[lex24]

I’m a little stunned that no one has questioned whether a student publically calling for the assassination of President Biden should be expelled.

I appreciate the comparisons from those of you who were on campus during the Vietnam war days. I went to Berkeley but it was in the late 70s. Very different.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure you can compare those days to what is going on now. The Internet and social media are game changers to a degree that I’m not sure we fathom. And, I truly hope I’m wrong on this – but I see an infinitely more fractured society today. One in which the extremes drive the bus. Helped considerably by the Internet, social media and the unending ability to feed confirmation bias.

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I was in San Jose during the Vietnam Sixties. During the summers of 1968 and 1970 in the wake of the assassinations, invasion of Cambodia and the massacre at Kent State (not to mention campus closures sparked by the latter), the U.S of A. was far more polarized than it is today. Need I remind anyone that on the October morning of the USC/Stanford game attended by an SRO crowd of 90,000, there came a notification to then-president Lyman that a bomb had been hidden somewhere in Stanford Stadium and that it was announced pre-kickoff?

I have faith in the republic. Some of the denizens, not so much.

Forgot about that bomb threat.  Just remembered that “Plunkett Keeps His Promise.”

[lex24]

I’m a little stunned that no one has questioned whether a student publically calling for the assassination of President Biden should be expelled.

I appreciate the comparisons from those of you who were on campus during the Vietnam war days. I went to Berkeley but it was in the late 70s. Very different.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure you can compare those days to what is going on now. The Internet and social media are game changers to a degree that I’m not sure we fathom. And, I truly hope I’m wrong on this – but I see an infinitely more fractured society today. One in which the extremes drive the bus. Helped considerably by the Internet, social media and the unending ability to feed confirmation bias.

---

I was in San Jose during the Vietnam Sixties. During the summers of 1968 and 1970 in the wake of the assassinations, invasion of Cambodia and the massacre at Kent State (not to mention campus closures sparked by the latter), the U.S of A. was far more polarized than it is today. Need I remind anyone that on the October morning of the USC/Stanford game attended by an SRO crowd of 90,000, there came a notification to then-president Lyman that a bomb had been hidden somewhere in Stanford Stadium and that it was announced pre-kickoff?

I have faith in the republic. Some of the denizens, not so much.

Forgot about that bomb threat.  Just remembered that “Plunkett Keeps His Promise.”