The Duke Lacrosse team opened the 2007 season yesterday, at home in Durham, to a near-record crowd of 6,485 fans. Before the game, Duke installed signs along the field fence bearing the inscription Succisa virescit, which was the motto of Reade Seligmann’s Morristown, New Jersey high school. It means cut it down, and it grows back greener.Malchow's love for accused rapists exceeds his love for Dartmouth. Mark it down.The gentlemen from Duke beat Dartmouth 17-11.
February 25, 2007
Malchow reaches a not-quite-record low
On the Duke-Dartmouth lacrosse match:
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Anyone else find the use of virescit odd. I mean, it means grow stronger, but etymologically, it comes from the word vir, i.e. grow manlier (same root as virile). Last thing those boys need is more testosterone I'd say.
ReplyDeleteSeal,
ReplyDeleteYou speak as thought you are a staunch supporter of Dartmouth Athletics... Secondly, you charectorize these Duke players as "rapists" yet it appears to all rational individuals that the case of the accuser has fallen to pieces and will be dropped in its entirety soon. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I guess that doesn't apply for "athletes" in your mind.
11:45, I'd say that the "accused" qualifier makes a lot of difference. Also, "innocent until proven guilty" refers to the criminal justice system. No one is arguing that the Duke lacrosse players should be locked up even though no one's proven that they raped someone. People form opinions all of the time without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and it's quite possible that the lacrosse players actually raped a stripper, and are being treated as heroes in some way because she isn't right in the head and isn't a very good witness.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it's also quite possible that they were falsely accused of rape and that the whole team suffered wrongly for it. Regardless of the fact that they're not saints, I don't really fault Joe for being glad to see them bounce back.
1145: I don't speak as if I've ever supported Dartmouth athletics--I'm speaking as an observer of the fact that Joe has placed a higher priority on celebrating the Duke dicks than on rooting for Dartmouth athletics.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I did say "accused." That they have been accused of rape is a matter of factual record.
Just because you are factually correct in calling them "accused rapists" doesn't make you less of a jackass for saying it...given the evidence out there and the utter misconduct of Nifong, they are almost certainly completely innocent of any rape, not only because the accuser changes her story every 5 seconds but also due to the complete lack of physical proof.
ReplyDeleteCourse I'm not surprised that you (Seal) would lump yourself with the faculty that threw their students under the bus simply because they were athletes.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22635
ReplyDeleteThis is a decent article on the Duke situation, and it's pretty short.
I usually despise Malchow's writing, but I'm with him on this one. As far as I can tell, the worst thing the lacrosse players did was have a party with strippers. They've all suffered more than they deserved for it, and it's not such a bad sentiment to be happy that they're playing lacrosse again.
Yes, the 3 people at the center of the case are "accused" rapists, just as David Letterman is an "accused" mind-controlling sadist who tormented a woman in Santa Fe NM for 10 years by sending her code words through his program.
Maybe these guys are scumbags anyway, but the only evidence of that thus far is that a stripper they hired accused them of raping her. As the article notes, however, 1996 she accused three other men of gang rape but did not pursue charges; in 1998, she told police that her ex-husband had tried to kill her; in 2002, she stole a taxicab and tried to run over a police officer after a high-speed chase; and this year, she told her father that the Duke rapists had used a broom, contradicting her story to police that they had used penises.
In addition to that, if there was any truth to the story, you'd think one of the other 40 lacrosse players would have spoken up. Some of them offered to take polygraph tests and were turned down.
It's not the same thing as cheering for Columbine High School's sports team, but after what the Duke lacrosse team has been through in the past year, it's not at all unseemly for Joe to wish them well.
Besides, what's so important about Dartmouth lacrosse anyway?
Nathan, you're missing the point--I'm not arguing that the lacrosse players are guilty. In fact, I've never argued that, even when it first came out (http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/items.html). What I am saying is that I don't see any reason for Joe to celebrate them as such indomitable heroes and cheer when they beat his alma mater. I don't really care about Dartmouth athletics, but I wouldn't cheer another team beating us. I might laugh at certain teams' ineptitude (hi football!), but I would never actually cheer on an opposing team.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/report_almost_nobody_raped
ReplyDeleteAndrew: Sorry I am late to this discussion. The Duke lacrosse players are in fact NOT "accused rapists". If you label them as rapists, then you also need describe what these "rapists" are accused of! Are they repetitive rapists accused of a new rape? Are they rapists accused of bank robbery? If you wanted to make your point without the innuendo, a bit off the mark considering the developments in the case, you could have termed them "lacrosse players accused of rape".
ReplyDeleteYou and Malchow are both decent writers. And at times you both use your abilities to play clever games.