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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Did you ever know the administration of any college, private or public, that had the competence to boil water? In the 1960's, colleges were paralyzed by New Left demonstrations that a little applied force could have stopped. At Kent State, the campus cops were incompetent to handle the problem, and the administration called in the undisciplined National Guard - and the result was history, especially when Gary Trudeau commemorated the anniversary in his Doonesbury strip.
Like most educators, college administrators are supposed to intimidate the student body and look intelligent. But give them a genuine crisis and they fold. Just watch as this particular group of flakes announce their dynamic plan to address the problem and keep from being fired: they will convene a study group. They will protect their students with coffee and danish.
It would be stupid to say that the school could have predicted this incident. No one is expecting them to be psychic, any more than the people at Columbine High could have predicted the existence of their shooters. But after Columbine, many high schools developed procedures to handle emergencies like this. Why didn't this college? Did the dunderheads assume that their college students were more "mature," that they would "never" have a shooting incident?
Even a Wal-Mart has a flip chart on the office wall with instructions for all varieties of emergencies. It's asking too much for a university, with plant and buildings worth approximately twenty times as much as a Wal-Mart Supercenter, to take a basic step like a flip chart and emergency instruction for all personnel.
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Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
