Friday, June 11, 2010

Final Score: Money, 11, er 12, uh 13 . . . Tradition, 0


Leave it to Nebraska. In this college football-crazy state, even the heat and storms typical of August but happening in June cannot keep the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers off the front page. The University's Board of Regents, in conjunction with some governing board for the entire Big Ten college athletic conference, has announced that Nebraska will be leaving its affiliation with the Big XII [pretentious, isn't it?--Ed.] and joining the Big Ten by the end of 2011. [And if you think I am kidding, I assure you, I am not. Local TV stations took down their weather warning crawlers this afternoon to announce first, that the Regents were meeting to discuss the change in affiliation; second, that the Regents were voting on it; and third, that the affiliation was going to change.--Ed]

The Regents have justified this by saying that several other members of the current Big XII will not commit to staying long-term in that conference, so it's in Nebraska's best interest to be proactive rather than wait until presented with a "fait accompli." The Regents also touted certain academic affiliations and certifications which both Nebraska and every school in the Big Ten maintain, and apparently to which not every school in the Big XII ascribes or aspires.

I don't care how they try to justify it. It's just wrong, on so many levels . . . let me count a few of the ways: (1) there are no natural rivals for Nebraska in the Big Ten; Iowa doesn't count. I don't care that Iowa is right next door; NU is used to chewing on Iowa State once a year. Cyclones go better with Cornhuskers than Hawkeyes do, and even that fit is not great. NU has always looked to its west and south for its main competition every year, clear back to the days of the Big Six. Looking east and north is not what we do--that's going backwards. We are natural affiliates of the other Plains States, not the Rust Belt.

Besides, Ohio State and Michigan already have their own classic rivalry going. NU's most natural rival is and always has been Oklahoma, from the glory days of the Big Six through the Big Eight and even the Big XII. Yes, bad enough when the Big Eight turned into the Big XII and split into North and South divisions, thus forcing NU's annual "big game" rival to be Colorado and not Oklahoma. Colorado football does not have the same historic cachet as NU-OU. Colorado just hasn't been good enough, long enough. [Not to mention that Colorado has already announced its plans to switch to the Pac 10 from the Big XII.--Ed.] I'm sorry, but football on Thanksgiving weekend MUST include the NU-OU game. Traditions matter in college football more than in just about any American sporting endeavor other than baseball. Eating turkey sandwiches while watching NU play anyone but OU on the day after Thanksgiving has never felt or tasted quite right. Knowing it's never coming back will feel and taste even worse.

OK, in the Big Ten, there IS Penn State, against whom Nebraska has played some memorable bowl games, but that just leads me to my second point. (2) The Big Ten cannot count. It already has eleven schools in its membership; what's it going to call itself after NU is officially embraced, too? "The Big Ten Plus Two"? Awkward. "The Big Twelve"? Allowing for the "XII," already taken . . . though who knows? If the Big XII really is falling apart the way the NU Board of Regents seems to think, maybe the name will become available. But will the conference still have only twelve members at that point? Rumors have been rife for years that Notre Dame has been recruited heavily by the Powers That Be in the Big Ten. Maybe the Fighting Irish will stop fighting assimilation. Whether ND stays independent or joins the conference, however, the conference's name still won't match its numbers. And that leads me to my third point: (3) despite the NU Board of Regents' touting of NU's and the Big Ten's high academic standards and qualifications, that inability to count has taken us back to the days where the "N" on the NU football helmet stands for "knowledge."

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics


US Representative Lee Terry (R-NE, 2nd District) just e-mailed the results of a poll of his constituents revealing their attitudes towards certain pressing issues of the day. Included was everything from whether we should continue offshore drilling in the wake of the BP disaster to whether we should repeal the recently passed health care reform bill.

In results that should shock no one [for reasons I am about to explain--Ed.], Terry reported results reflecting that an average of over 77% of his constituents think about these issues the same way he does--which, for those of you out there [you ARE out there, aren't you?--Ed.] who read my postings, are diametrically opposed to my views on the same issues. Terry also reported that while a minority of around 20% of his constituents held views similar to mine, as many as 6% of his constituents were undecided on specific issues.

That's what gave me pause. For, you see, this poll's results were not the result of random, door-to-door canvassing of Nebraska 2nd Congressional District voters. These results came from 2nd District constituents ANSWERING an e-mail Terry himself had sent out to "ascertain" the public feeling. This "poll" was designed to elicit the answers it got, as you can be certain that at least 70% of the people who received it were Terry supporters because those voters make up the majority of his e-mail list.

Doubtless several people like me, who've contacted Terry regularly to express our opposition to his stands on particular issues, also got the e-mails, but we are in a preselected minority for several reasons which have nothing to do with the actual makeup and mindset of 2nd District voters in general. It's axiomatic that people tend to respond to and be more involved in things they support than things they oppose. So not only are those of us who oppose Terry's politics a predetermined minority of his potential polling population, we are less likely than Terry supporters to respond to Terry's e-mail poll invitation than are those who agree with him. People want validation, not rejection. That was Terry's motive in creating and distributing his "poll," and that was the motivation of most of the people who responded to it by agreeing with him.

The real problem with the numbers Terry reported, however, comes in the guise of the alleged "undecided" answers. In a "poll" such as this, where people participated by invitation, who is going to respond "undecided"? More likely, such folks just wouldn't respond at all. Terry said he got over 1,100 answers to his invitation to participate, but I do not recall seeing anywhere the total number of invitations he sent in the first place. Given that there are probably close to a million people living in the 2nd District as a whole, and that as many as half of them are not in the uber-urbanized metropolitan Omaha area, and given that many of them probably don't have computers or the time to respond to such e-mailed invitations as Terry's to begin with, it's impossible for Terry to claim that the 1,100 responses he received were any kind of valid scientific sampling.

This "poll" was much less an effort to find out what his 2nd District constituents think than it was a self-congratulatory exercise whereby he and his supporters could pat themselves on the back in mutual admiration. Mark Twain, as usual, was right. There are 3 kinds of data: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Guess which Twain held in the deepest contempt.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Gut Reaction


I just heard an NPR report on the US Supreme Court's decision, 5-4, saying that to invoke one's Miranda rights, one has to speak up and inform the police that one is doing so. Silence alone is not enough. The newest associate justice, Sonja Sotomayor, dissented. Law professors across the country, be they politically to the right or to the left, also dissented. They are all correct.

It's simple logic: if you have to speak up to invoke your right to remain silent, then you do not really have a right to remain silent. Bad enough that the police are allowed to question you for hours on end in the face of your silence, to, in essence, badger you until you crack (which is what happened in the case at hand), but to allow the police and prosecutors then to use what you say against you simply shocks the conscience.

It's as if the razor-thin Supreme Court majority thinks nothing else matters because you are actually guilty. The hallmark of a truly civilized society is how it treats the most helpless of its members: the disabled, the elderly, the poor, those facing -- alone -- the full police power of the state weighing down on them. Today, we are officially less civilized than we were yesterday.