In Memoriam: Helen Gurley Brown
In Memoriam: Helen Gurley Brown Read More »
Guest Blogger: Sarah Culpepper Stroup on the Olympics
Last week, I ranted about the Olympics. Sarah Culpepper Stroup offers a response. An Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Washington, Culpepper Stroup is also on the faculty of Jewish Studies and Comparative Religion departments, and she leads an archaeological field school at Tel Dor, Israel. Her last book is entitled Catullus, Cicero, and a Society of Patrons. And for the record, I strive very hard to not be a liberal. Though I often fail. I’m tired of hearing liberal, academic sorts bitch and moan about the Olympics, which is precisely what I’ve been hearing for, oh, pretty much the past five weeks or so. It goes something like this: OMG, the sports! I don’t even like sports! OMG, I don’t even watch television, but it’s all that’s on television! (Did you get the part about how I’m so intellectual I don’t really watch TV?). OMG, it’s all anyone can talk about! It’s even on NPR! (Notice that I listen to NPR; did you get that?) OMG, it’s so commercial, political; so . . . athletic! OMG, Who gives a shit? Not me!
Guest Blogger: Sarah Culpepper Stroup on the Olympics Read More »
Ban Penn State Football . . . and the NCAA
Real change should come from within, but it probably won’t. So instead, all we have are the changes that will be forced up on the school from without. There will be civil suits against the university, and rightly so. There also needs to be more thorough criminal investigations from both state officials and the federal Justice Department. Hopefully they will bring about the proper sense of gravitas. Criminal convictions and serious sentences for the major players would help. And then there’s the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
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Jerry Sandusky and the Corrupt Culture of College Athletics
The people who mattered most, knew. The people who had the power to stop Jerry Sandusky from raping children, knew. Head Coach Joe Paterno knew. School President Graham Spanier knew. Athletic Director Tim Curley knew. Senior Vice President Gary Schultz knew. They all knew that Jerry Sandusky was fucking children on their campus. They knew as far back as 1998. Fourteen years ago. And they did nothing about it. Worse, they covered it up. The extensive investigation led by former FBI head Louis Freeh came to that conclusion. Its 267 page report says Penn State officials “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sundusky’s child abuse from authorities” (p. 14
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