Osler's Razor

Last night as I drove into Waco, I tuned in the Baylor baseball game. Listening in, I was surprised to hear that they were playing a school called "Texas State." While I thought I was familiar with the schools around here, "Texas State" was a new one, and one would think that name would have been taken long ago.

Fortunately, my friend and advisor on all things Texan, Gordon Davenport, was able to explain it all to me via cell phone. Texas State, located in Brian's College Station, was until very recently known as "Texas A & M." According to Gordon, this Texas A & M was so called because it was founded by a married couple named Andy and Marge. Over time, the school grew to nearly 3,000 students and developed a slavish devotion to their sports teams, the "Fightin' Angries."

Gordon's understanding is that in the past year, the school formerly known as Texas A & M (still owned by the children of the founders) fell on hard times and scandal, leading to the departure of the president, Bill Gates. To get a fresh start, they renamed the school "Texas State," and made the teams the "Bobcats." They also got rid of their old mascot, Sarge, in favor of a new one.

Thank you, Gordon! And shouldn't Bear Meat be on top of a story like this?

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I found this pair of columns over at Bear Meat quite enlightening, but I must object to their continued reference to Baylor's basketball arena, the Feral Center, as the "Will Ferrell Center."

I suppose that their misguided "Will Ferrell" joke is for humorous purposes. Humor is all fine and good, until someone gets hurt. In this case, the someone who gets hurt is an important part of our proud Baylor Legacy, the grand story of our traditions that we are so lucky to stand upon.

The name "Feral Center" derives from a particularly challenging period of Baylor History. It was 1920, and President Samuel Palmer Brooks was putting the finishing touches on his plan for the future of the school, a plan that became his amazing "Vision 1930." The University, however, was facing a terrible crisis: The campus had been invaded by twin plagues, as massive numbers of grackles established residence on campus at the same time billions of crickets descended like a black cloud of death, covering every footpath and building.

In the face of these plagues, students began turning away from school, and Baylor was on the verge of financial collapse. Brooks' first plan was to introduce hundreds of live bears to the campus, in the hopes they would scare the grackles and crickets. Sadly, they instead destroyed the Penland Hall cafeteria, set up an encampment near the center of campus, and somehow developed the ability to make and use firearms. Rather than correcting the flight of the student body, the problem was substantially worsened as student fatalities due to bear attacks (both conventional and sniper) skyrocketed. A similar plan in which the Pillsbury Doughboy was retained to wander campus and scare the grackles backfired when the Doughboy focused his efforts almost exclusively on ham-handed efforts to entice Baylor's female students into having drinks with him up in his room.

Desperate, Brooks set up a committee of five faculty members, led by Denise ("Wa-Wa") Walters of the Latin Department. Joined by four faculty members from Baylor's philosophy department and law school, Walters quickly developed a plan of attack. As the philosophers had confirmed, squirrels were known to eat grackles. Were large numbers of squirrels to be introduced into the campus ecosystem, the grackles would become food. This, in turn, would drive the grackles to begin eating the crickets, and everyone knows that crickets eat squirrels. Thus, the philosophers and lawyers concluded, the problem would be solved with all of the nuisance animals consuming one another until their populations disappeared. Contrary views expressed in the local paper by experts in the biological sciences were ignored.

To their dismay, the committee found it impossible to locate a large number of squirrels for purchase, due to the effects of World War I. Instead, they proposed erecting an enormous shrine to squirrels, in the hope that squirrels from other areas would then move to Waco. This, my friends, was to be the Feral Center. Money was immediately appropriated, and construction commenced.

Even the most casual observer of things Baylor knows the rest of the story-- Governor Bill Daniel arrived from Liberty County on a white stallion, and individually shot each of the billions of crickets and grackles with a .38 revolver, pushing the tons of carcasses into the Brazos with an enormous cardboard check. Thus relieved of its original purpose of attracting feral animals, the Feral Center was converted into a home for the playing of basketball, and remains so even today.

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We had another faculty meeting today. Mostly, we talked about the new mugs. Here, you can see some of the hostile reactions Bates (at far right) got when he suggested a 2-credit class in foosball.

Can you identify any of the other faculty in the photo? It's pretty obvious, I guess, that the one with the light saber is Prof. Wren, but what about the others?

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It's true what Swanburg says-- the new coffee mugs approved for classroom use are ferociously large. Seen above is one such mug, in proper perspective. Pictured in front of the mug are Swanburg and his date, as Chicago lounges nearby. In the background is the HazMat team required by state law to accompany beverages of this size.

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