Observations

Now that both Michigan and Michigan State are out of the NCAA basketball tournament I'm not nearly as interested who wins it now. Odd coincidence that they both lost by three points or less too.

Some of the usual suspects at U of M are making a stink about having Michigan Governor Rick Snyder give the commencement address this spring.Whatever. They don't have to attend or they can get up and leave when Snyder starts his speech. Who cares what the grads think anyhow? They got their degrees and they'll soon be leaving Ann Arbor if they haven't left already.

Last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner enters America into yet a third war  just a year later. That  has to be some kind of record. Hope n' Change motherfuckers!

The University of Michigan's Graduate Employees’ Organization (UMGEO) AKA " the grad student slave labor gang "has arrived at a "contract" (and I use that term "contract" very tentatively here), with the University's administration that will now create lactation break areas for the GEOs that need 'em, no more assigned work after 1 AM, give GEOs seats on several important UM committees, and will create a website to help GEOs find better jobs. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about such an outcome.

Just A Game

"Youth," George Bernard Shaw famously said, "is wasted on the young." And that phenomenon was again on display this weekend in East Lansing where police reported 27 arrests. The MSU men's basketball team surprise loss to Butler in the NCAA tournament's Final Four series was the official cause of it say authorities and pundits. But is it really? No, I think Mr. Shaw had it right. All that passion and youthful energy is yet again pissed away in nihilistic vandalism and anti-social behavior over a basketball game. A fuckin' game.

Would that these "sports fans" channel some this energy, passion and youthful bravado toward building a just and humane society, eh? Like philosopher Herbert Marcuse noted some time ago, modern industrial societies very effectively channel the rage, frustration and passion people feel into safety valves like sports riots rather than allowing it to build into something more politically transformative.