Monday Medley

What we read while almost leading the Bears’ fourth-quarter comeback…

• NPI mourns the passing of writer and, for a lucky few of us, professor Reynolds Price. Price was an institution at our alma mater, someone who fought hard against the excesses of the University that have come to light all too often over the past few years. In addition to his work representing Duke University and the American South, he was also a frequent guest on Charlie Rose.

• Kim Clijsters became one of our favorite female tennis players with this post-match interview.

• You’re probably not going to believe this, but the real Baltimore Police Commissioner is not a fan of The Wire. Predictably, David Simon has a response.

• A couple long reads caught our eye this week, with Tom Junod’s exploration of FOX News’ chief Roger Ailes at Esquire and Gabriel Sherman’s profile of Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio in GQ. (Here’s an SEO hint, kids: Look at GQ‘s URL for that story.)

• Tim hasn’t necessarily hid his Auburn fandom over the last few months, but things like this make him proud to say he’s an out-of-state Auburn fan.

• Murray Hill is rightfully mocked (it’s from a while ago, but it still applies).

• An easy way to acquire one million dollars?

• Could this actually be a reason to watch The Office (Probably not)?

• The Awl gives us much-needed guidelines when it comes to dating coworkers.

• I love it when I fall into the correct market segment…

In Defense of Duke

As we at NPI have previously hinted, we have all emanated from that majestic and triumphant institution of higher learning, Duke University. In fact, it is fair to say that, without Duke, this blog would not exist. Other gifts to humanity that Duke has bestowed include basketball extraordinaire Jason Williams, former Heroes star Jack Coleman, novelist Reynolds Price, journalist Charlie Rose, and former NFL star Sonny Jurgensen. That’s not a bad list, and it’s by no means everybody.

Of course, Tim, Josh, and I would not say that Duke is perfect. For one, we’re not the kind of people that love institutions unconditionally. It’s pretty obvious that every university has its flaws. In fact, we probably wouldn’t object if you said that Duke has more flaws than your average elite institution.

But when someone who writes for a prominent magazine—like, I don’t know, let’s say The Atlantic—writes an unjustified hatchet-job that is illogical, mean-spirited, and not supported by any hard evidence…well, that really grinds our gears. See, hating Duke has been trendy for about two decades now (it probably started when Christian Laettner stepped on Aminu Timberlake). There are a lot of reasons for this that I won’t bother going into here, but suffice it to say that sometime around 2006, when three members of the Duke lacrosse team were accused of rape,* members of the non-sports media realized they could churn out “polarizing” columns by regurgitating the same accusations of racism and elitism that had been levied against the basketball team for 15 years.