Sunday, January 28, 2007

Sunday Roundup

With little left to do as he waits for his ethics trial, perhaps the figure Liestoppers has dubbed “Inspecteur D.A.” should devote himself to the “case of the missing chief.” Yesterday’s Herald-Sun featured a front-page story detailing concerns about the recurring, lengthy absences of Police Chief Steve Chalmers.

The chief, of course, was missing in action as Nifong (improperly) usurped operational control of the lacrosse investigation. Then he appears to have missed another extended stint last month. And City Manager Patrick Baker has promised a make-work job for Chalmers for the final four months of his contract, from September through December of this year.

This record, H-S reporter Ray Gronberg reported, “has prompted considerable behind-the-scenes speculation about the department’s day-to-day management.” City Councilor Eugene Brown remarked that he was “hearing more and more complaints—from a variety of people” about Chalmers’ absences.

Several other members of the Council expressed concern, but said they would trust City Manager Patrick Baker, to whom Chalmers reports. This, of course, is the same Patrick Baker who polled all lacrosse case officers and fantastically reported that all claimed the accuser gave the same version of events. (In fact, the accuser failed to tell the same story to two different officers, much less all of them, and gave some officers—Himan in particular—several different versions.) No doubt civil lawyers are salivating at Baker’s “report.”

This is also the same Patrick Baker who oversaw Durham’s failure to report tests relating to lead in water and ignored memos warning about problems in the city’s yard waste recycling plant, which subsequently caught on fire. His performance, in short, hasn’t inspired much confidence.

Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office refused a H-S request to release how much time away from the office spent in 2006. That move doesn’t inspire much confidence, either.

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Good commentary in college newspapers has ranged beyond the Duke campus. In the past week alone, analyses of the case have appeared in the campus newspapers at Wisconsin-Madison, Emory, and Cornell. Ari Rabkin in the Cornell Sun captured the sentiment of these pieces, looking at what remains a disturbing anomaly of this case: “While most of the country has reacted with horror to the way the accused students have been treated, many on the Duke [arts and sciences] faculty had a quite different reaction. Their comments about the case reveal some unwelcome truths about university faculty and how they sometimes view their students.”

Rabkin’s column recalled the litany of campus events—the allegations about Kim Curtis’ behavior toward the lacrosse players in her class; “the initial reaction from many quarters [of] certainty that the accuser was being truthful, and that the lacrosse players were beasts”; and the embarrassing “racialist rhetoric” from Houston Baker. Rabkin (appropriately) ridiculed Group of 88 member Alex (drinks and “hookup”) Rosenberg, whose “studied outrage calls to mind that scene in Casablanca when the Vichy police chief (played by Claude Raines) announces that he is ‘shocked, shocked’ to find illegal gambling going on, and is then given his winnings for the evening.”

In the end, Rabkin lamented, “Many members of the Duke University faculty have displayed a dismaying tendency to jump to conclusions, conclusions motivated by an aversion to athletes that borders on prejudice. This tendency is especially troubling given that university faculty ought to possess a healthy skepticism, and a capacity for evaluating evidence.”

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The “clarifying” faculty’s missive proved to be one of the worst p.r. moves of the entire case. Rather than exonerate the Group of 88, the new statement only recalled attention to the original version. And the combination of a defiant tone and an utter refusal to even consider apologizing generated scorn from Dan Abrams to Charlotte Allen.

Another fine piece on the issue came from Mary Laney of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Group of 88, she noted, “put political correctness before due process in the railroading of these young Duke students.” The Group couldn’t wait for the semblance of due process: “As soon as the now dubious claims of rape were leveled, 88 professors wrote an open letter decrying racism, sexism and sexual violence on that campus. They urged the student body to get out and let their voices be heard.”

Laney quoted Charles Osgood of CBS News, who once said, “Being politically correct is always having to say you’re sorry.” Except, it appears, to your own students.

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Seligmann defense attorney Jim Cooney gave an interview, his first about the case, yesterday to McClatchy newspapers. Cooney signaled his arrival in the case at the October hearing, during which he eviscerated Nifong’s claim of receiving no alibi information from the defense. (Seligmann’s alibi had been filed on May 1, though Nifong stated publicly that he didn’t read it, since he lacked the time to peruse “fiction.”) And Cooney’s examination of the hapless Dr. Brian Meehan provided the Perry Mason moment in the December 15 hearing, when Meehan admitted that he and Nifong had entered into an agreement to intentionally withhold exculpatory DNA evidence.

In his interview, Cooney noted that while the media misplayed the case initially, in a “fairly rare” occurrence many journalists have reconsidered their views. (I suppose the Herald-Sun and Wilmington Journal are battling for recognition as the last to abandon Nifong’s case.) He expressed confidence that the current prosecutors would evaluate the case fairly and accordingly drop all charges. And he pulled no punches on the deleterious effects of this case, noting that it has worsened race relations in Durham and made things more difficult for real victims of sexual assault to come forward.

Two especially revealing answers. When asked whether “we’ll ever know what happened during the team party on March 13, 2006,” Cooney responded bluntly and correctly:

I feel very confident that we know what happened. I am also confident that there are certain people who will never believe the facts of this case because it does not fit their view of the case or their personal agendas. The simple truth, as the facts show, is that there was no rape, no sex offense and no kidnapping.

Also, Cooney perceptively analyzed why the case attracted so much attention.

I think there were really three factors. The first was that this case was a “perfect storm” of race, class and gender issues—it appeared to appeal to our worst thoughts about male athletes and underprivileged women of color. Second, the district attorney was so adamant and certain in his public statements that these crimes occurred—and that they were racially motivated—that even casual viewers could not help but be outraged by it. The third was that a number of constituencies—both the media and individuals with various race, gender and class agendas—then seized upon the case for their own purposes. This created a Pandora’s box that, once opened, could not be shut.

The third group, obviously, would include the Group of 88 and the state NAACP, the last bastions of the Nifong enablers.

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Under the category of truth is stranger than fiction, readers of the N&O’s Durham blog, “Bulls Eye,” received a treat this week. Michael Biesecker tracked down some audio clips of Nifong worthless check program head/chief investigator Linwood Wilson, who signs bass in a gospel group called the “Spokesmen Quartet.”

The group just released a tune called “I Still Believe in America,” in which Wilson booms out on bass, “I still believe we’re the last hope of liberty.” Many people would consider aiding a prosecutor engage in a massive violation of rules to contradict basic principles of American liberty.

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A few days ago, Liestoppers ran an amazing post by a late 1990s Duke graduate and English major, whose “all-time favorite course was Professor Laurie Shannon’s thought-provoking Shakespeare class.” The author said she “was heartbroken to learn that Professor Shannon signed both the Group of 88’s ‘listening’ ad and the Concerned Duke Faculty’s non-apology.

The post examined a consistent pattern of how race has subsumed gender as the preferred narrative of the case. To cite one example, the post recalled the silence (or, in the case of Karla Holloway, worse) as members of the national media patronizingly attacked the women’s lacrosse team, many of whose members wore armbands or headbands sympathizing with the accused players in this year’s women’s Final Four.

Now, of course, members of the women’s team are viewed as heroes: students who not only had the courage of their convictions, but whose convictions have been wholly vindicated.

At the time, however, commentators from Harvey Araton to Stephen A. Smith to Kathy Redmond to—of course—Holloway had nothing but criticism to offer. I recently asked women’s lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel whether any of these reporters had offered even a private apology to her or her team. Unsurprisingly, the answer is no.

The Liestoppers poster lamented,

When I was in college people thought that Title IX and the rise of women’s athletics was important to produce women of the caliber of these lacrosse players and dispel patronizing attitudes that female students were “little girls” incapable of expressing reasoned opinions and taking positions on public issues. Where are those Title IX defenders now? Hasn’t the honorable conduct of the women’s lacrosse team proved their point? Why not say so?

Those waiting to hear from Women’s Studies program director (and “clarifying” faculty member) Robyn Wiegman to respond to such questions might be waiting for some time. After all, the program’s webpage for months featured Holloway’s essay attacking the women lacrosse players. Apparently ideology trumps gender for the Duke women’s studies faculty.

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In late August, Nifong termed himself “very pleased” and said it “made me feel good” to have Victoria Peterson sign on as his citizens’ committee co-chair. In addition to her homophobic rants and her claims that Duke Hospital tampered with the DNA evidence, Peterson had shared the platform with the head of a hate group, the New Black Panthers, during the Panthers’ visit to Durham. Most district attorneys would not consider this a welcoming resumé.

A recently released Duke Police report shows that Peterson did more than simply stand silently on the platform. According to the report of Officer S.M. Tiffin,

Capt. Evans informed me that during the rally, Ms. Peterson was advocating burning down the house at 610 N. Buchanan. Capt. Evans told me that he quietly asked her not to continue telling people to burn the house. He also said that the leader of the group also stated that he did not agree with burning the property.

So the figure that Nifong welcomed as his citizen committee co-chair advocated burning down private property and adopted a more radical position than the head of a hate group. Incredible.


166 comments:

Bourgeoisophobus said...

"And I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling bloggers."

Anonymous said...

Why haven't more lawsuits been filed?

Anonymous said...

"At 1313 hrs. after the New Black Panther for Defense rally, Capt. Evans informed me that during the rally, Ms. Peterson was advocating burning down the house at 610 N. Buchanan."

Wow. So much for the Citizen's Committee.

Anonymous said...

Is it a crime to advocate burning down someone else's house?

Anonymous said...

"Is it a crime to advocate burning down someone else's house?"

Only if their names are Matt, Adam or Brett.

Anonymous said...

KC I think the group Linwood sings in is called the Spokesmen, not the Sportsman.

kcjohnson9 said...

Thanks--made the change.

Anonymous said...

There's a whole array of things that need to be addressed here. Someone needs to think about a protest rally outside Durham City Hall for the support given to Nifong even after he had already committed unethical deeds back in the beginning.
All of us who live in the Triangle must organize for Reade, Collin, and Dave.
More than just a one day event. We must turn the tables, but even more. It must be made clear that this political correctness and this reverse racism--no, just plain criminal conspiracy against non-blacks--will not be tolerated.
The media should be brought in to emphasize this issue. Let the truth of the percentages prevail. Just who commits most of the violent crime? Crime against white people? Crime against black people--their own?
Protest the city of Durham and all like the Herald Sun who entertained the angry harrassers and the threats of death by the New Black Panthers.
Much should be illuminated so that everyone knows that this kind of crap will no longer be tolerated.
We should all organize and contribute to a bash at some posh hotel of choice, raise some money for the guys, and protest this kind of treatment by those who hold power and abuse it by using race.
NO MORE! NO MORE PANDERING!

Anonymous said...

12:37

The most effective protest is withholding the green--know what I mean?

Defund Angry Studies; eliminate all affirmative action, faculty and student; fire Brodhead; hire someone who is willing to go up against Angry Studies

Everything else is bullshit. Duke needs structural changes.

RP

Anonymous said...

Linwood Wilson gives me the creeps. He looks like that New Orleans cook on PBS who played up Cajun bs.
No surprise that Linwood is a fine Christian gospel singer. Salt of the earth. Creepy!

Anonymous said...

RP--HOW?
A mass protest around Duke to scare Brodhead sh!tless would do a lot. I want to see him fired.

Anonymous said...

The Lacrosse women and Coach Kimel are true heroines of the hoax. These are the type of women that we want to see leading America. Susan B. Anthony would be proud of them- I am sure their MoMs are also. The "reporters" who called them stupid, spoiled. little girls were so wrong. Like the 88, I doublt that many of them have the cajones to be ashamed and apologize.

Anonymous said...

How to get Brodhead fired:

1. Interview well-respected executives about Brodhead's handling of the fiasco. Guarantee you there would be some killer pull quotes. Feed this material to MSM, blogs, etc

2. Document all things flowing from Brodhead's inaction that could be understood as having a negative effect on Duke's brand

3. Communicate findings from points 1) and 2) to influential alumni. Get feedback from such alumni.

4. Pinpoint the trustees that have been supportive of Brodhead. Present them with the above-referenced findings, and demand that they present valid reasons for their continuing support of Brodhead.

5. Have a fire Brodhead demonstration at this time, after all the damaging information about him has been released to the media.

6. Fund a seminar with the following topic:

What Constitutes a Great University in the 21st Century

Whatever bullet points you place below that banner will be devastating to Mr Brodhead.

That's how I'd fire Brodhead. I'm sure other posters have opinions on this important subject.

RP

Anonymous said...

Some good ideas. I really think that none of us can rest just because Nifong's ass is now in a sling. This is just the beginning.
I was repelled by Richard Brodhead on 60 Minutes. That man is pathetic. No leader at all. How can anyone at Duke not be ashamed of this hapless character?
KC needs to also find the column written early on by a rabid man named Earl Holt from Baltimore, Maryland. His column in the H-S was by far the worst in attacking the women's lacrosse team. He went into a long rant just like the G88 have done. His writing ability was in line with Houston Baker's.
I'd like to see KC do a follow-up on Earl Holt. What is he saying now? Back in the summer he was so interested in Duke and Durham. All these attackers should be confronted now.

Michael said...

KC, I'm sure that many younger readers of your blog will have no clue as to what a Perry Mason moment is. Sure, you could look it up on Google but text descriptions just don't get the job done that watching Hamilton Burger's expression does - he must have been a good actor.

As for Linwood, I wonder if he is internally tormented by singing to honor God while dishonoring via his actions. Or if his conscience has already been seared.

Anonymous said...


"At 1313 hrs. after the New Black Panther for Defense rally, Capt. Evans informed me that during the rally, Ms. Peterson was advocating burning down the house at 610 N. Buchanan."

Wow. So much for the Citizen's Committee.


Wot you talking about? She is a Talking Heads fan, that is all.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

The only way to get Brodhead fired is to put pressure on the board. Certainly donations drying up will cause some pressure. Alums letitng board members know that they are giving their usual Duke donation to the defense fund or some other non-Duke cause until Brodhead is gone would be clearer. And Alums would have to do similar things to get angry studies defunded.

And no it wont work if you earmark you donation to the college of engineering or department of economics as money is fungible.

Anonymous said...

Michael, Linwood dwells in the house of the Lord.
Testify, brotha! Pass the offering plate for Linwood. He'll sing you a tune.
He's an investigator for God.

Anonymous said...

But for the fact that there are three young lives on the line, this whole debacle amusingly reads like a classic Southern Gothic Novel, with Peterson filling the role of the "Grotesque."

Anonymous said...

The thought of Linwood Wilson singing anything religious or patriotic is sickening.

Anonymous said...

RE: "Police Chief Steve Chalmers" -- When did Chalmers become Chief of Police? I thought he was Superintendent -- and whatever happened to Chief Wiggum?

Anonymous said...

Is Timothy B. Tyson still at Duke? If he is, he's found a way to fly under the recriminations radar.

"This is also the case with rich white boys hiring black "exotic dancers.

The spirit of the lynch mob lived in that house on Buchanan Boulevard, regardless of the truth of the most serious charges."

Yes, Mr. Tyson. Regardless of the truth, let's call the lacrosse players 'a lynch mob'.

Anonymous said...

Jim: He's smart, keeping his head down.

-Esquire-
-Maryland-

Anonymous said...

Timothy Tyson, that fat lardass, makes his living playing up race. He's just bursting with lessons to teach the world.
He's the idiot who wrote that huge story about the Wilmington Riots of 1898 for the N & O. That was totally uncalled for. 109 years ago and they just so happen to make a big production of it the same time the lacrosse players are going through a national case in NC. And race is the main focus.
Tyson lives for this stuff. Just like Allan Gurganus. Both men inflamed the public early on and added to the travesty.
So many need to be confronted.

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

K.C., your writing is envious for clarity, truth and insight. The Duke lacrosse team and families are profoundly lucky to have had you on their side. The writing of the mainstream media, however, has been a different thing. (The Newsweek cover alone gives me chills.) Though many of them have since had the honorable decency to either change their story or admit they were initially wrong, the frightening ease with which original media coverage could have helped send three innocent young men to jail for a rape that never happened is terrifying. That is why I am so glad to see hope for the future exemplified in the three campus papers you noted - Wisconsin-Madison, Emory, and Cornell. If those student writers are a sign of the future, then thank God.

Again, K.C., thank you so much for everything.

Anonymous said...

Duke Board of Trustess:

http://www.duke.edu/web/ous/trusteesgood.htm

There is no contact information - even a Duke U. general mail address - another lack of transparency/governance issue. Albeit a minor issue, until now.

Anonymous said...

The Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty Building of African-American, Gender, and Class Warfare Studies.

Now wouldn't that be rich...

Of coure it could be done after these fraudulent/racist "studies" programs are cleaned-up.

Here's how to do it, per the Duke web site.

"Policy Statement on the Naming of Existing University Buildings
Existing buildings as yet unnamed are available to be named for a donor under each of the following situations:


In cases of major renovations which extend throughout an existing building, the building can be named for the donor provided that the donor's gift covers at least one-half of the cost of the major renovation and maintenance. It is not possible to spell out precisely what constitutes a major renovation, but this is a matter that can be resolved in individual cases.

Existing unnamed buildings may be named for donors in cases where substantial gifts are made by donors to endow programs carried on within those buildings. Again, it is not possible to spell out precise guidelines as to the meaning of "substantial," but individual cases can be readily resolved.

It is further recognized that many gifts toward renovation or programs might suitably result in a portion of a building being named for the donor--that is, a lecture room a classroom, a library area."

Anonymous said...

Another thought... maybe the men's attorneys could make the building naming a part of a settlement.

Maybe change the name of the Durham Court house as well...

One other nit. I've noticed how these guys are almost universally called boys. After what they've been through, I can't bring myself to that any longer. They are men.

Anonymous said...

The Lacrosse womens team was supportive because they KNOW the players on the mens team. They know that they are not capable of such things. Remember NO ONE has ever spoken to ANY of the players from the DAs office. All the comments from LIefong and DUKE were done to either inflame the communiity or to 'protect' Duke.
These players are not perfect by any means but they ARE a great group of guys that ABHOR ANY kind of assault on a woman. Did anyone ask, did anyone even care really at the time what happened? No...everyone just 'wanted' to create the perfect story...or so they thought.
Newsweek, NYT, USA Today, HS....EVERYONE OWES THESE BOYS AN APOLOGY....wouldn't it be nice to be the first to do that...would have been nicer if they actually investigated the 'big story' before printing...is there such a thing a journalistic instinct? Not one of you could figure out something was not right here except Dan Abrams...then naturally our hero...KC!!!
Apologies for the team welsome anytime...Newsweek, NYT, USA TODAY, HS...etc...any time now. Full page ads would be appropriate about now!!! YOU OWE THEM!!!!

Anonymous said...

KC,
Thanks for the Update !
Please insure there is a Book Signing Event...I'd like to buy and have you sign mine.
Tell me (us) every evening post is at 12:01 a.m. What is the significance ???

Anonymous said...

Last spring, Harvey Aranton from the NY Times and I had some back-and-forth correspondence. At that time, he told me that his views were open and he was willing to be convinced of the three's innocence. Unfortunately, he does not respond to my emails now.

I think that Jim Cooney's point about the various columnists competing with each other to see who could have the most hate-filled denunciation of the Duke women's lacrosse team was well-put. Most MSM columnists are of the PC variety -- like the other journalists of the newsroom -- but they alway rely on stereotypes as a way to avoid meaningful research.

The late Michael Kelly once wrote that most journalists write from a template. Just fill in the appropriate blanks and file the story. That certainly was true about the MSM coverage last year, and what we still see from people like Lester Munson of Sports Illustrated, who operates even now under the fiction that Reade, Collin, and David did "something" to Crystal, and that the prosecution likely will extract guilty pleas from them.

When this sorry case is ended, the MSM writers simply will move on and do the same stereotype-filled coverage on someone else. Their actions remind me of what was once said about a prominent medieval Italian family:

"They remembered nothing, and they forgot nothing."

AMac said...

Typo in paragraph 6: "Meanwhile, the city attorney’s office refused a H-S request to release how much time away from the office spent in 2006."

Anonymous said...

Learning of the week:

Facts are trumped by agenda
Gender trumps most other agendas
Race trumps gender
Pure hate trumps all

MGM

Anonymous said...

12:15 AM
"Is it a crime to advocate burning down someone else's house?"

In Durham, it depends on the color of the owner.

MGM

Anonymous said...

RP,

I did respond to your Toni Morrison comment last night. We both posted at 11:59 and your comment followed mine, so you may have missed my comment. By the way in at least one of his pieces Mr. Crouch had some nice things to say about Spike Lee--he thought "Four Little Girls" was a very good movie. I haven't seen it.

As I understand it, one of the reasons for AA Studies and Women's Studies was that the traditional departments did not much want to fool with the subject matter now covered in those departments. AAS and Women's Studies do represent areas of human experience that merit rigorous scholarship. Theoretically, this scholarship could be picked up in the other departments, but will it?

Observer

Anonymous said...

The essence of crisis management is to make decisions quickly and firmly, but also to gain a sense of the larger picture. For example, during the 1982 Tylenol murders episode, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson moved quickly to deal with the problems and to come to as good a resolution as would be possible, given the huge uncertainty surrounding the situation.

Brodhead, on the other hand, was afraid to alientate the radical elements of the Duke faculty, and they and John Burness and Bob Steel were the de facto leaders of Duke University during that crisis. Each had a different agenda, which ultimately has proven to be disastrous.

Faculty radicals, in my opinion, are incapable of providing anything but the very worst kind of leadership, but they are very good at making noise and getting attention. Furthermore, they are the ones who have the "spiritual" (for lack of a better term) connections with the MSM.

In the early days of the story, CBS News did a walking interview with Houston Baker, who was presented as an "authority" on the matter. Even though he literally got everything wrong, he still became one of the authoritative faces of Duke University.

Now, having a loose cannon like Baker as an "authority" is like having me calling plays in the Super Bowl. Baker lacks literally every characteristic that would be needed to deal with a situation like the lacrosse incident, yet there he was, being the Face of Duke University. Brodhead bowed and scraped to Baker and his co-horts, and now he will reap the consequences.

Anonymous said...

Prof Johnson:

Ref yr. last graf and "incredible".

"Incredible" means, mostly, unbelievable.

Given your experience with academia, why is this even surprising, let alone unbeievable?

BoC said...

Re: Brodhead's rep at Duke...

At two Duke men's basketball games this year, the students have chanted Brodheads' name during the game; when the spineless one stands up, they then cheered him (he waves back appreciatively).

I just don't understand that; the sooner the University gets rid of Brodhead, the better.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Brodhead:

On June 5, 2006 Duke President Richard Brodhead said,

"If, however, it is determined that the allegations are false, then these students themselves will have been the victims of a serious injustice, one that will deserve its own stern condemnation."

Are you now ready to acknowlege this serious injustice and sternly condemn yourself, Duke University, the "Group of 88," Mike Nifong, Crystal Mangum and everyone else who perpetrated this hoax? If you can't go that far, will you at least apologize to the lacrosse players and their families on behalf of Duke University?

Anonymous said...

To Jim Said at 2:05 am,

Timothy Tyson is still listed as a visiting professor in the Divinity School where the NAACP's Dr. Barber is also listed. The Divinity School must be a place of real learning about spirituality, positive influence and tolerance if they are representative.


On another note, KC, your posting this morning reminds us all that Nifong is just a small part of the problem in Durham. It is a cesspool that must be drained.

Anonymous said...

1:51 AM -- Chalmers replaced Theresa Chambers as COP in 2002....

Chalmers has now announced his retirement so Durham is searching for a replacement. Could you keep Wiggum's name to yourself for a while?? lol

I admit to not being a Simpson's fan... perhaps Wiggum would be an improvement??

Anonymous said...

Think back to last spring and the maelstorm of liberal press condemnation of the men's lacrosse players, and the larger culture that they felt these players represented.

At that time, the women's lacrosse team's statement in support of their classmates was a lonely and defiant one. And, not suprisingly, they were attacked with sexist stereotypes and insults.

How should one thank Coach Kimmell and her players for what has turned out to be a prescient and courageous stand?

How about if donors who regularly contrubute to Duke University earmarked this years contribution to the Women's Lacrosse Team?

Anonymous said...

Sometimes in sleepless nights I surf the satelite channels and find Perry Mason episodes. I'm old enough to have seen the original airings, but not to remember specifics.

A couple of years ago I saw an episode where, once again, Perry Mason won the case by demonstrating that his client was innoncent and someone else committed the murder. Maybe it was one of his cross examinations that was so withering that the killer jumped up in the gallery and confessed. (I've never been able to do that.)

Anyway, Burger meets Mason in a bar and Mason offers to buy him a drink to take the edge off losing. Burger said, I didn't lose today. When justice is done I win, too.

Anonymous said...

After Ms. Peterson advocated burning the house down she was given a soda and lays potato chips and she calmed down.

Anonymous said...

Since this is a mixed theme thread, here's my question: was the poster on the NAACP thread correct that a Mr. Mangum was the first president of the North Carolina NAACP? If so, is there a family connection to the NAACP's involvement in this case?
gk

Anonymous said...

Tim Tyson is a visiting professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture in the Divinity School and I think he deserves to be an honorary member of the Group of 88/87. I don't know how he's managed to stay under the radar but I do know that he is still very supportive of the accuser. He penned an early article.."Ugly past echoes in the Duke case".. that ran in the N&O in which he wrote "Young white men of privilege deployed their unearned affluence to hire black women to provide live pornography." He was one of the most vocal professors to play the race card. Here's the link: http://www.newsobserver.com/690/sto ry/424299.html

He also participated in the candlelight vigil held on Saturday, March 25 in front of 610 Buchanan and his picture at the vigil appeared in the paper. He gave an interview with Frank Stasio on May 2 that is still available.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wunc_archive s/sot/index.php?cat=15

Tim Tyson is no friend of the lacrosse players.

Anonymous said...

This case is Affirmative Action gone wild. Enough with allowing the black community to have special considerations, to get in colleges they shouldn't, to giving them jobs they don't deserve. They have ridden the wave too long and now it's time to say pull your own weight. No more black parades, black music awards, NAACP, no more black initiatves: If we had white only parades, or white award shows we would be condemned racists. Americans have allowed the black community to ride us roughshod and this case is a pure example of that. People like the Duke 88 and Cash Michaels and the black governing bodies in NC need to be reigned in and told the white community is no longer considering it politically incorrect to have you earn your keep. The white community is no longer afraid to speak up and call a spade a spade. The black race can't sue everytime they don't like what a white person says. Get over it. The free ride is over. I don't want my hard earned tax dollars to go to a lazy black person who oozes with hate for the white race just because they think they are owed something.

Anonymous said...

Linwood Wilson is probably in church RIGHT NOW.

Hypocrite.

Anonymous said...

Will we ever know what happened in that house? of course we will, there are alot of kids who attended that party and are waiting to tell us. I just hope they tell their story here first before they tell it to msm.

Anonymous said...

Calling women's studies "angry studies" doesn't quite capture the essence of the problem. I think a better name might be the "department of bigotry."

The gang of 88 showed us their ability to prejudge by the listening ad. But it is their insistence to not alter their prejudice even when offered strong evidence to the contrary that displays their bigotry. Just imagine a southern white bigot in the 1950's. Would they be likely to prejudge young black males who were accused of rape? Yup. Would they be likely to apologize when and if they found out that they were wrong in their prejudice that the boys had actually been falsely accused? No. Their thinking would be too rigid and hateful to admit they were wrong. Admitting they were wrong would create too much dissonance with their crystalized and hateful belief system. This is exactly what we now see in the gang of 88. If we want to challange these departments we need to call them what they are: departments of bigotry.

Anonymous said...

Does anybody know whether or not Duke professors have contracts with a “Morality Clause”?

Given the number of highly published stories relating to various teacher indiscretions with students and personal pornography related issues, it has become known that many if not all public school systems have embraced a “Morality Clause” in their teachers’ employment contracts. This clause allows the employer to dismiss even teachers with tenure.

If the members of the G88 have Morality Clauses in their employment contracts, isn’t it time that someone at Duke start looking into just how far this group of caretakers has gone. Their written and verbal actions are an assault on their students, and they have literally put the three indicted students, as well as the rest of the Duke lacrosse team, in serious jeopardy for physical harm (remember the New Black Panthers and Pot Bangers threats).

I am not an attorney, but I seem to remember one law class that spoke to yelling fire in a crowded theater! It will get you in trouble every time if there isn’t a fire.

Yelling that someone is a racist and a rapist in an Ivory Tower without definitive proof is just as incendiary! Do Ivory Towers burn?

Anonymous said...

“Who we are is very much a function of who we have been. If you’re going to heal, you have to have an honest conversation with your own past.” -Timothy B. Tyson, preceding a lecture at Central Carolina Community College.

That "honest conversation with the past", has led Timothy B. Tyson, visiting professor at Duke University, to some odd prejudgments about particular segments of society and puts in question how much his own "healing" has progressed. V/v the Duke case:

"Young white men of privilege deployed their unearned affluence to hire black women to provide live pornography. This is only partly a free market, where people choose to buy and sell themselves. It is also a slave market, where an enduring racial caste system placed those women in a vulnerable position."

It's also disturbing that he's teaching a course called, "The South in Black and White", including a discourse on the Duke "lacrosse situation".

To be balanced, I haven't investigated whether Tyson has issued anything that mitigates his early impressions. If so, great.

If not, I'm getting a whiff of rotten fruit.

Anonymous said...

Bill A (7.53):

It was the Bourbons.

'Talleyrand reportedly remarked of the restored Bourbon rulers that they had "learned nothing and forgotten nothing."'


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbons#The_Bourbon_Restoration_in_France_and_its_aftermath

Yeah, it's Wiki, but there are bunches of other citations on the interwebs.

Anonymous said...

If anyone wants to make a statement about Brodhead (Duke alumnus, parent etc.), write the Duke Board of Trustees. Friends of Duke have their email addresses. I have done it twice - that may have as much of an impact as anything.

Michael said...

re: Jim at 11:22

Privilege = your parents worked harder than mine and I'm jealous.

An interesting phenomena that I've seen for the last 15 years is where you have students that know more than their professors in certain technical areas that they work in as they're working in R&D on the latest and greatest while professors are teaching about released products or products nearing release.

Bright professors know this and know that sometimes their students have insights that the professors don't.

This was 15 years ago.

What's amazing at Duke is that you have professors teaching outright prevarications that are easily checked or that the student body is already aware of. And then calling it an "Honest" conversation.

Anonymous said...

Bill Anderson, 7:53 AM-
'...what we still see from people like Lester Munson of Sports Illustrated, who operates even now under the fiction that Reade, Collin, and David did "something" to Crystal, and that the prosecution likely will extract guilty pleas from them.'

Thanks for your article Goebbels Justice. It is disturbing how effectively the Big Lie still works today, and how easily we all can buy into one.

Unfortunately, as with all Big Lies, this one will have it's hardcore supporters claiming "something must have happened", forever polluting intelligent discourse. It is the tool of fear-mongers and thugs, and in the end, ordinary innocent people are destroyed. Great article, Bill.

M. Simon said...

boc 9:27AM,

Re: chanting Brodhead

Perhaps it was a way of getting some down and dirty cheers in:

Broad Head.

The cheering of the man was ironic.

At least that is how I'm telling the story.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:02AM

I don't like having to repeat myself, yet this message really needs to get through.

You are foaming at the mouth and baying at the moon. Stop it and maybe your head will clear.

The high priests of the cult of victimology are not reading the comments on this particular website, thus you waste your time lecturing them from this forum. They are not listening, they cannot hear you.

Concerning your demands for "No more black parades, black music awards, NAACP, no more black initiatves" you can include me out. And get a clue: that goes for most of the other non-black folks who can string two logical thoughts together. If you're not black, what the hell are you doing trying to tell black people whether or not they can throw a parade or collectively decide to give out music awards? More importantly, why do you care? It doesn't have anything to do with you.

How did it escape your attention that there's more than enough racial resentment in this nightmare?

Now, remarking that the NAACP's stance is hypocritical is entirely on point. And the link someone provided (prior thread) to the essay regarding the NAACP's irrelevance since 1991 was thought provoking. It's time to examine some uncomfortable facts about the role of race in academics (starting with the inappropriateness of race HAVING a formalized role), and there are professional excuse-monger pinatas to beat up. That's the fun part.

But - and I can't emphasize this enough - dialing up of the generalized race-hate is counter-productive. Really. Because you're just going to come off like an ignorant racist who can't be taken seriously. Furthermore, your stench makes the whole room reek, so when someone new opens the door he/she may have a hard time telling exactly who in the crowd stinks, or if it's all of us. Do you get what I'm saying? Duke's been through enough and it's not over yet, so don't go making it worse.

Duke 91

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Kudos to RP, JLS and others for continuing to bring attention to the need to give Brodhead his walking papers. I agree with JLS that bringing pressure on Duke's Board of Trustees is the way to go; also with JLS that the quickest way to bring this about is to have Duke alumni pull contributions until Brodhead is sacked. Nothing will get the attention of the Duke Mandarins quicker than a sustained drying up of contributions, ideally coupled with a dramatic fall-off in applications to all of Duke's academic programs.

In fact, if students of good faith re the Duke Three simply don't enroll at Duke, and go elsewhere, particularly in relation to real academic programs like engineering and premed and the hard science programs such as biomedical research--to the latter of which no doubt numberless research grants are attached, further funding many of Duke's activities--the upshot will be that Duke Admin will have to stanch the bleeding with Brodhead's firing, and then ideally engage in a serious reappraisal of the bogus victim studies departments--don't hold your breath on this last one.

Bottom Line: the more pressure is applied directly to Duke's finances, the more the Admin will have to sit up and take notice, the end result the canning of Brodhead.

To 12:07 am anon:
On the question of why more lawsuits haven't been filed.

Don't expect any lawsuits from the Duke Three and the LAX team as a unit until after all charges have been dismissed. The civil actions thus far have been brought by Dukies whose harm--viz the suits related to retaliatory grading--has already played out, that is the incident that occasioned the harm is now a complete incident.

The event that occasions the harm to the Duke Three is the bogus indictment and pre and post-indictment hysteria attendant to that indictment. Until all charges against the Duke Three are dropped, civil actions should remain in abeyance, so that when they are brought--and brought they will be--the incident occasioning the suits will have at least officially ended.

There is also the issue of Duke Admin officially declaring at some point that all the LAX team members are exonerated from any and all potential Admin. sanctions. When that happens, civil suits against Duke will let fly as well. Of course, if Duke Admin refuses to provide such an accommodation to the LAX team and Duke Three, or worse, goes ahead with sanctions anyway, civil suits later on will simply have more dollar signs attached to them.

BTW, thanks to other attorneys on other threads who have laid out some of the relevant case citations which may prove relevant to the bringing of, and resolution to, any and all suits in connection with this outrage. Whatever the lawsuit structuring ultimately looks like, I think it is safe to say this: This whole event--the attempted railroading of the Duke Three, and by extension the whole LAX team--is to civil suits and seasoned civil litigators what the OJ criminal case was to criminal defense attorneys: the apotheosis of lawyering, the mother lode, the "ultimate case."

Trust me, whatever vagaries attach to the merits of this or that action or legal strategy, some of the most creative and manipulative legal minds in the country are busily figuring out as we speak not only the most credible and sustainable causes of action to bring on behalf of various actors harmed by this travesty, they are also creating scenarios--like the argument that Duke Admin. in their conduct breached a fiduciary duty to the Duke Three and LAX--which, while not finding much, if any support in concomitant law, will serve as fodder for lawsuits anyway, because the attorneys behind the bringing of the suits realize that the notoriety of this case has the potential to create a leading edge for establishing new precedents in legal liability--always a favorite pursuit of the best--meaning most effective, if not always societally beneficial--civil litigators; hence are crazily litigious society.

This is one case where I'd like to see the crazed litigators let loose all year long on the Duke admin and their cronies.

Anonymous said...

12:23PM Duke 91-

Well articulated, and far more effective than the 2 words I was thinking of.

Anonymous said...

That should be 12:34 PM Duke 91

Anonymous said...

KC

Great round up as always you are the best at keeping folks informed on all that goes on in this matter.

I have one quibble and it is in the final sentences. You wrote:

citizen committee co-chair advocated burning down private property and adopted a more radical position than the head of a hate group.

You seem to make the distinction between the Citizen committee and the New Black Panthers as being Non-hate versus hate group. I would say that from all actions they are indistinguishable. All the more reason to find supposedly rational and learned professors not to be recoiling in horror from what their words and actions wrought and further what they could have wrought with the power of one match. Truly frightening what this faculty has become. Unfortunately given what I have seen in Boulder and Berkeley and Ann Arbor and Madison et cetera ad nauseum, it most certainly is not confined to Durham and its Duke faculty.

Anonymous said...

I'm less angry at Tim Tyson as I am astonished. For a man whose career- indeed his life- has been devoted to social philosophy to debase two large segments of society, as he did in that April 3rd piece, is mind-boggling.

He characterized young black women as slaves and white men as hedonistic vultures a-wing on undeserved privilege.

At the moment when all his introspection should have allowed him to soar, he plunged precipitously.

I don't place him in the Group of 88, whom I deem 2-dimensional ignorare. I place Tim Tyson in a class of his own. He literally should have known better.

Anonymous said...

Any news on the position of the NSVRC in relationship to CDC? The use of tax payer dollars to promote crazy Wendy and her views? Any news on the Lab - Is it still in business? I think we have all come away from this with a clearer understanding of court proceedures.

Anonymous said...

Robert KC Johnson:

Why don't you interview Jack Welch about Brodhead's deer ballet?

I'd be happy to volunteer in setting it up. That interview would be sweet, and I'm sure you could make a nice buck from it.

Roman Polanski

Anonymous said...

The Hoax and the Meta-hoax

Unlike many of the posters at this site, the media has in general ignored the hoax behind the hoax, meta-hoax that enabled this travesty to occur. The meta-hoax is vast, having corrupted every major university in this country. Combating it will require decades of concerted efforts.

What does it say about the administration and trustees of Duke University that they would hire, empower, and ultimately lionize a man – Fred Jameson, cheerleader of Mao’s Cultural Revolution – who professes a political philosophy that would, if enacted, likely result in the slaughter of a significant share of the Duke alumni? What does it say that both Duke University and Time Magazine would champion Michael Hardt’s vapid and vicious book Empire, co-written with a convicted Italian terrorist? (If Jameson is the Pol Pot of Duke, Hardt is certainly its Che Guevara). What is truly sickening is that none of this is at all unique to Duke. It can be found on every campus.

Why has the meta-hoax been allowed to metastasize? – largely because of the betrayal of the liberals; because they have sold-out their own ideals to anti-liberal radicals. There are, I thing, several major reasons for this great betrayal.

1. A combination of nostalgia, naiveté, and masochism. This is what I usually hear when I confront a liberal with the vile behavior of leftist radicals: “Of course they go way too far, but their hearts are in the right place, and they help keep us focused on real social problems. They keep alive the spirit of the ‘60s, and remember what fun that was. For all of this we owe them a debt of gratitude.” (I have a difficult time not vomiting when I hear this.)

2. Insecurity about their own beliefs, coupled with paranoia about “conservatives.” If a liberal ever criticizes a radical leftist idea or action, that critic will be immediately denounced by radicals for serving the political right. The gambit generally works: other liberals will immediately join forces with the leftists, afraid of anything that might possibly help the conservative movement. As a result, even those academic liberals who detest the radical left are afraid to speak out. (This stance, by the way, is both cowardly and politically stupid: hard-right conservatives actually gain major political traction by linking liberals with extreme leftists.)

3. Indifference. Most university scientists focus all of their energies on conducting scientific research. They could not care less about that happens on the “other side of campus” – it’s too much of a distraction, and it’s all just nonsense anyway, so what pay it any attention? Bizarrely, scientist critics of the anti-science, anti-reason “postmodernist” movement (Sokal, Levitt, Gross) have received very little support from fellow scientists.

Can liberals possibly be pried away from the deadly grip of the radical left? I have some slight hope, as it did happen once before: by 1960s, the Democratic Party had become firmly anti-communist. Books such as The Vital Center played a major role in that sea-change. A number of recent books (I could supply a list tomorrow if readers are interested) could potentially play a similar role.

Ultimately, all “true liberals,” all heirs of the Scottish Enlightenment, both those of the (moderate) left (Democrats, broadly) and those of the (moderate) right (Republicans, broadly) need to understand that they have much more in common with each other than they do with totalitarians of any stripe.

Anti-Leftist Liberal

Anonymous said...

I think rich white boys would be well advised to stick to white strippers in the future.

Anonymous said...

To Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann, and David Evans:

It is very important that you instruct your attorneys not to settle early vis-a-vis any actions you plan against Duke and its employees. It is your moral duty to exact huge settlements from Duke--not only for what you suffered because of racist Duke professors and a Cowardly Lion president--but to make Duke a wiser and better institution going forward. The larger the settlement, the more likely Duke will have to evaluate the viability of Angry Studies, your principal victimizer within the Duke "community."

As Wendy said to Marv in "Sin City":

Kill him, Marv, kill him good.

RP

Anonymous said...

It is unfortunate that so few Americans have ever lived in or even observed a totalitarian society. I have been there and seen it.

Our ignorance in this area will cause us to eventually become sheep under a Stalinist regime. The leaders will be the intellectual heirs to the Gang of 88.

Anonymous said...

yes, I think black strippers may be facing a tough road ahead.

Anonymous said...

There is a real 'us' vs 'them' letter in today's Hurled-Scum.

Anonymous said...

1:32 I'd hate for the legacy of this case to be a financial impingement of Duke itself. Don't forget, there are a lot of good kids (Women's lacrosse) and good profs (Econ Dept) who truly love the University and are trying to make it a "wiser and better institution".

I hope the accused and their lawyers find a focused way to grind their ax.

Anonymous said...

Remarks to the effect that Dick Brodhead should be or will be “fired” are naive. I presume that those making them know little of the actual governance system at Duke and other similar American universities. A mere rape hoax pales into insignificance when compared with the scandal of actually “firing” a president. All the power is in the hands of the trustees, and if Duke’s board is like others, in the hands of a small circle of trustee “insiders” at that. Whatever else Brodhead has demonstrated, it has not been courage, bold initiative, or independent judgment. The clear inference to be drawn is that he is acting with the support of, if not at the instructions of, the “insider” trustees. There are of course many possible scenarios, but two of the most likely are these: (1) The case is dismissed in the near-term future; Duke muddles through to the end of the semester and more or less successfully changes the subject. Brodhead is eased out—very different from being fired—no later than two years hence, having in the meantime declared victory in achieving some goal or another that nobody ever heard of before. Then he goes on to head a foundation nobody ever heard of. (2) Brodhead suddenly discovers that the “system works”, the lads are innocent, the parents’ nightmare is finally over, etc., etc. and together with a group of trustees and a large group of previously silent centrist faculty publicly states that, contrary to vicious rumor, the Duke faculty actually love and respect their own students in all their “diversity”, down to and not excluding even those so diverse as to take pleasure in chasing balls of various shapes and sizes around playing fields of various shapes and sizes. He thanks the Groups of 88 and 87 for their “thoughtful” and “serious” concerns, and for making a “teachable moment” out of a “troubling episode”. He reprimands those (nameless, but obviously not anybody we know) who would have had us “rush to judgment”. He makes a public feint at trying to rehire the lacrosse coach, knowing full well that the man, being neither a literary critic, an exotic dancer, or a gibbering idiot, would not dream of returning. He then declares, definitively, that it is time to put all this behind us and get on with our shared challenges and opportunities, beginning with the establishment of the Duke Regional Institute for the study of institutional regions.
Of the two scenarios the second would certainly be better for American higher education and probably also, in the long run, for Duke.

Disillusioned Dean

Anonymous said...

I call BS on RP for the message to the three defendants:

"It is your moral duty to exact huge settlements from Duke"

If they want to sue Duke or Durham or Nifong or CGM or the Group of 88 or any combination of the above, that is certainly their right. But they have no obligation to anyone (other than their parents) to sue or to accept any settlement of any amount to meet with RP's or anybody else's satisfaction.

None of those prospective civil defendants are likely to roll over and cough up bundles of cash. I would think the least arduous route will be against Durham via Nifong. I wouldn't blame the boys if they extracted as much as they could from any of the prospective defendants. But I also wouldn't blame them for accepting enough to cover lawyer's fees and then getting on with their lives instead of spending a couple more years attached to a court case. It's entirely up them.

Anonymous said...

1:50

Money talks. Duke has to get it through its fat head that Angry Studies is worthless, divisive, obsolete--and expensive.

The huge settlements will send a message.

Angry Studies must be extirpated from from the academic corpus.

The Professor Holloways of the world should either start their own universities, or migrate to places that house their cognitive peers--Slippery Rock Teachers College and Wilberforce.

RP

Kudos to JLS, KC, Cedarford, NYSMind

Anonymous said...

to 1:54 Disillusioned Dean

I said it months ago, and I'll say it again.

Richard Brodhead is about as much a president as Karla Holloway is a holder of an elite, endowed chair in Duke's English department.

He is not a leader. He a bitch.

RP

Anonymous said...

1:58

There's a wonderful concept in law. It's called the contingency fee. The boys will return to school/get a job, and leisurely await their huge settlements.

Trust me, Duke parent, any sharp lawyer will relish going after Duke much more than Nifong, Durham, and our sweet Precious.

The damage inflicted on these boys by the G88 and Brodhead (it it can be proven, the trustees as well) is enormous, and the boys' lawyers will not be sidetracked or cajoled. Duke and its assigns contributed markedly to the boys' rape, and Duke should compensate them accordingly.

Are you a fan of black studies?

RP

Anonymous said...

1:54 PM-

'A mere rape hoax pales into insignificance when compared with the scandal of actually “firing” a president. All the power is in the hands of the trustees, and if Duke’s board is like others, in the hands of a small circle of trustee “insiders” at that.'

The "mere rape hoax" was supported by the G88 and is now supported by the G87. Brodhead supports both the G88/87. At worst he loses his job. Nobody playing Duke politics is facing 30 years in prison for a felony that never happened. Are people at Duke playing political games when lives are at stake? False accusations undermine laws and justice in society. Please, a bit of perspective. The rest I concur with you.

Anonymous said...

What you guys don't realize is that Duke cannot simply get rid of its Women's Studies and African-American Studies departments because it would make us less competitive than our peers.

In fact, Duke is often criticized for not having a lot of the ethnic/cultural studies programs you can find at the other institutions in the "Top Ten" list.

You can find these departments at every top university in the country and many have greater departments than Duke.... for example:

At Harvard
*Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program http://www.fas.harvard.edu/wgs

*Department of African and African-American Studies
http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/index.html

At Yale
*Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program
http://www.yale.edu/wgss

*African-American Studies
http://www.yale.edu/afamstudies/

*Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Studies
http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/publications/ycps/chapter_iv/erm.html


At Stanford
*Program in Feminist Studies
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/femstudies/

*African and African-American Studies
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/AAAS/

*Asian American Studies
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/AAS/

*Chicana & Chicano Studies
http://ccsre.stanford.edu/UE_maj_Chicano.htm

*Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity
http://ccsre.stanford.edu/UE_maj_CompStudies.htm

*Native American Studies
http://ccsre.stanford.edu/UE_maj_NativeAmer.htm

At Princeton
*Women and Gender Studies Program
http://www.princeton.edu/~prowom/

*African American Studies
http://www.princeton.edu/africanamericanstudies/

At Columbia
*Women and Gender Studies
http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/depts/women.php

*African-American Studies
http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/depts/african.php

*Latino Studies
http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/depts/latino.php

*Comparative Ethnic Studies
http://www.college.columbia.edu/students/academics/depts/competh.php

At M.I.T.
*Women's Studies
http://web.mit.edu/womens-studies/www/

*African and African Diaspora Studies
http://web.mit.edu/shass/undergraduate/programs/minors/fields/mras.shtml

Anonymous said...

Here's the H-S letter 1:47 refered to:

"How dare the N.C. Bar Association join the mobs in Durham who have verbally lynched and sought to politically assassinate District Attorney Mike Nifong for seeking to prosecute three white Duke students accused of raping a black NCCU student. And if we are to refer to the lady as a "stripper," allow me to refer to the men as "perverted stripper patrons."

The conspiracy to disrupt justice in this Durham case should be obvious. It is unprecedented that the alleged criminals and their defense team have the luxury of such a media platform to proclaim their "innocence" and attack the prosecutor.

More than 50 percent of the black men packed into the Durham County jail also profess to be innocent. But the media will never allow their cases to be tried in the court of public opinion. Neither will you see any form of outrage when the DA says "they did it." Consequently we find more black men in Central Prison than N.C. Central University.

I challenge the racist media and N.C. Bar Association who wrongfully used their influence to attack the integrity of a prosecutor who is prosecuting a case which has the potential to challenge racism, classism, and sexism simultaneously. Yes, we should demand justice in the courts. We should also remember Malcolm X's point, which says, "If black people can't get justice in the courts, we have to demand justice in the streets."

CURTIS E. GATEWOOD
Oxford
January 28, 2007"

Distortion of this case is becoming the real enemy. This guy's probably been fed a diet of Cash Michaels and his contemporaries.

You are what you eat.

Anonymous said...

Jim - 2:26 PM
Check out bill anderson's latest.

Anonymous said...

Rich or poor white boys, black, brown or green would be will advised to go to a strip club or rent a film. The real thing is not worth the trouble - besides those women were very unattractive.

Anonymous said...

Rich or poor white boys, black, brown or green would be will advised to go to a strip club or rent a film. The real thing is not worth the trouble - besides those women were very unattractive.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

re: Disillusioned Dean

1. I don't think anyone here has called Brodhead to be publically humiliated. I think everyone here pretty much expects what you suggested, Brodhead will be eased out, maybe after Duke settles with the various lacrosee players. [Publically firing him in advance might not help in negotiating settlements.]

2. I don't think anyone expects a public ceremony drummng all members of the angry studies programs ouf of the academy at Duke. I expect that these deparments may find money from Duke does not flow as readily, adjuncts, visitors and new positions might be tougher to come by. If admissions and donations are down, someone must pay and why not the departments that caused it.

3. Sure Brodhead might have been acting the way the board wanted BASED ON THE INFORMATION BRODHEAD GAVE the board or key board members. Part of the reason for such a set up is that the President can be fired, the board can not be completely replaced. This is why pressure on the board is key in this situation. That includes financial [donations] pressure and personal pressure. Any time a Duke board member is at any function where a Duke alum is also in attendence they should be asked what the board is doing about Brodhead and angry studies. And if it is a Duke event and particularly if they say anything to the group they should be asked in front of the group. Board members will deny there is a problem or and claim they won't do any thing, but the personal pressure will mount. [This is somewhat the reason gender and race trump all now. No one wants to be asked about issues and know they will be if they don't act certain ways. ] The Duke board members need to know if they don't act in this situation they will be asked over and over and over and over and over again until they do.

Anonymous said...

2:25 notes that "getting rid of women's and black studies would make [Duke] less competitive with [its] peers"

2:25 also provides links to Angry Studies departments at places like Yale and Princeton. Thanks for the links.

2:25: What does competition have to do with welfare? Yes, academic welfare is ubiquitous in the US, manifested most obviously in women's and black studies departments.

2:25, a question: Can you name me 1 institution among the so-called elite schools whose brand is enhanced by Angry Studies? This crap is nothing more than social extortion--and incongruous with the notion of what constitutes a great university.

Another question: Suppose all students and faculty at Duke shared the average IQ of the women's and black studies departments. What do you estimate Duke's national ranking would be in US News?

Are you familiar with the word "vanguard"? It means the "foremost or leading position in a trend or movement." Duke has an opportunity now to realign the misplaced priorities of higher learning. Instead of expending scarce resources on crap, these institutions can expend these same funds on genius--whether its Tang poetry, or the aesthetics of algorithms. Angry Studies is a divisive parasite.

Kill it, Marv, kill it good.

Roman Polanski

Anonymous said...

A key week in the history of the Duke lacrosse scandal lies ahead as the special prosecutors review the case files and the defense attorneys may file more motions ahead of the Feb . 5 hearing, which may or may not take place.

Even if you wrote to Atty. Gen. Roy Cooper several months ago, I urge you to do so again to let him know that the whole world is watching his decision whether to continue the persecution of Finnerty, Evans and Seligmann. Atty. Gen. Cooper and Judge Smith have the final say and Cooper is more likely to listen to public comments.

Write Cooper at:

Office of Attorney General Roy Cooper
9001 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-9001

E-mail Cooper at:

http://www.ncdoj.com/default_contactus_for...ctionid=general

(the e-mail form is at the bottom of the page).

Anonymous said...

"You can find these departments at every top university in the country and many have greater departments than Duke"------------

A lot of those departments are not much more than hate groups with tenured members.

They differ from traditional hate groups, who may feel that practicing hate is wrong, but, much like a thief or an adulterer, they do it anyway.

The tenured variety have hate that is totally unrestrained by conscience. This is due to their cult-like sense of moral superiority.

Hate combined with moral conceit is a toxic combination.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

re: 2:25

What you don't understand is that the Duke angry studies racists are possibly the worst racists in the history of the world. Often eve the worst racist of the old south hated blacks but the black they knew, that worked for them ect. were different. Not the Duke racists, they hate even the white males among their students.

So Duke is under pressure to act because they hired this group of worst racists in the history of the world. The angry studies departments at Harvard, Stanford, Yale etc have not come out against their students of Harvard, Stanford, Yale respectively. The Duke racists did.

BTW, criticisms or no, Duke is not the the league with Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc. did not make their reputations with angry studies. That has been a frill of schools already established as top schools. Duke despite what many Duke people think is not thought of in the same group as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford.

Duke is a tier or two down with Vanderbilt, Washington University, Emory, Rice, etc. Duke is apparently ambitious. Perhaps if their ambition were channeled into what made a great university, they could get into the top tier or replace someone in the top tier falling due to wasting effort on frills and not sticking to what made them a great university.

Anonymous said...

Duke has hundred of millions in endwoments and realestate. The defendents have every right to go after Duke for hundreds of millions. Duke played a role in the witch hunt and slander of these young men and their families. It can't be fixed, corrected or taken back.

DA Nifong was working on behalf of the County of Durham and the State of NC. The defendents have every right to go after Durham as it was the DPD that produced false documents in court, phoney reports and lied to the grand jury. The DPD played a hands on role in this hoax by physically distorting the truth, outright lying, planting phoney evidence, intimidating witnesses etc.

The defendents have every right to go after NC. All court documents stay, "The State of NC vs......." Nifong worked on behalf of the state. Since the state did nothing to correct the problem, 10 monthes into this travesty,the damage has been done, can't change it, dismiss it or correct it.

The defendents have every right to go after all the other pirana and parasites for slander, lies, misinformation, etc: such as Duke 88, journalists, talking heads, NAACP, black leaders, Victoria Peterson ...ect.

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

Reade, Seligmann and Evans MUST sue. Not for their sake - but for ours. Nifong is not the only corrupt DA, Crystal Mangum is not the only woman who lied about rape, the gang of 88/87 is not the only group of bigoted college professors, etc. The monsters who attacked Reade, Seligmann and Evans still exist - and if they see Nifong, Mangum and the gang of 88/87 get away with it, they will rise up and attack again. And their future victims may not survive.

I know someone who could be a victim of those monsters. He's smart, laughs, plays sports, and in a few years will be going to college. He's white. And he's my nephew.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Kudos to RP and JLS

2:57 JLS

In agreement as to not only content; tone as well.


duke09kparent 1:58 and disillusioned dean 1:54

While it is certainly true that the individuals whose lives have been disrupted by this rape hoax--which is everyone from those who were instrumental in the longevity of its perpetration, like Brodhead, to the Duke Three themselves, whose lives have been ensnared by the hoax--have the legal right to exercise all sorts of options which will or will not variously depending on their nature keep this case in the public spotlight longer or fuller or in a more harsh way--there is still a corollary morality play and tale playing out here.

By way of analogy, surely Rosa Park's life would have been made easier in the short run, had she declined to concoct with her fellow civil rights comrades the scheme of refusing to move out of her seat when ordered to do so by a bus driver intent on making sure that a white man also on the bus could take her seat. She could have simply filed to the back of the bus, back with her "own folk," away from the upstanding white citizens at the front of the bus. No one at that time time could have put on Rosa Parks that she was somehow a sleaze had she chosen to simply defer to the white man who wanted her seat, slouching to the back of the bus, rather than fighting for the right to sit upfront. Insisting as she did, taking the heat for weeks and months thereafter as a result of her actions, was not just in lore but in fact a large spur to the civil rights efforts at the time to dismantle the last vestiges of Jim Crow laws in the South.

So...to duke09kparent I say, yes of course, any potential litigant connected with the rape hoax can and should do what they will in connection with the hoax.

Nevertheless...the backdrop to this case does not go away. What happened to the Duke Three not only could happen to literally millions of men--particularly white men--in all kinds of situations all over the country; the way the Duke Three and other potential LAX litigants choose to comport themselves in any civil action they bring in connection with this hoax does have real-world implications reverberating all over the 50 states. If they choose to ignore that context, and simply "move on with their lives," yes indeed, who am I to judge them for that.

Yet I shall thank them and commend them should they choose to use this situation they're in to impart a larger lesson against PC machinations everywhere, by exerting their status as plaintiffs to extract a protracted settlement arrangement, or ideally, an extended civil trial plastered all over the MSM for all to see.


disillusioned dean 1:54

In the abstract it may indeed be naive to bet on Brodhead's departure; posts here, including mine, however, are not dealing in abstractions. They are making the sensible point that should Duke find itself in not just public relations trouble, but looking at major financial implications should they choose to keep Brodhead on, they will think better of it. Institutions--those in academia, those elsewhere-- always drive their policies by the larger purse strings they are attached to, no matter how self-righteous or self-insulated, or even ideologically driven, they choose to be.

And as to ideology itself...Lawrence Summers may have a quibble or two with you about how difficult it is to remove a President from his post; of course, his sin was not doing something truly outrageous like aiding and abetting a rape hoax; no his "crime" was to mildly and incidentally raise a thought-experiment in a closed-door meeting the purpose of which was to entertain "no idea is too crazy" suggestions on how Harvard as an academic community might account for the fact that relatively few women were to be found in departments prizing high-level abstract reasoning, such as advanced mathematics.

The only instance of naivete in connection with all this--just by way of thought experiment--would be exercised by one who would think that Summers "resignation" from Harvard was not the result of a putsch on the part of 1/4 of the faculty, the remaining faculty members coming to his defense with the zeal of an owl snoozing while the bunny below him is scooped up by a hawk.

Anonymous said...

2:25 Competitive? In the race to a Marxist state?

Anonymous said...

Duke 91 -
While perhaps conveying a bit more vehemence than you find acceptable, poster 11:02 did not use any words or phrasings that are inherently racist. Expecting people to stop whining and to pull their own weight is hardly exceptional - parents of teens do it every day. Expecting people to not throw fits when called a name - heck I expected that of my children by the time they were in pre-school. (If you haven’t learned that before school starts you are going to spend your school years crying in the corner or tattling to the teacher.)

I tend to agree with the idea that people who have been given legal and social handicaps in the game of life at some point need to stop confusing equality of outcome with equality of opportunity.

Anonymous said...

1:50 PM
Don't forget...this could have turned out much differently.

As has been pointed out in earlier posts :
- Nifong could have pulled this off by behaving slightly less stupid.
-The wrongly accused could have been unable to hire this level of legal representation.
-Dennis Meehan might not have spilled the beans.

If you are a Monday Morning Quarterback, then yes, things did unfold the way they should have. But do you realize how easily things could have gone much more terribly wrong for these 3 men? And where do Brodhead, G88/87 stand in the event the 3 wrongly accused are treated to Durham County, NC "due process", complete with a "Brady violation" pass and other hidden traps, and a jury pool demanding justice for past injustices? Do they give their nods of approval to a corrupt judicial system that got away with it?

After the bomb goes off and you find that you have escaped with life some limbs, you might want to find out who all is responsible.

M. Simon said...

jim 1:50PM,

I guess if the boys take enough money out of Duke it will have to choose:

Angry Studies or bio-medical science.

Anonymous said...

JLS says....

re: Im

Expecting people to not throw fits when called a name - heck I expected that of my children by the time they were in pre-school. (If you haven’t learned that before school starts you are going to spend your school years crying in the corner or tattling to the teacher.)

Exactly. When you call someone names you are generally mad at them and pick names to hurt their feelings. [Parents of all young children have been told they hate you by the time the kid figures out that that might hurt your feelings the most.] So in cross race situations calling someone a racial name is meant to hurt their feelings. Nothing more.

For example the guy who played Kramer on Seinfeld is either a racist or not. That he got mad at some hecklers and called them a forbidden name or whether he went on Jesse Jacksons show or not tells us almost nothing about whether he is a racist.

Racism is about how you view and treat people all the time, not what names you use when you are mad. Those Duke racists, possibly the worst racist in world history, are certanly racist. They speak in PC terms. They were not mad and calling the Duke lacrosse players honkeys, rednecks or any such terms, but by their views and actions they showed us what racists there are.

Anonymous said...

JLS is correct. Many of the "isms" faculty members owe their existence to the higher education institutions trying to "atone for past racism." Once these people are on campus, they consider it their mission to discover every element of "racism" that is there.

As we know, there is going to be very little of what historically has been considered racism at the modern college or university. Therefore, the "isms" people have to be very creative in discovering all of the examples of "racism" and then demanding solutions.

Not surprisingly, many of the "racism" incidents are hoaxes. John Leo identified a number of them, and they still happen. When the hoaxes do occur, the usual suspects jump out to bang pots, make noise and, of course, make demands on how to "change" the campus culture to turn the place into a Maoist re-education camp.


Also, thanks to those posters who said some very kind things about my latest piece on Lew Rockwell's site. There is more to come, although I look forward to this ending so I can get back to my day job (and other writing projects where I actually make money)!

Anonymous said...

To Reade Seligmann's, Collin Finnerty's, and David Evans's attorneys:

You guys have won the lottery. Congratulations on your great work, and your well-earned future bonanzas.

NYStateofMind proposed something that I'm in agreement with. What do you think? Yes, an extended, nationally televised civil trial against Duke and those sleazy professors. O sweetness and light!

WHY DID I CHOOSE THE ARTS? I'D KILL TO LITIGATE THIS.

Oh my god--DISCOVERY RULES. I beg you, don't settle. Litigate the shit out of this one. Let the world know what transpired behind the scenes.

This trial has a Scopes-like feel to it. If you litigate, you can bet you'll be made heroes in a film treatment.

I smells a massacre--and a masterpiece.

Kill em, Marv, kill em good.

RP

Anonymous said...

My opinion could be misguided, Simon. Wouldn't be the first time. And Duke probably has insurance to cover such an eventuality.

My concern was that the wrong people could end up paying a monetary judgment against Duke itself, in the form of higher tuition and fees. Just like in the corporate world, everything gets passed to the consumer.

Unlike the stereotypes presented by too many, there are plenty of kids attending Duke who need every scrap of financial aid they can get.

Sue like hell, absolutely. Recoup legal fees, get punitive judgments, the whole enchilada, but use a sniper's rifle, not a shotgun.

Maybe a suit against Duke could be crafted to exact a more enlightened punishment: binding agreements to address the cultures that have exposed Duke to so much jeopardy. That would be justice: turning the "dialogue" 180 degrees around, focusing it on the 88 and Brodhead.

("Angry Studies" is likely well-tenured. At best, that would be a lengthy seige that might perversely be embraced by the victim-wannabes.)

Anonymous said...


Humanity always struggles to overcome history's legacy of violence stemming from envy, limited resources, differing ideologies, etc.


Hmmm, perhaps that is why, in high-tech startup, we have so few engineers with American undergraduate degrees.

Why, in the one I am working in, the majority of the core engineering team is from outside the country: One Indian, one Chinese, several British and one Aussie ...

We're not infected by the bullshit from the Angry Studies studies realm and we have the smarts to do the job.

Anonymous said...

4:31

Angry Studies, race norming, affirmative action--whatever you prefer calling it--are going the way of Creationism.

The Muse has revealed her flabby breast. Time to reinforce genius, ignore and defund the mediocrities.

Survival of the cognitively fittest.

Learn about jazz in a jazz club.

Learn about geniuses like Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and the Brontes in the English department.

Sad to say, there are no black authors in the artistic company of the above-referenced women.

C'est la guerre.

RP

Anonymous said...

Sad to say, there are no black authors in the artistic company of the above-referenced women.

C'est la guerre.


I wonder why. Could it be that the list was created by a racist???

Anonymous said...

KC,I know I'm being PC here, but shouldn't the women's lax team be called heroines instead of heroes?

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, the only solution is to have Duke close its doors.

1. The faculty, with the exception of the Economics department is not worthy of teaching our young people.

2. Brodhead is only worthy of leading the above mentioned terrible faculty.

3. The students, with the exception of the Lacrosse players, both male and Female, and college newpaper reporters, are unworthy of taking leadership roles in our society. They have sat by and let this injustice happen without taking any action at all. Let me ask...are the classes of Professor Baker still attended? and what about the classes of of the rest of the group of 88? The students should be ashamed of themselves for their apathy. If I were an alumnus of Duke, I would not allow any of them to graduate and be called a fellow alumnus. Since their voices have not been heard...I can only assume they will continue this apathy and stand for nothing for the rest of their lives.

Duke has proven over the last 10 months that it is not worthy of being an accredited institution. I hope the civil suits from the lacrosse players bankrupt it!!!

Anonymous said...

Among Liberals like BHead the need for emotional comfort is almost pathological . In a recent interview with The DC he models this tendency with a whiny wish that this might all be put back in a box and we could all move on with the conversation . Among liberals , discussion is far to uncomfortable indicating that their might be a disagreement of opinion .

Maybe BHead will just find it all too uncomfortable to tolerate life outside that box where people refuse to just have a nice conversation like one has about one's favorite type of apple . Maybe he will just leave .
As to lawsuits and extracting damages from Duke , a question to the lawyers . Aren't Duke employees held save harmless and aren't the cases brought against it handled by their insurance cooperative's legal managemenbt team ?

Anonymous said...

A couple of things. First of all, Wisconsin- Madison article has a few inaccuracies. I have posted regarding inaccuracies because we want our up and coming journalists to get their stories right.
Secondly, as a Duke Mom I want to remark that several campus chaplains did a fabulous job from day one at keeping their students and family informed in an even-handed way. In the long run, that may have been far more effective than taking out a public ad and polarizing an already polarized community (due to Nifong's inflammatory statements.) They were even-handed and fair and reported in that way to their various church demoninations. This has gone unnoticed by the majority of the community but as we think about thanks (i.e. John in Carolina) we should thank those who did what they could to bring sensitivity to all parties involved.

Anonymous said...

drew... check your shoes, you've stepped in all kinds of stuff with that rant.

Anonymous said...

5:44,

I am sorry if my above opinions offended..however Duke is not the first University to have an athlete falsely accused of rape. However, in my opninion they have indeed handled it far worse than most.

See this link:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/football/ncaa/08/26/bc.fbc.pennst.phillips.ap/index.html

Joe Paterno came under fire for supporting and NOT suspending his player until due process took its course.

And its a good thing he did because the man was aquitted.

Anonymous said...

The Duke insurance policy against such lawsuits--presuming it exists--has an upper limit. That limit would be quite large, but it probably would not have been calculated by envisioning what some have called the perfect storm.
Never so many active, angry, upset, intelligent victims, and never so many negligent or actively hostile potential defendants. Never so much publicity.
From which I speculate about two things: The insurance company's limit will be reached and exceeded in a short time. The next renewal, if there is one, will feature a much higher premium. Duke will have demonstrated not only the potential for doing such crazy stuff--all universities show such nonsense going on as thought processes--but Duke actually put it into practice. The bad actors are still there and there is no evidence of corrective action. Nope. The underwriters are going to look at this very carefully.

So Duke will be going into the sock for settlements beyond the insurance limits and for the next premium.

Anonymous said...

Joe Paterno link for those who are having problems.

Anonymous said...

Bill A... You need to get yur own book deal. There is certainly room for more than one book in this case and many viewpoints are welcome - you are a terrific writer.

Anonymous said...

Cedarford,

I don't think I'm wrong in pointing out to the boys' lawyers that there is a lot at stake in this case.

5:03: You accuse me of being "racist." Please tell me of any instance of black genius in the arts or science.

The word "genius" refers to people like David Hume, James Joyce, and Gustav Mahler.

Take me to the hoop, little man

RP

Anonymous said...

7:01


Duke Ellington

Anonymous said...

Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker ... Smokey Robinson, Jimi Hendrix... Bob Marley... I could go on all night. I'd take any of them over Mahler.

Anonymous said...

7:01

Dr. Charles Drew

George Washington Carver


And who the heck knows what James Joyce is babbling about anyway....

Anonymous said...

TO 5:44
Joe Paterno had class, a trait lacking with many in Durham, NC

BDay

Anonymous said...

12:07
Just wait, the pressure builds, once the remaining charges are dropped, the hammer will fall.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

4:17 bill anderson

Love the reference to John Leo. He wrote a column for years in U.S. News & World Report (the MSM correlate to Time and Newsweek), exposing and wittily lampooning the entire range of PC nonsense that is now embedded in our culture like a voracious leech.

Several years ago he "retired" from USNWR, doubtless prompted by his publisher, Mortimer Zuckerman, whose own views on matters political and cultural are more emblematic of PC nonsense than, like Leo's, bulwarks against it.

Anonymous said...

troll:

Muddy Waters Duke Ekkington?

Little, bitch: Duke Ellington is not in the same league as George Gershwin, who was not a genius

Muddy Waters is wonderful. He's as far from a genius as Miles Davis and John Coltrane are.

Dream on, little man

the days of affirative action are over

RP

Anonymous said...

I think Angry Studies departments are a result of elite universities have so much money that they don't know what to do with it. Hence they fund idiocy.

Anonymous said...

A genius is the person who came up with the phrase Angry Studies. That soubriquet could have a lasting beneficial effect in getting rid of that nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my!

Another provocative episode in KC's saga. I see that the race merchants in Durham and surrounding areas are stalking like wolves now.......threatening the Man, AG Cooper.

These morons must be going crazy at the prospect of charges being dropped. No more innocent men to persecute.

LOL!

Debrah

Newyorkstateofmind said...

8:45

Hey Debrah: longtime no hear. I've been waylaid myself with far too many professional obligations. So little time...and all that.

Speaking of the race merchants...they've moved more recently to the West Coast, where they are trying to ensure that hate crime charges do not attach to a beating where two white women who went into a "middle-class" black neighborhood in Long Beach, CA to "trick-or-treat" were severely beaten for the sin of...well, being white girls in a black neighborhood.

Notwithstanding the advisability of choosing such a Halloween eve. stomping grounds, America at least still pretends to the notion that we're all entitled to go where we want...when we want.

The usual suspects, and the local black community leadership, are all in agreement that treating this virtual lynching as a hate crime would be a "miscarriage of justice." We know the drill: only whites can commit "hate crimes," because only whites are "part of the post-colonial overlord structure which permeates the meta-consciousness of all individuals residing in Amerika."

Anonymous said...

The ever-disgruntled and exercised Curtis Gatewood is someone who makes Ron Karenga, the hardened criminal-cum-AA studies "professor" who invented the Kwanza schtick, seem almost intelligent.

He used to create demons and write long letters to local papers in which a sermon always morphed into a tantrum.

Hilarious!

IIRC, one year he was urging a movement against Santa Claus.

Another year he was warning everyone of the evil of the Devil in Duke's Blue Devil. LIS!!!

Others might recall the details of this comedy better than I, and can perhaps add something.

Suffice it to say, Gatewood is riding on his little boat without all his oars in the water.

No way for normal people to converse or reason with such a person.

Debrah

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Update:

eight defendants--8 black girls and one black male--were just convicted, with hate crime enhancements, this past Friday, Jan. 26th. Naturally there were dozens of black "leaders" and various hangers-on "protesting" outside the courtroom at the "travesty" of this decision.

Anonymous said...

"New York State of Mind"---

Hi! So good to see you again. I've been busy with the tasks of life as well. Coming here after a few days makes it impossible to sift through all the posts. Maybe I'll just skim a few.

Your story is most disturbing. I seem to remember reading something about that. How scarey and disheartening.....all at the same time.

You know, as many posters here have opined, things must change. Right now there is no logic or justice in how this race game is played out in this country.

I find it depressing.

Affirmative Action cannot continue to be stretched into every arena of life. I keep saying that this lacrosse case has the potential to be a catalyst for change.

It's up to all of us to make it happen.

Debrah

AMac said...

anon 5:40pm --

> Let me ask...are the classes of Professor Baker still attended? and what about the classes of the rest of the group of 88?

Houston Baker moved to Vanderbilt University at the end of the 05/06 academic year. According to their publications, they're thrilled to have him.

Look at the apologia Cathy Davidson (G'88) wrote for the N&O (subject of an earlier D-i-W post). She is a reasonable, sensible, sincere leftist who has engaged in civil email correspondence with Bill Anderson and several LieStoppers members. It's just that her Op-Ed (and emails) are unresponsive to the contemporaneous facts (e.g. by reversing the order of the Listening Statement and Nifong's indictments). But never mind, onward she marches. Never apologize.

And thus for the other G'88 teachers as well, it seems safe to assume. And their acolytes, and the credulous and unwary.

I would suppose that the careers of the Group of 88 and the other rush-to-judgment, anti-Due-Process faculty are going fine.

---------

NY state of mind 9:03pm --

Good commentary by Patterico on coverage of the Long Beach incident dated 1/25/07 and 1/5/07.

---------

Cedarford,

Earlier this weekend, you wrote about how a reformed Duke might deal with its 88-plus errant employees, from an employment-law point of view. Excellent perspective, memorable delivery.

Anonymous said...

The real thing is not worth the trouble - besides those women were very unattractive.



Let's say they danced for a full 5 minutes.

Paid $400 apiece, the two young ladies worked at an hourly wage of $4,800/hr.

Imagine how much they could have earned if they were even just a tiny bit more attractive.

Anonymous said...

Angry Studies, race norming, affirmative action--whatever you prefer calling it--are going the way of Creationism.


In a 2004 CBS poll, 55% of Americans agreed that God created humans in their present form.

Creationism ain't going nowhere.

Get used to the angry studies.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Debrah 9:15

Very much in agreement that the LAX case has the potential to be a catalyst for change. In some ways it already has; absent this and related blogs, I'm not at all sure that Nifong would even be gone at this point.

At the level of the bigger picture, it's all a crapshoot still. An earlier blogger today noted how this country is heading down the road to totalitarianism (the blogger having seen the ugly face of same firsthand), and implied that our collective complacency here in America, as a people, appears to make this inevitable.

While it would be easy to dismiss this warning as misplaced at best, or hysterical at worst, I'm not entirely mollified by such a stance. After all, "happy-talk" "feel-good" nostrums are the order of the day in all societies, whether they are on the verge of a cataclysm like Nazi or Stalinist death camps, or something more insidious, like the encroaching Muslim presence in Norway, changing essential norms of ease that women in public have known there for decades.

It's not just the vast majority of Americans who take for granted our ever-eroding public ease, our dwindling essential civil rights, our casual assumption that we will always wake up to an open world. Many, nay most, Jews in Germany and Ukrainians in Russia assumed during the ever-increasing government intrusions on their basic civil rights during the 1930's that their governments and their enablers were just passing "through a phase," that doomsday preachers were either wackos or sociopaths, and that "all would be well, give it time."

Of course history tells us that the "hysterics" among them got out within an inch of their lives, just in time. The "positive thinkers," those always believing in a "bright future," were many of them either gassed, shot, or starved to death.

Not "happy" stuff of course. But then I don't believe we can simply dismiss the Duke Three saga as just another incident in the detritus that rolls along the TV bar on a continuous flow--what are those continuous-feed tape-style wordings called?--underneath the main viewing screen.

Anonymous said...

I prefer to call these superfluous professors and the silly courses they teach the university's Shakedown Departments.

BTW, everyone should read Larry Elder's books "The Ten Things You Can't Say In America" and "Showdown".

He's a take-no-prisoners kind of guy. Went to Brown, then I believe the University of Michigan Law School.

Very sharp and entertaining man.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

I'll never believe that 55% of Americans buy into Creationism.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

I think it is called a crawl.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Debrah 9:53

55% of Americans in toto probably don't buy into creationism. Granted.

The bad news is...there are whole neighborhoods, for that matter, portions of counties, where the great majority of residents constitute the yahoo bible-belters of leftist caricature and fantasy.

Granted...these people are not exactly typically opinion makers or even inveterate bloggers...still...they're a big part of the American dialog, and all that means, for better or worse.

Anonymous said...

"New York State of Mind"---9:42PM---

A most excellent post.

I'm not one to worry; however, your ominous and foreboding scenario and analogy may hold more validity than we wish to imagine.

Like many, I grew up so optimistic and secure. So idealistic and sure that all of society's problems would be solved by the time I reached adulthood.

LOL!!!

All those little liberal and hopeful lyrics to songs I used to sing and compose now seem hollow and almost infantile.

IMO, those of us who honestly cared and were the true believers are the saddest and the angriest and perhaps the most defiant with regard to the unfortunate way race relations have evolved....or not.

We didn't go through what we have just to see non-blacks now become the innocent victims of selfish and ill-educated racist black America.....whose call for "equality" ad nauseum has been their historical mantra.

Only those of us who really cared are saddened by the present.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

The Dumbing Down of the World

I asked posters to name worthy blacks in the arts and sciences who are bona dide geniuses--people in the league of Hume, Joyce, and Mahler.

What do I get:

Muddy Waters
Duke Ellington
Jimi Hendrix

I guess in our feel-good culture where people like KC Johnson can describe Professor Coleman as "brilliant," all bets are off.

Well, I guess I crossed the line by addressing something that the MSM wouldn't touch with a 1000-foot pole.

RP

Perhaps Bush shouls sponsor a No Geniuses Left Behind Act. Spike Lee could be its spokesperson.

Yes, Johnny, you can be brilliant, too. Just get a cushy affirmative action job at Duke Law, publish nothing substantial, and go on the record decrying a whack job like Nifong.

Pass the barf bag.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Actually...have to clarify my 10:03 comments

While I am certainly not a bible-belter, by any stretch of the term, I am not a strict evolutionist either. I think the notion that, a la the school of mid-nineteenth century "postivist" thought out of which Darwin's theory of evolution came: that the only reality which exists is that which can be appertained through the senses, or derivatively by a deductive set of assumptions about the origins of Man and the Universe which cannot warrant an appeal to a higher being; that to me is as limited, and in some ways as primitive, as saying the earth was "created" in 7 days (even if we fudge by claiming that the ancient Aramaic word for day could be said to constitute an eon).

While evolutionary theory has more real-world correlates to justify its claims than many alternative theories, it's still pretentious to believe that Darwin and his modern-day boosters like Stephen Hawking have definitive insight into the nature of the Universe and man's origins.

I believe the proper frame of reference vis a vis penultimate questions of how we got here and who we are is a healthy and informed agnosticism. Skeptical inquiry still allows for the reality that not all reality can be studied in a laboratory, or perceived through the senses, even derivatively.

Of course we're far afield from the Duke Three at this point...but hey, it's Sunday night, and if Matt Drudge (playing now on the West Coast) can sideline his radio show with any topic under the sun, so can we here.

Anonymous said...

To Newyorkstateofmind:

Your 9;03 post about the Long Beach incident is about as accurate as Officer Gottlieb's notes! It took place in a wealthy and almost-entirely white neighbourhood (Bixby Knolls). So the three (not two) female adult white victims weren't beaten for "being white girls in a black neighbourhood." The (now-convicted) attackers -- 8 girls aged between 12 & 17 and one boy of 17 -- were black children who'd come into the neighbourhood to trick-or-treat. It was evidently a nasty racially-tinged incident, but hardly a "virtual lynching" -- more like a schoolyard fistfight. Reaction from the AA community has been pretty restrained. Their main grievance has been that the suspects, despite their young ages, were denied bail and kept in custody since Halloween. This incident -- deplorable though it is --really doesn't rank with the Rape Hoax and the Gang of 88 as an example of antiwhite racism.

Long Beach Dukie

Anonymous said...

Well - this case is about DNA. And without going into detail, DNA interspecies variation does, in fact, prove the theory of evolution handily.

Anonymous said...

10 23
At the risk of seeming rude, I think you mean "ultimate", not "penultimate".

Anonymous said...

"New York State of Mind"---10:03PM---

Pat Robertson makes my skin crawl.

I agree that there are clusters of people who believe in any given idea.

IMO, religion is the most dangerous of all when combined with a lack of education. Catholicism is just as guilty of using the ignorant masses as the roly-poly Bible-thumpers.

What irks me is Catholicism's stance on abortion......supporting never-ending-baby-making. Those poor people follow like sheep.

Religion is a very dangerous thing in the wrong hands.

:>)

Debrah

Anonymous said...

NYSM

FYI: "penultimate" means second to last

RP

Newyorkstateofmind said...

10:31 long beach dukie

While I appreciate the correction of some of the relevant facts in play here--btw the demographic characteristics of the neighborhood you'll have to provide more information on if you wish to frame it as a "white neighborhood," the essential claimed I made is left entirely unaddressed by you, half less contradicited: that dozens of black protestors outside the courtroom where the trial took place were there to protest in part because of the hate-crimes enhancement accepted by the trial judge--and it was this enhancement which animated much of the protest among black leaders.

It's one thing to "get your facts straight." It's apparently another, for you anyway, to understand and explicate the import of what those facts represent.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Debrah 10:37

"Religion is a very dangerous thing in the wrong hands."

Couldn't agree more. And unfortunately, it is in the wrong hands where particularly traditional religious views and practices reside.

Anonymous said...

Let's hope something good comes out of this:

1: Case is dismissed asap
2: The 3 accused sue everybody involved in the hoax (Nifong, DPD, Meehan, Duke/Gang88/Brodhead, Newsweek/CNN/Nancy etc)
3: President Brodhead is fired and new president apologies and promises to end left-wing PC madness
4: Pseudo-science/angry studies is defunded, gang88 fired
5: Race quotas (aka AA) are dismissed once and for all
6: Moderate black community emerges (does it exist outside Bill Cosby?) and the corrupt racists from Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton will retire
7: Racist hate groups, such as NAACP, ACLU, New Black Panthers are officially declared hate groups and their tax exempt status is ended
8: Better monitoring of out of control prosecutors (Nifong and Fitzgerald are good examples what happens if prosecutors decide to pursue "investigation" even though no crime has occurred)

Best Wishes, Jamil Hussein from al-AP

Anonymous said...

KC must do further work on the performance of Timothy Tyson---(btw, I hate the name "Timothy"....don't know why)---and that of Allan Gurganus.

Very early in the lacrosse case, both men jumped on the race-pimping train along with Mikey Nifong and wrote disgusting columns......designed to inflame.

Gurganus pasted together a shabby scenario of the antebellum South as an analogy. He even used mint juleps as an embellishment.

Such seething work from a man who should thank his lucky stars he's still walking around after a lifestyle that would make the overrated "piss interpreter" Robert Mapplethorpe look like a choirboy.

As for chubby boy Tyson, he'd have no career at all without his Civil War fantasies.

Gurganus' column was prominently printed in the New York Times.....and then picked up by the N & O.

Both Tyson and Gurganus need to grow a set and learn that not all people look at life the way they do:

Through tattered crenilines and hooped skirts.

********** Shades of Scarlett Conquering ***********

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Go, Jamil.

Are you a student?

RP

Newyorkstateofmind said...

RP 10:38

Denotatively penultimate does indeed mean next to last. Connotatively it is sometimes used interchangeably with ultimate.

But I appreciate the correction nontheless. As I do try to make sure the words I use mean what I want them to. Next time I'll find a different word when trying to convey the same meaning.

Anonymous said...

Debrah

The "piss interpreter" is Andres Serrano. Mapplethorpe was the whip-up-his-ass guy.

Speaking of "chubby," I think I'm getting one right now thinking about leather and urinals.

Ted Koppel

Anonymous said...

NYSM

Are you familiar with teleology?

RP

Newyorkstateofmind said...

11:01 RP

The short answer (only kidding--you know how I do go on!) to your question is that I do believe that there is/are higher power(s) at play in the Universe, which cannot typically be perceived through the 5 senses, but whose role in our lives is difficult to divine at best.

That the forces of the Universe have a planned, divine, knowable and precise plan, or that they are moving in a prescribed direction, is something that I struggle with believing. On the other hand...I do believe that there are relatively higher states of being, and parallel states of being (this life that most of us live is only one plane on which reality takes place). There are more evolved beings, and more evolved states, than we humans typically experience. But accessing either the beings or the states...that is something outside of any frame of reference I've tapped into on an ongoing basis thus far in my life.

I do know that when I follow my "intuition" at many points of decision making in my life, extraordinarily good things sometimes--even often--happen.

Systematizing these inchoate experiences into something more organized...I just haven't done.

Anonymous said...

Ted---

Honto?.......Es verdad?.......Are you sure?

Did I really confuse the whip with the piss?

Serrano must have been covered in "Vanity Fair" at the same time. I distinctly remember reading about them in the same article.

Although, that was a decade ago.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

After reading a number of article on the Gell case, I understand why Nifong conspired to bury exculpatory evidence. It appears to be something of a North Carolina tradition, encouraged by the lack of serious discipline, the casual attitude of the attorney general and the willingness of the authorities to believe the BS from Hoke and Graves that blamed someone else for their misconduct.

M. Simon said...

teleology

You whisper something into a woman's ear and she tel ol her friends?

Anonymous said...

Serrano did the "Piss Christ," which I gather was a photo of a crucifix submerged in the artist's own urine. Tame by art-world standards.

Newyorkstateofmind said...

11:14 Debrah

Ted koppel 10:58 is indeed right on via the respective NEA-inspired/funded "Christ-centered"--with a difference of course--art from the 70's/80's.

Anonymous said...

"New York" and "Ted Koppel"---

You're right. Thanks for the correction. I do remember now.

In any case, my reason for bringing up Mapplethorpe was because of his widely publicized promiscuity.

Gurganus, apparently, shared that same trait. Most of his friends died of AIDS....so the story goes.

There's nothing more amusing than a really gay guy with a really heavy, syrupy Southern drawl....a...la....Gurganus.

Debrah

Newyorkstateofmind said...

Debrah 12:19

"There's nothing more amusing than a really gay guy with a really heavy, syrupy Southern drawl....a...la....Gurganus."

Does make for quite a study in contrasts, "Southern Charm" being the quality that unites the otherwise quite disparate parts (except when one of the parties to the union of opposites is more reminiscent of a Deliverance supporting actor than say...Fred Thompson of US Senate and Law and Order Fame).

Anonymous said...

"Connotatively it ['penultimate'] is sometimes used interchangeably with ultimate."

Only by illiterates, I'm afraid.

Anonymous said...

oh no, the ad hominems are flying again.
Yikes!

Anonymous said...

"New York State of Mind"---

Gurganus is so overblown. (No, that wasn't really meant as a pun...LOL!)

He wrote a book called "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All", which was full of historical inaccuracies and went on forever.

He's like most semi-talented people. He found a topic he knows a little about and has beaten it to death.

The lacrosse case must have given him multiple orgasms.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Cedarford,

Please read my post. I was alluding to major genius--Hume, Mahler, Joyce.

OK, maybe this isn't your area of expertise. The point is, the major geniuses of Asia and Europe tower over black geniuses. These are the kinds of decisions one must make to guide a curriculum.

RP

M. Simon said...

"Mulligan stew for Bloom,
The only Jew in the room
Saxon's sick on the holy dregs
And their constant getting throw up on his leg.

Molly's gone to Blazes,
Boylan's crotch amazes
Any woman whose husband sleeps
With his head all buried down at the foot of his bed."

Jefferson Airplane

M. Simon said...

New info on Guilford College

A sixth player has been charged. Not by law enforcement either.

Anonymous said...

As a relatively new and occasional reader of this Blog I am curious if anyone has commented on the parallels between the Dennis Fritz, Ron Williamson vs. Oklahoma, the City of Ada, District Attorney and everyone remotely involved in the prosecution of the case and the Duke 3 and Nifong? I just read Grisham's "The Innocent Man" (non-fiction) and while I am not attempting to equate spending over a decade on death row with what has occurred in Durham, the frame up is very similar. Nifong could be the Ada, OK DA’s evil twin. The judge's strongly worded ruling (page 342) in denying the DA's motion for summary led to a multi-million dollar settlement. Despite the settlement the DA remains in office.

Anonymous said...

Usually good analysis KC, but you over interpreted Cooney's remarks to fit your argument. His quote states that "media" and "individuals" used the case the fit their agendas, but then you go on to add "groups" like the 88. You should not use the attorney's remarks to buffet your arguments if they do not fit, as in this case, they do not.