HerbEly

NCAA: Defender Against Abusive Nicknames

After yesterday's post I'm glad to read on today's WaPo sport's page that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is zealously guarding American Culture.

The NCAA's message was clear: It would not retreat from its policy banning the use of "hostile" and "abusive" Indian nicknames, mascots and imagery at championship events.

"The NCAA has a responsibility to make sure its events are treated with respect for all and making sure that the environment is fully respectful," NCAA President Myles Brand said during a conference call from Indianapolis.

The country will no longer be threatened by the nickname of the North Dakota "Fighting Soux". However, danger still lurks on the horizon. The College of William and Mary still uses the nickname the "tribe".

To date, there is no evidence that the NCAA is concerned about the Duke Blue Devils and criminal behavior of its Lacrosse team.

Duke Lacrosse: NCAA Strains Out Gnats and Swallows Camels

    Over twenty years ago, my friend Art pointed to the basic issue in college athletics. He said “when they got to the bottom of Watergate they’ll find a college basketball coach.” Art was a graduate of Indiana during the Bobby Knight era. He loved basketball but never let me forget that many parts of its culture were corrupt.
    Eric Frazier and David Perlmutt, at the Charlotte Observer, point to the cultural issue underlying the Duke Lacrosse scandal:

Critics of big-time college athletics say the lack of uniform rules leaves too much room for misbehavior before an athlete is benched, suspended or kicked off a team.
    They contend that, in an era of rising tuitions and declining educational standards, colleges tolerate hard-partying behavior as the price of keeping students happy.
    "The NCAA doesn't want to go anywhere near this issue," said Murray Sperber, an Indiana University professor and frequent critic of major college athletics. "Schools have to give kids something, so you can see where a university would be very ambiguous about this situation.

    Duke is only one of many recent high profile cases of corrupt athletic culture. The University of Colorado is accused of hiring prostitutes to attract high school athletes. St. Johns University suspended five basketball players for breaking curfew to visit a strip club. Virginia Tech suspended Marcus Vick after a string of legal infractions and unsportsmanlike play.
    The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is, however, deeply concerned with the impact of athletics on the American culture. It is zealously guarding the country from the damaging effect of Colleges using Indian Native American names for their teams.
    Apparently the NCAA considers stereotyping more wrong incorrect than hiring women to remove their clothes and then (allegedly) raping them. Demeaning minorities is a violation of NCAA rules. A culture of exploiting women is a matter for individual schools.
    Maybe the NCAA should meditate on Matthew 23:24:

You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

    Or on Matt 5:28. Oops, it would be politically incorrect to use this passage as a matter of NCAA policy.

In Defense of Negative Political Ads

    In this morning’s WaPo Dan Balz, has this review  of In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns by John G. Geer (University of Chicago Press.) Some extracts:

Geer states what others before him have said: Negativity has long been part of American politics. He points out that 70 percent of the statements in the Declaration of Independence were negative and that candidates have been called liars and murderers or worse in campaigns that took place long before television or radio.

    The Declaration was not, however, a campaign statement. It was an attempt to set forth a just cause for going to war. Negative statements were necessary in this case.

Because voters are skeptical about attack ads, candidates provide far more documentation to support their criticisms (and were long before the media began to referee the ads) than they do to validate claims in positive ads. He quotes Republican media consultant Mike Murphy as saying, "We have a joke in this business: The only difference between negative and positive ads is that negative ads have facts in them." Those "facts," however, are sometimes open to question.

I pay attention to negative ads. They help me to see how far a candidate will go by appealing to hatred and fear.
    In Charlottesville we are at the end of a campaign for City Council and the School Board. The democratic City Council candidates have just released a misleading ad attacking the voting record of Rob Schilling, the only Republican to have been elected in this town since 1992. Negative ads released towards the end of a campaign are a sign of desperation.
    If the ballot contained a space for “none of the above” voters could let the parties know that none of their candidates are acceptable and force another election. While this will never happen, it would give us a way to deal with negative ads.

Pope Benedict XVI: After One Year Journalists Reassess their Forecasts

Now that Cardinal Ratzinger has been Pope for a year, religion journalists are writing stories about his papacy. This quote from the Washington Post’s Alan Cooperman is typical of what we will find:

"He has not turned out to be the pope that many progressives feared and many conservatives cheered," said Christopher M. Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey.”

From my April 21, 2005 posting:

As I look at the flood of commentary on Cardinal Ratzinger becoming Pope Benedict XVI, I’m reminded of two proverbs from my favorite collection of Murphy’s Laws.

Miles’s Law of position states: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

Fiedler’s 2nd rule of forecasting states: “He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.”

Tax service

From WITandWISDOM(tm) ISSN 1538-8794
Wisdom, Inspiration, Humor and Trivia
Send an e-mail to: witandwisdom-subscribe@lists.tagnet.org
Archive at: http://witandwisdom.org/archive.htm

Holy Thursday: the Prayer that We Should have Said

Last night my wife and I joined in our Parish Holy Thursday Mass. We heard and then celebrated Jesus’ washing his disciple’s feet as related in John 13. We washed one another’s feet as a symbol of our service to one another. We prayed for everyone who provides service to the parish including our pastor, staff, religious educators, lectors and Eucharistic ministers, social ministers, maintenance volunteers, and those who serve simply by joining in prayer with us. We followed the Bread and Wine into a place of repose and knelt in reverence and worship.

The evening was quiet and inspiring for both of us.

This morning we talked briefly about the fact very few of us would return to the parish to perform service. Most of us would go out into the world and perform some kind of service. Our friend John will go back to his print shop and prepare documents for his customers. Charlie will use his carpentry skills to help people maintain their homes. My wife will teach children the skills they will need in their futures. Our four grown children will; 1) write an instructional video in medical Spanish; 2) construct buildings for Radford University students and faculty; 3) serve law students out of the Georgetown dean's office; and 4) teach music to inner city middle school students. Doctors will heal patients and financial planners will help their clients provide for their families and retirements.

Last night we were inspired by all the prayers we said for those who perform service inside the parish. This morning we wished that we had also prayed for everyone who would perform a service in their places of work or homes. None of these people will benefit from a prayer that could easily have been added to the liturgy.

By any calculation the overwhelming majority of service done by our parishioners throughout the week will be done outside the confines of the parish walls.

I suggest this prayer as an addition to the Holy Thursday liturgy:

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary, please be with us as we return to our homes and places of work. Help us to remember that our work is a form of service, that every customer, boss, and coworker is a child of God, and that our work is an opportunity to create a better world, one aligned with your wishes. Help us to find a balance among work, worship, community service and holy leisure. Help us to continue our service when we return to our families in love.”

Better than Dr. Phil

This month, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach becomes a family-adviser-on-the-road hosting a reality TV show, "Shalom in the Home," scheduled for prime-time broadcast on The Learning Channel.

So Cecilia Capuzzi Simon writes in the Health Section of the Washington Post. From her Q&A with the Rabbi:

What are the biggest issues compromising the American family?

There are three. Foremost is loveless, passionless marriages. Second is a lack of investment in our children. And the third is the decentralization of the home -- parents are clueless as to how to create a stimulating home environment so that children want to be home.

I'll bet that when is talking about "investment in our children" he is thinking of more than money.

I’ve been following Rabbi Boteach through his Beliefnet Column.

The show will be on The Learning Channel at 10 PM on Monday April 10th. The first episode will be repeated three times during the week.

Watch it. The good Rabbi has some things to teach us about marriage and family life. Also, take a look at Cecelia Simon's interview and the Rabbi's column.