Scholarship thugs

Full disclosure: Hofstra is my alma mater. I graduated long enough ago that almost all the athletes were white. As a matter of fact, my boyfriend was on a football AND baseball scholarship, but since he needed spending money, worked as a teaching assistant.

That’s the background. Here’s the story. Until the other day, I didn’t know about the four black basketball players who were on scholarship at Hofstra University, a very expensive, private university. Other peoples’ money paid for their room and board, excellent education, and even their textbooks. They admitted guilt to stealing over $10,000 worth of tech products from other students.Even though one of these young men had already been kicked out of school for his unacceptable behavior, apparently winning basketball games was more important to decision makers.

Instead, we should start calling a spade a spade (for the ignorant- that’s a common expression). These boys are nothing but ungrateful, talented thugs. but they were treated with reverence by students, faculty, and administration.

This story ties in with the Jovan Belcher homicide/suicide. A black football player murdered his baby’s mother and excuse after excuse was given to rationalize his barbaric behavior. Reporters went so far as to blame this horrendous incident on a concussion. Since when is murder a symptom of a concussion? A follow up story shows that this was the tragic ending of a night of drinking and visiting a woman who was not his ” baby momma.” It must have been the concussion.

I could go on and on with stories. When my son was a gymnast at the University of Nebraska a a black football player threw his white girlfriend down the stairs and she landed in the hospital. The administration threatened her with pulling her scholarship if she reported it to the police.

How about OJ? I was sitting with a group of extras working on a movie in Atlanta when the verdict came in. Even though I was familiar with the cultural differences, I was appalled to see how joyous the black contingency was. We white folks looked at each other with looks of horror, consternation, and bewilderment. It was very clear that justice was not served.

It is time to stop the adulation of a thuggish. criminal culture. It’s great that so many top athletes are black or brown, but unless we demand the same behavior from all our citizens and enforce justice for all, our country will end in chaos. As citizens we must call savage, barbaric behavior what it is. As Pamela Geller’s posters encourage, ” In the war between the civilized person and savage support the civilized man.” As Americans we have to take these words to heart and start calling bad behavior what it is. If I were one of the parents PAYING for my child’s education I would be furious.

My husband and I had a rare Saturday night date. I say rare because our nights out have become unusual due to our fiscal downturn, so I was really looking forward to seeing Atlas Shrugged Part II. I was one of the few people who thought the first part was good. I even thought that the train scene of Dagny tranversing the magnificance of the USA was excellent, so I figured with a bigger budget and more publicity we had a winner. I was wrong.

First of all, there were only nine people at a 7:15 Saturday showing. That was my first disappointment. The only underlying excitement was realizing that we could have any seat in the whole theatre. That was really the best part of the evening. The rest was disappointing.

The reason, I believe, the movie failed is that there was no character development. It was made very clear to the audience that everything was falling apart in our country but we didn’t understand why we should care. Remember, we are inundated with post apocalyptic movies and TV shows daily, so a scene with a sign that gas is selling for $47.00 isn’t too moving.

A good movie develops both plot and character. The problem was that it didn’t really do either. Part of the problem could be the way the story was broken into parts. This part of the story focused on the industrialists, creators, and experts disappearing. Although the character of Hank Reardon was portrayed well, it would be quite confusing for anyone not familiar with the story to understand his relationships with Dagny and his insufferable wife. For me, whose first love was Howard Roark, the hero from Rand’s The Fountainhead, not to care what happened to any of the characters was the real disappointment.