Mangled Students, Maimed Proffies
An analogy, a parable... with horses.
By Walt Bogdanich, Joe Drape, Dara L. Miles and Griffin Palmer
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Note from the Moderators: This is an article about abuses in horse racing. The actual title and subhead read: DEATH AND DISARRAY AT AMERICA'S RACETRACKS: Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys The new economics of horse racing are making an always-dangerous game even more so, as lax oversight puts animal and rider at risk.
Thanks, Bubba.
ReplyDeleteAs a horse-owner and a proffie, I see the link you're making VERY clearly.
I would also like to point out that the number of breakdowns is also related to the way they're being bred: Thoroughbreds are bred for light bone structure--bone structure that is not done developing until they're 5 years old--though they begin training and racing at speed as soon as they're 2. The Derby is a race for 3 year-olds. Their bones are not able to handle the muscle mass that's being packed on them. Broken and fractured sesamoid bones are common. Quarter horses are raced for a quarter mile: speed is paramount. A QH will outrun a thoroughbred over that distance (that's why they're called Quarter horses--bred to do a quarter mile). Again: muscle bulk on bone structure not developed for it. Common problem for them, if they live long enough, is navicular disease.
This article made me so sad, but I wanted to thank you for sharing it. I don't "do" Derby day anymore (not like when I was a kid), because I can't abide the practices of the "win at any cost" trainers that make up the bulk of the sporthorse world.
Win at any cost. Entertainment as bloodsport--though the blood is invisible from a distance. I keep thinking about the Romans, for some reason.
This.
DeleteYes.
Thanks.
You're welcome.
DeleteI'm the kind of horse-owner who will do ANYTHING to help my horse have a good life. My aged QH gelding lived to be 32--still bright as always but his arthritis was untreatable, so we did the humane thing and put him down in the spring of 2010. It was one of the hardest (and best) things I've ever had to do in my life. I still miss him. His grandsire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Man_Go) was one of the top racing stallions of the '50s and '60s but to us he was just the Zigman.
Articles like this make my blood boil. And when you extend the metaphor, it's even harder to stomach. Students and profs get to take the risks; admins get to sit back and collect fat salaries no matter what happens.
I am both sad and outraged by the "sport." Interesting correlation drawn here, though. :o)
ReplyDeleteI think this article and the terrible photo after the link are inappropriate, objectionable, and in very bad taste.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you referring to? The pic of the dead colt in the junkyard? Yes, it's awful.
DeleteThe point Bubba's making is that "win at any cost" has high costs--for the students and the proffies--but no costs for the administrators (the trainers/owners in the scenario Bubba is positing).
The only difference (and it *is* a big one, I'll grant you) is that the horses aren't given a choice. They are forced to run until they break down. At least the students can (theoretically) walk away.
Jacky Martin (the paralyzed man who agreed to be photographed and interviewed) is quoted in the article as saying that he has no regrets. I suspect that many proffies would say the same thing about their careers, but many would not.
DeleteWe have felt emotional pain analogous to the jockeys' physical pain. We have encountered danger, taken risks, and struggled with owners who stick their heads in the sand.
In the video, one of the jockeys says, "Are we a tool? Or are we a person? Without us, the game won't go."
There's pain there, no doubt. But reading an article, or looking at a photo of a dead horse, is nothing compared to what most of us have endured in higher education.
We should all sing happy songs and go look at puppy videos all the time? Ignoring reality means validating inhumanity.
DeleteShit, that's deep. Give us more of your wisdom. Here's a picture of 40 dead Jews. You better go look at it if you don't want to keep validating inhumanity.
Delete"40 dead Jews": that's .... well, I can't think of anything to say about that without running the risk of violating the terms of participation here, and I like it here, mostly. Everyone else is going to have to decide what to think of you for that one, Middlemarch.
DeleteThe original link was tagged with words like "mangled" and "maimed": if anyone didn't want to be disturbed, they should avoid links like that. It's pretty easy to do.
I've received a number of emails this morning complaining that this article is "wildly off topic." The commenters have worked hard to enforce Bubba's hope that it would be seen as a parable, but that could be done with a news article on just about anything.
DeleteLeslie K
The analogy, sadly, works for me, on several levels:
ReplyDelete--Parents pushing their kids' participation in sports, or some other extracurricular, or a dozen extracurriculars at once, or just pushing for the highest grades/scores possible, in hopes of a college scholarship (or an Ivy League degree, or entry into the best law, med, business, etc. school, or. . .) Of course the "fatal breakdowns" aren't (usually) physical (unless you count depression as a physical condition, which, in fact, it is), and aren't always completely fatal, but they're still debilitating, in both the short and long term.
--Advisors/institutions creating Ph.D.s for whom there are no decently-paid positions available, including at the institution itself (okay, so institutions don't generally hire their own Ph.D.s, but they're also not hiring enough people *like* their own Ph.D.s to decently-paid positions). There is, sadly, plenty of work available, but it's at the adjunct level, with no hope for advancement. So they adjunct for a while, and when they're thoroughly broke (and psychologically broken down), they have to start looking for other work.
--And yes, there are also the races to which BurntChrome alludes: to be considered "excellent," or a "top 10," or just to pass the state/accreditation board-mandated assessments, which often seem to involve manipulation of numbers more than anything that actually improves the education students get.
--And finally, there's the most obvious parallel: the use of college athletes who will almost certainly never finish a degree to raise the profile of the institution.
Ugh. Bubba, I'm glad that horse has you to take care of him (and ditto for BurntChrome's).
Isn't there a Misery rule about off topic posts. Of course we can make up parallels between ANY news story and what we face as professors, but this belongs on another blog.
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion: if you don't like/agree with the topic, don't read it/comment about it.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who read it, and got the point Bubba was making, have had a decent discussion.
One person's "off-topic" is very much another person's "on".
I totally get the analogy and think that this kind of post is dead on.
DeleteHow often have we seen colleagues get sent to the "glue-factory"?
the silverbacks?
ReplyDelete