Loyal Fans, Disloyal State

As a frighteningly loyal WVU fan and graduate, I really have not cared about playing Marshall University in any sport. Yes, we share a state, but that's all really. And Marshall offers no real advantage over WVU academically, because it is too big to offer small classes, and too small to offer a more diverse cultural setting.

Don’t get me wrong, MU has potential, but I am afraid that with the notable exception of the School of Medicine, that they have very little vision.

However, I have been looking forward to the smackdown of all smackdowns that WVU will deliver to the Herd in a legally mandated game on September 2nd. Especially after the past basketball season when Marshall made way too much noise about defeating the WVU basketball team during last year's excellent run. (To show just how serious of an academic institution they are, they briefly featured the victory on their top web page. Classy. You’d have thought they’d won the national championship. As my friend Skip used to say, “Act like you’ve done it before!”) I really think that even when their destruction is assured, that Coach RRod will be the LAST person to call off the dogs.

Marring my enjoyment of the sacrifice / game is the announcement that it will be called the “Friends of Coal Bowl.” Yuck. You might as well have called it the Buffalo Creek Bowl. (I would have settled for the Mountain State Bowl, The Uncivil War, etc.)

Now, I could spill tons of bile at this self-loathing decision by our so-called leaders, the coal industry and their promotional shills (I'm looking at you Don Nehlen), but why re-invent the wheel?

For enough properly aimed bile for 125 people, read this.

I wish everyone at the game would show up wearing gold shirts that simply say "Remember Sago". Now that's a good idea. In fact here you go, priced at cost. Who's with me?

Good God.

Good God. (No pun intended.) I got over this type of thing in high school and stopped arguing about it in college. How can anyone, with any sense of democracy and understanding of the law, actually think it is okay for a big oil painting of Jesus to hang out side of a principal’s office in a public school?

Yet that is just what is happening in Bridgeport, WV.

From MSNBC:

“The painting, which depicts Jesus in sepia tones on a large canvas and hangs outside the principal's office, has been at the school for 37 years. A guidance counselor left it behind upon retirement.”

The regular list of cultural warriors have lined up to fight this never-ending battle with all of the typical misconceptions. The ACLU v. the life-of-quiet-desperation types. It must be said that most of the misconceptions are emanating from the Jesus Camp. The dumbest misunderstanding is the Bible Bleaters contention that someone is trying to take religion out of public school. This is alarmist bullshit. It would be just as illegal and unethical to ban student prayer as it would be to require it. It isn’t that prayer should be banned, but that mandatory prayer, or prayer at official functions or led by public officials in their official capacity is flatly unconstitutional. Again, something most of us should have learned in high school civics.

The second problem with these zealots is the way they interpret the term "religion." They, as always, seem to think that a religious neutral environment where all religions are given the same rights and privileges is “anti-Christian”. Fundamentalist Christians believe this because, just like the other worldwide evangelical, zero-sum enterprise of fanatical Islam, religion = only Christianity. Therefore, when a court mandates "religious neutrality" it is translated to their misguided, problematic brains as “Jesus was an Asshole,” which he most certainly WAS NOT, though a number of his modern so-called followers certainly are.

A few months ago, I was at something most West Virginias do not believe exists, let alone see; a public school with a majority religion that wasn’t Christianity. It was in a majority Jewish suburb of Cleveland. Guess what? They had tons of religious Jewish imagery throughout the school. See, people of other religions can be just as narrow-minded as Bridgeport Christians, and I was duly offended. Not by the religion itself, but rather the identification of a public school with a specific religious community. Unlike Eric Cartman's hero, Mel Gibson, I like Jews. And Christians and Muslims, etc. Actually, I like some of them and I dislike some of them, but based only on their individual character flaws, not on their stance concerning the baby Jesus, or how many conservative radio hosts can dance on the head of an Oxycontin. I mean, non-Christians are just like real people and everything.

What if it had been a majority Islamic school? I wonder if the same people who defend a public school’s endorsement of Christianity with one of those cheesy Jesus pictures your grandma owned would be so happy if their child attended a school where the 99 names of God were inscribed in the library and most of the students prayed to Mecca right before lunch?

In a great update to the case, the picture of Jesus (or Jaysus as too many of my fellow West Virginians would say) was stolen from Bridgeport High School. Wouldn’t it be funny, if it was the school administration who did it so that they could make the problem go away without backing down?

Original Story:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/08/west_virginia_s.html

Update:
http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2006081749/

Down, and Out of West Virginia

For those of you not in the know, after living in, working for and generally supporting the State of West Virginia for 34 years, I recently left my position at Concord University for a higher paying job with more career opportunities at a university in Ohio.

Not that this was really part of my grand plan. If I'd had my wish, I certainly would have stayed at CU or at least in WV for the rest of my career, but there comes a time when you have to decide that you know how valuable and capable you are, even if others fail to see it. So, after TWO rejections by Marshall, (in which the SAME PERSON got the job I wanted TWICE; see if I ever apply there again) and a continuing tradition by Concord of refusing to promote from within, I took the hint and moved on. It may be a little irrational, but in some ways I feel that my state, or at least those who lead its higher education establishment, rejected my service. So, with that in mind you can understand my appalled reaction to this story from the WV Political Sweatbox, detailing the scandle of greed and ungrateful attitude of someone theoretically working for the people of WV. That someone who is a convict and abuser of the public trust can so casually throw away a job at a salary that would have kept me in WV is more than galling, and as my wife pointed out, a little sad of all concerned.

It just seems like WV continues to encourage the many of its loyal, capable sons and daughters to leave while making room for the outsiders, the incompetent and/or the visionless.