Between the news that 125 member institutions have voted to override the NCAA on its $2,000 stipend rule and now this proposal by its Resource Allocation working group being submitted to the Board of Directors –The group will recommend scholarship reductions, including 85 to 80 in Football Bowl Subdivision football, 63 to 60 in Football Championship Subdivision football (with a limit of 80 total counters) – it’s hard for me to see how Division I football continues on as it is, say, ten years from now.
There’s a passage from one of my favorite authors that seems àpropos:
“Is democracy impractical? Is that what you are saying?”
Glawen said, “As I recall, Baron Bodissey had something to say on the subject.”
“Oh? Was he pro or con?”
“Neither. He pointed out that democracy could only function in a relatively homogeneous society of equivalent individuals. He described a district dedicated to democracy where the citizenry consisted of two hundred wolves and nine hundred squirrels. When zoning ordinances and public health laws were put into effect, the wolves were obliged to live in trees and eat nuts.”
Mike Slive and Jim Delany aren’t moving into any damned trees.
Get The Picture 
Democracy is hard. It’s not for the ignorant.
Socialism isn’t an evil. It just doesn’t work.
Capitalism isn’t the answer to all problems. A level playing field must be maintained. There must be costs for externalities like pollution, cheating at the “game”, etc.
The NCAA is not the answer…to any question.
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The BP spill was a great example of why capitalism probably doesn’t work. Businesses lobbied to limit their liability and then just did the cost analysis on any project knowing what the damages could be. These companies are capable and culpable for billions and billions in damages. Of course BP clears $25billion/year so the margin for them to really foul things up is huge.
Basically not of these systems could have ever envisions the amounts of money and therefore influence that people and corporations have today. The founding father never thought that there would be hedge funds with trillions of dollars under management, corporations with billions in profit all while most exist with just fractions of fractions of that. These “-ism”s dont scale.
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Economic systems are only as good as the people who benefit from them. Democracies are only as good as the people who make the decisions about who is running it. When the beneficiaries of the economic system further warp the democracy because of their influence in who the decision makers are and what decisions will be made then you have serious problems. No system is inherently perfect or flawed although some would seem too stupid to try, and it can only be judged by the degree the governed permit it to stray from it’s purposes.
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you don’t get paid to think… now get back to your cubicle!
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Democracy is the worst form of government…except for all the others.
-Churchill
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You beat me to it.
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Except for a oligarchy were the good Senator chooses the oligarchs?
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I dunno. Communism worked pretty well for me. The people of my country and my political enemies–not so much.
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Then again… college football may end up being the fabric that holds the culture together. After all… its already a religion in the south. Merry Christmas Senator.
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“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” Just saying.
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I just wish those who held those opinions made it clear how much they despise and fear representative government instead of pretending as if they were Jeffersonian. However the plutocrats hide their true beliefs behind false and lying patriotism. They aren’t hard to spot as generally they go around acting as is the could whistle the national anthem out their rear ends but were piling up the deferments when it mattered. They now are pro-volunteer army so their kids can have political futures without having to answer uncomfortable questions.
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69 is right.
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This aggression will not stand, Man!
— Jeff Lebowski
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The bums will always lose!
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“The old man said to take any rug in the place!”
— Again, The Dude
Could keep going all day……
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“What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it … which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses’,” said Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land).
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I don’t know about all this political wankery, but is this the level playing field that is going to produce a playoff?
Dropping scholarships? Starting a playoff?
Machiavelli must be giggling in his cornflakes.
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
Emmert is the new Kristi Malzahn.
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