Lots of paper-shuffling procrastination disgused as work in the form of a file reorganization extravaganza. I'm listening to the podcast, people keep stopping by to tell me how productive I look, and I get to make a nifty spreadsheet.
I liked it. It seemed...I don't know, a little less performative than the standard broadcast? I'm a curmudgeon and kind of hate human interest stories, so just having that aspect minimized was a huge plus for me.
Not sure if this would be helpful to anyone, but I'll be driving to the game tomorrow from near downtown Dallas. Could probably squeeze in two more people if anyone has tickets and needs to conserve gas.
Yirong Bi, who joined the team in January or February, is also from China, and M likely would not have won the B1G without her contributions. There've been fast swimmers out of China -- particularly women's swimmers -- for 20-ish years now, but they traditionally haven't gone to American universities. It looks like that's starting to change.
It's harder to recruit Chinese divers, because there's a tradition of diving excellence there. There are probably fewer divers than swimmers who would see a transition to an American coach as an upgrade.
Wolverine in Iowa's assessment of this is accurate -- we don't have the star power (yet.) A lot of this has to do with depth. Relay victories are worth twice as much as individual victories, for example, and our relays are not quite fast enough to make the "A" finals.
I do think that this situation will improve as recruits begin to see how well swimmers are developing at M.
1814! However, as long as "an inability to adjust to forechecking" = "unabated whomping on upper Canada" -- and I think historians would agree that it does -- this is a viable claim.
Ha! I just had this exact conversation on the phone with my parents, both of whom spent some time at Wisconsin. My mom: "Well, winter is long in Madison..."
This is fairly common in swimming -- I can think of quite a few strong programs where the men's and women's teams share a head coach. (E.g., Dave Salo at USC, Jack Bauerle at Georgia, the guy at Auburn whose name I can't remember and am too lazy to look up.)
And the sprints have gotten SO much faster over the past few years, for both men and women. I broke 24 seconds in the 50 a few times, which was respectable at the college level 15-ish years ago. (I'm female.) Now I'd be getting blown out of the water by practically every sprinter in D-I.
Both teams have entries in the relay; Indiana is seeded first and M is seeded fourth*. I believe we'll also score some points from the consolation final of the platform diving.
*Seed times generally are a bit less accurate/matter less in relays than in individual events. Coaches play around with relay lineups a lot, and the best possible relay combination might not have swum together all that many times during the season.
I'm so relieved that none of my students appear to have norovirus that I didn't even bother to yell at them for having entirely neglected the assigned reading.
(I don't teach at M, but reading about the recent outbreak has stoked all of my latent fears about the 75 dorm-dwelling germ vectors I interact with three times a week.)
"You, the viewer, thought you were turning on the TV to watch a basketball game. Little did you know that you were watching a meta-demonstration of what 'ESPN was built on'!"
I'm a little relieved to see that this is universal -- I was afraid ESPN had developed an evil master plan to use this camera angle for SlingTV until we all became so seasick that we'd renounce our cord-cutting ways.
The BBC's "In Our Time." Each week's episode covers a different topic, and the host brings three experts on for the discussion. Recent episodes have included Eleanor of Aquitane, chromatography, Rumi's poetry, and circadian rhythms. (They seem to roughly alternate between science-y topics and humanities-ish topics.)
The team's national ranking has more to do with the times individuals/relays have posted than their dual meet record. Technically, it would be possible to have an excellent regular season record (especially in a conference like the B1G where there are some not-stellar teams) and still have relatively few swimmers who would score in the top 8 at NCAAs.
Edit to add: The power rankings at SwimSwam have M at 3rd and provide some context for that assessment.
Also, since I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere, the women's team was 3rd at B1Gs last weekend. They have several strong underclassmen and should be in the running for the title next year.
When I was in law school, one of my friends sliced her foot open pretty badly at Rick's. We thought she probably needed stitches, so took her to the ER. When she told the resident on duty what had happened, he recoiled with visceral disgust and basically suggested that there were probably not enough tetanus shots in the world to counteract what one might contract from the floor of Rick's.
Yeah, we dissertators are a cranky lot. Thanks for taking the other end of this -- knowing that a great organization will get a nice donation makes me feel a little less Scrooge-like this holiday season.
I'm finishing my dissertation, I haven't seen the sun for days, and I need something to be optimistic about. So, I say he's coming, and I'll wager a $50 donation to 826 Michigan (provides writing/tutoring assistance for underserved K-12 students) if he doesn't.
I can't decide how concerned to be about the possibility that if Harbaugh does come, he'll still be lusting after NFL opportunities. If he's having a hard time making a decision, it seems to indicate that he feels he has unfinished business in the NFL.
I realize that, at the moment, that sounds like a pretty good problem for us to have. But I do wonder how long he would be content at Michigan and whether we'd be facing yet another coaching search in five-ish years.
Jay's knowledge about the car has been a hangup for me, too. On the other hand, if Jay and Adnan did it together, is it likely that Adnan would keep quiet about that through all the police interrogations, especially once he knew that Jay was pegging him as the killer? Even if telling a version of the story that reduced (but didn't eliminate) his culpability and increased Jay's might have gotten him off the hook to some extent?
I also think that Jay has told so many different versions of that story so many times that he doesn't entirely remember what's true and what isn't anymore.
I'm a woman, consider myself a feminist, and didn't see this article as "justifying" violence within relationships. We have a great deal of evidence demonstrating that people who grow up in unstable and violent families are more likely to replicate that violence. Using that information to try to make timely interventions isn't the same as saying, "oh, you had a shit childhood, so whatever you do is fine." (Still, if this was my student, I would have asked for a clearer thesis and more evidence in support of each claim.)
I imagine that the horror of this year's football season has to have exceeded Schlissel's worst nightmares of what might happen in his first semester on campus. Can't blame him for trying to move judiciously, but I still feel like Brandon can't be gone soon enough.
I take your point, but the tone of Howard's post isn't all that conducive to empathy. None of us would ever go anywhere near suggesting that our commitments as fans are in any way akin to the athletes' commitments, but most of us have devoted a fair amount of time and money and passion and insanity to Michigan football. It's obnoxious to suggest that people aren't "true fans" because they're insisting that a pretty crappy situation is, in fact, a pretty crappy situation.
It's very possible that, were the athletes to gain recognition as a union, their employment status would be legally deemed to be "different" from that of graduate students.
For the scholarship question, though, I don't think that matters. Scholarships -- those that go towards tuition and required materials -- are *always* non-taxable. Always. Doesn't matter if you're an employee, a certain kind of employee, whatever.
If a union was certified and they bargained a contract with the university, it seems very possible that scholarships could continue to be a part of the athlete's compensation. If you're a university, you'd always rather compensate with a scholarship than with a comparable amount of cash. Assuming that the athletes still have to be students, they also benefit, since the scholarship isn't taxed. Other compensation could be added to that however the parties saw fit.
I'm not saying it would certainly work out this way, but it does seem like a plausible outcome of bargaining.
Probably. Graduate students at many universities receive scholarships as well as salaries as part of their compensation package. The scholarship is not taxable income.
I would point out, first, that a "preponderance of the evidence" standard doesn't interfere with a presumption of innocence. (I don't know whether the M investigative process grants the accused that particular presumption or not, but the standard of proof doesn't necessarily preclude it.)
Second, we have different standards of proof even within the judicial system. I think the university has the right to determine, that a lower-but-still-rigorous standard of proof is adequate under the circumstances. It's hard to analyze this particular situation given the lack of detail, but I would imagine that "more likely than not" has to mean more than just a he said-she said conflict. She said plus?
Obviously, whether you agree with that assessment depends on your feelings about the fairness and adequacy of university adjudication systems. I tend to think that a large, sophisticated, and lawsuit-averse institution wouldn't expel a student - especially in a situation where publicity is virtually guaranteed - without having conducted a thorough investigation and meaningful adjudication.
I think the mandate that the university is now to investigate these cases even in the absence of the victim's cooperation could be as much of a game-changer as the altered standard of proof.
Recent Comments
Lots of paper-shuffling procrastination disgused as work in the form of a file reorganization extravaganza. I'm listening to the podcast, people keep stopping by to tell me how productive I look, and I get to make a nifty spreadsheet.
I liked it. It seemed...I don't know, a little less performative than the standard broadcast? I'm a curmudgeon and kind of hate human interest stories, so just having that aspect minimized was a huge plus for me.
The cats and the boyfriend are still recovering. Especially since the terrified cats jumped ONTO the boyfriend, claws unsheathed.
Not sure if this would be helpful to anyone, but I'll be driving to the game tomorrow from near downtown Dallas. Could probably squeeze in two more people if anyone has tickets and needs to conserve gas.
Yirong Bi, who joined the team in January or February, is also from China, and M likely would not have won the B1G without her contributions. There've been fast swimmers out of China -- particularly women's swimmers -- for 20-ish years now, but they traditionally haven't gone to American universities. It looks like that's starting to change.
It's harder to recruit Chinese divers, because there's a tradition of diving excellence there. There are probably fewer divers than swimmers who would see a transition to an American coach as an upgrade.
Wolverine in Iowa's assessment of this is accurate -- we don't have the star power (yet.) A lot of this has to do with depth. Relay victories are worth twice as much as individual victories, for example, and our relays are not quite fast enough to make the "A" finals.
I do think that this situation will improve as recruits begin to see how well swimmers are developing at M.
1814! However, as long as "an inability to adjust to forechecking" = "unabated whomping on upper Canada" -- and I think historians would agree that it does -- this is a viable claim.
Ha! I just had this exact conversation on the phone with my parents, both of whom spent some time at Wisconsin. My mom: "Well, winter is long in Madison..."
This is fairly common in swimming -- I can think of quite a few strong programs where the men's and women's teams share a head coach. (E.g., Dave Salo at USC, Jack Bauerle at Georgia, the guy at Auburn whose name I can't remember and am too lazy to look up.)
1, 2, 6, 10, 11 in the 200 fly -- Dylan Bosch sets a new pool record. Michigan leads Indiana by just over 200 points.
(Edited after seeing Wolverine in Iowa's post -- Peter Brumm was indeed 6th, not 5th.)
Second-fastest time in the country so far this year. Go Blue!
The 200 fly short course is manageable. Ish. 200 fly long course is the Bataan death march of swimming.
And the sprints have gotten SO much faster over the past few years, for both men and women. I broke 24 seconds in the 50 a few times, which was respectable at the college level 15-ish years ago. (I'm female.) Now I'd be getting blown out of the water by practically every sprinter in D-I.
I haven't done the math, but I'm guessing that the three DeLoof sisters alone scored more points than Sparty.
And M wins the final relay by 2 seconds. Final score:
1) M 1361
2) Indiana 1207.5
3) Minnesota 927.5
Go Blue!
Both teams have entries in the relay; Indiana is seeded first and M is seeded fourth*. I believe we'll also score some points from the consolation final of the platform diving.
*Seed times generally are a bit less accurate/matter less in relays than in individual events. Coaches play around with relay lineups a lot, and the best possible relay combination might not have swum together all that many times during the season.
Yup. We scored very few points across the three diving events last year, so that's been a hugely important improvement.
I'm so relieved that none of my students appear to have norovirus that I didn't even bother to yell at them for having entirely neglected the assigned reading.
(I don't teach at M, but reading about the recent outbreak has stoked all of my latent fears about the 75 dorm-dwelling germ vectors I interact with three times a week.)
"You, the
From Slate:
"You, the viewer, thought you were turning on the TV to watch a basketball game. Little did you know that you were watching a meta-demonstration of what 'ESPN was built on'!"
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/02/17/espn_basketball_camer…
I'm a little relieved to see that this is universal -- I was afraid ESPN had developed an evil master plan to use this camera angle for SlingTV until we all became so seasick that we'd renounce our cord-cutting ways.
Thanks! Didn't do anything to celebrate today, but I'm counting yesterday's basketball game as a more-than-adequate gift.
I've been using Downcast for about a year; works pretty well.
The BBC's "In Our Time." Each week's episode covers a different topic, and the host brings three experts on for the discussion. Recent episodes have included Eleanor of Aquitane, chromatography, Rumi's poetry, and circadian rhythms. (They seem to roughly alternate between science-y topics and humanities-ish topics.)
The team's national ranking has more to do with the times individuals/relays have posted than their dual meet record. Technically, it would be possible to have an excellent regular season record (especially in a conference like the B1G where there are some not-stellar teams) and still have relatively few swimmers who would score in the top 8 at NCAAs.
Edit to add: The power rankings at SwimSwam have M at 3rd and provide some context for that assessment.
https://swimswam.com/2015-16-ncaa-mens-power-rankings-fourth-edition-ja…
In the future, go with "Exit, pursued by a bear."
Also, since I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere, the women's team was 3rd at B1Gs last weekend. They have several strong underclassmen and should be in the running for the title next year.
obviously inspired to new heights of greatness by the mere presence of HARBAUGH.
It's about time that we got some quality coverage of the seamy underbelly of Middle Eastern water polo around here.
Raiders will have reps in the Bay Area this weekend = Pangea will not re-form over the next two days, transforming geography as we know it.
As far as predictions go, that seems kind of on the safe side.
We're on a mission from God.
Michigan underwear. From my mother. We might have taken this obsession a little too far.
When I was in law school, one of my friends sliced her foot open pretty badly at Rick's. We thought she probably needed stitches, so took her to the ER. When she told the resident on duty what had happened, he recoiled with visceral disgust and basically suggested that there were probably not enough tetanus shots in the world to counteract what one might contract from the floor of Rick's.
Yeah, we dissertators are a cranky lot. Thanks for taking the other end of this -- knowing that a great organization will get a nice donation makes me feel a little less Scrooge-like this holiday season.
Happy Xmas (CC is Over)
I'm finishing my
I'll bite.
I'm finishing my dissertation, I haven't seen the sun for days, and I need something to be optimistic about. So, I say he's coming, and I'll wager a $50 donation to 826 Michigan (provides writing/tutoring assistance for underserved K-12 students) if he doesn't.
I had a nightmare that it was somehow my responsibility to sell Harbaugh on M, and I failed. I think I might be a little over-invested here.
I can't decide how concerned to be about the possibility that if Harbaugh does come, he'll still be lusting after NFL opportunities. If he's having a hard time making a decision, it seems to indicate that he feels he has unfinished business in the NFL.
I realize that, at the moment, that sounds like a pretty good problem for us to have. But I do wonder how long he would be content at Michigan and whether we'd be facing yet another coaching search in five-ish years.
Jay's knowledge about the car has been a hangup for me, too. On the other hand, if Jay and Adnan did it together, is it likely that Adnan would keep quiet about that through all the police interrogations, especially once he knew that Jay was pegging him as the killer? Even if telling a version of the story that reduced (but didn't eliminate) his culpability and increased Jay's might have gotten him off the hook to some extent?
I also think that Jay has told so many different versions of that story so many times that he doesn't entirely remember what's true and what isn't anymore.
I think we'd be the ones in the 5th circle if that came down. And possibly the 7th, if Ann Arbor Torch & Pitchfork has an underworld branch.
"I don't read blogs so I think it's nonsense. You whippersnappers get off my lawn! I don't want to hear about your newfangled interwebz."
I imagine that the horror of this year's football season has to have exceeded Schlissel's worst nightmares of what might happen in his first semester on campus. Can't blame him for trying to move judiciously, but I still feel like Brandon can't be gone soon enough.
I take your point, but the tone of Howard's post isn't all that conducive to empathy. None of us would ever go anywhere near suggesting that our commitments as fans are in any way akin to the athletes' commitments, but most of us have devoted a fair amount of time and money and passion and insanity to Michigan football. It's obnoxious to suggest that people aren't "true fans" because they're insisting that a pretty crappy situation is, in fact, a pretty crappy situation.
We've reached the point where continuing to call this a clown show would just be insulting to clowns.
It's very possible that, were the athletes to gain recognition as a union, their employment status would be legally deemed to be "different" from that of graduate students.
For the scholarship question, though, I don't think that matters. Scholarships -- those that go towards tuition and required materials -- are *always* non-taxable. Always. Doesn't matter if you're an employee, a certain kind of employee, whatever.
If a union was certified and they bargained a contract with the university, it seems very possible that scholarships could continue to be a part of the athlete's compensation. If you're a university, you'd always rather compensate with a scholarship than with a comparable amount of cash. Assuming that the athletes still have to be students, they also benefit, since the scholarship isn't taxed. Other compensation could be added to that however the parties saw fit.
I'm not saying it would certainly work out this way, but it does seem like a plausible outcome of bargaining.
Probably. Graduate students at many universities receive scholarships as well as salaries as part of their compensation package. The scholarship is not taxable income.
I would point
Fair questions.
I would point out, first, that a "preponderance of the evidence" standard doesn't interfere with a presumption of innocence. (I don't know whether the M investigative process grants the accused that particular presumption or not, but the standard of proof doesn't necessarily preclude it.)
Second, we have different standards of proof even within the judicial system. I think the university has the right to determine, that a lower-but-still-rigorous standard of proof is adequate under the circumstances. It's hard to analyze this particular situation given the lack of detail, but I would imagine that "more likely than not" has to mean more than just a he said-she said conflict. She said plus?
Obviously, whether you agree with that assessment depends on your feelings about the fairness and adequacy of university adjudication systems. I tend to think that a large, sophisticated, and lawsuit-averse institution wouldn't expel a student - especially in a situation where publicity is virtually guaranteed - without having conducted a thorough investigation and meaningful adjudication.
I think the mandate that the university is now to investigate these cases even in the absence of the victim's cooperation could be as much of a game-changer as the altered standard of proof.
Because palindromes.