Fair Weather, Fair Play

Finally, temperatures are in the 60s here in Ann Arbor. Crocuses blooming, tulips emerging, but the newscaster from the local Fox channel said it best: “Spring is officially here. There was a riot at Michigan State University.”

Those crazy, violent Spartans. Police in full riot gear fired tear gas, concussion grenades and arrested about 50 people including a couple dozen Spartan students early Sunday morning when “Cedar Fest”, an MSU spring-time ritual of drinking and debauchery, was resurrected in a big way.

My son Scott, a student there, was not involved but he e-mailed me about it. Scott sees the violence from the other side now as he supervises a maintenance crew at one of the dormitories. A week ago, when Memphis was mightily trouncing Michigan State in the NCAA basketball tournament, the call came over the radio that someone had just tossed a chair through the eighth story study lounge window. (Hea, if you’re a Spartan, you’ve got to learn to handle heartbreak.)

Now as a prominent Michigan Wolverine booster, I hear deriding comments from my Spartan counterparts often, even here in Ann Arbor, a place described by an observer recently as “the pocket of sanity in the Midwest”. I usually take it all in stride. For example, my supervisor, a misguided MSU booster who sits in the cubicle across from me, pinned a raft of newspaper clippings to the outside wall of his cubicle last October. These clippings all report on the same unfortunate one-in-a-million loss my beloved Wolverines suffered to a Division 2 school on the gridiron last fall.

Even though it’s now ancient history, the clippings remain, taunting me every time I get up and walk by. But I don’t touch them. It’s my supervisor’s cube, his tackboard, his property, his space.

But when the Detroit News front page banner headline screamed about MSU’s riot--ha!--now was my chance at a little tit for tat. After my boss left for the day, I prominently pinned up the article on my tackboard which faces him. Heh, heh.

So when I came in the next day, I expected some comment from the boss man. Instead I was in for a shock. My article was gone . . . replaced by an Ann Arbor News article about the “Hash Bash,” an innocent little pot-smoking gathering at the U of Michigan that coincidentally also took place this past weekend.

FOUL!! FOWELLLL!!! He can’t ravage my personal space like that, can he? I have a right to free expression at my work, right? This violates my Constitutional rights. I watch Judge Judy; I think I’m on pretty firm legal ground here. “You can’t do that,” as Judge Judy often says in her TV court.

I think I’ll sue. Not sure whether to just take him to small claims court or since it’s a Constitutional issue to go straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. Maybe I’ll just take him before Judge Judy since her rulings appear to be final regardless of the court or jurisdiction.

Lousy Spartans. They never play fair.