Well, we all should have seen it coming. The government gets involved in the Fighting Sioux nickname debate and now who knows what’s going to happen if what I read is right, and to be very honest I don’t understand half of it.

If you vote “Yes” on the upcoming ballot for the Fighting Sioux nickname you have just said “No” I don’t want it. However, if you vote “No” that means you are in favor of the nickname. Why you ask? Well, because you are not voting on whether or not you want the nickname anymore, you are now voting on whether or not you are in favor of some Senate bill that has something to do with the nickname.

I knew as soon as this went anywhere near our beloved elected officials it would get screwed up. Well there you have it. We have a legislative body arguing over the matter with the Board of Higher Education. We have Supreme Court Justices who want nothing to do with the matter, and of course we have a Secretary of State’s office who can’t decide how to word it on the ballot, so they just write it as poorly as possible and hope it fly’s.

Here is my suggestion, let’s start another petition to complain about the wording on the ballot! Then we can put that on the ballot to and make sure everyone is confused. Or a better idea is to write the ballot like this. A) In favor of requiring the University of North Dakota to use the Fighting Sioux nickname B) Opposed to the University of North Dakota using the Fighting Sioux nickname. Wow, I am not even a lawyer or an elected official and I can figure this one out pretty easily.

Who suffers from all this ridiculous mess over a nickname? The students at U.N.D are suffering, the athletic department is suffering because I am sure they are having trouble recruiting potential athletes to a school that in the near future may not have anyone to play against, and now you the taxpayer are suffering as who knows how much money has been spent on this already, and still is yet to be spent.

It’s an absolute shame that U.N.D is going through this. Let the school decide what’s best for the school. I, as an individual who just happens to like or dislike a nickname have no business in this debate. It’s the schools business, not mine so I encourage you all to vote “none of the above.” For those of you old enough to remember the movie called “Brewster’s Millions” you remember the “None of the Above” campaign he ran. It made sense then, and it makes sense now.

C’mon Man!

For the next couple of weeks I am going to do a segment on my article each week called “C’mon Man.” It will reference what I think are some of the most ridiculous things I have seen or heard about this week in Grand Forks and around the country.

Let’s start with something you have just read above this. Dateline, Bismarck, North Dakota!! Lawyers in the Fighting Sioux nickname case argued before the North Dakota Supreme Court and were grilled with questions by the justices about the case, all at taxpayer expense. After debating the issue, the five justices could not come to a stance on what to do. So, they sent it back and now it will appear on a June ballot initiative. Justices, did you not know why there are five of you instead of four? It’s for a tie breaker of sorts so you can decide issues together C’mon Man!!

Dateline, Sanford, Florida!! As the tragic Travon Martin mess lingers on. The story itself is a tragedy with the shooting death of Travon Martin but this tragedy took a turn for the worse when two others decided to weigh in on the events of that tragic evening. Here they come to save the day, Reverend Jesse Jackson and former who knows how many time Presidential candidate Al Sharpton have come to help us all make sense of the tragedy. It was racially motivated the two say, and by the way what else would these two say? They think Frosty the Snowman was racially motivated because of course snow is the wrong color too.

People in Sanford are now on the verge of rioting as in the Rodney King episode where the streets of LA went wild. Jesse and Al, are you not rushing to judgment just a little prematurely? Would you come here to Grand Forks if I was shot and killed by an African American man? C’mon man!! Let the powers that be decide what happened based on the evidence. The justice system, although flawed at times for the most part seems to work in this country. The Martin family has been struck by tragedy and we need to let them grieve in peace, not drag them in front of every TV camera around. Tragedy has struck Sanford, Al and Jesse. We don’t need another tragedy down there as well.