MLK, Riots, and Michael Brown

Before August 9^th, 2014, very few people had heard of Ferguson, Missouri. On that day, police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Mike Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. The shooting ignited an uproar throughout the U.S. about police brutality and racism amongst officers of the law. Throughout August, there were protests in Ferguson, many of which turned violent and led to looting, fires, and police officers shooting rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowds. On November 24^th, Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that the grand jury decided not to indict officer Darren Wilson on any charges.

Rioters in Ferguson on Nov. 24th destroying a police vehicle that would later be set on fire
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/27/ferguson-is-new-form-of-protest/19348931/

Shortly after the announcement, Michael Brown’s stepfather yelled “Burn this bitch down!” to the protesters in front of the local police department. A night of complete chaos and anarchy followed for the city of Ferguson. Local stores were robbed and set on fire, vehicles were burned, shots were fired, and people were injured. I sat on my computer late into the night watching live feeds and live blogs outlining what was happening. I then saw that we were schedule to read a letter from MLK, and thought this would be a perfect situation to compare and contrast to MLK’s values and ideals. Are the rioters in Ferguson justified at all? What would MLK’s reaction to the protests be?

What Makes College Athletics Special

Over the course of this semester I’ve had the privilege of attending several Michigan sporting events. At the beginning of October I went to a Men’s Soccer game against Notre Dame, the #6 Ranked team in the country at the time. That game was the first non-football UofM sporting event I attended, and it did not disappoint. Michigan won in exciting fashion after a goal in the final minutes of play gave Michigan the win, 3-2. I also had the pleasure of attending the Men’s Basketball team’s first game this past Monday. That one was a little less thrilling, but it was still fun to see the team out there again in a pre-season win over Wayne State.

In PoliSci 101, we’ve discussed growing competitiveness in sports today, and the controversy over whether college athletes should be paid or not. While I’m still unsure about the issue of paying college athletes, the growing competitiveness in college athletics is clear. For the fans, however, I think the experience of watching college sports is still as fun and special as it always has been.

How Growing Competitiveness is Damaging Youth Sports

Kids playing soccer

The other day I came across this article on Huffingtonpost.com about decreasing participation in youth sport leagues across the country recently. The article pointed to several potential reasons for the decline in numbers of kids playing sports. Risk of injury and growing competitiveness were two of the main reasons the article discussed. That got me thinking about Dunning’s claims in The Dynamics of Modern Sport that we talked about in class and discussion sections. He talked a lot about growing competitiveness in today’s world of sports. At the time I thought about how that related to trends in college and professional sports, but perhaps that movement towards increasing competitiveness is occurring at the youth level as well.

Pete Rose: Hall of Famer?

For those of you who don’t know who Pete Rose is, he is a baseball legend that many consider to be one of the best to ever play the game. He played for the Cincinnati Reds between 1963 and 1986. At the time of his retirement from playing, Rose held the record for hits, games played, at bats, and several other impressive records. After he stopped playing, Rose became a manager for the Reds. Soon into his managing career, however, there was an investigation into Rose and allegations of him betting on games as a manager. In 1989 the commissioner of baseball at the time, Bart Giamatti (sound familiar?) banned Rose from baseball for life.

Machiavelli, Dunning, and SEC Recruiting

The SEC (Southeastern Conference) is a group of schools in the southeastern part of the nation that makes up an athletic conference similar in many ways to the Big Ten. For the past 10+ years, the SEC has been by far the most dominant team in college football. Winning 7 of the last 8 National Championships, and currently holding 5 out of the top 10 spots in the weekly AP poll of top teams. Very few people would argue about the strength of the SEC in recent memory, but where the controversy starts is in how they came to be so great at college football – and that’s where Machiavellianism comes in.

Combatting ISIS: Fear, Honor, AND Interests

ISIS, which stands for the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” is a relatively new extremist group based in Iraq and Syria. It started in 2013, but many of its members were a part of Al-Quaeda and other terrorist groups before then. They demonstrate their anti-democratic, Sectarian beliefs through mass murders and public beheadings throughout the Middle East. Their violent demonstrations and mass killings have instilled fear in millions of people in that part of the world that are at risk of an attack any day. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy regarding the role the U.S. should play in combatting ISIS. Obama recently laid out a plan for combatting ISIS by training Syrian soldiers and sending in drone strikes targeted at ISIS headquarters. Some Americans are in favor of completely abstaining from the situation, while others feel that there should be troops sent over and full on drone attacks launched to try and destroy ISIS completely.

Drones – one possible way to combat ISIS