For all the Greek haters out there (not you, Angela Merkel), here are two great pics of my guys:
The first picture is from Greek Week, where all the frats and sororities compete all week long in a number of events (athletic events, trivia night, etc.), and there they are participating in Greek Sing.
The second picture is from two hours ago. Bethany College is one of a very few colleges in the nation that has written and oral comprehensives the last week of school for seniors, and they are basically grilled on their major. If they fail written or orals, they do not graduate, so it is really a big deal. Traditionally, a couple close friends wait outside for the person to come out of their oral comps, at which point they will know if they graduate or not. My guys are close and love each other, so basically the whole house showed up to cheer the fellow in the suit after coming out a newly minted soon to be graduate and give him a chorus of “For He’s an Alpha Sig.”
Like I said, I have good kids, and I will take no shit from people issuing blanket condemnations about greek life. It can be a really, really, positive thing. I love these kids and it is so rewarding watching them develop the same kind of lifelong friendships I formed two decades ago as a brother.
cathyx
You sure do feel like you have to defend this. If you know it’s terrific, who cares what others think?
John O
The Greek system at U of IL was stocked with privileged entitled white assholes.
Like all things I’m sure there are positives, but I’ll pick my own “brothers” thank you very much.
NotMax
Suppose the hands mimicking wings several of them are using contains some significance?
Explain, please?
Baud
Those look like a great group of kids. With your guidance, I’m confident that they will all go out into the world and say “Fuck you” to their faithful blog commenters.
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t see Papa Cole in either of those pictures. C’mon, show you’re part of the brotherhood!
eemom
Sigh. I don’t give a shit about frats one way or the other, but for the gazillionth time, they’re not fucking GREEK.
Let my people GO.
Omnes Omnibus
@John O: Not all schools are the same.
Auguste
@cathyx: Move the goalposts a little more?
I am far from a defender of frats and sororities but they’ve gotten a lot of (in individual cases deserved) abuse lately; if John (whose blog it is) sees the good in them, is it really protesting too much to say so?
oldster
He’s got to defend it, because so many of the others are horrible. Deeply, deeply horrible.
I teach here at Big State U, where the fraternities are basically organized conspiracies to commit rape. They really are that bad. There is nothing redeeming about them. When they are not organizing weekend gang-rape events, they are systematically cheating on exams and papers. There is not enough bad that can be said about them.
So I am delighted that John’s is different, and I believe John himself is a big part of what makes it different.
But it is also entirely unrepresentative of most frats on most campuses. It is such an outlier that it has almost nothing to do with the problem of Greek life in the US. It’s like defending Hezbollah by pointing to their free child-care clinics. That’s great! Free child care is good! But the majority of the operation is gangsterism, thuggery, and terrorism.
I really don’t want to attack John or his frat, but I really think that none of the great stuff that he does should make any of the rest of us think one whit better of frats in America.
Trollhattan
@Spaghetti Lee:
You know durn well somebody has to hold the out of focus camera. Come to think of it, the second one looks in focus so cannot be Cole’s handywork. The first, however….
I’m afraid I can’t (kaint) give you shit here, Cole. College can be tough as hell; you usually only appreciate it after the fact. These guys look to be actually enjoying it in real time.
Trollhattan
@eemom:
Yasou y’all! (Got that one from a Greek friend–actual Greek.)
John O
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m sure that’s true. But as with all ritualistic “clubs” I’d prefer to watch from the outside.
Omnes Omnibus
@oldster: Based on my experiences and the anecdotal evidence of others, I think there is frequently a big difference between the Greek* systems at big and small schools.
*eemom, this is not a fight you are going to win. The ship has already sailed.
lamh35
I actually love Greek organizations, but I’ve really only been exposed to the African American Greek Organizations, so maybe it’s a different mindset when it comes to the historical Greek organizations. I’ve always regretted in either of my 2 times in college (2 Bachelors) that I didn’t pledge the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
BTW, I do love the Bennetton Ad quality of the Greek orgs you’ve posted about. It’s actually a lovely thing to see, as ya know, some of the historical Greek organzations have not been the most diverse of organization, it’s how the National Pan-Hellenic Council was created by the “Divine Nine” founding organizations.
Bruce S
Is that a North Korean flag?
Randy P
Don’t know that much about them. They were kind of under the radar for me, except during Greek Week when they were sort of everywhere in this vague drunken mob that disappeared again a week later.
One of the movies on my lifelong to-do list is “School Daze”. Don’t know too much about it, but I attended a Spike Lee lecture and from the Q & A on that subject, I gather he’s not overly fond of the Greek life himself. Specifically the question of hazing.
Still, I’m not down on them, Cole, and I love hearing about your mentoring of them. You’re a good guy.
cathyx
@Auguste: That’s my point. If John gets a lot out of them, finds them worthy and thinks they have a point of existence that he believes is positive, who cares what others think about them? Like my mother was fond of saying, if you are not hurting anyone and are even doing some good, then don’t care what others think.
NotMax
@eemom
Beating a dead horse. Been dead for more than a century.
Greek/Greek
Zathras/Zathras
raven
@John O: God don’t you know it. My old man was a Sigma Nu there after WWII and wanted me to pledge when I came home from the Nam. I’m glad John is involved with such a great group.
TG Chicago
I just don’t get why you need to wear a shirt with Greek letters on it to have friends. I somehow managed to get a great circle of friends without calling them or myself Tappa Kegga Bru or whatever.
What is it about the Greek letters that makes it different?
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Perhaps since he sees value in the organizations, he believes that it is worthwhile to push back against those who see the organizations as entirely negative.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Kind of how people make blanket judgements about people in the military?
Mart
There were no mixed race houses at my school late 70’s. After class I went in the black house with a new friend I met had during class breaks. We were getting along great with the bong and loud funk music. Turns out I was the first white kid in there, and for my buddy, not such a good idea.
Afraid things had not changed much at my daughters school a few years back. Although they had one black woman in their house which was one more than the others.
My long way of saying the men look great.
John Cole
You must be new here. I am German, and I can never let anything go. Someone said something nasty about frats a couple years back and that means I will probably have a chip on my shoulder for, oh, I dunno, another thirty years.
During the Schiavo affair I bet I wrote 300 posts on the issue, with the last 250 ending with the phrase “this is my last post on this subject.”
Hell, John O’s comment at #2 guaranteed 20 more posts on this issue. It sucks to be me. Although maybe it is why I understand Rosie, who also can not let anything go.
ranchandsyrup
What’s up with the painted people in the 2nd pic?
John O
Don’t get me wrong, kudos to JC for mentoring these kids in what I as a longtime reader assume is a very positive direction.
En masse? Bunch of whiny, petulant, rich kids, who think their shit doesn’t stink.
On the plus side, they were an AWFUL lot of fun to beat at basketball, and an amusing kind of nightmare to referee in any sport.
NCgumbo
None of the fraternities at the state University I went to looked anything like yours, John. There was one white fraternity that had one or two black brothers, but the rest of them were segregated as could be. Sororities too. Granted, this is a school in North Carolina, but it’s a “public ivy” and considered the liberal bastion of the state.
There were some service projects performed, but mostly the frats were places to get the girls reeeeeally drunk and see how far you could get.
Glad to see that yours is not of this mold. But I suspect it is an outlier, unfortunately.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Pretty much.
oldster
Germans never forgetting reminds me of this awesome comic strip:
http://satwcomic.com/not-a-yahtzee
Each of the characters represents a country–Denmark, Sweden, etc. They are playing a game, until someone gets emo, and has a hard time letting go.
lamh35
@Randy P: School Daze is actually one of my fav Spike Lee movies. It and “A Different World” (google it white folk) were my windows into life at HBCUs, even if it was fictionized. ADW more than School Daze is the reason why my first college was an HBCU (Southern University. Home of the Human Jukebox) and if my life had been fairer back then, I would have graduated from SU instead of the University of New Orleans.
John Cole
The religious studies department (run by two women you have seen in pictures at Cole house parties) had a Holi celebration and a bunch of the kids went down to participate and throw dye on each other before coming up.
raven
@John O: I ran the intramural hoops program at Georgia after I moved from Urbana. The frats were a fucking nightmare when it came to officiating. I had a coordinator of officials that was no-nonsense and, together we kicked ass and took names. Tony Clements was the head of Rec Sports at Illinois and he did as good a job as possible.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, my experience says that frats (and sororities, for that matter) are awful and a horrible influence on college campuses of all sizes. I’m sure there are exceptions since Cole’s boys are so beloved by him and my John has nothing but good to say about his own Greek experience. But the vast majority are classist, misogynist cheating machines. If I had a son, he’d be disowned if he joined one and I have warned my college-aged niece in no uncertain terms that if she goes to any parties at her school’s frats, she should expect nothing less than her drinks being drugged and a sexual assault or harassment incident to be the result. And I make no apologies for that. I’ve seen more than enough in my own education and years working in higher ed to know I’m right.
NotMax
@NotMax
Also too, eemom, words can (and often do) have more than one meaning.
Even polar opposite meanings.
Cleave can mean meld tightly together and also cutting apart.
Another example of a word with 2 different and opposing meanings is sanction.
BethanyAnne
I trust your judgement on the Greek system as much as I trust your judgement on Middle East wars, so there’s that.
raven
@John Cole: Sounds like the Paint Party they had at UGA a couple of weeks back.
cathyx
@John Cole: Then you must think you can actually change everyones mind, too. Are Germans also stubborn and unrealistic?
Bruce S
@John Cole:
“I am German, and I can never let anything go. Someone said something nasty about frats a couple years back and that means I will probably have a chip on my shoulder for, oh, I dunno, another thirty years.”
I’ll start worrying when you grow a funny moustache, put the logo on armbands and start rallying your men to invade the other fraternities…
muddy
@eemom: My first time at college a guy asked me if I was Greek. I grew up overseas and didn’t know what he meant, and I said scornfully that I was Irish. I thought he was a lunatic and he thought I was one too. Someone clued me in later when I said how bizarre it was.
Roger Moore
@eemom:
Sure they’re Greek, but they are not Hellenic.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: Your opinion seems to match that of the majority of commenters on this blog. It, however, does not match my experience.
Mark
John it’s great you’re doing this but I don’t get what’s in it for the kids. When I was their age at school the last thing I wanted to do was hang with middle-aged guys.
ranchandsyrup
@John Cole: Oh cool! I was wildly speculating and was way off. I thought the gentleman on the right was some sort of zombie. The kids love them some zombies these days. Also a possibility: Animal activists throwing paint on
fur coatcoon skin cap wearers. I kid. I kid.It’s cool you volunteer your time to the house and these young men.
oldster
I think the over-arching issue here is that young guys in the 18-22 age are still deeply, deeply immature, and need a lot of guidance.
When they have a terrific leader and mentor to guide them, like John, then I can believe that they do good stuff. (And I’m not being sarcastic: you are clearly a great guy).
Without that, they are feral dogs.
Basically, that’s the deal with guys that age: they are dogs. They need a lot of training. With a lot of training and a short leash, they can be good dogs. Without it, they cause trouble. When they run in packs, the trouble is a lot worse.
Good thing John is a good trainer of dogs!
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like I said, I’m sure there are exceptions. Kind of like good Republicans. They exist but the assholes who make up the majority unfortunately make them look bad regardless. Unfair but true.
NotMax
#Roger Moore
Or Ted & Hellenic, one hopes.
Citizen Alan
I am hopelessly biased against fraternities because I went to Ole Miss, whose white fraternities at the time (I think most of them still segregated) were the sort of kids who would have dropped out of school in 1861 to go join the University Greys and “fight them Yankees.” In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the KA’s still celebrated “Charles Sumner Cane Day” and had formal balls where the brothers wore Confederate uniforms.
I admit my experience may have been atypical. If I’d had any interest in Greek life, I’d have probably been a Delta Psi, which was and AFAIK still is the closest thing to a “Revenge of the Nerds” frat at Ole Miss.
AT
A real mentor wouldn’t have let his young one wear a black suit, black shirt, red tie combo…
John Cole
@cathyx:
No. I work small scale. I’m trying to change these guys for the better and maybe change one or two of you and the way you think about things.
You guys are all so defeatist. You want to change fraternity culture, you want to change the Democratic party, you want to change anything, you do it from within and lead by example.
You don’t just yell FUCK EM ALL and go home.
And beyond that, I love these kids and I will defend them from the blanket bullshit you are all throwing down. You know who else threw out blanket bullshit this week? Some jackass from Heritage who thinks all Hispanics are stupid.
Walk a mile in my shoes for a minute. I’m trying to do the right thing and raise responsible men, and all I read here is fucking bullshit about roofies and white entitlement.
I’m actually starting to get really fucking pissed off right now.
MikeJ
@oldster:
And often, their mentors look back on their own days as a feral dog lovingly, and are loathe to deny the experience of being feral to their charges.
NotMax
@John Cole
All? Take exception to that blanket condemnation.
Auguste
@cathyx: Yes, but you have read blogs before, correct? You realize that 75% of blog writing (both posts and comments) involve defending, often vigorously, one’s opinion on topics both large and small against those who hold contrary opinions?
I’m just not sure why this particular post is any different regarding whether Cole should spend time trying to convince someone of something.
Mr Stagger Lee
@efgoldman: Because the football sucks in New England, witness former Oregon Ducks, new Philly Eagles coach Chip Kelly who was from New Hampshire. O/t watching CBC and I guess the Vancouver Canucks will can the coach for choke jobs in the playoffs(Go Sharks!)
MikeJ
@Citizen Alan:
I grew up in Memphis. Everyone I knew in HS who was remotely interested in being in a frat or sorority went to Ole Miss.
cathyx
The blog is broken again.
Omnes Omnibus
@John Cole:
Not worth it. Lots of people on this blog have very fixed ideas about a number of things. Not something you are familiar with, is it?
oldster
@John Cole:
“I’m trying to do the right thing and raise responsible men”
Well, it sounds like you are succeeding. My hat is off to you.
ChrisNYC
Maybe focus your ire on the huge huge number of really crappy fraternities rather than on the critics of the really crappy fraternities.
Roger Moore
@oldster:
People are not innately civilized. We have to be taught to be civilized, and that teaching has to be reinforced over time or it wears off. We may be better at teaching girls to be civilized than boys, but that’s a cultural matter, not something inherent. If you teach boys to be civilized when they’re younger and keep reinforcing the training, they won’t be dogs when they’re 18-22. If you don’t train them by the time they’re 22, they won’t magically become better as they get older, as a quick look at American business culture should show you.
John O
@John Cole:
Chill, JC. It’s a good thing you’re doing. I’m a special case, because I’ve avoided “clubs” pretty much my whole life in all spheres. Don’t trust institutions or institutional thinking very much, especially those of a bunch of young men. Groupthink creeps me out.
I have no doubt these kids are better off for your presence.
And, having avoided this topic for a long time due to my limited experience with frats, I’m out.
(Unless I’m needlessly provoked. :-) )
RSA
High stakes. I like the idea in principle, though. Sometimes at the end of the semester I think, “If I could have each student in my office for half an hour, I could judge their mastery of the material better than the written final exam I give.” Logistics, though…
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
tee hee. As Bugs Bunny once said: “He don’t know me very well, do he?”
cathyx
@John Cole: Then you must have Irish in you too. You like a good fight.
I grew up in a family with a father who is a lawyer and a sister who then became one. So we argued every night at dinner as a form of entertainment.
Omnes Omnibus
@John O:
Some people are more “clubbable” than others.
@eemom: I just wanted my statement to be on record. I know you will continue to bash your head against that wall, just like Cole will continue to post Greek positive stories.
MattR
@lamh35:
Just for the record, some of us white folks were viewers of that show when we were younger :)
jeffreyw
Katie Update
NotMax
@eemom
Just wondering if you get equally incensed at the use of Greek in certain, um, less savory classified ads.
NotMax
@jeffreyw
So how’d the breaking in of the grill with veggies work out?
eemom
@NotMax:
Yikes. Believe it or not, I actually don’t know what you mean.
hmmm. To guess, or to google, that is the question.
Haydnseek
Give me a fucking break, Cole. You can’t just post about your brothers and the positives that come from the relationships that you and they will cherish and just leave it at that. From the title of the post, and continuing to the first sentence, it’s clear that you were spoiling for a fight. You got one, and when you started taking punches you started whining. You dropped a cherry bomb in the toilet and then started crying because you wound up covered in piss. Grow up.
John O
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know. But I bailed on the Cub Scouts after about a week, in a rural community where ALL the boys were Cub Scouts, when I was 7?/8? because it seemed a little too…conformist?…it’s hard to describe the feelings of even myself at that age…but I didn’t like it, that’s for sure.
I was raised in a large extended family with a very strong “think for yourself” ethic, and there have been great things and horrible things about the rest of my life because of it.
*shrug* That’s just the way it has always been for me.
Mr Stagger Lee
Two quick goals for the Pens, I hope John feels better. Back to the thread.
Joel
@John Cole: when it comes to Coles, you’re no cauliflower. Much more like a mustard. Tenacious. Perserverent. Pungent.
John Cole
I will just say this. I have no idea how you look at those pictures and see anything but good.
raven
Owl on the wing at sunset.
jeffreyw
@NotMax: Portobello mushrooms are killer, zucchini, not so much. Halved potatoes show promise, I need to get the heat right. Sweet corn. I say again: Grilling sweet corn is the killer cooking app.
Keith G
Paranoid and a short temper.
Sounds very “Greek” to me.
Edit
The kids seem fine. You, on the other hand, are rather tightly coiled.
raven
@jeffreyw: Yes!
Cassidy
Hooray paying for friends!
I couldn’t resist. Forgive me.
NotMax
@John Cole
Still curious re: the query up above in #3.
Bruce S
@John Cole
I’m pretty sure that’s a NoKorean flag…
Dee Loralei
@jeffreyw: I know it’s weird, but I fell in love with that little girl the first time you posted her picture. I hope she stays in with you guys from now on. I’ve been worried about her.
Ted & Hellen
@oldster:
Wow.
No, no blanket condemnation here. lol
Gravenstone
@NotMax: Don’t give it ideas for the next time the ban hammer falls.
Randy P
Just remember, John: All generalizations are false (including this one of course). Don’t sweat it.
Bruce S
Cole is pissed off ? – aka Happier than a pig in shit – this post was troll bait.
Scratch
Sig Eps rule!
Just Some Fuckhead
I find the gang signs a little disturbing. I hope you don’t let them gangbang.
John O
@John Cole:
LOL. Now that’s just stupid.
Every picture doesn’t tell the story.
Bruce S
What’s he so fucking proud of when unemployment among Greek youth is 60%?
Oh…never mind!
jeffreyw
@Dee Loralei: Thanks! She has a lot of fans on Facebook, rooting for her return.
NotMax
OT:
That caused a double-take.
Speaking about climate change, Chris Hayes just uttered the phrase “Hot as balls.”
scav
All male packs of groupthink, or all female groups of same? Not to all tastes, especially when they got omnipresent, let alone over-praised as the ideal. Fluid mix and match socialization as my interests changed more my style rather than a single cohort uber alles.
Baud
@NotMax:
Yep. Made me look up also.
BethanyAnne
Damn, you’ve all ignored the obvious. /sigh/ guess I gotta, then?
Hey, John Cole, know who else wanted to instill leadership in young men?
/snicker
Haydnseek
@John O: No shit. Nice one, Cole. I hope your beloved brothers don’t mind being used as cover when you feel like a little dust-up.
Thot Gor
My only experience with Frats was having my computer assigned dorm roomate join Sigma Nu. They used my room as a pre/post bar crawl hangout (~4 nights a week) because they wanted to make the ghey (me) move out. I do not look back fondly on those nights spent on my friends’ floors.
Ted & Hellen
@John Cole:
ooooh…ha!
You LOVE being pissed off, Cole.
joel hanes
@John Cole:
I have no idea how you look at those pictures and see anything but good.
I’ve read all the comments.
No one in this thread has said a single bad word about the guys in the pictures.
Many comments have complimentary things to say about the guys in the pictures.
Some people have said pretty harsh things about the sorority/fraternity people that they knew, in other places, at other times — but those remarks were about other people, not about the people in your pictures, and not about you.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: How did Mrs J achieve the impossible? I hope the kittehs are behaving themselves.
Redshirt
Death to the Greek System! Down with Fraternities!
gelfling545
Greeks were not a big presence at the school (state) I attended and it was the late 60’s so we were kind of otherwise occupied. At my brother’s school (private), however, they were a big deal & he joined a frat. Those of his graduating class stayed close for all the years after college & got together as often as circumstances would allow. The real value came clear to me many years later’ sadly, at his funeral where his “brothers” were our prop & mainstay through a horrible time and this in spite of one just getting his family on the road to move from NY to VA and one at the airport preparing to depart on a business trip. When they were called, they dropped everything for him. That’s an enormous wealth of caring.
Haydnseek
@John Cole: I will just say this. I have no idea how you could be so utterly blind to the very idea of context. This wasn’t about pictures, and you know it. You’re fake innocence is fairly sickening. Oh, by the way, re your earlier post: Fuck You
Spaghetti Lee
Come on now, everyone, be at peace. Sure, Cole loves starting fights with the comments section, but y’all love taking the bait, too.
schrodinger's cat
I knew a woman who was in a sorority. She was a xenophobic bitch, nasty to anyone who spoke with an accent.
ETA: She particularly did not like people from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I have no idea why.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: But isn’t that Cole’s point? That fraternities and sororities can be something other than what the people saying harsh things have seen?
ulee
Off topic. I was walking my dog and I met a nice woman who was walking her dog. We struck up a conversation. She suddenly said, “I’m married.” I gave her a strange look and continued on my way, thinking–Jeez, we were just having a conversation, I wasn’t hitting on her–. Then it hit me. She had said, “I’m Mary.” She was introducing herself. This is why I never leave the house unless I need to. I’m an idiot.
NotMax
@Redshirt
At least to that one so ubiquitous on the internet.
Omicron Mu Gamma
MikeJ
@Thot Gor:
Sigma Nu sat right behind my dorm at football games. We would always sing (to the tune of Oh My Darling, Clementine):
I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole through and through
But I’d rather be an aasshole than a fucking Sigma Nu
cyntax
John’s frat is great. I have no doubt of this. But some shining exceptions don’t obviate the statistical trend which is that women in college have a higher chance of being raped, and fraternerties are where the most repeat offenders on campus hide.
I’m a former redleg and I would never try to deny that the Army (and the military in general) has a problem with rape. Just like fraternities.
muddy
A girl I knew in the dorm was a pledge to a sorority, I went over there with her one time (1979). They were drawing back from me like they’d catch something – Eek, don’t breathe her air! No, I’m not preppy, i’m a freak, and my freak flag was flying. The girl says to me that she hoped it did not hurt my feelings, but it was a good thing that I hadn’t rushed as no one would have me. I said I hoped it did not hurt her feeling, but I took that as a compliment.
I feel compelled to add that this was in olden days in Oklahoma, and nothing like John’s crew, don’t yell at me.
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: That wasn’t Cole’s point. He wanted a fight. He got it. He got his ass kicked, then went into his'” poor, poor misunderstood me” mode. Fuck him.
p.a.
@John Cole: Sounds kind of like ‘Irish Alzheimers’- when one forgets everything but one’s grudges.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Insisting we all have to like them — expecting universal approbation from this lot — is a bit of a tell, especially given the last few nights.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: @Haydnseek: I won’t deny the trolling aspect of the post. OTOH, Cole has been pretty damn consistent in pointing out many of the positives that he found/finds in the Greek system.
Gravenstone
@eemom: As with many things, Urban Dictionary is your friend. Of course, some friends are more welcome than others.
Cassidy
@Haydnseek:
Really? In a comments section?
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re absolutely right, Omnes. Fair enough, and I would be the last to naysay Cole’s experience. But that was only peripheral to the spirit of his post.
Haydnseek
@Cassidy: Of course. Where else?
Cassidy
@Haydnseek: That’s kind of like crowing about hitting a homerun in t-ball…as an adult.
Haydnseek
@Cassidy: You’re right. It’s just too easy.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s certainly true. Which somehow just makes it all somehow increasingly a cold-blooded use though. Not getting a good feeling off this.
Another Halocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, right. Look at the big change recently in perception of the word “retarded”. For years the concerns of advocates for the autistic and developmentally disabled were brushed out. Now it’s socially on the outs.
I recall the first time I was blindsided with the term “Greek” without context or explicit explanation that it meant fraternities and sororities. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.
“Greek” needs to go. Not sure why they bother with the letters anyway. One of my brothers went to one of those schools where everyone is in a frat (I went to a school where frats were banned, which I feel was very appropriate). Not being a joiner (he got kicked out of the HS’s beleaguered football team because he refused to shave his head after a loss), he got in with the un-frat. Their name? Σ Φ ∅
Signify Nothing.
(The only fer serious frat name I like is AG-Rho, ΑΓΡ.)
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Katie came into heat and fell in love with the neighbor’s Yorkie. She was paying a visit and they were able to trap her on a railed in porch deck.
Ash Can
What a nice group of handsome young co-eds.
Another Halocene Human
@lamh35: Yeah, I second that. Most of the frats I’m familiar with have the single token black member. Otherwise the only blacks in the house are the cooking staff.
Black fraternities and sororities from what I’ve seen seem to be engaged in a number of positive endeavors. I recently met a young lady in a sorority who had seemed to have picked up some serious organizational skills doing events. (She also seemed a smidge more open minded than the girls in the really WASPy sororities.) And the fraternities do those step-dancing competitions. Some other ethnic groups have formed beneficial organizations or non-residential fraternities to provide some of the same support, events, and so on as the historically Black fraternities.
Haydnseek
@jeffreyw: Think of Eric Idle reading these two sentences while gentle piano music plays softly in the background………
Soonergrunt
@raven: Oh, that NEVER happens!
ulee
They marketed the movie “Grease” in Mexico as “El Vasalino.” I don’t think it hurt sales, but when they tried to sell the Chevy Nova, it didn’t work out so well, since no va means–doesn’t go.
MikeJ
@Another Halocene Human:
Which actually means exactly the same thing as “developmentally disabled”. Whatever word you come up with to describe the condition will become a pejorative. And then we’ll find a new description that seems nicer now but will eventually be bad.
Which isn’t to say coming up with nicer words is a bad thing. I’m all for being nice to everyone.
Another Halocene Human
@TG Chicago: There was a certain point where knowing Greek letters was a signal of class status. Only the spare children of very wealthy families went to US colleges to be scholars, where they studied ancient languages (until the agitators for modern languages won out–once upon a time college students in the US held protests to demand Shakespeare).
A lot of fraternities were formed at the time bicycles (boneshakers) were rich boys’ toys. They pitched in together to rent housing to get out from under the thumb of in loco parentis (or just de parente) and the rest was history.
schrodinger's cat
Aaww poor Juliepuppeh wuz visiting her Romeowoof. How are the kittehs reacting?
Another Halocene Human
@John Cole: Johann Kohl, angenehm, Sie kennen zu lernen.
Jedenfalls, fick dich mit einem verrosteten Gartenwiesel!
NotMax
@Another Halocene Human
Not much of a joiner in general, but the primary reason I did join a frat at one college was because just a few years prior, in the early 60s, they had been booted out of the national organization for admitting non-white members.
The frat re-organized (slightly changed their name) to become an independent and remains so.
Also, no rush, no hazing. Anyone who cared to join simply had to pony up $5 in dues twice a year.
While there was a kitchen in the frat house, there were no living quarters.
Very laid back, and a large space to have a bash without having to go through the red tape of using regular campus facilities. (Bonus with any function on campus was that as it was a dry township, drinks and beer could be available/served, but the event (and the alcohol) had to be free.)
geg6
@John Cole:
You need to work on your reading comprehension, John. I really don’t like what I have seen and experienced with regard to frats but I was also careful to note that there are exceptions as your experience and my John’s illustrate. But you can’t deny that overall they deserve their bad reputation. Perhaps you’d be better off telling your fellow Greeks how not to be assholes instead of expecting those of us who are pointing out that you and your boys are an exception to ignore everything we know about such organizations and agree that frats are awesome because you say so.
That said…
GO PENS!
ulee
@MikeJ: I worked for years with people who were diagnosed with “mental retardation.” They knew they were being called retarded and I could see how deeply hurt they were by the term. To say someone is developmentally disabled is so much more respectable. Isn’t that why we changed the term? No, it’s not pejorative, it’s kind. And it’s not the same thing. That’s like saying a spic is the same as a Hispanic.
amy c
@lamh35: We have a few Alpha Kappa Alphas in our office (I work in university administration) and I can’t praise these women enough. They are just organized and professional in a way that most of our entry-level hires are not. Clearly something is going right there.
Another Halocene Human
@geg6: It’s okay, all the engineers I met in engineering school were perfectly competent at cheating their pants off without the assistance of any frat.
Haydnseek
@Another Halocene Human: Oh Johann, wo bist du?
Another Halocene Human
@cathyx: Are Germans stubborn and unrealistic?
Cathyx, have you ever met my mom?
Another Halocene Human
@Bruce S: I’ll start worrying when you grow a funny moustache, put the logo on armbands and start rallying your men to invade the other fraternities…
Actually, I’m pretty sure it all starts in a drinking establishment. Cole’s favorite rotgut serving pub, look out.
ulee
I, for one, will always hold close the words that JFK spoke. “I am a donut.”
Anne Laurie
@jeffreyw: CONGRATULATIONS!
I’m looking forward to the story, though. Did the Havaheart finally work? Or was it just bribes & patience?
Haydnseek
@ulee: That was intentional. Kaiser roll did poorly in focus groups.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Homer has issues, he was all hump backed and cool just now in the hallway when they met. No problem with the others so far. She is trying to transfer her attentions to Jack and is a bit miffed that he is resisting her charm. Haven’t seen Bitsy yet.
Woodrowfan
I went to a SLAC and most of the frats were cool. The one that was “date-rape” (ie rape) central was booted. I was Greek but it was a cool house, kind of the theater-stoner chapter. But then I went to grad school at Large State University and, HOLY COW, you couldn’t have gotten me to join a frat if you’d told me it was Hugh Hefner’s House. Animal Houses one after another. It really does depend on the campus atmosphere and the adult oversite of each house.
Maybe it helped that the SLAC still had House Mothers.
NotMax
@Haydnseek
And Napoleon made a lead balloon look buoyant.
Another Halocene Human
@Roger Moore: Sure they’re Greek, but they are not Hellenic.
Oh, no worries, they are called “Hellenic Societies” too.
Woodrowfan
@oldster: LOVE IT! Thank you for the link.
ulee
@Haydnseek: I like JFK, but he did too much meth and not enough shrooms.
Another Halocene Human
@John Cole: I don’t think the roofie frats respond to anything but being shut down by their national orgs and the school.
Honest.
The frats that aren’t giant problems don’t make the news. But there’s something really, really wrong when school administrators, basically all the adults, look the other way when there are problem frats.
Haydnseek
@NotMax: That may explain why Napoleon’s hand is where it it in all of those paintings.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nah, Cole’s point is that he can’t demonstrate love & affection without adding a primate threat display. MANLY!
ulee
And what is it with Jackie saying, “Kennedys don’t cry.” If that’s a true story she was one screwed up person.
Anne Laurie
@Gravenstone: Hell, that particular euphemism was starting to go mainstream in 1974! I can pin down the year, because the frats at our large Midwestern state college (aka Moo U) put up giant GO GREEK! posters at a table just outside the cafeteria in the “alternative” dorm, and the swishest guy on campus kept threatening to go ask them “active or passive?”…
He didn’t (mostly because his friends really really worried for his physical safety)but someone must’ve, because the signs disappeared mid-pledge-week.
Another Halocene Human
@NotMax: I think it’s pretty lame there, too.
Also, historians are divided as to what sexual act is actually being depicted on those wine vessels. Many believe it is intercrural sex.
Also, based on some statistics I’ve seen, what has been styled “Greek style” since the 20th century really deserves the name “American style”.
Now the French got their name affixed to that particular act fair and square. Paris was the LA of the 19th century porn world.
More to the point, the term “Greek” during the midcentury had much broader and stronger associations with the physical expression of homoerotic attraction than it does today, where the personal ads are pretty much a holdover. The reasons for this are too involved to get into on this thread. At any rate, even in personals I don’t think that term, which is a holdover, is so ubiquitous. On Craigslist people write their own listings so people are free to drop these obsolete terms.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Homer became a bottle brush kitteh after he saw her? You has photos?
NotMax
@ulee
‘Jackie’ giving “The Tour” still remains funny, funny stuff.
MC Simon Milligan
@ulee: It’s probably just as true as the Nova and jelly donut stories.:
Another Halocene Human
@NotMax: Wow. He said “freaking” yesterday, then made a face like he’d caught himself too late, but oh well, it’s only cable.
Wonder if the suits are going to take him out to the woodshed or secretly banking on “youth appeal”.
Haydnseek
@NotMax: Niall Ferguson to the white courtesy phone in 3…2…1…
Another Halocene Human
@Spaghetti Lee: Just a-fussin’ and a-fightin’.
Hope you’re okay, Spaghetti. As a depressive, let me just say: it gets better. Although, despite whatever bullshit anyone feeds you, sometimes you do have to change your circumstances.
And get some sunlight.
Though going outside was sometimes an issue for me. Who am I kidding, still is.
Mnemosyne
@jeffreyw:
Yay!
So funny that she was happy to fend for herself all winter but was finally catchable in the spring.
Another Halocene Human
@Cassidy: Hey, adults have feelings, too!
ulee
I’m curious. Whatever happened to John Kennedy’s first wife? Was she lobotomized? I can imagine the scene. “So you were married to JFK, mmm? We will help you with your delusion.”
Another Halocene Human
@NotMax: That actually sounds really cool.
Being abused as a child (and seeing college as an escape–that was illusory, of course) I couldn’t comprehend why on Earth anyone would join an organization knowing that there would be hazing.
Yatsuno
Mnemosyne: Love is in bloom!
Cacti
College made us friends, but membership dues made us brothers.
:-P
Srsly though, I never had any negative experiences with fraternity types during my undergrad years.
ulee
@Another Halocene Human: I would hope that hazing would be something like–volunteering at a soup kitchen every weekend for a year or painting an elderly neighbor’s home. Scrubbing the bathroom with a toothbrush is harmless enough but it’s just an exercise in control and humiliation. But we all know it gets much more sadistic than that. I would be interested in hearing Cole’s experiences in hazing.
Mnemosyne
@ulee:
Despite the rumors, all evidence points to Jacqueline Kennedy being JFK’s first (and only) wife. JFK denied it, Durie Malcolm denied it, and there’s absolutely no evidence of it. It basically seems to have been made up out of whole cloth by one of Malcolm’s JFK-hating relatives.
ulee
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t know that. As Lou Reed said, Don’t believe anything you read and half of what you see.
NotMax
@ulee
Hm. Jackie did go on to marry a Greek.
And the circle is closed.
ulee
Why does everything I own keep breaking down? First it was the furnace, then the car, then the plumbing, and now the fridge. How will I keep my beer cold? I don’t believe in God and I refuse to pray to this make believe fairy tale. Is that why he keeps fucking me over?
Cacti
@Citizen Alan:
KA was known as the date rape fraternity on my college campus, so I find this utterly unsurprising.
MikeJ
@ulee: Retarded *was* the kind term for a long time. I have no problem with being nice and using the least currently offensive term, but “current” changes.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
IIRC, “moron” and “imbecile” used to be scientific terms that referred to specific IQ measurements, so I know exactly what you mean.
Though it might take a little longer for “developmentally disabled” to become a slur just because it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
nathaniel
Here is the thing I notice about this frat, its diversity. I think that is the key thing. Any time you have a group of people that are very similar, whether that is rich preppy white males or nerdy male comic books fans (I am a male I am not familiar with women only groups) they behave poorly towards those outside of their group.
Violet
John, you do a good thing working with those guys. They look like nice kids. Glad your frat is one of the good ones.
Petorado
@John Cole:
Are you sure they weren’t shooting a remake of “This Too Shall Pass”?
Condorcet runner up
@eemom: this.
Steeplejack
@jeffreyw:
Congratulations! How did you finally snag her?
Tom543
John: I think it depends where you go. I was at a school(long time ago) where most of the students were 1st generation college. I was an independent but had a lot of Greek friends. I enjoyed many a fun time at various fraternity houses. We had a lot of people on either side who put down the other but they were a minority. There were assholes on both sides of the aisle and great people on both sides. Never understood why people bitched about the choices other people made.
SFAW
@John Cole:
You know who else was German?
(Well, he was Austrian, ekchually, but all them Krauts look alike.)