Eric the Red

I have commented on political bias in the past, with some guest commentary from Peter Kirstein.

How does one detect bias throug the actions of a university? Its easy when releases a guide to help viewers of the State of the Union address determine if the President believes what he is saying, is being fed through a microphone, etc. Thats exactly what the University of Maryland, College Park did today in an official press release.

Some of these tips include:

Watch for hypervigilance in the eyes, excessive grimaces, the furrowed brow that contrasts with the attempted smile, the lip-licking that signifies nervousness, the auditory attending that causes people to think he is being fed his speech through an earpiece (as opposed to the visual scanning that people who read their speeches on a monitor often display)- all of these indicate a man under pressure and in psychic danger.

The piece was written by certified movement analyst Karen Kohn Bradley.

A screenshot of the article is here [JPEG, 291 kb]. A higher resolution copy is here [JPEG, 560 kb].

A list University experts on the State of the Union address is here.

Where is the pet psychic to read his dogs mind?

BUT I dont wanna: [google video].

Much better workout than anything you get at the gym, ya?

And this is a stunning example of the power of old people.

A few interesting things came up this week.

• Scientists in Thailand discovered the world smallest fish, which lives in acidic swamps and lacks a skeletal structure.
• MSNBC has a piece de-bunking some myths about the Challenger disaster. I wonder if any will come up about Columbia after 10 years…..
• God is vengeful….a starving woman in Kenya placed a curse on God for sending famine….only to die in her sleep afterward.
• Finally, Cingular has filed for an emoticon patent. Let me infringe: .

Here are the long-awaited photos of the 2001 UMCP basketball riot

Professor Vernellia Randall of the University of Dayton determined the Whitest Law Schools in America.

Can we expect a “whiteness coefficient” next? Is a lower number be better?

These photos are form the ACC Championship Riot of 2004. Enjoy:

Next on Riot Review: readers will be able to see pictures from the famous 2001 NCAA Basketball riots that occured in College Park after the Terps lost the national championship. Of course, students rioted even whether the Terps won or lost, but we don’t care about that do we?

I read this think piece today.

The article starts off ok: stating that we can expect worsening hurricanes because of the effects of global warming. The article empahises the effects on blacks, but it IS BET after all…..

Then comes the kicker:

“It has been ingrained in our heads that to be anything, you must have everything,” says EJCC steering committee member Nia Robinson. “Because some of us have a big car and a nice house, people aren’t seeing that racism still exists. “

The article continues:

Relatively, Blacks are environmental Good Samaritans. Per capita, we emit approximately 20 percent less carbon dioxide than Whites – well below 2020 targets set by the U.S. Climate Stewardship Act. Not only do we use more energy-conserving public transportation, we spend considerably less per capita on energy-intensive material goods.

That’s bad news, especially for African Americans. Citing Katrina as a case-in-point, some environmentalists say global warming impacts minorities and the disadvantaged harder than other groups. If global warming gets worse, many African-American communities will be more vulnerable to breathing ailments, insect-carried diseases and heat-related illness and death. But asking Black folks to give up gas-guzzling SUV’s and other bling is a tough sell.

The article goes on to talk about the ill-effects melting of the ice caps will have on the northern hemisphere, with emphasis on European countries.
In addition to the first paragraph, I jumped on the bold-faced lines above. Lets summarize the main points and put them together:

Setting aside the obvious contradictions here, it looks like successful whit people are to blame: with their SUVs and McMansions and plasma TVs and lawns and……business suits that require airconditioning during the summer! It is not just blacks who suffer from natural disasters. No particular party is to blame for the effects of a hurricane. One can blame the federal government for a poor response to a disaster. One may blame local governments for not ensuring that residents of a city are evacuated. But the occurance of a disaster has nothing to do with race. There is no law to pass to change how people respond to their success by buying “bling”.

As a follow-up to UMCP Riot Review, Part I, here are pictures from the basketball riot of January 2005.

The crowd near the regents drive parking garage.

The crowd was more or less concentrated on Frat Row. See the videos below for some clips. When the crowd was forced off frat row, guess where it went?

Revelers moved to Route 1, less than a block from the edge of campus.

Since the crowd on the street was so large, this guy decided to perch on a street sign

The cops, clearing the street once. They did this two times that night.

Cops of horseback.

Now for some video:

Rock-n-Roll, Part 2 on Frat Row. This was banned by the University administration at football and basketball fames.

F*CK Duke, on Frat Row. Yes, Dule sucks……

F*CK You, J.J., on Frat Row. So does JJ Reddick….

Everyone who thinks higher education is a good deal, raise your hand…..

Mine is down. According to a nonpartisan study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, half of college seniors at four year schools are not able to:

• Understand a credit card offer
• Understand a newspaper editorial
• Balance a checkbook

Given the courses most colleges require all students to take as part of a “liberal” arts degree, I’m not surprised at this at all. Absent from the list is personal finance, accounting or something similar. This is a failure of the university system: making students aware of the rest of the world while casually ignoring their immediate lives.

Since the spring semester is about to begin, I will post various photos of the NCAA/ACC basketball riots I was fortunate enough to experience during my stay here at the University of Maryland, College Park.

First, we will start with the riot of February 2005:

BROOM POWA!!!

The crowd….

The cops….

The horses….

The big fire of the evening….

More of the lame-old fire…

The annoying helicopter….

This isn’t really a riot in the classical, and you will have to wait until the end to see what I mean. In the meantime, the riot of January, 2005 will appear here tomorrow.