I teach at the greatest university in the country of Texas, and one of the greatest in the entire Americas. You can look it up. I've gone on about it a lot here and at the other site.
And at this great university we are RUN OVER with frat cretins like the fucking animals in the story below. So many of them make me so fucking sick. I don't see many undergrads in my classes, but I see them twerking about on the quad and out front of their smelly houses here on campus.
I read this story today and my only response was a blind fucking rage. If there was any justice in the world - and who the fuck am I kidding - these pathetic Sigma Alpha Epsilon fucks over in Tempe would be locked away for life for what they've done.
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We have new information about the grave situation an ASU student was in after drinking too much at a party. The student, who was left at an emergency room by friends, has been identified as 20-year-old Aidan Mohr. He's not of legal age to drink.
According to police, Mohr's blood alcohol level was five times the legal limit. He drank somewhere around 30 ounces of tequila in a few hours' time. "He began to vomit, he was beginning to have difficulty breathing, his eyes rolled in the back of his head," says Tempe Police Sgt. Mike Pooley.
Sgt. Mike Pooley says the 20-year-old did 20 shots of tequila during a drinking contest and was eventually dropped off by his frat brothers at the ER at Tempe Saint Luke's Hospital. His name was written on a Post-It. His blood alcohol concentration was .471%.
"In severe cases when the blood alcohol level gets too extreme they can go into coma," says ER nurse Janet Backers, director of the ER.
It was last December that police believe ASU student Jack Culolias drowned in Tempe Town Lake after a night of heavy drinking with fraternity brothers -- the same frat police say Mohr belongs to.
Tempe Police are not filing any charges at this point.
Aidan was still in the hospital as of Sunday. Even though he was in extremely critical condition, police tell us he is expected to make a full recovery.
More of this.
Frats and sororities should all be outlawed. At every school everywhere.
ReplyDeletePeriod.
Yes. This.
DeleteIf only. Irredeemable wastes of humanity. They weren't a big factor at my undergrad institute, nor where I teach now, but they were practically the raison d'etre for my grad school, which means I had a whole passel of the little shits in every one of my classes as a TA. Argh.
DeleteYES! YES! YES! And Abercrombie & Fitch. All three. Outlawed!
DeleteIf you consider that many lawmakers, and celebrities, are alumni of various sororities and frats, and they continue their shenanigans into their twilight years at places like the Bohemian Grove, I doubt that'll ever happen, no matter how many times this stupidity is repeated. Kinda like assault rifles and massacres.
DeleteSometimes I'd like to get the provost's BAC up to .471 and then drop him off at the ER with only a Post-It note on him.
ReplyDeleteBubba, post-it notes won't stick to anything that slimy. You'll have to use a stapler.
DeleteNail gun.
DeleteHarpoon.
DeleteBattle axe. To arms, comrades!
DeleteAs a believer in freedom of association, I wouldn't condone banning fraternities and sororities, but universities could at the same time not give them any official recognition, not allow university property to be used for housing that isn't university-run, etc. etc. If the idiots then want to have a fraternity off-campus, they can. Yes, I loathe them, but I am at a university where they're not much of a presence and there is still a lot of excessive drinking and partying and riotous assembly etc. You don't need frats for that, only a bunch of 18-year-olds away from home. Still, I'd mount my Shetland pony, pack up my best home-made explosives, and join you.
ReplyDeleteThe largest uni in Canuckistan, with 65,000+ students, doesn't allow frats and sororities to be associated with the university, so while they're there, the non-association has had its desired effect - these organizations are pretty much non-entities in the social life of the uni, compared to another university 2 hours down the highway where these organizations are what everyone aspires to join.
DeleteBring a couple of lawsuits again college-supported fraternities and that association might end pretty quick.
DeletePoopiehead, my experiences at the university 2 hours down the road confirms your report. You didn't mention the academic influence: many of these organizations are known to keep essay banks to help out pseudo-siblings who struggle academically! Some of my earliest experiences with plagiarism owed much to those banks.
DeleteFraternities and sororities haven't been a thing at the places I've attended. Of course, it helps that our drinking age is 18 -- people get it 'out of their system' while still in high school and under their parents' care, and it's no longer a 'forbidden temptation' away from home.
ReplyDeleteChrist, that's awful. Don't you think the news story should put the word friends should be in quotes? I think they are using that term a little too freely.
ReplyDeleteWe ride at dawn.
Aww, they just needed to get a sandwich. So the guy was blue? They left a friggin' note.
DeleteIt should be easy to blow up the houses given the alcohol content inside.
Dunno about anyone else, but when I opened the link, there was a related story about a prospective student who was visiting, was badly burned by anfratboy tossing a bottle of vodka on a bonfire, and was made to wait for an ambulance down the street, so as not to cast a pall on the frat activities.
ReplyDeleteReal quality folks here.
It seems to me that there should be a way to spin off the fraternities, the sororities, and the teams full of "student"-athletes with no time to go to class into a chain of entertainment franchises -- theme parks, clubs, resorts, whatever you want to call them -- named "the college experience." For those who want an occasional touch of the academic (and/or a comfy place to sleep), they could include a few auditoriums screening MOOC lectures 24/7. Nothing (well, nothing in addition to the present practical constraints of time, money, and consciousness) would prevent an 18-22+-year-old from spending significant time both in one of these entertainment complexes and on an actual college campus, but it would be harder to confuse the two.
ReplyDeleteBut if Walter wants to blow 'em up before they can be monetized, fine with me. In fact, that might encourage reconstruction/relocation away from campus. Just check that they're empty first, please. If ASU has any kind of functioning disciplinary/sanction system (not a foregone conclusion, I realize), theirs should be ready soon.
On a more serious note, we need the equivalent of an abandoned baby law for people who are dangerously drunk: anyone should be able to call 911 and wait for the paramedics, or bring such people to a safe place (hospital, fire station, police station), and personally hand them over to a responsible person, without fear of prosecution/disciplinary action.
I'm pretty sure an 18-year-old drinking age (perhaps combined with a zero blood-alcohol limit for driving through age 25 or so, if not forever) would also help. If I'm remembering correctly, there was, a while back, a movement of college presidents encouraging just this change, precisely because they realized that enforcing the current drinking age on college campuses is (a) impossible, (b) often counterproductive in terms of protecting actual student health and safety, and (c) a huge drain on resources. Ah; yes; here it is; it's called the amethyst initiative: http://theamethystinitiative.org/ .
@Cass: I would personally take advantage of your proposed "abandoned baby law for people who are dangerously drunk" by getting .471 drunk at the hospital ER and putting a Post-It note on myself that says, "It's me again. I'm handing myself over to you. You better take care of me for the next 36 hours, or else."
DeleteYour first paragraph would make an awesome novel. I'm thinking "England, England" meets "The Lecturer's Tale."
DeleteDo we really think they abandoned him because they were worried about getting nailed for underage drinking? Many colleges already have no-fault policies like the one you describe. My read is they're moral vacuums with hair who wanted to get back to the party.
@Kate: maybe Karen Russell (Swamplandia) could write it? Or perhaps that would be too sympathetic a take?
DeleteAnd no, I don't think that fear of consequences explains, and definitely doesn't excuse, their behavior (even if the consequence were permanent expulsion, or a brief jail term, that's a relatively minor speed bump in the overall course of a lifetime compared to dying or suffering permanent brain damage). Of course, it's likely that they, too, were very drunk (which is also, of course, not an excuse. Since getting drunk involves deliberately seeking to lose some of one's faculties, at least for a time, it requires some pre-planning to limit both the loss of faculties and the consequences thereof -- viz Bubba's idea of getting drunk in the ER, which has something to be said for it, though I doubt the hospital would appreciate it).
This happens but when the darling gets a C in class, THAT'S when the parents get on the phone to complain to the provost.
ReplyDeleteRent a Friend- Join a Frat
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Walt. Frog in the driver's seat, Toad in the sidecar.
ReplyDeleteAssholes. If this were my son I'd sue the pants off of the frat.
When I read news like this the first think that comes into my mind is "Darwin in action." Let boys be boys, the dumbest ones will be removed from the gene pool. The smart ones will end in congress, probably - remember Senator Blutarsky
ReplyDelete