Well, you take the comparative approach. Let’s say you’re comparing the University of Oklahoma and Florida State.

In the case of Oklahoma, the video of one of the most prominent students on campus punching the lights out of a woman remains private, and after a suspension the student has been put back on the football team; in the case of FSU, the video of a similarly prominent student punching the lights out of a woman is public, and he has been dismissed from the team.

Those who’ve seen both videos are able to offer a more detailed comparison.

Some are saying the Mixon tape is worse than the DeAndre Johnson tape, but I disagree. I thought the Johnson video was more graphic. The picture is more up-close from Tallahassee, and Mixon’s response appears more instinctual, which cuts him a little slack, for what that’s worth.

So, okay. You can choose a school where the assault was instinctual, versus a school where the assault was premeditated… You can choose a school where students who do this to women are put back on the team, or a school where students who do this to women are kept off the team… Hm… Hm…

An Orlando Sentinel columnist puts the matter in terms of the great currency of any university: knowledge.

[FSU] kicked [De’Andre Johnson] off the team Monday after video was released of him punching a woman in a bar. Somewhere, Ray Rice was having elevator flashbacks and Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon was grateful he plays for a school that still knows how to protect football stars who slug women.

The Sentinel writer even puts it in terms of one of the university’s disciplines: philosophy.

If a female … falls after getting hit by a football player and nobody sees the video, is it really that big of a deal?

Not at Oklahoma.

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If you’re a parent thinking through this decision with your daughter, maybe you should tend toward FSU. The batterer there gave the act a moment or two of thought, which would maybe have given your daughter a little time to defend herself… And actually Mixon is one of two woman batterers brought back onto the Oklahoma team – they obviously like their hard-hitting players, er, seasoned…

On the other hand, if tradition matters to you, you’ll find Oklahoma standing firmly and proudly in the past. One writer looks back on

… the days when athletes battering women was just another one of the dirty little secrets of big-time sports — right along with academic fraud, failed drug tests and severe head trauma.

But at Oklahoma, it’s still like that!

Still — Decisions, decisions…

Jenny Kutner, Salon:

But the video should not be necessary — at least not for us, for the public, to see. We should not need to watch footage of [Florida State University’s De’Andre] Johnson punching a woman in the face in order to entertain the possibility that a quarterback on one of the nation’s premier college football teams might have committed an act of violence. We have seen similar footage too many other times to write this off as implausible, and we have taken too many other opportunities to make excuses and poke holes.

The brutal images that got Johnson suspended indefinitely from the Seminoles and charged with a crime serve a purpose, and they could be key to securing justice. But they’re not the only clue that something is amiss in the sports world, especially and not exclusively. We should know by now that a [university-based] culture of virtually unchecked violence against women exists — and we shouldn’t need to watch a display of it on a loop to confirm our suspicions.

… of the first order.”

[T]he most dangerous form of NASCAR racing remains the most luridly popular with fans even though higher speeds and more spectacular accidents created by them are endangering both spectators and drivers.

“NASCAR got what they wanted…” [one driver said] of restrictor plate racing. “Cars getting airborne …”

Watch its quarterback in action here.

The school’s a class act all around.

Best part: It’s run by a hack who, with his BFF coach, specializes in the “enabling and justifying of behavior other schools at least pretend to care about.”

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FSU’s an experiment in progress: Is there any behavior football fans won’t tolerate? At a university?

And don’t tell UD they’ve dismissed the guy. They only dismissed him when a now-way-viral video of one of FSU’s hottest quarterback recruits battering a woman at a bar was released… And hell. How did that happen? FSU is famous for its control over local law enforcement. What’s going on??

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FSU, pre-game.

It’s 8:30, and boats of all sorts are gathering at the shore across from the Star of the Sea apartments. Fishing boats, yachts, cruisers jammed with sightseers. Long lines of folding chairs have been set up along the beach for the big event.

There’s a breeze, the sky is clear, night’s coming on. So far so good.

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

Blue velvet sky, blue velvet sea. The waves press in, the lit-up ships list. Their engines throb as they inch closer. A helicopter circles. On the beach, glow sticks dance.

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

Officially dark now, and things should start happening soon. Though it’s already quite a spectacle – the crowds, the bright shining boats, the throbbing engines and the throbbing sea.

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

Whew. Ol’ UD‘s emotionally exhausted. The display started quietly, of course, with pleasant little golden streamers here and there. But it quickly began flaring out and up with tutti-frutti bursts all over the sky. Louder and louder rocket reports vibrated the air. The final red white and blue explosions were frenzied and beautiful and we all clapped and hooted.

No – the things that never go away. That lodge in your mind. All my life I’ve thought about the last page of Karla Kuskin’s children’s book, Just Like Everyone Else. My parents must have read it to me… I must have read it…

The final line –

Then Jonathan James flew off to school.

– seems to have echoed down the years for me. Who knows why. Flew off to school.

The moon emerges like a night sun out of cloud bands.

Au fond, I’ve always come to the beach more for the sky than the water – the sunrises, the moonrises. (Au fond each summit is a cul-de-sac, as one of James Merrill’s most adorable lines has it.)

Tomorrow night’s the big Rehoboth fireworks display on the beach just outside our apartment; tonight was a smaller show at neighboring Dewey Beach, along with, more spectacularly, a string of small red and yellow explosions all along the Jersey shore, easily visible from our balcony. It reminded me of one July Fourth evening in upstate New York, when suddenly pyrotechnics emerged between two distant Catskill peaks.

Why do these silent far-off displays move me more than big crackling in your face shows? They seem a natural event, the earth itself celebrating the country; and their miniature gaiety has a modesty far more attractive to me than the bombast of the bomb blasts.

… A photo taken moments ago by our
friend and fellow Garrett Parker Koneti.

Click on it to see Les UDs sitting
in front of their Prius, UD clapping
and Mr UD holding a copy of the
Declaration of Independence, which
every year he reads to UD while the
parade is going by for maximal inspiration.

One of the [restaurants] that will be purchasing [a new beer named, in honor of Donald Trump, “Chinga Tu Pelo” or, in English, “Fuck Your Hair”] is Gino’s East Pizza Joint, [which] will then donate all proceeds from the sale of the beer to the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago.

… a retreat from the pettiness and divisiveness of the real world.

Of course UD will continue blogging from the beach, as she has always done.

… Wojciech Fangor will interview Mr UD. Details as the project proceeds. Put fangor in my search engine for my Fangor posts.

It was the university as cult of personality, the first American university where the founder’s face took up more room on its logo than the heraldic shield. It was the university Benito Mussolini would have founded if he’d been allowed to retire rather than been executed by firing squad and hung upside down in a public square. And now to be reduced to this… Its very identity as university poked at, questioned, ridiculed…

Trump Must Disclose Profits From His ‘University’ in RICO Lawsuit

DONALD TRUMP MUST DISCLOSE PROFITS HE MADE FROM FAKE UNIVERSITY, JUDGE RULES

Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from his so-called Trump University …

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

Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from Trump University, in the discovery phase of a RICO class action accusing him of defrauding students of millions of dollars, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel [Uh-oh: Curiel’s a “longtime member of the National Hispanic Bar Association.“] on Tuesday ruled that Trump’s financial transactions involving Trump University are relevant to lead plaintiff Art Cohen’s claims.

The first time an SEC school’s fan base violates the [don’t-rush-the-field] rule, the institution will now face a $50,000 fine, which is 10 times more than the previous penalty. The second offense carries a $100,000 fine, and any subsequent offense will result in a $250,000 fine.

[The University of South Carolina] already has two offenses …

“So if it happens again, we would be subject to that third offense which is $250,000,” Jeff Davis, Associate Athletics Director for Operations and Facilities… “So that would come out of operating funds, and would be a huge blow.”

And there’s more.

Conservatives are footing the bill for taxes that Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit, doesn’t pay — while liberals are making up revenue lost from the National Rifle Association. I could go on. In short, the exemption-and-deduction regime has grown into a pointless, incoherent agglomeration of nonsensical loopholes, which can allow rich organizations to horde plentiful assets in the midst of poverty.

Readers who’d like to (re)visit UD‘s long-running amazement that Harvard University, sitting on close to 36.4 billion dollars (No, that’s silly. That’s crazy. “[W]hen it comes to these fancy universities the official endowment figures are a drastic understatement of the real wealth of the university. Harvard’s real-estate assets are mind-bogglingly valuable, for example, but not part of the endowment.“), continues to enjoy non-profit benefits, can click on the category harvard: foreign and domestic policy. You’ll find it at the bottom of this post.

… Arthur Porter, who died resisting extradition to Canada to stand trial for one of the biggest university-related thefts in history. As head of the McGill University Health Centre, he initiated construction of

a $1.4-billion mega-hospital.

Within a year, news broke that $22.5 million in kickbacks had been paid by the winning contractor, SNC-Lavalin.

Police have alleged that Porter received $11.25 million in secret commissions for rigging the hospital contract in SNC-Lavalin’s favour.

It’s a pity Porter’s trial will not happen. It would be good to know how far the culture of crime extended (extends?) at McGill.