There’s the sublime. There’s the ridiculous. And there’s the sublimely ridiculous. If former FAU Athletics Director Craig Angelos is to believed, the last of those three is the realm inhabited by the school’s leadership, as far as PR savvy. The school’s tone-deaf ways have been infamous from coast to coast…
In a classic example of bolstering the bunker instead of looking in the mirror, FAU’s Board of Trustees yesterday blasted those who criticized and publicized the school’s recent high-profile public blunders. See also: – FAU President’s Collision With Student – FAU Instructor Placed on Leave Rather than question the wisdom…
Ya gotta hate Mondays. Especially if you’re FAU President Mary Jane Saunders and you come in and open your email and find two open letters “to the FAU community” raking the school over the coals for its handling of two recent scandals. One letter came from John Hiatt, of Wellington,…
“Write what you know” is the cardinal rule of creative writing, and it would seem to be even more important in the writing of legislation. Bad literature can be ignored; bad law, not so much. State Rep Dave Kerner has taken that thought to heart.Kerner (D-Palm Springs) has played a…
The selection of new members of FAU’s Board of Trustees is usually not controversial, passing easily from nomination through confirmation to installation. That may not be the case with Gov. Rick Scott’s choice of Elizabeth Fago.See also:- Best Local Girl Gone BadFago’s nomination was announced March 27th, during the height of…
In what can only be described as a rare bout of good sense, FAU administrators have decided to forgo disciplinary proceedings against seven students involved in a March 22 demonstration on the school’s Jupiter campus. The seven were protesting the school’s naming rights deal with global private prison operator GEO…
UPDATE 10:44 a.m. Boca Raton police spokesman Mark Economou said four people were arrested at GEO Group corporate headquarters this morning. “They chained themselves to the doors of the building,” he said, but “the locking mechanism has been removed.” Though activists Tweeted a photo showing at least six activists on…
First, FAU tried to name its stadium after a private prison operator, GEO Group. Then, FAU President Mary Jane Saunders struck a student with her car in a panic-stricken reaction to the sight of a mere handful of youngsters in the vicinity of her 2010 silver Lexus. Amid these events, the…
Administrators at Florida Atlantic University didn’t have the gumption to stand up to a propaganda assault from the Christian right and investigate communications instructor Deandre Poole’s report of threats from a disgruntled student. They chose instead to hang Poole out to dry in the idiot wind. Academic freedom? Not at…
UPDATE 7:50 p.m.: They did “levitate the Pentagon”! Though our initial post was about students playing an April Fools’ joke, the GEO deal was indeed canceled, it was announced this evening. Details below.Students opposed to FAU’s decision to sell naming rights to the school’s football field to the GEO Group, the…
At 1:53 p.m. today FAU officials announced that instructor Deandre Poole was placed on leave “immediately for safety reasons.”See also:- In Defense of FAU Instructor Deandre PoolePoole, a devout Christian, became embroiled in controversy late last week after right-wing critics accused him of anti-Christian activity. During a communications class, Poole…
While it may cost him his job, possibly, and his peace of mind, certainly, FAU Professor Deandre Poole’s late February classroom exercise has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, indisputably. Not since Gainesville pastor Terry Jones in 2010 got the Muslim world in an uproar by threatening to build a bonfire…
A trio of internal FAU emails came into our hands yesterday and left us more puzzled than ever as to what goes on in that brittle ivory tower. In response to criticism of the school’s recent series of very public blunders, school administrators appear to be directing faculty to circle…
The latest developments in the ongoing fiasco that is the FAU/GEO Group naming rights deal have opened broad new vistas of potential embarrassment for the university and its president, Mary Jane Saunders — depending on whom you believe.See also:-Students Claim FAU President Saunders Hit Student Protester With Car-FAU Students Vow…
It’s G-Day at FAU today, probably one of many to come, as the school’s sale of its athletics field’s naming rights to global private prison operator/serial human rights abuser GEO Group continues to draw fire from students and faculty opposed to the deal. See also:- FAU Students, Faculty and Allies Vow…
Spring this year begins with a multifront burst of activity by local lefties — on the environment, on GE foods labeling, and against the moral corruption of academia by the GEO Group private prison corporation.See also: -GE Foods Labeling Faces Political Calculus-Arbor Day Protest in Palm Beach Gardens-FAU Students Fighting GEO…
FAU students opposed to the school’s sale of football field naming rights to global private prison operator/serial human rights abuser GEO Group spent spring break last week planning their next moves.One thing the students had in mind was attendance at today’s meeting of FAU’s board of trustees, the body that…
Disgraced ex-military man and confessed torturer Allen West’s sell-by date is long past. His 15 minutes should have been up when he conceded defeat in his race for reelection in Florida’s 18th Congressional district last fall, after playing the victim card through a petulant few weeks of post-Election Day legal maneuvers.See…
A show of the work of the Photo League, a politically radical collective of photographers of the 1930s and 40s, opened at the Norton Museum last night. The photography is of the highest order–formally impeccable, deeply human in its concerns. Inescapably, the show has a vein of nostalgia for what…
Ya win some; ya lose some. That’s how our horses ran in two municipal races in Palm Beach County yesterday. One was a testament to the power of negative campaigning; the other was proof of its shortcomings.See also:-Gutter Politics in West Palm Beach-Bizarro Smear Campaign-Gulfstream Hotel: Red Herring in Lake…
Tomorrow, Lake Worth residents will go to the polls and vote on a bitterly contested referendum regarding building heights in the city. Two buildings are emblematic in this fight.See also:-Lake Worth’s Gulfstream Hotel: Bahraini Petrodollars, the Black Gatsby and ForeclosureThe first is the Lucerne, a six-story condo complex that towers…
Hoping to keep her seat on the WPB City Commission, Shanon Materio led off her re-election campaign with the class envy card, trying to paint her opponent, Gregg Weiss, as a dilettante and an elitist.See also:-Bizarro Smear CampaignHer camp followed that up with a political reverse flip, suggesting Weiss was…
