagiarism-flagging software, according to the CNN source. That initial scan, says the source, turned up “two or three things,” which caused a deeper examination of “all of [Marie Louise Gumuchian’s] work.” That uncovered an “insane” number of problems, according to the source.

Fifty stories plagiarized. Probably more. The investigation is ongoing.

As UD always says, plagiarism is like Lays Potato Chips. Bet you can’t copy just one.

As UD also always says, Gumuchian’s next move is too obvious for words. It’s just a matter of which mental disorder she chooses. She’s probably studying the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual even as we blog.

… that a particular sport makes you more likely to murder? Who said football makes you likelier to murder? UD chronicles the notable violence of the game and the off-field violence of some of the players… And since her blog is about universities, she regularly registers her incredulity that many American universities all but define themselves in terms of a game that notoriously damages the brain; but she has never suggested a link between football and murder.

Why then, in the context of Aaron Hernandez (who graced the University of Florida), does the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins feel compelled to write the following:

Initially, Hernandez’s arrest provoked a number of commentators to associate his violence with NFL. But it doesn’t follow; if there was a real association between football and murder, there would be more Hernandezes. There is a huge difference between men who are talented at a violent game, and a man who is simply, viciously, senselessly violent. If Hernandez is guilty of these additional murders, all it proves is that NFL executives were as fooled as the rest of us by the blankness of his face.

I think this paragraph is worthy of a Scathing Online Schoolmarm scathe. Let’s see how Jenkins does what she does.

Initially, Hernandez’s arrest provoked a number of commentators to associate his violence with NFL. But it doesn’t follow; if there was a real association between football and murder, [Uh, hold on. Note how Jenkins subtly shifts from violence in her first sentence to murder in her second. I’m not aware of people saying football makes you a murderer. I’m aware of plenty of people pointing out the obvious, whether it’s boxing or hockey or football: Sports that put an amazing premium on brutality are likelier to attract and cultivate violent people.] there would be more Hernandezes. There is a huge difference between men who are talented at a violent game, and a man who is simply, viciously, senselessly violent. If Hernandez is guilty of these additional murders, all it proves is that NFL executives were as fooled as the rest of us by the blankness of his face. [This is a version of what SOS calls coacha inconsolata. Poor naive NFL executives! Can’t read faces! Because what you’re looking for in an NFL player is a warm vulnerable approachable sort of face.]

In a subsequent couple of paragraph, Jenkins attempts to refine her argument. Let’s scathe that one too.

Given football’s savage nature it’s tempting to draw a correlation between the NFL and violent crime. Throw in the fact that a lot of high-profile athletes have an undeniable romance with guns. Reuben Fischer Baum, a data cruncher who posts on Deadspin.com, found that NFLers are twice as likely as their male peers to be arrested on weapons charges.

But football by itself is not the culprit. In fact all of the rules of the game are oriented around preventing harm, and penalizing willful injuries. It’s a game of controlled violence, not uncontrolled. As Grossman has written, “the purpose of play is to learn not to hurt members of your society and members of your own species. In a basketball game, or a football game, when one of the players is hurt, the play stops.” A far more likely culprit is the sustained desensitization of video games and other forms of glorified media violence. Grossman argues these are “murder simulators” that actually award points for killing.

SOS loves this. Jenkins cannot avoid stating the empirical obvious truth at some point. Yeah, NFL’ers (and college football players) tend toward really incredible rates of violence. (It’s been a constant argument on this blog that the professional leagues are free to deal with the gun shit, etc., as they would like; but it’s obscene for universities to recruit it, valorize it, and expose their students to it.) But it ain’t the game! It ain’t that these players have been systematically rewarded – with incredible money and acclaim – for their bulk, their menace, their violence, as football becomes more and more violent. No. It’s… video games!

After all, football is fine; football has way non-violent rules.

This point reminds me of something Mr UD routinely does at the beginning of his Comparative Constitutional Law course. He reads to the students a truly inspiring Constitution. Beautifully written, guaranteeing all of the country’s citizens all sorts of excellent rights. Mr UD then asks his students to guess which country’s Constitution this is. They guess various advanced European democracies.

“Sorry, no. North Korea.”