Weekend remnants

A little of this, a little of that. And some of the other.

-- MORE CHIEFISM: Surprising, even Loren Tate sounded a bit resigned to the fact that the Chief may be on his last leggings. In his Sunday News-Gazette column, after stating that AD Ron Guenther is on the hot seat no matter what the school (and especially the Board of Trustees) decides, Tate states

At the same time, it no longer can be denied that the Chief is a divisive educational issue that bites ever deeper into campus life.

The NCAA's ruling of last week doesn't hurt Tate's babies, the major sports of men's basketball and football (probably...) but if the Chief and other hostile and abusive mascots and imagry remain, it will be the smaller sports that suffer.

The UI has been slapped in the face and put on notice, all this after the trustees have overseen a consistent effort to remove those practices that might be viewed as unintentionally disrespectful.
It has been a highly contentious 15 years. The trustees seemed poised this year to strengthen the status of the Chief. Then came Thursday's bombshell. This forces everyone to reconsider. Some programs that never see the Chief are likely to be punished. It gets tougher all the time.

-- ON THE ROAD AGAIN: The MTD game is afoot. The newly-named Champaign Southwest Mass Transit District will get its day in court on Aug. 29, only a few hours before the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District holds a hearing on enlarging its boundaries, according to the News-Gazette last week. Meanwhile, the CU MTD is being predictably coy as to whether it will take legal action concerning Scott Tabley's little crusade. In last week's News-Gazette,

[Tom] Costello said the district's lawyer is investigating the possibility of a suit to block the formation of the southwestern district, but MTD had not made up its mind to move in that direction.
"I think there's certainly far more unanswered questions that have to do with forming a district that need to be addressed," he said.

Certainly didn't sound like a denial (or a non-denial denial) of a lawsuit to me. This is a long way from being over.

And my opinion still stands: While the CU MTD is acting like the bully in this matter, they're right. If everyone enjoys or has access to municipal services, everyone should pay. Period. Don't want to bus, don't ride it. But don't be so petty as to deny your neighbor. You live in a municipal area. You enjoy municipal services. Or you have the opportunity to enjoy them. You should pay for them. Deal with it. Or move.

-- WAIT 'TIL...: Spent a painful three hours Sunday night watching the Mets dismantle the Cubs. As much as I love my Cubs, they were playing like a team that had given up. Granted, their Wild Card chances are slim. But at least I expect an honest effort from the team. Only question is who gave up first, the players or Dusty Baker?

-- PLAYING THE FIELD: I defy anyone save a few pundits and political wonks to name all the declared candidates, undeclared declared candidates and candidate pretenders for Illinois governor. It's frankly getting ridiculous. From the AP today:

"Our gubernatorial field is on the outer limits of being unmanageable, and we are wasting untold millions of dollars fighting ourselves when that money should be used against Governor Blagojevich and the Democratic General Assembly," said Sen. Kirk Dillard, the DuPage County Republican chairman.

And given the inimaginable hell whoever is elected will face in attempting to straighten things out, I still can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would want the job.

Maybe that's the key phrase in their right mind.

And so it goes.