• The KillerFrogs

Sally Jenkins piece

AroundWorldFrog

Full Member
No, he was a tech sergeant in a veterinary MASH hospital in charge of a squadron of mules in Burma. Who did he piss off to get that posting? As he said, it kept a rifle out of his hands. :)

My picture is actually of P-39s in New Guinea. It has no significance whatsoever except that it was the only photo that would load back many years ago when I was less computer literate.
Interesting. I didn't know they had veterinary MASH units, but with the number of pack animals that were used in Burma, there had to be.

Edit, You can change the picture now. :D I couldn't tell what plane it was much less if it had the FT logo.
 
No, he was a tech sergeant in a veterinary MASH hospital in charge of a squadron of mules in Burma. Who did he piss off to get that posting? As he said, it kept a rifle out of his hands. :)

My picture is actually of P-39s in New Guinea. It has no significance whatsoever except that it was the only photo that would load back many years ago when I was less computer literate.
As Patton said, at least he didn't have to tell his grand kids he shoveled [ Finebaum ] in Louisiana.

Slow hand salute for your father
 

HG73

Active Member
As Patton said, at least he didn't have to tell his grand kids he shoveled [ Cumbie’s red zone playcalling ] in Louisiana.

Slow hand salute for your father
Thank you for the salute, I know how much that means.

One more story, in '41 the army offered recruits a deal to sign up now and be out in one year. Well everyone could see that war was coming so he enlisted hoping to get out before the war started. Of course December 7 wrecked those plans. His one year was coming up and the brass called all those guys together and asked them who still wanted out when their year was up. Virtually all raised their hands.

They never heard another word about it. :) Dad was in from mid '41 until the end in late '45.
 

froghair

Full Member
Twaddle. A great lot of mindless twaddle.

She relies on an "ex-NCAA investigator" (There's a crack outfit if there ever was one...) and some accountant as her sources. She begins with the premise that spending at Universities is unsustainable. Well, no poop, Sherlock! What other gems of wisdom and observation you got in that bag of tricks?

I remember a line from a Hemingway book: "How did you go broke?"

"Well, slowly at first. Then, all of a sudden."

The issue isn't that Universities are awash in money from Sports, it is that they are awash in money. Yes, Sports have been making them lots of money, but the rises in tuition and the Government guaranteed financial aid that paid for it are the main aqueducts of wealth pouring money into the University. With this money flowing faster and in greater volume year after year, the Administration of these institutions went on wild spending sprees, as Sally chronicles. What she leaves out, as Sports is her sole focus, is that this spending flowed across the system, leading to enormous Administrative bloat, huge satrapies of bureaucracy, and great debt to fund land acquisition and new construction.*

When you show stupid people a seemingly endless stream of money, they will find a way to piss it all away. And then some. Which is exactly what they did. After all, the money poured forth from the spigots in an endless stream! Spend more of it! Build new crap! Put your names on it! Get an ugly edifice for the permanent display of your ego, and get somebody else to pay for it! Woo-hoo! Par-tay!

And then the money stopped...

Uh oh.

Oh, yes. There were warning signs. Lots of people noticed the insane rise in tuition costs, and the academically worthless crap that much of this was going to fund. And yet, we grudgingly paid it, because out little wards needed an education to get ahead in life. It's what we did lo these many years ago, before we went out into the World and scrabbled enough to afford to send our progeny off on the same path. As someone on this here Board once had as his footer, "It isn't the same path. It isn't the same river." The twin, powerful forces of entropy and stupidity have perverted what was the University into an mess of anti-learning and hive-mind craziness. Even the sciences are going "woke" to their everlasting shame.

-I had a kid (25, or thereabouts) out the other day to install a back-up generator here at The Ranch. He was sharp, well mannered, and very good at his job. Tools all laid out just so, order and sequence to his tasks. He commented on my Froggish t-shirt, opined that it was a good school. I smiled. He spoke of going to college to learn more about electrical engineering, and wanted to know what I thought. My advice was to study EE at a good local school as opposed to a University, and to get his Master Electrician as soon as he could. "All you'll get out of a big school is a lot of debt. Learn from the guys who do it for a living." A friend from back Houston way is a plumber. He makes more than I did when things were fabulous. His kids are worthless [ Cumbie’s red zone playcalling ]s. "Studying 'Interior Design' for four years. What the hell is he gonna do with that? I tried to give the business to him, and he isn't interested in working on pipes, even though he would make five times what he can make putting in windows to let in the light..." Sigh.-

The Universities were in trouble before the Plague. They just wouldn't admit it. Even to themselves.Now the crisis is upon them, and they haven't a clue how to proceed, other than to try and scrabble any funding they can, from anywhere they can find it. Not a one of these fools has the moral courage to slash away the vast rolls of fat the Good Years have put on them, and more pain will follow before any good will take place. Wholesale changes in Administration will have to happen, and nobody fights harder than an entrenched bureaucrat when their satrapy is on the chopping block. A certain amount of ruthlessness is needed, and in the pal-ocracy of the University, this is seldom seen outside of further purging the University of BadThought.

So, the Football Season is the Great Financial Savior. Well, not really. It is a log to a drowning man, but the seas are still rough and there are sharks. Sally also leaves out the Media empires hand in this, what with ESPN crashing and bleeding out on the floor. No, the TV networks aren't driving much of this at all! Strange that such a thing would slip a Media person's mind... But, I digress.

The idea that athletes are "forced to play" is laughably absurd, and could only spill from the word-processor of a "woke journalist." Nobody is putting a gun to these kids heads. Yes, they play a hard and sometimes dangerous game. There is a helluva lot more risk of death playing football than there is from the spectre of the Plague, but no one in the Media will allow such a fact to get out. No, the image painted of poor, helpless kids buffeted about by the whims of the Rich and Powerful is the usual leftist twaddle, it's just dressed up in different clothes this time around. Bottom line: The Kids Want Their Fair Share. Who defines this "fair share"? Are they not given a free education**? Free room and board? I know quite bitterly that these items are enormously pricey otherwise. To receive such benefits in exchange for being able to perform on one of the grandest stages yet known, at the top of ones abilities? That's a damned good deal. But, evidently, that ain't good enough for some. I don't believe for a second that the kids actually playing the game came up with this. No, the scumbag communists that make up the University faculty, the grifter lawyers who would "manage" any monies that come about for the athletes, and the Media ghouls who delight in picking at wounds, twisting knives and putting pepperspray on unsuspecting folks underwear before a long drive came up with this. It matters not a whit to any of these aforementioned swine that their actions will kill what we know as College Football. It doesn't matter at all, in fact. The communist scum faculty hate football, and would gladly kill it out of pure spite. The grifters just want a score, and move on to the next one after the mark is bled dry. The Media always have a new "story" out to tout, and tomorrow's consequences are irrelevant to today's ratings. That's the story Sally ought to be looking at, but she is utterly unable to do so from inside her blinkered existence and experience at the foul creche of evil that is the WaPo. Dan weeps...

*Credit (heh...) V. Bo for paying as we went and eschewing debt on all the new construction at TCU. Yes, they have experienced the same flood of money as everybody else, but we luckily had somebody who was wise in how it was managed at the helm. Now, if he would just fire about half the Administration and Faculty...

**Graduating with a degree in African American Studies, or just about any of the "Studies" is a waste of four years. It is even worse when said worthless degree is achieved by fraudulent means, like NC State did with their players some years ago. (ESPN really glossed over that one, considering the courses, faculty, and fact that many other Universities do such things. Why the attack of scruples now, eh?) There is life after Football, and a useless "Degree" is, well, useless. I know that if I were hiring, and a resume came across my desk that listed "...Studies" or "Intersectional Gender Fluidity" or other such balderdash, said resume would go right into the roundfile. Such persons possess few evident skills, save arguing absurdities, and would contribute nothing to any enterprise save strife and annoyance. No matter how big their Brilesboobs are. I would venture to say that Sally ought to look into the ghastly tripe that passes for Degrees foisted upon athletes in these sad times to keep them eligible for the duration of their stay. A University is not being a terribly good steward of their charges if they give them nothing tangible in return for their labors, and a worthless Degree is of no tangible benefit except that it is a sheepskin that says they have a Degree. Hell, based on solely that, Sally might have a point!
 
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