5/30: Blue Devils, Red Uniforms
7:45 p.m.
• There is justice in the world.
The NCAA has granted Duke's request for an extra year of eligibility for its men's lacrosse players following rape allegations that led to the cancellation of much of last season.
The decision affects 33 players who were not seniors during the 2006 season, and it grants them a fifth year of eligibility regardless of whether they play at Duke or another school. The announcement Wednesday came just two days after the Blue Devils lost to Johns Hopkins by a goal in the NCAA championship game.
I consider myself to be a don’t-do-the-crime-if-you-can’t-do-the-time type of person, but with all the shit that has gone down over the past year for these people the least Duke can do is let them re-do a season. Then again, after how the Duke team got thrown under the bus, I’m surprised anyone from that team is still around at that university.
• Best Buy employees, be on alert. There will be retaliation from the reds.
Two Petaluma store employees and a shopping center customer were beaten by reputed gang members, apparently for wearing red clothing, police said Tuesday.
The attacks happened near the Staples office supply store on South McDowell Boulevard, where two workers and another person were assaulted.
Two 17-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were later arrested.
It was the second attack in Petaluma over colors in two months. In April, a 12-year-old boy was hit on the head with a skateboard after he refused to take off a red shirt.
• Awesome. So the U.S. is spreading cancer to Asia. And who says we don’t export anything over there?
Asia is bracing for a dramatic surge in cancer rates over the next decade as people in the developing world live longer and adopt bad Western habits that greatly increase the risk of the disease.
Smoking, drinking and eating unhealthy foods—all linked to various cancers—will combine with larger populations and fewer deaths from infectious diseases to drive Asian cancer rates up 60 percent by 2020, some experts predict.
• I guess not everybody learned the lesson the XFL provided us earlier this decade.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is part of a group considering formation of a football league that would compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round.
The league, still very much in the preliminary stage, would play its games on Friday nights. The NFL does not play then because of the potential conflict with high school football.
"It's a pretty simple concept," Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We think there is more demand for pro football than supply."
8:45 a.m.
• And here I thought Anakin's problem was being p-whipped.
Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars character who became Darth Vader, had borderline personality disorder, psychiatrists report.
The news comes not from a galaxy far, far away, but from San Diego, where the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is holding its 160th annual meeting.
Today, experts from the psychiatric department at France's University Hospital of Toulouse told the APA's annual meeting that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader could "clearly" be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
Borderline personality disorder is a serious mental illness marked by instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior, according to background information on the web site of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
The French psychiatrists -- who included Laurent Schmitt, MD -- based their diagnosis on original Star Wars film scripts.
Schmitt's team describes Skywalker's symptoms, including problems with controlling anger and impulsivity, temporary stress-related paranoia, "frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (when trying to save his wife at all costs), and a pattern of unstable and intense personal relationships," including his relationships with his Jedi masters.
Changing his name and turning into "Darth Vader" is a red flag of Skywalker's disturbed identity, note Schmitt and colleagues.
The researchers aren't suggesting that real people with borderline personality disorder are Darth Vaders-in-the-making. Skywalker's symptoms are an extreme, fictional case.
Borderline personality disorder can be treated with psychotherapy and medication. But that wasn't part of Skywalker's script.
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