IT'S THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE CHARGE. Tightly Wound is less than impressed with some reaction to the unraveling of the Duke lacrosse scandal.

So the fact that a young woman apparently wasn't sexually brutalized is bad news? Because it may mean that your personal crusade might "lose momentum?" And yes, the cynic in me tends to substitute the word "funding" for "momentum," but I'm evil, so there you go.

See, here's the crux of my problem, and why I cannot take campus politics--the external variety, not the internecine internal position jockeying--seriously anymore: these groups are parasites, more concerned about getting enough butts in seats at the rallies and facetime on tv to "raise awareness" than they are about the victims, real or alleged.

And I'm not even gonna go near the implications for the consciouness raisers if this turns out to be a false report --mainly because there won't be any, not really, if you don't count the fact that the folks whose consciousnesses (consciousness-i? consciousness'ss'ss, gah.) they're trying to raise will stop listening.

Quite.