Judge Aaron Persky probably regrets his decision to go unconscionably easy on young gifted and white Brock Turner in the Stanford University rape case, but it’s too late now. He has sealed his and Turner’s legacy.
On the up side, this historic case has riveted national attention to rape, much as Rutgers sports hero Ray Rice’s elevator ride brought us all together on the subject of domestic abuse. Although Rice provided graphic evidence of his ability to physically destroy an opponent, he has of this writing been unable to secure another NFL placement.
Another up side: Unlike the open air gang rape during Spring Break at Panama City Beach —
The video shows several men assaulting an incapacitated woman on Panama City Beach while a crowd of spring-break revelers watches…
— which the crowd filmed but didn’t give a shit about (police only discovered it later, when they got hold of the video), the Stanford open air rape drew the attention of two students, who held down the rapist and called the police.
Well, let’s just go down that list, shall we? Horrible hideous shit can happen anywhere, especially in a country where everyone has at least two guns. We’re getting the list now because of the latest entry on it – the nation’s premier Baptist university, and that university’s local police department, spent years ignoring rampantly raping football players. That’s Waco’s latest claim to fame.
Okay, so four things on the list are about Baylor, basketball, and football: The murder, the cover-up, the NCAA sanctions, and now the rapes. If you ask ol’ UD, who’s been covering big-time sports mayhem at America’s universities since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, there’s nothing reigniting or even igniting about that list — homicidal raping covering up and heavily sanctioned university sports programs are not uncommon in the United States.
Admittedly most of the murders take place shortly after the player has dropped out of the school.
Since 2007, [Aaron Hernandez has] been charged with, or linked to, the shootings of six people in four incidents. Three of the victims were gruesomely murdered. One survivor, a former friend named Alexander Bradley, has had multiple operations and lost his right eye. The other two survivors were shot in their car outside a Gainesville, Florida, bar after an altercation involving Hernandez and two of his teammates his freshman year at the University of Florida. While in Gainesville, he sucker-punched a guy and shattered the fellow’s eardrum, and reportedly failed multiple drug tests, though he was suspended only once for those offenses.
But who’s counting? It’s your beloved suspension-averse alma mater we’re describing here, and right this minute you’re loading up the Bud Light in anticipation of tailgate season for you and the young’uns.
So is Waco problematically special? Only stuff special on the list is the two cults – the Davidians and the Pagans.
I’m sure Texas gets more than its share of violent cults, just as Utah and Oregon do, because these states get all goose-bumpy over guns plus they hate laws and shit cuz that’s the state and fuck the state.
No, by prevailing big-time university athletics standards and prevailing state standards, there’s nothing special about Waco.
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UPDATE: UD thanks Derek for pointing out
that this is about basketball as much as football.
… The Olympian, via the AP. UD reproduces it in its entirety:
A Wisconsin regent questioned Friday whether it’s worth continuing athletics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the face of a massive deficit.
Regent Tim Higgins challenged UW-Milwaukee Athletic Director Amanda Braun after a presentation of a report on Panther sports that she gave to regents on the school’s campus. Higgins pointed out to her that the athletic department finished the year that ended on June 30, 2015, nearly $11 million in the red. According to the report, the deficit began building around 2000 due to the rising overall costs of Division 1 athletics.
UW-Milwaukee athletics are heavily subsidized by student fees; they made up more than two-thirds of the department’s revenue in fiscal year 2015 and are projected to make up a little less than two-thirds of revenue in the upcoming fiscal year.
Higgins asked Braun how she can justify continuing sports at the school. Braun seemed taken aback by the question, initially responding that she believes student-athletes make a positive impact on the university.
At Regent Gerald Whitburn’s prodding, she added that her department faces no serious NCAA sanctions and the deficit is no longer growing. According to the report, the athletic department finished fiscal year 2015 with a net balance of $604,400 and should finish 2016 about $107,284 to the good.
She also said that the department has a plan to eliminate the deficit. According to the report, the plan calls for balancing the budget on an annual basis for multiple years.
The regents took no action and moved on to other agenda items.
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With its fierce concision and unemotional address, this masterpiece of the postmodern surreal owes much to Beckett and Stoppard — as is obvious when you transpose it into Waiting for Godot.
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Vlad.: WHY GO ON? THERE’S A MASSIVE DEFICIT AND WE’LL NEVER GET OUT FROM UNDER IT. IT WILL JUST GET WORSE.
Est.: WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU TODAY? IT’S ONLY A BLOODY ELEVEN MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT. SAME DEFICIT WE’VE HAD SEEN WE STARTED WAITING FOR A BALANCED BUDGET.
Vlad: YOU’RE KILLING OUR STUDENTS! IT’S UNJUSTIFIABLE.
Est.: [Taken aback.] Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard
Vlad.: I REALLY FIND THIS MOST INTERESTING.
Est.: WE HAVE A PLAN. ALL WILL BE WELL… GODOT…
[The regents take no action and move on to other agenda items.]
They’re not just big and bad.
If coaches, they may be the highest paid people in the state.
If players, they’re sports heroes. They get huge scholarships plus under the table payments. Bogus professors and bogus disciplines are invented just for them. All of the best buildings on campus are off limits to everyone but these students, with some interesting results.
The big and bad people – and of course not everyone on your big-time college team is a bad person – may bring a new kind of violence to campus, often working as the team that they are to beat the shit out of male students and sexually assault/film themselves sexually assaulting female.
The president and trustees of places like the University of Nebraska seem to consider what people like Richie Incognito do to their students acceptable collateral damage, and students seem to agree it’s worth it because you need people big and bad enough to beat the shit out of opposing players, and you might not be able to confine to the field or the court the generally violent disposition of big and bad people. Here’s a Rutgers scholar (Rutgers has distinguished itself for coach and player violence) showing his stuff.
I mean, lots of people drink and carouse and get into trouble in college. C’est entendu. But these guys are built like brick shithouses and they work as a team. You do the math.
Baylor grad, Waco mayor, she’s – to paraphrase Freud – our royal road to to the Waco political unconscious. Let’s do an Online Schoolmarm scathe of her recent opinion column in the Waco Trib.
She begins with lengthy throat clearing:
To my friends and fellow citizens: Baylor University regents, former Baylor President and Chancellor Ken Starr, Baylor first lady Alice Starr, Coach and Mrs. Art Briles, Ian McCaw, Interim President David Garland, Baylor administration, faculty and students, Waco Mayors Kyle Deaver, Malcolm Duncan Jr. and Jim Bush, City Manager Dale Fisseler, city staff, council members, chambers of commerce, Waco churches, schools, parents, Tribune-Herald, KWBU, KWTX, KCEN and other media outlets, Waco Business League, Providence Health, Baylor Scott & White Health Hillcrest, Family Health Center, McLennan Community College and Texas State Technical College leadership and students, Rapoport, Cooper and Waco foundations, Caritas and Mission Waco, to name only a few of Waco’s community: I write with you in mind:
It’s the rare op/ed writer self-important enough to speechify in this way before beginning her content (though we’re going to discover that this person has no content, so the throat-clearing makes sense). One envisions Harold Hill gathering the townspeople to tell them there’s trouble right here in River City. With the Baylor rapes and the breastaurant massacre, I think Waco already knows this.
The writer seems to share Hill’s confidence that when she pens a piece in the local rag everyone in town will be reading it.
(SOS finds “a few of Waco’s community” awkward. A few what?)
There is much that we don’t know or understand about Baylor University’s current situation. But we, informed or not, will grieve and face this time together.
Her second paragraph heralds the theme of her piece, if theme there be: Life is a Mystery. The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways. Ah Sweet Mystery of Life. Just no knowin’ sometimes. What’s the Use of Wonderin’.
And why grief? A lot of people round them parts are angry, which seems a more reasonable response to a piously religious school looking the other way when its students get raped.
Now there’s a long emotional paragraph reminding her fellow Wacoans of how they’ve laughed and cried together over the years.
Waco and Baylor have matured together. [Biker shootouts at breastaurants? The rape-friendliest school this side of the University of Montana? Maybe this counts as mature behavior in Texas.] We’ve cheered, won and lost together. We’ve prayed, sung, anguished over a horrific day in history, run races, raised funds, volunteered, built homes and voted. [Strange list, moving relentlessly from high crisis to charity work to the mundane.] We reared our children and relished in our grandchildren. [Reveled? I don’t think you relish in. You put relish in.] We stood by, helpless and mute, when the [Branch Davidian] Compound burned. We awkwardly welcomed world press and learned. We saw Baylor move from an accomplished but contentious presidency though a transition more difficult for Baylor than Waco, ultimately transitioned by beloved Interim President David Garland, then President Kenneth Winston Starr.
Sometimes bad writing is just about strangeness. Although nothing outrageously bad appears in this piece, there’s a general sense of weird vague wandering around whatever it is this person actually wants to say. Is her goal to cheer up demoralized Wacoans? Why should she want to do that? Given her self-importance, this comes across as patronizing, as if she’s designated herself Lady Sunshine… And why give us Ken Starr’s full name when no one uses that?
Having reviewed Waco’s many triumphs, the writer now says:
In recalling these victories, in no way do I condone systems that protect attackers and fail to protect women. Effective systems were and are imperative. Together we pray for all victims’ healing and strength to rebuild their lives. They’ll need friends and family, as well as effective medical and legal services.
Again patronizing. A short paragraph stuck at the end of the piece saying And girls now I just pray you’ll find closure… Make sure to get effective medical and legal services! And note that the piece has been personal to a fault throughout (actually naming her readers in that first paragraph) until it gets to the rape scandal, at which point it’s all about ‘systems.’
Here’s how she concludes:
• In absence of knowing, stand with Baylor in facing the future. It is and will always be Waco’s inextricably linked “Siamese twin.”
God grant us all wisdom, grace, mercy, courage and peace.
See what I mean about creepy? Not twin but Siamese twin, a phrase she puts in quotation marks, which leads SOS to believe that this is a well-known formulation ’round Waco. An unfortunate birth anomaly, one person unable to move without the other… Surgeons seem to think Siamese twins are worth going to great lengths to try to separate… This is the beautiful Waco/Baylor relationship.
And there’s the whole absence of knowing thing again, although we do know, which is why Baylor’s president, much of the athletics department, and much of the latest class of football recruits, has been fired or has fled.
Finally there’s the Great Amen, featuring another bizarre list — very long, with nice thoughts in it, and it could go on much much longer. Maybe it originally did. Maybe the Waco Trib’s editor deleted love, humility, tolerance, resolve…………
