Because [huge] network money has to come from somewhere, we can anticipate more and longer commercials in games that already subject fans’ patience, bladders, and backsides to what amounts to a four-hour stress test. Those who head from the stadium to the local motel instead of fighting traffic and fatigue on the long drive home are almost certainly looking at two-night minimums on rooms at grossly inflated rates. Throw in gas, food, and tickets for a family of four, and your credit card tally will scream of a weekend in Paris, not Clemson.
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James Cobb, Spalding Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Georgia, goes on to describe
the sinister contagion of unadulterated commercialism now enveloping college football at every level. Left unchecked, it promises to make exiles of the students, alumni, and loyal fans in general who long saw games, not simply as athletic contests, but the centerpiece of a deeply personal, culturally affirming ritual.
… in which the student is brought into personal contact with, is made vulnerable to, the aura and the threat of the first-class. In the most direct sense, this is a matter of proximity, of sight and hearing. The institution, particularly in the humanities, should not be too large. The scholar, the significant teacher ought to be readily visible. We cross his or her daily path. The consequence, as in the Periclean polis, in medieval Bologna, or nineteenth-century Tubingen, is one of implosive and cumulative contamination. The whole is energized beyond its eminent parts…
What could, by the lights of the utilitarian or hedonistic commonwealth, be more irrational, more against the grain of common sense, than to devote one’s existence to, say, the conservation and classification of archaic Chinese bronzes, or to the solution of Fermat’s last theorem…
In the critical mass of a successful academic community, the orbits of individual obsessions will cross and re-cross. Once he has collided with them, the student will forget neither their luminosity nor their menace to complacency…”
The Before and After; the Hi Di High and the Hi Di Low; the Mother-Teresa-to-Maserati in Ten Seconds Flat… You gotta get a kick out of this recent article about CEO of the Month Larry Gerrans, who
considers Mother Teresa as the person whose life contribution is the most inspirational, because of how selfless and pure of intention she was.
Larry — now, er, formalized in court papers to Lawrence —
has been convicted of wire fraud and money laundering for “siphoning millions of dollars” from his company to buy a $2.6 million home, a diamond ring and a Maserati, federal prosecutors said.
When one of your most ruthless traders turns out to steal pretty much everything he encounters in his daily life, he is displaying exactly the grasping arrogant psychopathology you’re after. Despite his millions in compensation, he finds nothing too small to steal – bike parts, commuter train tickets… and now, cafeteria food. The boy can’t help it.
The response to this compulsion is not oooh you’re immoral and we’re a saintly hedge fund so satan get thee hence. The proper response is a nice fat bonus.
Whether it’s autumn or winter, young mass murder’s always in season at Texas A&M Commerce and environs. Those of us trying to followtoday’s double homicide among the impulsive tyke demographic were sent over to last October’s bloodbath among the babes. So that’s… October, November, December, January… We almost made it through three months without a big ol’ Texas A&M killing.
Now this one, UD‘s thinking, probably involves Commerce having admitted a mentally unstable freshman… This sorta little feller, say… Down Texas way a man – even a nineteen year old man – ain’t raised to go all boohoo and talk to some counselor or what have you. In our manly states (Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska) you tend to deal with your problems by killing yourself (an extremely popular thing) and/or killing other people but the point is it’s gonna be something with a gun. Montana has the highest suicide rate in the nation and I think there’s like ten psychiatrists in the state. Who needs a shrink when you have a schwarzlose?
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I was wrong. A random thug, from whom his ex-girlfriend (who was visiting her sister, a student at Commerce) should have been given protection (a career criminal, he was released from jail when he, uh, shouldn’t have been) killed the ex-girlfriend and her sister. Specifically, he was
free on bond related to an alleged assault family violence incident that took place last week. The report was filed by Abbaney Matts, one of the shooting victims.
... Abbaney said Smith assaulted her Jan. 26 … with a frying pan, lamp and then pulled out a knife …. Though she was not hospitalized, Abbaney reported injuries to the right side of her head, her eyes and had red marks and abrasions after the alleged attack.
[Jacques Dshawn] Smith was arrested and an emergency protective order was issued on Abbaney’s behalf. Smith was freed Jan. 29 after posting $15,000 bond.
… Smith has a string of priors dating back four years with charges including evading arrest, theft and aggravated robbery.
Three whole days in custody! I’m sure Abbaney’s surviving family feels real good about that.
… the British are beginning to think this might not be the best way to manage your local ISIS enthusiasts. I mean, jailing the little fuckers to protect your population, but then pretty quickly letting them out of jail, and then monitoring them so that when they do – pretty much right away – start killing people, they don’t kill too many, cuz the cops are following them day and night… Does this strike you as efficient, economical, rational, safe? To be sure, you always end up killing the terrorist; but is this outcome worth the injury and death?
How about this. First, try stripping them of their citizenship (if they’re citizens) and getting them out of the country. Italy’s been doing this with their terrorists, and funny how you rarely hear about Italian terror incidents,si? If you can’t get rid of them, keep them in prison until they’re too old to get an erection, let alone mount a terror attack.
If we used anesthesia that would cost more; it would as well fail to communicate to the child that a girl’s agonized bleeding to death is beautiful in the sight of god.
… Egypt’s High Administrative Court turned down … appeals against the ban in an irreversible verdict…
The swaddled masses yearning to breathe free are getting lots of good news from around the world lately – burqa and niqab bans proliferate left and right, particularly in the Muslim world. But there’s always a new story from Europe too, as in a Norwegian municipality where no public employee may sport full swaddling. (Norway already has a well-established ban on burqas and niqabs in academic settings.) The debasement and absurdity of total veiling in a world of human interaction is proving increasingly unignorable almost everywhere. No doubt all them adorable ISIS pix helped rivet attention to the garment.
