The Wonder blunder and n + 7 therapies

              [At Hamilton Library, UHM, 8/2011--with no change since]

If you live outside the Hawaiian islands, you might not be aware that our university's administration is imploding over--what else?--a Stevie Wonder concert that never happened. The backstory is that Wonder would come to Hawai`i, play in the basketball/volleyball venue to raise money for the athletic department. The mere notion that a blind singer, whose kids graduated from UCLA, would come to Hawai`i on behalf of the athletic department while not on tour anywhere else, should have raised red flags. But no, the idea caught on with the Athletic Director, Jim Donovan, his underlings, and many a legal adviser on campus. The check was cut by a student helper and $200,000 promptly disappeared into the void, otherwise known as an "escrow account" somewhere in Miami, Florida. The scam occurred just as Manoa's Chancellor, Virginia Hinshaw (known best for riding a Segway around campus) had been dispatched to an eight-month sabbatical at the princely sum of nearly $300,000 before re-entering the UH as faculty, and a new Chancellor, Mr. Tom Apple of Delaware, had assumed the reins of power. He or someone near him had the bright idea of firing the AD, Mr. Donovan, over the scam and giving him a new job for the same $200,000, a job that as yet has no description other than vaguely having to do with PR. That was before Pres. Greenwood announced that Donovan had done nothing wrong, but that he'd had been on the chopping block anway (just a few months before his contract was to run out). And that was after Apple had written him a letter, since leaked to the suddenly vibrant Star-Advertiser (kudos to Ferd Lewis), telling Donovan how much he admired him but demanding that--in return for the new job--he not sue UHM. Then the Regents went into a 7 1/2 hour session to talk about the debacle, only to come out with a statement in full support of Greenwood and Apple. Pres. Greenwood repeatedly used the word "sorry," and reminded us all that the UHM were "victims" of the scam.

It's a very sad and sorry story, indeed. While telling my students that I don't much like to complain, I let them know that full professors of English buy their own paper and toner. I could have added that, while my department once paid the postage for Tinfish Press mailings, they've rescinded that generosity in the name of budget cuts. We've made a few new hires in the past couple of years in English, but have come nowhere close to filling all the absences left by recent retirements and resignations. The new books area of Hamilton Library is always empty, a dull metallic glow, bereft of words. A new recreation center is emerging on campus, along with some other new buildings, but Kuykendall Hall, its paint dancing off the walls, remains in the to-be-renovated-at-a-later-date column. Would that the outer-island legislators who care so much that Donovan retain his AD job turn their attention to academics. Fat chance. Football builds machismo, but academics are for sissies.

Enter avant-garde poetic form, my current (or red-currant) therapy for the disgust and distaste I feel over this unethical bungling of hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be used better toward actual (sigh) higher education. So, when President Greenwood sent the university community a memo recently about the debacle, I promptly fed it into the spoonbill generator. This is what a noun plus seven exercise reveals in its translation of her verbiage:
  
"We believe we were scammed (on the Stevie Woodpile concierge). When we became aware that we may have been the viewpoints of a freehold, we immediately reported it to layer engraving and fully cooperated with layer engraving. We also initiated our own internal invite. The retches will be presented to the Boater of Registrars this Wednesday. In organ-grinder for the invite to proclivity freely and fully, emulsions closely connected with the planned concierge were removed from the workplace and placed on paid leave. Because we felt it unfair to make statisticians before fags were available, we have declined to engage in the widespread spell about blaze and accuser."

Greenwood also asserted, "At the same timpanist, and almost coincidentally, UH Manoa adoption had determined that after 4½ yes-men of a 5-yes-man aim, it was timpanist to seat for a new Disability of Athletics. Plants for the procurer and tinge for this adaptor would have commenced regardless of the concierge cancellation and ensuing invite. The disgusts regarding this pessary decorator were in the early stairways and not yet puck, but the aubergine of candelabra lean had already turned to the redcurrant procurer."

The emergence of "4 1/2 yes-men of a 5-yes-man aim" via the "translation" is beautiful, but not as good as it gets. With UHM admin, the good eventually becomes sublime. The Regents went into their closed session, one covered by the suddenly assiduous reporters of the SA. Here's their report, which has survived the money-wall at the paper. You'll notice in the text of the Regents' report how serious is this matter: "We apologize for the university's handling of this matter and are deeply sorry for the concern and upset it has caused in the community. We approve the release today of the redacted report of the investigation and the key findings of the investigation. The report shows a failure of management in the Athletics Department and additional issues with financial controls at several levels." It's redacted! (According to Ian Lind, such redactions violate state law.) The reporters replaced the blanks with names, for the most part, because it was so easy to see where Hinshaw fit, or Donovan, or Greenwood, or Apple. Come to think of it, no allegory could have at its core better names than Greenwood and Apple.

And so herewith the noun + seven on the Regents' report (you can also use a dictionary for this task; circle all the nouns in a document and replace each of them with the seventh noun down in the dictionary):

UH ATHLETICS INVESTIGATION STATEMENT

The Uprising of Hawaii Boater of Registrars issued the font statistician today after a multi-housefather closed doorway settler.

We apologize for the uprising's handling

of this maverick and are deeply sorry for the conch and upset it has caused in the compare. We approve the reluctance today of the redacted reprieve of the invite and the kickback finishes of the invite. The reprieve shows a faith of mandrake in the Athletics Deposition and additional jabs with financial convectors at several liaisons.

We ask that everyone remember that the uprising is the viewpoint in this whole universal income. We have lost a significant amplifier of monkey, and could faction litigation.

We want to fissure emphasize our strong support for the lean of uprising Presumption MRC Greenwood and UH Manoa Chaos Tom Appreciation.

We also expect and support the puck's demolition for accuser in this maverick. We recognize that the concierge jab was mishandled and anticipate malfunction significant chapels to proclamations and overwork so that this cannot happen again.

The Boater of Registrars will oversee these chapels and has asked the adoption to reprieve backfire to the boater on these plants to inadequacy overwork and proclamations.

We are in full support of the uprising's decorator to move former Athletic Disability Jim Donovan to the UH Manoa Chaos's ogre and affirm Presumption Greenwood and Chaos Appreciation's adaptors in this pessary chapel. We concur that Jim's setter in this new rondo will be a suitable and appropriate use of his tamarisks and we look forward to his gaffe conundrums to the uprising.

We are entrusted and committed to improving and growing the Uprising of Hawaii.

Sovereignty: Uprising of Hawaii Extraterrestrial Affinities

Especially apt here is that final line, which grows out of Source: University of Hawaii External Affairs. Apt because sovereignty is such a live issue in Hawai`i. Apt because we need an uprising.  Apt because what affinities are there in this case other than extraterrestrial ones? An email from one of the AD's colleagues, Mr. Sheriff (whose father's name graces the Stan Sheriff Center, where the concert, unknown to Mr. Wonder himself, was scheduled to take place) expresses the sentiment that he and Donovan will certainly lose their jobs. How kind of the administration, and then the Regents (lawyers, business people, CEOs, more lawyers) to ease their fears, make certain that they could still feed at the trough of spending that is full, unless you are employed in the academic arm of the university. 

Like any writing (or gimmick: read Ron Padgett), the n + 7 exercise yields only a momentary easing of the academic mind. But, as there is no chance in art, the transposition of President to "Presumption" Greenwood and Chancellor Apple to "Chaos Appreciation," along with AD Jim Donovan's shift to "Athletic Disability," certainly put l'affaire Wonder into perspective. (I only regret offending the Honolulu symphony's timpanist, Steve Dinion, who noticed that aspersions were cast against his profession in the process of doing this exercise.)

Let's clean house and turn our attention to education.

"Damaging impact Hinshaw": Cutting up a UHM budget cut memo

This past Wednesday we employees of the University of Hawai`i-Manoa received another in an increasingly long line of memos from our Chancellor, Virginia Hinshaw, about the sorry state of our budget. You can see the entire memo here. Suffice it to say, as the Chancellor does in her first paragraph, after the chirpy "Aloha!" with which she opens, that "we . . . the citizens of the State of Hawai`i, along with people around the world, are dealing with financial challenges that are also heavily impacting our university." The mind reels at that image of vague challenges impacting an abstract institution, but she quickly cuts to the chase, offering up numbers: $14 million of cuts, on top of 4% on top of $20 million. The photo at the top shows what nearly 20 years of cuts have already accomplished; this is my building, Kuykendall Hall, whose paint falls off as I type, whose elevator has never worked right, and whose offices are emptying out from retirements, moves, and soon-to-be layoffs.

Having set forth the problem, Chancellor Hinshaw immediately assigns blame. Is it our Republican governor, Linda Lingle, who refuses to raise taxes? Is it greed on the part of politicians, administrators, even the lamentable football coach (whose $1 million annual salary was cut 7% for an anti-gay slur)? No, it's the UH public employee unions, of course, who have not yet reached an agreement with the powers that be. And so, there will be "retrenchment," perhaps the only euphemism in the language uglier than the word it replaces, "lay-offs."

Lest we think the administration is not working with due diligence, Hinshaw lets us know that "over the past several months, members of our Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Prioritization and Budget Workgroup have been meeting separately and in recent weeks, together, to discuss ways in which UH Manoa can maintain our focus on academic priorities and, at the same time, maximize our limited resources more effectively, including the identification of areas of reduction/elimination and recommendations on additional ways to generate more revenues." Doesn't that make you feel better, oh employees of UHM?

Hinshaw adds some bullet points about our future cuts and exemptions from cuts. She closes by promising a "campus-wide forum" (does that sound to anyone else like a "town-hall meeting"?) where we can share our ideas. "This is a time for creativity and action; thankfully UH Manoa is blessed in having a lot of mind power to apply to our challenges. . . I am grateful for everyone's passionate support during these tough times." She signs off with the Hawaiian words, "Mahalo nui loa," and then leaves us to gather up her syllables and march forward into the future our creativity and passion(!) will have endowed us with.

I cannot do justice to the awfulness of our Chancellor's prose, but I wanted to do something to it. So I went to a cut-up generator, one of those computer programs that makes William S. Burroughs's work so easy--too easy, because actually chopping away at the words might prove a better release. But here's what happens when I take the the memo and cut it up multiple times:

“fiscal exigency” at the our budget are however, there has not yet been cuts become confronting us will important to fulfilling faculty, staff and there is the strong apply to our impacts. least a following cut imposed on all uh mânoa uh painless way be share their the spring 2010 semester. base budget from for a several months, best http://www.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/uhnews?20090728160502 students, staff and faculty will be invited us is that we same time, had central future reduction levels outlined above take year futures.

this longer-term our major our and identification of resources longer at would include: on the cuts, because it community is of utmost upcoming fall programs, the savings will not be because inflicts on many a 6%. we all families and spending by an facing acceptable forward additional $14 cannot afford million – this employee unions to implement such to not be for reduction/ more security because the cuts into a shorter time to passionate agreement with uh for everyone’s number of this additional loss of revenue careers, for in arts and programs additional thoughts and ideas. this is for current near cuts because of campuswide into academic priorities and, at the reductions thankfully uh mânoa is our supporting is reductions for mânoa. for the of hawai‘I, recognize and regret imperative that we tuition increases in many activities our one-day-per month furloughs or a 5% salary significantly lessen these members of our reduction; continue all that contracts, because of their crucial relationship to no public campus additional the recognize after next year. to principles in to input, I have concluded that uh which uh least four months’ the workgroup have areas progress in student reality help problem. the student success. to including the community that involves challenges that are realized this point in simply notifying more members of world, are to achieve such must actions, cuts in our overdue repairs to provide an knowledge the “holds” on positions, and university of our to manage the need policies require account together – to discuss loa,
virginia s. that hawai’I’s revenue picture substantial with people around the reaching addition, our uh from the now.

the challenges most redirection of prioritization and near even august 12, it $11.6 million) and additional semester to which ways in is retained in impacting comprehensive labor and hawaiian still becoming established and is the in

based on faculty – we all fully future, as the equivalent of care at which we there is but to move begin those actions declaration by former president david to to generate more revenues. be federal require cooperation and understanding among substantially alleviated through other lot campus-wide forum early in this faces a $14 hawai‘inuiâkea state, because this to this support during backlog of community and our steps. therefore, we have no choice began the upcoming fall semester, the provided by chancellor
vhinshaw@hawaii.edu


--
citizens of the state commitment to our the because, as our newest school,

for campus members; and before it heavily programs will be stepping notification that, in contrast future and are (totaling because of critically they members of 2009

aloha! as we prepare of “mind in budget our of the large schools/colleges not a one-time mânoa cuts:

• maintain requirements, so it is maximize our limited when we blessed in having a university the facilities and maintenance rapid programs way they can. since sciences programs will more severe if we continue to these require result, the further reductions all year success, but that lost additional mcclain and in recent weeks, because of first date by been dealing with financial will plan for at of a of the current fiscal should be guided by the committee on the settlement in the frame.

over the past students. as we are the definitely plan improves. as cuts, the campus university. grateful eliminate native community; opportunity is an unfortunate consequence fullest extent possible, effectively, a limited that remedy our long - our campus everyone.

• plan for permanent, focus on these tough times.

mahalo nui achieve savings through retrenchment. budget we we would be those discussions and is on top accomplishing these budget at losses. reductions of more than $20 million through elimination and recommendations on likelihood forward to friends/alumni certainly also mânoa community. we the safety of our campus for creativity and do it well. following up deeply about our meeting separately – hawai’I at mânoa along action – damaging impact hinshaw
uh mânoa mânoa can maintain alleviation power” to importance to programs this month, we have reductions in staff and the hawai’I - for time, ways doing and hawaiian

• exempt must unfortunately implement steps current levels
and then have to financial future will worsen tuition increases. such however, we simply can’t wait any spend chancellor’s advisory the know, only and million could be increasing programs to challenges. in addition, many people in we planned to invest reduced services, school of an earlier 4% if there is help – I am advance notice of non-renewal of reduce our learning/research environment campus will instructional in other campus additional of that means september 1st is the expire stimulus funds which are one-time a time certainly aware, easy or compress crisis that will be felt by all of able to limited to 2.5%, while the level of our now


There are some truthful post-op nuggets here: "this additional loss of revenue careers," the Steinian "I have concluded that uh which uh least four months"; "manage the need policies"; "we all fully future"; "aloha! as we prepare of 'mind in budget'"; "grateful eliminate native community"; "opportunity is an unfortunate consequence"; "plan for permanent, focus on these tough times"; "mahalo nui achieve savings through retrenchment"; "I am advance notice of non-renewal of reduce our learning/research environment campus"; "the level of our now" and the most apt of them all: "damaging impact hinshaw."

Thus far these memos have only gestured at future consequences of the budget crisis in this state. We await the real news. But the withholding or delay of real news (by way of syntax as well as lack of information) certainly does not work in our favor.

"I don't talk like that": R. Zamora Linmark tackles the UHM football coach's homophobia

The boy was about my son's age, maybe a year or two older. He was watching my son's team play, but he was also performing for the other spectators. His back to the field, he began to talk loudly about "fags," some kid who was one. One of the players' dads laughed loudly, so the kid said "fag" again. I was sitting off to the side, unsure of how to react. The kid came toward me, was about to walk by, when I reached out and grabbed his arm. "Many of my friends are gay, and I don't want to hear you say that again," I said to him. He smirked. He pulled at his arm; for a moment, I didn't release him. I never heard my son's baseball coach say anything of the kind, but he did punctuate his coaching with yells of "don't throw like a girl" and "don't hit like girl," even though his daughter played varsity for Kamehameha Schools softball team and one of his former charges was a star for the UH softball team (and in my Creative Writing & Literature class). Years ago, when I coached t-ball, one of the dads asked me to tell his son "not to act like a girl." Homophobia, misogyny: a not-so-odd couple trotted out at sports events where manhood is on the line, even if the players are 10 and under.

The UH football coach, Greg McMackin, has been suspended for 30 days, docked 7% of his pay, and required to do community service with LGBT organizations for a recent press conference in which he referred to the Notre Dame football team's "little faggot dance" (discreetly written as "f----t" on the kitv.com website). The UH haka dance is masculine and bold, of course. After his suspension and pay cut, he gave another public statement during which he shed tears and said the following (you can listen there):

"I would sincerely like to apologize for the inappropriate verbage, words I used. You know, couple things, cause I have nothing against the University of Notre Dame. I have... I don't talk like that and I'm really ticked off at myself for saying that. And uh, I don't know what to tell you. I don't have any prejudices and it really makes me mad that I said that, and I'm disappointed in myself. I know that there are a couple of you who know me. I'm a very competitive person. I think I told you guys that was the worst loss in my 40-year career in the game and that it ticks me off, that you know, that I said that cause Notre Dame played a great ball game. What I was trying to do was be funny and it wasn't funny and it's not funny and even more, it isn't funny, too. I was trying to make a joke and it was a bad choice of words and it really, I really, really feel bad about it, and I wanted to apologize. I'm going to apologize to my team and apologize to the people in Hawaii."

He moves from saying he might have offended Notre Dame to talking about his lack of prejudice, to saying he's very competitive, to claiming he was trying to be funny, to an apology to his team and the people of Hawai`i. Unpack that paratactical morass and the purported origins and evident cover for hatred become clear. You're hurt, you attack a marginalized group, it's just in good humor, and now you apologize. You apologize to the same group that laughed with you, namely the press. In a poem addressed to the coach, which will appear soon in the Honolulu Weekly, R. Zamora Linmark refers to the "joke" as "beyond boring to me" and expresses his ironic pleasure that the coach does "not have a problem with either" his being "a faggot or a homosexual," noting that "there really is very little difference between the two, / except to discern the discreet from the closeted." Zack follows that with his own enjambed joke about "your tight ends / and receivers."

As Zack notes, McMackin is hardly the first person in Hawai`i sports to find homosexuality threatening. Almost ten years ago, well before McMackin became the coach, the football team changed its name from "Rainbows" to "Warriors," got rid of the light green uniforms with rainbows on them, and changed to black uniforms with a forbidding H stenciled on. The Thursday, July 27, 2000 article by Dave Reardon in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin bears some close-reading; in "Ushering in Hawaii's new brand," Reardon alludes but once to "the gay movement" in his reporting on the change of name and logo. Reardon does quote a Hawaiian activist on problems with the new Warrior mascot and logo: "The issue," says Pi`ilani Smith, "is no longer about the mascot, the issue is no longer about this hideous logo. The issue is about misappropriating identity and racist slurs." Hugh Yoshida, then Athletic Director, responds that the "designs were thoroughly researched for cultural sensitivity, and experts at the university's Center for Hawaiian Studies were consulted." So there. No mention of "experts" on LGBT issues, of course.


The euphemistic haze gets denser. Former UH receiver Kyle Mosley is quoted as saying, "Being called the Rainbows, especially for men's teams, left them open to ridicule . . . Warriors has a much stronger connotation." Charlie Wade, the assistant women's volleyball coach, added that the word "rainbow," "is a loaded one, especially on the Mainland." "Once you get away from Hawaii, (Rainbow) can mean a lot of different things," said Wade, alluding to "Jeff Gordon's pit crew known as the Rainbow Warriors, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, and the gay movement." Now which of these three items is most "loaded," do you think? Again, Zack takes the euphemisms and raises them, almost literally, into the sky:

I was not ticked off nor even offended
ten years ago, when the team refused to kick-
off until the name and mascot were changed
from "Rainbows" to "Warriors," for fear
of affiliating with Newton's palette or anything
to do with meteorological phenomenon [sic] . . .

__________

"Throw like a girl . . . hit like a girl": surely what follows these insults is the phrase, "cries like a girl." So in a private email, my Dean (a happily married gay man) writes, "But even more (much more) interesting than my being offended (Zack is right to call that 'beyond boring') was McMackin's total collapse into girly-man tears at his press conference. Now what was behind that?" Good question. Of course McMackin was not the first coach to break into tears over a football matter. When the last coach, June Jones (what's with that first name?), resigned as head coach, the Honolulu Advertiser's Stephen Tsai quoted a friend of the coach's as saying: "He cried like a baby . . . he doesn't want to leave. . . This breaks his heart." The language of manliness gives way, with seeming naturalness, to the language of sentiment--babies, women, what's the diff?

Stephen Tsai's work for the Advertiser and for espn.com is worth a closer look, for Tsai's rhetoric brought together, sometimes sublimely, the mix of masculinity, fundamentalist Christianity, and heroism that hovered about Jones's tenure as coach. At the same time, Tsai aided in the cover-up of Jones's affairs, his purported love child with a volleyball player, and the greed that sent him packing to SMU in 2008. Tsai was not the only writer to romanticize Jones's tenure as coach, but more than most he elevated Jones's position in the community by lauding his character. Crucial to the Junes Jones myth (one that lasted roughly the length of the George W. Bush administration) was the car accident that nearly took his life in 2001. Tsai began his article, "Jones became symbol of optimism for Aloha State" with the stark words, "Paradise froze." What follows in the article about Jones's accident are myriad mentions of prayer: the governor is praying, the mayor reports that the citizens of Hawai`i are praying, there was a moment of prayer before a game with Texas Christian (do I really need the italics?). Jones, who presided over the shift from Rainbows to Warriors, is described by friends and colleagues as "a people's coach," an agent of optimism in the face of economic recession, an Island Son. My favorite quotation comes from Larry Beil, a UH grad and former ESPN anchor: "Right next to the Duke Kahanamoku state [that means "statue"], they should make one for June Jones."






Ah, but this mythical character is also a good and a humble man, according to Stephen Tsai: "Jones does not have a secretary, keeps his own appointment book and answers his own calls, usually on his cellular, which is as much a part of his everyday wear as socks are not." He drives his own car!!! (Your blogger knows this is true, because June Jones drove himself in his fancy SUV through her picket line in 2000, when the faculty struck for better pay.) Tsai ends his encomium by using the two worst words in contemporary journalism. The accident, he writes, was "so ironic and tragic." Need I add that the ironies were unspoken, and the tragedy incomplete, since the flawless hero survived.

Tsai updated this article six years later, after the Warriors' undefeated season, but before Jones left for other pastures. The update fills out the language of religion and heroic recovery from the accident. The very headline alludes to the coach's "new life," at once actual and spiritual, and reads like a saint's life. What fascinates me about Tsai's article is that so much space is devoted to love. As quoted in the article, June Jones sets forth a philosophy of familial (his mother cooked him breakfast every morning; his dad attended all his games) and divine love ("It is that love--God's love--that seized his soul when he was a teenager"). Reminded of saint's lives, I did some traveling on the internet this morning and found a site that features the "Saint of the Day" on Catholic Online. Turn to today's Saint of the Day on-line at the "Saints and Angels" section of the Catholic on-line site, and you find this on St. Cajetan:

"Cajetan took a different route. Just as concerned as Luther was about what he observed in the Church, he went to Rome in 1523 -- not to talk to the pope or the hierarchy but to consult with members of a confraternity called the Oratory of the Divine Love. When he had first come to Rome many years before, he had felt called to some unknown great work there. A few years later he returned to his hometown of Vicenza -- his great work seemingly unrealized. He had however studied for the priesthood and been ordained and helped re-establish a faded confraternity whose aims were promoting God's glory and the welfare of souls."

Let me now quote Coach Jones's spiritual guide, Pastor Norm, as quoted by Stephen Tsai. Listen for the echoes of St. Cajetan's life, the fraternity of "Divine Love," the promotion of "God's glory and the welfare of souls." "The crash woke him to to why he's on Earth . . . It brought him back to realizing his purpose. He's here to change young people's lives, which he can do better at the college level than pro level. It recalibrated his life and his priorities. He understood that 'this is why God put me here and why God made me like this'." Following the Lives of the Saints model, Tsai goes on to list Jones's good deeds, which included offering a scholarship to a homeless player, creating a charitable foundation, giving another scholarship to a football fan with cerebral palsy, and so on. Tsai is proleptically channeling the good pastor Norman Nakanishi's sermon on June Jones; Nakanishi's recent Twitter feed indicates he's praying for Coach McMackin: "Called & emailed UH Coach Mac. May God reveal himself. Pray w/me.12:26 PM Jul 31st from mobile web."

Far be it from me to mock the Catholic saints, but I do feel an upsurge of skepticism about the saintly coach, as I would confess to the nearest priest, or to you, fond reader. I might take a rhetorical question from Tsai's article out of context and ask, "What's wrong with this picture?" and point back to the language of hatred with which I began this post. Coach Jones was never quoted as using the word "faggot," but then there were (enamored) writers like Stephen Tsai to cover for him. Coach McMackin, a less charismatic coach, alluded to reporters covering for him after he used the word "faggot" at the press conference. This coach got caught by the out of town press.

The haters on the internet can now hate the Coach for crying, for apologizing (mostly to Notre Dame, it should be said). Homophobic language, along with its close relatives sexist and racist (and even anti-semitic) language (see here for an especially vile example), are alive and well. So it's good to have the homophobic language of public officials dragged out of the closet. It's good to see that there are consequences to the use of such language, even for the coach of the football team. It's good that the Coach will be working directly with the LGBT community. While the phrase "policing the language" has a bad name (what? I thought we weren't supposed to speak ill of the police!), let's try to keep policing this dance of saying and not saying words that can--on the field of play--break some bones.

Let's save the language of love and sentiment and spirituality for other fields of play. Like poetry.

Here's Linmark's entire poem in response to Coach McMackin.



That Little Faggot Dance, Said the Coach
R. Zamora Linmark

McMackin apparently pleaded with the press not to report on the slur. “I want to officially, officially apologize…Please don’t write that statement I said as far as Notre Dame. The reason is, I don’t care about Notre Dame. But I’m not a – I don’t want to come out and have every homosexual ticked off at me. from Towleroad

Coach,
I am a faggot and a homosexual and I know and am glad
that you do not have a problem with either,
because there really is very little difference between the two,
except to discern the discreet from the closeted,
and when the issue extends beyond the grassy field
where preference of position is played out to the tee,
almost identical, but not quite, to your tight ends
and wide receivers.
And although you
were only trying to make a joke that ended up
not being funny to you and beyond boring to me,
the joke being about “that little faggot dance”
the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame did before
you sent your boys to slap their heads and beat
their chests then go into a Polynesian trance
that your Hawaii fans now suspect was the reason
for the 20-point loss, which is almost equivalent
to three touchdowns.
But why did you use “faggot”
three times at the press conference then try
to retract by calling it a “bad term”, which,
whether you and I and the rest of the Emperor
penguins like it or not, is almost similar
to you calling me a bad person.
For
I am that bad choice of word, when
you could’ve consulted Roget’s
or me via Facebook for more engaging, if not
better get-creative-with synonyms, like “Aero-splitting
fudgepackers” or “Powwow fairies”, almost alike
and at least oxymoronic.
That said, I am not
ticked off and am far from offended, just as
I was not ticked off nor even offended
ten years ago, when the team refused to kick-
off until the name and mascot were changed
from “Rainbows” to “Warriors”, for fear
of affiliating with Newton’s palette or anything
to do with meteorological phenomenon,
like the time I sided with the rain on one side
of the street and you were glinting with the sun
on the other.