The day’s big college-basketball news may be BYU stunning Air Force at home (ending the Falcons’ nation’s-best 30-game home winning streak) and Tennessee handing Florida its third loss in four games, but for mid-major and low-major enthusiasts, there’s much more important stuff happening: it’s Championship Week(s)!

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In case the latest developments in the Patty O kerfuffle weren’t enough NDLS controversy for one day, here’s another, bigger issue that I’ve only recently become aware of. It seems roughly half the 1L class isn’t happy with the way Property is being taught this semester, due to a highly unusual situation (by law-school standards) in which student TAs are reportedly playing a substantial role in teaching the class and grading students’ work.

Rather than getting into the details, I’ll let the 1Ls’ exquisitely drafted petition to the Dean tell the story. You can read it in full (along with the letter that accompanied it in a mass e-mail to the Class of ‘09 last night) after the jump.

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I hope y’all are thinking about your American Idol pool picks after tonight’s show. Who will get voted off this week?

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It’s people like this that cause apartment complexes to set arbitrary two-pet limits which make it nearly impossible for people like me and Becky (with our dog and three cats) to find a place to live. Argh.

Not that I’m bitter over our stagnating search for an apartment in Knoxville, or anything. Harumph.

While I’m on the topic: limits on dog size are SO FREAKING DUMB. Your average Jack Russell Terrier will do vastly more damage to an apartment, and cause vastly more grief for neighbors, than any Greyhound or Great Dane — two large breeds that are actually ideal apartment dogs.

It’s not the discrimination that bothers me; it’s the irrationality of it. I could more easily stomach being told “you can’t live here because you have a large dog” or “you can’t live here because you have four pets” if there was actually any rational reason for anyone to think that any of our pets would cause them any problems whatsoever. But our most-passive-dog-in-the-universe greyhound and our three adorable, harmless cats? Please.

Two-pet limits and large-dog restrictions are simultaneously overbroad and underbroad. And I don’t like them. And they suck. So there. :)

Wow.

I can’t believe that B-Loy hasn’t picked up on this, as it’s an interesting convergence of journalism ethics and college basketball. I kinda thought that those two things were pretty much right down his alley.

As some of you may know, and as you can all tune into on ESPN tonight, the Florida Gators are coming into Knoxville to take on the Vols. ESPN is bringing in the big guns, i.e., Dick Vitale for the game as well.

Here’s where the fun starts. Local sports radio (WNML-FM) has a morning show from 10am-Noon called “The Sports Page.” It’s hosted not by professional radio guys, but rather by an occasionally rotating cast of sports writers from the local newspaper, the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Yesterday morning, February 26, 2007, during the regular airing of “The Sports Page,” the hosts, specifically Mike Griffith and John Adams, had called up Dick Vitale for a pre-scheduled interview in anticipation of the big game. There’s where the fun begins.

Dickie V is sitting in a restaurant in Florida eating breakfast, apparently with an open cell phone, somehow doesn’t grasp that he’s actually on the air. Mike Griffith opens up with a lead in to welcome him to the show, and then, well, it’s kinda nothing. Then, all of a sudden, we hear Dickie-Baby chatting it up.

Unfortunately for Dickie-Baby, he’s not chatting it up with his Knoxville based interviewers, but rather some locals in his restaurant in Florida. Here’s how the initial, and pertinent portions went down:

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Heh.

The Dow sees its biggest one-day drop in 3 years, ending about 400 points lower after plummeting more than 500 points earlier in the day. More soon.

Visit CNN for the latest.

NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez fantastizes about a Cheney ‘08 candidacy, and muses that “President Cheney would make Tom Lennox secretary of homeland security.” Heh.

Speaking of which, I never posted a 24 thread yesterday, so if anyone is dying to talk about last night’s episode, this would be a good place to do so. TiVoers not wanting to encounter spoilers might want to steer clear of comments on this post. For my part, I’ll offer just one spoiler, after the jump:

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MMM blue cup!

Such a temper!

Its like looking in a mirror!

Oh those cheeks!

Little man is getting so big!

I thought that my first post wasn’t enough of an intro so I thought I’d write a bit more. Brendan has graciously allowed me to be the official guest-blogger for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament which takes place this Thursday through Sunday at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

This is my 10th straight year attending the MVC tournament. First as a member of the Illinois St. University pep band and now just a fan of the MVC and mostly as a fan of the Illinois State Redbirds, my alma mater. Some of you may remember me during Brendan and Becky’s trip to Arch Madness last season.

So, I’ll be doing some audioblogging and liveblogging from the games and then I’ll *try* and do some wrap-up type stuff at the end of the days. But, I cannot promise that will get done as I may be…well…uh…not of sound mind and body. :) It’s always a very fun weekend of friends and basketball.

So look for my first posts on Thursday!

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An update on the Patty O’Herald kerfuffle from last semester… this morning, we got this e-mail from the SBA:

Last semester, the Patty O’Herald took a different tone than it has in the last two years, departing from its more “news and information” nature to take a “satirical” look at life at NDLS. A number of the articles published in the Patty O’ last semester offended members of the student body, faculty, and administration. The SBA Board took this matter under advisement and closely evaluated the role that the SBA should play in publishing a wholly satirical newsletter. The SBA Board is a governing body, and as such it exists to represent the interests of every member of the NDLS student body. The Board does not believe that this job includes publishing satire. Therefore, the SBA Board has voted to remove the position of Patty O’ editor from the Board. In so doing, the SBA encourages the current editor…to begin publishing the Patty O’ as an independent newsletter. The SBA will begin to publish a weekly update that will be posted in the bathroom stalls and will provide law school news and information. As soon as the Patty O’ is an “unofficial publication” (to subsequently become a “student media publication” per the Du Lac Code), it will be reviewed for SBA funding similar to the manner in which all other law school organizations receive student funding.

The big unanswered question, based on that e-mail, is whether the newly “unofficial” Patty O will be able to keep posting in the bathrooms.

Incidentally, I have a copy of the resolution that BLSA passed condemning last semester’s controversial “P-Dizzle” article. I’ve been meaning to blog the text of the resolution, but haven’t gotten around to it. Now that this controversy is back on everyone’s radar again, I’ll try to type it up soon and post it here.

UPDATE: It should be noted that the first sentence of the SBA’s e-mail — “Last semester, the Patty O’Herald took a different tone than it has in the last two years, departing from its more ‘news and information’ nature to take a ’satirical’ look at life at NDLS” — is arguably false, or at least misleading. The Patty O’Herald has always been a satirical newspaper, at least since I’ve been here (and I remembering seeing it, and thinking it was funny, when I visited in fall of 2003 as well). In prior years, it had some elements of “news and information,” moreso than this year, but it was still primarily satire, as indeed its title (a play on the name of the law school’s dean, Patty O’Hara) indicates. What set the Patty O apart in fall 2006 wasn’t that it suddenly became satirical, but that the satire became edgier, more biting, arguably more offensive, and in many cases at least, quite a bit funnier.