i promised zoethe i'd get her a link

[fox]

so on november 10 of this year, a supervisor at the medical center here said, and i quote, "I can't believe in this day and age that there's a sports team in our nation's capital named the Redskins. This is as derogatory to Indians as having a team called Niggers would be to blacks.".

and the place went nuts. there were investigations, as if anyone was denying that the word was used in the first place. it was looking crazy for days. the student paper -- a lamer document than i've ever seen in my life, and where i went to undergrad the student newspaper was a semi-weekly piece of crap; this one's a daily, but it's a total rag -- did run an editorial labeling the sense of outrage as "inappropriate", but it's still not clear whether the manager is going to be able to keep her job.

let me repeat that: a manager may be fired for uttering a racial epithet in a sentence about how offensive racial epithets are. this at a university that prides itself on being one of the top two public schools (currently, i believe, #1) in the country.

so, yeah, in short, the world is a crazy place, people are stupid, and i'll be glad to get out of here.

Comments

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

yeah -- they're saying it now because us news said it (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/natudoc/natudoc_pub_brief.php). but of course what us news said was that uva and berkeley are tied at #1 -- a fact that this university only points out in the middle of the page (http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Rankings.htm) after spending some time talking about "claiming the #1 spot", as though there were only one.

i happen to think it's all a crock. berkeley could kick uva's ass with one hand tied behind its back.

[datlowen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they've atually been tied for a number of years now. I think they've probably just stopped actually trying to rank them.

U.S. News has a really silly method for ranking schools anyways, and furthermore it's simplistic. I mean, sure UVA and Berkeley may be tied for number one, but I certainly don't want to go to UVA if I'm planning on studying high energy physics. Similarly, Georgetown may be ranked number 15 in the nation or whatever, but you and I both know that they're far better in Linguistics and International Affairs than in, say, Chemistry and Engineering. So. POOP ON RANKINGS.

[fafou.livejournal.com]

So. POOP ON RANKINGS.

You and I agree on yet another topic. ;)