Rally sons of Notre Dame,
Sing her glory, and sound her fame
Raise her Gold and Blue,
And cheer with voices true,
Rah! Rah! For Notre Dame.

We will fight in every game
Strong of heart and true to her name.
We will ne’er forget her
And we’ll cheer her ever,
Loyal to Notre Dame.

Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky,
What though the odds be great or small
Old Notre Dame will win over all,
While her loyal sons are marching
Onward to Victory!

“Man, I’m so psyched to get crushed by Michigan now.” –me, after watching Rudy for the first time ever

Friends on Friday, rivals on Saturday:

That’s me and Kristine, a.k.a. Torts girl, a.k.a. Go Blue girl.

More new photos here (scroll down) and here.

There are a number of features of Notre Dame campus life that I find vastly superior to USC (the first-rate laundry facilities, the rule allowing drinks in the library as long as they’re in closed containers, the fact that the vending machines aren’t constantly out of food and soda, the Observer’s obvious superiority over the DT, etc.) … but that pro-Domer sentiment, however justified, makes me feel like a somewhat disloyal Trojan.

So in an odd way, it’s comforting to know that Notre Dame’s undergraduate Student Senate is just as silly as USC’s, spending its time debating such important and weighty matters as this:

Six months after the Student Senate voted to change the Student Union Board’s name to the Campus Programming Council, the Senate reversed its decision and re-dubbed them SUB.

Well, thank God!! Now I can sleep at night again. :)

There’s an odd mixture of excitement and dread on campus as Domers anticipate the first home game of the season. Excitement, because football weekends are pretty much the only times all year when South Bend is, well, remotely exciting… and the showdown with Michigan is a huge rivalry game. Dread, because after being humiliated by BYU, even the most die-hard Irish fans realize that beating a Top 10 team as good as the Wolverines will take a miracle.

No amount of realism can stop the Michigan-bashing, of course. Here’s a couple of funny t-shirts seen on campus this week, worn by undergrads Joey and Erin, who were so kind as to let me take their pictures:

Heh.

Bobby Brown, a former Notre Dame and Cleveland Browns football player, is now a Notre Dame Law School student (a 2L, I believe), and he’s hosting a big post-game party on Saturday night.

You’ll notice that the sign doesn’t use the phrase “victory party.” Heh.

There was a bomb scare at Notre Dame’s student center on Tuesday, and the building was evacuated for a time.

I walked by, saw several dozen students milling about outside, and was told the building was “closed” but would probably be reopening shortly. I figured it was nothing (a fire drill, perhaps) and didn’t investigate further… but I did take a few pictures of the crowd outside:

Katie Szewka, a freshman at Notre Dame’s sister school, St. Mary’s, reveals to The Observer the real reason we Domers are upset about having class on Labor Day:

“Everybody has the day off, so why don’t we?,” she said. “Don’t the professors deserve a day off?“

HA! Yeah, that’s right, the poor professors!! :)

A fellow Notre Dame student, presumably a football fan, overheard on the way to campus: “Maybe Michigan will totally collapse.”

Heh. Yeah, maybe. And maybe Hurricane Ivan will somehow make landfall in South Bend, cancelling this Saturday’s game. :)

Seems kinda unlikely, though.

(To review Saturday’s results: Michigan over Miami (OH), 43-10; BYU over Notre Dame, 20-17.)

InstaPundit has a lengthy post today about the controversy surrounding Notre Dame professor Tariq Ramadan.

Notre Dame’s student paper, The Observer (which thus far strikes me as substantially higher quality in the Daily Trojan, but the jury is still out), has had three news articles about this story so far: 8/25, 8/27, 8/31.

Electricity has been restored after the brief power outage that I audio-posted about below.

The AP reports:

The U.S. visa of a Swiss Muslim scholar who was to teach at the University of Notre Dame has been revoked, a State Department spokeswoman said today, apparently under terms of the Patriot Act.

The visa for Tariq Ramadan, who has been criticized for links to Islamic militants and for remarks branded as anti-Semitic, was revoked at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said. …

Matt Storin, a Notre Dame spokesman [said], “He’s a distinguished scholar. He’s a voice for moderation in the Muslim world.”

Notre Dame had named Ramadan earlier this year to be its Henry B. Luce professor of religion, conflict and peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

He was scheduled to begin teaching [Introduction to Islamic Ethics] today, the first day of classes for the fall semester at Notre Dame. Another professor will teach the class for now, Storin said. …

“We wait, we hope, we’re optimistic because we don’t feel there is any reason his entry should be prohibited.”

The South Bend Tribune has more. And here’s some background info from an article last month about Prof. Ramadan, who, it says, “has denied allegations…of meeting with senior al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Geneva, in 1991.” The article also says Ramadan “is a controversial figure in Europe, where he is accused of anti-Semitism and advocating violence against women.”

For your musical enjoyment and in honor of Brendan, may I present the Notre Dame Victory March.

As Mike already pointed out, soon-to-be Notre Dame freshman Mariel Zagunis won a gold medal in fencing yesterday, America’s first in a century.

Attention male Notre Dame undergrads: Don’t mess with this woman:

Here’s the story from the South Bend Tribune. Here’s an article from the Notre Dame Athletics website. And here are some more photos.

USC also won big yesterday, extending the streak of having a Trojan gold medalist in 24 consecutive summer Olympics when Klete Keller anchored America’s win in the 800m freestyle.

It was the eighth medal already won by a current, former or future Trojan in the 2004 Games. Athletes who attended USC before, during or after their Olympic appearance now have collected 105 golds, 62 silvers and 58 bronzes.

USC’s medal haul likely will increase in the coming days. Troy is represented by 36 past, present and future athletes competing in 7 sports in the 2004 Athens Games.

USC has sent more athletes to the Olympic Games than any other university. Since its first Olympian in 1904, there have been 358 Olympic athletes with a USC affiliation.

BoiFromTroy has more on the Trojan medal situation (though he seems to be wrong about Larsen Jensen). Boi has discovered an all-important fact: the Trojans are just ahead of France in the medal count.

For the first time since the 1904 Olympics, the US has a gold medal in fencing. The US takes both gold and bronze in the first ever Olympic competition of women’s sabre. Women’s sabre was the clearly best shot of the US winning a fencing medal in these games, as (for the first time ever in any fencing event) the US has the number 1 ranked person in the world–but Sada Jacobson “only” won bronze, 15-7. The gold went to Mariel Zagunis (15-9), who originally didn’t qualify for the team, but managed to slip into the competition when a competitor from another country forfeited her spot. Further, Zagunis will be starting college this year…in South Bend, Brendan: she’ll be arriving at Notre Dame shortly. Beware offending random blond girls on campus, as you never know if they’ll be able to eviscerate you at will…