The DI posted its “Top Ten issue."

Amusing was its section on the top ten crimes committed on campus . According to the DI, the highest occurring crime is theft. That sounds rather vague., Everyone by now knows, given the leadership and types in the university, administration, and the DI itself, the the most-often committed crime is bribery, corrupting, and fraud. Granted that White’s Global campus failure, and Ghosh’s scholarship deception might, on an intrinsic level, qualify as theft. Perhaps, the DI felt that fell under its umbrella category?

Interestingly, and probably to the DI’s great displeasure, sexual assault/rape did not make the list (basic assault did). This cannot be good for the DI-UI propaganda machine. What will Ross Wantland write about in the buzz now? Perhaps its because as they always claim that most sexual assaults go unreported? This would not come as any surprise, as there are many things that go unreported in the DI, like this and this (as well as several sexual assaults that the DI did not report, like this and this).

But never fear! There are ways to correct these problems when the facts and numbers come up short.

Posted by Hound No. 9

The DI tells Global Campus to DIE?

Nothing could have prepared us for last week's editorial in the DI. Amidst the usual nonsensical, hate-filled screed of Paul Cruise, the DI launched a blistering critique of the Global Campus 2.0 (at least the zero seems appropriate). After taking a moment to purvey some of the statements of this article, it becomes twice as incredulous that the DI wrote this. For example:

"...the program has fallen flat on its face."

"Even President White said, 'What we ought to do is reset the approach we were taking and learn from the last couple of years what has worked. And let’s go with what has worked and eliminate what hasn’t.'
'Go with what has worked and eliminate what hasn’t'? What hasn’t worked has been the entire program. It’s time to face the truth"

"And what we pick and what we choose should be for the best of our University as a whole, and that
would not be Global Campus."

The DI, as we have posted previously, had been ardent shills of the skunk White and his machinations for quite a while. Indeed, the DI had advertising links to the office of GC until their new format. Also, White's less-than-honest manner in the killing of Chief Illiniwek gained him unconditional TASSer loyalty from the DI.

For other reasons as well, this long-overdue development is not nearly enough to reverse the DI sycophants' standings as TASSers. The revelation about DeBrock came several weeks too late after the News Gazette's, and naturally makes no mention of his shady past. It does mention Ghosh in the past tense, but nothing surrounding his quest to take care of the "too many jar heads" nor his suspicious departure.

Posted by Hound No. 9

Charting a Course

Over at Critical Mass, Erin O'Conner has a great post on charter schools in response to a column by David Brooks. We will not post much on that here, as one can read it easily enough at the linked site.

CM makes an amazing statement after the Brooks quotes while listing
the numerous faults of the present education setup:

"School choice and high standards work. We should stop arguing about it, and start doing it. It's the most decadent, arrogant form of waste to argue against it--it steals kids' futures for the sake of adults' partisan politics in the present.

FWIW: The year I spent teaching at a boarding school was a sharp and clear lesson in what kids respond to and what doesn't work for them. The school was hobbled by a rigid adherence to certain progressive practices and beliefs -- as in, no grades (just supportive report letters); no emphasis on basics such as spelling and grammar (because that might turn kids off); no tracking of any kind (because egalitarian mediocrity that served no one was preferable to the comparisons kids might draw if some were allowed to excel).

The most striking point in the quote describes the "egalitarian mediocrity" which permeates like some virulent miasma within our primary education system. Aye, several of us remember in our Obedience School where dogs could not learn new tricks-it would be unfair to those who were sub par.

In other noteworthy events, Chapin Rose had grilled skunk for breakfast last week during a question and answer session with skunk White. White is trying to cast aside criticism of his new (but hardly improved) version of the Global Campus 2.0. Panelists for coming up with a way to sidestep scrutiny of the failed program have made comments including by the co-chair "The proposed initiative would never run at a deficit." (not true unless the UI considers an excess of $3 million does not qualify as a deficit) to "We owe Global Campus a debt" (sort of true-as far as emphasis on "debt"). Watching White squirm under the examination makes us wonder whether in future if he will adopt the Glen Poshard method of alleviating scrutiny and criticism, as he has already once attempted to make himself arbiter of IL law in a move that only Palpatine could approve of, by undertaking ethics policy that should be left to lawmakers.

Posted by Alpha Hound

Mad Haters and Tea Parties

We our fortunate to see that the news in our backyard responded well and fairly to Wednesday's Nation-wide Tax Protests and Tea Parties. Unsurprising, the News-Gazette was well on the scene (considering the event at West Side Park was only three blocks away, it would have been shameful indeed had they not).

Even the ever-present TASSers over at the DI had decent enough coverage, which comes as a welcomed surprise given their history of not reporting events that that do not adhere to their extremely narrow spectrum of acceptability.

Not to let their own feelings in the matter creep away, they made sure to find some altercation between the protesters and a random Urbana citizen, which the DI made the claim was sworn at. Naturally, we have only the DI's questionable word for that.

Even so, between a surprisingly welcomed, long overdue revelation about the Global Campus Failure (despite the DI has shilled for it for months, and has even downplayed the fact it has linked advertisements for the GC office for quite some time now), the DI has shown signs of rudimentary improvement in its almost nil journalistic standards. The economy must be hard indeed if White and his toads can no longer afford to pay them off anymore.

Posted by Hound No. 9