Is 9/11 a fair comparison? I agree about this idiot’s therapy bills, but she’s just kvetching because the Bush inauguration didn’t get the same treatment as Obama’s. Which is true.

No doubt, history’s winners are its biggest whiners. I’m glad that Ms. Agness has taken up the baton: can she cry and complain about enough petty-ass shit to secure her place in the pantheon? Only time will tell!

Jesse, yes, it’s far more momentous, and yes, the complaint is petty. It was the comparison to 9/11 that struck me as odd, is all.

First off, if they’re canceling classes, she’s not missing anything that needs to be made up.

Secondly, they canceled classes because they either fully expected that this particular inauguration would be considered so historic that people would just blow off class leaving many of them empty or a fairly larger number of students and faculty contacted the decision makers with requests to cancel classes under the circumstances that it wasn’t worth actually having them.

Tomorrow is meant to be my first day of class at George Mason in Fairfax, VA.  The administrators sent out an email a few weeks ago reminding students that classes had NOT been cancelled on inauguration day.  I was pissed.  First, because my class is at 7:30 AM so I’d have to miss GOING downtown, and second, because I don’t feel like dealing with the traffic since half the roads surrounding the district are closed.  Then, about a week and a half ago, they changed their minds and cancelled classes.  Thank god.  Why would anyone complain about something like that?  Nobody is going to miss any material because the classes aren’t taking place!  I just assume some schools figure a lot of their students are going to want to take part in the festivities (or witness them on TV) and realize that’s a good thing.

This is a historic moment. I dont need to sell the good folks at Pandagon that point. Heck I voted for McCain and I am going to wach. Most of all a day off is a day off. Why the heck ould anyone complain about that???

IIRC, if it’s not the actual first day of class, the syllabus still holds.  In other words, if class is canceled for some reason, you are still responsible for the material on the syllabus and expected to be ready for the next class regardless.  From what I remember of college, classes were pretty much do on the hard work on your own, come to class and have the professor talk at you and answer some questions.  So what, exactly, is she missing?

At my office we’re ordering pizza and setting up a big screen tv projection thingie.  I’ll be thinking of this idiot while enjoying the cheesy goodness.

I was just over on BBC.CO.UK where they have a small “Global Obamamania” picture show: people from Ireland to Africa to Brazil are excited about this.  America isn’t the only country where you can buy commerative Obama paraphernalia.  On the other hand, the only people I know who went to Bush’s second inauguration were there to protest.

All my classes are behind, and we haven’t even really started. First day was Thursday, but today is a holiday, so who shows up on Thursday (or Friday for that matter) first day classes before a three-day weekend? And local schools were closed Friday to boot, so anyone with kids was missing anyway. And no one will show up tomorrow. Oh well. Just have to rush things a bit for a week or two to get back on track.

Differences between attitudes toward Bush’s inauguration and Obama’s, among the college-going population, may very well just have to do with the age of the people who supported each candidate. It would not surprise me in the least if vastly more college-age kids voted for Obama in 2008 as compared to the same age range voted for Bush in 2000. This could very well account for any difference in how colleges are treating this inauguration. What is much more significant to me is the conservatives’ reaction to this situation, and the way it tends to support my perceptions of their essential pettiness and over-reliance on symbolic thinking.

Isn’t it just her first day of classes that’s being postponed, since today is MLK Day and classes weren’t scheduled to begin until the 20th anyway?

Just reflecting that the fact that Inauguration Day is the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the most awesome coincidence ever…

Okay Hilde, consider this:

We didn’t get off school the day that John Hinckley shot President Reagan.

Classes were cancelled on 9/11 and 9/12 too!

It seems to me that the University of Virginia probably also realizes that not much is going to get done in classes on campus on Tuesday anyway.  They’re less than two and a half hours away from Washington—I imagine a lot of people (faculty and students alike) will be making the trek to see history-in-the-making.  Hell, I’m three and a half hours away, and I’m pretty sure my classes are going to be relatively empty.

Students are unusually excited by this president, and want to be a part of this historical moment.  It seems to me that an engagement with civics and history is somewhat commensurate with the goals of the university, but that seems to be a notion that hasn’t occurred to Ms. Agness, a student who—despite her years in school—continues to see the world in terms of binary oppositions and whose only insight when it comes to talking about issues is an empty-headed reliance of Fox News’s notion of “fair and balanced” (“We didn’t cancel classes for Bush, but we are for Obama!  Unfair!  Unbalanced!  Why am I so persecuted?”).  And don’t even get me started on her reference to the consumer model of education (“On Jan. 20, I plan to attend the classes for which I am paying, regardless of how college administrators weigh my interest in classes against my interest in hearing Barack Obama’s speech live”).  You’re not paying to sit in a classroom for fifty minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—you’re paying for the opportunity to learn in a community of scholars and to study with experts in their fields.  Choosing to segregate yourself from that community only deprives you of the education you’re paying for.

(And that’s a hell of a protest, too—“I’m so mad, I’m going to sit in an empty room, because I’m paying for the right to sit in this room!”  Yeah.  Way to stick it to the man).

If one more fucking wingnut spouts off about how Obama’s election proves there’s no more racism in America, they’re gonna get punched in the mouth…

MikeEss

Woo time to swich to decaff m8.

I have an uncle who works for the FAA.  He really wanted the government to declare Inauguration Day a federal holiday (from here on out, I suppose) because *nothing* is going to get done in D.C. tomorrow. 

She’s complaining about second classes being canceled?  That’s crazy.  During first classes, the Professor traditionally calls role and goes through the syllabus.  During the second class, everyone complains about not being able to find x or y book yet, and some problem with the e-reserves, problems which could just as easily be dealt with over email anyway.  It’s tradition.

On 9/11 in my very liberal high school, it was all the lefty teachers who set up tv’s so we could find out what was going on.  The only two conservative teachers in the school were the ones who didn’t give a shit and tried to make everyone pay attention to calculus while half the class was crying, and the other half was running “to the bathroom” to make sure no more disasters had taken place.

“(except for the fact that he never really won the elections)”

Yes, he did, idiot. Leave statistics for statisticians. (Gore could only have “won” Florida by counting overvotes, which are invalid. So Sorry.)

And, yes, everyone everywhere should drop what they are doing because someone with a higher melanin count due to a Kenyan father was elected president.

If one more fucking wingnut spouts off about how Obama’s election proves there’s no more racism in America, they’re gonna get punched in the mouth…

MikeEss

OK, though I find it more useful to lean on the contempt than the anger. It can help you to view matters with detatchment. You want to avoid internalizing the pettiness of other people.

McGreevy:

If one more fucking wingnut spouts off about how Obama’s election proves there’s no more racism in America, they’re gonna get punched in the mouth…

MikeEss

<strike>Woo time to swich to decaff m8.</strike> Obama’s election proves that there’s no more racism in America!

Fixed your post for you.

“If one more fucking wingnut spouts off about how Obama’s election proves there’s no more racism in America, they’re gonna get punched in the mouth…”

MikeEss is stupid _and_ belligerent.

“Fixed your post for you.”

Another opponent falters before your unfinished musicology degree! Hey, is that your mom I hear yelling at you to take out the trash?

Gallo-Roman in a time of Salian Franks, it is sometimes a challenge to react to childish petulance with equanimity. Does that surprise you?

Clueless:

And, yes, everyone everywhere should drop what they are doing because someone with a higher melanin count due to a Kenyan father was elected president.

Please, for the love of God, Robert, just fucking kill yourself already. You’re wasting my oxygen.

Agness just doesn’t know that Obama’s black. Which makes it, eh, kind of a big deal. Somebody oughta tell her.

Cranial-Rectal Interface:

Another opponent falters before your unfinished musicology degree! Hey, is that your mom I hear yelling at you to take out the trash?

Jesus tap-dancing Christ, Robert. Forget about offing yourself for our sake, you need to put yourself out of your own misery.

Seriously. Surely not even you can pretend that that wasn’t horribly pathetic.

“Please, for the love of God, Robert, just fucking kill yourself already. You’re wasting my oxygen.”

I don’t listen to losers Dan. Didn’t I convey that to you already?

Are we getting a little infestation today?

Rey Curtis: “You sure this was students?”
Lennie Briscoe: “Who else would protest a holiday?”

—Law and Order, about ten years ago.

Better trolls please.

Loser:

I don’t listen to losers Dan. Didn’t I convey that to you already?

“I don’t listen to losers”? Seriously? That’s your best comeback?

I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m actually beginning to feel a bit sorry for you.

I don’t listen to losers Dan.

Scoreboard! Scoreboard!

McGreevy:

If one more fucking wingnut spouts off about how Obama’s election proves there’s no more racism in America, they’re gonna get punched in the mouth…

MikeEss

Woo time to swich to decaff m8. Obama’s election proves that there’s no more racism in America!

Fixed your post for you.

Dan, Grand High Emperor of Bananas Foster

Dan let me pls take this time to say. Yes there is still racism in America. It dos bug me that you would try and put words in my mouth. I would never do that to you m8. Pls dont do it to me.

Dan, I can distinguish between real and feigned apatheia.

So, besides sharing in Amanda & friends’ intellectual bankruptcy, I wonder if you hang around here in hopes of hooking up with the skank some day. (Or perhaps one of her equally skanky friends.)

“Amanda Marcotte
Sep 4th, 2005 at 2:53 am

I’m not an idiot. I’m a twat. Get it straight.

I’m a hot, moist, inviting twat. Warm, wet, inviting. But not to you or your friends. Even if I were single, these nubile thighs do not wrap around the hips of Republicans. You can fuck yourselves or the dry twats of the self-hating misogynists who will allow you tiny penis to penetrate them. Have fun! Um, the wounds you get from rubbing you un-lubricated dick repeatedly into your heartless, soulless woman–iodine is your best friend, my be-scarred friend.”

—Amanda Marcotte to Patrick Frey, upon the latter pointing out her idiocy

Perhaps you could squirt milk out your nose for your next trick.

“...wingnut projection is such an amusing yet deeply disturbing thing… “

Pardon the following profanity, but I wouldn’t fuck Amanda with another guy’s dick. Also, I am far more intelligent than the entire Pandagon clown car.

Better trolls please.

seconded*.

*really? Brining in a smackdown made by Amanda from 4 years ago is supposed to be insulting? And real kudos for posting it out of context…

So, besides sharing in Amanda & friends’ intellectual bankruptcy, I wonder if you hang around here in hopes of hooking up with the skank some day. (Or perhaps one of her equally skanky friends.)

I’m here for the shortbread recipes. Why are you?

And really, I’m befuddled as to what a post by Jesse about inauguration day would have to do with Amanda’s three year old comments about her vag and who’s allowed touchies. Someone please draw a line from A to B for me, I simply don’t get it.

“*really? Brining in a smackdown made by Amanda from 4 years ago is supposed to be insulting? And real kudos for posting it out of context…”

It wasn’t a smackdown, dipshit, and no context can make it other than it was, which was a desperate, skanky response to a dead on criticism.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070314051821/http://pandagon.net/2005/09/04/living-in-the-post-freedom-world

Apparently the U Virginia Law School has some sort of affirmative action for the obtuse:

Based on the actions of the UVa administration, George Bush’s [2005] Inauguration Day was somehow not “an educational moment” or an “exercise in democracy.”

Well, duh. We all knew it as “business as usual.” The real educational moment came in 2000-2001, but it hardly seems deserving of commemoration, except in terms of the Pearl Harbor attack:

W. was nominated to serve the needs of the richest 1% of Americans. He secured the nomination by spreading rumors about McCain’s illegitimate blackamoor daughter. And, by an undemocratic quirk of our electoral system, he was elected president over the majority vote-getter. It didn’t help that Gore was the “literal bucket of warm spit” that John Garner famously compared the Vice Presidency to, a deflated balloon compared to the charismatic Clinton.

As he was nominated to do, W. rolled back taxes on the rich, then went to war against Saddam Hussein to avenge his daddy’s honor. W.‘s two achievements combined generated the biggest government deficit ever—the most durable legacy of his Presidency, assuming that the world economic system does not collapse totally.

Moral: Never elect a C student to lead your nation.

True story.

My conservative Christian college did not cancel classes for September 11.

Ever. Not while the towers were falling. Not while half the student body was frantic worrying about their families.

I had an early class and headed out before it happened. At my next class, a scheduled test day no less, I walked in and said, “Why does everyone look like someone died? It’s just a test.” A friend quickly filled me in.

We all did horribly on the test. The teacher (who later admitted this was a bad call on her part) did not curve.

It’s the Liberals who hate America, though. Ugh.

And you think we care why?

That last was directed at the Gallo-roman

So back on topic, I can see that if there was more student interest that the faculty would decide to cancel classes and provide a moment of campus cohesion by providing screens and spaces to watch live the inauguration. heck, if I was a Prof who was slated to give a class during the inauguration I might just set up the screen in the room (or a laptop with good speakers) to play it since no matter what is going on in class, this will be a defining moment for a generation, and if that’s not part of education (or at least making sure it’s not missed) I don’t know what is.

It’s way better than cancelling classes over a football game. And hey, maybe she should petition for the campus to have a policy on what political events are supported in this way, possibly with a threshold of student/faculty interest to get an event approved… that’d be way more useful than whining about persecution in that it would ensure that all events going forward would be treated equally.

Ya, there’s a broader availablity now for re-playing the event after the fact on whatever broadband connection you have, but there’s an immediacy of the experience, uninterrupted by spin, that you can’t ever get back once the opportunity is missed.

To me, it’s just an intelligent decision by the college leadership not to have a policy that most of the students will disobey. This is completely normal, almost unremarkable. Unless you’re someone who gets off on being outraged by every petty little thing.

Anyone care to take bets on whether Ms Agness’ hair will be sunshine blonde or platinum blonde when she shows up on Fox"News” next year?
Republicans:  graceless in victory, loathesome in defeat.

Yeah, good point. It won’t just be the students.

“And really, I’m befuddled as to what a post by Jesse about inauguration day would have to do with Amanda’s three year old comments about her vag and who’s allowed touchies. Someone please draw a line from A to B for me, I simply don’t get it. “

Gallo-Roman in a time of Salian Franks = misogynist.  So, any time is the right time to insult, slander and be obsessed about women. Especially a woman who wouldn’t let you within five miles of her.

Just a small point to add - January 20, 2005 was a Thursday.  So it looks like Ms. Agness (self proclaimed President of the Network of Enlightened Women - seriously, why do right wingers insist on naming their organizations the exact opposite of what they actually are) needs to read up a little on her cnositutional law.

Gallo-Roman in a time of Salian Franks = misogynist.  So, any time is the right time to insult, slander and be obsessed about women. Especially a woman who wouldn’t let you within five miles of her.

The wack part is that “Gallo-Roman in a time of Salian Franks” thinks that by dredging this tidbit up from 2005, we are going to be shocked or something. Wrong, we’re more like annoyed. At GRIATOSF.

Oh be fair, Ms. Kate.  Reagan was shot over Spring Break!

I had school the day he was shot. I remember finding out about it on the walk home. Having been in the fourth grade at the time, I would have been thrilled to get the next day off.

“seriously, why do right wingers insist on naming their organizations the exact opposite of what they actually are”

They all ready 1984 in high school and didn’t understand Big Brother was the bad guy.

:p OH I KNOW CAREN, THAT’S WHY I WENT INTO CAPS LOCK MODE ...

HELP ...

CAN’T GET OUT OF CAPS LOCK MODE ...

I’VE CAPS LOCKED AND I CAN’T GET DOWN!

COMIC SANS, COORDINATE!

Blunder twin powers… craptivate!!!!!

Half-Wit:

Pardon the following profanity, but I wouldn’t fuck Amanda with another guy’s dick. Also, I am far more intelligent than the entire Pandagon clown car.

If you were really so much smarter than everyone else, you’d have something more to offer than grossly misogynistic insults that would sound immature on an elementary school playground.

If you’re not going to kill yourself, at least give us some entertainment: go to a lesbian bar and just start talking. Don’t forget to bring a video camera with you.

For those in MA, speaking of lesbian/gay/open bars, Irge in Haverhill holds promise. It is on the main downtown street (I think Merrimack at that point but it is around the switch to Water) over a really good and rasonably priced Italian restaurant.  It’s no Friends Landing, yet.  But it could eventually be better as the facility is and the crowd was as good, if smaller.

Shorter troll: “Yer mom’s gay! (...oh God, I’m so lonely…)”

I missed the live inauguration (we *didn’t* cancel classes) but it was taped and will be played tonight on campus, so looking forward to that. ^^ Seems like a good compromise to have it available at multiple times, no?