TheTastyGreek

When I read Greek entitlement mentality in something you wrote, I wonder what the hell you are talking about. That's not a nation of people who feel entitled to much of anything. Greece didn't have an economic crisis because of an "entitlement mentality". They have an economic crisis because the past century has been one disaster after another, some internal and some external. I'm not worried about you "picking on Greece", I'm just annoyed over how everything you're saying betrays a total lack of awareness of the history that led to the current situation and system of government. I'm not claiming to be an expert, I just heard it all secondhand while growing up. My grandfather was one of two males in his family to survive a genocide that was barely nipped in the bud. His family just happened to live in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Because of it, he grew up mostly illiterate. Didn't know for sure when his birthday was because he wasn't even 10 years old when he was smuggled across the sea disguised as an elderly woman so that he wouldn't be killed like every other man in his family was. Wasn't reunited with two of his sisters for over a decade. When they finally found each other, they couldn't remember and agree on what their last name was. The other male who survived was imprisoned for years until he was released under the terms of a treaty that repopulated over two million people between Turkey and Greece. By the time he got out, he had been beaten and tortured so badly that he couldn't even walk. He pushed himself around with the palms of his hands, dragging his ass and his mangled legs along the ground until a compassionate doctor took pity on him and performed a series of surgeries that allowed him to limp around for the rest of his short, pain-filled life. My grandfather was luckier, and unlike his only other surviving male relative, managed to live long enough to endure a military occupation by Hitler. His wife was almost killed before his eyes when she caught an Italian soldier trying to steal food from them, and chased him off by beating him with a broom. The Italian was trying to steal their food because part of the German occupation strategy was instigating a famine that killed more than a quarter of a million people in Athens. Then Hitler was defeated and Greece settled into another four years of distress with the start of the Greek Civil War. That conflict caused more social and economic damage than the Nazi occupation did. Then, in 1967, the three colonels staged a military coup. For seven years, my grandfather had to live in constant fear of the government. Having guests over to the house was dangerous because it might look like secret political meetings. If his daughter rejected the wrong person for a date, he might denounce her as a communist and she would be tortured and killed. Just dumb random bad luck, like shopping at a grocery too close to an underground meeting place or riding on a bus with a suspected subversive was enough to get himself thrown in prison, tortured and/or killed. During the military government, my mother tracked down a third sister that everyone thought had been murdered 50 years earlier. She had been living in the northern part of the country, and she had a different, third variation on their family name. Then, in 1974, the Colonels were overthrown and my grandfather (and all of Greece) could finally relax. All they had to worry about was the Cyprus crisis that popped up in the wake of the military government's collapse. It merely spawned a cold war with Turkey that persists to this day. Oh, and the military government also led to the formation of a domestic Al Qaeda that operated for nearly 30 years and carried out over 100 terrorist attacks. But all in all, a cold war with a territorial neighbor that they've already fought four major wars against in the past 125 years, that occupied the country and outlawed the language for 400 years, and that slaughtered nearly everyone in his (and his wife's) family probably wasn't a very big deal for my grandfather. At least, not compared to the other stuff he had to live through. So there's your recap of the past 100 years of Greek history from the perspective of Ioannis Malakias. Or Ioannis Malaki. Or Ioannis Malkas. Depending on whose memory you trust most. Not a whole lot of grounds for a sense of entitlement to anything. Not even basic survival. Don't casually throw out Greece as a nation of "entitlement mentality" because of some conclusion you might have jumped to based on the recent economic situation. Because the recent "crisis" is only in relation to what is really an economic miracle. The fact that Greece isn't a semi-anarchic smoldering ruin like Albania is evidence enough that the people there aren't of an "entitlement mentality". It's a country that has spent the past century (and perhaps even more accurately, the past 500 years) entitled to nothing but a chance to struggle to pick up the pieces every time the universe pounds it down into the ground. If Greece were a state in a federated European Union, the "crisis" wouldn't even be a spit in the ocean compared to how California relates to the United States. And what you call "bloated entitlement programs" is what kept millions more people from starving to death at various times of complete devastation and ruin. I'm no socialist, but I'm also not blind to the hard, savage realities that led to the genesis of the situation. I still like you, KRAM, but you are way, way off base in what you're saying. You aren't the only one, but seeing anyone here talk about how we might "turn into Greece" as though that were a bad thing is laughable. The only prevailing mentality among native Greeks (a group I am not a member of) is to tolerate whatever wretched calamity pops up next, struggle through it, and then put their heads down and work their way back.

I heart you. If I'd been around, I'd have mentioned it myself.

Communist. Three straight games that might just as well have never even been played would be theoretically hilarious to me.

You should all be so lucky. And please don't talk about Greece and entitlement. You may have read some article during this recent economic situation, but that doesn't mean you have any idea what or why Greece wound up in that situation, or the political reasons that it developed.

How much more marketable are Utah State and Idaho for making the move? I don't recall them being mentioned much in the realignment shuffle. And for them, the WAC made geographic sense.

Jump rats jump?

It's just proof that we need to start even earlier, and talk even more, about potential future realignment scenarios once the current situation finishes playing out. We obviously just didn't devote enough time, thought, and typing to properly anticipate the shifts. Orangebloods.com PASSED US BY.

And once again, he failed. OR: He scored a 14, again. Police are investigating.

Damn negative Vito. His bias is obvious. I can only imagine how angry I'd have been if I hadn't already canceled my newspaper subscription each of the last 15 times I threw a fit over his yellow journalism. Why does he hate North Texas so much?!? He's trying to destroy us!

It's the money. The expense, the Title IX offset, and the fact that it doesn't pay for itself from year-to-year for more than maybe a dozen programs in the country. But someday, sooner than later, we ought to have the finances to pay for it and I'll split the pair of tickets with you.

Not us, we're not in their footprint. Western and Middle.

Except the WAC, MAC, and depending on how the realignment shakes out, potentially C-USA.

I could see it if Kansas and Kansas State are applying, because the big worry the NCAA has is potentially getting Congress involved and possibly losing tax exempt status. That's two senators from Kansas (to say nothing of Missouri) who would be strongly motivated to push the issue if a waiver were denied.

Answer the question, Norm. I said, if you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself?

Actually, the only time they've ever beaten two BCS teams in a year was 2006, the year they had to play a second one when they took on Oklahoma in a bowl game. They've usually played one BCS team a year, generally someone like Arkansas (sorry GMG1999) or Washington State, and more often than not they've lost those games. Recent results are better than those at the start of their run at the beginning of the decade.

In football? Beat the living shit out of us for half a decade. It's tough to feel superior when we're getting our asses handed to us on a weekly basis.

I'd hate to see us not leagued up with a left-behind WKU. Them and South Alabama.

Gender surrender. Despair. The inexorable advance of old age and then death. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get some sleep. Big Saturday planned. Trip to the vet, trip to Home Depot. Maybe Bed Bath and Beyond, I don't know if we'll have the time.

I've already admitted when I flashed back to an old joke about the Gyro of Power that I've gotten old and lame. Carry the banner of brazen abrasiveness, sir. Don't get neutered like some of us have.

Here's a fun metaphor for our situation: 30 years ago, we had big dreams and wide eyes, and we took a shot at making it big. It didn't work out. Now, we're in the Sun Belt. A one bedroom apartment with a cat, a snuggie, a DVD of "Sleepless in Seattle", and a shelf of Harlequin romance novels. We know we could do better. But the phone isn't ringing, and everyone else in the neighborhood is already married. The trick is to avoid desperation. Because while this sure as hell isn't the future we imagined for ourselves... At least it's warm and dry. There's something to do. And our only company may be lower level members of the animal kingdom, but at least it's companionship. We could be homeless and desperate for the rest of the world to tell us we're pretty, turning tricks for drug money and 2-for-1's like our slutty young cousin in San Antonio. But we ought to be old enough and wise enough, having learned some hard lessons, to avoid making our lives worse. So when we get an email out of the blue from a Nigerian Prince named Karl Benson who wants to turn our whole world around... We ought to be mature enough to realize it's fool's gold. Especially when our other cousin in Ruston already got suckered in by the same scam. It's something different. It's a reason to dream of riches and a whole new world of opportunity. But really, it's just going to slowly bleed us dry, and then we'll be broke and alone. What we need to do is enjoy each day for what it is, keep working hard to stay pretty, and try to succeed at everything we do when we leave the house. The WAC is just more trouble, only farther away. It's different, but in a way that actually makes things worse. Going west isn't a good answer for our problems. Just ask the Joads.

Reload with who? Because right now... It's a couple of Sun Belt rejects, a couple of Big West never-did-anything-for-attendance former opponents, Fresno State (which may still end up getting pulled in to the MWC if none of the B12 teams are interested), San Jose State (which had administration threaten to disband the football program at least twice within the past decade), and Hawaii (which couldn't afford to fill their shower dispensers with liquid soap back when June Jones left). New Mexico State has some fond memories, but not for anyone who graduated within the past 7 or 8 years. And if I had to choose between partnering up with NMSU or WKU, I'll take the Hilltoppers. And as scary as the Louisiana state funding situation for sports is... It's just as bad for the non-Pac-10 schools out in California. The WAC is a whole lot of nothing. No value, no prestige, fraught with peril. There is no good reason to jump on that dilapidated, sinking ship. The SBC is no great shakes, but I'd rather be in the Sun Belt with at least one school that demands greatness (WKU) than stuck in the Rocky Mountain SBC with a different bunch of sisters of the poor. Making risky moves that don't improve our situation didn't work out in the 70's, and it won't do anything but hurt us now. Either we'll shake out in a better situation, or we won't. Going for the WAC, today, is the only option out there that actually makes our situation worse.

It really isn't. We can fly into Miami on a direct flight on any major carrier. FIU and FAU are actually a lot cheaper and more convenient than many of the teams we'd have to visit in the WAC. Going to Idaho or Utah State requires connections, regional carriers... Or, the flight expenses to FIU/FAU plus the shuttle bus expenses to ULM or ULL. It's not just about distance, it's about accessibility.

I'll dig up the old threads later, but the former Big West teams don't even draw for each other. We argued this out a year and a half ago, and the average attendance they pull for each other is very unimpressive. They aren't going to bring in a bigger crowd than the one that's already coming to watch North Texas, at least not if the past 5 years of their own gate numbers against each other are any indication. It's also not helpful that we have to travel more, to more expensive destinations. It hurts us that we'd play a lot of games on Pacific or Mountain (or, Hawaii) time, because it's harder for newspapers to make deadline. And it's less likely that they'll send people to cover us when their travel costs start rising, too. According to ArkStFan... Now that Boise is gone, the SBC is actually ranked higher in non-AQ BCS money distribution. We'd be getting less BCS money if we jumped ship. In fact, if the SBC kicked us out, they'd be the 2nd best non-AQ league without our program dragging down the league composite score. Joining the WAC, even a realigned 2 division Eastern portion of the WAC, would gain us nothing, cost us money on multiple fronts, and diminish our already pathetically low level of press coverage. It was a bad idea when Boise was still in the league, and it's a terrible idea now.

Also... I meant to give you a +1, but accidentally did the opposite. I wish that we had an "undo" option. Sorry about that. If a mod sees this, please amend my error.

Let's put it this way: The Pac-10 is Jesus. Baylor is a fig tree.