Society & Culture

Duke University: It Takes More Than NCAA Basketball Championships To Be Champions

Does ridiculing the opposing team show school spirit? I doubt it.

Published

7 months ago

February 24, 2023

Jeff Davidson

When I moved to the Triangle area years ago, I was eager to partake of the best that both the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Duke University had to offer. I lived near route 15-501 on the Durham-Chapel Hill border and was equidistant to both campuses, although my mailing address was in Chapel Hill.

Both schools had wonderful campuses, and I enjoyed visiting Duke’s magnificent Bell Tower, its Sarah Duke Gardens, hospital complex, East Campus, and nearby Ninth Street. I equally enjoyed visiting UNC’s Dean Smith Center, Bell Tower, Kenan Stadium, student union, and many libraries.

Eager to Attend

Duke University had just won the NCAA Basketball Championship when I moved here. I had been a long-time college basketball fan, and I was eager to visit Cameron Indoor Stadium.

As I began to attend games, I noticed distinct differences in the way crowds at the two universities treated the visiting sports teams. Fans at the University of North Carolina, with it’s spacious Dean Smith Center, showed respect for opposing players. When the teams were announced, UNC fans either applauded or were respectfully silent. During the games, there were few times when I heard abusive language from anyone in the stands. The exception was when someone on an opposing team acted overly aggressive towards a UNC player or committed some similar faux pas.

When Dean Smith was coaching at UNC, if he even mildly detected abusive fan behavior toward opposing players, he would stare at the student section and, in a matter of moments, the abuse would stop.

By contrast, I had a hard time in my own mind justifying the behavior of the people who attended Duke games at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Cameron Crazies, as they are called, do not act with respect for anyone other than those in a Blue Devil uniform, and I question whether they even respect their own team.

Over the years, these students have thrown tubes of Clearasil on the floor taunting players from other teams who had acne conditions. They have made specific, purposely hurtful references to players’ relatives, grades, and even campus incidents such as a shooting at NC State University.

Condoned at the Top

I began to see in the broader sense that “Cameron Crazies” have endured because at some higher level, be the basketball coaches, the university administration, provost, university president, or board of trustees, indirectly condoned their behavior.

At the start of Atlantic Coast Conference games, when the announcement comes asking fans to respect the players, coaches, and game officials, Duke fans aren’t listening. Neither Dick Vitale nor other announcers have the gumption to speak out on this matter and instead they offer platitudes about about fan “spirit” at Cameron.

Does ridiculing the other team show spirit? I doubt it.

For a while, I attended a couple of Duke games each season, usually during the holidays when most students were gone and the tickets were easier to come by. Enough students were on hand to continue the antics. Trying my best to be objective, I began observing them with something akin to curious detachment. I reasoned that, of course, every home team crowd loves to win and loves to celebrate the victory as their team pulls ahead.

With Duke, however, there’s a taunting, a “hazing” ritual, that goes beyond anything I’ve seen elsewhere, and I’ve had the opportunity to watch more than twenty-five college basketball teams in ten to twelve different states.

Viewing Others With Contempt

As we head into the final week of regular season play, before the 2023 conference tournaments, I know this: Duke “crazies” view opposing team players, especially those from North Carolina and NC State, with outright contempt. The antics of the Cameron Crazies, as opposed to being clever, are obnoxious. They smack of the elitism that is part and parcel of the Duke campus mentality.

Duke prides itself on being a high-class institution and, in many quarters, it relishes the moniker the “Harvard of the South.” Yet, visit Harvard, view its institutions and sports and the way their students and fans interact with others, and you’ll see they bear no similarity to Duke.

The now retired Coach K often lamented that Duke was not a favorite among fans (outside of Duke University). Could it be that word of Duke’s utter disdain for all that is non-Duke is spreading? I was excited when I moved to the Triangle area, equidistant between Duke and UNC. I wanted to embrace both universities and partake of all they had to offer. Now, after all these years in the area, I want nothing to do with Duke University.

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Life

Your Days Do Not Have to Race By

Much of what you experience each day, in terms of the passage of time, is based on your perception

Published

1 day ago

September 22, 2023

Jeff Davidson

Whenever you feel you’re racing the clock or trying to tackle too much at once, try this exercise:

Close your eyes for a minute. Imagine a pleasant scene. You might be surrounded by trees or with a loved one. It could be something from childhood. Let the emotions of that place and time pervade you. Get into it! Give yourself more than a minute for the visualization to take hold.

Open your eyes and return to what you’re doing. Whatever care or task you’re working on is not quite so bad and your pace is never quite so feverish. Realistically, much of what you experience each day, in terms of the passage of time, is based on your perception. You can slow down time if you choose.

Pause and Reflect

Imagine you’re flying on an airplane. You have a window seat, and it’s a clear day. As you gaze down to the ground below, what do you see? Life passing by. Cars the size of ants. Miniature baseball diamonds. Rivers the size of streams. There’s something about being at great heights that enables you reflect on your life.

The same phenomenon can take place from the top of a mountain or skyscraper. As often as practical things seem to be racing by too fast, seek higher ground, literally, for a clearer perspective.

If you’re among the lucky, perhaps you regularly allocate time for reflection or meditation. If you don’t, it’s no matter. There are other ways to make it all “slow down.”

After the workday, listen to relaxing music and close your eyes. A half hour of your favorite music with your eyes closed and no disturbances can seem almost endless. When you re-emerge, the rest of the day takes on a different tenor.

An effective method for slowing down time and catching up with today is periodically deleting three items from your “to do list” without doing them at all. Before you shriek, consider that much of what makes your list is arbitrary.

In most cases, eliminating three items won’t impact your career or life, except for freeing up a little time for yourself in the present.

A Change in Medium

I have long used water to reduce stress. For eleven years, I lived in a high-rise condominium in Falls Church, Virginia, complete with its own 25 meter pool. No matter how hard I worked during the day, even if I did a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. stint, at 6:05 p.m. I was in the pool. After 30 minutes of laps, I had swum out many of the stresses and strains of the day.

Now that I live in North Carolina, more rural by comparison, I have lakes! Here I can swim for a mile in one direction and rarely encounter anyone else. Find the swimming hole nearest you!

In the Animal Kingdom

If you have a dog or cat and do not consider it a drain on your time, here’s a little something about Rover or Mittens that you may not have known. In recent years, as reported by U.S. News & World Report, scientists have found proof for what was only once suspected: Contact with animals has specific and measurable effects on both your body and mind.

The mere presence of animals can increase a sick person’s chances of survival, and has been shown to lower heart rate, calm disturbed children, and induce incommunicative people to initiate conversation!

The exact mechanisms that animals exert to affect your health and well-being are still largely mysterious. Scientists suspect that animal companionship is beneficial because, unlike human interaction (!), it is uncomplicated.

Animals are nonjudgmental, accepting and attentive; they don’t talk back, criticize, or give orders. Animals have a unique capacity to draw people out.

Even if you only have goldfish, sometimes simply staring at them in their silent world can help deaden your hectic pace.

Catching up with Today

1. Constantly read your list of priorities and goals.
2. Challenge and defeat your own ritual behavior.
3. Consider the outcome of not handling something.
4. Convincingly, but politely, say no.
5. Call rather than visit.

6. Clear your desk of all but the task at hand.
7. Clear your files of everything that can be recycled.
8. Cancel something you had already scheduled.
9. Choose from what you already have.
10. Choose to get a good night’s sleep every night.

When you consider all of the ways you add unnecessary pressures to your day, you begin to see many ways to catch up with today or, at least, with this week.

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Elections

Lawfare, Coercion, and Intimidation at the U.S Department of Injustice

Th DOJ fraudulently claims this mission: “Uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights”

Published

6 days ago

September 18, 2023

Jeff Davidson

Lawfare is impacting society in horrendous ways, many of which ultimately impact your life and your experiences. What is lawfare? Derived from combining the words “law” and “warfare,” it is the employment of legal approaches to delegitimize, damage, or destroy an opposing party or to hinder their ability to employ their own legal rights.

While lawfare has been used among nations seeking to resolve military conflicts, hamper an opponent’s strategies and tactics, or accuse others of serious crimes, here I am only focusing on domestic issues.

The U.S. system of justice has become overtly contentious, straying from the original mission and objective of our legal system. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Justice adopted lawfare tactics en mass during the Obama Administration, under the sordid leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Long Term Damage

Lawfare was employed against individuals whom the DOJ had targeted, to damage or disparage their character, waste their money and time, or triumph over them for public relations purposes. Today the DOJ persecutes, coerces, badgers, and prosecutes Americans, mainly conservatives, time after time.

The agency’s conviction rate is 93%, or 14 out of 15 cases. Yet, in countless instances, DOJ lawyers pursuing cases do not have sufficient evidence or even legal grounds. How do they prevail? Repeatedly, these government attorneys intimidate defendants to confess to “process” crimes, much like what the special prosecutors under Robert Mueller did with many of Donald Trump’s associates.

If no real crimes existed, DOJ attorneys, well-versed in lawfare, pushed for prosecution in one way or another, HUNDREDS of times. Conviction represents career bonus points for eager DOJ attorneys.

Garland: Corrupt Beyond Belief

Bill Barr, appointed by Donald Trump, was utterly corrupt – a swamp creature of the highest order. He sat on the Hunter Biden revelations. He ignored voluminous evidence of worldwide bribes taken by Joe Biden. He covered for Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, and likely lied about Epstein’s demise. He had insider knowledge of the numerous bogus plots against Trump and said and did nothing.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, now head of the DOJ, has raised lawfare to justice-destroying heights. The DOJ has become the chief agency of injustice. Under Garland, Catholics, parents concerned about the education and welfare of their children, peaceful protesters, and legions of others have had their rights violated.

We know that both the FBI and DOJ have sought to lay heavy crap on Rudy Giuliani, Matt Gaetz, Don Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, many of Trump’s advisors, and so many others.

Injustice on Demand

Garland’s DOJ implements lawfare in virtually everything it does. The agency has no qualms about incarcerating people for indeterminate lengths, staging show trials, bleeding defendants financially dry, and threatening them with jail sentences unless they capitulate. These are perilous times, especially for anyone who is opposed to the Biden Administration or speaks up in ways that the DOJ does not approve.

It is not difficult with the vast databases to undertake intense snooping and other nefarious methods. In record time, the “Department of Injustice” can ruin a person’s reputation, even after a lifetime of accuracy in their work, in their claims, and in how they comport themselves.

The DOJ can destroy reputations in less than 24 hours, particularly if that person is vulnerable with relatives or children. They raid homes with guns drawn when a simple knock on the door would suffice. The Democrats of today, can get to anyone they want, and will shake their targets to the core.

The GOP Must Win in 2024 or We’re Doomed

Everything described above should have no place within the U.S. Department of Justice. Lawfare should have no place. Meanwhile, the DOJ fraudulently claims that its mission is to “Uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.” In actuality, it fails miserably on all three counts.

Claiming independence and impartiality, the agency states, “We work each day to earn the public’s trust by following the facts and the law wherever they may lead, without prejudice or improper influence.” Yes, Hunter Biden will verify that. The DOJ claims, “Our employees value differences in people and in ideas and treat everyone with fairness, dignity, and compassion.” Not exactly.

The only tenable solution to vanquish the runaway DOJ and their insidious practice of lawfare, intimidation, and coercion is for a Republican to win the 2024 presidential election, replace Garland, and quickly reverse the serious damage that has been done to our nation.

If Democrats successfully re-cheat their way to victory, may God help us all.

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