I Used To Live Next Door...

The News-Gazette's reporting a working fire at a campus apartment building next door to where I used to live. Thankfully that didn't happen to my building, which was identical, while I was living there.

UPDATE: The N-G took down their blurb story, breaking the previous link. The new, longer story on the fire is here. My old building's the one next door, though my apartment itself if out of the shot.

Edwards Wimps Out

So sayeth the N-G. See the post below as to why.

The Propriety of Pranks

So the big news from this weekend (N-G, DI) is that someone managed to hack the everybody@uiuc.edu email system (which, as far as I understood it, was locked down to all but a few approved users) and sent spoof emails from Chancellor Herman to discourage people from Rushing this Fall. While long time readers know that I approve such sentiments, I have to condemn whoever did this.

"Why?" you might ask. The answer is simple: they did a piss-poor job of mimicking the Chancellor's prose and I belong to the school of thought that a prank not done well is not worth doing.

Look, here's the spoofed email in its entirety:

Dear Students,

Many of you may be aware of an event known as Rush. It is my objective to warn you of the potential downsides of Greek organizations. I advise you to not succumb to the aggressive recruitment tactics used by these organizations. It has been my concern over the years, that the Greek culture of alcoholism and lack of respect for the community degrades campus life. These organizations present themselves as prestigious, yet are discriminatory, serve to perpetuate social inequality, especially with respect to the opposite gender, and promote a lack of diversity. Many students have expressed concerns with regards to safety on campus, particularly due to Greek culture and behavior. It is my hope that a student's experience on campus strengthens one's individuality, but the Greek system emphasizes the group above all, without cause or reason. This is detrimental to the purpose of universities.

I hope that you will consider wisely.

GDI Chancellor Richard Herman

Now, having spent years reading the man's email prose, I could tell right off the bat that the author of the email was not Chancellor Herman. For example, here's a MASSMAIL that went out this past May:

Dear Friends:

I am delighted to announce that our online networking community Always Illinois now features email forwarding. All members of the Always Illinois community can customize an @alumni.illinois.edu address, providing long-term consistency and connectivity. It's also a great way to network with family, friends and colleagues.

If you haven't already, I urge you to sign up for Always Illinois online. Our exciting networking community is a free benefit to all Illinois alumni, students, faculty and staff. Always Illinois offers all the basic functions of a social network with added levels of security and privacy. To join and strengthen your ties to our great Illinois family, visit www.alwaysillinois.org.

Richard Herman
Chancellor

**Always Illinois and e-mail forwarding are free services provided by the
University of Illinois Alumni Association and the Office of the Chancellor.


This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

--
This Message sent via MASSMAIL. http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/services/massmail/

Note the many differences: Chancellor Herman starts off with an open greeting to his readers, he spreads his prose out into multiple paragraphs, he generally has a conclusion, he places his title on the next line after his name instead of placing it immediately before his name, the email was sent by MASSMAIL, and it was "approved by the Office of the Chancellor". The scam email had none of these things.

Now, if the author(s) of the spoofed email had taken the time to make their message look more credible, they would probably have delayed a campus reaction by a few hours (as it would've taken longer for people to realize it was a hoax) and they would have gotten my kudos. Instead, I am forced to condemn them for doing a half-assed job.

Bonus for the journalism majors: Ask the Chancellor's office or campus Public Relations if the Chancellor had been a member of a fraternity while in college. If he was, that would be multiple kinds of hilarious.

Grand Late Opening

The News-Gazette reports that the renovated IMPE, now the ARC, is set to open Aug. 21st.

I would like to remind people that, according to the original schedule, it was supposed to reopen for the last semester of my senior year - i.e. two and a half years ago.

That is all.

Blueberries and Cherries

On my way out this evening I noticed a metric buttload of squad cars around the intersection of Green and Locust, all but one of them with lights flashing. Two hours later, some of them were still there (or had been replaced) and the lights were still going.

Whatever was up, I fully expect to read about it in the Daily Illini tomorrow, and will be disappointed if I can't. The DI is a morning paper, it should be scooping the News-Gazette on a lot more stuff than it does. The DI's craptacular local coverage makes it really hard to defend when people I know from other schools make fun of it.

They Write About It as if It's News

So both the News-Gazette and the Daily Illini reported on the Chief student referendum as if it mattered, which it doesn't. At least the News-Gazette took a break from its breathless reporting to mention the 2004 referendum, which was just as non-binding as this most recent one. Both referenda were merely means to get a Students for Institutionalized Racism-associated person elected to a Student Trustee seat with a non-binding(!) vote.

Beating Back the Stupid

Matt of Pooflingers Anonymous, an excellent anti-Creationism blog, has a post up noting the start of an aggregator for those blogging on pseudo-science, much like that used by those blogging on peer-reviewed research. This combined effort is titled Blogging on Pseudo-Scientific Douchebags, and has an icon to match, though I prefer the lite version as I perfer to take the high road in such discourse.

My preferred pseudo-scientific fodder, Creationists, have been slim pickings of late. I was hoping for more fun from News-Gazette blogger Rhonda Robinson, but she apparently posts so seldom that it makes one wonder why the N-G bothers to pay her. However, if/when an appropriate mark presents itself, this logo will definitely be trotted out again.

Oh My, That's a Lot of Dandruff

So the snow's falling and we've had at least an inch already, and the News-Gazette's meteorologist is calling for 8-10 inches of total accumulation from the storm, not counting the blowing and drifting that's sure to occur afterwards. The University sent out a massmail on how it was planning to deal with the snow, including pretreating streets and sidewalks before the snow started to fall in earnest. On my way home I could definitely see a difference between the sidewalks controlled by campus and by private owners. Even so, whether or not we see a repeat closing of the school will probably depend on the rate of snowfall, and whether or not the cities and the universities can keep up with it overnight. Myself, I doubt that the Chancellor will call off classes, but I guess we'll see in the morning.

Also, this'll probably be the first real test of the Champaign ordinance requiring private property owners in Campustown to clear snow from their sidewalks within a few days of the end of the storm, or face a fee when the city does it for them. Hopefully the frats will get their acts together and get it done, rather than let the snow pile up until the city comes around.

For those who wish to check it every 30 seconds,here's a link to the News-Gazette's closings page.

UPDATE: The News-Gazette reports that Uni High is closed tomorrow, though the University is still open. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason Uni High is closed is because some/all of its feeder district busses will not be running. I'd also like to make clear that I'd really like it if the University were closed tomorrow, as I've been accused in the comments of not thinking Positive University Closing Thoughts.

UPDATE, Part Deux: The University of Illinois is open for classes Friday, 1 February 2008.

Little Egypt is Farther South, People

...So if you insist on living in denial, you need to transfer to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and start rooting for the Salukis. Meanwhile, the rest of us can go on our merry way without some sods trying out to be the next Chief Illiniwek.

Yes, you read that right: Students for Chief Illiniwek and the so-called Council of Chiefs have announced tryouts for the next person (read: white male) to continue the worst thing to happen to race relations at the University of Illinois since its Ku Klux Klan chapter was founded. At least the KKK disbanded on campus - apparently we are not yet so lucky as to be free of our former racist mascot.

Honestly, though, I shouldn't be too surprised after listening to the drunken hordes at football games continuing to yell, "Chief!" during the three-in-one at halftime. The denial that the Chief is gone runs deeply, and nowhere does it run as deep as Students for Chief Illiniwek:

[President of Students for Chief Illiniwek] Schmitt said his plan is setting the stage for a Chief revitalization that might be years down the road.

"We don't want to do this in an official capacity right now," Schmitt said.

In the meantime, Schmitt said Students for Chief Illiniwek is content to humbly channel the enthusiastic spirit of student, alumni and fan support.

"Whoever the new Chief is might not dance on the floor of Assembly Hall," Schmitt added. "But students still realize that this is a huge honor not only to the community but to Fighting Illini legacy."

Beyond the overall denial, there's still a couple things that are plain wrong about this. First is that the University cannot bring back the Chief. This was the primary reason why the Board of Trustees hemmed and hawed for so long over their bullshit "consensus conclusion" - they knew that if and when they retired the Chief that the political costs to the University would be so high as to make that decision irreversible. Maintaining a racist mascot was a black eye to the University, but reinstating it would cause the University's national and global reputation to reek for years to come. Hardly anyone on that board wanted to be stuck with the local political misfortune of being the ones to retire the Chief on their own which, while I understand it, does not make it any less cowardly. The NCAA ruling lowered the political costs to the Board of Trustees as they could claim they were saving the Athletic programs from sanctions by the mean, mean people outside the university. (Although, they were really just saving the money sports - the others had already been screwed for a year as they were unable to host playoffs.) That the board felt the need to retire the Chief without much public warning speaks more about the character of those who support the Chief, from whom the board was trying to hide, than the Board itself.

Nevertheless, what I want to know is what the new guy is going to do. Is he just going to go to games in street clothes with his thumb up his butt? Or are the Chief supporters going to try to get the new guy to show up in costume (whatever remains of it now) to non-sporting events? (As if that wouldn't make the environment of this university even more hostile and abusive...) Unless Students for Chief Illiniwek start pulling stunts worthy of the Orange and Blue Observer, I honestly cannot fathom what the new Chief will do besides stand perpetually in the on-deck circle as the ballpark is being torn down around him.

Also, running as a companion story in the Daily Illini is their own coverage of the lawsuit over the Logo for the Chief. None of the details have changed since the News-Gazette ran its story nearly two weeks ago - and that the DI sat on this for so long makes me think that someone there knew about the new Chief selection long ahead of time. What really bothers me about this article, though, is the lack of new reporting by the Daily Illini. The first big issue is that the reporter did not get the University spokesperson on the record saying how the new merchandise will not violate the NCAA ruling. A journalist should never accept it when a public official handwaves away any important issue, and since habits learned early are hard to break, the instinct to ask the uncomfortable questions should be ingrained now. The second issue I have with this is that the Daily Illini has had weeks to prepare this story, and yet they do not have a single word from the NCAA on the matter. As I pointed out previously, one of the big things in the News-Gazette article was the lack of a response from the NCAA. The NCAA has the power to say that the University is no longer in compliance with its ruling on Native American mascots, and so a statement from them matters - yet there's not a single blurb about it in the DI writeup. What has this reporter been doing for the past couple weeks that he did not call the NCAA? Even the NCAA refusing to comment is important, as noting such only highlights the blatant hypocrisy of the situation. The bottom line is, until someone comes forward and explains how the University selling/licensing Chief merchandise does not violate the NCAA ruling, the whole thing is going to stink to people on both sides of the issue.

Oh, and the way, I did notice that the Chief people tried to bury this story on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a school holiday and three-day weekend for students. Way to be honest and forthright and all that.

Chief Logo Shenannigans

I didn't catch Saturday's News-Gazette, but Illinipundit did, and he caught the story on the Chief logo's creator suing the university to get the rights back from the Board of Trustees. He doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, but what's interesting about the article is actually what it says on the UofI's plans for the logo:

[U]niversity officials and lawyers have been working with Collegiate Licensing Company to add the Chief logo to the company's College Vault program. College Vault licenses vintage collegiate logos, emblems and other images.

"We have not made final decisions on specific products or volume going forward, but we will continue to offer merchandise in select apparel, non-apparel and headwear categories," Kaler said.

-snip-

Kaufman also said such marketing would violate the UI Board of Trustees March 13, 2007, resolution calling for the elimination of the Chief and it would violate the NCAA policy prohibiting schools with "hostile or abusive" imagery from hosting postseason competitions or displaying the nicknames, logos or mascots at those events.

-snip-

If the university signs an agreement with College Vault to license the Chief Illiniwek merchandise, the Chief items would be sold online only. Such use is in accordance with NCAA and university policies, Kaler said.

Calls left for NCAA officials were not immediately returned Friday.

Last February, after UI Board Chairman Lawrence Eppley announced the end of Chief Illiniwek, the NCAA issued a release stating that if the university no longer used Chief Illiniwek and related American Indian imagery in athletics, the university would be in full compliance with the NCAA's policy.

What everyone is waiting on is for the NCAA to respond and say whether or not UofI's continued sale of Chief merchandise online really is in accordance with NCAA policy. If it is, I'd be disappointed in the NCAA. How is allowing online sales substantially different from allowing sales in meatspace? We all know that the die-hard Chief fans will flock to the online site to buy the most-likely overpriced "vintage" apparel just to get their fix of racist clothing, and since the University - and the NCAA! - would be sponsoring it, the University would still be fostering a Hostile and Abusive atmosphere. My own view is that, given enough time without a white guy jumping around in a costume down on the field, the student body itself will get over the loss of its mascot - but allowing a source of Chief memorabilia to remain will, just like the Marching Illini's continued use of the Three-in-One, contribute to and extend the rather pathetic hanging-on to the Chief that his supporters currently exhibit.

Something I've Been Up To Recently

Back in early November, one of the News-Gazette's infrequently-posting bloggers, Rhonda Robinson, regurgitated a bunch of Discovery Institute talking points about the Ben Stein-narrated documentary, Expelled. A few commenters, including myself and Narci of Narciblog, take Rhonda and some other commenters to task. The thread's been silent for a couple weeks, though, so either she's decided not to follow/further the discussion on the topic, or has moved on to other things.

PS - What's the point of having a blog if you update it once every few months at best?