Spare Me Your Theatrics

ASU finds itself embroiled in a hot mess right now with their dealings with the President's honorary degree. Their actions have caught the ire of CNN and several political commentators. President Crow announced today that one of the university's scholarship programs is going to be renamed in honor of the Commander-in-Chief.

ASU's standing policy is to not award degrees to standing politicians. Now if I recall, Obama is just that- a standing politician. The comment that set off the firestorm of unbridled scrutiny is that "His (Obama's) body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency," as said by University spokeswoman Sharon Keeler.

First of all, how can professional news outlets make such a big deal about a piece of paper? I doubt Obama's losing any sleep over becoming an honorary Sun Devil, and if he is losing sleep, it's over the Somalian pirate hostage situation where we've got a real serious crisis unfolding, not getting a degree from what some students refer to as "the nation's biggest community college."

Now, the University of Notre Dame will award the degree to Obama with little or no questions asked, but because Crow made a PR gaffe, it's going to be seen as a backpedaling maneuver and a blown opportunity for amazing PR.

But Crow's move makes me wonder if it's a passive act to derail the study undertaken by conservative author David Horowitz, who, according to a State Press article, claims that ASU is one of the ten most liberal campuses in the States. In a discussion on Wednesday at the Tempe campus, Horowitz said that indoctrination by liberal professors is the reason.

Tell me, dear readers, is there a disconnect between ASU's "liberal" position and the so-called conservative bastion that is Arizona?

Wake

In the wake of my peers creating blogs to voice their thoughts, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and make my own blog. Much unlike said peers, the IS Complex won't have a particular focus on sporting, though this is not to say it won't be featured occasionally.

So, what else can there to be to say in this initial installment of the Complex? Perhaps topics I'll be discussing and offering discourse on...

~Video games
~Samples of my personal fan-fictions
~Interpretations of the news/media

and all sorts of other goodies. Stay tuned to the Complex for more.