One standard or two? We report; you decide.

It had to happen.

Protesters took to the street outside the Dallas home of the N-word spewing SAE frat boys at Oklahoma, chanting slogans and, according to one neighbor, accusing the entire neighborhood of being a hotbed of racism.

Accompanying the protest were a couple dozen reporters and several cops. From CBS News:

Dozens of protesters took to the street in front of the home of a former University of Oklahoma student and fraternity member who was shown in a video leading a racist chant aboard a bus.

Dozens of demonstrators Wednesday evening marched up and down the North Dallas residential street in front of the home of Parker Rice. Watching them were about two dozen news media representatives and six police officers.

The protesters chanted, "Racism is taught," and, "Racism is a choice."

CBS Dallas reported that the group, Next Generation Action Network, says Rice and Highland Park-graduate Levi Pettit, another SAE member seen in the OU video and now also expelled from the university, made a bold statement that was caught on tape and now it time for protesters to make theirs.

Their numbers didn't pack the street, but their message was heard loud and clear. "This is what democracy looks like," they chanted. "Teach your kids another way, no modern day KKK!"

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Is this Dallas protest proper, or is it harassment -- the creating of the same sort of "hostile environment" that University of Oklahoma officials alleged in kicking two (so far) Sigma Alpha Epsilon members out of school.

Would your answer to the question change if this were a bunch of anti-abortion protesters marching in the street outside the home of an abortionist? If so, why?

"Because one is bad and the other is good" is not an acceptable answer -- not before the law and not in today's morally relativistic philosophical soup, in which your "truth" may not be others' "truth."

Are we getting blind drunk on outrage?

The fraternity-from-hell-gift-that-keeps-on-giving now is giving me flashbacks.

This is the now-former Sigma Alpha Epsilon housemother at the University of Oklahoma, caught on video saying That Word over and over again as she laughs, with loud rap music playing in the background. The Internet Outrage Machine tells me this is Beauton Gilbow, who hypocritically lamented the sad state of affairs on the Norman campus and said she knew nothink, NOTHINK about any racist goings-on at the SAE house.

The Internet Outrage Machine, as it is wont to do -- and let me emphasize there's plenty to be outraged about in this whole outrageous mess -- takes just one sliver of a story, the one most likely to cause good people to lose their s***, and runs with it. That's because the Internet Outrage Machine's collective mental age is no greater than the chronological age of the World Wide Web itself, and young people usually aren't good at perceiving nuance.

So, we're told this is Beauton Gilbow, bigot and evil frat-boy enabler.

I know better.  This is Beauton Gilbow, a vision from my youth. Beauton Gilbow, someone who reminds me of my parents and any number of aunts, uncles, cousins and acquaintances as I grew up in the Deep South as Jim Crow faded away and whatever we have now started to take shape.

Gilbow, from the sound of her, probably grew up in Oklahoma or the South. And I know a little bit about the culture that formed her and imprinted on her heart and mind a whole host of attitudes, assumptions, unthinking Pavlovian reactions and expectations.

If her upbringing was anything like mine -- and at age 79, I assume her experience was mine on steroids -- she had been well-marinaded in a thoroughly toxic culture before she even reached the age of reason. I'm sure it's possible to completely undo that kind of psychological imprinting, but I'm not sure it's possible without violating many of the Geneva conventions.



AS I SAID, this whole thing is giving me flashbacks. I don't like them. I don't like reflecting on how many of my childhood memories, how many of the silly schoolyard songs we sang, how much of The Way Things Were was thoroughly, unthinkingly and hatefully racist.

Here's a blast from my Red Oaks Elementary past, what we thought was a hilarious takeoff on the Daniel Boone theme song from TV:

Daniel Boone was a man, he was a big man,
But when the bear was bigger, he ran like a n***** up a tree

Folks who grew up in the North -- or should I say grew up in the North and didn't hear the N-word 200 times a day amid a culture where racism and segregation, both de jure and de facto, was as pervasive as the air you breathed? -- generally get to remember their silly childhood songs and rhymes with a certain wistful fondness. If you're a Southerner seeking to rise above your upbringing, trying to do like Jesus said and love your neighbor as yourself, that luxury is forever denied you. You get to remember with a sense of regret and shame. 

Double that if you forget yourself and find a silver of wistful fondness trying to climb over the wall you've built around it over the decades.

Truly, if you're under 40 and not from where I'm from, you have no idea how pervasive -- how normal -- that word, the N-word, was. It's true enough that many white folks in the South were raised by parents who forbade them from using that word because it wasn't nice . . . because polite people didn't talk like that. I was not among that fortunate number.

And even for those who were, "n*****" was everywhere. In the air, in the culture, in the hearts of too many.

FOR FOLKS of a certain age and from a certain place, "rising above your upbringing" isn't something that happens. It's a life-and-death struggle forever. When you have a certain thing pounded into your consciousness from birth, deprogramming is a lifelong task. Some see the need to look hard into the mirror every day that God in heaven sends. Some drift along, thinking they're just fine -- or not thinking much about it at all.

And then one day at an Oklahoma frat house in 2013, somebody sticks a smartphone in your face and you try to be funny and hip for the young idiots you're supposed to be watching over.

(Insert mushroom cloud here.)

Suddenly -- maybe -- it dawns on you that you should have spent a lot more time looking hard in the mirror than trying to impress a bunch of college kids who, having been born sometime during the Clinton Administration, have no damned excuse that I can think of.

Today when I saw that video of Beauton Gilbow, septuagenarian, I saw my childhood and a bunch of people I knew and loved. And I wanted to cry.

I wish I saw more tears over this and less click-bait exploitation of this from the Internet Outrage Machine. Hateful, racist college kids don't come from nowhere.

It would be a lot more helpful, actually, if we took some of the energy required to be exploitatively outraged and put that toward figuring out why we're no further from Selma, 1965, that we seem to be a half century on.

The True Gentleman Experience

According to its national website, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is all about the "True Gentleman Experience."

One brother from the Oklahoma Mu chapter at Oklahoma State University tells us all about it.

Soooooo . . . considering what happened with the SAEs at the University of Oklahoma, the student newspaper at Oklahoma State took a look at that school's chapter. And found this in a member's room, visible from the street:

O'Colly photograph

Oops.

Please tell me that's not how you win SAE's John O. Moseley Zeal Award, which "recognizes the chapter that best exemplifies a model chapter in Sigma Alpha Epsilon. This chapter excels in its operations and brotherhood, fulfilling the vision of our Founding Fathers and its members and by living the life of a true gentleman."

I'm guessing that being in PR for a fraternity is just a Lost Cause.

Everybody hates somebody sometimes

There will never be a n***** in SAE
There will never be a n***** in SAE
You can hang 'em from a tree
But they'll never sign with me
There will never be a n***** in SAE

This apparently is what it means to be a Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother at the University of Oklahoma.

So much for "tolerance" in an era when everything is permitted except loving your neighbor as yourself.

The latest black eye for the Greek system in the United States -- a vile and racist little ditty by the SAE brothers of OU captured on a cell phone camera -- exploded into the national consciousness during a weekend when the nation's first black president went to Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," when Alabama state troopers brutally dispersed a march of peaceful civil-rights protesters asking for something as unthinkable at the time as an integrated Greek system. In 1965, that would be granting blacks the unfettered right to vote.

The right to be fully American.


MANY LOOK at the first African-American president speaking in the former heart of states' rights, "separate but equal" and violent repression of minorities and think of how far we've come in a half century. But you only need to look as far as Ferguson, Mo., and the partisan, race-laden rhetoric aimed at that first black chief executive to make you think twice about how far we've come in overcoming America's original sin.

You only need to look as far as a bunch of hateful, overprivileged white boys in Norman, Okla., to think that, after all this time, all this strife and all this shed blood, it's still 1959 somewhere. Many somewheres, actually.

OU President David Boren, to his credit, wasted no time in kicking the frat off campus, a move which followed the SAE national office, to its credit, disbanding the school's chapter.

But that's just playing "whack a mole." There'll be something else somewhere . . . soon.

Fallen humanity always has had a problem with The Other -- those who for whatever reason are unlike ourselves and whom we see as some sort of threat because of their otherness. That's not going to change. In fact, it's probably going to get worse as we untether ourselves from every philosophical or religious tradition that seeks to restrain our worst selves and remind us that we're not omniscient, omnipotent and righteous in every way.

We seek to be as gods, only to behave as devils.

SCRIPTURE tells us that "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." It doesn't get more prideful or haughty in spirit than Oklahoma's brothers of SAE . . . who now are disgraced former brothers of SAE.

But that's just them. What about us? If anything characterizes America today, it is our misplaced pride over just about everything and our overreaching haughtiness in spirit.

Our faith in American exceptionalism is as fervent as it is misplaced, from the misplaced superiority complex of those frat boys in Oklahoma to the crusading self-righteousness of too much of our domestic and foreign policy. But there is no exception to some eternal truths, and the fall resulting from our misplaced pride -- pride writ small on our hearts and writ large in our society -- will be epic.

The truth is we're all SAE wannabes, and we're always looking for the next n*****. This will not end well.

Get your ice-cold cup of mortification here!

Oh, sweet Jesus!

Omaha native Jim Connor was mobbed Monday at the college football championship game, but not for scoring a touchdown.

He was cheered, applauded and even pawed. Not for making plays but for whom he plays — the latest icon in national TV commercials, concessionaire “Larry Culpepper.”
“I couldn’t walk through a public place without people stopping me, taking pictures and grabbing me,” Connor said Tuesday. “For some reason, this campaign really caught on. People love Larry Culpepper.”

In football-season commercials, the comedic character has hawked soft drinks for Dr Pepper. AdWeek magazine estimated the company has invested at least $35 million as an official “championship partner” in the College Football Playoff. And Larry is the TV spokesman, a guy with a deep love of college football, shouting “Ice-cold Dr Peppa HEAH!” and telling people that he invented the four-team college football playoff.

Two of the commercials appeared late in Monday night’s ESPN telecast, a game viewed by a cable-TV record of about 33.4 million people.

In Omaha, relatives, friends and former Creighton Prep classmates have delighted in Connor’s many TV commercials and other acting roles over the years. But his Larry Culpepper gig might top them all.

“Larry is similar to the guy we knew in high school,” said clothier John Ryan, a fellow member of Prep’s class of 1978. “Jim was a character, but he was also a tremendous debater and he was good in theater.”

EFFECTIVE immediately, the City of Omaha has changed its name to the City of Ahamo. We're hoping no one will notice that Ahamo is this "Omaha" place Larry Culpepper says he hails from.

Meanwhile, Creighton Prep must be stopped before our fair city is forced to again change its name to something like, I don't know . . . Hoboken.

Nothing says 'Merry Christmas' like a good brawl

The Mormons must be thrilled by that sucker punch by BYU defensive back Kai Nacua. Uh . . . yeah.
 
Where's Robert Earl Keen when you need him to write a Christmas song about this.

Bo Pelini: Classy to the #@#%&*$! end

Is there any doubt Nebraska is well rid of ex-football coach Bo Pelini?

If you had any lingering misgivings about NU's firing of the underachieving coach, who just was named head gridiron guy at the Economically Depressed University of Misfit Jocks Youngstown State, this article in the Omaha World-Herald ought to dispel them.

The newspaper came across an audio recording of Pelini's final meeting with his former players Dec. 2, and he went out the door in the classiest of manners. Or not.

A guy like (Eichorst) who has no integrity, he doesn’t even understand what a core value is," Pelini told players. "And he hasn’t understood it from the day he got here. I saw it when I first met with the guy.

“To have core values means you have to be about something, you have to represent something, you have to have something that is important to you. He is a f------ lawyer who makes policies. That’s all he’s done since he’s been here is hire people and make policies to cover his own ass.”

The World-Herald on Wednesday listened to an audio tape of Pelini’s address that night. He spoke conversationally, rarely raising his voice. It’s a rare window into the mindset of a coach who increasingly felt besieged by his own administration and fan base.

During the tape, Pelini expresses gratitude, support and advice for players. The majority of the tape, however, reveals Pelini’s thoughts about Eichorst. In the first minute of his talk, he uses two vulgarities associated with female genitalia to describe his former boss.

“I didn't really have any relationship with the A.D.,” Pelini said. “The guy, you guys saw him (Sunday), the guy is a total p----. I mean, he is, and he's a total c---.”

The administration’s lack of support, Pelini told players, wore on him and his family.

“I said to (assistant coach Rick Kaczenski) at one point, I said this job is killing me. I said I don't want to die doing this job. I meant it. I was like, I don't want to have a heart attack on this job.”

Pelini was fired Nov. 30 and was due to receive a $7.9 million buyout, mitigated slightly by his next salary.

On Wednesday, Youngstown State announced Pelini as its head football coach. He’ll return to his hometown and work under President Jim Tressel, who led Youngstown State to four FCS national championships.

During his introductory press conference Wednesday in Ohio, Pelini called Tressel “a president who understands football, who’s going to support me, something I don’t know if I’ve ever had.”

YEAH, Jim Tressel is just the kind of guy who oozes integrity and understanding of how to conduct a college football program the right way.

Remember that Tressel is the guy whose football program at Ohio State had gone rogue under his leadership. Remember, too, that Tressel is the guy who withheld what he knew about an improper-benefits scandal involving Buckeye players and a shady tattoo shop from his own administration and then lied to NCAA investigators. From ESPN at the time:

Former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who was forced to resign in May, committed the ultimate sin for a college coach when he withheld information about the scandal from OSU officials and NCAA investigators. In fact, according to the NCAA's infractions report released Tuesday, Tressel had four opportunities to reveal his knowledge of the scandal to the NCAA, but never once told the truth.

The NCAA also didn't buy Tressel's excuses for remaining silent. Before Tressel was forced to resign, he said he didn't reveal that former OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor and other players were trading memorabilia for tattoos and cash because the tattoo-shop owner, Edward Rife, was under investigation for drug dealing. Tressel said he didn't want to jeopardize the federal investigation and feared for the safety of his players.

"The committee found [Tressel's reasoning] not to be credible," the report said. "The former head coach's inaction on four different occasions was in the committee's view, a deliberate effort to conceal the situation from the institution and the NCAA in order to preserve the eligibility of the aforementioned student-athletes, several of whom were key contributors to the team's highly successful 12-1 season in 2010."

SEC associate commissioner Greg Sankey, who serves on the NCAA's infractions committee, called Tressel's conduct "very serious and, frankly, very disappointing."

Now Meyer and the rest of the Buckeyes get to pay for Tressel's sins.

As part of its punishment, the NCAA made it nearly impossible for Tressel to become a college coach again. The NCAA hit Tressel with a five-year show-cause penalty until December 2016, under which any school that wants to hire him must submit a report to the NCAA detailing why it needs to employ him and how it would monitor him to ensure he doesn't break its rules again. Any school hiring Tressel during the five-year period would be subject to more severe sanctions if he cheats again.

Even if a school hires Tressel, he will be suspended for the first five regular-season games when he returns, as well as any postseason contests.

YEAH, Pelini's kind of guy is a man the NCAA doesn't trust to coach college football . . . but apparently is just the kind of guy to run Youngstown State. And Bo Pelini apparently is just the kind of guy a man who can't be trusted to coach college ball thinks ought to be coaching at Youngstown State.

Gotcha. It seems the birds of a feather have flocked together.

Jim Tressel's guy is a grown man with obvious anger issues who goes before a bunch of 18-22 year-old kids -- most of whom stiil have to be at NU. play for the Huskers and presumably stay in the good graces of their athletic director -- then speaks about that AD in the most vulgar and demeaning manner. "Oversharing" hardly begins to cover Pelini's actions in that meeting.

With a bunch of college kids.

For whom he set himself up as a role model.

Role model? Bat-s*** crazy cult leader, perhaps. Role model, no. Unless, of course, you expand the definition of "role model" to include being a hell of an example of how not to conduct oneself.

 

Pelini's not-so-greatest hits: EXCEPTIONALLY NSFW

I GUESS in Youngstown, role models do their damnedest to poison the well for the poor saps who have to clean up their overwrought messes. The Huskers' new football coach, Mike Riley, has his work cut out for him, it would seem.

And so do those Nebraska football players who thought Pelini was just the kind of man they wanted to be someday. Breaking up is hard to do, but for these poor guys, growing up is going to be even harder with a role model like their former coach.

Bo Pelini is not what Nebraska football has, by and large, been about. May it never be again.

In firing this underachieving hothead -- the Freudian concept of the human Id personified -- Shawn Eichorst has done not only Nebraska football a great favor but done a great favor to the entire state of Nebraska as well. If that makes the man a P-word and a C-word, those are labels he should wear with pride.

Pelini is Ohio's problem now. Thanks be to God . . . and Eichorst.

Football players. Geez.

Nebraska defensive end Jack Gangwish learned a thing or six about raccoons Thursday. This may help explain the Wisconsin game.

Channel 7 in Omaha has the scoop on the angry critter beat:

The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Husker defensive end Jack Gangwish spotted the animal on the side of the road Wednesday night as he was driving north of Lincoln and decided to take a picture of himself with the raccoon using his cellphone.

When he approached the animal, it attacked, biting the 21-year-old Gangwish on the calf.

Gangwish killed the animal with a crescent wrench he grabbed from his truck.

Authorities are testing the raccoon for rabies.

SO . . .  the question for the house today is this: Do athletes develop mental incapacity because of playing football, or do athletes play football because they suffer mental incapacity?

SEC football, explained by YouTube

Rebel fans' tantrums are decidedly NSFW

There was no joy in Yoknapatawpha County on Saturday night; the mighty Rebels had flamed out.

Welcome, children, to the wild, wild world of Southeastern Conference football, where the men are men, the women are pissed -- whooooooooaaaah, NELLY! are they pissed --  and the rivalries are hate fests of Balkan proportions.

In case you missed it, the LSU Tigers took down then-No. 3 ranked Ole Miss 10-7,  handing the Rebels their first loss of the season and ruining the life of this poor woman, who obviously has no more reason to live.

Ain't it grand?

IF I WERE the guy who shot this epic video, I would have thrown in a few "GO TO HELL, OLE MISS! GO TO HELL!" chants. Because we Tigers love us some Ole Miss just as much as the Rebels love them some LSU . . . not.

Really, you should have been around Baton Rouge some late October in the 1960s. I recall that, back then, no car with Mississippi plates was safe from having its windows soaped with a message telling Ole Miss exactly where to go.

Did I mention that LSU and Ole Miss don't like one another?

Anyway, despite Ole Miss' high ranking in the football polls, the Rebels ought to have known how this was going to turn out.

Let me introduce you to the founding superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning, which we now know as Louisiana State University and A&M College:

William Tecumseh Sherman

HAT TIP: Deadspin.

Cop just beat the hell out of you

As much as it pains me to say it, my respect for Ole Piss Miss just soared to a new level.

All the way to grudging toleration.

After I've had a double bourbon or three.

Enjoy this scene of a sore-loser Alabama fan getting his after he throws a cup full of popcorn at celebrating Mississippi fans after the Rebels took Nick Satan Saban and his Crimson Tide down a notch or . . . four.

Bammer had it coming. Cue the LSU student section:

Around the bowl and down the hole, roll, Tide, roll!

Because SEC.



HAT TIP:  NOLA.com.

The LSU football season, explained

Well, that Auburn game was fugly.

Here's a handy guide that will explain LSU's football season thus far and, one hopes, provide a handy guide for what to expect as the Tigers stagger toward Thanksgiving and a merciful end to the 2014 campaign.

Above, we have a brief video recap of LSU's 7-41 non-triumph against That Other Football Team in Alabama.

But before that merciful November end, the Fighting Toonces have to get through six more Southeastern Conference games with nothing more than a defense without a clue and an offense without a prayer. So let's look at the remainder of the schedule, along with LSU's prospects in each.

NEXT UP is a trip Saturday to Gainesville, Fla., home of the FLORIDA GATORS. Here's a preview:



THEN, at home on Oct. 18, a much-improved KENTUCKY. Again, to the game preview:



OCT. 25, OLE MISS:



NOV. 8, ALABAMA:



NOV. 15, ARKANSAS:



NOV. 27, TEXAS A&M:

Calling all Cajuns: Save Matthew Stevens!

The Mississippi State beat writer who unloaded on Lafayette, La., and Cajuns in general got his.

The Columbus (Miss.) Commercial Dispatch canned Matthew Stevens. It was well-deserved.

Stevens

It's one thing to say, in your opinion, that someplace stinks. It is quite another to say that, then lay it on, employing stereotype after stereotype, and then sticking a turd on top by making fun of an entire people -- Louisiana Cajuns -- and the way they speak.

"I'm not going to go as far as to say that they're not people," Stevens said during the show. "But I don't know what they are because they don't speak English - and it's not French - but I don't know what it is."

Co-host Brian Hadad responded with, "They're the missing link - if you believe in evolution - between apes and humans, there's Cajuns."

That, cher, is beyond the pale. And now Stevens knows how far beyond the pale it was. Would that Hadad of Bulldog Sports Radio suffered the same fate, being that what he said was worse. As in straight-up bigotry against an entire people, a people who in the mid-1700s were "ethnically cleansed" from Canada by its British rulers.

Both Stevens and Hadad apologized, apperently sincerely, for their toxic Internet-radio rant. That's appropriate, but neither repentance nor forgiveness obviates the need for temporal consequences for bad actions.

WHEN I POSTED on this Friday, I was (needless to say) mad as a hornet. Perhaps I ought to have counted to 4,000 before hitting the "publish" button. Well, dat's da Internets for you. And, basically, I stand by what I wrote -- I wish I had fleshed it out a little more, but I stand by what I said then.

That said, I think maybe now is the time for grace. I think maybe now is the time to make Stevens' "teachable moment" truly teachable. I think maybe it's time to make something good come out of something so publicly ugly.

Right now, I'm thinking of Rabbi Michael Weisser, who in 1991 was the cantor and spiritual head of a Reform synagogue in Lincoln, Neb. The New York Times picks up the story in an article from 2009:

One Sunday morning, a few days after they had moved into their new house, the phone rang.

The man on the other end of the line called Rabbi Weisser “Jew boy” and told him he would be sorry he had moved in. Two days later, a thick package of anti-black, anti-Semitic pamphlets arrived in the mail, including an unsigned card that read, “The KKK is watching you, scum.”

The messages, it turned out, were from Larry Trapp, the Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, who kept loaded weapons, pro-Hitler material and his Klan robe in his cramped Lincoln apartment. Then 42, Mr. Trapp was nearly blind and used a wheelchair to get around; both of his legs had been amputated because of diabetes.

In a 1992 interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trapp said he had wanted to scare Rabbi Weisser into moving out of Lincoln. “As the state leader, the Grand Dragon, I did more than my share of work because I wanted to build up the state of Nebraska into a state as hateful as North Carolina and Florida,” he said. “I spent a lot of money and went out of my way to instill fear.”

Rabbi Weisser, who suspected the person threatening him was Mr. Trapp, got his telephone number and started leaving messages on the answering machine. “I would say things like: ‘Larry, there’s a lot of love out there. You’re not getting any of it. Don’t you want some?’ And hang up,” he said. “And, ‘Larry, why do you love the Nazis so much? They’d have killed you first because you’re disabled.’ And hang up. I did it once a week.”

One day, Mr. Trapp answered. Ms. Michael, the rabbi’s wife, had told him to say something nice if he ever got Mr. Trapp on the line, and he followed her advice. “I said: ‘I heard you’re disabled. I thought you might need a ride to the grocery,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

Then, one night, Rabbi Weisser’s phone rang again. It was Mr. Trapp. “He said, quote-unquote — I’ll never forget it, it was like a chilling moment, in a good way — he said, ‘I want to get out of what I’m doing and I don’t know how,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

He and Ms. Michael drove to Mr. Trapp’s apartment that night. The three talked for hours, and a close friendship formed. The couple’s home became a kind of hospice for Mr. Trapp, who moved into one of their bedrooms as his health worsened, and Ms. Michael became Mr. Trapp’s caretaker and confidante.

Mr. Trapp eventually renounced the Klan, apologized to many of those he had threatened and converted to Judaism in Rabbi Weisser’s synagogue.

LOVE trumps hate. Every time. The man the Klan leader called a "Jew boy" and tried to run out of town saw the tortured human behind the contorted mask of hatred, then responded to the human being -- not the hate. And then a miracle happened.

It seems to me that Matthew Stevens is way ahead of where the late Larry Trapp was on that grace-filled day 23 years ago. I wonder what a little grace might accomplish in the heart of the 29-year-old sportswriter.

That's why I'm hoping some newspaper in south Louisiana needs a sportswriter. Actually, I'm hoping some daily in south Louisiana needs a University of Louisiana-Lafayette beat writer. And I'd like to see an editor at a south Louisiana paper who needs a sportswriter reach out to Stevens and offer him a job . . . and find him a nice place in a good neighborhood. (They do exist down there. Louisiana has its problems, but it's not a wasteland, after all.)

And I'm hoping that if a paper has a job, and if an editor reaches out to the Prodigal Sportswriter, that Stevens takes that outstretched hand and begins what might turn out to be the education of a lifetime. One in humanity . . . and in grace . . . and in the unexpected joys and tender mercies of a place on the map where he'd least expect to encounter them.

THAT'S WHAT I'm hoping. Pray God that someone makes it so.

There might be a hell of a book in that, one to be written someday by a now-chastened, unemployed sportswriter. But first things first.

You have nerve, and then you have nerve

A sportswriter from Columbus, Miss., thinks Lafayette, La., is "the worst place in America."

You read me right.

Somebody from Columbus, Mississippi -- as in Burning -- thinks not only that Lafayette is the worst place in America but, indeed, that "it's not in America." And not to be outdone by his guest, Matthew Stevens of The Commercial Dispatch, sports-talk idiot Brian Hadad of Bulldog Sports Radio opined that Cajuns really aren't human at all.

Stevens

"They're the missing link -- if you believe in evolution -- between apes and humans, there's Cajuns," Hadad, the station's general manager, said on the Internet outlet. Well, now that Mississippians aren't allowed to openly define African-Americans out of the human race anymore. . . .

FROM THE story in the Advertiser in Lafayette:

From somebody who has spent his career working to right wrongs for the Cajun people, local attorney and cultural activist Warren Perrin says the words are spoken from "utter ignorance, prejudice and contempt."

"They did exactly what the British and Col. Charles Lawrence did to the Acadians three centuries ago: They judge all by the actions of a few. How sad we still find this in humanity, next door," Perrin said.

Stevens, 29, spent Thursday through Sunday in Lafayette to cover the NCAA Regional baseball tournament at M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field, in which MSU fell to UL.

During his radio show, he said he drove around Lafayette for 90 minutes in search of a neighborhood where he might live and raise a family but found nothing.

He also said that the only thing Cajuns know how to do is cook and that America would be better off without Louisiana.

"I think what this should do," said City-Parish President Joey Durel, "is motivate us to open our arms and show how wrong he is rather than prove him to be right. This is just an opportunity for us to prove him wrong."

Stevens has since apologized through social media and media interviews.

"It's me saying it, not anybody else's voice, not a bad edit," Stevens said to The Advertiser. "But after proper reflection as to what kind of human being I want to be, that's not It. And I don't endorse what I said in that rant or the opinions I had in that rant."

Last weekend marked Stevens' first time in Lafayette, and he attributes most of his bad experience with the city to safety concerns from staying in a hotel on the north side of town.

"I did have a bad experience in Lafayette, but whatever kind of experience I had in Lafayette does not give me the right to say what was said in my radio program Wednesday," Stevens said. "I obviously hurt and offended and angered a lot of people, and I take full responsibility for that. That's on me, and I can't take it back."

Stevens is a native of east-central Illinois but has lived and worked in Mississippi for the past few years.

Hadad

ANSWER ME this: Do you think a couple of jokers who said such things -- one via Twitter and both on an Internet station -- about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans or Native Americans would still be employed, even after issuing non-apology "apologies" in the wake of such open bigotry?

Let me help you out. The answer is "no."

The managing editor of Stevens' newspaper said, basically, the whole thing was unfortunate. You think?

"I certainly hate that this has happened because it's not an accurate portrayal of the city or our paper," Slim Smith said. "What I was really disappointed in is his characterizing so many people in a city with such broad terms. It's not a fair assessment to make. This will be a teachable moment for Matt." 

No, a "teachable moment" would be firing his sorry ass. And that goes double for Hadad, who thinks Cajuns are "the missing link."

And did I mention the dud-namic sports duo reside in Mississippi, whose sordid history (not to mention census data) leave its residents no damn room to talk . . . about anything or anybody?

That, my friends, not only is outright bigotry but also stunning gall. Absolutely amazing nerve.

As a south Louisiana native, I will admit that in many ways, no, Louisiana is not of the United States. Louisiana is more the northernmost Caribbean nation than it is American. After all, it was a French possession, then a Spanish possession, then a French possession again before it ever was part of this country.

MISSISSIPPI, on the other hand, has no such excuse. [Yes, what now is Mississippi, too, was variously French, Spanish or British -- the earliest French settlement on the Gulf Coast was where Biloxi is now -- but Louisiana was more heavily populated, under European rule for longer, for the most part, and New Orleans was a center of colonial government. -- R21] And as exemplified by Bulldog Sports Radio -- and the clowns it chooses to put "on the air" -- it still seems to be in the business of trashing anybody and everybody else in an effort to make itself feel better about its own shortcomings.

“If Obama wants to cut Louisiana from the union tomorrow, we are better off as people,” Stevens said. If excising states from the union will make us "better off as a people," perhaps the president should look a little bit more eastward than the Gret Stet.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

 

UPDATE: Everyone's in full non-faux apology mode now. Well, that's something, though I wish experience hadn't led me to tend toward cynicism when it comes to things like this. It's easy to apologize if you think you might be facing a firing squad if you don't.

Me, I'd prefer to watch what young Mr. Stevens (and Hadad, too) does rather than immediately believe what he says. Louisiana-Lafayette broadcaster Jay Walker, however, is a more forgiving and generous soul than I am.
 
Such is the nature of so many who these two were so quick to trash in an attempt to look way cooler than they are.

Louisiana: What doesn't kill you. . . .

If you are really good at something and really want to test yourself, move to Louisiana.

Anybody can be good at something if they have the right tools and institutional support. But only the crème de la crème can be good at something in Louisiana, where you'll be looked upon with suspicion for your uppityness and be consigned to toil in decrepitude while officialdom spends taxpayer dollars on more important things than, say, education.

Like, say, graft.

Or, say, an archive in Franklinton dedicated to a former two-term Republican governor. Who happened to be the political mentor of the present two-term Republican governor, Bobby Brady Jindal.

I'm pretty sure of two things: First, that my home state has serious problems with priorities and, second, that the best ceramics artists in the universe are found at Louisiana State University. I know this about the LSU art school because its ceramics program is ranked ninth in the country, and the students and professors have managed to achieve that level of notoriety as they dodge falling concrete ceilings while fighting off rats, raccoons and fleas in the Studio Arts Building. That's no easy feat as you struggle not to inhale asbestos particles or ingest lead-paint chips.

And then there's the electrical wiring next to ceiling leaks.

And the broken windows, some of which won't lock.

And the flood-prone basement.

And the lack of climate control like, say, heating and air conditioning. Ever been to south Louisiana in  August and September? An art student fainted during class last fall -- the temperature inside was nearly 100 degrees, the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports:

Emily Seba/Facebook

Gleason said while she’s at the building she forces herself to take five-minute breaks outside. She spends about 26 hours a week there between class and work, and she worries the mold, asbestos and lead paint that LSU’s own facilities department confirmed is on most every surface might be harmful to her health. “It’s a concern,” she said.

When maintenance crews worked over the Christmas break to scrape asbestos off of steam pipes in the building, they removed some insulation, too. The steam got so hot, it ruined a student’s artwork nearby, Gleason said. These type of maintenance efforts occur regularly, costing a “couple hundred thousand dollars” a year, LSU Office of Facility Services Planning, Design and Construction Director Roger Husser estimated. His department, too, is eager to permanently solve the building’s problems rather than continue the Band-Aid method that’s driving up maintenance costs. But it’s not his call.

As the building’s conditions worsen, maintenance costs grow and students question their safety, renovation plans sit on the shelf, awaiting $15 million from the state needed for renovations. To show they won’t sit idly by as their needs get trumped by programs with big donors or lucrative ticket sales, students have planned protests on Thursday (April 3) at LSU’s campus and Tuesday (April 8) at the steps of the Capitol to ask for better working conditions and a safe environment.

But unless what’s sure to be creatively designed picket signs inspire a change in the political will of the Louisiana Legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration -- their protests this week and next, according to one lawmaker, will be in vain.

Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, a self-proclaimed cheerleader for the arts who toured conditions of the Studio Arts building last fall, said if it were up to him the project would get the needed funding, but “a handful of legislators are not going to be able to (get enough support) to fund it on their own.”

Without private funding matches, the arts building simply doesn’t rise to the priority level of other donor-backed projects, which tend to get bumped up the list much faster. Though Husser said the Studio Arts building has been in the capital outlay queue for “a very long time,” if the state sees an opportunity to take advantage of private match, it will usually take it. But that means projects without donor support will keep slipping down rungs of the ladder as privately aided ones climb up. “The pie is not unlimited,” Claitor said. “The budget is tapped out.”

I WOULDN'T say the budget is "tapped out," exactly. It's just that everything else in the budget -- from Medicaid to masking tape -- has been deemed more important than giving art students at Louisiana's flagship university facilities fit for human habitation . . . as opposed to that of rats, raccoons and fleas.

Still, LSU's School of Art is fielding nationally noted programs. It's rather like winning Olympic medals in the 100-meter dash while dragging a boat anchor.

For three straight Olympics.

Writes columnist Stephanie Riegel in the Baton Rouge Business Report:

Since the early 2000s, the building has been slated for renovation. Several times, the project was designated as Priority One in the state capital outlay bill, meaning it was at the top of the list to receive construction dollars. One spring, it appeared so imminent the faculty was told to pack up their offices.

But, as so often happens, other needs took priority. This year, the project—now estimated to cost $15.3 million—isn't even included in the capital outlay bill, much less specified as an item likely to see a single dime.

"It's depressing," says professor Kelli Scott Kelley, whose critically acclaimed paintings hang in galleries around the country. "It affects morale. It affects the ability to attract good faculty and good graduate students."

Which gets to the heart of why this matters beyond, of course, concern for the well-being of students and faculty. There is a connection between a thriving art school at the state's flagship university and the community in which that school is located.

Consider what the arts have done for the revitalization of downtown and the role the Shaw Center for the Arts has played in bringing about that renaissance.

Think, too, about the near-obsessive fixation in this community for all things purple and gold—about the glowing headlines that follow when graduation rates inch up to 69%, or about the time and energy the university spends trying to earn a spot in the top quadrant of U.S. News & World Report's rankings.

Do top-flight schools have chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling? Are students at Duke or Vanderbilt or even the University of Alabama forced to paint in sub-freezing studios? Do you attract the best and brightest students by building a lazy river at the rec center while ignoring critical capital needs?

THE ANSWERS to Riegel's questions are an obvious no, no and no. Yet. . . .

As I said at the outset, if you are really good at something and really want to test yourself, move to Louisiana. Compete against the best. Do it while dragging a boat anchor. Win anyway. Come home victorious to the non cheers of the non-existent hometown throng of non-existent well-wishers.

If it's acclaim you want in the Gret Stet, be an LSU football player. That or an 86-year-old, ex-con ex-governor with a granddaughterly trophy wife, a new baby and an ego overdue for its 2 o'clock feeding.

Baton Rouge High, 2007

Kelli Scott Kelley, the LSU art professor, was in my graduating class at Baton Rouge Magnet High. And where she finds herself now resembles, and eerily so,  our alma mater before the parish school board was left with just two choices: Tear down the whole school and rebuild it somewhere else . . . or tear down and rebuild most of the campus, renovate the main building and keep BRHS where it was.

Thankfully, the board chose the second option. Baton Rouge High, after 30-something years of abject neglect, now has facilities worthy of the world-class teachers and students within its rebuilt walls. Our old school has shed its boat anchor -- for now.

In Louisiana, sadly, there's always another boat anchor to weigh you down. In Louisiana, fortunately, some folks find a way to stay afloat regardless.

Unfortunately for the state that forgot to care, however, many of those survivors soon enough will weigh anchor one last time before setting sail for a distant shore.

Guess what. A state that cares so little for its children . . . for higher education . . . for the arts . . . for its future . . . deserves exactly what it's going to get. Or not get, as the case may be.

Ask not upon whom the anchor weighs.