Mini-Vacation: Let's Go to Florida!

As some of you know, I’ve been enduring one of the worst work stretches since the time I was a first year associate in New Orleans. Now, whenever my work is at its worst, its still pretty cush. There’s plenty of people to help me take care of things, I get to work inside in the air conditioning, and I don’t come home every day with cuts and bruises. So “worst” is sort of relative. It could always be worse. I could be a mechanic. Or a prison body cavity searcher. Or a broker.

But its been quite stressful for me, and finally the opportunity to get out of town and spread my wings showed up at my door, so I answered and said, “hell yeah I’m ready, let’s get freaky!” Which in my world means setting to work making reservations at four-star hotels and booking premium car rentals (at 46, getting wild for me involves making sure the sheets have the right thread count). But, where to go? For some time, the South has been calling my name. Its saying “Chris, I want you back.” Normally, I’m great at resisting that line, but the chance to hit the road and see the South during Fall proved too great to resist. And what does Fall in the South mean? Southeast Conference football. Wild animal killing season too, but that’s not my bag, man. SEC football is like a religion. These people thrive on it, and team allegiances rival family loyalty. Texas had an off day this Saturday, so it was time to pick a game that would have me located somewhere near something worth seeing. LSU vs. Florida. Done. I’d only seen an SEC game at LSU, though we went to the Sugar Bowl last year to watch Florida vs. Cincinnati (who got crushed, but whose fans out-traveled Florida by a big margin). This trip afforded a chance to see my adopted “Team 1B” LSU play a game in the infamous “Swamp” (its proper name is Ben Griffin Stadium, though I’m not sure anyone really knows that), to check out the tailgating and the University of Florida campus, and then a chance to drive up the coast to see two places I’ve long wanted to explore—Savannah and Charleston. These cities exude Southern gentility—mint juleps or iced tea (for me) in the afternoon on the porch, wrought iron, Spanish moss, magnolia trees, saying bad things about the Democrats. All the truly great things in life. Places that feature the best things about Southern culture. At least, the Southern culture that doesn’t involve keeping slaves, marrying cousins, or running a meth lab. I mean the Ashley Wilkes South. Where everyone’s happy. Not the “starring each week on Cops” South.

So after a frenzied couple of days researching the area, trying to get a game ticket and making travel plans, off I went to the airport. I took Jet Blue because they have a nonstop to Orlando, avoiding the necessity to spend all day traveling just because you have to route through Houston or DFW (aka, the worst place in the world). Clad in my LSU polo shirt and khakis, my appearance caused the ticket counter guy asked me if I was a college recruiter. Turns out he was a recruiter for the Texas State women’s soccer team. Guess there’s one job worse than being an airline ticket seller. Jet Blue not only has non stops out of Austin to places like New York and LA, it also has XM radio and Direct TV. On the other hand, its planes are smaller, so I got stuck having to purchase a “premium seat” because my reservations were so late. All these airline nickel and dime schemes are getting really old. Price discrimination makes lots of sense, as does offering premium service. These airline schemes are so offensive because they’re just taking their existing service levels and breaking them up into a la carte offerings, then charging you more for the overall package. I sympathize with charging what the market will bear, and ordinarily would approve if these clowns didn’t show up on Congress’ doorstep every year or two asking for taxpayer money because they can’t run profitable businesses on their own. Southwest Airlines is able to do it, so its not like its economically impossible to run a profitable airline. Most US airlines get their management from the same place as the Post Office and the auto industry.

The flight to Orlando was totally full. The couple next to me on the flight was interesting. She was obviously about 10 years older than him, and was watching some TLC show apparently about fat brides. Throughout, the plane was teeming people either in their 70s, or screaming, whining, crying kids and their “covered with mysterious sticky layer of filth” parents. Ordinarily that sort of thing doesn’t bother me. I can handle one screaming kid, not a plane full. Hmmm, who would have thought a Friday flight to Orlando would have that problem? It’s a mystery. Anyway, its not like staying in Austin this weekend would have resolved the “surrounded by the annoying” problem. No, for this is one of the most hallowed weekends on the official “Keep Austin Weird” calendar. The immensely profitable, Chamber of Commerce-hawking, $180/ticket Austin City Limits music festival. I’ve never been personally. I don’t recognize the names of most of the bands, and usually its about 120 degrees out. Nature usually turns the thing into some sort of endurance test. The thing caught fire a couple of years ago, and last year the rains made it like Woodstock. I scratch my music festival urge by going to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Great music of many different varieties, not to mention regional arts and culture, and incredible Louisiana food. Oh yeah. ACL, however, is world famous, no doubt due to the A, and the difficult to conceive Austin reputation throughout the world as the new mecca of all things cool. It was the mecca of all things cool about 15 years ago. Then developers and Californians came, bought up all the houses, turned all the clubs into mini-Dallas clones, and starting building loft homes. Then the City Council tried its best to kill off the vibe with its ridiculous sound ordinance (most of the “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” alarms that the people complaining about the noise wear cause more noise than the clubs), and ticketing musicians whose trucks double park when trying to load their equipment into local clubs. Austin is famous for great music places like Liberty Lunch and Steamboat, which no longer exist. All this is just sort of static, except that the ACL festival draws “Festival Guy” into town by the thousands, choking off downtown and making it impossible to get around my Barton Hills neighborhood. I’ve written about this guy before. He’s in his 30s or 40s, walks around somewhat aimlessly carrying a knapsack and lawn chair, and wearing a pork pie hat, sandals and socks, and a reproduction Cars “Candy-O” tour t-shirt (which is meant to be ironic, but really just completes their “Hipster Dufus” look). Generally these guys have, well, extremely large calves. Its not immediately clear where these people come from or if they have actual lives when there’s not a festival. Are they insurance agents? Night security guards? Day security (or some other dreary day job so they can jam with their Journey cover band, “Wheels in the Sky” at night)? They’re probably mortgage brokers. Or derivatives traders. Or lawyers. I do know that every year, even before the actual festival begins, these people fill the town and look dirty.

I had booked a convertible, to enjoy the great weather during all my driving. Naturally, when I showed up at the counter they didn’t have one. They offered to give me a Corvette instead. But I didn’t want to drive a plastic car with no trunk for a week, or show up looking like a tremendous douche. So instead I exercised my backup option reservation at Avis. Which turned out to be a Camaro. Great. So instead of looking like some mid-level crack distributor, I’m going to look like an Aqua-Velva and gold chain wearing guido from Jersey Shore. Six of one, huh? Unfortunately, the “new” Camaro is about as cramped and uncomfortable as the old Camaro, which means you feel like one of those astronaut monkeys they used to test Mercury space capsules. Trying to see out of the windows is like peering out of a porthole. But the lady at the first of about a thousand toll booths liked it.

Yes, Rick Perry would love Florida. Everywhere you go, it’s a toll road. Every four or five miles, a toll plaza. Its like the government is incapable of building roads, or buildings, or running prisons, or funding schools, or doing much of anything anymore. But that’s another post. In this case, the toll roads took me to the heart of North Florida, via a couple of stops along the way. One stop was because I got lost. I’d have asked the 7-11 counter clerk for directions, but her 5 o’clock shadow scared me. Is that wrong? Each stop gave me a first-hand encounter with every cheesy, Jersey Shore, chain-wearing, neck tattoo-having stereotype. Guys in do’ rags and Ed Hardy shirts. Girls named Mysti smoking Salems and driving Chevy Malibus that Daddy bought as a high school graduation present two years ago (before they meet their meth-dealing boyfriend Brad). North Florida apparently has become Jersey South. With deeper tans. So when people say God looks after his children, I say, that’s why I wound up with a Camaro. To fit in. By a simple twist of fate, I resembled Ron Johnson, Pacific Stereo Audio Consultant from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You know, the tool who Jennifer Jason Leigh waited on at the mall’s pizza place (“the best food stand at the mall”), who ordered “a meatball sandwich, a medium coke, and your phone number.” Yeah, I look like that guy. Oh, and did I mention that this Camaro has a glow-in-the dark stripe on the interior of each door? Yeah, it’s a like a mini-glow stick. Nice touch. I get to have my own rave inside my car every night.

So, let’s recap. South Florida is populated by cialis-popping, chocolate brown leather skin-having, Bronx refugees with names like Morty, who eat dinner every day before 5 p.m., and who drive cars the size of three city blocks. North Florida is full of the aforementioned rejects from the auditions for every Kevin Smith movie.

When I arrived, two hours later, at the Gainesville Quality Inn (the best of a bad lot of remaining hotels), I met two guys wearing LSU shirts trying to check out. They’d been booked into a room with one queen size bed and a Jacuzzi. They said they weren’t having that (it was actually a little more graphic than that). Meanwhile, my room had two beds and no jacuzzi. Talk about your bad timing.

When I finally got checked in, I headed over to campus to check out the “night before” scene. It was packed. Tailgaters in RVs had already arrived and were setting up tents. All the kids crammed bars along University Avenue, spilling out into the streets. It never ceases to amaze me how women, particularly younger women, will dress up and look really nice and at the same events, guys their same age look like they just got finished painting their house. All these girls were wearing nice cocktail dresses and the like and were fixed up. The guys looked like they were shipwrecked. Even in my day, 120 years ago, when very few women were even admitted to colleges, there was at least a “uniform” of sorts. It was the khaki shorts/izod shirt look. Guys looked ridiculous, but at least there was some effort, misguided as it was, to look somewhat better than normal. Apparently that’s old fashioned. These kids!

The night ended for me, very late, at the local Steak & Shake. Of which there’s about a million in Gainesville. At this particular 24-hour establishment, there were about 20 Florida kids and three very fat, very drunk LSU guys. And me. Tigers…we need to represent a little better than this.

Tomorrow-LSU vs. Florida.

Jester Food

To eat good food is to be close to God.

--Primo, “Big Night”

I know, I’ve used that quote before. But its very apropos of today’s post, about the advances in dorm food at the Jester Center, at the University of Texas. Or, basically, my 25 years too late complaint about the chow.

Its an earthshattering topic, sure. Not nearly as important as something like the Aggie football program, or plastic surgery. Still, this story I’m about to unfold came like a bolt from the blue. Enough to delay the third and final part of my college football trilogy.

These past few years, I’ve gotten to spend a fair amount of time on campus (the University of Texas campus, that is), mainly because I workout at Gregory Gym. Well, actually, its because they have an indoor track and pool, so when the weather is bad I can still run, or swim. Anyway, I’m there at weird times, usually after 7 p.m., so other parts of campus can be a bit sparsely populated. After around 7, I figure these kids have more important things to do. You know, like studying, dining, napping before they go out, smoking dope and watching Sponge Bob Square Pants, going on keg runs. Not getting there during the day or spending much time in spots not between my secret parking spot and the gym, I don’t get to see too much of campus.

So its easy to forget how truly lovely it is, particularly after the recent (i.e. last 10 years or so) building growth spurt. Budget deficit? Recession? No problem for the University of Texas. Its doing its part to contribute to the stimulus program with lots of new buildings. Happily, most of these have an architectural style similar to the 1920s and 30s, and similar to some of the original campus buildings, like Garrison Hall, Waggoner Hall, or Painter Hall. Not like those hideous utilitarian boxes of the Frank Erwin/Peter Flawn era. I met Dr. Flawn once, actually. I was invited, at random along with about 50 other of my fellow students, to an informal get together at the President’s office. Very imposing. Two stories’ worth of books lining the walls, kind of like Professor Higgins’ study in My Fair Lady, only a lot darker. For the President of the University of Texas, that guy sure reminded me of Sam Drucker from Petticoat Junction. (That’s actually extremely funny to the 10 people in the world who’ve both seen Dr. Flawn and watched Petticoat Junction). The new landscaping and statues are also nice additions. The Barbara Jordan statue at the Union is really nice. She spoke at my graduation ceremony. Actually, she gave the longest, slowest, most painful speech I’ve ever heard not given by Bill Clinton. “Conviction values!” she kept booming in that Burning Bush of a voice, every minute killing me and everyone else sweating to death under graduation robes in the late May heat outside the Tower. What the hell that old lady was ranting about I have no idea. I’m ok that she’s the Voice of God and all, but with 2,000 drunk graduates and three times as many parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and significant others all suffering silently through the ceremony for us to be able to take pictures and have punch and dessert after, that speech had to stop about 45 minutes sooner than it did. I think I took a nap during the middle part. Or blacked out with heat stroke. I can’t really tell which.

Texas has, unfortunately, made it nearly impossible to park on campus unless you patronize one of their fancy new garages charging obscene rates. Averaged out, most Park Avenue townhouses are cheaper to rent than a UT parking garage spot. I guess it keeps away those pesky outsider troublemakers (or scams the parents visiting their kids on the weekends of the last few dollars still in their pocket after they’ve paid for tuition, room and board, and books). So most people have to park in state parking lots across MLK and walk past either the new AT&T center or the new Blanton Art Museum. By the way, how funny was it that Player’s Hamburgers got over on UT, who wanted to tear the place down to build their new cash cow hotel and conference center? The owner’s cousin was a state rep, and not even a powerful state rep . Just someone with enough influence to slow down appropriations if they condemned Player’s. So the place is still in business, no doubt serving food poison like I got the one and only time I ever went there, in 1982. Thank God there’s plenty of other places to go to now after 2 a.m.

But this is all kind of beside the point, which had something to do with dorm food. Another building you have to pass to get to the gym is the notorious Jester Center, at one time the largest college dormitory complex in the nation. Or, as they used to brag for some odd reason, its own zip code. A throwback to Soviet-bloc housing styles, it pretty much resembles the People’s Central Student Housing Complex for the Glory of the Proletariat. Or Cabrini Green, but with slightly more parking. Those of you Affirmers who’ve known me for awhile know that for one, brief, shining moment, I lived in Jester East my freshman year. No matter how bright it was outside, it always seemed dark inside. And it smelled like Bourbon Street, even after it was cleaned. Everything was trashed. Usually only one elevator out of eight was working. The cleaning crews didn’t work on weekends, so by Sunday afternoons the place resembled the Turkish hospital at the end of Lawrence of Arabia.

The food was about what you’d expect. Pretty much like soup at the Hanoi Hilton. Totally unbearable. Unsanitary. Inedible. The people making it looked like they were nust out on parole. The cashiers and other workers were the same work-study idiots you’d see throwing up on Sixth Street the night before (and going back into the bar because, after all, the night is young). They’d serve grilled cheese sandwiches one day, then the next they’d serve some Cheeto-ish looking casserole which, upon deconstruction, proved to be yesterday’s grilled cheese sandwich remnants in some undefined, goo-like residue. The usual entrée involved some sort of mystery meat, generally some grayish, stringy substance which you’d cross your fingers to hope wasn’t nutria. Or horse. The salad, which I didn’t eat at the time because that was back during my strict no green food diet, had black spots and looked like it had been sun-dried. For a treat, every three or four weeks, on a Sunday they’d give you a ticket which would entitle you to a steak or some grilled shrimp. But only once through the line. Normally you could go through the line as often as you like, which is where I first coined the phrase “its not good but there’s a lot of it.” Yeah, really, I thought of that one. The only thing remotely edible was dessert. My fellow students all looked like floating corpses toward the end of the year, sporting the look of someone having their last meal before spending the early morning hours being given the last rites and then lethal injection. By the end of the year, I was like the guy in Super Size Me, bloated, close to liver failure, and I had a mustache, which unbelievably was not a good look on me. Imagine Horatio Sanz from Saturday Night Live. The next year I lived in Moore-Hill and ate at the Varsity, which had edible food. And the ambiance of a 1950s hospital cafeteria. Several years later, Steve and I went on a tour group of several Huntsville TDCJ units, and had lunch at the Ellis II unit. It was the same food they served the prisoners. I remember thinking how it was so much better than what I ate my first year at school.

Within the last couple of weeks, I had the privilege of participating in the hearing from hell. Held in the Bob Bullock Museum just off campus, we were given somewhat extra long lunch breaks. To break the tension and get outside, I would walk across the street and walk on campus for about 15 to 20 minutes. Each day I would pass the Blanton and the Education building, the main library, and Jester Center. On a whim, and to get some air conditioning, I walked into Jester and for the first time since May 1983, walked into the student dining facility. What did my eyes behold, but a new day dawn. Gone was the industrial food complex, to be replaced by a variety of choices, all of which looked yummy and either nutritious, or not borderline toxic—deli, pizza, grill, entrée, salad bar, pasta bar—it was like being at a real dining facility. See examples in the photos above. Or the Austin airport. These kids were eating something you might actually want to eat, happily ignorant of the swill and grunge the prior management formerly served at that establishment. I spoke to an adultish-looking supervisor. She said that alumni frequently came there and were shocked at the changes, and all of them complained about how bad the food used to be.

I’m no expert, but as early as 1982, couldn’t a major American university with one of the richest endowments have been able to serve halfway decent food to its students? I’ve had better meals on hikes than what I got there. Or did it really take the computer and internet revolution to enable Jester to serve grilled salmon? In 1982, there were other locations on campus where you could eat halfway decent food, and not just the athletic dining hall. Kinsolving, the Varsity, the Union, all served food that wouldn’t leave you semi-paralyzed for two hours afterward. Texas obviously had the machines and the personnel to make edible food, why couldn’t they have done it at Jester? I went to A&M a couple of times when I was in school, and they had pretty good food. I’m sure it wasn’t just the animal husbandry connection (one of my favorite Aggie jokes involves the school of animal husbandry by the way…ask me some time). Hell, that was like going to Maxim’s by comparison.

So I’m glad to see today’s kids aren’t being killed by cuisine, or getting to play the “name that meat” game like those of us from yesteryear. You can thank Bill Powers, I guess, current UT President and one of my favorite law school professors, who, incidentally, gave me my worst grades. The best was Olin Guy Wellborn III, who once berated the class for not knowing that Elvis would shoot the screen of any television set if Robert Goulet or Mel Torme came on, and used to illustrate points with stories about the heavy metal doctor, the Midnight Special, or putting little children on leashes. That’s my kind of guy. As Will Ferrell might say, “Goulet!”

Next—the athletes are guilty too, man.

Hey Aggies, What are You Thinking?

OK, this is about three months after the fact, but its part two of the three part look at the festering hypocrisy that is college football.

Now its your turn Aggies. Really, I hate to do this, because everyone knows of my deep and abiding love for the Aggies. But it’s about time you folks faced reality. Running away to the SEC like some freckle-faced younger sister resentful of her older sister’s good looks, its just not going to work. You will always stand in the University of Texas’ shadow. Hiding out in a different conference will never eliminate comparisons and will never make you rise above or separate yourself from Texas.

This weirdness all got started when the Aggies took offense to the assumption that they would follow Texas and Oklahoma to the Pac-10. Worried that they might be turned gay or forced to vote for Democrats while attending games in Berkeley or Eugene, the Aggies looked east to the SEC, where they would feel more “comfortable.” When their administration decided to stay in the Big 12, for what we now know was a ransom payment of $20 million annually (its good to know all this is about the welfare of the "student-athletes" and not just a naked money grub) to repay the athletic department’s mismanaged and bloated debt, Aggie Nation erupted at the perceived humiliation of bowing to Texas and staying in a conference with such unsavory types as Texas Tech and Baylor. Hey, at least they're housebroken.

Content to jettison nearly 100 years of being aligned in the same athletic conference as Texas, the Aggies were outraged that their leaders did not move the school to the SEC. They variously gave three reasons. First, they chafe at being compared to and joining with Texas. In anything. The whole situation is like some Lifetime movie, where the ugly duckling sister (played by A&M), suffers ongoing humiliation and resentment at the attention paid the smarter, hotter older sister (played by Texas). She then spends the entire second half of the movie working on her psychotic evil revenge plot (only to be thwarted in the last five minutes by the cop who, for the previous one hour and 55 minutes, wouldn’t believe the older sister’s claims of being stalked). Second, they claim joining the SEC will help them recruit better players who want to play in the SEC but stay in Texas. The problem with that is, no matter what conference they join, their campus is still in College Station. And it’s A&M. Finally, they believe the SEC’s “culture” and “attitudes” more closely match the Aggies' outlooks on these things, whatever they are, than those of Big 12 schools. Unlike all the freaks in Austin. That thinking is kind of weird. In 20 years of living in Austin, I’ve always had to step over passed out Aggies on Sixth Street, who've poured out of College Station in their El Caminos and 1995 Dodge Ram pickups, looking for Austin-style fun. Kind of like Islamic fanatics who, when visiting the West, log a lot of strip club time. Like the 9/11 terrorists. Sorry, Aggies, for comparing you to terrorists. You know, I deplore people who look for racism under every blade of grass, but “they share our values” sounds a lot like George Wallace for President. "Stand Up for America."

You know, lots of states are like Texas, where there’s a main university…and the “other” university. You know them well. Florida State. Auburn. Virginia Tech. North Carolina State. Rutgers. Washington State. These “little sisters,” many of which are in their own way fine institutions, inevitably come up short when compared to their upstate, more glamorous university partner. They forever pour resources into PR, chase after headline-grabbing research grants, and hang onto every crumb of recognition that comes their way (“rated by US News and World Report as the 17th best geography studies program in the southwest among mid-tier universities”). But all the while their inferiority complex grows longer and longer, no matter how much time and resources they put into beating their big sister in something. Anything. And all the while, the big sister university really isn’t even aware of her because she’s too busy picking up Nobel Prizes or winning NCAA Championships.

Enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now called “Texas A&M”). Holy smokes Mr. Peabody, are these wing nuts off their meds or what?

They’re the yin to Texas’ yang. The beat up Trans-Am that you have to get into on the passenger side because the driver’s side door doesn’t work to UT’s Lamborghini. Red State University. Where men are men and sheep are scared. The Jersey Shore of academia. Rhoda to our Mary.

Texas A&M actually began as a division of the University of Texas, though it had its own board of directors and never was fully integrated in what became the University of Texas System. For most of its history, A&M has been exclusively white, exclusively male, exclusively military (all students were required to enter the Corps of Cadets). It existed in College Station, which essentially was a mail stop near Bryan. Not until 1963 did it even become a full-fledged university, in which women were admitted and military training became optional.

Texas A&M has always lived in the University of Texas’ shadow. Though created in the same legislation, Texas received a 2/3 share of the Permanent University Fund, endowed by billions in mineral royalties from state-owned lands, while A&M received only a 1/3 share. The Texas Constitution provided for the creation of a “university of the first class,” which the Legislature implemented by creating the University of Texas in 1883. It also provided that this university, which was to be called "The University of Texas," would have an "agricultural and mechanical department." Texas immediately became a full-fledged university in the state capitol of Austin, with advanced degree programs and professional schools (law and medicine). Texas has a $16 billion endowment (largest of any public university in the nation), nine member universities, six medical branches (including a dental school and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center), 19 Nobel Prize winners and 20 Pulitzer Prize winners on the faculty, a Gutenberg Bible, the first photograph ever taken, and the David O. Selznick collection (basically, Scarlett O’Hara’s dresses). Its 50,000 students come from around the world, only half of whom are white. The male to female ratio is roughly 1:1. Most students live in Austin, widely regarded as the most interesting, and certainly most eclectic, city in Texas. They enjoy a wide variety of live music, clubs, excellent restaurants, museums, parks, theatres, and culture. Playboy, which should know, consistently rates it one of the best party schools in the nation. The athletics programs have consistently been among the best in the nation. Texas teams often compete for and win national championships in multiple sports. Texas has the highest paid football coach in the nation (Mack Brown, at $5.1 million annually). The program has produced two Heisman Trophy winners (which should have been three with Vince Young), and annually produces NFL players. Texas has more current NFL players than any other program. A Texas game is showtime, with Matthew McConaughey, Erin Andrews, the Texas Cheerleaders and Roger Clemens on the sidelines (OK, the Rocket may have had his sideline pass revoked), and College GameDay outside the stadium. Consistent sell outs and high donation levels have just funded a major stadium expansion and addition of suites. Texas runs the most profitable and lucrative football program in the nation, and is creating its own television network. Texas alumni include the likes of Walter Cronkite, Michael Dell, Janis Joplin, Farrah Fawcett, Robert Rodriguez, Eli Wallach, Owen Wilson, Renee Zellweger, 15 US Senators and Congressmen and women, a Supreme Court justice, multiple Cabinet members, two First Ladies, and Mary Lou Retton.

Texas A&M? Not so much. If the Taliban ran a university, it would probably have a lot in common with A&M (but with a lot more muslimness). Its located in what has been, until recently, the God-forsaken backwater known as College Station. Outside of the Dixie Chicken, not much is happening at A&M. Its isolation has forever fueled a sense of insularity and resentment. Before students step foot in class they must attend Fish Camp, an indoctrination course where they learn all the intricate and extreme “yells” as well as the school’s history and traditions. These include such rituals as “Muster,” where Aggies all over the world gather to remember those who have died over the past year, “Silver Taps,” a ceremony held for those students who have passed during the previous month, and until lately, “midnight yell,” a type of pep rally on steroids and bathtub gin, “Bonfire,” held before the Texas game as a rallying point (actually, drinking point) to heap more scorn on Texas, and numerous other traditions, codes, and rituals. The official school song, “Spirit of Aggieland,” basically whines about how no one can understand what it means to be an Aggie. Imagine if Travis Bickle wrote your school song. Hullabaloo, caneck, caneck. What, exactly, does that mean anyway? Until 1963, military service was compulsory, and women were not admitted to the school. Women were not admitted into the Corps until 1974, and not admitted into the marching band until 1988, which is really astounding. I was a second year law student then. Today, A&M has an endowment of $5 billion. Male students outnumber women 53 to 47 percent, and roughly 2/3 of all students are white. 16% of all students came from Harris County. Football games have a lot in common with the inspection of the Royal Guard. Saber armed cadets “guard” the sacred Kyle Field turf (one idiot in an obvious Benzedrine rage took after some SMU cheerleaders in the early 1980s with his sword [oh, excuse me, his "saber"], all for bespoiling the sacred field of the Men of Kyle with their presence). A military band performs at halftime in a performance known as a “drill,” and these days draw more interest than the football team. Its “cheerleaders” are called “yell leaders,” and are exclusively male, wearing Good Humor Man white jumpsuits and generally displaying a Rex Kwan Do attitude. Women are expected to kiss their dates when the Aggies score, which mercifully is not that often. Its all very Branch Davidian. A&M has no law school (though it has tried for some time to merge with South Texas College of Law in Houston), and while it has a fine veterinary school its medical school was not founded until the 1970s. Famous Aggie alums (known as “former students”) include Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, and that’s about it other than football players.

Time has been kinder to Texas than to A&M. Texas desegrated much earlier than A&M, leading to an early break down of white male control and protection from legislative politics. As Texas’ power has grown, its influence is felt in major corporations, governmental and financial institutions, the law, medicine, and other disciplines. It has a diverse student body, vast resources, and incredibly loyal (and giving) alumni. A&M, on the other hand, has had rocky times since Col. Rudder brought it into the 20th Century, in the early 1960s, by turning it into an actual university. It endured painful litigation over segregation and the admission of women. As late as 1987, it was still in litigation over allowing women into the marching band. Uh, yeah. That’s right. The marching band. Its system campuses are located in complete backwaters, like…Kingsville, Quatar, and Galveston. What, no plans to start a Pyongyang branch? Anyway, it’s bought some Nobel winners from other universities, but, cold fusion? Really? With the ascendancy of former yell leader Rick Perry to the Governorship, he has sought to assert control over the school, through his handpicked Chancellor, former State Representative Mike McKinney, much like Frank Erwin ruled the University of Texas as a “boss” in the late 1960s.

While Texas has an eclectic, inquisitive, and diverse student body and dynamic atmosphere, A&M has one of the most conservative and homogeneous student bodies in the nation. Like Fiddler on the Roof, “tradition” drives A&M. Rituals, ceremonies, codes, symbols…all live at A&M. It is not a place where one’s pre-existing attitudes and values are questioned or even examined. Aggieland is not a place for exposure to other ways, lifestyles, or thoughts. It is a place where one must fit in, and the quasi-basic training indoctrination promotes that. The Aggies are about fidelity to the past; Texas is about making the future. A university education should reflect a liberal view, though not liberalism as we know it politically. A “liberal view” is a view that exposes one to all manner of philosophies, lifestyles, values, and thoughts. Only by examining other ways can one truly lead an informed life. Anything else is just pablum. Put another way, an unexamined life is not worth living. A university education should provide that sort of view, yet at A&M, insults of being a “two percenter” await anyone that does not hew to the village norm. While Texas attracts students from around the world, A&M is largely a place where suburban Houston kids with above-average grades go to school. Close enough to take laundry back home over the weekends.

The disparity shows up most obviously on the playing field. Texas has four national championships, played for a fifth, and should have played for a sixth. It has two Heisman Trophies (and should have a third). It has won numerous conference championships, and played in some of the greatest college football games of all time. It consistently ranks in the Top 25. Its baseball teams have had more College World Series appearances than any other school. The basketball program was in the Final Four within the past several years, and has had much tournament success. Texas has the highest annual athletic revenue of any program in the country. The Aggies? Other than their 1939 national championship (before facemasks, and the year Germany invaded Poland), it hasn’t seriously contended for a national championship or had the sustained dominance as Texas. It boasts one Heisman Trophy winner, from 1939. During one stretch in the 1980s under Jackie Sherrill, of course, it enjoyed some success, principally due to paying players like Kevin Murray. But A&M has lost twice to Baylor in the last six years. Its athletic department is approximately $16 million in debt to the university, and fans are staying away in droves as its football fortunes remain moribund. A&M’s baseball program is virtually non-existent. It enjoyed some recent basketball success, only to see its coach leave for Kentucky. Otherwise, while the Aggies have been competitive for the most part they have never achieved Texas’ sustained excellence level.

Texas has clearly dominated the athletic rivalry, for rather obvious reasons. Take free Trans Ams and cash-filled envelopes out of the equation, and there’s no way the average college kid is going to prefer four years in College Station to four years in Austin. There’s really no comparison. We have (or at times have had) Farrah, Sandra, Sixth Street, Willie, Barton Springs, Robert Rodriguez, Matthew McConaughey, Austin City Limits Music Festival, South by Southwest, Quentin Tarantino’s film festival, Round Rock Express, Highland Lakes, the Continental Club, Matt’s, Salt Lick, Hamilton Pool, Hula Hut, Mount Bonnell, the Blanton Museum, the Bullock Museum…the list goes on and on. College Station has…not as much. Maybe some stills and meth labs in Brazos County. Lots of farm animals. I think there’s a Grandy’s next to the Target. Oh, and the Dixie Chicken. Lots of grass on campus that for some unknown reason you can’t walk on. And more pickup trucks per capita than anywhere else in the world. Throw in the fact that for at least the last two years, only 12 A&M players have been selected in the NFL draft in the last five years (to Texas having had 61 draft picks in the last 13 years), and its relatively easy to see the huge recruiting advantage that Texas has over A&M. The Aggies offer a more college-like atmosphere, but their school is insular, white, conservative, and rural. It’s a great place if your pickup is a dualie and you chew skoal. Not so much if you’re a 6’, 5”five star quarterback from Madison High who can run a 4.58 40.

Against that backdrop, the Ags cited three reasons for jumping to the SEC. The first, to not be tied to Texas, makes no sense whatsoever. You are. Face it. By history and society, by government and alumni, you and Texas are forever linked. Each school’s alumni live on the same streets, work in the same companies (though the Longhorns usually supervise the Aggies), frequent the same establishments, and otherwise live the same lives. When we order our pizzas, you show up at our doorsteps. The Bonfire collapse, and resulting outpouring of assistance from the Texas campus, showed this. You will always be our little sister. Though Texas and A&M could still play a non-conference game against one another if A&M jumped to the SEC, part of the rivalry arises from the fact that we play not only a game, but we compete through the year for the conference title. By playing the same conference schedule, it provides another way for the schools to measure themselves directly. Plus, Texas’ flagship schools should be in a Texas conference with other Texas schools. I appreciate SEC football as much as anyone. Great football is played in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and so forth. But face it, this is Texas’ game. We wrote the book. Texans, whether they played for Texas colleges or not, dominate the NFL. Texas colleges need to play other Texas colleges. Not Vanderbilt. And not the land grant schools in a bunch of hick southern states still mad about desegregation. The two schools will always be compared, whether A&M joins the SEC or not. But if it joins the SEC, it will forever lose the ability to prove its superiority with a direct comparison to conference records.

Another reason Aggies cite to move to the SEC is that it will help them recruit. Texas kids who might want to play SEC competition but want to stay in Texas, I guess, will see A&M as their chance to do just that. Ask Vanderbilt about that theory, guys. Or Arkansas. Arkansas has been nothing since it left the Southwest Conference and stopped playing Texas schools. Texas, California and Florida have the highest numbers of quality high school football players, and until the past few years, A&M had generally had success in recruiting them. Now Tech routinely out-recruits it (and its not like four years in Lubbock is any great prize either). Texas kids who want to play in the SEC are going to go somewhere they can get on TV and get to the NFL, neither of which describes Texas A&M. The Aggies will be lucky to go 4-8 every year in the SEC. That simply won’t entice Texas kids to go to A&M.

Another reason given is it will force A&M to step up its recruiting. I don’t get it. Are you not trying now? You people can’t even count on beating Baylor. Oh by the way, R.C. Slocum never lost to Baylor. Bet you wish you had that guy back. You’re clearly getting beat now; why not just step it up now? Try to beat Oklahoma, Texas, Tech, and Baylor consistently before worrying about taking on LSU and Alabama every year. Besides, the reason A&M can’t recruit is its campus and its anemic football program. The campus won’t change if A&M plays in the SEC, and the higher caliber competition there will ensure A&M’s record deteriorates. Going to the SEC won’t do anything to help those factors. It’s like being an average hitter in AA baseball, and thinking your average will improve if you jump up to the majors because there’s stronger competition. How have you done against SEC opponents lately? Arkansas and Georgia, in the middle of the SEC pack, both crushed A&M last year. Actually, what will happen is you’ll get killed. Or become someone’s personal assistant. Oh, and your closest opponent will be in Baton Rouge, not exactly a quick trip over from Brazos County.

The final thing I remember Aggies saying is that SEC schools are “more like us,” while Texas is made up of freaks and weirdoes. A t-shirt recently seen on campus states, “Keep College Station Normal.” Its intended as a counter-point to the “Keep Austin Weird” motto. What exactly do they mean by “normal”? Apparently, most of Aggieland thinks that SEC schools are more “normal” than Texas, or the Pac-10 schools. SEC schools like Ole Miss, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia…. Predominantly white schools, which became desegregated under court order and in some instances at the insistence of several Airborne Divisions called in for the occasion. Not exactly known as bastions of inclusiveness, or scholarship generally. You don’t exactly think “Nobel Prize” when you think of Mississippi State. You do think of the Sunday catfish fry down by the river bank after church. With lots of country music (along with plenty of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet, of course) blaring from tricked-out Ford F-350s. Lots of Wrangler jeans and plaid short-sleeve shirts on thick-necked men beaded with sweat. Too many people are too eager to find racism under every rock. But when the Aggies talk of wanting to be in a conference of schools “just like us,” its not unfair to ask if they mean a conference dominated and run by rural white Southerners resistant to change and other “outside” influences. Or just a bunch of hicks.

So to my Aggie friends, you need to check yourselves. Don’t go counting birds in the bush that haven’t hatched. Or something like that.

Next up—the players are at fault too.

Where Have You Been?

I've been trapped like a head trying to pass though a turtleneck sweater, getting ready for and participating in an extended hearing. You wouldn't believe how work can get in the way of important things, like posting to my blog about the volleyball scene in Top Gun. Or Star Trek. Its appalling. Anyway, the hearing has concluded, and hopefully some status quo level of lifestyle sanity will resume.

I have all kinds of riveting entries planned for the fall. Like, there's this one where I talk about how dorm food now is better than it was 25 years ago.

Oh, and this one time, at band camp...

On second thought, you probably haven't missed much.

See you soon. Hope everyone enjoyed their summer.

The Southwest Conference: Turning Back the Clock on College Football

Daily Affirmations is all about discussing and distilling the most cutting-edge topics our society faces, as if drawn straight out of the headlines.

Four weeks ago’s headlines, that is.

Conference realignment was all the rage until the impending storm became a small ripple, with only a handful of schools actually pulling the trigger to change conferences. The full-scale nuclear war that seemed likely at one point became just a small brush up in some Central African republic. This college football three-parter looks at realignment from the “student athlete” perspective, and next time, has some choice words for our friends at the agricultural and mechanical institution to the east. Finally, we conclude by examining this frequent labeling, by coaches, of the players as “kids.”

The Southwest Conference brings back some great memories of some incredible Cotton Bowls, intense rivalries, high quality football, and local flavor. The old Southwest Conference featured some of the greatest college football players of all time—Earl Campbell, John David Crow, Bobby Layne, Doak Walker, Sammy Baugh, Eric Dickerson, Tommy Nobis, Bob Lilly, Ray Childress, Jerry LeVias, Mike Singletary, and Jerry Gray. More than that, all the players were from Texas or near Texas, so the quality of play was usually outstanding. They grew up playing each other, giving the rivalries a personal edge. You could watch a game in one part of the state during the day, and often be able to drive to another game that night. Your friends and neighbors often went to these schools, so fan rivalries were intense and you could enjoy passionate discussions with people you knew about next week’s game. Because the games were played in Texas or Arkansas, good weather generally prevailed and games were seldom played in snow or slop. Though the Big 12 has taken away much of that, as a Texas fan, Missouri and Nebraska were the furthest teams. Most Big 12 members recruited Texas high school players, and those “other” programs had a lot in common with SMU, TCU and Houston whom they “replaced.”

The proposed realignment, having four Texas teams go to the Pac-10, or A&M and OU going to the SEC, would have turned college football into outright pro sports leagues. What Texas fan has interest in seeing Texas (or Tech, or Baylor) play Arizona, or Oregon State, or Washington State? Why Sooner fans would want an annual Vanderbilt, Georgia or Mississippi State game also boggles the mind. Other than for non-conference or bowls, the further away my team’s regular opponents are located, the less interest it creates. I care more about what happens down the block than two time zones away. I see A&M, Baylor and Tech fans and alumni all the time; I might meet five Washington State fans my whole life. Kind of hard to enjoy the post-game talk when there’s no one else to engage.

Though the universities at some level acknowledge this (Bill Powers expressly cited it as a reason to walk away from the Pac-10), money, as always, talked. All of this realignment was about money. Nebraska and Missouri pursued the Big 10 because their per-member revenues, bolstered by the $72 million the Big 10 Network gave the conference, far exceeded the average $11 million per member Big 12 payout. The Big 10 has the greatest revenue of any conference, at over $220 million, for a $19 million per member share. Texas and the Sisters (Tech, OU, OSU, A&M) all looked to the Pac-10 forecasting much higher payouts, brought about by the Pac-10’s incipient television contract renegotiation. OU and A&M also pursued SEC invitations, no doubt to create leverage against the Pac-10 and Texas, and possibly benefit from the SEC’s $11 million per member revenue share, driven by the SEC’s CBS contract (buoyed by the SEC Championship Game’s $14 million revenue). Texas, the richest college athletics program in the nation at $82 million in annual revenues, ultimately backed out because it could not pursue its cherished dream of a UT television network if it joined the Pac-10. With Texas’ participation as a bargaining chip, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe was able to convince Fox and ABC to renegotiate the TV contract to afford remaining member schools a far greater payout. Bear in mind the Big 12 maintains a three tier TV revenue sharing system, so Texas, A&M and OU would receive the highest payouts, followed Tech and OSU, and then everyone else. If that sounds like Major League Baseball, with the Yankees keeping most of their revenues, give yourself a gold star. Texas backed away from conference realignment not to maintain all the traditional rivalries or to keep parents from having to travel further to see their little angels play, but because it could maximize its own revenue by staying in the Big 12 (which now has 10 members; the Big 10 has 12 members).

Keep in mind the TV revenues aren’t the full picture. University athletic programs obtain funding from donors, corporate sponsors, ticket sales, bowl games (for football) and merchandising. Take Texas for example, the richest college program in the nation. In 2008, it realized $82 million in revenue. $30 million was from donations, while $33 million was from ticket sales. Nike alone pays Texas $1 million in sponsorship revenues, while other corporate sponsors provide much more. This explains why every one of the major football factories, err, institutions, have all built or expanded their stadiums in the last 20 years. Except Notre Dame, which has a $9 million per year TV contract with NBC (the “Notre Dame Broadcasting Company”). The donations are tax deductible. In the end, Texas had a $59 million operating “profit,” which it used to fund other athletic programs or put back into the program (as by making Mack Brown the most highly paid college football coach in the nation at $5.1 million/year). The major college athletics programs collectively realized over $4 billion in merchandising alone (all those t-shirts and sweaters you insist on buying your uncle for Christmas). Bowl payouts result in another $210 million annually (which is staggering, when you remember all those seatback you saw last season watching such athletic gems as the Motor City Bowl or the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl). Finally, lets not forget CBS’ 14 year, $11 billion contract to televise the NCAA basketball tournament. Yes, that’s right, $11 billion. That’s bigger than the gross domestic product of roughly 30 countries. These may nominally be academic institutions, but they run a money laundering operation that would make Tony Montana envious.

All of this was played out against the larger backdrop of every conference trying to expand. The Pac-10, wanting to leverage its position for its next TV contract negotiations, sought to pick off nearly half the Big 12, but settled for Colorado and Utah. The Big 10 wanted Nebraska, Notre Dame, Rutgers and West Virginia, but settled for Nebraska when Notre Dame decided to stay above the fray. The SEC courted OU and A&M. The ACC also sought to pick off some Big East teams. The big dogs definitely want to eat.

So its fantastic that everyone’s getting theirs. But what about the “student athletes”? You know, the ones all these people are paying to see? The ones who generate all these billions of dollars? How much do they get?

Good question. The restrictions are lengthy. They get a scholarship, and in some cases room and board. The scholarship lets them take classes about which half could care less, based on their grades and achievement levels. How shocking that LSU isn’t fielding a bunch of chemistry majors on this year’s team. The room and board generally lets the players stay at some hellish dorm overrun with crickets and mildew, replete with the delightful Sunday morning aroma of throw-up from Saturday night jello shot parties. At the bowls, they get a free trip to Salmon World, or the Shreveport Zoo, or Boise Potato Museum, or some other local Chamber of Commerce expedition if their team makes a bowl game. And maybe a free xbox in the gift bag. That’s it. No stipends, no per diems, no share of the merchandising millions, not a dime of all those TV dollars, not a cent of the Nike or other corporate money. Theoretically they can have jobs, but the practice schedule makes that a virtual impossibility. And lets not forget coaches like to exceed the NCAA-mandated maximum practice hours (yeah, I’m talking about you, Rich Rodgriguez; hey, if you’re going to practice more than everyone, shouldn’t you be better than 1 and 7 in the Big 10/12?). They can’t sign endorsement deals (even though the college itself can, and each athlete is forced to wear a corporate logo whether he wants to or not). Vince Young had to watch everyone on the Texas campus wearing his number 10 jersey and know that he wasn’t making one red cent for it.

All these sanctimonious speeches about how all this corporate wheeling and dealing is to benefit the “student athletes” defies comprehension. These guys are just numbers, stats, height and weight, 40-second dash times…nothing else. Quick-who was the starting tight end at Texas last year? Exactly. Michigan and Texas and Florida and LSU and USC and Ohio State aren’t bringing these guys in because their promising chemists, or biologists, or engineers. And no one is paying thousands to the athletic foundation for tickets just to further these players’ studies or watch them take sophomore calculus. The players are generating all that money; no one pays money to watch . But with all that cash rolling in, and with an ability to open new revenue streams that makes the Cali cartel jealous, the players actually generating it get nothing. I’ll deal with the value of the scholarship in a moment.

That disparity brings something to mind. A plantation. The really funny thing about USC getting sanctioned for agents making money off Reggie Bush wasn’t so much that USC so cavalierly insists on its innocence despite overwhelming evidence that it knew Bush’s family was receiving agent money, but that the NCAA was so upset someone else may have been making money off an athlete other than itself and the school. And now that the NCAA has awakened to one college star receiving compensation for his labor, it turns out others are trying to get theirs too. Rather than acknowledging that the players drive the college football money-making machine, the NCAA powers that be have instead decided to clamp down even harder on players and agents. At least the agents only want 10 percent of the players’ revenues; the schools insist on 100%. The NCAA makes the most hard-core Oakland street pimp look generous by comparison.

If the NCAA and the universities truly had the players’ interests at heart, it would let them return to their universities after declaring for the NFL draft but going undrafted. It wouldn’t keep players away from school for a month-long basketball tournament. It wouldn’t have added a 12th game to football schedules. It wouldn’t allow conference championship games during the middle of most schools’ finals period. And its major conferences wouldn’t seriously discuss joining conferences two time zones away.

Fairness and reasonableness dictate paying the players. At least enough to get a pizza, or go home to visit their parents once a month. Certainly, universities should not pay NFL-type salaries, or anything beyond what it might pay graduate assistants in academic departments. Paying some sort of expense-level allowance wouldn’t deter the future first round draft picks from getting a head start on having their snout in the agent trough, but it would at least address to some extent the incredibly inequitable and victimizing relationship between universities, who pocket all the revenues, and players, whose labor creates those revenues. It would also at least redress the most egregious financial hardships imposed on these players, who in some cases can’t even afford airline tickets to go home and see their parents.

Hey, the coaches sure have cashed in on the players. Average college coaching salaries have skyrocketed. At least 66 major Division I college head coaches now earn in excess of $1 million per year. That’s just salaries. That says nothing of their endorsement deals, weekly TV shows, personal appearance money, and other perks. Again, the players’ sweat makes the turnstiles go, while the coaches get the money.

But the arguments against paying players some sort of stipend to cat least cover expenses don’t hold water, at least not at the revenue levels today’s universities realize. Let’s start with “the scholarship should be enough.” Maybe if you’re talking about an expensive university, like Duke or Stanford. But at places where they pretty much throw college credits into your car if you drive too slowly past the campus? Texas State? Kansas State? Wyoming? Child, please. They should pay people to go there. Face it, a lot of these guys don’t really put much value in going to class, much less getting a diploma. Many don’t go to major football factory programs for the great poly sci curriculum. They go to get ready for playing in the NFL. Many shouldn’t be in college in the first place. Besides, as Jeff Ward says, major college football isn’t malt shops and letterman sweaters. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, and a cost-free NFL training ground. The sheer disparity between any scholarship value and the amounts the players generate for the schools is so grossly overwhelming that a scholarship cannot possibly constitute fair compensation. Particularly when in most cases, these players have to take sharply reduced hours to have enough time to train (and can’t go to school during summers so they can have jobs). Besides, other students on academic scholarships don’t run the risk of serious or debilitating injury through accepting a scholarship. Also, other students don’t make money for their schools. The people at your job who make the most money generally are the ones who bring in the most money for the company. Universities are no different; accounting professors and physics professors make more than philosophy professors. Sad but true. Universities even let (and generally encourage) professors to obtain outside consulting jobs. Even academic department graduate assistants earn a small salary. Scholarships aren’t inconsistent with paying recipients a living stipend. But when it comes to the athletes who make the school its really big money, they’re expected to do it for room and board and tuition. That’s a plantation.

Then there’s the argument that paying players will disproportionately benefit the college “haves” against the “have nots.” Put another way, the big programs can either pay more, or if the NCAA adopted a standardized payment scale, could more readily withstand the cost. Wow, you mean Ohio State, USC, Florida, Texas, and Notre Dame might have a financial advantage over some other programs. That…is…shocking. We sure wouldn’t want to do anything that might give some programs a financial edge over others. Because it would be absolutely intolerable for some programs to have more money than others. Look. Who were the top teams with the biggest revenues in the 1960s? Notre Dame, Texas, USC, Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Penn State, Alabama, Georgia. Who are the top teams now? Pretty much the same. The past 50 years or so have seen a few programs (Florida State, Miami, LSU, Wisconsin) reach upper echelon status, but not that many others. The haves have always been the haves, and the have nots have always had not. The haves will always enjoy a huge financial edge over the rest of the pack. Paying players won’t change that fact. The Big 12 even enshrines that caste system, with the three tier system mentioned previously

Another argument contends that paying players would be unfair to those universities that simply can’t afford to do so. I call this the Bernie Sanders Theory of college football. You know, communism. If big time college athletics totally rejects financial equality when it comes to everything else (see above), it can hardly hide behind that fig leaf to avoid paying players some small pittance of the revenues they provide these schools. If some schools can’t pay players because they’re in the hole, like the Aggies, whose athletic department owes the main university at least $16 million, maybe they shouldn’t pay their players. But that shouldn’t prevent other schools, who through better money management, fan support, or alumni fundraising are able to make such payments. Not everyone should have to pay their players. Rather than paying a stipend, the rules should allow a university to instead relax the rules against taking a job, or should give athletes at those schools more opportunity to earn money outside the program. Even the poor schools should be able to provide some remuneration. That disparity exists now anyway. The football teams often play and train in palaces. The soccer team…not so much.

Then there’s those who complain that football players shouldn’t be the only ones who get paid, and generally that point leads to it being too expensive to pay everyone. Truly a strawman. Pay the lacrosse players. And the baton twirlers and the volleyball players. We’re not talking about Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett money; we’re talking about enough money to do laundry and go out on a date every now and then. But if a school choose not to pay the twirlers, too bad. Sorry, but they’re not adding suites and a third deck to the lacrosse stadium. If that’s unfair, those lacrosse guys should try out for football.

So that about does it. Its fine for the schools to get theirs. Again, and again, and again. Throw a few bones to the players who create the money with their blood, sweat, bones, and ligaments.

Next-Aggies, I love you, but come on fellas. The SEC. Really? You really want to become Florida's pinata?

Don't Worry About the Government (the Government Worries About You)

I see the states, across this big nation
I see the laws made in Washington, D.C.
I think of the ones I consider my favorites
I think of the people that are working for me

Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong
--Talking Heads, "Don't Worry About the Government"

Is anyone out there still thinking that the government can save us from natural or man-made calamities? That no matter what, the Feds are going to ride in and restore order? Get things going again? Help us back on our feet? Feed us, clothe us, and protect us from further danger?

Well, I'm sorry to inform you, but you need to stop that.

If the Federal Government’s record in dealing with disasters and crises were likened to a baseball team, it would be way under .500, near the division cellar and looking to trade its high priced stars before the August 1st trade deadline. The roster of botched performances, bungled responses, and red tape-inspired failures reads like a fat kid trying to stay away from Nestle’s Crunch. The Exxon Valdez, mine disasters, Loma Prieta earthquake, Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Rita (among others), now the BP disaster (the oil one, not the exploding plant one), Justin Beiber…. Unfortunately, outside of doling out money and getting out of the way of state and local relief efforts, there’s little if anything the Feds can do to help when disaster strikes.

The point here isn’t (particularly) to slam our President over the oil spill, though he richly deserves some. Nor is it to delve into the government’s oil spill response in a detailed way. Others have done so. By and large, those who have written that the Government acted in this instance consistent with many of the institutional characteristics I discuss here. These prevent the federal government, whether under Democrat or Republican leadership, from swiftly and effectively responding to and managing crises. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, and many others have identified the government’s mistakes. Which are legion. The fact is, though many feel like Federal Control is the answer to all of life’s ills, states are best able to deal with most natural and man-made disasters.

This oil spill situation provides just one more example of why we can’t count on the government to respond to crises of this nature. It simply lacks the institutional capability of doing so, for many reasons exceeding the grasp of any President, no matter how capable.

Most people probably think the President has a lot of power. But the President’s power largely consists of his ability to marshal political forces to support legislative initiatives, and to appoint the upper management of most federal agencies. Well, and to launch the nukes too, I guess. In the statute books, most of the “power” resides in the alphabet soup of agencies, many of which have conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions. And most laws establishing agencies and giving them powers actually confer only authority to establish regulations, not to create separate government squadrons capable of displacing private workforces and assume control during disasters. The President lacks much direct authority to direct thousands of federal employees into the breach of a crisis to resolve it.

In asking what the government can do, think of the hapless federal bureaucrat at his cubicle desk when the crisis call comes through. This union member, whose career is guarded by the strongest anti-termination protections known in the workforce, dutifully shows up every day at 9 in his pilling short-sleeve shirt and clip-on tie which his wife picked out that morning. Fresh off the bus or walking from the parking lot after parking his 1999 Ford Escort, he looks forward to working a full day in a dimly lit office, eating his pre-packed tuna fish sandwich at noon, enjoying morning and afternoon coffee breaks of exactly 15 minutes each, and leaving precisely at the stroke of 5 to see his kids, who attend mediocre-at-best public schools. His always stuffed in-box never disappears, but long ago ceased to concern him. He keeps a very neat desk, and never hurries to complete his tasks. He’s never actually worked in the industry that he regulates, or he long ago washed out or couldn’t keep a job, or retired many years ago from some lower-level position. The highlight of his year is the annual trip to training seminars held in places like Albuquerque or Racine. He gets $25 per diem, stays in a medium level hotel on government rate, and gets various freebies from the trade exhibitors.

Every day, that guy has to review applications. Applications to approve plans, applications for exceptions to rules, applications to enter the regulated business, applications to expand operations. Or, he reviews reports. Annual reports, quarterly reports, reports on executive compliance, reports on financial resources. They never stop. All of this happens according to his agency’s rules, of which he is a master. His job consists of reading these applications and reports, and verifying that they comply with the agency’s rules. If they do, he stamps “approved” and passes them on. If not, he notes his rejection and provides a brief explanation, and passes them on. He plays by the rules: after 10 to 15 years he can expect a promotion, just in time to help send the kids to a lower-tier land grant directional-school university. This will bump him up to about $80,000/year, with a $2,000-3,000 annual bonus. His annual reviews are strictly objective and target driven—how many pieces of paper did he process? Did he have any reported disciplinary infractions? Did he attend required training? Factors like whether he’s any good or not have no bearing on whether he keeps his job or advances.

Now, when the crisis hits, what does that guy do? Does he suddenly drop everything? Does he say, “forget the rules, we’re springing into action with everything we’ve got”? Does he work feverishly to establish an inter-agency crisis task force, make sure the best agency minds work tirelessly and nonstop to devise innovative and novel solutions?

Not so much.

From this guy’s perspective, a crisis is just another piece of paper. Just one more application to run through the agency’s rules and policies, determine whether it qualifies for particular treatment, and then pass it on. Agencies apply their rules, and go by the book. None of the careerists will ever get fired for following the rules. But they might get fired if they don’t follow the rules. Louisiana wants to take control over oil boom deployment, or get an exception to environmental rules to stave off impending oil slicks? That’s just another application for an exception to the rules, like hundreds of others, to be managed, processed, reviewed, and decided.
The federal bureaucracy isn’t crisis-driven. Its deliberative, and normative. It devises and then applies rules. If the rules don’t contemplate and provide for your disaster, then it falls to the actual agency heads to come up with solution. This takes awhile to implement as mandatory consultation rules, open meetings requirements, and budget restrictions strangle any fleeting agency efforts to rise out of the red tape.

First, unlike state governments, the federal government just isn’t, for the most part, set up to “do” things. The government prescribes the terms on which private entities (and states) may act, and reviews their actions to determine whether they comply with those terms. The feds don’t generally deliver services or take tangible actions in the world. Aside from law enforcement and the military, NASA, the Post Office and TSA are about the only agencies that actually “do” things, and you’re in trouble if that’s your bright, shining example of how great things can be. Even when agencies do bear responsibility to do things, they almost always contract the work to private companies. Agencies like FEMA aren’t designed or equipped to go save thousands of people, any more than the Energy Department can go plug leaking wells. As early as 1993, a GAO report stated “the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs a disaster unit whose primary mission is planning for and responding to catastrophic disasters.” That same report noted, “GAO has testified repeatedly in 1993 on the inadequacy of the federal strategy for responding to disasters.” Most agencies of this nature merely supervise other entities’ work, including not only private entities but state and local agencies receiving federal funding. Everyone clamoring for Obama and the federal government to “take over” efforts to halt the spill might want to ask, where exactly are all the people, equipment and expertise that the government will use to stop the spill. Federal agencies possess neither the budgets nor the personnel to take over most state and local or private response efforts. States, however, routinely provide for emergency management personnel and equipment. They just need permission and resources from the federal government to use them, and in many cases, that permission comes late or not at all.

Then again, meeting crises head on isn’t exactly something that the average federal bureaucrat lives for. The government doesn’t hire “doers,” it hires “watchers.” As I mentioned before, the permanent agency staffs largely consist of retirees, washouts, slappies, and other mediocrities who couldn’t hack it in private companies or who got laid off. They really like their weekends off, and really don’t like to travel to hot, humid places overrun with snakes, mosquitoes and icky oil. They like to sit in their cubicle, move paper, go to Starbucks at 10 and 2:30, and go home at night. Crisis command isn’t exactly in their wheelhouse. These people “regulate,” they don’t “direct.” For example, the Department of Homeland Security waited for over a week before classifying the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill as an “event” which would authorize agencies to commit resources. Not exactly springing into action, is it?

Another problem is that agencies can only act as spelled out in their rules. Every agency is a creature of statute. It possesses only those powers that Congress has conferred on it, and nothing more. So if Congress hasn’t delegated an agency the authority to hire and deploy massive armies of oil spill cleaning forces or oil well capping forces, it can’t do so. Congress often is very prescriptive to agencies, either because it wants to hamstring the agency and prevent it from over-regulating, or because it wants to deprive the agency of flexibility and require it to act in a certain way to ensure accountability. If Congress requires an agency to act in a particular way, it lacks power to improvise in the face of a crisis.

And agencies typically must enact rules that define how they exercise their powers. Generally, this helps industry and the public, because it gives clear guidance on what conduct industry may undertake, and what it may not. Rigorous adherence to rules also prevents agencies from arbitrary enforcement. If an agency’s rules don’t cover an emergency situation of the nature at hand, then its in a gray area where its forced to improvise. And that’s typically not an agency’s strong suit. Following rules and procedures that have existed for years…that’s what agencies do. One famous example of that came during the Cuban Missiles Crisis. President Kennedy ordered an embargo of the Cuban mainland, in which Naval vessels would stop all oncoming ships. Robert McNamara asked Admiral Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations, what would happen when Russian ships tried to evade the blockade. Anderson replied that the Navy had been handling blockades for 200 years, and they would handle this one. McNamara replied, “I don’t give a damn what John Paul Jones would have done, I want to know what you’re going to do.” Anderson wound up being fired and made Ambassador to Portugal after the crisis. But it reflects the government mind-do what you always do, fit the problem to the solution. The problem is that the rules can never anticipate every weird situation that could occur (though in the case of New Orleans, engineers and scientists had predicted levee failures for years). Now, from time to time, the Federal Government puts together something called the Federal Response Plan. But this largely involves coordination of efforts to provide resources to states and localities, not on how to raise and deploy federal manpower. And, shockingly, critics roundhoused it from the beginning as overly complex and confusing.

Then there’s the brain shortage. Other than NASA, federal agencies aren’t exactly hiring rocket scientists. Actually, NASA isn’t either. It hires people who administer contracts with rocket making companies. Most of the experts are in academia or industry. Remember when Obama met with all those academics to find out what he should do about the spill? Why didn’t he just meet with Energy or Interior Department experts? Because they don’t exist. His Energy Secretary may have a Nobel Prize, as we’re advised ad nauseum, but there’s not a whole lot of brain power at these agencies. They’re administrators, not experts. Low pay, poor advancement, uninteresting work opportunities, and politics conspire to deter the true experts out of government service. Industry and academia will always have more intellectual firepower, and therefore creativity, than the government. Signed, trying 9/11 plotters in federal district court in Manhattan and closing Guantanamo Bay. Great ideas, guys.

There’s also a “who’s in charge” problem, and its huge. When the spill started, the bureaucracy sprang into action. The White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Homeland Security and Environmental Protection Agency all debated for over a week on who was in charge, which agency would do what, and the best overall approach to take. Congress has a way of legislating in response to the issue of the day, blind to overall problems and coordination. Several agencies often have jurisdiction over the same activity, and each can set different priorities and conflicting rules and standards. When the crisis comes, they do what agencies do best-fight over turf to protect their budgets and authority. This simply delays any meaningful government response. Very recently, the US Conference of Mayors criticized federal agencies such as FEMA for becoming “bogged down in procedures” and for the federal government having too many agencies acting without coordination. Louisiana has complained about this very problem contributing to the difficulty in devoting its local resources to response efforts. Alabama has complained about each jurisdictional federal agency having “veto power” over state requests for aid and to approve actions.

Accountability represents another huge problem. There’s no real accountability in government. The President says heads will roll, but has anyone been fired yet? One person—the head of the Minerals Management Service, whatever that is, resigned. They did change the name of that agency though. A President can only remove the upper-level political appointees, but it takes time to replace them. In the meantime, careerists fill those slots. And if the President does fire the agency head, he or she usually “suffers” by returning to lobbying, private industry or academia with a huge pay increase and added clout from having been in government. At the lower field levels though, at which the people do the day to day work, what would you fire people for? Following the agency’s rules? How could you prove to some disciplinary review board that a bureaucrat moved too slowly or made deficient decisions? I worked at an agency where a guy went to sleep every afternoon at his desk. The agency tried to fire him and he claimed discrimination because he found some doctor to say he suffered from narcolepsy. He’s still “working” there. That guy would be leading the rescue forces.

Now a lot of people have asked, “what about the military”? Why can’t we just send in the Navy? To do what? Does the Navy have oil well blowout personnel? Could it evacuate cities, shore up levees? Save large pockets of refugees? Today’s military has significantly “outsourced” its operations. Large varieties of operational positions now are reservists, Guard members, or ready reserve. Or have been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq. During the first Iraq War, the Army had to hire private contractors to extinguish the Kuwaiti oil well fires. Why did Halliburton become so prominent in Iraq? Because the military was incapable of undertaking the infrastructure rebuilding task. Maybe the military could somehow “lead” private resources. But military personnel are trained their whole career to give and follow orders. They operate under rigorously organized structures, each training routinely to carry out military actions. The civilians they would command, however, do not. Additionally, sending in the troops in most cases on the mainland begs the question whether they will supplant local and state authorities. The federal role in disaster relief primarily has been to coordinate funding and to provide resources which the states and cities use in directing their efforts. If we send in the Army, they can’t take orders from Governors and Mayors. They report to the President and Department of Defense. The federal government would need to declare martial law, which would very likely interfere with state and local relief efforts. Finally, the United States isn’t Bolivia or some country ending with “istan.” Martial law declarations should occur only in the most grave circumstances. While Katrina may have been borderline, the immediate problem there was getting people out of the city, not restoring order after most everyone was out.

One more point I can’t resist, which is that despite the President’s institutional limitations, this particular President, despite all his protestations that he’s thinking about how to stop the spill at all times and looking for asses to kick, has exhibited almost no executive leadership skills required of any organization leader. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was April 20th, yet he didn’t talk to anyone with BP until June? He goes on golf vacations and political fundraising trips, while sending his minions out to castigate BP’s CEO Tony Hayward for going to a yachting event? He appoints a spill response panel made up entirely of policy wonks, and not one person who’s actually worked in the oil patch. He demonizes the BP personnel who are the only ones actually trying to stop the spill. He delayed interceding in agency turf wars that delayed federal response. He hasn’t fired or disciplined anyone in government. He has, however, led plenty of consultation discussions, and appointed a study commission. This is dithering by any other name. Obama’s lack of any meaningful executive experience has been criticized in more than one quarter. The New York Times, as pro-Obama a media outlet as one will ever find, has criticized federal delays. That goes straight to the top. Though any President may have lacked many options, this one’s inexperience has not made things any easier. Maybe electing someone whose leadership experience consisted of running the Harvard Law Review and a Presidential campaign wasn't such a great idea after all. I don't want to say I warned everyone about the danger of electing a lawyer/legislator without executive experience. Who could possibly have seen that might be a problem? Who indeed?

So, all of you sleeping soundly at night, confident that when the bomb drops, earth moves, hurricane blows ashore, or riots break out, Washington is going to help...you may want to reconsider. Personally, I'm stocking ammo, canned goods, batteries and medical supplies. I'm not gonna wind up as zombie food.

Note on Comments

Stupid computers are driving me crazy.

That, and that woman's Fem-Bot hair.

I keep getting relentless spam in the form of comments to this blog, particularly to a couple of posts I did more than a year ago. As far as I can tell (due to my "stat tracker" program), this is coming from Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. If you bastards are reading, you're the devil.

The problem is anytime someone comments, I get an e-mail notifying me about it. This means that every day I receive about 10 e-mails indicating that "anonymous" has commented on one of my posts. Usually its either some sort of discount pharmaceutical ad, but in a kind of non-native english gibberish.

Its getting extremely annoying. I can't figure out how to block this spam, so I've now changed my settings to where you have to register before you can comment. Not sure whether that will work either, but at this point I'll try anything. If anyone else has any ideas, please let me know.

As I've written many times, I'm happy for anyone anywhere to comment, and its been a little disappointing that I receive few real comments. The only rules I impose are that you can't be insulting--an insult isn't an argument. On that basis I excluded a bunch of Amanda Shaw-sycophant comments during Jazz Festival. The other rule is that you can't be spam.

I'm not exactly sure how one goes about registering in this manner. Let me assure all of you, I haven't done this to track down commenters so that I can extract retribution for contrary views. Not only do I not have time to do so, I'm too fundamentally lazy. And probably I would forget what I was doing midway into planning my evil revenge plot. Or what day of the week it was.

If anyone wants to comment and can't figure out how to register, let me know and I'll try to address it.

In the meantime, party on and enjoy your summer!