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Protecting the "Duke Brand"; Part of a paper I am writing
Topic Started: Jan 15 2009, 07:21 PM (2,255 Views)
Payback
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abb
Jan 25 2009, 01:03 PM
darby
Jan 25 2009, 12:53 PM
It's sometimes hard to remember that the internet "rarely" forgets...

It is my considered opinion that this will be as significant a development as any other with the ascension of the web as an information distribution system. Networked computers have unrivaled archiving power that transcends any law library or newspaper morgue ever in history. We prove it here every day.
abb, bravo! And the Internet is rapidly becoming a place where you can do some limited sorts of historical research. You can't look at many manuscript archives yet, even if you have free access through a research library, but year by year the possibilities for research are multiplying. Every week, for instance, more and more rare 19th century books are right there on Google Books, available in full, and often downloadable by pdf. I learn that Melville read Lester's translation of Alfieri's autobiography? Download the thing! Print it and read it at leisure. There were 50 or so NYC newspapers at a time, in the mid 19th century heyday. Only a very very few are on line in searchable texts. Now a new very expensive site may make a couple of NYC papers available to big libraries that subscribe to the site, a couple of Boston papers, a New Orleans paper, and also papers from towns in a couple of dozen other states. The great thing is that the regional papers regularly (in pre syndication times) will quote from several different NYC and Boston papers, not just the two available on the site. You can find information now in a moment that you would never find in a lifetime of searching, even purposeful searching. Not information that is in handwritten letters still in the archives, no, but anything that was ever printed in a paper just may jump up now and dazzle you.

And for our purposes look at how maggief or you, abb, or Quasi or Baldo can muster documents. Google doesn't pick up internal Liestoppers documents, does it? But anything Bill Anderson quotes gets out there. Anything Mike Gaynor quotes or alludes to gets out there.

P.S. Now Google does pick up some (or all?) zetaboard comments. Go to
Brodhead "malicious ignorance" and get Baldo's current thread on Payback's past. Wowzy indeed.
The tcv main site is going away. Now you don't get what you want when you click on a title of a piece on Brodhead, but pieces I printed on Bordhead there are still "cached," and available, for now. I like the idea of instant access to the zetaboard by Google, if that is what is going on.
Edited by Payback, Jan 25 2009, 02:55 PM.
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Baldo
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Creating "Reality" is a Public Relation problem, something propagandists have known for a long time. Brodhead seemed to be handling this as a PR problem and as Bill labeled the thread , Protecting the "Duke Brand." Even so he did a horrible job because handling matters of justice as a PR problem can get you into trouble when an adjudication is finally made. It sure did as they were innocent!

Clearly the DPD & Nifong set sail on this course and they were joined by DUMC & Duke's Administration. they were all using this as PR and never as a search for truth. From the false statements of Addison and the DPD, the DNA tests, the line-ups, and the many statements of Nifong all it was PR. The Mayor, City Manger, City Council, and of course the NAACP all were not on the course of truth.

I particularly blame Burness as VP of Campus Commincations. From his very first statement he was hedging his bets. In the final analysis he bet on the wrong horse and got burned pretty badly.

From Moneta on, most of the Duke Administration senior Management mishandled this and now complain it was an unfair situation to be in.

This whole affair for Duke could have been handled many many times over. I still believe Duke University BOT made a mistake in not settling all of the lawsuits and jettisoning Brodhead, Steel, Burness(now retired), and Moneta. Now they have "Branded" themselves with Nifong, Gottlieb, Himan, Meehan, Levicy, and the DPD.

How many millions have they spent to protect Brodhead, Steel, et al?

That's the really stupid move after their failure of March 2006 to April 2007.

If it's called protecting the Duke Brand they flunked the course
Edited by Baldo, Jan 25 2009, 04:21 PM.
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Joan Foster
Jan 16 2009, 08:41 AM
"Political correctness is the way one acts to be part of a group. Independent thought is frowned on."

Good post, Chatham. Most Duke faculty would sneer at evangelical Christians and what they see as their rigidity and mindless adherence to the faith. They no doubt feel "superior."...more "evolved" than these Christians. Their writings often reject Evangelicals supposed "judgemental" nature" and what they see as intolerance to anyone who does not share the faith...not to mention their imposition of their beliefs on others. (so they seem to think)

Now pretend the PC tenets were "religion" and golly, gee, what do we see? Professional "mote-removers" could be a growing industry.

One of the reasons the Duke Frame has to relegated to the ashbin of history...is that it shows the PC zealots acting with the same religious fervor that they despise in Christians. (but excuse in Muslims) What matters the creed..if the end result is to reject fact over whatever "faith." and try to "impose" the same on others?

From the Feminist zealot-nurse who saw "blunt-force trauma" where others might see stigmata...to the Durham racists who would not allow facts to interfere with their fervent holy mission to get three white Lacrosse players to trial....to the disgustingly craven Brodhead who could not meet the families for fear a word of comfort or reason might displease his "Gods."...to the silent fearful faculty watching their Zealot counterparts bray across the media .... they are as rigid and mindless, and intolerant and suspicious of each other...as Spanish courtiers in the shadow of Ferdinand and Isabella's tribunals.

Someday, I'd like one of the 88 to explain how PC zealots differ from the evangelical zealots they purport to despise for the same actions and qualities.

Bill, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.

(Off-topic) I'm giving a program for a Club I belong to this May. The President's wife of a University close by...and a few other University wives belong. I have heard them say that they feared Sarah Palin as VP simply because of her evangelical faith. I intend to use the above as the premise for my program. I am SO looking forward to it.

:hd: :hd: :hd:
When the time is appropriate, could you please share with us your comments to the referenced group. It would be helpful to all of us to counter the attacks of the far left on issues relating to gender, class, sex, etc. Perhaps you could start a thread on "The Counter Attack" so that we can see your approach.
Frankly, I have to admit that I see some flaws in Palin as a national candidate (not as a person) which I am inclined to be honest about with my opponents. However, when I see the moaning that has gone on about the treatment of Caroline Kennedy the past few days, I have to ask myself just how dishonest can the left be without suspecting that the rest of us are finally catching on.
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Joan Foster

Truth Detector
Jan 26 2009, 07:12 PM
Joan Foster
Jan 16 2009, 08:41 AM
"Political correctness is the way one acts to be part of a group. Independent thought is frowned on."

Good post, Chatham. Most Duke faculty would sneer at evangelical Christians and what they see as their rigidity and mindless adherence to the faith. They no doubt feel "superior."...more "evolved" than these Christians. Their writings often reject Evangelicals supposed "judgemental" nature" and what they see as intolerance to anyone who does not share the faith...not to mention their imposition of their beliefs on others. (so they seem to think)

Now pretend the PC tenets were "religion" and golly, gee, what do we see? Professional "mote-removers" could be a growing industry.

One of the reasons the Duke Frame has to relegated to the ashbin of history...is that it shows the PC zealots acting with the same religious fervor that they despise in Christians. (but excuse in Muslims) What matters the creed..if the end result is to reject fact over whatever "faith." and try to "impose" the same on others?

From the Feminist zealot-nurse who saw "blunt-force trauma" where others might see stigmata...to the Durham racists who would not allow facts to interfere with their fervent holy mission to get three white Lacrosse players to trial....to the disgustingly craven Brodhead who could not meet the families for fear a word of comfort or reason might displease his "Gods."...to the silent fearful faculty watching their Zealot counterparts bray across the media .... they are as rigid and mindless, and intolerant and suspicious of each other...as Spanish courtiers in the shadow of Ferdinand and Isabella's tribunals.

Someday, I'd like one of the 88 to explain how PC zealots differ from the evangelical zealots they purport to despise for the same actions and qualities.

Bill, I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.

(Off-topic) I'm giving a program for a Club I belong to this May. The President's wife of a University close by...and a few other University wives belong. I have heard them say that they feared Sarah Palin as VP simply because of her evangelical faith. I intend to use the above as the premise for my program. I am SO looking forward to it.

:hd: :hd: :hd:
When the time is appropriate, could you please share with us your comments to the referenced group. It would be helpful to all of us to counter the attacks of the far left on issues relating to gender, class, sex, etc. Perhaps you could start a thread on "The Counter Attack" so that we can see your approach.
Frankly, I have to admit that I see some flaws in Palin as a national candidate (not as a person) which I am inclined to be honest about with my opponents. However, when I see the moaning that has gone on about the treatment of Caroline Kennedy the past few days, I have to ask myself just how dishonest can the left be without suspecting that the rest of us are finally catching on.
I'd be happy to, Truth.
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MikeZPU

darby
Jan 25 2009, 12:53 PM
It is my not so nuanced opinion that Brodhead's actions are driven by forces so overwhelming that they actually supercede his own logical knowledge of truth. A very, very troubling, although not unprecedented condemnation of one in such a high position of influence.

I think you are exactly right.

As the players said often, the allegations were transparently false.
They were OBVIOUSLY false.

The SBI report indicated that there was no semen. no pubic hairs, that
there was nothing indicating a rape, that there was no forensic tie between any
LAX player and any item in the rape kit. Then, even more sensitive testing done
by DNASI showed no DNA match to the two players that Nifong had already indicted.
At that point, a person with any amount of intelligence should have realized
that something was VERY amiss.

BUT some of those forces include fear. Mayor Bell was publicly calling for
the cancellation of the LAX season AND Brodhead did not have the courage
to graciously ask him in private to please wait for the DNA results. Heck, he didn't
even have the courage to tell his own faculty not to encourage a mob lynching.

The only actions Brodhead took were against the most powerless people
in the case, the students. He took the easiest road, the cowardly way.
BUT it was only an easy road in the short term ...

The best thing I can say about Brodhead is that he was so afraid of
being accused of interfering in the case, that he caved into the demands of the lynch mobs.

BUT I think the facts (which don't change with time) reveal that it was much
worse than that, as bad as that was in and of itself.
Edited by MikeZPU, Jan 26 2009, 10:47 PM.
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duke09parent

I look forward to reading you conclusions Bill. I am also interested in anything you might find out about what the crisis management professionals think about Brodhead's handling of the affair. I wonder if there is any consensus among them. Their focus would be on the institution, too, and not the rights of its members, in this case the students.

I gave Payback a lot of grief about his relentless pursuit of Brodhead (kind of a Capt. Ahab pursuing Moby Dolphin--I certainly wouldn't elevate DB to the status of a great while whale even for analogy's sake) but he's right to remind us of DB's prior experience in the Van De Velde affair. Clearly DB thought that was the right way for a university to handle a scandal of serious criminal allegations. It seems appalling to us but DB carried that model forward with him to the Lax Hoax.

Also, DB had (probably still does) a blind spot on major college athletes simply from his unfamiliarity with and therefore scant trust of them. It seems he carried with him an image that young men of high character are rare among male college athletes. Even though the captains seemed believable when they denied the charges, DB was clearly accepted at face value the allegations made in the 911 call and the gross imagery of McFadyen's email which undercut any trust he had in them.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
Even though the captains seemed believable when they denied the charges, DB was clearly accepted at face value the allegations made in the 911 call and the gross imagery of McFadyen's email which undercut any trust he had in them
.

One phone call would have cleared up the imagery and shown it was a spoof--and of a Duke-assigned text, at that.

A cautious and careful leader would have first checked out the news reports before acting.

And the 911 call must have raised serious questions--if a rape had taken place, why were the dancers calling to complain about being called names? Why didn't they mention the rape?

Again, a cautious and careful man would have checked out the facts before rushing to condemn (IMHO).
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MikeZPU

Quasimodo
Jan 28 2009, 06:11 PM
And the 911 call must have raised serious questions--if a rape had taken place, why were the dancers calling to complain about being called names? Why didn't they mention the rape?
That is a REALLY good point! I didn't realize before BUT that must be
why the DPD would not reveal that Kim made the 911 call. BECAUSE
it made no sense that they would call the police about a racial slur
and YET not report that one of them had been gang raped?

I have to sheepishly admit that I never really understood why the
DPD kept hiding the fact that Kim made the 911 call (I feel pretty stupid now :) )

Once it was revealed that Kim made the call -- just think about it:
This man is the president of a major university, a world renown research
institution, and it does not dawn on him that the it made no sense that they
would call the police about a racial slur and YET not report that one of them
had been gang raped?

And the media didn't pick up on this either?
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Bill Anderson
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MikeZPU
Jan 28 2009, 07:09 PM
Quasimodo
Jan 28 2009, 06:11 PM
And the 911 call must have raised serious questions--if a rape had taken place, why were the dancers calling to complain about being called names? Why didn't they mention the rape?
That is a REALLY good point! I didn't realize before BUT that must be
why the DPD would not reveal that Kim made the 911 call. BECAUSE
it made no sense that they would call the police about a racial slur
and YET not report that one of them had been gang raped?

I have to sheepishly admit that I never really understood why the
DPD kept hiding the fact that Kim made the 911 call (I feel pretty stupid now :) )

Once it was revealed that Kim made the call -- just think about it:
This man is the president of a major university, a world renown research
institution, and it does not dawn on him that the it made no sense that they
would call the police about a racial slur and YET not report that one of them
had been gang raped?

And the media didn't pick up on this either?
And that precisely is why Kammie Michael and the police lied about the call. They knew that if they could make this look like separate incidents, then (1) the players would look to be even more guilty and (2) people would not add 2 + 2 as we are doing now.

Don't think for a second that these people believed there was a rape. They were enjoying the heck out of themselves. Hey! We get to lie! Isn't it fun being a police officer? You can lie under oath and not get in trouble!

:bill:
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MikeZPU

Bill Anderson
Jan 28 2009, 07:22 PM
MikeZPU
Jan 28 2009, 07:09 PM
Quasimodo
Jan 28 2009, 06:11 PM
And the 911 call must have raised serious questions--if a rape had taken place, why were the dancers calling to complain about being called names? Why didn't they mention the rape?
That is a REALLY good point! I didn't realize before BUT that must be
why the DPD would not reveal that Kim made the 911 call. BECAUSE
it made no sense that they would call the police about a racial slur
and YET not report that one of them had been gang raped?

I have to sheepishly admit that I never really understood why the
DPD kept hiding the fact that Kim made the 911 call (I feel pretty stupid now :) )

Once it was revealed that Kim made the call -- just think about it:
This man is the president of a major university, a world renown research
institution, and it does not dawn on him that the it made no sense that they
would call the police about a racial slur and YET not report that one of them
had been gang raped?

And the media didn't pick up on this either?
And that precisely is why Kammie Michael and the police lied about the call. They knew that if they could make this look like separate incidents, then (1) the players would look to be even more guilty and (2) people would not add 2 + 2 as we are doing now.

Don't think for a second that these people believed there was a rape. They were enjoying the heck out of themselves. Hey! We get to lie! Isn't it fun being a police officer? You can lie under oath and not get in trouble!

:bill:
Prof. Anderson: it is sad to say, but you are exactly right.

As I mentioned previously, and still plan to write up in detail,
I recently fought a traffic ticket and the ticketing officer lied
repeatedly under oath, and he also made things up, mostly
at the behest of the prosecutor.

It's a really sad state of affairs.


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jewelcove

Perhaps DB was remembering that Larry Summers had been forced to resign as the President of Harvard University when he uttered statements that his faculty found to be objectionable because they were quite politically incorrect. Did DB fear that going againt a rampaging mob of politically correct faculty and their roused students might shorten his tenure at Duke? I hope that was not the reason. A job versus 3 promising young lives seems like a poor trade.
(Notice that Larry Summers currently has had positive press and is involved in trying to help the economy. IOW his un PC episode at Harvard did not leave him with a lasting taint as he's doing fine now.)
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nyesq83
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Waaaay off topic:
About the Duke Brand: Peter Wood appears in a Winslow Homer documentary. He discusses a painting with a black woman as the center focus; they don't show the whole painting, only close-ups.

About The Truth: In the new series "Lie to Me", an alleged military rape victim says:
"The truth is not good enough for them"
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nyesq83
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Lots of Peter Wood on Winslow Homer's art concerning race during the Civil War and reconstruction.
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MikeZPU

Quasimodo
Jan 28 2009, 06:11 PM
Quote:
 
Even though the captains seemed believable when they denied the charges, DB was clearly accepted at face value the allegations made in the 911 call and the gross imagery of McFadyen's email which undercut any trust he had in them
.

One phone call would have cleared up the imagery and shown it was a spoof--and of a Duke-assigned text, at that.

A cautious and careful leader would have first checked out the news reports before acting.

And the 911 call must have raised serious questions--if a rape had taken place, why were the dancers calling to complain about being called names? Why didn't they mention the rape?

Again, a cautious and careful man would have checked out the facts before rushing to condemn (IMHO).
At the very least, a true leader would wait to question McFayden about his email
before taking dramatic punitive actions. What was the rush? Tracking McFayden
down wasn't going to take days, most likely less than 24 hours.

What was the rush? OH, protecting the Duke brand -- the media were going
to run with the story. They had to take decisive action to protect the Duke brand.
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