Updated - today's items:
"Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.” — Stanley Baldwin LS forum: L&G
--------
Friends of Duke University:FODU Announcement -- Dear Friends,
Friends of Duke Lacrosse (our original group) was launched on May 5, 2006 at a time when there was practically nobody willing to say or write a single positive word about the former Duke Lacrosse defendants. Our group was formed to provide support to the defendants and their families and to fight for due process. We believed from the beginning that Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were innocent until proven guilty.
Over the last 11 months, many friends (you) joined us and fought along with us in demanding due process and justice. As a discussion group, we discussed numerous topics, we shared information and ideas, we educated one another, we had arguments over topics and we constantly worried about the former defendants’ welfare and fait. Since last May we went through a great deal together, and as a group, we got transformed substantially. We even moved boards several times. However, one thing remained constant with us. We believed that Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann were innocent and that one day they would be cleared of these false accusations. I am glad today to be able to say that our mission is accomplished. The truth has been revealed. Dave, Collin and Reade have been declared innocent, and justice has been served...
-------
Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days blog:Crazy Campuses -- Why won’t the Duke president or the culpable faculty apologize?
Because deeply entrenched among the Left is a notion of moral justice that transcends the law and is now to be adjudicated by elites versed in race/class/gender theories. In this way of thinking the “rape” is just a matter of semantics, the law an obstruction to the larger question still unresolved: a poor black woman performed sexually for white rich males.
De facto this is an indictment of our entire male-dominated capitalist system that put the poor, the female, the person of color in bondage to the white, male and wealthy.
In that prism, technicalities of law don’t matter and surely don’t address these larger pathologies so endemic in the United States, against which the university nearly alone exists to combat. That the “victim” lied under oath, ruined the reputations of innocents, was on drugs, was engaged in promiscuous sexual activity, and had a criminal record is simply proof of her victim status. This notion of a higher law unto themselves is used frequently by Left and Right, it is true, but never in such an injurious or hypocritical fashion as by the academic Left that on campuses has developed a real contempt for our laws of free speech and due process—again, seen as impediments to their version of heaven on earth.------
Duke Chronicle:Buy the N&O instead -- Duke students deserve better breakfast reading, and instead of using student fees to purchase one of the Triangle's worst [Herald-Sun], DSG should subscribe to one of the region's finest.
discussion:
John in Carolina:
Response to Chronicle 4/20 editorial -- I agree with your assessment of the Durham H-S. It's a terrible newspaper. But why do you urge people to buy the Raleigh N&O? ... What do The Chronicle editors think of the N&O’s thirteen month long cover-up?
The Chronicle urges people to buy the N&O? Why?
-------
60 Minutes/Yahoo News:Innocent [++ video]-- The case against the three accused Duke University lacrosse players ended almost as dramatically as it began, as North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared them "innocent." Cooper was especially critical of D.A. Mike Nifong, calling him a "rogue" prosecutor. Lesley Stahl speaks with A.G. Cooper and has exclusive interviews with Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans.
discussion:
KC Johnson: 60 Minutes Outtakes -- some excellent outtakes
-------
Duke ChronicleYoung stars emerge for hot Blue Devils -- Taped up all around the Duke locker room, self-made flyers remind the Blue Devils what they have been through and what they need to do to succeed in the future.
"One Heartbeat, One Brain!"
On the eve of their penultimate regular season game against No. 19 Army (6-5) in Koskinen Stadium Saturday at noon, No. 3 Duke (10-2) will continue to play the only way they know how-together.
-------
Duke Basketball Report:Latest On Lax -- Two more calls for apologies to the three innocent lacrosse players who had their lives turned upside down by baseless charges: Mike King of the Atlanta paper, and his colleague Angela Tuck both call for apologies from the media, and, in the case of King, from members of Duke’s faculty, who, he says, rushed to judgement.
Tuck, public editor of the Journal-Constitution, also says that the media rushed and that they owe the lacrosse players “[p]rominent coverage of their innocence and serious questions to authorities about how this case was mishandled.”
However, not everyone is on the same page here.
Brian Estabrook, of Columbus, Ohio, thinks that Reade Seligmann, Colin Finnerty, and David Evans owe Crystal Mangum an apology. Arguing that “[e]ven if these young men did not rape this young woman, they still acted in a racist, misogynist manner that should not be condoned in any society. It is disheartening to think that these young men are owed an apology.related:
Angela Tuck, editor, Atlanta Journa-Constitution:
Now, media owe Duke players due coverage of innocence (sub. required) -- For whatever reason, their accuser apparently falsified the report about what happened at a March 13, 2006, team party where she was hired to perform. Her accounts have been costly for the accused, who may never live down the charge of rape. What do members of the media now owe these young men? Prominent coverage of their innocence and serious questions to authorities about how this case was mishandled.-------Mike King, Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Apologies, please, to the Duke players -- To the Duke faculty, the lacrosse players were writing the latest chapter of the master Southern narrative of rich, white folks exploiting poor blacks. Houston Baker, a "distinguished" professor of English at Duke, characterized the players as being "safe under the cover of silent whiteness." He said the university had given them "license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech and feel proud of themselves in the bargain." And then there's us — the media, the prime purveyors of the master narrative of race, class and society. So irresistible was this time-tested Southern narrative that it eclipsed, for months, the mounting evidence of rank prosecutorial misconduct, which turned out to be the real story. Going there would force us to re-examine how often race infects and discolors our examinations of crime and justice in the South.
Brian Estabrook, letter to Columbus-Dispatch:
Duke lacrosse players owe woman apology -- Even if these young men did not rape this young woman, they still acted in a racist, misogynist manner that should not be condoned in any society. It is disheartening to think that these young men are owed an apology.
-------
Forum topic(s) of note:LS: Tara Levicy, Dr. Manly and the non victim... [thread still perking]
LS: Blog and Media Roundup Thread, Friday 04/20/07
TalkLeft: CHARGES DROPPED IN DUKE ASSAULT CASE... - Cash Michaels
-------
Elliott West, Raleigh Chronicle News:Bennett President Scolds Duke Players -- Despite statements from NC Attorney General Roy Cooper last week that the three former Duke lacrosse players were "innocent" of all charges in the case, a North Carolina college president stated on the radio yesterday that she felt the three men "do not deserve an apology."
Eleven minutes into a segment on National Public Radio (NPR), incoming Bennett College President Dr. Julianne Malveaux made it clear that despite the legal decisions in the case, in her mind the three men and the lacrosse team were still "hooligans."
Bennett College is a historically black women's college located in downtown Greensboro that has been educating women since 1926. The outspoken and often controversial Malveaux was chosen to replace the very popular Dr. Johnnetta Cole.
"Those kids don't deserve an apology," Dr. Malveaux said on the radio show. "As you said correctly, they hired strippers, exotic dancers to come and perform for them."....
--------
Sarah Ovaska, News & Observer:Ex-officer found guilty in affray -- The former Durham policeman is adjudged to have kicked a restaurant cook in a parking lot. Another ex-officer is cleared
--------
KC Johnson:Week in Review -- Duke Chronicle, 'Dowd rule,' Thomas Sowell, Bernie Reeves of Raleigh’s Metro Magazine, Chronicle columnist Emily Thomey, The Republican, David Freedman, and protesters.
--------
The Republican (Springfield, MA):Duke lacrosse players caught in perfect storm -- The three student-athletes - David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty - have not received a public apology from Duke's "Group of 88." That's the coalition of arts and science faculty members who signed a full-page ad in the university newspaper commending a student demonstration that featured a wanted poster of the lacrosse team.
The three student-athletes - now former student-athletes - did not receive public apologies from the Rev. Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Al Sharpton, who appointed themselves prosecutor, judge and jury.
And they did not receive a public apology from those people in the media who joined the stampede in the rush to condemn...
