The REAL scandal at Notre Dame

Everyone's attention is on the fake woman that Manti Te'o claimed was his girlfriend.

Around the same time that Teo's real grandmother died, it was reported that Lennay Kekua (who was supposedly Teo's girlfriend) also died of leukemia.

This got Te'o tons of sympathy as his team was undefeated in the regular season and made it to the BCS bowl game. 

Now, there is some evidence that Kekua didn't even exist!

It looks like we've been scammed!


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However, there is a MUCH WORSE SCANDAL surrounding the Notre Dame football team that didn't get the attention it deserved

You see, one of Notre Dame football players raped a woman attending a nearby college! She later committed suicide!


(The following article was published last week)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/172042/notre-dame-and-penn-state-two-rape-scandals-only-one-cry-justice

As unbeaten Notre Dame prepares to play in tonight’s national championship game against Alabama, the sports media have chosen not to discuss the fact that this football team has two players on its roster suspected of sexual assault and rape; two players whose crimes have been ignored; two players whose accusers felt harassed and intimidated; two players whose presence on the field Monday night should be seen as a national disgrace.

The main reason this is taking place is because their accusers are not pressing charges. One cannot, because she is dead. Nineteen-year-old Lizzy Seeberg, a student at neighboring St. Mary’s College, took her own life after her claims of being assaulted in a dorm room were met with threats and indifference. The other accuser, despite description of a brutal rape, won’t file charges—“absolutely 100%”—because of what Seeberg experienced.

Lizzy Seeberg was a first semester freshman and from a family of Notre Dame graduates. After an evening when she socialized with members of the football team, Lizzy came forward with accusations of a sexual assault. After writing out a statement and submitting to medical attention, she received texts from another member of the team that read, “Don’t do anything you would regret” and “Messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.”

To show that she wouldn’t rock the boat, Lizzy was compelled by her peers to go to the next game, stencil the Notre Dame logos into her face and cheer her assaulter. As Melinda Henneberger, a Washington Post reporter and Notre Dame alum who has investigated the sexual assaults on campus extensively, wrote, “On Sept. 7, she wrote her therapist, ‘I can’t get out of this f*!#ing hole I’ve started to dig. I’m trying to go to sleep because I’m sick with a cold and need to get rest but I can’t stop thinking about taking all the pills I can find. I’m ready to check out because this sucks.’ She promised [her therapist] she would never follow through. But then, on Sept. 9, she had a panic attack during a mandatory freshman orientation on sexual assault."

That panic attack preceded her suicide. If in life Lizzy Seeberg suffered at the hands of not only players on the team but the people in power who ignored her pleas, in death these forces have gone further and slandered her to a shocking degree. They have claimed Lizzy was a “troubled girl” who was “all over the boy”, as well as mentally unstable. As Henneberger wrote, “The damage to her memory since then is arguably more of a violation than anything she reported to police — and all the more shocking because it was not done thoughtlessly, by a kid in a moment he can’t take back, but on purpose, by the very adults who heavily market the moral leadership of a Catholic institution. Notre Dame’s mission statement could not be clearer: ‘The university is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake.’ But in this case, the university did just the opposite.”

School President Reverend John I. Jenkins has shown no public regard or concern for the fact that his school has become a place where women alumni warn prospective female students that rape has become a part of campus life. Football coach Brian Kelly, to his shame, treated questions about Lizzy’s suicide as a joke.

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A real woman got raped, got intimidated by her rapist's teammates and committed suicide!


Dont you think that  is much much worse than Manti Teo's "fake girlfriend drama"

But we all want to talk about someone else's  fake girlfriend?

Notre Dame didn't take those cases seriously. The coach didn't even bother to take the issue seriously.

IF that's how they want to act, fine then, karma bit last week when they lost to Alabama!

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photo from  http://www.thenation.com/blog/172042/notre-dame-and-penn-state-two-rape-scandals-only-one-cry-justice

 Lizzy Seeberg, courtesy of the Seeberg Family

This is the REAL LIFE  woman who got raped by a Notre Dame player who couldn't take the pain anymore and committed suicide!

 If your daughter, niece, sister, mother, etc got treated the way she was treated, wouldn't you want real revenge against the rapists and the punks who sided with the rapists? Wouldn't you be pissed off that the coaches and the admin of Notre Dame didnt' give a crap?

random political thoughts

Just a few thoughts on some high profile political events!


1) When Dan Inouye was dying, he sent a letter to governor Neil Abercrombie begging him to appoint Colleen Hanabusa as his replacement in the US Senate.

Abercrombie decided to appoint his Lt Gov. Brian Schatz instead.


Some Inouye's fans were upset that Abercrombie didn't fulfill Inouye's request.

But you know what?

Neither Inouye nor Abercrombie should be allowed to appoint the replacement senator.

The voters should have voted for Inouye's replacement.

Here's a great editorial on the issue

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171918/no-senator-republican-or-democrat-should-serve-appointment

One new senator, Tim Scott, has been appointed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, rather than elected by the people of that state. Another senator will be appointed by Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Dan Inouye. A third is expected to be appointed byMassachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to replace secretary of state–nominee John Kerry. 

These appointed senators will be powerful players. They will have critical roles in deciding whether to approve or reject cabinet nominees and Supreme Court selections, they will vote on tax policies and budget measures, they will decide whether to send the United States over a “fiscal cliff”—or off to war. But they will do so without democratic legitimacy. 

No member of Congress should serve without having been elected by the people of the district or state they represent. 

Unfortunately, the new Senate will have at least three members who serve not as representatives but as mandarins—appointees assigned to positions by governors who have assumed unreasonable authority. 

What all this means is that more laws will be proposed, more filibusters will be broken, more critical votes will be tipped in one direction or another by “senators” who never earned a single vote.

2) Another Inouye related topic


People looked to Inouye as "The Man" because "he brings federal dollars to Hawaii"

But with the loss of Inouye (to death) and to Dan Akaka (to retirement), Hawaii will no longer have such access to seniority in Congress, and the worry is Hawaii might lose out to federal funding.

What people in Hawaii need to start realizing is that it is more important for Hawaii to attract private investments  than to attract federal funding!

Private investments create more jobs than government spending. Government spending is just money TAKEN from the private sector.

Hawaii shouldn't be so dependent on having one old guy in Congress!


Plus, federal funding requires that Dan Inouye also votes for projects in other states too! After all, Congress doesn't just give Hawaii money out of the goodness of their hearts. It's "favor for a favor".  That means, if Inouye wants money for Hawaii's projects, he better vote for projects in Massachussetts and West Virginia and Vermont  and .......................................etc, etc.  That means we end up paying higher taxes in the long run, just for the prestige of having an "old man who brings the federal funds"


With more private investments, Hawaii grows a bigger pie to fund its projects on its own, instead of just relying on just one (or two) old guys in Congress.


3)  Al Gore and oil

Former VP Al Gore has done a lot of things since he lost the 2000 elections.

He became a speaker for environmental causes, with his main speaking point being "we use too much fossil fuels, and that is contributing to global warming".

He also started a cable station named "Current".

Well, Current has been struggling to get ratings.

So guess what Al Gore is doing to Current?

He sold Current to the guys running Al Jazeera, a popular Middle Eastern news station based in Qatar!

So Mister "we should stop our massive use of fossil fuels" is selling his TV station to a bunch of  guys who made their billions from  .......................................the massive use of fossil fuels!

It is not the first time Algore (this is how Limbaugh spells the name) act in a hypocritical manner.

Al Gore was a flip-flopper before John Kerry and Mitt Romney made it an art form.

Al Gore went from being pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-gay (back when he was running for office in Tennessee in the 1970s) to an anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-gay when he was running as the Democrat presidential nominee in 2000!

People saw Algore as a phony in 2000, and they were tired of it!

Algore had a great economy of the Clinton years to back him up! But his persona irritated people to the point that Algore lost a close election to George W Bush (who ironically was the son of the man Clinton/Gore beat in 1992).

That was a political failure of epic proportions!

Bill O' Reilly and the Asians

Recently, Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly had a segment about Hawaii.

photo from foxnews.com

Bill O'Reilly

 http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-bill-oreilly-hawaii-hardworking-asians-liberal-20130104,0,2738327.story


O'Reilly was focusing on why Hawaii is so liberal, then mentioned that Hawaii has a problem with homelessness, drug addiction, government spending and other stuff.

However, O'Reilly also showed his cultural cluelessness, when he sounded so shocked that a state with a 35% Asian population could be so liberal!

Back in studio, O’Reilly expressed his love for the physical splendor of Hawaii, but wondered at its liberal voting record, especially given its high Asian population. “You know what’s shocking?” he asked Watters. “Thirty-five percent of the Hawaiian population is Asian, and Asian people are not liberal by nature, they’re usually more industrious and hard-working.”

This stuff I highlighted in blue shows a pathetic cluelessness that many right-wing conservatives have about minorities.  It is this cluelessness by the right-wing conservatives that made it easier for liberal Democrats to win the majority of the "minority vote", especially this recent election!

It's not just the African-Americans and the Latinos that Obama won a commanding lead. Obama also got a commanding lead of the Asian-American vote too!

Bill O'Reilly's  stuff about "Asian people are not liberal by nature, they’re usually more industrious and hard-working" implies the stereotype that 1) the other minorities aren't as hard-working, 2) non-conservatives are not hard working and 3) every Asian came to the US as entrepreneurs and therefore automatic Republicans

Well,  sterotypes #1 and #2 are so stupid that only those who live in a bubble would believe them!

I'll just go over sterotype #3

Let's look at Hawaii's Asian-American history.

A  large chunk of Hawaii's Asian population (especially the Japanese and Filipinos) came as cheap labor for the plantations!

In other words, they have been historically attracted to labor union rhetoric that has helped the Democratic Party.

In fact, it was the Japanese Americans (with their recently deceased leader and former US senator Dan Inouye) that was a MAJOR part of the Democrat revolution that changed Hawaii's politics in the 1950's.  

It's not just the labor unions that specialized in physical labor (ie construction, agriculture,etc) that helped the Democrats, it  is the government workers unions that helped the Democrats. And as nearly everyone in Hawaii knows, a large chunk of the public school teachers, librarians, and other government employees are Japanese Americans.

That O'Reilly is shocked that those same people would vote Democrat shows O'Reilly's mega-cluelessneess

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Let's also put it in a way that O'Reilly could understand!  The rich English businessmen who came to the northeastern US obviously had a different way of life (as well as different skills, perspective, etc) than the rural Scottish folks who settled in the mountains  and farmlands of the southern US! 

These people were already different when they settled in the US 300-400 years ago! Those differences still divides the "northern whites" and "southern whites" today.

So yeah, much of  Hawaii's Asian population (especially the Japanese and Filipinos) came under totally different circumstances than a Korean store owner or a Hong Kong business tycoon!  The first group came as cheap labor (more aligned with labor unions), the second group came as entrepreneurs (more aligned with fiscal conservatives) 
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Let's also not forget that people tend to be more influenced by where they grow up instead of where their ancestors came from.


I mean, almost nobody in Mexico wears UH Warrior T-shirts or eat spam musubis. But then again, I'm NOT from Mexico, I'm from Hawaii.


And if some 5th generation Asian-American who lives in San Francisco, Seattle or New York has more liberal views.....................well, DUH, of course his/her current environment has more influence than some faraway land his/her ancestors left over a century ago!


Just like how Indian-Americans Bobby Jindal and Nicki Haley are both influenced by southern conservatives (DUH, they grew up in Louisiana and South Carolina), why would anyone with a brain be surprised by Chinese American and San Francisco mayor Ed Lee being influenced by West Coast liberals?

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Also, right-wing Republicans have advocated for mandatory Christian prayers at public schools.   (Those voices got louder after Sandy Hook shootings, with Christian fanatics screaming "God doesn't help people where he wasn't wanted" )

But the reason we don't allow for mandatory prayers  at public schools is because public schools aren't just for one religious group, and public schools can't exclude non-Christians.

(note: hey,  if  a bunch of students want to pray together before school or during lunch, that's fine with me.  But that's totally different from mandatory prayers desired by right-wing conservatives)

But if the right-wing Republicans want to emphasize the US being a "Christian nation", obviously O'Reilly shouldn't be shocked if that scares some Asian-Americans from the Republican Party!


from Jonah Goldberg
 http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah121212.php3#.UOzGVXc7t8E
 
 

And maybe for similar reasons. The comparison to Jews is instructive. Perhaps the most common explanation for the GOP's problem with Asian Americans is the party's pronounced embrace of Christianity, which turns off many Jews as well.

According to Pew studies, barely a third of Chinese Americans are Christian and less than a fifth of Indian Americans are.

"Whenever a Gujarati or Sikh businessman comes to a Republican event, it begins with an appeal to Jesus Christ," conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza recently told the New York Times magazine. "While the Democrats are really good at making the outsider feel at home, the Republicans make little or no effort."

My friend and colleague Ramesh Ponnuru, an Indian American and devout Catholic, says the GOP has a problem with seeming like a "club for Christians."

You see that, O'Reilly?   Read those 4 paragraphs again!


Look at what I highlighted in purple! Those are the major immigrant groups now! Last year, there were more Asians coming to the US than Latinos.

So if the Republicans have struggled with the mostly Christian communities of African-Americans and Latinos,  just wait until they have to spend more time campaigning in Asian-American communities that are mixed with Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, Sikhs,  Muslims as well as Christians. 

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The recent election has shown that the Democrats know how to speak to different cultural groups. Some Republicans have tried and have occasionally been successful. But it hasn't been enough lately.  If the Republicans don't adjust, they will be left behind.  And O'Reilly shouldn't be surprised!