Big-time college sports make money for universities, right? Wrong. Who says so? Only the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

The 2004-06 NCAA Revenues and Expenses of Division Intercollegiate Athletics Programs Report makes for dull reading. Doug Lederman wrote a good summary for Insidehighered.com:

In the 2006 fiscal year, the latest of three examined in the study, only 19 of the 119 Football Bowl Subdivision institutions had positive net revenue, while for the rest, expenses exceeded generated revenues. (For the entire three-year period, only 16 athletics department turned a net profit.)

• 2006 median net loss for all 119 big-time (I-A) programs in 2006: $7.265 million.
• Average annual new revenue for the 16 profitable teams 2004-06: $4.3 million.
• Average annual loss for the 103 money-losers 2004-06: $8.9 million.
• One team got a $100 million alumni contribution, but another spent $100 milion so it really didn’t move the needle much.

If college football and basketball don’t make money for the universities, is it worth all the recruiting scandals and the pretense that illiterate team members are “student athletes?” Only to the “gaming industry.” What will it take before the NBA and NFL develop their own “farm systems” independent of our universities, the way Major League Baseball does? 

Image by Mike Licht.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, 1973

In 1972, a dynamic young pastor. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, assumed leadership of an 85-member middle class Chicago congregation, Trinity United Church of Christ. Like other UCC churches of that era, Trinity wished to appeal to middle class whites as well as blacks but, given its inner-city location, had difficultly attracting either after the 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chicago public housing 

Trinity had a few social service programs for poor black residents in the church neighborhood.  Reverend Wright increased their number and scope, but he did more: he invited the poor in as church members, as equals. No longer were the poor merely objects of missionary work; they were welcomed as brothers and sisters.

Reverend Wright’s invitation to the poor was loud and clear: he substituted a Gospel music choir for the Pilgrim Hymnal in the worship service. The invitation was accepted. Church membership grew from 87 to 6000 (some say 10,000) today.

Trinity UCC Sanctuary Choir

In 1985, Barack Obama moved to Chicago to work with South Side residents in Roseland and in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development through the Developing Communities Project. After three years he went back east to attend law school, but returned to Chicago in 1993 to work for Project Vote.

Barack Obama of Project Vote!

Trinity United Church of Christ was teaching poor residents skills and placing them in jobs, giving school supplies to children, helping abused women, counseling cancer survivors and helping drug and alcohol abusers.  The music was good, too. Are you surprised the idealistic young lawyer was attracted to Trinity? It was a church that wasn’t just talk.

Norfolk State University (Founded 1935) has a distinguished tradition as one of Virginia’s HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). It also has a 12 percent four-year graduation rate and a 30 percent six-year graduation rate. Undergraduate admissions requirements for NSU are a high school diploma or equivalent, a 2.3 GPA, and scores of 800 on the SAT or 17 on the ACT. The school is ranked 34th — last — in the U.S. News & World Report 2008 “America’s Best Black Colleges” rankings.

NSU also has a rule that students must attend at least 80 percent of class sessions or they fail the class, yet the school fired Biology Professor Steven D. Aird for enforcing that rule as well as academic standards. Aird’s class attendance records indicate the average student attended 66 percent of classes, so the mean grade would have been an F on that alone, yet he was criticized by the Dean for awarding Ds or Fs to about 90 percent of students. Were the students so well-prepared that class attendance was unnecessary?  Sadly, no.

“I really care about my students,” said Aird in InsideHigherEd.com. “That’s why I refuse to lower the bar. The objective should be competence, not grades.”

“Show me how lowering the bar has ever helped anyone,” Aird said in an interview. Continuing the metaphor, he said that officials at Norfolk State have the attitude of “a track coach who tells the team ‘I really want to win this season but I really like you guys, so you can decide whether to come to practice and when.’ “Such a team wouldn’t win,” Aird said, “and a university based on such a principle would not be helping its students.”

Students at NSU feel free to cut class, says Aird, because they understand they will pass no matter how badly they do on tests and papers. Aird did not adhere to this informal compact, believing it harmful to students. He was denied tenure for it, and has documents to prove it.

Aird’s position is defended by former students, many of whom sought and received assistance from him out of class hours. Colleagues affirm that they were reprimanded if their pass rates fell under 70 percent.

In response to complaints from the Dean, Aird wrote:

I believe that we serve our students and our country best when we help our students to discover and develop their abilities, and when we help them develop the intellectual tools and the strength of character to overcome the obstacles they will encounter in life. That cannot be accomplished, as so many at NSU have tried, by pandering to them and to their parents with inflated grades and pass rates.

Is this issue limited to HBCUs? Not according to online comments and the recent Atlantic Monthly article In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.

Dr. Aird is looking for work.

Hat Tip: Scott Jaschik at InsideHigherEd.com

Armageddon is imminent; the “head of the European Union” is the Antichrist. That’s what the authoritative Rev. John C. Hagee proclaimed. If Rev. Hagee meant the President of the European Commission, then send the children out of the room and gaze upon the face of the Antichrist:

José Manuel Barroso, Antichrist. The horror, the horror . . . .

But perhaps Rev. Hagee meant the President of the European Parliament:

José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa

If you would prefer the head of Iran or the entire Catholic Church as the Antichrist, Rev. Hagee has said that, too. And since the Reverand wrote his book, the EU officers are Slovenians. 

Never mind; Rev. Hagee will help us! Just contribute to his televised ministry . . .

 . . .  or buy a book . . .

 . . . or buy Israeli chotzkes (knick-knacks), or even take an evangelical tour of Israel:

It must be a comfort for the embattled people of Israel to have friends like these. I’m sure Dr. Condoleezza Rice is just thrilled, too. After all, they don’t teach the “Dual Covenant” theory in Poli Sci.

What kind of freakin’ jerks put this Road Rage List together anyway?  A list of the worst road rage cities and DC is only number 5? What’s with that? 

Okay, Miami pulls out in front, claro, and New York if you count taxis, but the Washington area cut off by lousy Boston and Baltimore?  Boston drivers are cream pie since they finished that Big Dig, and Charm City drivers have been soft-shelled ever since Cantown got gentrified.

Washingtonians, don’t take this reclining in your SUVs. Anger and upset your fellow drivers, sending them out-of-control so they engage in aggressive, careless, crazy and rude driving. Let’s increase our city’s Road Rage Rating!

Here are proven ways to infuriate other drivers:

• Cut off younger drivers and those with the longest commutes; they’re more likely to honk their horns and make obscene gestures. Men or women, it makes no difference; we have Road Rage Parity here.  This is America! 
• Talk on your cell phone. It doesn’t just distract you, it makes other drivers nuts.
• Drive too fast.
• Tailgate.
• Eat or drink while you drive. People hate to see that; they must be hungry and jealous.
• Cut over into other lanes without notice. Signals? To change lanes? Hah!
• Text and e-mail while you drive. Houston leads the nation in this. LOL!
• Slam on the brakes. We sure know how to do this in DC.
• Run red lights.
• Put on makeup, shave or read.

AutoVantage compiles the annual Road Rage cities list at the beginning of each year, so you have plenty of time to practice raising DC’s score. And ignore those drivers from Pittsburgh, Portland, OR, Seattle, Minneapolis and Cleveland.  Those are the most courteous cities, the losers.

 Hat tip: WTOP Radio

Continuing her mission to divide the Democratic Party by race, age, and gender, Senator Hillary Clinton swept the West Virginia primary yesterday. The first woman Ivy League Dixiecrat won by nearly two-thirds of the vote, picking up a net dozen electoral delegates.

Senator Clinton remains impossibly behind Senator Barack Obama in delegate count but her stubborn campaign delights reporters by providing media employment in a weak economy. Leading Democrats smile unconvincing and claim this blood-letting is good for the health of the party, like bringing down a fever with leeches. Ms. Clinton seems to owe herself $21 million in campaign funds, but after this win she should be able to reduce that debt to a mere $20,999,999,901.

Before West Virginia, Obama led in delegates by 1,875 to Clinton’s 1,697, with 2,025 delegates needed to win. Ms. Clinton may have picked up a net gain of a dozen in West Virginia,  and can only win by buying a six-pack for everyone in Michigan and Florida or hitting the Power Ball at the convention.

Senator Clinton vows to continue her divisive campaign in the remaining Caucasian caucus primary states. Oregon and Kentucky have primaries next Tuesday, Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. She is said to be especially popular in Puerto Rico, where no one understands what either candidate is saying. This Saturday, of course, all eyes will be on Baltimore, and the Preakness.

Image by Mike Licht. Download it here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Investigators for the D.C. Fire Department lack sufficient training and credentials, reports Scott McCabe in the Examiner. The firefighters are not certified fire investigators, and even the short fire investigation course they may have taken has been plagued by exam cheating. This is most crucial in the examination of the devastating fire at Washington’s 135-year-old Eastern Market, where conclusions of federal and DC investigators differ.

Washington Fire Chief Dennis Rubin quickly announced he was “90 percent” certain that the fire resulted from electrical problems at the Capitol Hill landmark even before certified investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms finished their investigation. ATF later ruled out electrical system problems as a cause of the fire. While the ATF investigation continues, several eyewitnesses told the Post’s Elissa Silverman that the trash compactor behind the building, crammed with cardboard boxes, was also on fire.

“Everyone on that fire looked right out the back door to the dumpster and knew where it started,” a DC firefighter posted to an anonymous web group. I personally observed a melted lid on the compactor dumpster and soot discoloration up the wall behind it, reaching to the roof. Uncollected trash, especially cardboard, had long been an issue between merchants and Eastern Market Ventures, the management contractor for city-owned Eastern Market.

A City Paper cover story by Jason Cherkis explores the ATF investigation at length and presents evidence for arson.

After they were hitched by an Obama supporter, shy young newlyweds Jenna Bush-Hager and Henry Chase Hager snuck away from Texas in a discrete CIA-chartered flight, as “Super T” Tyrone Smith crooned The Wind Beneath My Wings as a boogaloo, backed by his 10-piece band and Henry’s inebriated fraternity brothers. There seems to be no truth to the rumor, started here, that Jenna and Henry are bound for a honeymoon in exotic Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Too bad; it would have been private and perfect (except for the sharks).

The Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) would have been a more rugged but scenic choice. The honeymooners would have been among friends from the energy sector and the few remaining native people.

Jenna Wrapped in Furs at ANWR.

The new  rumor is that the happy couple are winging to an unspecified location “in Europe.” We know all about that, don’t we? It means the couple will land at Szymany, Poland and visit the lovely resort village of Stare Kiejkuty, between lakes Wałpusz and Starokiejkuckie. It’s a bit early in the season, but newlyweds often find ways to keep warm. Privacy can be assured at the CIA secret (oops!) prison compound, a former World War II German intelligence installation also used as a training school for Soviet spies.

Jenna and Henry might decide to go on to picturesque Timişoara, Romania, on the Bega River. “Little Vienna” is known for it’s charm, the discrete Vuia Timişoara Airport, and a reputation among cognoscenti as a premiere CIA “Black Site.” Alternately, they might choose Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport, the “Black Site” near the Black Sea, convenient to Constanta and the resorts of the “Romanian Riviera.”

Either way, the lucky couple will have a redition of a honeymoon that is truly extraordinary.

Images by Mike Licht. Download top image here. Download second image here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

There is an organization in south Chicago, at 400 West 95th Street, (near three Chicago Housing Authority communities, La Salle Food & Liquor, and Blowout Hair Studio) that provides child care and counsels troubled families.

It runs a Family Rescue Shelter for victims of domestic abuse, provides computer training for children and teens, helps needy children get basic school supplies, runs job fairs and trains the unemployed and underemployed in the skills they need to compete for jobs.

It conducts support groups for cancer patients and their families, educates the community about early detection and prevention, and helps dispel myths and fears about cancer. It provides professional family, group, crisis, and grief counseling.

It is the Trinity United Church of Christ. Is it any wonder an idealistic young community organizer named Barack Obama became a parishioner?

Top Image: Mapquest; bottom image: Christian Science Monitor.

It’s pitchforks and torches outside the genteel U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; Revolution is in the air. That will teach federal agencies to attempt art history lessons for the masses.

The Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial project has entered a new phase of its troubled history. The Commission oversees art and architecture in much of the District of Columbia, and is the guardian of the Tidal Basin site reserved for the King statue. Michael E. Ruane’s front-page article in today’s Washington Post alerted the proletariat that the Commission’s April 17th meeting reviewed the latest statue design and found its “Socialist Realist” style and “colossal scale” to be “unfortunate and inappropriate.” On-line comments on the Post article indicate that many readers are unaware of the Stalinist and totalitarian origins and associations of the style.

More tellingly, it appears that the project’s sponsors have rushed the statue into execution without the “regular periodic review of drawings, material samples, maquettes, mock-ups, and inspection of the work in the artist’s studio” customary for sculpture slated for the Capital’s “Monumental Core.” That would be slightly more difficult in this case, since the sculptor, Lei Yixin, is executing the piece in Changsha, China.

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation submitted a vastly different preliminary design, on a smaller scale, with Dr. King’s likeness emerging from the “Stone of Hope.” The statue is the focal point of the four acre memorial site. Read the Commission’s letter here.

Earlier issues with this project involved bitter allegations of irregularities in the Memorial Foundation’s methods in selecting the preliminary design and sculptor, and the “outsourcing” of the actual work to China.

Incidentally, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency, should not be confused with Washington’s local D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The latter is a world-renowned authority on fiberglass pandas.

 Image by Tovarich Mike Licht. Download it here, Comrade. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, Notions Capital.com