Tulane Stadium

Pretty stadium. Yulman Stadium is a terrible name, though.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson at Tulane

We arrived early for Neil DeGrasse Tyson at Tulane, but barely made the overflow room.

Some writeups:
Uptown Messenger: Rock Star Reception for Tyson

Nola.com Summary of the talk. Excellent summary. And then the comments... Sigh ... Louisiana needs some stupid knocked out of it.

I've been poking fun at coworkers who went to LSU saying I don't think that they could have managed hosting NDT ("Dr. Tyson, what's your opinion of chicken boxing?"), while Tulane could. Tulane's Campus programming even ate his speaking fee and opened it up for the public (yes, there was a hell of a line, but kudos to Tulane).

I also want to relay a little story. Not only is Neil DeGrasse Tyson a brilliant astrophysicist and the coolest scientist alive, but he's also a tremendous human being.

We bumped into a friend of mine at the overflow room. He had his wife and ~6 year old daughter there with him. As little ones are wont to do, the daughter had to go pee 5 minutes before the event started. The wife & girl hurry off. While they are gone, Dr. Tyson darted into the overflow room, waved at everyone, said Hi, then started running back across McAllister Drive for McAllister auditorium. As he was running through the student union, he saw my friend's daughter. Dr. Tyson stopped in his tracks, turned around, ran back to the little girl, high-five'd her, turned back around, and then hustled back to start the talk. He talked for an hour and a half then took questions.

Update: videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgVa4IM-_OU

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arWraUE71so

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRYvCYhQ4Q

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZP35PvdCE4

A day of joy for a Tulane grad...

Zero student loan debt!  Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!

In my interactions with older coworkers, it's astonishing how little understanding there is amongst their generation at what student loans mean.  There's a lot of misunderstanding at what tuition levels really are at universities (both over-estimating {Tulane has a VERY healthy 'discount rate' that makes the $50K+/yr. tuition more reasonable} and under-estimating {state schools are now beyond the level you can work your way through college}).  There's a lot of misunderstanding about how harsh repayment terms can be (look at these vultures).  

Student loan companies, like Sallie Mae, can go fuck themselves up the ass with a sideways pineapple.  I have a healthy math background and I got snuckered into a pretty poorly structured loan refinance.  I went from a bundle of 4 or 5 loans at 1% or 2% with a 10-year repayment period to a new loan at 6+% with a 20-year repayment period.  Once you get that higher rate and the longer term, you end up paying a boatload more in interest.  It's like the difference between a 15 and 30 year mortgage.  It was only after a couple of years and realizing, 'wait a minute, I should be paying more' did I realize I'd be taken.  If that can happen to a STEM grad, imagine how badly some poor Humanities major can be taken for a ride. 

Here's a Glenn Reynolds WSJ Op-Ed.  It leans too much on the unicorn of "online classes" as a solution, but it's food for thought.  

"It's not enough"

It's Not Enough NOLA from Lula Fotis on Vimeo.

Put together by some current Tulane students.

Sneak Peek of the BenzDome

Took a break from grad school to go to the Tulane/Memphis game. It was Tulane's homecoming game. It was an interesting game to watch, but unfortunately Tulane lost. Oh well. It's not like it isn't the first time I've seen Tulane football lose.

There were 25,000+ people in attendance, but, because it's the Dome, it still looked empty. A bright spot: got an early preview of tomorrow's Premiere of the new "Mercedes-Benz Superdome":

News and Notes - Local Edition - 24 September

Billy Nungesser abruptly cancels all public appearances. Gee, you figure his history with Jeanette Maier resurfacing has something to do with it. Some very interesting comments in that last link. Let's just say don't make any assumption on the gender of Ms. Maier's employees. Oh, look, David Vitter endorses Nungesser over Jay Dardenne for Lt. Governor. UPDATE- More from the Yellow Blog, who beat me to the publish button.

Corruption in the New Orleans Taxi Certificate Markets. From The Lens. Excellent reporting. But, but, but, the Times-Picayune told me Nagin eliminated corruption in the taxi bureau?

Another one Louisiana can be proud of: David Vitter named one of the most crooked members of Congress. If you go to CREW's website, they like to point out how many people on their old lists are now behind bars.

Poor John Fleming. At least he made The Daily Show.

Watching Jay Cutler thrown to ground repeatedly was extremely satisfying. I'm actually glad Ingram fumbled. He got taught a lesson in ball security in a situation that didn't really matter and we got to watch more of the Cutler beat-down. 1/21/07: Never Forget.

Tulane brings back CS. The first of the Cowen-eliminated programs returns. Note that for years, Tulane has done without an ABET-accredited Computer Science program in the 21st Century. How can you call yourself a University without at least CS?

Back to Bacchanal. Great expose on the whole flap. Especially searing on the out-of-towner, absentee-landlord next door.

SOS from Avondale. Gambit coverstory. Note there might be some interesting Avondale news coming down the pipeline shortly...

Garland violated the Public Trust, Stephanie Grace. James Gill's epic takedown of Garlandfill. Everyone is taking a whack at the pinata.

Tulane Engineering Updates

 
"Tulane Breeds a New Kind of Engineer" (Apologies in advance for ABC26's horrible ads; turn down the volume at first)

*************************

I found this Interview with Tulane Science and Engineering Dean Altiero. Some snippets:

There are task forces in place looking into several potential programs, including Computer Science, Geological Engineering, and Human Factors Engineering. Of these, the plan for Computer Science is the most developed at this point.
...
[on the return of the computer science major] The longer term plan is for a full undergraduate major within five years.


*************************

Tulane Civil Engineering grad pilots the final shuttle. Doug Hurley went to Tulane on a NROTC scholarship and eventually became an astronaut, along with his wife.

*************************
UPDATE:
Tulane vows to bring on-campus football back. Dickson said he and the university refuses to strap itself with a mountain of debt to build facilities.

The end of the line for the Pike House

No more Pike rape den, a photo by Noladishu on Flickr.

The Pike rape den dies an ironic death: turned into a police station.

Backstory.

Notes on the 2011 Tulane Engineering Forum

I got a chance to attend the 2011 Tulane Engineering Forum and the forum continues to grow. This year drew over 600 engineers. The day before I went, one of my coworkers teased me that going to an engineering conference hosted by Tulane was like going to an easter egg hunt hosted by the Ayatollah in Tehran*.

One of the things I've really come to like about the TEF's are that I'll pick up on some really nice phrases/wordplays/sayings. Some of my favorites from this year:
* "Worry Budget"
* "Assumed-Away" (dealing with risk)
* "Science as a contact sport" (engineering as well, sometimes)
* "Compartmentalized engineers" (missing out on the big picture)
* "Dynamic Regulation" (constantly in-flux regulatory rules that are poison for projects that take 10 years to develop) {Another quote from the same guy, "[MMS] served our industry well for a number of years"}
* "Everyone supports it, until you put your finger on a map" (coastal restoration)
* "Engineering meets public health meets Indiana Jones" (Engineers Without Borders)
* And my favorite of the year: "Unavoidable uncertainty in complex systems" (talking about scientists dealing with the public on complex topics)

This year's theme was the Macondo blowout. I attended the Morning Plenary Session (which included a dispersant expert from XOM, a ChemE professor from LSU, an MBA from Tulane, and the head of research for ULL), but ended up attending mostly coastal restoration and infrastructure lectures. My personal favorite lecture of the day was given by Dr. Allisha Renfro who pinch-hit for a presenter who was out. She did a science and engineering postmortem on 3 coastal projects: MR-GO**, the West Bay Diversion, and the Myrtle Grove Pulsed Sediment Diversion (which was held up as a model for future projects).

__________
* Maybe he read this article?

** Even if you ignore all the "secondary" effects (levee failures, wetlands loss, etc.), MR-GO was a MASSIVE failure on its primary objective: serve commerce. Taxpayers ended up subsidizing MR-GO (from its opening in 1968 to its closure recently) by $20,000/vessel, clearly a massive failure in its primary objective (lower transportation costs). There was also plenty of science, engineering, and economic expertise that warned against the project before it was ever begun, but the powers that be pressed on anyways.

Last year's forum notes.

Tulane plowing millions into football?

Cowen Pledges Greater Football Funding - The Hullabaloo. Excellent Article.

This is a curious little announcement. I've asked around and what the administration is thinking is they've done research. Their surveys indicate that there's a strong correlation between football programs and alumni donations. Good foobtall programs have a high rate of alumni donorship, while bad football programs generally correlate with poor alumni donorship. That's what I've heard from a couple of different sources on the administration's thinking. The overall plan is to pump up the football program (which loses a couple million dollars a year) so that it at least stands on its own feet and the halo effect of a better football team would pump up alumni donations. At least, that's the plan.

I'll add a few bits of history. Tulane was a founding member of the SEC. They left because "the board thought they could make more money as an independent, like Notre Dame."

Tulane also had Sugar Bowl Stadium (seating 80,000+), which they tore down and shifted over to the Superdome. That one is actually fairly understandable at the time. They didn't have the money to do the extensive renovations the stadium needed and there was this big, shiny new stadium downtown. Unfortunately, the Superdome is the absolute worst venue possible for a small football program. 20,000 fans (a good Tulane attendance figure) are lost in the cavernous, freezing cold stadium. Note that Cowen mentions a fund-raising drive of $60 million to build an Uptown stadium. From what I'm told, it would be ~30,000 seats and be situated one of three locations: wedged into the practice field area (behind Riley Center; tight, but possible), Audubon Park, or Uptown Square, which Tulane acquired about 6 or 7 years ago. We'll see how the neighbors react if they get the money lined up and want to start construction.

I know that Cowen isn't exactly on my Christmas card list, but take a look at the track record. When Cowen arrived at campus we had a Bowden-led football team with offensive genius of Rich Rodriguez calling a potent offense, the oldest degree granting college for women (Newcomb), engineering programs so old, they dated to founding of ABET (in addition to other, smaller academic programs eliminated in the Renewal Plan), and the Princeton Review ranked Tulane #31 overall. Now, we're ranked #51 (Tulane has griped and moaned about using Katrina-tainted data for dropping it out of the top 50 {well, what about the other 19 spots...}) and we're the only top 50 {51} school without an ABET-accredited program in Computer Science (go ahead and look it up for yourself). Even LSU has (finally) gotten their CS program accredited!

I really want Tulane to do well, but we'll have to see where things are headed. I just can't help wondering if this is really the best way to spend this money.

******************************
Here's Cowen's email:

Good Morning:

It has been about six years since Katrina almost destroyed New Orleans and Tulane University. Since that time, Tulane has not only survived but has reimagined itself and become stronger academically and financially. This recovery has not been easy, but the Tulane community was determined to move forward. We have made substantial progress in achieving our academic and financial goals, which have been the primary focus of our efforts since August 29, 2005.

We are now in the stage of our renewal where we can and should continue to focus on the development and success of Tulane Athletics. Next year we will once again field 16 sports teams, fulfilling the NCAA's requirement for competing at the highest level of collegiate athletics.

We have made major commitments to our baseball, basketball and volleyball programs, with a new practice and training facility currently under construction for the latter programs and beautiful Greer Field at Turchin Stadium for our baseball team. These improvements were consistent with the university's recovering finances after Katrina and were made with our academic priorities always in mind. We are proud of what has been accomplished in athletics given all the unprecedented challenges we faced. But the task is not yet complete. Our next goal, which will be the most difficult one to accomplish, is to build a consistently successful football program.

Our vision for football is a program that opens every campaign with the talent and resources to win our division and conference and participate in post-season games - as opposed to one that has periodic winning seasons, which has been the experience at Tulane for the last five or six decades. We will not achieve this overnight, but we must begin the journey for success right now with clear and unambiguous progress made every year, starting with this coming season.

An overview of the evolving plan to accomplish this goal is outlined in The Playbook. In the months ahead we will refine our plans as we marshal the resources necessary to achieve our goals. We will build a successful football program while adhering to Tulane's philosophy of enrolling student-athletes who desire a first-rate education. Our student-athletes are committing their collegiate careers to achieve at high levels, on and off the field, and our coaches will dedicate every bit of their talent and experience to help them in their quest.

For us to be successful, it will require a true team effort -- an effort comparable to what we did after Katrina when many naysayers around the country counted us out. The journey now begins; we hope you will join us.

Have a great weekend,
Scott

UPDATE- Changed capacity figure for Sugar Bowl Stadium.

Tulane Law School to begin wholesale grade inflation

Tulane will now tack on 0.3 to every law school student's GPA. Apparently, too many recent grads are unemployed, so law schools across the nation feel like they have to give their students a helping hand. Above the Law has the details.

At least they're not stealing shoes anymore...

[Insert obligatory Cowen and Tulane Engineering comment here; I'll take your suggestions in the comments]

Scott Cowen: "You're not going to remember your major"

Cowen's "chat" with the students
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

On January 17th, 2006, after students were back, Scott Cowen held a meeting with the engineering students to explain the Renewal Plan.

The entire meeting, IMHO, was to blow smoke up our ass and not run away with our tuition dollars ($40K/year at that point). Tulane had already pissed off a lot of parents by keeping the Fall 2005 tuition money.

The meeting ticked off the engineering students quite a bit. Fortunately, some of us recorded it and caught a real gem from Cowen that pretty much sums up his fuckmookishness:

"Question: 20 years from now, 30 years from now you will remember you came to Tulane. You're not going to remember what you major was or ... [garbled] ... but you will remember Tulane University."

-Scott Cowen
January 17th 2006
Meeting with engineering students

That's the quote, word for word (23 minutes in on Side B). Told to a bunch of ENGINEERING students. It doesn't matter what, say a Civil engineer learns in school, it only matters that they went to Tulane.

Unfortunately, the quality on the tapes is terrible. Cowen's booming voice is the only thing that the mic picked up.

Side A:


Side B:


If anyone would like to give a stab at cleaning up the audio, that would be greatly appreciated.


NOTE: Some minor edits. Also, the noladishu.blogspot.com version of this post has embedded audio players that don't seem to show up in Google Reader.

Dump Cowen, Not Engineering

Dump Cowen, Not Engineering
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

Today the Times-Picayune gave their Loving Cup award to Scott Cowen. I'll grant that Cowen has done some good things with the Cowen Institute and New Orleans Public Schools and keeping the doors open at Tulane, one of the largest private employers in the city.

But, even the article mentions the shuttering of engineering at Newcomb. There's no getting around the fact that in the aftermath of the the Federal Flood, the largest engineering disaster in US history, Cowen axed the programs that could have made the most difference. In his own words, "If they don't fix the levees, everything we've done [with the Renewal Plan] is for naught."* What are we going to do Dr. Cowen? Sue our way to Category 5 Levees?

In early 2006, there was a huge student protest on campus. Hundreds (thousand plus?) of students marched around the administration building. They demanded Cowen's resignation over the Newcomb and engineering cuts. Not a single news organization covered it. I'm posting a couple of photos to prove that it did indeed exist.

__________
* Citation coming.

Update- More:

"Football players build great levees"**



____________
** Tulane's football program, despite as favorable accounting as they can possibly manage, runs a deficit of at least $2 million a year. It was not effected by the "Renewal Plan."


UPDATE 2- From Tulane's last E-Week battlebot competition:

"Cowen Bot: Destroying that which others have worked so hard to build"

Links of the day - 16 April 2009

Google's Immigration Fixer. Google has a full-time employee just to handle visa snafus for their (large) H1B, etc. workforce.

The Case for Nuclear Winter. Not even Mr. Gloomy Pants can top this one.

Francois Genoud: Nazi Terrorist Banker. Links to the Nazi's (including Goebbels, Eichmann, Barbie), Ayatollah Khomeini, Carlos the Jackal, and, just for good measure, Bin Laden. My first thought: could this guy be the inspiration for S.P.E.C.T.R.E.? It's funny all those ex-Nazis that stuck around in Europe and had major influence in post-war Europe. Happy ending, though: he died in excruciating pain.

Governing by Chaos: A City In Shambles. Takedown of the Nagin regime.

2009 Budget in a picture. Wall chart of where your tax dollars go.

Saudi's to "regulate" child brides. 8 year olds, dude. 8 year olds.

Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism'. Should have called in Jindal...

Interactive map shows job losses.

Cao seeks heaping helping of pork. Guess he didn't get the memo at the tea parties.

Times-Pic editorial asking Mary Landrieu to push for Letten's reappointment. I like Letten, but there are still some concerns about him. The Canal Street Brothel case was shut down early because of pressure he got after rounding up too many Republican (and Democratic) donors... He's definitely not above politics.

Jeffery brings up a good point about the LSU/Charity mess. If Tulane did this, would they get 10% the flack that LSU is getting? Probably not. Here's proof:

Try not to punch your computer screen when Cowen's ugly head pops up to piss on Tulane Engineering's reputation. It still burns me up. Calvin Mackie was a native New Orleanian who was one of the first black PhD graduates from Georgia Tech, Tulane's first tenured black professor in the engineering school, featured on "When the Levees Broke," and a really great professor.

Cowen has injected himself into the LSU mess. Here's an email he recently sent out:

Dear Tulane Alumni,

I am writing today with a call to action as the Louisiana Legislature prepares to decide the fate of the new proposed public hospital for New Orleans, known as the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans, or MCLNO.

This new academic medical center, which will be built and operated with public funds, serves the needs of multiple community constituencies:

1. patients, especially the under or uninsured;
2. the academic institutions which rely on the new hospital to meet their clinical care, research and education missions, including Xavier, Dillard, LSU and Tulane;
3. the greater community of New Orleans.

The new public hospital must be governed by a Board of Trustees comprised of independent trustees who represent the various constituencies. No one group or constituency should, directly or indirectly, control the board seats. [Emphasis in original]

The city’s academic institutions that are critical to the staffing of the new hospital -- Tulane, LSU, Xavier and Dillard -- have been successful partners in providing healthcare to under-- or uninsured patients for centuries. It is a partnership that is equitable, effective and historic. It should not be changed.

Let your voice be heard, and help to preserve the legacy and ensure fair governance of the public hospital in New Orleans.

Sincerely,

Scott S. Cowen
President

He doesn't care what happens, so long as he's at least in partial control of what's built. It would be very interesting to see a battle-royale between Jindal and Cowen/Tulane. Two very powerful groups with tentacles all over the state going at it. Also, don't forget to check out the photos of Charity right after Katrina. LSU intentionally neglected Charity to get a new hospital.

And now to close on a high note- Steam powered iPod charger:

... so that you can still listen to your tunes after the Zombie Apocalypse hits. My grandfather actually gave me that exact same toy steam engine. It's one of the most dangerous toys imaginable. I loved it.

Can't Sleep. Clowns will eat me.

Up real early this morning (partly because of this), so I'll post a few links.

Wonkette reports on Draft Stormy movement. "VITTER MUST BE DESTROYED!" Related: David Vitter is a jackass (Iced Coffee and a Bagel).

The Politics of Health Reform. Fascinating to get an outside perspective. A sample from the BBC:


Map of New Orleans political donations. Fascinating to click through for a while. I find it especially interesting that a lot of the old St. Charles Ave./Pickwickian-types mainly donated to Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Now there's money well spent!

Stimulus Battle in Perspective: Of course, the last time we saw a vote like this one was probably the 1993 vote on Clinton's first budget -- every single Republican in the chamber voted against it, hoping to prove, once and for all, that they were right about economics and Democrats were wrong. If memory serves, that budget was the first step towards the longest economic expansion on record, the creation of 22 million jobs, and the total elimination of the federal budget deficit. Related: For Republicans, there wasn't much downside to voting no.

More extensions to housing aid in Louisiana? Those overly generous subsidies to landlords is part of what's keeping market rates up. You remove those payments, the market will fall (it already has fallen from it's post-Katrina highs). Probably won't return to pre-Katrina rents, but that's unreasonable to expect.

Gulfport Mayor indicted for Katrina fraud.

Taibbi + Blago. Need I say more?

Roger Clemens has always been batshit insane. Deadspin clarifies the level of insanity: "Then Donahue would rub the hottest possible liniment on his testicles. “He’d start snorting like a bull,” the trainer said. “That’s when he was ready to pitch.” "

State Farm completely pulling out of property insurance in Florida.

Here's a few companies that have never had mass layoffs. I can thing of a few to add to the list, too (Honda, for one).

When it comes to Israel, to revive or dump the two-state solution?

Bill Gates talks about education, especially high school, and what constitutes a successful school. Two most interesting points: a kid is better off with a good teacher in a "bad" school than he is with a bad teacher in a "good" school. Also, in extremely poor areas, the schools with the longest schooldays tend to do the best.

Sad to see Cerasoli go. Oyster rounds up the reacts. One little tidbit: “People were telling me he [Nagin] was saying they would regret getting the office up and running 10 years from now.

Old media, don't piss off new media. Remember that the "Symbiotic relationship between new and old media" isn't a one way street... Also, McCain-endorser's Pedo son gets out of jail early with barely a peep from local media.

So, after closing Our Lady of Good Cousel, et. al.*, the Nazi Pope decides to embrace a Holocaust-denier and a cleric who said Katrina was God's punishment for being too kind to the gays.

Want to see Scott Cowen foam at the mouth? Mention the letters AAUP and stand back.

And for your amusement:

The Thing, remade with G.I. Joe's.

*BTW- Great comic 2 weeks ago Greg. Can't link to your comic, though, because the archives are down.

Wired: Before the Levees Break: A Plan to Save the Netherlands

Incredible article about flood protection in the Netherlands. Puts our puny system to shame.

It's embarrassing to see how far we've fallen. Given how pathetic are system is, it's hard to comprehend that it was the Dutch who came here for help from a Tulane engineer who was born and raised in New Orleans.

My favorite parts are towards the end:

Applying the Dutch model of risk-based design [to New Orleans' levees] would be a political nonstarter, if not unconstitutional, and the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers would in no time be halted by an army of lawyers.

Meanwhile, the water keeps coming.

The article is really a must-read, especially the end.

UPDATE- Meanwhile, our 100-year storm protection grinds to a halt because of lawyers.

UPDATE 2- New model that takes dynamic effects of waves into account directly contradicts Corps' computer model. MUCH higher storm surge predicted than the Corps' computer model.

New Issue of the New Orleans Levee

The Levee lives up to its repuation and doesn't hold anything back this month.

My favorite article:
Nasty Tulane Frat Missed By Many.

Tulane's Pikes in the news

So, I heard that the pikes were under arrest, I thought 'it couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys.' They've had this coming for years. The Times-Pic has a rundown of some of their recent incidents, but I can think of far more off the top of my head.

When I was in high school, a Newman high school girl was drugged and raped by the pikes. The brothers in question never went to jail. Oh, yeah, and the Pikes still hold a Boone's Farm party every year for high school girls. Parents are horrified when they find a flyer for the party in one of their little girls' bag.

The most infamous incident happened in the late 90's. Josh Gimelstob, brother of the famous tennis player, was being issued a DUI by a cop. The Pike, drunk, lost control of the vehicle and ran over the cop and dragged the body down McAllister (the road that runs through the middle of campus). It looked like someone spilled gallons of red paint all down the street. Josh then fled the scene. Here's a steaming turd of an article about the trial hosted on the defense attorney's website. Josh got 6 months in a prison alternative program and not a single night in prison for murdering a cop! What did that do for him? Well, a few years down the road, he led cops on a high speed pursuit winding through the back roads of New Jersey at 120 mph. Cops called off the chase because of the danger to civilians and the cops, but just a few blocks down the road, they found Josh with his Mercedes SUV wrapped around a tree.

A few years later, the Pikes took a pledge on a pub crawl. The pledge died of alcohol poisoning. Cops interview the Pikes and they all keep their mouths shut. No charges are ever filed.

I forget exactly when, but the Pikes got kicked off campus, but got special dispensation from Nationals to operate without affiliation to a school. This is normally a no-no for big fraternities. A lot of national Pikes considered their NOLA brethren an embarrassment. My dad, an Ole Miss pike, detested the NOLA Pikes.

They continued to operate and were total assholes. They were also INFAMOUS for ruffieing girls, especially at their big party, Saturate. Dues for the Pikes ran something like $5,000 a semester and none of it went towards keeping the house up (TOTAL dump). It all went for beer and coke.

When I was at Tulane, a student body president campaigned to get them back on campus, arguing it's better to have an in-house problem than a loose cannon. The Hullabaloo and a large group of Newcomb students RAILED against the idea as a disaster waiting to happen. I'd love to see some of those editorials they ran reprinted in the Times-Pic. Cowen, despite his general hatred for the Greek system, gave the move his tacit approval. He had struck up a friendship with some large-donating Pike parents back in 2002.

Did the Pikes behave once on campus? Nope. If anything, they got worse. They started picking fights with other students. The date raping of girls got worse (if that was even possible). There was a large sign that read, "RAPE FREE ZONE" in their frat house that was considered a joke. Anyone who didn't think the Pikes were a ticking time bomb was either a fool or a liar.

I have one piece of advice for the Pikes. Before you go to Central Lockup, you might want to get a tattoo on your butt:


Full disclosure: I was a close friend of Ducky Riess (who ran the fraternity system at Tulane for 50+ years, although not the more recent years) and I was a fraternity member at Tulane.

NOTE- Some minor edits for spelling.

UPDATE- Didn't really want to write a new blog post about this, but had a couple of quick things to say. First off, it's sad that the Times-Pic put this story on the front page 2 days in a row when there were murders and shootings and real news happening all over the city. Second off, after all the rapes and hooliganism, it's a couple assholes who wanted to join these assholes that shuts them down. Rape? Murder of a police officer? Eh. Pouring crab boil on the genitals of a rich, white asshole, SOUND THE ALARM!

UPDATE 2- More Piker stories here...

UPDATE 3 - Tulane Pike House dies an Ironic Death: turned into police station.

Against the Tide

NBC Special about the New Orleans levees. It features a friend of mine, David O'Reilly. He was a PHD student in Civil Engineering at Tulane when Cowen axed the program. Trust what he says. He's inspected a huge portion of the New Orleans levee system on foot. He knows the levees and he knows the Corps.

H/T to First Draft.

Also, "America's Wetlands and You":