118 Comments

Fbook just showed me an ad for "Stanford continuing education." I reported it as misleading/scam.

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https://sportsandsociety.osu.edu/events/ssi-and-trevon-logan-huddle-how-much-5-star-recruit-worth

SSI and Trevon Logan Huddle on "How much is a 5-star recruit worth?"

Thursday, May 28, 2020 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Zoom

The most elite players in college football increase revenue for their school football programs by an average of $650,000 a year, a first-of-its-kind study suggests.

Join Trevon Logan, co-author of the study, professor of economics at Ohio State and SSI's executive director, to discuss the implications for college sports.

Amid the continuing national debate about compensation for college athletes, this study offers the first solid numbers on the financial impact of players in the highest-revenue college sport.

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eh... I have a hard time seeing that programs that sell-out all the time, your Alabamas et al, would see an increase 1.3 mil if they recruited 4 5 stars instead of 2. But I could see it for non-powerhouses.

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I imagine it isn't just tickets, but also ads, licensed products, &c.

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I'm sure that's effected somewhat, but if you're #1 where do you go? I'm 100% sure the effect is greater at, say Cal than Alabama.

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On the margin rather than on average, probably. OTOH, the fact that Alabama has forty 5-stars or whatever allows them to get into the playoffs or other prestigious bowls, and compete for national championships, and be covered by ESPN and talk radio all over the country all year long, which enhances their fanbase, reach, and overall brand value considerably. Whereas nobody talks about Cal and we're lucky to squeak into an occasional Redbox Bowl.

It's kinda like how it's a million times easier to make an absolute metric shit ton of money when you're already rich, but the value of a single dollar is worth a lot less to a rich person than to a poor person.

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Seriously, I remember discussing with Newellbany after the Utah shellacking that I’d punch somebody’s meemaw in the arm for the Sun Bowl...the fan bases of big revenue programs don’t aspire to spend New Years Eve Day in Marty Robbins-land, pre-gaming at the Cal tailgate in Juarez....

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But scenic El Paso?!

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On a related note, have you seen Oregon's renovated track & field stadium? $200m upgrade paid for mostly by Phil Knight. It makes Edwards Field look like a high school rec-field. I despise how Knight has put his financial thumb on the scale for Oregon Athletics. But I guess college sports is an unfair business.

https://247sports.com/college/oregon/Article/Oregon-Ducks-football-recruiting-Hayward-Field-147387196/

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There’s nothing particularly edifying about that, and yet old Phil also paid for massive upgrades of their law school and endowed the cancer center at OSHU which is currently doing a decent job of keeping my father breathing, so all that expropriated surplus value from the sweatshops isn’t completely wasted I guess 🤷🏼‍♂️

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Hayward hosts an international T&F meet every year and quite a few Olympic Trials so it gets extra. Not that I have to like it. Would actually like to visit there one day though.

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It's really very cool. I got a UofO campus tour when I was a Nike employee and I said to the guy giving the tour "it's a bit difficult to take all the UofO hagiography as a Cal grad" and he said "You're telling me, I went to OSU"

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So shiny!

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Currently watching this stream, and it might be interesting to some of you: https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live-the-path-forward-the-food-industry/

Apparently, Beth Ford is the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company (Land O Lakes)

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What about Tim Cook?

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Ok Wiki says first openly gay female CEO. I also smiled when I saw her Twitter handle, but then I realized it was a reference to her company, not Charles Pringle: BethFordLOL

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Hm maybe the first openly gay woman CEO?

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We get "Lessons Learned" emails about safety. This one came in today:

A worker performing activities for an Oil & Gas company used an alcohol-based hand sanitizer as recommended by current hygiene recommendations in the Site COVID-19 plan. Just after the application to his own hands, but before the liquid disinfectant had evaporated and completely dried, the worker touched a metal surface. On this metal surface, an accumulation of static electricity created an ignition source, and the disinfectant (ethyl-alcohol based) flashed, resulting in an almost invisible flame (blue) in both hands. The contractor managed to extinguish the flames but suffered from first and second-degree burns to both hands.

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Ok, I guess those signs at gas stations about static possibly igniting a fire is not overblown...although Mythbusters have shown us that the car will not explode even if there is a fire in the gas tank.

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One time I went to flick shut a recently filled zippo lighter- the fluid spilled over into my hand and caught light but I shook it out before I got burned

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Ouch.

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Customer: hey the software vendor says X is an issue, anyone looked into this?

Application/ server admin: looks like this issue was addressed from this hot patch release, we could apply that. (Quotes release notes summary showing patch was issued earlier this month)

Customer: why wasn’t this addressed when we upgraded?

We upgraded in April, which is how I know the customer didn’t read the patch release notes summary before replying.

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Some of the bug-riddled software in circulation have so many patches and hot-fixes that if you have multiple products (and everyone does, counting database, platform, os, and communication software underneath actual applications), trying to keep patch and release info. in order is a full time job in itself.

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The customer then went on to say that we should have applied the hot fix as part of the release (space time continuum problems) and that we should only apply hot fixes when we do upgrades which she only wants to do once a year

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Clear case of 2% comprehension level. I anticipate reading about her hire in the higher ed IT sphere as soon as the hiring freeze is lifted.

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She’s now demanding that we apply hotfixes not as part of a regular upgrade, because we failed to apply all the fixes as part of an upgrade. I genuinely don’t mind whether we do or don’t, but it’s almost as if we’ve uncovered a reason to patch between upgrades 🤷🏼‍♂️

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SpaceX

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Launch scrubbed due to bad weather. Next window is on Sat.

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not that sending astronauts to space is the same level of safety as a scientific balloon payload but this reminds me of grad school days.

we knew that the ideal time was the month of May for our launch. that meant that we got out to Ft Sumner NM on Mar 1. we gave ourselves 3-4 wks to get the expt ready and declare "flight ready" to NASA.

then we just waited the month of Apr doing nothing.

then, the launch window kept getting pushed back by 4-5 days at a time until we finally launched around May 31.

here are some photos from 21 yrs ago ... https://goo.gl/photos/MfP4TgeqYXWN7iDR7

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27May2020 11:25:51 Eastern

Weather has deteriorated to 50/50

The 45th Weather Squadron has released the Launch Day forecast for the launch window. The chances of favourable conditions at launch time have reduced to 50/50 with flight through rain, anvil clouds and cumulus clouds being the main concerns.

https://www.americaspace.com/live-launch-tracker/

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I'm excited for today's launch. No 2 keeps asking me why I sometimes watch the launches. I think it's cool that a private company made a reusable rocket and that they can land the boosters. The synchronized double booster landing when they launched the Falcon Heavy with the Tesla was cool. I also remember watching the first Shuttle launch live.

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I was hoping to see a launch when I went down to Florida for mostly spring training but that got pushed back just past the duration of my trip. I actually think I won, through the county science fair, supposedly some kind of invite to see a launch when I was in high school in South Florida, but I did not end up talking to the right person to arrange for that (and this kind of predates wide email usage...ok, now I feel old).

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HSB and I had a pass to drive to Edwards to watch a shuttle landing during spring break one year. We didn't end up going because there was a delay and they landed a couple of days later when spring break was over.

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I was at Edwards for the July 4th, 1982 shuttle landing. Reagan was there (along with about 300,000 of my closest friends) for the landing and to dedicate a new shuttle. Had no parking pass, so watched the festivities through binoculars from a distance. The highlight was the dual pops when the shuttle broke the sound barrier on approach. Bummer though, the landing shuttle was Columbia and the new shuttle was Challenger. What are the odds?

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it was cool the get the parking pass to Edwards in the mail though. we felt very special even though we didnt go.

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I’m lucky enough to have seen a couple shuttle launches and a couple landings. For people who missed it, you can get a pretty good experience from an IMAX movie, if you can find one.

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Nice poem. With threats to shut down social media companies trump has completely lost it. How can we get this bozo out of office?

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If Trump lets me, I'll vote.

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Blake

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Had my first legal drink at 12:00 am on my 21st bday at Larry Blake's...bartender made me a shot of "Liquid Cocaine"....egads....

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I tried to get my first legal drink at midnight at Jupiter's, but they had already had last call, so my friends drove me to the Safeway on College instead.

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I had mine at Chili's in Menlo Park (RIP). I know you're all jelly.

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I think I've been to that one. Unless it was a TGIF. Also I've been to the first Round Table Pizza (I think) near it on El Camino.

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i havent been to the OG but Round Table is still up there among my favorites in terms of chain store pizza.

also, nostalgically speaking, we used to get these free textbook covers from Round Table to cover the school textbooks that we borrowed for the year. they had a cool scene to the Knights of the RT having a pizza feast

anyone remember that?

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Sir HeyAlumniGo, Knight of the First Round Table!

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Maybe I'm more like Brave Sir Robin??

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I too celebrated my 21st birthday there. Somewhere in my house, there are pictures of me with my head in a plastic garbage pail. I blame Blake's bartender.

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Can't remember the name, place on Shattuck near Hearst.

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Tiger

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May 27, 2020Liked by Ruey Yen

Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!

Tiger Uppercut!

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Tank

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Great lead picture.

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Indeed! Reminds me of this fella: https://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/i-fucking-love-cocaine-bear.jpg

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You know what. I'm looking at past DBD's and I see that there's that boring DBD graphic that I guess I was supposed to use it everyday for uniformity. All right. I'm keeping the tiger, then boring DBD graphics from here on out.

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BOOOO uniformity!

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I like them blonde and trashy.

-- Eldrick Tont Woods

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That bitch, Carole Baskin

-- The Tiger King

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#FreeJoeExotic

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They're grrrrrreat

-- Tony the Tiger

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Today in CV19

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You guys, we did it! 😭 US passes 100,000 deaths from CV-19. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

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So tired of winning already.

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USA, USA, USA ?

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As Chocolate Mousse, my favorite character in Top Secret! said, “Viva La France!”

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An underrated parody IMO - “it took us 4 hours to get the smile off his face.”

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It really is. First thing I think of when I hear Mel Torme’s name.

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In women's tennis, I always root against the heterosexual

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anyone read this? looks interesting.

J.K. Rowling is releasing a new book chapter-by-chapter online for free

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/26/21270489/jk-rowling-ickabog-new-story-online-chapters-art-competition-harry-potter-digital-release

The Ickabog will be published for free on this website, in instalments, over the next seven weeks, a chapter (or two, or three), at a time. It isn’t Harry Potter and it doesn’t include magic. This is an entirely different story.

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Pew Research: 2% confirmed infected. 14% convinced they had it despite no confirmation. 20% say they know someone who died/hospitalized.

https://www.newsweek.com/two-10-americans-know-someone-hospitalized-who-died-coronavirus-poll-shows-1506595

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Next up: how to work with HKers

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we . . . have some issues over there right now. It's going to be a hot angry summer in HK.

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Small event planner who won $39m contract to supply food still woefully unprepared.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/San-Antonio-event-planner-who-won-lucrative-15291382.php?cmpid=gsa-mysa-result

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I have so say, even given my cynicism about federal contracting, I am genuinely shocked at how bad the results have been with these programs to push money out of the door. I know a decent bit about how the process should work and there is no way - literally no way - that a new company should be able to meet the selection criteria listed by Ag more than established local companies in that space.

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before I click I'm gonna guess white and republican.

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Not Anglo fwiw

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damn, well 1 out of 2 is probably still passing at Furd.

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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In a bold move, Pompeo declares that HK is no longer independent from China. I guess Pompeo wasn't kidding when he said the other day that the US would simply uncouple from China. IMO: This is a cold splash of ice water on US/China relations.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/hong-kong-china-autonomous-us-pompeo-security-law

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Press Sec McEnany is against absentee voting. She voted by mail 11 times over the last 10 years.

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/05/27/trump-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-has-voted-by-mail-11-times-in-10-years/

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I can see her denying this...and turned it around as fraudulent voting by mail (but I would assume those were votes for the GOP?).

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Trump complains about lack of free speech on Twitter, threatens to regulate/shut Twitter down in the same Tweet. Irony apparently lost on him.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265601611310739456

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I wonder if shutting down twitter and Facebook might be a good thing. Ironically.

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In May of 2016, there was a (well-timed and calculated imho) outcry from an anonymous former Facebook news curator accusing it of leaning left in it's choice of which news stories to feature as trending.

Facebook self-reflected, and decided that it was ok to allow questionable news stories from the right to 'fix' the 'problem'. This opened the door for the right wing pundits and the more nefarious actors to plant the seeds that swung well more than the 22,748 votes in Wisconsin (2.6 million Facebook users) and the 10,704 Michigan (5 million users) votes that swung those states to Trump. I have a lot of formerly 'moderate' relatives in Wisconsin, and to look at their facebook feeds before vs during Trump's run, you could plainly see how their use of the platform changed. It used to be updates from their farm, or a moose wandering through the yard. Then 50% of their posts became links that stick it to the left somehow. I disagree with Mr Panda, the tools promote bad behavior (https://on.wsj.com/2TJEthD). If every iPhone randomly started playing snuff videos, the 'perfectly good tool' would get tossed (or fixed). These tools are broken. Their minimum responsibility (to the public rather than shareholders) is to vet the content and remove posts that are inflammatory or fail a factcheck. They can no longer throw up their hands and say 'we're just a platform'. They are news sources for millions and need to act as such.

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I wasn't against monitoring, though having been a forum monitor back in the SBN forum heydays, and also for an at the time successful and sizable high school sports site, as well as a victim of a drunk Cuogar comment monitor after one of the more notorious WSU meltdowns, I can say its a job I do not miss, nor wish on anyone.

But Facebook and Twitter do have monitoring, and probably need to step up their game in that regard. The trick is always where to draw the line, the location of which is itself a hot topic for debate.

I do worry about the effects of publication of flat out false information that looks or sounds like it might be true on any platform, and the stampede effect of a populace not raised to, or allowed to, be respectfully questioning (on any topic). But I'm convinced based on experience that a certain number of dishonest/criminal/gullible people are going to be that kind of person in any setting we shuttle them into.

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Yeah, I think that's the article referenced in this tweet as well. There's a screenshot of a damning bit: https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1265367974019567616?s=20

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Don't break perfectly good tools used productively everyday because a few misuse them. The primary problems are those that are going to misuse whatever tool they can lay their hands on. Remove a tool and they will commence misusing another one.

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How about a temporary shutdown?

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That still makes the actions of an idiot a problem for everyone else. How about a permanent shutdown of verified idiots?

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That would be great, but I don't see that happening.

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I think I’d miss Twitter a little bit and Facebook not at all

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I still keep up with old friends on Facebook so I would miss that.

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I won't miss either. Never really used facebook that much and I think have only sent one tweet directly at PG&E.

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oh also to keep track of the taco truck crawl. I was going to go this last December and ended up missing it.

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I like twitter much the same way that I like the roar of being in a crowded bar or food hall - I don’t want it all the time but it’s a good way to listen in on conversations

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In related news, Trump had his inaugural tweet that was officially fact checked by Twitter:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265255835124539392

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PRO

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CAL

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I was unaware at the time, but saw on a w4c twitter post on Monday, that the plaque on Memorial was changed during the re-dedication. I'm not ok with this. A renovation should not change the purpose for the dedication of the stadium. Seems a little PC to now include all Californians who perished when the original intent was to honor WW I casualties. Changes like this are slippery-slope dangerous. Get ready for the "Washington-Trump Monument".

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Did they they remove the original or just add a second dedication? I'd be surprised and disappointed if they got rid of the original plaque entirely.

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I thought the bench at the Campanile was to honor WWI casualties, and Memorial Stadium was to honor WWII casualties.

Curious what the "PC" part of your comment means.

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Being more inclusive for inclusiveness' sake? I dunno, is just struck me somehow.

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Why isn't inclusivity a worthy goal?

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Not always. Like you said, if there’s a will, build something else. I’m seeing it as watering down the meaning. They had just been through this horrible, multi-year war, were constructing this noble structure and dedicating it as a memorial to this emotional period they had all just been through. Tacking on more wars dilutes it’s original purpose.

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Conversely why not just stick with the original purpose? Although if we could just keep racking on new wars to old memorials perhaps we’d have been spared that tacky eyesore of a WW2 monument on the national mall.

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Because it was hard enough getting our existing stadium retrofitted; no way the townspeople are going to let us build any more memorials!

In general, I'm for inclusion, and also in this case, "we should only honor the deaths from this war and not any other wars" seemed like a weird line to draw.

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Ok I went and looked at the tweet from Cal Bears History, and clearly I was wrong about the WWI/WWII thing. Still not sure about how honoring Californians is politically correct, versus WWI deaths being politically incorrect.

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I wasn't complaining about the original WW I dedication, nothing non-PC about it. Actually the opposite. Guess I just prefer the original intent.

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I suppose I agree that it would be nice if we didn't have to include any subsequent deaths. If, in fact, the war to end all wars had...ended all wars.

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Wouldn't that have been a helpful turn of events!

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Go Bears!

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