The Truth about Duke March 29, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Basketball, Common Sense, Racism.add a comment
Now, my well-documented opinion regarding Duke University could easily be boiled down to my distain for their basketball team if one so desired. It is very easy to take everything I say and toss it under the umbrella of, “Oh, it’s a Maryland fan looking for additional, albeit unnecessary, reasons to hate his ACC rival.” That’s totally fine and, to be honest, it does factor in a tiny bit (it has to). But the fact of the matter is that my distaste ventures far beyond the basketball court and what Dookies across the nation would refer to as “petty jealousy.”
For one thing, I know these people a lot better than most outside of Durham, having grown up in the Baltimore private school scene. A collection of a number of small schools linked together by neighbors and sports created one giant graduating class, in a way. Like the students at Duke, our families were paying an exhorbant cost for our education. Like the students at Duke, we lived in a sort of isolated bubble, separated from the violent reality of our hometown. Smack dab on the Mason Dixon line, this collective was a perfect blend of New England prep school and Old South parochialism (don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my school and definitely have rose-colored glasses that tell me we were by far the most socially active and community serving member of this group. Maybe I’m biased, but it seems to be a general consensus). The fact of the matter is that very few people tried to understand the world outside the one of privilege, and those who did could hardly relate to it. The only reason my school could seem as being more aware revolves around a recent tragedy that very few other area private schools have experienced, but plagues the surrounding community on a daily basis.
My experience in this tightly-knit group paints a very specific picture of the kind of entitlement and invincibility that can hang over an institution like Duke. Dick Vitale and every Dookie on the planet will wax poetic about an elite institution full of some of the brightest young minds in the country, but they won’t bring up the $43,000 price tag that comes with it. That’s $6k a year more than Harvard and $4k more than Yale. There are students there on a financial aid, need-based and scholarship, but they are exceptions and not the rule.
The entitlement comes from a total lack of accountability for the full run of their lives. They get caught drinking and don’t pay the citation. They get DUIs and don’t spend the requisite night in the clink. They treat other people like they are less important not out of some kind of psychological fear or insecurity, but because they genuinely believe it. Why shouldn’t they? Their parents have kept them dodging bullets their whole lives, the same bullets they dodged when they were younger. It’s easy in a small community like Baltimore, or Durham, where all of the powerful people, and their kids, know each other. It sounds to be a regurgitation of a stereotype, but I’ve seen enough first-hand to know that it is backed up by legions of facts.
Now to the events of this week: I am doing my absolute best to keep “innocent until proven guilty” in my mind when it comes to the rape allegations. And I’m also doing my best to, if the charges turn out to be founded, blame the people and not the school. However, the dirty little secret is out of the bag and the hounds are getting released (hey hey, cliche).
The Raleigh News-Observer reported that 15 of the suspects (one-third) have been previously cited for alcohol and disturbing the peace. Sure, not a big deal, it happens to everyone. But these people weren’t punished: “The paper said that most of those charges were resolved in deals with prosecutors that allowed the players to escape criminal convictions.” So since there were no convictions, the University could leave its money-generating lacrosse team on the field. And they have total deniability. Throw in the fact that the attorney for the current suspects is a Duke Law alum from 2001 and the picture gets clearer and clearer: obviously, Luca Brasi wasn’t available. As bad as this would be for the players, who could do 25 to life (which is even longer for an upper-class suburban kid), it would be worse for the University, right in the bottom line, where it hurts them the most. We know why the students were bailed out of their charges; because a game in the L column costs the university money; an appearence in the NCAA lacrosse national championship is worth in excess of $1 million. Why let that slip away if you don’t have to? Needless to say, Duke officials are not investigating this case.
Duke is an environment where kids who have been given a free pass their entire lives can be guaranteed an extention of their invincibility, though numerous contacts and a diploma carrying a reputation inflated by years of careful manipulation and exploitation (whew, strong words). They charge an insane tuition that is essentially a buy-in fee to an alumni network designed to indefinitely line the pockets of university officials with no questions asked. If the truly gifted, intelligent students in Durham (I am aware that there are students who have earned their way in) want that immaculate reputation to hold its ground, they need to hold their community accountable for the culture of greed that it preaches.
Ann Coulter: Lunatic March 28, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Common Sense, Media, Politics, Racism.add a comment
There is an old trope of writing that I’ve always chosen to ignore, and that’s beginning an essay with a thesis statement. This time is going to be different, however, because I believe Ann Coulter to be completely insane.
I don’t really need all that much evidence here; there isn’t an intelligent person on the planet who could possibly disagree. They may agree with her politics, that’s perfectly fine, but even the most extreme right-wing-prayer-in-schools-anti-gay-marriage-pro-racial-profiling Republicans know that she’s out of her mind. But she’s their lunatic, so it’s okay. It’s exactly the same way that Democrats view Michael Moore and his self-righteous struggle against the Bush family. Moore and Coulter are equal on the level of hyperbole and showmanship, although Moore’s doctrine is incendiary where Coulter’s is hateful. The woman was quoted as wishing Timothy McVeigh blew up the New York Times building, and in the next sentence calls people who are against the war in Iraq traitorous anti-patriots. She’s not the guy from Memento, okay, she’s just a walking contradiction: a New England born New Yorker who hates the blue states like they’re the Red Menace.
There are people who agree with Ann Coulter’s statements; her legion of acolytes who think Rush Limbaugh is too moderate (quick sidenote: while an unquestionably dangerous spewer of disinformation, Limbaugh is less dangerous than Coulter for the sole reason that he is a caricature. He comes out and says that global warming is impossible, using theology as evidence. His credibility is so out there after getting torn to shreds by Al Franken that he’s really nothing more than a guy on the side of the road with a “The Apocalypse Is Coming!” sign and a tiny tip jar). Coulter’s posse is made up of two kinds of people: people who like her because she’s loud and brash and angers democrats. If you hate your neighbor, you’re going to smile whenever the pit bull from across the street takes a shit on his lawn. You know it’s a bad thing, but you love seeing the neighbor have to get out the shovel and clean it up. The other kind of person who loves this vile harpy uses the word/phrase “Sum’bitch.” They own a great deal of Larry the Cable Guy memorabilia, including a “Git-R-Done” shotglass. They see an honor in being simple and view intelligent people, no matter how modest, as arrogant. They often utter the sentence: “I don’t have a problem with them, they have a problem with me.” They’ve all used Rush Limbaugh as a gateway drug, thinking they are graduating from radio evangelism to Big Boy Politics, even though their Athena of serrated jingoism is just as criminally misinformed as the fat man of the AM dial.
Coulter hides under her rain-delay-tarp of free speech (which she only sees as constitutional law when it applies to her), saying the millions of people who loudly call her out on her shit are anti-American because they are attempting to squelch her right to free speech. I am not saying she should not be permitted to belt out her message of militant partisanship. One day, like Joe McCarthy, William Jennings Bryan, and David Duke, Coulter’s voice will get a little quieter as the rest of the world starts to tune her out. That’s the end of the road for a zealot. The sooner people stop listening, the sooner she’ll shut the hell up.
Analyze This March 23, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Chicago, Common Sense, Genius.add a comment
I have been quoted a dozen or so times as flat-out mentioning that given the proper amount of time, I can figure anything out. That gigantic oystering net encompasses everything from what people are thinking to how to install a gas stove. With any luck, the latter will not be challenged, as it is kind of like culinary Cambodia behind my stove at the moment; in the brief time I have lived in this particular apartment, I have accidentally launched butter, tomato sauce, ground beef, lettuce, scrambled egg, a coat hanger (which was supposedly used to collect the butter), a slice of smoked gouda, and a Comcast cable bill (don’t ask) into the thin crevasse behind my oven. Needless to say, the next person to go back there will be shaking hands with the foulest situation they’ve ever come across.
Anyway, I can figure most things out. That would come across as an arrogant statement (and maybe it does) if I wasn’t convinced that anyone could do it. Some people can do things faster than others; I’ve met kids who can assemble the Lego pirate ship in 20 minutes, and others who eat the red – “cherry” – pieces. Forgetting that knowledge doesn’t need to be a horserace, anyone can figure anything out if they don’t get in their own way.
That’s the trick. Especially with dealing with people. If you attach any sort of desired end result to your analysis, you’re going to screw it up. It’s counterintuitive to figuring out most things. If you’re trying to set up a TiVo, you know what the end result is going to be: a functioning TiVo. People are different, and when they are pigeonholed into predetermined spots…well, that’s how you get war, racism, punditry, and virtually every other problem existing today. Except bird flu. That’s no one’s fault…except for the cockfighting “coaches” who don’t understand that ThunderCapon has a disease who could kill everyone on the planet. I’ve made a sweeping judgment about them. Fuck them.
The first lesson is not a popular one and is in agreement with Malcolm Gladwell: your first impression is almost always right. Now before the hate mail comes pouring in, I would like to express what it is I mean by “first impression.” I don’t mean the first time you see someone, I mean your initial interaction. It could be anything, as long as a conversation or as short as a look from across the El platform. You’re going to know exactly what you’re dealing with almost immediately.
It’s the oldest statement in the bad-cop-movie lexicon: the Eyes Never Lie. In every interrogation scene, or poker scene for that matter, the analyst gathers flawless, CSI-foolproof information by watching his target’s eyes. Give TJ Hooker ten seconds of eye contact and he knows what you had for breakfast that morning. It’s that kind of hyperbole that forces us to dismiss the claims that the Eyes Can’t Lie. But they can’t, and never do.
The most basic way to figure out what’s going on is to be conscious of what your eyes are doing when you’re thinking different things; when you spot a smoking hot chick, when you want to punch someone in the face, when you’re so bored you start reciting movies line by line in your head. In poker, where do you look when you have a hand? When you’re trying to get away from someone in a bar that you’re considering faking a knee injury like a soccer player, where are you looking? Here’s a newsflash: everyone operates the same way. People think different things and like different things and react differently than others, but the intristic wiring of everyone operates exactly the same way. When you’re pissed, intrigued, or looking to get laid, your eyes are doing the exact same thing everyone else’s are in that situation.
This is not, of course, a universal rule. While watching someone’s eyes will tell you absolutely everything you need to know about them, people don’t always take the time to check. They get so wound up in what people say or what they think is going on that they shirk any and all patience and try to make a judgment. Here’s a secret: you can’t try to make a judgment, you’ve just got to figure it out as you go. That is often accompianied by fear, but only because people are afraid of being wrong. If you’re not clinging to some end result, you can’t be wrong, therefore you can’t lose. The truth is going to be there.
Here’s the real clincher: what if you’re afraid of being right? Aye, there’s the rub. Been there, a number of times. Two different, yet equally terrible, ways to react to that one: 1) deluding yourself into thinking that it’s not the case and; 2) working like crazy to prevent it from happening. Neither of them work. Delusion only lasts so long and makes you feel like an idiot when all is said and done and preventing it just never works. You can’t drop the Terminator’s arm into the smelting pot in this case, plus you start second guessing yourself. Bad news, tragedy ensues.
People are overly speculative, myself included. You can only project so far ahead before you find yourself walking a bike with training wheels along a perfectly mapped out path wearing a foam helmet. Fear is ridiculous. Wait, I need to rephrase that, because the original Ring scared the crap out of me. Fear of failure, in any capacity, is ridiculous. It’s all in our heads. We only fear what we’ve predetermined. It’s much easier to regret something you did than something you didn’t do. Someone famous said that, but I’m not going to footnote them. Regret sucks either way, and it’s an infinitely worse feeling than fear. Regret is Mike Tyson and Fear is Don Flamenco.
The worst way to live is to be afraid of being wrong about the future. A better way is to just see what happens and trust that it’ll be okay.
Keep your eyes open and you’ll see what I mean.
