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Post by beaven302 on Jun 23, 2016 13:59:10 GMT -5
Fordham is apparently unaware or unfazed by the politically incorrect statements of its founder, Archbishop John Hughes, about slavery and Abraham Lincoln. A full-page ad in today's N.Y. Times celebrating the University's 175th anniversary features a large color portrait of Hughes.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 23, 2016 12:24:08 GMT -5
Dartmouth rated 6th. The spirit of its former coach, the late Bob Blackman, must be pleased. (Apart from victories over BC, the football team snapping the Blackman-coached Dartmouth team's winning streak back in '66 is one of my most memorable HC football memories.) Also, a check of the FBS ratings shows that BC is rated next to last in the ACC just ahead of Syracuse. Perhaps the Eagles should eventually get out of the ACC and start playing the Tufts Jumbos and the Williams.College Ephs.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 21, 2016 12:00:23 GMT -5
I am pleased that my mild jibe has provided a few moments of jocularity, precious relief from the dire consequences you face; loss of identity, especially as you prepare to become the home team in a Bronx Tale that will end badly and possibly send you scurrying in search of a new mascot. Retreat to your slave master quarters on a bluff over Worcester, retreat in shame over your terrible, awful, cruel, murderous, rapacious, thief upon a steed. Retreat I say, get thee to the Contemplative Center where you may discern a new identity that sullies you no longer! Like many institutions founded before the Civil War, Fordham has its own ties to slavery, however tangential. The founder of St. John's College, the future Fordham University, Bishop John Hughes, reportedly once said that slavery was "not an absolute and unmitigated evil." He also supposedly said that the abolition of slavery would be unconstitutional and that Abraham Lincoln should resign if he freed the slaves. In addition, one of the first deans of Fordham's Law School began his career working in the office of New York City's leading Catholic lawyer, Charles O'Conor, who was decidedly pro-slavery. As for rams, these sexist cud-chewers not only engage in fierce combat for the favors of the ewes, but they appear to display no sensitivity to the needs and desires of the females of the species. How inconsiderate of them.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 21, 2016 11:26:48 GMT -5
I never realized that Mike Kaminksi came to HC as a non-scholarship player. He certainly deserved all the publicity he could get. Another of his exploits that I recall was 3 FGs in a victory of UMass and future NFLer Greg Landry in a Parent's Weekend game in '66.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 20, 2016 16:50:58 GMT -5
This is good news indeed. As everyone knows, a good kicker can make all the difference. For example, the successful 1966 season could have turned out very differently without place-kicker Mike Kaminski. (2 FGs in the 32-26 victory over BC.) Coincidently, that other team that wears purple jerseys, Northwestern, got a 2017 commitment recently from highly-rated kicker Charlie Kuhbander of Springboro (Ohio) High School.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 20, 2016 16:39:28 GMT -5
Great input above from many posters. HC 92, as he so often does, captures the essence of an issue when referencing "People looking each day for new ways to be offended". It would be great if HC could show some leadership in pushing back against the insanity of overdone political correctness by staying with "Crusaders" . When you think about it, is there any mascot that is impervious to criticism? "Wildcats" do damage to livestock, "Lions" are currently being investigated in India as a man eater is at work there, "Blue Devils" glorify Satan, the "Crimson Tide" evokes the concept of the red tide that renders shellfish inedible, "Engineers" have been responsible for countless disasters, and on and on we go...... So I guess we can all agree then that the only perfect mascot is the powerful yet peaceful, non environmentally damaging, elegant and athletic, RAM Thank you, your are all welcome on our side! Sorry, but rams settle contests over females by bashing their heads together, which is very un-PC.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 18, 2016 17:30:58 GMT -5
Said the following to my sister in an e-mail between her ('78) my brother ('83) and my self. She spent an adult "gap year" in Europe a couple of years ago, based in France and found herself visiting many sites of slaughters in Southwestern France. She was questioning the appropriateness of the Crusader as a mascot for Holy Cross. This would relate to the Albigensian Crusade of the early 1200s, which did result in several massacres. There were also the Northern Crusades in which the Teutonic Knights attempted to convert various pagan Baltic groups (e.g., the Old Prussians) by making war against them. That said, none of this relates to a college mascot. On the subject of "offensive" mascots, how about the Tufts Jumbos, which derives from the now questionable practice of having elephants perform in circuses?
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 18, 2016 13:58:18 GMT -5
"Wildcats" do damage to livestock .... Wildcats also often do serious damage to the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, Purdue Boilermakers, Indiana Hoosiers, Minnesota Gophers, etc. Sadly, they are less effective against Wisconsin Badgers, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, and Michigan State Spartans. Speaking of Spartans, that's a name that wouldn't stand close PC inspection. The Spartans may have been brave fighters, but their whole society was based on the brutal oppression of the hapless helots. Other names that might horrify the politically correct would be knights of all varieties, gladiators, sooners, cavaliers, pirates, buccaneers, raiders, etc. The list of potentially offensive names just goes on and on.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 18, 2016 13:47:53 GMT -5
I remember those lectures by Dr. Powers...some of his best. I am also afraid that expecting most modern faculty to know actual history may be a bit unrealistic, given the dilution coming from waves of PC changes. Nice summary post, sader1970. Powers gave very good lectures. Some of today's faculty could have benefited from them. As for their apparent historical ignorance, I suspect it's more than just PC. I wonder how many who aren't history professors ever took many history courses after high school. Back in the late '90s, when my son was at Bucknell, I was surprised that he, as a chemistry major, only had to take one history elective. He chose a course on the Roman Empire, meaning he learned little about what came before or after it.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 18, 2016 12:10:11 GMT -5
As for Crusaders, we've gone around the block on this one a few times. Crusaders, for me, while acknowledging the Crusades to the Holy Land, means more than that. It means more generically fighting for any righteous cause. In our particular case, loyalty to our alma mater. FIght on as knights of old with hearts as loyal and true and bold and wage the bitter fight with all your might fight on for Holy Cross Unfortunately, among the "knights of old" there were plenty who did not have "hearts as loyal and true and bold." As Prof. Powers taught in Western Civ class back in 1964, the major reason the Pope called for a crusade was to get the homicidal, warlike nobles and their knights out of Europe. As for the Crusades themselves, since the last go-round on the old Board, I've done a little reading on the Muslim reaction to them. One source claimed that Muslim writers never applied the term "crusaders" to the armies that invaded the Holy Land. Instead, they called them "Franks" or "infidels." This source also stated that "crusaders" did not appear in Muslim writings until the imperialist European powers of the nineteenth century started taking over Muslim territory. (At the end of WWI, the only Muslim territories free of some kind of European control were Persia, parts of Arabia, and Turkey.) Also at the time of the crusades, the wider Muslim world reportedly paid scant attention to what was a minor incursion and as today was more concerned with Shiite-Sunni rivalries. Far worse than anything the Europeans perpetrated was the invasion of Timur in the early 1400s, which resulted in the sacking of Aleppo, Damascus, and Baghdad and the massacre many of the inhabitants, and which also thoroughly ravaged portions of Anatolia. As for those few faculty members who support getting rid of the crusader mascot, they are suffering from a bad case of political correctness and/or don't know much history.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 5, 2016 14:51:00 GMT -5
Thanks, this clears up a 52-year-old mystery. In defense of a certain football player, all the so-called experts gave the future Ali no chance at all. I recall listening to the fight on the radio, expecting Liston to obliterate his youthful opponent at any moment the way he did to Floyd Patterson. My skepticism over many of the prognostications of sports "experts" dates from this fight.
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Post by beaven302 on Jun 5, 2016 11:03:02 GMT -5
I did not agree with all of his positions but I always respected him. (Perhaps that was because he won me a 30-1 bet with a member of the HC Football team on his first fight with Sonny Liston. May his soul rest in peace. Were you ever paid? I was this football player's roommate, and at the time, I was under the impression that he had welshed on the bet.
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