At Duke, a Lament for Lost Fun
Posted on May 12th, 2006 in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
What’s the most e-mailed article from the Duke Chronicle? It’s a piece by senior Matt Sullivan called “Rain on the Duke Parade” that laments the end of fun at Duke.
On a high school visit to Duke,
I had dinner with seven gorgeous girls on a gorgeous night outside at Parizade until the Delta Sig formal kicked us out, headed to the Edens quad for a Kappa Sig rager full of kegs, tunes and hugs, passed out in section, woke up and wrote my last high school English paper, got on a plane and couldn’t help but think of who wouldn’t want to grow up at a place like this, where you work hard and you play hard and then you work harder and then you play harder and that’s what you’re supposed to be doing if you want to. Duke rocked….
But those salad days are over.
In the four years since, I have witnessed nothing short of an administrative ransacking of this school’s social life…
I’m slightly sympathetic to this argument, since I partied a lot at college and don’t regret it for a minute. Bladderball, Tang, Feb Club…that was just mad fun with no harm done.
(All right, the whole thing with the tequila shots contest/Julie B. episode wasn’t my finest hour, but I was under a lot of pressure at the time. Same thing with the incident at the Branford Ball. Same thing withâoh, never mind.)
Like the late Eliot House master Alan Heimert, I also believe that you can’t completely control adolescent behavior and that it’s actually useful, from an evolutionary point of view, when young people do stupid thingsâthey learn. The touching-a-hot-stove theory….
On the other hand, that behavior sometimes hurts other people, as it allegedly has with the Duke rape, and that should never be tolerated.
Meanwhile, our litigious culture makes it increasingly difficult for college administrators to turn a blind eye to young kids doing dumb things, even if they’d like to.
And while American kids might like to think of college as a place to “study hard and play hard,” international students might come to college to study harder, and wind up kicking our economic butt.
So, while I’m sure that Mr. Sullivan has a point, his piece is really an elegy to a culture of partying that’s getting harder and harder to validate.
5 Responses
5/12/2023 3:10 pm
Once we are all safely ensconced in our Matrix pods, happily self-absuing ourselves in some virtual 24/7 party, our vital juices being sucked out to power Asian economic growth, we will be beyond pain and all this won’t matter.
5/14/2006 1:42 am
I find it curious that you take
the opportunity to reveal the name
of the woman you “Tequila Sundown-
ed” with two decades ago. Are you
bragging or confessing? Because it
doesn’t read like a clean share.
5/14/2006 10:10 am
Poster #2, you are making incorrect assumptions. Regardless, the only people who would recognize that name are the people who already know what actually happened…..
No idea what you mean by a clean share, though.
5/17/2006 3:00 am
Okay people! Check out the argument I got into about this false claim of rape.
Noname I think it’s pretty safe to say that the stripper wasn’t raped.
Chuckles Maybe Nifong should lead a massive search throughout the east coast of every fake-mustache store if anyone had a customer wearing a Duke Lacrosse uniform.
Ismone The “rape kit” showed evidence of a recent sexual activity. She had sex with her boyfriend before or after the party, which would explain the “evidence”.
Ismone In defense of noname, no one wishes anyone to be raped, but if she lied, she deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law on 46 counts for each lacrosse player she lied about.
Ismone “No contrary evidence is presented” This whole case if full of contrary evidence. Why you ignore it is another issue. I suspect the stripper could come right out and say that she made the whole thing up, and you’d stillinsist that she was raped. People like you don’t care about evidence.
A grand jury conviction is not hard to get, all you need is to say I need an indictment.
It is impossible that a crime scene with three drunk men in a small enclosed room with a fighting and clawing woman being orally, virginally, and anally penetrated not leave any DNA evidence of urine, blood, vaginal fluid, seat, fecal matter, scat smears, saliva, tears, or semen… especially if condoms were used. How would they take off the condoms during all this chaos without spilling, smearing, or touching the content inside or outside of the condom?
Ismone You really should think before ranting about things you know nothing about. It makes you look like an idiot.
I’m tired of hearing about “white male privilege. It’s female privilege that allows these boys’ lives to be destroyed with only the word of a drunken stripper with a long criminal history and a pattern of making false accusations.
“I was raped” is just as good proof as “I was robbed.” Again Isome, you expose yourself to be an idiot. You can accuse anybody with what ever you want. It doesn’t mean it’s true. One woman claimed that she felt sexually harassed because a man wore a fanny pack to work. The police refused to charge the man, so she proceeded to sue her workplace in civil court… it was thrown out. Saying “someone robbed me”, like any claim, must be proven in court. Just because someone accuses a crime occurred, doesn’t mean it happened – Deal with it Ismone! Just like in the Duke Rape Scandal. She obviously lied.
These boys are innocent! The drunken black stripper with the long criminal record and history of making false accusations…lied.
• Stripper made a false claim of rape by three boys in 1996.
• Stripper made a false claim of kidnapping in 1998
• Stripper charged with larceny, auto theft, and trying to kill a police officer in 2002
• 1st round of DNA shows no link to the lacrosse team.
• 2nd round of DNA shows no link to the lacrosse team
• DNA proves stripper had sex with boyfriend/pimp which accounts for the “rape kit” evidence of recent sexual activity.
• Innocent boy who picked up finger nail and threw it in the trash left his DNA on the fake press-on nail and will be charged for rape.
The stripper’s account of the night has serious integrity issues:
First she claimed 20 boys raped her, then she narrowed it down to 3 in a bathroom
a. The bathroom is absolutely and completely devoid of any evidence of a rape. Where is her DNA? Urine, blood, vaginal fluid, saliva, or tears?
b. Many people’s DNA were found under her nails but none from the innocent lacrosse boys.
c. She lied about losing her fake finger nails in a desperate struggle in the small enclosed bathroom, but pictures show that she removed her nails before inadequately performing her routine. No scratches were found on any of the innocent lacrosse boys’ bodies.
d. The 2 innocent boys she “eeny meeny miney moed” to be her rapists weren’t even at the party the time she claimed the rape occurred. She claims that she’s 100% sure, but she told her father that she’s not sure.
e. She took drugs before coming to the house, something illegal.
The stripper obviously lied, and she’s putting these innocent boys and families through hell. She deserves to be in prison for the rest of her pathetic life. She is worthless as a person and human being. Her one lie destroyed innocent boys. I hope her and Nifong’s aura catches up to them and they both get what they deserve. I hope everyone wishing this rape claim to be true, in spite of all the evidence that it never occurred, gets what’s coming to them.
Mac Dive’s weak argument DNA proves a crime couldn’t have occurred the was the lying stripper claimed.
Fact DNA wasn’t found under the fingernail, it was found on the top surface of the nail.
Mac Dive’s weak argument • A forensic examination of the victim found evidence consistent with rape.
Fact All the rape kit showed is that the stripper had recent evidence f sexual 1ntercourse, it can’t tell when or if it was consensual, but now we know through conclusive DNA evidence that she had sex with her boyfriend.
Mac Dive’s weak argument • Motive, means and opportunity for the accused to have raped the alleged victim exist.
Fact This is true only if the stripper was in three places at once, at the house with the first guy, at the bank machine with the second guy, and in the dorm room with the third guy.
Mac Dive’s weak argument • Photo identification of the suspects without prompting.
Fact The photo line up was of only the lacrosse team to guarantee only lacrosse team members were chosen. It seams DA Nifong didn’t believe she would pick only lacrosse players either, so he fixed it so she did.
Mac Dive’s weak argument • Linking to DNA from a suspect previously identified with 90 percent accuracy.
Fact She was 90% sure except for the mustache, the third guy never had a mustache, so it makes it 0% sure.
• A pubic hair was found on the alleged victim that may be found to be consistent with the pubic hair of one of the suspects.
Fact The hair in question is not linked to the lacrosse boys, it could be from her boyfriend or previous clients.
Mac Dive’s weak argument If evidence of either high alcohol content or the date rape drug has been found in toxicology exams that too will favor the prosecution.
Fact The stripper is a drug abuser and alcoholic. How would a drunk stripper having multiple sex that night remember who she consented to sex and if sex ever happen? No date rape drugs were found in the innocent boy’s possession. This lie was made up by desperate feminists and lame women who hope the black stripper was raped. The Stripper has a long history of drug abuse, she probably took the illegal drugs herself.
Mac Dive’s weak argument (Kim Roberts says the lacrosse players plied the alleged victim with drink.)
Fact Kim Roberts initially said that a rape never happened. After getting arrested and threatened with jail, she copped a deal with the prosecution to not have her probation revoked, and said a rape did occur, then she contacted a Public Relations firm telling them :”I don’t want to let this opportunity pass me by” “How can I spin this to my advantage”. The she stated in the press, “Why shouldn’t I profit from this scandal? I have a child at home.” Ms. Roberts, like many who claim this rape occurred, is not a reliable source.
Mac Dive’s weak argument Instead of being misled by babbling about the dancers painting their nails in the bathroom, keep your eye on the actual evidence. That is what will matter in the end.
Fact This is the only thing I agree with Ms. Mac Dive. Practice what you preach. Stop babbling and look at the evidence…
5/18/2006 6:41 am
Lawyers are waiting in the shadows for lucrative civil suit
A man stands in the shadows of the Duke Lacrosse ‘rape’ case…watching and waiting. While the three wealthy, white male students remains in criminal court, he is not likely to step forward.
Even at this early stage, the stripper’s mother is “very much interested” in “getting Willie E. Gary is a litigator renowned for winning huge settlements.
The stripper’s parents met with Gary in April. The meeting was facilitated by civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Gary acts as a family adviser, and the parents are laying groundwork to make a civil bid. Public opinion can be a large bargaining chip in obtaining a lucrative settlement. Earlier, the parents spoke freely; now they’re being more media savvy.
Essence Magazine featured three articles by Kristal Brent Zook. Each is sympathetic to the accuser. (1st) “Family Defends Daughter’s Painful Past”, (2nd) “Nowhere to Turn,” depicts the accuser as living in terror. (3rd) is basically an announcement of Willie Gary’s appearance in the case; it concludes by stating that the parents “worry that their daughter may…need additional legal guidance.”
Civil law deals in torts or harms inflicted by one person upon another; its purposes are compensation for actual or perceived damages.
A “guilty” verdict in criminal court can be used to establish liability in a civil one but if the verdict is “not guilty” or the charges are dropped, a civil case can proceed independently.
Kobe Bryant settled out-of-court settlement. Such settlements are not necessarily admissions of guilt. After months of media blitz, Bryant may have been embarrassed to settle, so civil suits could be lucrative even if the “accuser’s” claim is completely fabricated. The Duke students will face the same choice?
Civil suits can be lucrative, and they’re easier to win; standards of evidence and other legal protections enjoyed by a defendant are significantly lowered in civil court.
Clearly, her parents wish to explore a civil proceeding. Gary is conspicuously available.