<p>I admitted I was wrong. I had too much faith in the integrity of our “trusted” legal officers.</p>
<p>1soccermom - don’t worry about lost posts lowering your post count.</p>
<p>Post’s in the Parent’s Cafe don’t add in to your total. (I guess since they may have nothing to do with college admissions. </p>
<p>So your count should not have changed. :)</p>
<p>
Absolutely agree. That is the case with every news magazine type show, every newspaper article, public relations piece, etc. How questions are phrased, which quotes to select, etc., make all the difference in the message delivered. I’ve been on both sides, as reporter & subject (never criminal issues!) and “distilled” is the perfect word for the process.</p>
<p>That being said, I still think the parents came across extremely well. There were real emotions that came through, and coupled with the overwhelming evidence of Nifong’s perfidious actions, Leslie Stahl’s report allowed them to shine. </p>
<p>Regarding posts suggesting the parents should have used the 60 Minutes segment to lambaste a culture of drinking/strippers for athletes, I think that’s just nuts. What parent would use the opportunity to advocate for their sons, after 9 months of having their characters attacked, to do such a thing? I thought the appropriate response was to admit breaches of morality, but clearly state how far beyond the pale the serious charges reached. Rape & kidnapping charges are not appropriate punishment for boorish behavior. Also, don’t forget that Seligman left when the stripping started. Finnerty had also grown tired of the all-day party & moved on.</p>
<p>Thanks Richs73cas. I probably could have been a Senior Member from the dead Duke thread alone, if only the Cafe posts counted. Now all those posts are just a sheer memory, a lost past… ;)</p>
<p>MOWC, Thanks for your honesty. Your professional opinion and comments contributed a lot to the old thread! I am sure you can offer us some valuable insight as this saga continues.</p>
<p>“It is also not fair that the original cc “group of 88” (or the first 88 posters or whatever it was) are now completely absolved without ever admitting they were wrong.”</p>
<p>I don’t remember whether I was in the original 88, but I’ve said many times that I started out convinced that the story was true, that I switched 90 degrees (to neutral) when the first DNA test came back, and that I completed the 180-degree turnaround when the lineup technique was revealed.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think that being on the wrong side of a controversy is the kind of thing that can be “absolved.” It’s not a sin to interpret ambiguous news reports in a way that later turns out to be wrong. Judges have an obligation to give suspects the benefit of the doubt; bystanders like us do not.</p>
<p>Hanna:</p>
<p>Re: The absolution reference</p>
<p>It was a joke. ;)</p>
<p>
Even as the mother of a Duke student and an ardent supporter of Duke in general, I was also initially convinced of the guilt of the LAX players for reasons you described above. I think, though, that what 1sm was mostly referring to (correct me if I’m wrong here, 1sm) was a certain, specific group of HIGHLY vocal Duke detractors which not only condemned the Duke players but the school, the administration, the athletic director and coach, all players of “helmet sports,” etc. in MANY posts over MANY pages. I don’t recall even one of those people ever coming back and saying, “Ooops, my bad, looks like we seriously jumped to some conclusions…” like so many of the others of us have done. </p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>Ok B, maybe a bit of sarcasm, maybe not really a joke…</p>
<p>(I agree with your interpretation too.) We double posted. It would be nice to see some of the hardcore hooligan helmet bashers admit they rushed to judgement. But in the end, I guess it doesn’t matter. Finally, the truth will come out.</p>
<p>
AH, but oh-so justified! ;)</p>
<p>
Absolutely, YES…but there’s never harm in bein’ a stand-up person and admitting when you were just FLAT OUT WRONG! ;)</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>Berurah, those persons still and will always exist, both here and in real life - those who have biases against this or that group for whatever reason or for no reason at all. When they end up being wrong, they just pretend the thread doesn’t exist. Or perhaps just lurk anonymously, hoping against all reason that someday there might be a headline that screams “DNA match magically found” or some such thing. </p>
<p>Stickershock, what I would have hoped is that the parents would have taken a far, far higher road - instead of permitting the interview to degrade into this “victim” position, I would have hoped they would have driven the far larger issues, and taken the road NO ONE in this case has so far - the position of leader, and change agent. But perhaps they couldn’t, under the terms of the interview. As I’ve already said and others subsequently posted, who knows how much of it ended up on the editing room floor. Also, who knows how restrictive the defense attorneys insisted the interview questions be formed, so as not to ruin their hard work, which makes perfect sense.</p>
<p>As to the parents, a few months ago when I was planning development of a dark site, a PR expert (and lawyer) said to me, in the context of potentially incendiary or negative media coverage (we’ve never had any, just preparing for it just in case) “never, ever explain. Either apologize - or confront. But never, ever explain - when you’re explaining, you’re losing”. I think the parents should have been very, very confrontational. For example, the very last question, when Mrs. Davis was asked what she would say to Nifong if he walked into the room right then, instead of the unhelpful, sophomoric and even somewhat silly emotional ejaculation she offered, I sort of wished she would have said something like “I would ask him why he believes as he does. I would ask him why he permits prostitution and degradation of women in the disguise of legitimate business to thrive in his jurisdiction, while simultaneously selectively indicting taxi drivers for the petty crimes of their fares. I would ask him why he refused to talk to the indicted young men, and why he took so long (December '06???) to interview the AV. I would ask him on what basis he decided these student athletes were ‘hooligans’, oh, and by the way, Mr. Nifong, exactly what IS a hooligan, anyway??? I would ask him his opinion of the credibility of the AV, and which of the 23 versions she has offered he thinks is most credible, and why.” And so on…I would have preferred to see the parents confront, confront, confront. Instead, they appeared to whine, whine, whine. </p>
<p>As to the rest of it, I do recall seeing David Evans speak on the day of his arrest, and I could not possibly have been more impressed with how he conducted himself, and how he spoke. Hearing him, I came away absolutely convinced of his innocence. It was especially impressive considering that he just graduated the day before and this should have been one of the happiest and most celebratory times of his life. Instead, it was a total nightmare, and yet he came across as so poised and polished, and INNOCENT. I came away thinking, my god, if this is how this young man presents himself at 20-ish, he’ll be absolutely incredible at 40-ish. </p>
<p>Comparatively, his mother came across as very weak, and, to me, like a person with something to hide. </p>
<p>But a lot of it is 60 minutes editorial too. I thought the Bush interview was very, very disappointing - and I’m a Bush supporter. I thought in both situations the 60 minutes interviewers failed to ask real questions, hard questions, and in many situations they backed off just as they were getting close to something worth knowing. Come to think of it, I’ve been pretty disappointed in the quality of 60 minutes’ work for a while.</p>
<p>OK, some boring person I know IRL called me wanting me to listen to a long recitation of their problems, so while I was ostensibly listening attentively on the phone, I used the time to recover and save 54 pages from the the original thread of around 768 or so pages from the Google cache. So that’s a start. </p>
<p>I’m not going to do this any more, but I am willing to share in a collaborative effort, and so will explain how to do it. The files could be assembled and then posted some sort of web site or directory where they could be accessed page by page – for anyone that wanted them. </p>
<p>Here are the pages that I have: </p>
<p>1 2 __ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 14 17
26
51 52 53 ___ 55
63 68
84
101 __ 103 104 105
122
242
270 273
287
306 307
363 383
418 436
554 557 559
647 658 668
718
747 748 739 750 751
754 755 756 757 758 759 764 </p>
<p>Here on instructions on how to recover and save the files:</p>
<p>– Enter the phrase “Alleged rape by Duke lacrosse team” in the Google search box</p>
<p>– Click on “Advanced Search” (the link is to the right of the search box)</p>
<p>– in the field on that page entitled “Domain” enter: talk.collegeconfidential.com (this means you will get ONLY stuff from the cc site)</p>
<p>– Click the “Google Search Button”</p>
<p>– Scroll down to the bottom of the page with the results and click the link that says " repeat the search with the omitted results included"</p>
<p>– When I do that I get 1,280 results, which includes duplicates of many of the pages (so it is not as bad as it looks)</p>
<p>– I saved all the results on pages 1-6 (with the option for 10 results per page) – so to get more, you could start on page 7. </p>
<p>Here is how to save the stuff:</p>
<p>– click on the link to the word “Cached” under the search result</p>
<p>– when the cached page comes up, choose the “save as” option on your browser</p>
<p>– “save as” gives you a choice as to format; choose “web page, HTML only” (the other options make the process more cumbersome)</p>
<p>– for the first file, create a new folder on your computer with a name that lets you know what the stuff is</p>
<p>– I used the naming convention, page_.htm – so I have page1.htm, page2.htm, all the way to page 764.htm --If others use the same convention, then it will be very easy to combine files later on. Of course, if you do any of this, you will want to come on line, copy my list of pages above and amend it with the list of all the files you have copied - and repaste (just like we all did last spring with the college admission results threads). </p>
<p>If you think that this is all totally insane, then disregard this post. As noted, I simply happened to be multitasking, splitting my “save as” time with phone-listening time… this is rather a mindless task when it comes down to it. But if anyone really wants to resurrect the gang of 88 so we can collectively say “I told you so”… or just wants to be able to have searchable archive in case you are trying to remember some trivial detail someone posted last August… it will be there. Since a few of us are now empty nesters with an undue amount of time on our hands, this isn’t that impossible of a task.</p>
<p>I took a month off from this board, and came back to find it as crazy as ever! </p>
<p>Yeah, I’ll admit I jumped to conclusions about the boys–I was just so shocked at the e-mail, the racial epithets, their multiple fines, the numerous stories about their boorish behavior. But I should not have jumped to the conclusion I did. I should have WAITED. (And I am not a “helmet-sport hater”–my son was once a star football-player.)</p>
<p>So I apologize.</p>
<p>Now–how about an apology in return for the equally attack-without-reason that took place on the teacher Kyle Dowd is suing. The loyal Dukesters here had her tried and convicted based on just the complaint–didn’t we we all learn a lesson? No reason to say, “My son won’t take a class from her!” “these feminists!” etc., etc.</p>
<p>I think we know just two facts from the complaint–the rest is conjecture. The two facts could indict each:</p>
<p>(1) the teacher somehow averaged 50% C grade with a 50% F grade and got an F grade? Doesn’t compute. She had some agenda?.</p>
<p>(2) the “only” time Kyle Dowd could meet with his lawyer was five hours that concided with her her class–gimme a break! Maybe a kid with an attitude problem?</p>
<p>But I’m determined to wait out the evidence. Not again to attack. Anyone want to join me?</p>
<p>I have created an xdrive account and uploaded all of the files I saved (above) to it. </p>
<p>To access the xdrive account, here is what you need to do.</p>
<p>Go to <a href=“http://www.xdrive.com/[/url]”>http://www.xdrive.com/</a></p>
<p>Click “Log In” in the upper left corner</p>
<p>Log in using this user name and password:</p>
<p>user: ccparentcafe
password: 800pages</p>
<p>Click the big green button to launch xdrive</p>
<p>navigate to “My documents”</p>
<p>That will take you to the “Duke Rape Thread”</p>
<p>You can upload more documents or download them.</p>
<p>You need to have Java installed for the uploading/downloading.</p>
<p>If you decide to save some files of your own on your hard drive but find the upload process all too complicated, you can simply send them as an attachment to email to <a href="mailto:ccparentcafe@aol.com">ccparentcafe@aol.com</a> – it will automatically get added to the xdrive storage under the “email attachments” folder. </p>
<p>OK, I’m done…</p>
<p>
Wait a minute…I thought you just said that you took a month away from the board! 
How do you know that the “loyal Dukesters” have the prof tried and convicted? ;)</p>
<p>Beruah–what’s this about?</p>
<p>Yes, I quit the board just before Thanskgiving, and came back around Christmas EXACTLY as the Dowd complaint was discussed on this board. </p>
<p>I really am trying to wait and see. I’ll admit I was emotion-driven when I posted about the boys. It has been a lesson to me.</p>
<p>P.S. Thanks to Epistrophy and Kluge for modeling patience and reason!</p>
<p>^^No ulterior motive, faraway…just a question. I didn’t know the timing of your sabbatical. I hadn’t seen you post on the Duke thread in awhile, but I may have been otherwise employed. Sorry…</p>
<p>And one more thing: As regards the Dowd case, there <em>is</em> no Duke/nonDuke aspect. Both student and prof are “representatives” of Duke. A “loyal Dukester” could take either side of that and still be a “loyal Dukester.”</p>
<p>WHEW LTS - talk about being judgemental!! 
guess you need to really walk in their shoes for a bit - not all folks are ‘‘strong’’ and able to present themselves as you say you would - as they walk thru hell and back for their kids…</p>
<p>Wow Calmom - Impressive commitment to an archive of the Thread!!!</p>
<p>Also is a reminder that the internet is forever and what ever you post will be in cyberspace till the end of time. :)</p>
<p>Hello from your not-so-trusty Moderator :p</p>
<p>I am still trying to see if CC can retrieve the Duke LAX thread. I was told that it might be able to be done “manually” and it would be time consuming. I hope they can do it but I can’t promise anything. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I am very impressed by what Calmom has figured out and created and started. Yesterday, I had mentioned to CC tech people that old threads might appear via google but they said that is not in their data base which is what they need to retrieve the thread. However, now that I have read Calmom’s strategy, I have shared it with them and await a response. It seems to me if the pages can be found via google and built into a document, even if not CC’s data base, then there could be some link to the rebuilt document of all the past posts or however many pages can be located. I do think it is an interesting archive for anyone who has been following the case or choosing to participate on this thread. And like DukeEgr wrote…there goes his book! 
</p>
<p>So, maybe there is a glimmer of hope that either CC can retrieve the files or else use the “Calmom method” to create a big file that can be shared or linked. </p>
<p>Thank you for the supportive comments in light of the fiasco I managed somehow to do yesterday when I came across two identical 11,000+ post threads with the same “Alleged rape by Duke lacrosse members” title (not sure how that happened) after I merged a new 60 Minutes discussion thread, and tried to eliminate one and leave one. CC has now disabled the “permanently delete a thread” function that would lose it in this same way. There are ways we can remove threads where we can still see them. This time, there was no reason to save it as there were duplicate Duke LAX threads on my screen. Anyway, the disabling of that function will hopefully eliminate such a thing from happening again. Of all the threads to be eliminated, it was the longest one I have ever seen on CC. Imagine my shock when after that one supposedly intended-to-be-helpful click, zapped it all. </p>
<p>Carry on…</p>
<p>I’m just amazed at how much energy this new thread has relative to the old one… I have a feeling the “open letter” just posted might add to that. I’ve decided to take 24 to ponder.</p>