keep the home fires burning

[intertribal]

It's budget cutting time at the university, and while majors, faculty positions, staff positions, departments, and structures are being eliminated, the coach of the men's basketball team - which hovers somewhere between "appalling" and "merely embarrassing" in league play - has received a $100,000 raise to a salary of $900,000 each year.  Nebraska actually does a little better than most universities in this regard, because the athletic department supposedly doesn't receive university subsidies and never ends up "in the red," because wealthy Nebraskans have their priorities straight.  But, substitute Nebraska for almost any other NCAA-member school and you've got essentially a money drain that's untouchable. 

My mother was complaining about this disparity and I said, "Well, you know what the athletic department is, right?  It's the Department of Defense."

The analogies are actually kind of fun.  We've got this department that supposedly generates enough revenue to make up that spending - tickets and merchandise, war - but maybe doesn't, and it's built on the backs of young men (and some young women) and fancy gear and armor, and fuck those young men and women when they leave the department.  If they're not strong enough, then they're on their own.  Oh, and the department's got a lot of cheering, waving fans.