Look, more trees!

From the 'can't see the forest for the trees' file comes the latest stupidity from the University of Illinois.

The UI is appealing for the second time the ruling by the NCAA that Cheef Illiwek is a 'hostile and abusive' and racist mascot.

Talk about self-abusive. Talk about lost causes. The UI still can't figure out that the NCAA is NOT a democracy. Never claimed to be one. Never pretended to be one. You play by the NCAA rules or you go off in a corner and play by (with?) yourself.

The UI also can't figure out that any mascot so hated by so many people for so many good reasons is a divisive figure that's hurting the UI and it's reputation across the country.

Folks, people outside of Illinois are laughing at the UI. And feeling sorry for the folks who work and teach there. The UI is actually losing good quality faculty because of the presence of the Cheef. And failing to attract other quality faculty members because of the Cheef. What exactly is the purpose of a major university? Education or a dancing minstrel show?

But the UI persists in its lost cause because a few rich alumni want to hang on to a false but romanticized image from the past.

The latest appeal concerns the name Chief Illiniwek, the Chief logo and the Chief Illiniwek performance.
"It is about a policy that asks a member institution to decide between abandoning an 80-year-old tradition cherished by many or face diminished participation in NCAA championship events by its student-athletes," the appeal states.
The appeal is in the form of a 15-page letter signed by UI Board of Trustees Chairman Larry Eppley. It reiterates the arguments made in the first appeal that the NCAA committee exceeded its authority and ignored contradictory evidence, but it does so in greater detail. The UI also argues that the NCAA is the wrong organization to rule on Chief Illiniwek, and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has jurisdiction over whether the Chief's presence violates any laws.

Just what rock is that man living under? How stupid can he and the rest of the trustees be?

How stupid can the Cheef supporters be? Do they really want to hang on to something so hostile, abusive and so reprehensible while hurting the UI's reputation and putting UI's smaller sports at a competitive disadvantage? All the while insisting that the opposition to the Cheef is made up of a 'small fraction of people who are easily offended.' They've restated that unbelievably sad, misguided mantra so often it's possible they've finally come to believe it.

Apparently there is no way to measure the depths of the ignorance on the BOT. Wave a few more alumni dollars around and Eppley will happily rush right back into that burning building to try to save something that's already lost. Burned up years ago.

How stupid. How pathetic.

How predictable.

And so it goes.

Push comes to shove

Took me a while to decide what I thought about Illinois American Water Co.'s 'push poll' concerning a potential sale/takeover of their franchises in Urbana and Champaign.

Then the Champaign and Urbana mayors weighed in Saturday with this lunacy:

The mayors of Champaign and Urbana came out swinging Friday against Illinois American Water Co., charging that telephone surveys the company conducted this week were "push polls" designed to turn residents against the possibility of the cities purchasing the local water system.
At an afternoon news conference, Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing called the telephone surveys "hardball politics" that Illinois American and its parent company, American Water, have used in other cities that attempted to purchase their water systems from the companies.

All I could think was, golly-gee mayors, did you really expect the company to say 'Here, take our company, please'?

Would you have? Of course they're gonna fight back. We gotta stop electing people like those two. For a supposedly educated community ....

And so it goes.

I see dead people

Anyone remember the W-imbecile's little adverturism into Iraq?

He'd rather you didn't.

Check THIS link out. Or THIS. Or THIS.

To date, 2,248 Americans have died in Iraq.
Is that acceptable? To whom?
Another 20,728 (or more) have been wounded and evaculated from Iraq. And that doesn't count the 31,800 civilian deaths.
These aren't numbers. They're people. Dead people. Dead.

Dead Americans.

It has cost us $236.9 billion so far. Instead, we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 9 years. But does the W-imbecile care? With that money, we could rebuild all of Hurricane Katrina's destruction.

Thanks to the W-imbecile's conservative management, the national debt now is $8,190,567,748,779.48. It was $5,656,270,901,615.43 when the W-imbecile was elected. Ain't it nice to have a conservative hand at the helm instead of one of those free-spending liberals (who have been known to balance the budget)?

And NO weapons of mass destructions have ever been found.
And NO al Qaida connection has ever been found.
And NO terrorist camps. (Camps operating prior to the invasion).
And NO plans to spread worldwide terrorism have ever been found.
And, given the price at the pump, the oil isn't even flowing. It's good to be in the oil bidness, isn't it, W?

One accomplishment, however: while Iraq under Saddam was NOT friendly to terrorists (despite what the revisionists in the GOP would like you to believe), it's now a major terrorist staging ground.

Anyone read the Downing Street memo yet?

Are the liars still on office? Why? Why have impeachment proceedings not begun? We in the U.S. are suffering from the most corrupt administration since, well since Saddam. Anyone catch Osama's latest TV appearance? It's only been 4 1/2 years since the W-imbecile promised to get him.

And so it goes.

The Obvious

Stuff I thought of when I should have been thinking about other stuff:

-- Looks to me like the GOP's stranglehold in Washington BC is weakening. The AP is predicting that the GOP's first two bills of 2006 - bills important to conservatives -- face an uphill fight.

The Senate opens its 2006 legislative session next week with two measures stalled at the starting gate: renewing the anti-terror USA Patriot Act and establishing a fund to compensate asbestos disease sufferers and stop their lawsuits against American businesses.
The Patriot Act is set to expire Feb. 3. Lacking the votes to renew many of the anti-terrorism law's provisions permanently and others for four years, Republican leaders are looking at a simple extension into March.

The other measure is a bill to compensate asbestos disease sufferers and halt suits the Bush administration says have cost businesses $80 billion. The measure is in such bad shape that one senator predicted it will only pass with help from a higher power.

Shame. Especially about the terrorist act. After all, isn't sacrificing our constitutional protection what freedom's all about?

-- Not too sure what to make of Hamas winning the Palestinian elections, but overall, it can't be good for the peace process.

-- Doesn't look like most teams are really capable of winning the Big Ten basketball title; but a lot of teams seem to be trying to lose it. Parity sucks.

-- On the Illinois gubernatorial race: The more the GOP contenders/pretenders slap each other around, the stronger Blago appears. Conversely, the more Blago opens his mouth, the stronger Eisendrath appears. And as long as the conservative wing of the Illinois GOP keeps insisting on another candidate cut from the Alan Keyes cloth, the party will remain too fractionalized and marginalized to be effective. Is Topinka really too 'liberal' to be a Republican? Or just too liberal to be a GOP wingnut?

-- Seems to me a number of local and state bloggers have given up blogging as their New Year's resolution. Some are sadly missed. I'm still here. Sorry.

And so it goes.

Step 1

This troubles me. The NG is reporting that the Champaign City Council is seriously considering permanently assigning police officers to middle and high schools.

What troubles me is that I think it's necessary. It may be necessary because the only alternative is to offer body armor to teachers.

But that along won't solve the problem laid out in the article.

Due to escalating violence in and near the schools -- including fights between students and student assaults against teachers -- the school district asked for help this fall from the Champaign Police Department. Of particular concern was a Nov. 4 melee that slightly injured several faculty and staff members and ended in five arrests.
In another incident, a 15-year-old Champaign Centennial male student was arrested Thursday afternoon on a juvenile charge of aggravated battery after police reports said he pushed and shoved a school dean while trying to get at another student.

The second half of the solution is more obvious, at least to me.

It's darned well time that Champaign middle and high schools became totally closed campuses. Much of the problem stems from students meeting with their out-of-school frends just outside the school buildings.

Despite the protestations from students, it is NOT a right to leave campus during the school day. And it's NOT a good idea.

Despite what fast-food and convenience store owners might say.

Limiting the school-day interaction between in-school students and out-of-school troublemakers might just alleviate a bit of the pressure. It has worked elsewhere. It has worked in the past. It can work.

But what's troubling is that the city council, the school board and our questionably-competent school administration never seems to even consider the option.

Close the doors. Lock then from the time the first bell rings and the last bell sounds. Big chains. Big locks. Since it's illegal for students to smoke, what reason do they have to leave school? Students can perform all the 'hanging out' they need off school property after school is over.

And so it goes.