Witch Hunt? You Don't Say!

"It's not over," says Ward Churchill in reaction to the University of Colorado's decision to fire him. Which is to be expected; If this guy will stand by his "Eichmanns" remark to this day, then he certainly has the testicular fortitude to fight his dismissal.

(Oh, and that "Eichmanns" essay of his? I'll link it here but not without a warning: reading Churchill's writing feels like your brain is passing a stone.)

Churchill is also predictably convinced that his firing is an unjust product of a right-wing witch hunt headed by CU President and former Republican Senator Hank Brown. The statement for his appeal reads, “The university vowed to examine every word ever written or spoken by Professor Churchill in an effort to find some excuse for terminating his employment.”

Sure. And the point?

CU officially fired him for being a terrible academic. Was the school unjust in doing so? It doesn't look that way. Was the school selective in doing so?

It'd have to be.

If you took all the nation's university professors who were sloppy researchers and lined them end-to-end along the Equator, they'd eventually pile up. No college has the time nor the resources to investigate every professor who plagiarizes, mishandles sources, or makes up facts for academic work, let alone those who happen to have tenure.

CU's "decision" to oust Churchill was made since the Eichmanns incident; without it, there'd have been no exhaustive probings of his credentials or his claim to Native American heritage, for that matter. It is all quite a serious investment to justify the dismissal of a tenured professor, and few people are aware of precisely what the process involves.

I am among those few, as a matter of fact, and I shall relate these guidelines as best I can. In order to fire a professor who is tenured, you must first prepare all your evidence of said professor's wrongdoing, plus these additional resources:

a flashlight

a competant translator of Sanskrit

and a saddle.


The process (slightly abridged) is as follows:

First you must fax the State Governor a Declaration of Intent to Dismiss, along with a 125-page report summarizing your committee's charges and findings against the professor in question. If your report is found to be substantial, the governor will then sign the DID to approve of your claims, and within 6-8 business days you shall receive additional forms and packets from the governor's office requiring your review and signature. Fill out all four questionaires and you will be eligible for a drawing to win a free iPhone. You must then deliver the completed paperwork to the State Clerk's office (check with your state's capitol building for office location and operating hours), and after the forms are processed you will then be summoned to appear before the National Academic Review Board in Peoria, Illinois. After you present your case to the Board, its members can then vote to approve your motion, which requires at least a 7-4 majority vote. Upon approval, the Provost, who presides over this hearing, will instruct you to follow him/her into the rear chamber, where he/she will then grant you access to the National Academic Review Board Undercavern.

The Undercavern will be very dark, and a flashlight is highly recommended for reasons of safety, but they are no longer provided by the NARB; applicants are now expected to supply their own flashlights. The NARB Historian may answer most questions concerning the cavern and will also reveal the locations of several deadly traps for a consulting fee of $460. The Undercavern is in fact a subterranean labyrinth, and its shortest (although not safest) route is as follows: left, left, right, left, right, right, right, right, down, straight, left, down, down, left, right, straight, left, up, straight, left, left, down, right, straight, straight, back, down, right. After completing this sequence you should find a 200-foot waterfall. Go behind the waterfall to discover the hidden tunnel, and follow the tunnel for six additional miles until it comes to a dead end. Once there, look to the left-hand wall and you will find a highly detailed map chiseled into its granite surface. Make a rubbing of the map, which locates a rivermouth hidden in the Caucasus Mts. (book a flight to Tbilisi at your soonest convenience). This river, as denoted on the cave map, is where you are to find the white unicorn. But the unicorn will only appear and drink from the stream if a full moon is reflecting in its waters, so you must time this encounter accordingly. You are to sneak up on the unicorn, throw the saddle over it, and then ride it to the Palace of the Demi-Urge. The unicorn will know the way.

Once at your destination, you may make the humble request of the Demi-Urge (IMPORTANT: do not look directly at him) that he grant you the power to fire the tenured professor. If he weighs your soul and finds that you are descended from the Kroma B'lakti (and not the traitorous Kroma Vahnai), he should agree to do this. Take the scroll the Demi-Urge gives you and return to the Regents for a meeting. Written in the scroll is a mystical chant that is split into four tongues, and the most decipherable of these is believed to be Sanskrit. Have your translator teach the chant to you and all of the Regents because at the Night of The Sundering, as this meeting is traditionally called, the chant must be repeated by all Regents in attendance. Upon successful completion of The Sundering, you will have all broken the Spell of Tenure on the professor in question and may now vote to fire him for whatever reason you choose.

Needless to say, this is a very costly procedure for a university to undergo, but if you hate your tenured professor enough, it should be worth it. Ask CU President Hank Brown.

All Your Medal Are Belong to Us

60 Minutes recently aired a segment on a young man known in his business as "Fatal1ty". His business? Playing videogames.

Johnathan Wendell has earned checks as large as $150,000 for his tournament victories, and he continues to train for upcoming events by plugging away at his PC for at least eight hours every day. When he's not scoring prize money, he draws income from endorsement deals through various related computer companies. Johnathan has also been something of a prodigy in billiards and tennis, and he accredits his success in videogames to the same skill set of concentration and timing employed by those other pursuits.

The 60 Minutes segment exhibits Fatal1ty and other examples of how videogaming may become eerily recognizable as a competitive sport. Other highlights include a competing team of Counter Strike gamers, all lined up at their monitors, who have a man in a necktie pacing at their backs and barking commands. He's their coach.

Meanwhile in Asia, gaming is already a spectator sport -- an anthropological oddity worthy of National Geographic's attention. Question is, Where does it go from here?

Some enthusiasts elicit exasperated whispers of "Olympics".

Marksmanship is a Olympic sport, true, which these folks cite as justification for the inclusion of gaming. Now, shooting a rifle may not be a marathon run, but it does involves much more of one's body than just eyes and the muscles in one's hands. The image of a paunchy, beer-swilling hunter may come to mind, but what I said is still true.

Honestly now, videogaming's no more a legitimate candidate for... Olympicity... than chess, which has again been officially rejected for 2008 in Beijing, as were all other designated "mind sports".

And suppose my generation one day gets drunk on power and videogaming does get ushered in as an Olympic sport? Which game, precisely, will be the battleground? What genre, even? Personally, I'd lobby for Guitar Hero, but that's leaving out Fighting games (Soul Caliber, Smash Bros.), Sports games (Madden), Shooter games (Call of Duty, Halo), Racing games (Gran Turismo, Need For Speed), and Strategy games (Starcraft, Command and Conquer), to name a few that attract serious gamers to tournaments both locally and internationally.

Also, should gamers become Olympic athletes, they would then be subject to mandatory drug testing. Kiss that gold medal goodbye, KronikHustla420.

I like the idea of internationally competitive gaming, But "cyber athletes? In the Olympic Games?

It's a pipe dream. One gaping enough to fit an Italian plumber, in fact.

You're Not My Emperor -- I Didn't Vote For You

Yesterday, a 32-year-old man walked into the lobby of the governor's office wearing a tuxedo, waving a gun, and saying, "I am the emperor, and I'm here to take over the government."

His claim, of course, was unclear. He may have been the Emperor of Huerfano County, perhaps. If so, it's puzzling that he didn't wear the traditional sash. But he did have a gun, a demonstration of imperial entitlement that unfortunately gets you shot in certain contexts.

Three or four times and to death, as the case happened to be.

Crisis averted, yes? But now out come the political pit dogs to gnash their teeth over another gun control battleground. Most of the legislators, though, seem reluctant to make any hasty augmentations to security, seeing that it was an isolated incident. Also, security personnel successfully responded on the scene, so one might ask, What's the need for adjustment? After all, there's only one thing more infuriating than a weapons-restricted city building (Grrr! Grrrrr!), and that's a metal detector.

"It’s the people’s house," said Democratic State Rep. Randy Fischer, "and I hate to see the people excluded. (Metal detectors are) just another deterrent to people wanting to come in and see their government.”

Indeed. Heat-packing monarch notwithstanding.

I Have Become an Expert in: Competitive Eating

While I'm fanscinated with this phenomenon, two things irk me about it. One, the competitions (like Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest) strike me as grotesque pageants of gluttony that put hundreds of pounds of food where they don't need to go. I like to think that anybody out there who's truly hungry -- and I mean Hungry -- is spared the coverage of this "sport".

("You know what I'd like? One goddamn hot dog.")

But even if you feel a nagging wrongness while watching these eating contests, you still have to admit that the eaters themselves are a marvel in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not sort of way. They're the other thing, though, that makes this American pastime unsettling. How do they do it? Especially two of the smallest competitors, Takeru Kobayashi and Sonya Thomas, who were long ranked #1 and #2 worldwide? How does a 105-pound woman eat 44 Maine lobsters in a single sitting? String Theory?

A couple years ago, I watched a decent documentary on, of all things, MTV, as an episode of its True Life series ("I'm a Competitive Eater"). It featured Takeru during his "training", as he would grace a buffet with his presence and proceed to empty nearly a hundred plates of food and stack them high on his table. From what Takeru-san told the filmmakers, his capacity to stomach 50+ wieners, not to mention improve on his personal best each year, relies on his ability to...

1. Expand his stomach.

Takeru weight trains and exercises in order to reduce his body fat percentage to the single digits (something accomplished in spite of his... distinctive diet). He says that the decreased fat in his body helps his stomach balloon to championship proportions.

2. Pre-condense the food.

The key to this strategy, however, seems less clear. His success at packing masses of food into his belly owes much to the Kobayashi Wiggle and some other nuances, like his eating posture and the way he soaks the hot dog buns in water before stuffing them in. Sure, it all seems like minutiae once we get down to it -- 63 hot dogs relocated inside this small man's body -- but it all adds up. I mean, hell.

If Takeru has a "secret", it is this: a game of Tetris goes on inside that kid during competitions.

And hot dogs are all "long pieces," so imagine how much easier that makes things.

66 Hot Dogs: The Price of Immortality

Yesterday, a cornerstone of Independence Day celebration threatened to overshadow all other festivities as the titans of competitive eating converged on Coney Island to stuff their faces with wieners.

Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, a tradition of nearly a hundred years, is the Super Bowl of competitive eating. I myself could never aspire to enter this contest due to my allergies to pork, turkey, and chipmunk, but that doesn't embitter my appreciation for these gurgitating gladiators.

Consider Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi, the Tiger Woods of Major League Eating and six-time champion of the Nathan's event, who takes this profession as seriously as one can. His bun-dipping ingestion technique (the "Solomon" method), his crowd-pleasing digestive technique (The Kobayashi Wiggle), and his metabolism-boosting weight training are among his winning ways. When he talks eating, he talks strategy, dedication, and focus, establishing himself as the sport's driving force to worldwide awareness.

What seems to have people talking this year, however, is that an American has toppled the little giant. Joey "Jaws" Chestnut is our new Star Spangled Champ, scarfing a record total of 66 hot dogs to snag the Mustard Belt. 20,394 calories closer to death, Chestnut finally donned the prize around his temporarily bulging waist, but can he maintain an impressive Takeru-length tenure, himself, perhaps having to loosen the belt a couple notches over the next several years?

As for Takeru, the deposed emperor of Nathan's, he has now brought shame to his family, who will imprison him in a bamboo cage until he can reclaim his title in 2008.

This contest gets quite a lot of air-time on ESPN, which, like the National Spelling Bee, implies a curious association with the broader world of athletics. There's certainly more coverage this year than the last, perhaps going further to legitimize Major League Eating within mainstream America. Can a celebrity pro-am be far off? Would you then envision what I am envisioning -- a doubles BBQ Ribs showdown of ChipBurger Simpson and Shaquille O' Neal vs. Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas and Kate Moss?

Though it boasts several international stars, competitive eating is still perceived as an overwhelmingly American sport. It could certainly benefit from further global expansion, possibly staging eat-a-thons in venues as far-reaching as Somalia or North Korea. Think of the exposure! Indeed, promoting awareness of competitive eating in those areas would do wonders for the sport, as contest attendance should see a really nice boost.

Pwn Thugs in Harmony

Despite being an avid gamer myself, I find that certain aspects of the First-Person Shooter culture (e.g. Halo, Call of Duty, etc.) violently clash with my own sensibilities, like its wanton rampage on the English sentence. Still, curiosity overcame me this summer; I tried my hand at the multiplayer mode on one of the PS3's two or three good games, Resistance: Fall of Man.

Resistance has earned recent notoriety because The Church of England has actually demanded it be pulled off retail shelves. It cites one of the levels, in which you are to blast alien uglies in a realistic representation of Manchester Cathedral, as a "desecration of the Church" without Sony seeking any permission to portray the building in such a way.

(I should point out that the game carries additional insensitivities toward English culture, like referring to London's underground transit system as "The Subway").

Floored by Resistance's one-player mode, blasphemy or no, I thought I'd volunteer myself as a moving target for its thousands of practiced online warriors. I'll admit that there was something intimidating about the leap into such an ultra-competitive community. I mean, these are people who not only play video games, but who also struggle to prove something by them. I was inclined to do some homework, first.

Every online game has its own unwritten honor code, and to familiarize myself thus, I perused the enlightened discourses of Resistance's forums. It was all so I would not be recognized as a "rocket whore" or "tagtard", which, believe me, would not have been the first time.

In an FPS, you can never underestimate the importance of a cool profile name. Mine is Macdeth ("You Were Killed by Macdeth!" or, "You Killed Macdeth!") but to better fit in with the typical Resistance gamer, I'm considering a change to either Posthaste Killah or pimpNcircumstanz.

My experience so far is pretty superficial, especially since I'm not playing a mic headset to chat on, and therefore I'm deprived of communication with fellow players. That doesn't bother me. For the same reason it doesn't bother me that I can't hear other drivers on the highway. And even then, a great deal of those people are at least old enough to drive.

Like most good online shooters, Resistance has a Matchmaking function, which is to say that it makes some proclaimed effort of grouping you with competitors of equal skill. Let me just say that early on, its accuracy left much to be desired. It was a trifle disconcerting to be the lone "Private" competing against 35 "Four-Star Generals" and "Supreme Commanders" It was akin to hazing, but I was beginning to see the fun of this, especially should I figure out where the hell the grenades are on the maps.

Which helped. I started playing about five or six matches a night, eventually ranking in the middle of the pack or slightly higher each time. The other night I finally won a free-for-all of 11, and I punched the air like Tiger Woods winning his first Masters. It was time to re-evaluate. I had just referred to the bottom finishers as n00bs, and it was time to rethink this new obsession.

Experimentation

I'm not sure if I like having the music over there.

It isn't playing yet, unless you felt the urge. If you never do, no worries. I just used a site called Playlist Project, which has a decent search engine for songs and a hedonistic capacity of 75 songs per playlist. I'm sure there's better, but I wouldn't know, being a bit html-retarded and proud enough to be able to implement any music on my own to begin with.

I could have been much more shameless with the music, and you know it. Notice I didn't set the playlist to "Auto Start", and then hide the coveted Pause Button at the very bottom of the page, forcing visitors to slog through a cacophony of embedded YouTube videos while being sonically flagellated by T-Pain's "Buy U a Drank." That option's still on the table, though; we'll see who really wants to read my stuff.

Dicking with the playlist, I was visited by a familiar feeling, one I had in high school, when I would roll down the windows of my Cavalier and "share" my music with the community through 10" subs. I don't know whether I believed myself to be educating bystanders with the fine art of Chemical Brothers, or perhaps seeking to inspire admiration among like-minded musicphiles.

But one thing is for certain. It wasn't just so I could hear my music.

Whether people will admit it or not, posting music on personal web pages tends to be an exercise in self-indulgence. I realized this just after embedding the songs, and now I'm uncomfortably aware of their impracticality.

Honestly, why wouldn't you be listening to your own tunes as you read this? That's what you would ideally hear, right? Or do you actually seek to be "educated" with new music from somebody's page? Because there are really only two realistic uses of this whole profile soundtrack practice: if not to just to say "I dig this music and I think it goes well with this page," we also make the statement, "you need to hear this shit, bitches."

I think if any of my tracks over there gets both jobs done, it's Richard Cheese.