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It's only been six weeks since I decided it was time for a thorough start-of-the-year desk cleaning, and in the process of sorting the first pile on St. Valentine's Day, I've run across several issues that various correspondents and telephone callers think I should address.
These are topics I've avoided because I don't know very much about them. However, Bob Ewegen, supreme exalted archon of the Colorado Red-Bearded Pundits Association, has decreed otherwise. To maintain my membership, he says, I must occasionally comment on inane topical matters.
Such as the success of Rush Limbaugh. H.L. Mencken said
it perfectly: No man ever went broke underestimating the
taste of the American public.
To which I will add a
corollary: There are two routes to wealth in America.
The first is to invent a disease (i.e., halitosis,
baldness, childhood trauma) and sell the cure. The second
is to tell rich people what they want to hear.
Limbaugh
has taken the latter route, but his 15 minutes will be up
soon.
Or the Wilderness Society. While those of us on the
ground may applaud the Gunnison Coalition's work with
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the latest issue of the
society newsletter New Voices (for the land and people
of the New West)
says Babbitt is making a big
mistake.
The newsletter advises us that Local control is the
problem, not the solution
and that It's local
control that has brought us to this crisis.
Of course. If your organization has lots of high-powered lobbyists in Washington, and doesn't want to besmirch itself by sitting at the table with ranchers, outfitters, county commissioners, citizen activists and other grimy rural rabble, it makes perfect sense to want the decisions to be made in Washington. I'd feel that way too if I knew anybody in Washington.
Then there's Judith Albino. The history department at CU actually pays attention to Colorado and the Mountain West, but the rest of CU is apparently devoted to becoming a second-tier national institution rather than a first-rate regional institution.
For all I know, that may be the best course for a state's flagship university. But if CU doesn't care about us, why should we care about it?
Anyway, here's a suggestion for Embattled CU President Judith Albino: Fire Bill McCartney and eliminate the football program.
If you're going to get pushed out anyway, do something worthwhile on the way. Getting rid of football didn't hurt the University of Denver or the University of Chicago, and McCartney could always find a job giving pep talks for one of the purity institutes in Colorado Springs.
The usual argument for keeping football is that there are all these alumni who won't support the university unless it has a nationally ranked football team which imports thugs and rapists from all parts of the continent.
This means that, for generations, CU has been producing graduates who care nothing for scholarship. In that case, why are we bothering to operate libraries, classrooms and laboratories? If she doesn't get rid of football, someone is going to suggest getting rid of the university while keeping Folsom Field, since that's all that matters.
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