PCM

You need a new dress anyway.

It did. And it's kind of scary that you and Diggler are so up on the lyrics to Broadway musicals.

I've never seen a picture of a Viking who looked like Duante Culpepper, either.

Give him a call tonight. I doesn't sound like he has much going on.

Maybe he'll adopt you.

What are you talking about? The guy has it made. I want to be just like Daddy Lee.

Along that line of thinking, here are some more college nicknames that are just asking to be banned by the NCAA.

I agree. It's our right to freedom of expression, which means that I can't stop someone from burning the US flag no matter how much it offends me. I agree completely. As much as the practice of flag burning offends me, I respect every American's right to engage in it. I'm also against a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. Are you saying that the Sioux people have a right to not be offended?

From the old "Vikings are not people" thread:

Does this prove that GrahamKracker and Knowthefacts aren't the same person?

Listening to this, does Charles Kupchella sound as if he was ever on the verge of changing the Sioux name? Could it be that some people assumed too much about him? Could it be that they also assumed too much about where he stood on this issue? Could it be that some people were completely wrong about Kupchella? Hmmm?

Where do you stand on the issue of burning the American flag in protest? Should there be a constitutional amendment to make it illegal? Yes or no.

You're still not answering my questions. Do you want me to repeat them?

Yes, and you never did answer the questions I posed in that discussion.

If I thought the one offended person's reaction to the joke was unwarranted and unreasonable, then, yes, I would continue to tell it. However, if I told the joke to 20 more people and 6 of them said they were deeply offended, I'd probably stop telling the joke. I can't possibly know how each person is going to react to or interpret a joke, especially if it's a joke that I don't consider offensive. Certainly there is humor that's easily recognizeable as being offensive to most people, but there's also a lot of it that some people will laugh at while others are offended. Should I stop telling jokes completely just because some people have no sense of humor or take things too seriously or interpret things too literally or are totally irrational in their thinking? Humor would soon be outlawed in this country if we operated on the principle that any humor that offended any person for any reason should be banned. While watching Comedy Central, I constantly hear comedians tell jokes based on race, sex and stereotypes that I'm sure many people find offensive. And I'm quite certain that when the comedians tell these jokes, they do it knowing full well that someone, somewhere will be offended. But there's this concept upon which our nation was founded that's known as freedom expression. Just because I'm offended, it doesn't give me the right to censor comedians that I find offensive. I can always change the channel, refuse to buy their CDs and urge others to boycott them. If most people agree with me, the the offensive comic will either have to clean up his act or risk losing popularity and sales. If they don't, he'll go right on doing what he's doing without me being able to do anything about. And that's the way it should be. Actually, a few years ago, I spent about a week in the special collections section of the Chester Fritz Library conducting research on the history of the Sioux hockey program. In the process of doing that research, I read a great deal about how UND came to adopt the Sioux name. There's actually quite a bit more to it than that. Athletes and students had been unhappy for years about the Flickertails nickname. And even if your facts were 100 percent accurate, it still doesn't mean that the one letter to the editor you cited is a fair representation of the entire rationale for UND adopting the Sioux name. It was simply one person's opinion.

The name change issue is a serious subject, but it's nice to see that Tony Gabriele, a columnist for the Daily Press in Hampton, VA, can have some fun with it. His column is titled Switch teams' ethnicities to Italian.

How about moving this thread to the Sioux Name forum where it belongs?

Because the discussion was about water resources in the Red River Valley, I was refering to a regional drought which is far more likely, not a drought that affected the entire nation. Hint: It helps if you read the thread to understand the context of a comment.

Great post, Taz. I agree 100 percent.

I think it's a great idea, one that might have helped UND avoid its current problems with the NCAA if it had been done long ago. But for all I know, the idea has been advanced and the tribal leaders said they weren't interested. The reason I emphasize "might" is because when I look at Florida State's situation, having the blessing of the Seminole tribe in Florida made absolutely no difference to the NCAA. But I do think your idea would help mute the criticism from those who say that UND is wrong to make money from the Sioux name without giving a cut to the tribes. It seems only fair to me.

Besides that, my dog Sunny would be offended. Ryan Bakken weighs in with his name suggestion in today's Herald.

From my perspective, this is already being done. It's the primary reason why UND has so many more American Indian students and Indian-related programs than NDSU, SDSU or USD. The Sioux name provides a powerful incentive for the university to pursue and create programs and opportunities for American Indian students. That's not to say that UND couldn't do more of this or do it better, but my sense is that UND does a far better job at it than most universities in states with significant American Indian populations.

No, I understand your point. Although my reasons for going along with a potential name change weren't the same as yours, at one time, I could see a way to justify doing it. Events have since convinced me otherwise. That's all I'm saying.

ESPNInsider, I once thought as you did. In the fall of 2001, I believed that changing the name would be the fastest way for UND to put this whole mess behind it and move on to far more important issues. And believe me, there are far more important issues facing UND. But then two things happened. The first was listening to Minnepolis Star-Tribune columnist Nick Coleman on Scott Hennen's Hot Talk radio show just before the new REA opened. Coleman, a true hater of Ralph Englestad and rabid opponent of the Sioux nickname, was hostile, insulting, abbrasive and abusive. Coleman wouldn't let Hennen say a word on his own show. He talked over him and shouted him down for the full 10 or so minutes he was on the air. And for those who know Hennen, that's quite a feat. It wasn't just Coleman's manner that made me angry, it was what he said about UND, Grand Forks and North Dakota. He claimed we were a bunch of backwards, racist hicks. The rest of the country laughed at us. We were an embarrassment to the nation. What made me even more angry than that was when he said that he and his fellow journalists were going to see to it that the new REA failed and that Grand Forks never saw one dime of economic benefit from it. How's that for objective journalism? Listening to Coleman made me angry and depressed. What if he was right? Everyone and everything seemed to be against us. But then a ray of hope arrived in the form of the Sports Illustrated survey saying that a large majority of American Indians had no problem with sports teams using Native American names. And an even larger percentage of the American public agreed. Suddenly I realized that everything Coleman said was a sham. He wasn't representative of the majority, and neither were the acitivists demanding that UND change its name. A minority of a minority was attempting to bully the majority into giving up its right to free expression. That's when I decided that as a matter of principle, there was no way I could support dropping the Fighting Sioux moniker. Today, the NCAA is finding out just how many Americans disagree with its approach to this issue. We've constantly been told that UND must drop the Sioux name to avoid negative PR. Well, who's getting the bad PR now?