Hmmm. God is a lawyer. Would explain a lot.
Yeah, I’m hoping the University stays alive so it can keep collecting tuition for the founders to squander on home renovations and so the school can keep spreading hate and conservative claptrap.
But in this case, some of us hate the message to start with, and when it turns out the messengers are scumbags to boot, it earns a double helping of :rolleyes: :mad:.
I grew up in Tulsa, and it was well known (or at least commented on) that once Oral stepped down and Richard took over it was only a matter of time before the place went to, well, hell. Richard was known by many in the community as a worthless little shit long before he took over.
Should we combine this with the Anita Hill thread, since she went to ORU as a law prof for awhile?
My initial impression reading the OP was, “Eww…old lady groping students” (among other impressions anyway).
Turns out Linday Roberts is actually ok looking.
Aside from being a pervert on that count (and thinking being a student there as some unique perks) I got nothing for the OP except a sense of glee to see these people humbled.
It’s a phrase that just naturally seems to come to mind in this connection . . .
The link says her TV program focuses on the “needs of women”. It makes sense to me that one of their needs would be teenage boys. I feel my own youth was somewhat wasted, not having the opportunity to fulfill the needs of attractive middle-aged women.
There are plenty of other Christian and Christianist colleges and universities out there, so students would have plenty of choices if ORU didn’t reopen in the fall of 2008. (It will, unless there are revelations that dwarf what we’ve heard already. I expect it’ll just be a lot smaller and/or less selective, because fewer students will want to go there, and consequently less influential and visible in the future than it is now.)
Faculty? I’ve got no sympathy for people who decide it’s a reasonable decision to teach at a school whose founder, president, and all-around god-in-residence, in order to raise a few million bucks, does his best imitation of Cleavon Little, in Blazing Saddles, putting a gun to his own head and saying, “one false move and the nxxxxx gets it!”
Staff? I would feel sorry for them. Sometimes working at a place like ORU is the best job you can get to feed your family. But businesses close all the time, good ones and bad ones, for good and bad reasons. I’d like this to be a country with a better safety net, so that the loss of one’s job is less of a big deal. But the fact that it isn’t, yet, isn’t going to stop me from gloating when an Enron, a New Era, or an ORU falls apart. (And at the time, I was a professor at one of the schools affected by the collapse of New Era’s Ponzi scheme.)
Sorry, but I can’t help myself.
Sorry is a good word for it all right, but somehow I’m just not feeling that sweet apologetic vibe off you.
But you’ve certainly made your values clear.
For some of us, it’s enough to see a hypocritical asshole in the hot seat. For others, it’s just that much better when thousands of other people (some of whom had not one thing to do with the bad behavior) suffer too.
I hate to admit this, but I have no clue what you’re referring to with that reference to New Era’s Ponzi scheme. Can you point me to a quick rundown on it?
No. What’s true is true, any which way.
The message of Christianist institutions like ORU, that they inculcate into their students and other followers, is of course a perversion of Christianity that bears only the most coincidental resemblance to the message of Jesus in words and deeds as recorded in the Gospels.
As Jesus said, “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.” Keep that in mind if my mere gloating bothers you.
But let’s talk about your standard for “missteps and indiscretions,” just in terms of what level it takes, IYHO, to be worth harping on. On the right hand, as the American cultural and political spectrum goes, we’ve got the president of a Christian university that preaches a very conservative morality. He’s apparently got his hand in the till for millions, and his wife and fellow “Lifetime Spiritual Trustee,” is apparently having phone sex with underage boys, also on the university’s dime.
And on the left hand, we’ve got expensive haircuts. Oh.
The thing about hypocrisy, IMHO, isn’t so much that it proves the speaker wrong, but that (a) it proves that the speaker was bullshitting us, and (b) it makes the speaker ridiculous, if the hypocrisy is properly illuminated.
Now if it turns out that such hypocrisy is epidemic amongst the representatives of a particular POV, one might consider that the problem is in fact with the message as well as with those pushing it, due to the seeming nonrandomnesss of such instances.
Thanks. I’ll have to add this page to the New Era (disambiguation) page.
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It’s hard for me to feel too apologetic about something I don’t remotely expect to happen. Sorry if my “vibe” doesn’t meet your standards. (This time, my unapologetic vibe is quite real.)
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No, I don’t consider it “just that much better when thousands of other people (some of whom had not one thing to do with the bad behavior) suffer too.” I think it’s to your extreme discredit that you’re implying that would be so.
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What IS “just that much better” is when an institution that purveys hatred, duplicity, and narrowmindedness in God’s name loses scads of influence in this world, on top of having a hypocritical asshole on the hot seat.
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It would be nice if the collapse of an immoral enterprise could miraculously have no negative effects on the people who do the everyday chores at that enterprise that need to be done for any such concern. I would SO love to live in such a world.
Here in Maryland, the horseracing industry is gradually dying. I don’t have any problem with horseracing, or with betting on the ponies, which is the heart of the enterprise. And as it dies, a lot of perfectly decent people are going to lose their jobs. That’s unfortunate.
The last two governors of Maryland, of opposite parties FWIW, have both wanted to rescue the state’s horseracing industry by bringing slot machine venues to Maryland, and giving some of the profits to the racetracks. Despite the fact that it would save a lot of those jobs, I’m against it: I don’t see one good reason why, if we introduce slot gambling here, the racing industry should be a direct beneficiary.
It’s truly hardhearted of me, I know. But shit happens. Sorry.
I don’t know where all this newfound sanctimoniousness comes from. You, RTFirefly, are the one who said you’d be gloating over cases like Enron. I didn’t “imply” anything. You said it.
As you well know, there were people working at Enron who had nothing to do with the accounting fraud. These people were also not allowed to invest their retirement funds as they wanted; they were required to invest heavily in Enron. Their futures were therefore seriously compromised when that company failed. It doesn’t matter how delighted we might be to see the downfall of scumbags who perpetrated the fraud–it went a lot farther than that, and other people suffered. Some of us would consider that unfortunate. But you told me you gloat over it, just like you gloat that ORU could be “going down.” Excuse me, that’s “going DOWN!!” I left off some exclamation points!
How your statement becomes my “extreme discredit” is one of those fascinating BBQ Pit mysteries that keep us all comin’ back for more.
Spin it however you want, draw analogies to horseracing–I still think it’s a shitty sentiment, but naturally you’re welcome to it.
I sure did say that.
What I didn’t say, or even remotely imply, was that the accompanying suffering of others not involved in the crimes or offenses of Enron, etc. would make it “just that much better” as far as I was concerned.
That, I’m afraid, was your invention.
Let me add another example, this time from the opening pages of the biggest-selling fictional yarn of our time. Lord Voldemort is somehow defeated and rendered powerless, through the killing of James and Lily Potter, and the attempted murder of their son Harry. Almost immediately, the wizarding world bursts into peals of celebration. Are they celebrating the deaths of James and Lily Potter? Fuck, no. Do their deaths stop the surviving wizards from celebrating? Apparently not for a moment, judging by Rowling’s description.
So: are those fictional characters reprehensible scumbags? Your call.
I just said I’d be sorry about that aspect of it - just that it wouldn’t stop me from gloating over the fall of the big cheeses. I didn’t say I’d gloat over the suffering of the people who had nothing to do with the fraud, which again seems to be your implication.
If you aren’t convinced I said it then, I am saying it NOW.
I hope that settles that particular point.
Okay, it settles that point.
We’ll agree to disagree. I questioned why you couldn’t just be happy that Roberts and his power-abusing family members are getting egg all over their face, but rather also gloated over the possible demise of the institution. I appreciate your explanation, but I still think it’s less than kind. That’s my position.
I suppose the demise of ORU is a possible outcome, but I don’t consider it to be at all likely. Like I’ve said upthread, I expect ORU will wind up smaller and much less influential. That is what I’m gloating over.
I suppose the fact that I’m gloating over this, despite the near-certainty that it will surely cost some perfectly decent people their jobs, is less than kind. Then, by that standard, you may consider me less than kind.
Okay.