Randolph Duke

Lol. "If the alumni have $40 million to throw at Urban Meyer (of all people), then the alumni have $40 million to make up for legislative funding cuts so money obviously not needed at UT Austin can be used to fill the needs at other "less fortunate" schools." That is exactly what will be the reaction of the legislature. If you think Jay Hartzell wants to fight that self-inflicted fight, you should think again. Given a choice between a bunch of yahoos unhappy because the last $40 million coach they hired didn't work out and unhappy because they have to wait another year to again blow $40 million on a football coach, or a bunch of legislators who can easily steamroll Jay Hartzell over funding cuts and who are unhappy because Hartzell made a high profile hiring of a perceived sociopath a higher priority than managing the financial implications of the Covid pandemic, it's an easy choice. I'm sorry, but the highest priority of the newly installed UT Austin president isn't going to be to make a high profile hiring of a sociopath (right before the legislature takes up the issue of funding at UT Austin) because "money is no object at UT Austin and the football needs to win more." But please, continue to hope, pray and believe. its really hilarious that people think there is ANY chance Hartzell signs off on the sociopath/ career suicide option.

Lol. The "urban or bust" people should save themselves the inevitable disappointment by working through how the mechanics of hiring Urban would work. Jay Hartzell would have to make the ultimate decision. Jay has ZERO political capital built up with the legislature. Starting in less than 10 weeks, the legislature is going to be pressed to find ways to reduce funding across the board. The publicly funded endowment to the UT System is already greater than all other public universities and colleges (including aggy) combined. The portion of the UT System publicly funded endowment dedicated to UT Austin is about 50%. UT Austin is already funded by taxpayers at a rate double of that of Texas A&M. Total revenue (per full-time student equivalent) at A&M is $31k/yr. At Prairie View - $28k. At Tech - $21k. U of H - $28k. Texas State - $18k. UT Austin - $55k. In total dollars, UT Austin receives about $2B more each year in public funding (fed and state) than A&M. At some point during the 2012 legislative session, the political discussion of just how much UT Austin should be funded over every other public university in Texas will be brought up. The disparity is huge. If, as one of his first meaningful decisions as UT Austin president, Jay Hartzell decides to blow $40 million to bring in (of all people )Urban Meyer, Jay Hartzell won't last as school president past the end of the spring semester. In the current financial environment, spending tens of millions to bring in someone with an enormous ethical cloud over his head would be career and reputational suicide for Hartzell. Remember when Tom Herman essentially told everyone to go fuck themselves because he was bringing Casey Horny onto the payroll? Well, Hartzell isn't going to make that same stupid mistake, and especially not on a massively higher level. Never. Gonna. Happen. Two of the cardinal rules of being UT Austin president as a) don't do massively stupid things in a very public was and b) don't needlessly waste political capital on meaningless issues. Hiring of Urban Meyer, for all its potential at winning football games, violates both of those rules. Jay Hartzell is not going to sacrifice his opportunity to be UT Austin president, and piss all the work he did to get to that position down the drain to hire Urban Meyer to be the football coach. Urban Meyer is considered a sociopath by people Jay Hartzell needs in his corner. As is Art Briles.

I find it beyond hilarious that people think in the current environment, while the legislature is in session deciding higher education funding and while he is less than six months on the job as university president, Jay Hartzell is going to essentially tell people “fuck off, I’m doing whatever I damned well please,” and drop $40 mil to bring in Urban Meyer as the face of UT football. Of course, Texas could save a couple of bucks and hire the “flavor of the day” hot G5 head coach - Luke Fickell. If there could be a worse time than now to blow tens of millions on making a bad head coach change, I’m not sure I’ve seen it. Urban Meyer will never be on the UT Austin payroll. Ever. In any capacity. Also, people who think Herman is in trouble of losing his job after this season are going to be terribly disappointed. There are far more important considerations at play than the performance of the UT football team at the moment.

If the LHB members find EOT so odious and repugnant, they are of a different culture than those who find the some having great redeeming value. For a group to essentially say “we are repulsed at what you value, but give us your money so we can more vociferously express our disgust with what you want to perpetuate, do give us money” is bold, to say the least. I don’t know if I could support your argument that two such disparate groups are culturally indistinguishable. I would be quite happy with doing away with LHB for a number of years and trying again at a later date to establish another school band. I don’t see any downside to the idea. If the time and energy of the current LHB is going to be focused on political and social activism and not on performing, there would be no great loss in shutting LHB down. It’s a win-win for political activism and for those wanting some day to have a school band that will play the school song. If I wanted to promote a political agenda, I wouldn’t direct my political donations to LHB. Unfortunately, if one wanted to support the musical arts, LHB is currently on political hiatus, so donating to LHB isn’t a viable option for that, either. Just shut it down and try again in a couple years with a new school band.

If the band members do not share a common culture with the alumni and supporters of The University, there is no fault in the alumni and supporters wishing the band well in their endeavors and distancing themselves from the band. Why is it a shame that two disparate groups with different cultures go their separate ways? These things happen. "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Band members are very much entitled to their opinions. No one is denying them that freedom. The debate is whether one group of people should be unwillingly compelled to provide financial and logistical support for outside groups with distinct and separate cultures from the common culture. The LHB deserves its independence from The University. I am sure they will prosper. Such a separation is far from a shame. It’s the healthiest course of action for all parties. I wish them well.

You’re just a bundle of joy this early in the morning. Deep breaths, drink your coffee, take a shit and relax. It’s all going to be ok.

The kid will fit in well at aggy. Good luck, kid. You'll need it.

Santa Anna was the "father of chewing gum" and is credited for writing the original music for the song we know as "I left My Heart in San Francisco" under the title of "I Left My (left) Leg Back in Chicago." True story.

Yep, and the first popular character from the minstrel era was "Jim crow." I get it. But It is absolutely possible to replicate the minstrel show format without including material that includes degrading portrayals of others. And because of that, for people to claim "minstrel = evil" oversimplifies the issue. If you simply equate "minstrel = evil" the you avoid the truly uncomfortable reality that there has always been a part of our culture that derives entertainment out of the degradation of others. Promote "minstrel = evil" all you want, but even if you stamp out everything related to the minstrel show format that you can possibly find, you will still be left with the problem of not having dealt with the reality that part of our culture still derives entertainment out of the degradation of others (or at least is indifferent to the degradation of others). And simply passing that down to the next generation would be a pile of steaming shit our generation would have passed down for others. The problem is the mindset, not the art form allowing that mindset to be expressed. If not through minstrel shows, how is that mindset still being expressed on campus, and in our culture. Because that racist mindset unquestionable still exists today, well after the demise of the minstrel show format.. But in my mind, I do not think that mindset is being perpetuated by the singing of EOT.

Vaudeville was developed in France about half a century after minstrel shows. Again, when minstrel shows first developed, they were a new art form, namely lighthearted entertainment for the masses. Americans weren't into Shakespearean plays. The circus as we know it hadn't yet evolved. It is absolutely possible to replicate the minstrel show format without including material that includes degrading portrayals of others.

The art form itself wasn't the problem, it was how the art form was used that is the problem. The fact that people found amusement in the degrading portrayals of others is the issue, not that lighthearted entertainment for the urban masses was inherently racist. If you can't differentiate between the two, then you may want to take a step back and rethink things. There was no other art form at the time for large urban populations as American cities hadn't grown to the size they were becoming starting on the 1820s. The culture of the nation at that time is what made degrading portrayals of others qualify as "entertainment." That culture left us benefits and also large steaming piles of shit. Some that still pollute our culture and society today. Is EOT one of those stinking piles of cultural shit? So far, the evidence doesn't lead me to believe it is. Simply having cultural roots in a minstrel show doesn't automatically qualify something as a cultural pile of shit, in my mind. Finding amusement in the degrading portrayals of others does.

Wow. This should be in the dictionary illustrating the entry for "ADHD." It is fascinating to me to see how the minds of other people process information.

"Minstrel shows" are not the issue. Minstrels were performed for over 150 years by both black and white performers. Great American traditions of music (jazz) and various forms of dance were directly derived from minstrel shows. The rise of minstrel entertainment roughly traces the rise of the American city. Plain and simple, people wanted light entertainment accessible by the masses. The problem with minstrel shows is they often portrayed offensive stereotypes and cruel satire. Blacks also attended minstrel shows, usually in support of black performers. It is that support that allowed the first black performers to exist on Broadway (did you really think contemporary whites were the ones promoting greater black representation in the performing arts?). For those who don't know "Jim Crow" of "the Jim Crow era" fame was one of the first popular minstrel characters dating to the 1820s and is pretty much the first character to appear on stage in blackface. If you think EOT is controversial, just wait until Univ of Kentucky is asked to end "My Old Kentucky Home" because it is "racist." Pretty much everything from the Ragtime era was used in (if not written for) minstrel shows. Jazz derived from minstrel music, are is jazz. Rock evolved from blues, hip-hop from jazz and blues. Is it all racist because of its minstrel roots? Put the band on indefinite hiatus, help them learn about the 150-year history of American arts and entertainment, and after that see where the consensus on EOT is. Simply asserting (minstrel=racist) is naive and simplistic. So there, a defense of minstrel shows, but with a delineation between the shows and their content. People were assholes then, just as people are assholes today. If we start erasing every era of history because the assholes from a given era left big piles of shit all over the place for the rest of us to clean up, we will continuously seek to erase everything without cleaning up the piles of shit. I personally don't think EOT is a big pile of shit from the 1920s. I truly believe that in attending UT Austin there is a "it" to get. Not everyone gets "it." In my mind, the EOT tradition has been a reminder that the education I obtained has given me incredible opportunities in life. To me, the tradition says "the eyes of Texas" (past, present, and future) are watching to see what I do after leaving the 40 Acres. "The gift" of a UT education comes at a price, which is to both live a life and also give back in a way that extends the gift I was given down to the next select lucky few who get to attend UT. I participate in the tradition of EOT to express to those who worked to help me get "it" that I still appreciate and remember what I have been given. That, and to pass down to current and future generations the part of the "it" that asserts the way one repays others is to do great things with what has been passed down to them. Part of the "it" I was given is the belief integrity is how one acts when no one is watching. For some of us, "the eyes of Texas" are upon us, even when no one is watching. I sing for very personal reasons. Some people get 'it." Some people don't. "The Eyes of Texas" evidently means different things to different people. That is why I participate in the EOT tradition and will continue to for the foreseeable future. And I don't care if someone thinks that makes me a racist.

I'm guessing the Pentagon needed somewhere that if they accidentally shot down a plane it wouldn't be any great loss. Their first thought was College Station, Texas.

One is openly discussed, while the existence and history of the other is hidden from the public. There are not "museum relics." A museum relic would be something retained for educational purposes. Education cannot be where ignorance is perpetuated. Some of those exact robes were worn by alumni/faculty at the Klan rallies routinely announced and promoted during their home games. How can one say they exist to educate students when the history they evidenced is denied to ever have occurred? One cannot legitimately promote ignorance in the name of promoting higher education. Much of the systemic racial bias is rooted in our cultural norm of downplaying or ignoring the sins of the past while falsely glorifying the achievements. We fail to ensure our failures are remembered. We glorify false heroes. If our understanding the "racist" foundation of the UT school song is a matter of educating us better about the past, let that education begin. Until then, I am going to look at the facts as I know them and make up my own mind. And if anyone is offended, so be it. But those robes are not where they are as "educational reminders" of the virulent racist nature of that culture. Far from it. It remains an oddity that to some, the long-standing school song is "racist," while an alumni/faculty Klan robe collection is not considered out of place. Not even by those who see "racism" in the UT school song. The definition of "racist" is extremely ill-defined and very fluid. And to answer your question, we all individually decide what we fight to change and what we learn to live with.

Yep. It's also plagued by the divide between labor and capital, the systemic schism cause by The Reformation, and by systemic male gender domination. We blatantly discriminate against the disabled. Age bias is rampant. It's plagued by a lot. People in general are real shitheads, aren't they? Some things we fight to change. Others we learn to live with. It's called life. An amazing thing to me is that at UT, EOT is the subject of racial offense, while on the A&M campus, their alumni/faculty Klan robe collection doesn't rate a second thought. A striking cultural difference in what is and what isn't considered racist, even by the most strident activists on either campus. Just another example of how people can agree to disagree on the issue of racism and still coexist.

What I am saying is that the definition what what is and what isn't racially offensive is extremely fluid and rather poorly defined. There is a contradiction in the fact that the flag of the confederacy can be flown aside that of the state and the nation and evidently not be racially offensive, while a school song written in jest can be so racially offensive that it causes some to refuse to be associated with it. I remember being surprised the first time I saw the confederate flag flying on campus, but if other people are ok with it, so be it. I thought it cringy, but its presence didn't require me to appreciate it, show respect to it or alter my feelings. I had the option of not going to events where it was displayed, if I chose. The same is true for EOT. If the student musicians don't want to play the song, they can (and have chosen to) opt out. They don't have to appreciate EOT. They don't have to go to events where it will be played. They can live their convictions and, if the band can again be constituted with enough musicians who want to play the song, great. If not, great. But in the mean time, the band supporters need to sort this out among themselves and save the rest of us the hysterics. My not agreeing with anyone on whether the history of EOT makes it racist doesn't make me a racist. It doesn't indicate I think the outrage some may feel over the song is fake. It just means I have decided where I stand on the issue and I am comfortable with my decision. Someone else feeling comfortable with flying the confederate flag on campus doesn't necessarily make that person a racist. It just means we disagree on what is and what isn't "racist" and we can simply agree to disagree. I'm always open to reconsider my position on what is and what isn't racist, but the "EOT is racist" constituency hasn't delivered a very convincing reason for me to rethink where I stand on the issue. I just wish they would either play, or shut the band down until they resolve the issue over time. I really don't care either way, I just don't care to have yet another meaningless controversy going on when FAR more important issues to worry about than the band playing the school song or not.

It's not that people think racism is fake. It is that the definition of what is racist seems poorly defined and extremely fluid. For decades, the "six flags" of Texas were displayed on flagpoles in the south endzone. Even today I can't remember anyone ever claiming doing so was racist. So we can fly the flag of the Confederate States of America on campus and no one has a problem, but suddenly EOT is racist? People can find anything offensive if they try hard enough. The most sensitive individuals don't set the bar for the rest of society. Those finding offense in EOT are absolutely right to express their outrage and not participate in the LHB. Maybe the rest of us will come around to their way of seeing things. Until then, we do as we feel is reasonable and live with our decisions. But not agreeing on what is or isn't racist doesn't necessarily make one a racist, or give those offended to the right to assert ill-motives to the actions of others.

And while all the controversies get sorted out between the current band members, just shut down the band. It especially serves no purpose in the current pandemic environment. If, at some point in the future, the band can be reconstituted in a way people don’t find so controversial, great. If not, great. I appreciate the right of those offended by the school song to opt out. Because of the opt-outs, the band can’t perform as things stand. The current membership is too fractured. Just shut it down and try to reconstitute the band in the future with musicians who are not offended by playing the song. Save the rest of us all the hysterics. Recorded music will do just fine in the mean time.

Just shut the band down for a couple of years, sort out the controversies, and decide then whether it’s even worth continuing with a school band. A school band isn’t worth this much trouble and consternation.

I’d be ok with just getting rid of the band entirely. Maybe revisit the issue five or ten years down the road. Used canned music instead.

College football and the military have demographically similar interests. The flyovers are justified as recruiting activities. And they are quite effective, especially with blue collar and “yahoo redneck” populations.

Todd Archer’s column over on ESPN points out some brutal truths. The Cowboys have given up 84 points off of turnovers this season. Pittsburgh has given up 94 total points. “A once-feared offensive line that was the envy of the NFL was reduced to starting two undrafted rookies at tackle (Brandon Knight, 2019, Terence Steele, 2020), a rookie center (Tyler Biadasz), a second-year player (Connor McGovern) with two offensive snaps of experience prior to Monday and a third-year guard coming off knee surgery (Connor Williams).”

I’ve made to adjective status. I guess next is verb?

You seem to have a lot of your self-esteem dependent on college football. I think that may be clouding your judgment a bit. The people making the decisions probably look at things differently. Just saying. Oh, and Urban Meyer will never be on the payroll at UT Austin in any capacity. Ever. So don’t get your hopes up too high.