Casteen’s final: Good, evil, Love, and 134 buildings
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John Casteen bestowed degrees at his last graduation as president of the University of Virginia.PHOTO BY DAN ADDISON/UVA PUBLIC AFFAIRS
After a 20-year tenure, the final exercises May 23 couldn’t help but be poignant and bittersweet for retiring President John Casteen. But for the reporters converging on Charlottesville from Roanoke, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, Casteen’s work as leader of Virginia’s flagship university took a backseat to something sadder.
Although the sun broke through the overcast sky as the Class of 2010 began its walk on the Lawn, the Sunday morning event was marked by the shadow of the murder of their classmate Yeardley Love three weeks earlier.
Clearly, it weighed heavily on Casteen himself. He honed his go-forth-and-make-the-world-a-better-place message into a more painful cautionary warning about “what you do with regard to good and evil.”
Overcoming adversity, facing challenges— those are the stock topics of graduation speeches. To invoke evil, even in the secular sense, as Casteen did, acknowledged the still-unfathomable tragedy that claimed one of the university’s own, allegedly at the hand of another student.
“Just as the university has not been perfect in your time here, the world to which you go is flawed and, in some senses, corrupt,” said Casteen. “In many parts of the world, evil rules and visits destruction and inhuman conditions of life on those least deserving of it and least able to protect themselves from harm.” Unspoken: You don’t have to leave Charlottesville to find evil and corruption.
That the world is a cruel place may not have been his theme before May 3, when Love’s battered body was found. When he spoke of “acts of senseless violence that dumbfound us with their cruelty and disregard for human life,” it was hard not think of what happened on 14th Street.
Invoking Thomas Jefferson is de rigueur at any occasion in Charlottesville, and the 181st final exercises at the university Jefferson founded was no exception. English scholar Casteen threw in Ralph Waldo Emerson for the call to put “study into action,” and invoked Albert Camus for suggesting that “the evil that is in the world almost always comes out of ignorance.”
But it was John Keats with whom Casteen opened and to whom he returned, reminding the 6,256 graduates of the “negative capability”— the capacity to live with uncertainty and to accept that not every mystery can be solved– even at a top-rated university. The unspoken mystery for the Class of 2010: How could George Huguely have allegedly murdered Yeardley Love?
Knowledge is typically compared to a light. Citing Keats again, Casteen urged grads to “step out into the darkness, into unknowns” to the world where each person becomes good because that’s what they choose.
One would expect Casteen’s last commencement to be bittersweet as he ends an illustrious career whose influence touches one-half of UVA’s living alums, as Rector John Wynne pointed out.
The Portsmouth native led two of the most ambitious capital campaigns at a public university, said Wynne, and 134 new buildings were erected during Casteen’s tenure. His determination to diversify and make the university more accessible led to the creation of Access UVA, “a model for financial aid that has been emulated across the nation and now enrolls thousands of our students,” said Wynne.
Not mentioned by Wynne: Casteen was one of the first university presidents to battle binge drinking on college campuses.
“This is in a sense a daunting moment for me, because I usually sit behind the speakers at our graduations,” Casteen acknowledged. And while the tragedy was referred to obliquely with his focus on good and evil, Casteen’s tribute to Love was poetry, when he listed for the Class of 2010 the sounds they’d remember:
Students talking to parents on their cell phones, ROTC running in the morning, traffic, the marching band practicing on Carr’s Hill, carols at the end of the semester, children on the Lawn at Halloween, the Chapel’s bells— and, finally, “the cheers at games, no matter what the sport, and the name of Yeardley Love.”
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See?
In the end, the media in this town will protect their paymaster. Have a look at the streaming advertisement atop this webpage.
A 21 year old UVA student dropped dead in a frat house 7 weeks ago on the same block where Casteen lays his head every night. The Hook protected you from knowing anything whatsoever about that story, as did NBC 29, the C-Ville Weekly, and the Daily Progress. Because, well, John Casteen does not want you to know about such things.
And his obedient media in this town follow suit. As we saw last week with the sealed documents in the Huguley/Love case, even the judges here can break the law if Casteen does not want something to be known.
See how this works?
Sean, you’re a paranoid guy.
UVA Emergency Department has psychiatric consults if you need, Sean…
All anyone can ever do on this site is try to change the subject and shoot the messenger. No attempts are made to explain how a 21 year old dropping dead in a frat house is NOT news. No other explanations presented as to why everything was sealed in the Huguley case and the defense has said it has nothing to do with it.
Maybe it was the Tooth Fairy making all this happen?
Even if it was, this is still the guy who refused to sign the Letter of Condolence penned by the VT president after what was left of Morgan Harrington’s was found on a farm where they’ve had UVA frat parties. Even the Cavalier Daily had the guts to cover that one. But not the Hook. Not anyone else, either..
But I guess the editors at the Cav Daily are all insane and paranoid like me, huh?
Like I’ve said many times before, most people at UVA, and even in Charlottesville, are AOK in covering things up. Our reputation comes before any murder investigation, of course. Same goes for the sexual assaults at UVA.
Mr. Casteen’s legacy is what it is. This guy talking about confronting evil is a joke. It’s just that his favorite kinds of evil are very popular around here.
http://uvalies.org/
No, you clearly do not get it. No one is shooting the messenger, but this is what happens when something absolutely ridiculous is being pandered off as truth: you get ridiculed. (Much like the MMR vaccine guy from England)
No one is saying Casteen is perfect. Clearly there are things that need to be worked on in terms of the judiciary procedures at UVA at-large. But to say Casteen pays all the newspapers around here, the judge, the government to say good things about UVA? And then somehow bringing abortion into this? Please, go see a psychiatrist immediately.
But I guess the editors at the Cav Daily are all insane and paranoid like me, huh?
***
They come across as reasonable. You come across as paranoid and clueless.
Sean,
You are clearly very unstable and in need of psychiatric help. John Casteen is a good, honest, brilliant, hard working man.
Yawn..
For what it’s worth, I really enjoy it when NOBODY can come up with any other explanations whatsoever. They just revert back to the school yard instead with “you need help.”
Awesome. =o)
Oh look, here someone realizes the absurdity of his arguments, so he falls back on the “my completely false and outrageous accusation is the only one being put forth, so I win” mentality.
Congratulations! You win!
And really, believing in absolutely ridiculous conspiracy theories is a sign of psychiatric problems, as it indicates an alarming sense of dissociation from the real world and how the society operates. Maybe a psychologist instead of a psychiatrist?
as a recent transplant to the area, it is obvious to me that the university’s clout in this town allows it to dictate its media coverage. combine that with the city and its stakeholders’ obsession with the image of charlottesville as a great place to live and we end up with all the negative news being buried to the extent possible. charlottesville is a great place to live, but let’s get some honest reporting. it really is unbelievable that the frat house death was never reported by any the main media outlets in town.
Here’s an obvious explanation, from someone who knows the situation at the SERP house much better than you do, Sean: the family of the brother who passed away wants their privacy and deserves their privacy. So stop trolling the Cav Daily threads and the Hook threads with your dumbfounded conspiracy theories. And yes, you need help.
The sad thing is this: if Sean Cannan actually gave a damn about any of the issues he supposedly cares about — if he actually wanted to ACHIEVE anything, make any progress at all in terms of changing the status quo — then he would use different argumentative tactics. Tactics that actually work. Like respectfully acknowledging the doubts and concerns of those who disagree with him. Like finding common ground where opponents can meet him halfway. Like not setting up all his issues as all-or-nothing, good-v-evil scenarios.
Instead, he uses tactics that totally alienate 99% of the reading public. He uses tactics that enlarge his own sense of persecution (one lone voice crying in the wilderness, yadda yadda) and self-righteousness. His arguments are all about him and his needs rather than in service to a realistic goal (i.e., changing people’s minds). And it’s really quite a perfect closed system: if anyone agrees with him, he feels Right, and if anyone disagrees, he feels even more Right. So despite all the rhetoric about unborn life and all those poor UVa women, he’s not doing a thing to help them — and apparently he prefers it that way.
oh — i forgot to say, step out of the way because here come the flames!
Yeah, I think I am inclined to go with Sean on this stuff. UVA suffers a condition I can only described as outrageous arrogance. Tackling binge drinking, are you kidding me? Not firing Craig Littlepage about 5 years ago when it was clear the athletic department was out of control, drunk on power and control that has now ended with the murder of a promising student-athlete? What a joke. UVA’s academic standards are in decline, athletics are the laughing stock of ACC schools and Casteen has presided over all of it. Let’s all look forward to some new leadership and a return to Jeffersonian ideals, which don’t include murder.
Sean,
How much longer are you going to show your ignorance on the sealing of the records? They were sealed by the prosecutor in order to protect his case and keep the jury pool from being tainted giving the defense a strong motion for a venue change. What in the freaking world does that have to do with Casteen and UVA? Why would the defense attorney OBJECT to sealing the records–what kind of message do you think that sends to the SAME jury pool?
There’s nothing “unfathomable” about Yeardley Love’s death. It was a murder committed by her boyfriend, who had previously assaulted her and, as such, is yet another incidence of the domestic violence against women so prevalent in the U.S. - and yes, little children, that means Charlottesville and UVa. too. he had already attacked her at a party and there were multiple witnesses (read the WaPo article from this past weekend). Nobody reported his assault on her to the cops or the University. That’s domestic violence and complicit bystanders - plain and simple. So if you can’t “fathom” that, what planet are you on?
I keep expecting Sean to add a rant against water fluoridation to his list of charges against President Casteen.
Hoolarious (aka., anonymous coward - maybe even Casteen himself), we’ve already achieved a lot, and are making heady progress as time goes by. It’s certainly not all about me. But not many other pro life leaders and members of his activist group get led up into UVA hospital by the medical staff there. There are some who like the “attach your name to a human rights cause, then do nothing” for sure. But there are others who take a more Martin Luther King approach to activism. And that includes ad nauseum statements of the facts, rude reminders of exactly what we are talking about here, and forward leaning confrontation with the enemies of human rights.
I’m proud to call Alveda King (MLK’s niece) my friend, as I am Lila Rose, Kristin Day, and Rebecca Kiessling. We let each other know what we are up to on facebook every few weeks. Siobhan Casey of Youth Defense in Ireland is our co director. It aint just me, buddy.. I suggest you have a look at the latest gallup polls (if you are still in denial of about the election results in 2009 and 2010) regarding the % of Americans now calling themselves pro life. Then you can add to your headache by looking up the numbers among 19-28 years olds.
Like it or not, in house elective abortions, and the medical misinformation provided with them, is one of John’s Casteen’s most enduring legacies at UVA. There will be dozens to hundreds of children needlessly born preterm with developmental disabilities thanks to his policy that HE brought to UVA in 1990. That will be his legacy also, along with all the breast cancers that Elson and the Teen Center are causing as we speak.
Our website is quickly approaching 30,000 visitors over the past few months. Hundreds of hits from Moscow of all places just recently. People are getting informed of the medical science you do not want them to know about due to your politics. I’ve heard from many of them. Every single one of them makes it all worth it for all of us. Even a tiny spark of truth can burn down a city of lies. 19 people - men and women alike - have shared their very personal abortion stories with me. Many of them current or former UVA students.
Here’s your real nightmare, though.. Our latest new member is a UVA alumni who just so happened to have worked for Planned Parenthood the last 7 years right here in central Virginia, until she could no longer take part in their lies and deceptions. She is giving us loads of their secret data that will take months to comb through. There is a lot of ghoulish stuff. She is being published in the American Feminist Magazine soon. We’re very proud of her.
If there is one thing we can all look back to the last year, it is definitely NOT that we achieved nothing. Indeed, I have trouble keeping up sometimes. We will be taking a case before the UVA Honor Committee this fall against Margaret Lipman, who wrote an article in the Cavalier Daily some weeks back that tried to repeat some lies about medical science. And, yes, we have some other plans coming up. Mrs. Sullivan already knows who we are, and we’ll see if she continues Mr. Casteen’s dishonest and cruel policies. We’ll see.
So keep believing that I am a solitary nut achieving nothing. That Mr. Casteen was not at all involved in any of the things I have mentioned. That we are alienating 99% of people. It’s entertaining. Comic relief is important sometimes.
“I’m proud to call Alveda King (MLK’s niece) my friend, as I am Lila Rose, Kristin Day, and Rebecca Kiessling. We let each other know what we are up to on facebook every few weeks.”
I think that’s my favorite part of this post.
And the oil is still pouring into the gulf of mexico eco-system at an alarming rate
These posts prove that while you are all behaving like children and getting into your arrogant bantering, nothing is happening. Productive dialogue doesn’t flow. Committees are not investigating allegations. And come September, it will be business as usual on the UVA campus because no one could remember what the topic was.
Just visited your site, Sean — pro-life/right to choose is not something the campus covers up. Women have the ability to go anywhere for information/treatment and since UVA is a state school, it must adhere to state laws. HOWEVER, rape victims cannot shop around for a cop. When you want to talk about Casteen & Co turning a blind eye to crime, there is no comparison to handing out the morning after pill in the UVA clinics because birth control was not used during intercourse to having a man hold you down and rape you (felony crime) and the UVA cop can’t get off her *** and conduct an investigation - and document it properly.
As usual Sean ignores comments directly refuting his parnanoid nonsense.
Susan wrote, “These posts prove that while you are all behaving like children and getting into your arrogant bantering, nothing is happening.”
I don’t think Susan knows what the word “prove” means.
I have nothing to prove. I shouldn’t care about your city or your arrogant college, but since I do care about the women who have been assaulted, I will continue to blog. Your taunting does not intimidate me.
I have endured the system and know what a farce it is.
I use my real name and I do not hide behind a pseudonym.
I am sure Ms. Lipman is shaking in her bed, terrified of your charges against her in the UVA Honor Committee, because of your “scientific evidences”. Keep in mind that there are literatures on the other side.
This is so hilarious, absolutely, remarkably, hilarious. Every post you make cracks people up. Why don’t you, you know, do something productive for society instead of continuing this rambling and nonsense?
yes, sean’s comments are over the top but do all his attackers really believe that UVA (i.e., the university president) does not hold sway over the local media? how naive.
Sean=gay
Do you think the President of the United States has sway over national media?
Anyone remember Watergate?
Is John Casteen still planning on going to work for a tobacco company after his uva gig?
Abortion isn’t rape…people are free to choose what they do with their pregnancy. Sean-serious question: Has anyone been forced to get an abortion by UVa?
@whatever: Other than Football and Basketball (which are obviously at alow point this year)UVa sports is doing just fine. This year UVa set the record for most ACC championships (and couting) in a single season. We are currently number 1 in the country in baseball, lax, we won teh soccer championship, and are in the NCAA semifinals for tennis. (I don’t know much about women’s sports.)
Academically, UVa has hardly “fallen off”. The numbers just don’t back that up.
UVA is also number one is jocks who kill their girlfriends.
i dont know enough to be a fan of casteen or not; clearly he has probably been corrupted a bit by the god like status he has been assigned from major portions of the uva community. However, I doubt he is strong arming press outlets to cover up a story of a dead boy on campus. Their are 3 papers in town that are fighting for their fiscal lives and would have run with the story if they felt it would sell ads or drive readership. a lonely white boy OD-ing alone in his room is not the same story as a pretty white girl killed by a pretty white boy a week before graduation. casteen has had little control of the love story and doubt he could have controlled the OD story if anyone was interested in it.
@jake, do you seriously think the potus does not hold sway over the media? what do you consider structured press announcements with invite only media members, answering only the questions you see fit, and telling everyone on your staff to not talk to the media? every institution uses resources to control what does or does not go public and uva is no different. i am not saying anyone is strong-arming or bribing anyone, but yes, a young white frat boy dying on campus is news and should have been covered by the local media and it is perplexing that it was not. and by covered i mean mentioned; it would not warrant coverage like morgan or love-huguely, but a student dying in a university town is newsworthy whether chouva cares or not.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/04/06/university-student-passes-away-sunday/
There you go. Covered. You can hear it from Joe Arwood’s dad himself if you scroll down in the comments - they still don’t know the cause of death. Joe’s friends and family won’t let his name get slandered by other publications, and that has nothing to do with Casteen’s agenda.
Also, I’m curious about Sean’s pending honor charges against Ms. Lipman. He’ll certainly get attention from the University this way, although I don’t know that it will be very positive attention. Regardless of who is “morally right”, it’s not the honor committee’s job to determine which party’s scientific evidence is better. If Ms. Lipman has any legitimate research at all to back her claims (again, regardless of whether Sean’s research is “better”), then she did not knowingly lie.
“I came home night before last to find my wife in tears & furious. She was checking on her website visability under various search engines & the name Arwood linked to articles about Joseph in the Cav. Daily. She’d just found Seans comments (fortunately John’s first had been removed). So I’ve entered this theater a bit late late in the show, but pass me the spotlight. First of all, thank you to all who have blasted John & Sean. I would’ve handled it myself, had I known about it. I’m a pedi/neo Flight Nurse in south Texas. I go get critically ill patients from newborn to adult & my team does our best to keep them alive to get to our hospital. So, I’ve spent many years dealing with life & death on a daily basis. Joseph was my 1st. experience on the other side of the equation ( a horrible place to be). But I am all too aware of the various causes of death; intentional, accidental or unknown medical. The fact is that we still havn’t rec’d an answer from the medical examiners office. And no Sean, its the State…beyond President Casteens’ jurisdiction. I’ve known cases that take up to 6 months to receive a result.”
One of the UVA critics who posts here frequently has been very careful not to reveal the complete knowledge of a great national secret involving all UVA Presidents. However, I feel that I must do so at this time, as I no longer have anything to lose, and time is getting very short.
The Father of The University, Thomas Jefferson, became a member of the Knights Templar while serving as the minister to France. Upon his return to Monticello, Mr Jefferson decided to build a great learning center for future Kinghts. He had a vast and very secure “wine cellar” built 50 feet under the Lawn when its associated buildings were constructed. Two cleverly concealed doors near the main entrance to the Rotunda now allow passage to this vault. The location of the doors and details of their locking mechanism cannot be revealed.
On October 13, 1823, Jefferson and the Freemason ex-presidents Madison and Adams moved the Ark of the Covenant from it’s temporary hiding place beneath Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia into the secret UVA Vault beneath the unfinished Rotunda. The Ark previously had been moved from the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland to Philadelphia by Henry Sinclair as a symbol of blessing to the New Atlantis.
Over the years, every president of UVA has been initiated into the Knights Templar. Mr Casteen was reportedly inducted by none other than George Bush Sr, and this is also the reason the Miller Center was chosen as a repository for the Bush Oral History in 2009. Every October 13, Knight Templar Casteen reportedly descends into the Vault to inventory its contents, accompanied by the unidentified Master of the Knights Templar and a Novitiate Templar chosen from one of the UVA’s secret societies. Other historical artifacts have been added to the Vault over the years, including the right hand of Shakespeare, the poison dart removed from President Kennedy’s neck, and Vince Fosters White House ID badge.
In general, few people are aware of the special privileges enjoyed by UVA Presidents within the Virginia Triangle, which has as its vertices the center points of the domes of Monticello, the Rotunda, and the State Capitol Building, all designed by Knight Templar Jefferson. By a very secret and special agreement with high ranking Freemasons in the US government and the Virginia government in 1825, all state and federal constitutional rights and privileges in this triangle can be suspended by the UVA President when he feels that the contents of the Vault may be compromised by undue and unpleasant attention to controversy. This agreement, by the way, is the true motivation for AG Cuchinelli’s animosity towards The University, as he is jealous of this power.
I hope this clears up some the shady mysteries and coverups alluded to in many of [censored]’s posts.
How does someone who is not a member of the community of trust bring honor charges against a member for an OPINION piece in the paper?
I bet Honor hasn’t even responded to your ridiculous request and you have interpreted that as meaning they are actually considering it.
Wait, so Sean is a 45 year-old Charlottesville resident who’s obsessed with the coverage of U.Va., particularly its fraternity members?
“Get a life” is such a cliche, but so apt in this case.
Hugh de Payen
This explains everything!! Thanks for the clarification. Now that the secret is out, I am sure we will see it passed around the media.
Thanks for the wonderful Grad day. All the words of knownledge to the grads that day were great. we had many friends and family grad that wonderful day and enjoy the words said. We wish everyone well and prayer to the family of lost ones. My the community and UVA learn from all this and move on to a safer world. Pls think before you say things folks. Pls try learn and help each other and move on in life. Being bitter does nothing but hurt more. CONGRATES 2010 grads best of love and luck to Mr casteen and the grads.
Cat: thanks. I was trying out a piece to submit to be a writer for The {right wing television host] Show. It would be a great gig - no fact checking and you can let your imagination go wild
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What color is the sky in your world, Sean? It must be very, very dark.
Sean…
My friend, get your facts straight. Mr. Casteen does not live near the fraternities. He and his wife have a private home in Albemarle county. So much the media not getting facts disseminated or you knowing your facts.
Peace be with you.
Well, he does kind of live at Carr’s Hill, right?
sean, you are wasting your time, both here and in general. focus your energy somewhere more meaningful.
as for cville being ultra-left, that is a facade. cville it way more conservative than one might think. plopped down in the middle of central VA makes it seem more left than it is, and uva is a very conservative school.
If you look over at the spring issues of the Cavalier Daily and the on-line comments, you’ll see that Sean’s behavior is consistent.
He trolls. He exaggerates to the point of untruth, and then condemns. He senses conspiracies in the absence of evidence. In some recent cases of tragic death, he hurts the families of loved ones with his public comments.
There are snippets of self-reported biography there, perhaps enough for somebody with expertise to craft a profile. But what’s obvious to this non-expert is that he has a strange relationship to the bodies of female UVa students. He confesses that he ogles them, writes of the number he’s taken to bed, and lists others who are doing his political bidding at UVa, where he has no standing. He condemns the rest of UVa women as promiscuous with drink, drugs, and sex.
The fixation with Casteen and UVa fraternity members is puzzling.
There’s something strange here and I just can’t quite put my finger on it.
So, in essence, we have a 47(?) year old man who goes after UVA college women while at the same time put up a vendetta against UVa and Charlottesville in general (with nonsense, no doubt)? Your medical sciences aren’t even that iron-clad as you seemingly made it out to be, and you condemn that lack of support for your theories on “political pressure” on ACS/NIH and others.
Get a grip, and go see a psychologist/psychiatrist, please. Despite what you have against the OB/GYN department, UVA’s psychiatry is not too shabby, though I heard they don’t have enough bed spaces these days.
Again, all they can do is try, try desperately, to divert and distract people from the very real and important topics at hand. The ones making living people dead people long before their time.
Anything - anything whatsoever - is better to them than facing up to what has happened here the past year(s). And, of course, none of them have the balls to so much as write their name.
=o)
@Sean: Yet again you ignore the incontrovertible fact of the matter regarding the toxicology report: that it’s none of your business. You can see when the rest of the world sees it, when Huguely is convicted.
Sean’s “medical arguments” are a joke. He doesn’t know how to interpet basic epidemiologic findings in a reasonable way. My favorite statistic from his crackpot Facebook page is that prostate cancer increased by something like 141% in males from, say, 1960 to 1975, similar to the increase in breast cancer among women. Sean suggests that this is due to in utero effects caused by oral contraceptive use among women. Of course, the obvious problem is that prostate cancer is overwhelmingly found among older males, so these men would have been born before 1925, long before the development of oral contraceptives. Sean obviously doesn’t understand the concept of “competing risks” and how declines in infectious diseases and then heart disease sometimes lead to increases in slowly developing conditions such as prostate cancer.
Well, look at it this way folks, if Sean is spending most of his time making a fool of himself on a relatively harmless message board he’s not out on the streets doing real damage. Let’s tolerate him for the sake of Charlottesville’s humanity.
Jack, hadn’t made the connections. But perhaps Hawes should supply Tim Longo with the email address that is required so he can check this guy out?? It’s a bit creepy to think that a 47 yr old man is trying to pretend he is a UVA student. Has he been blogging about Morgan Harrington? Maybe he knows something. Many psychotic killers think they are smarter than everyone and even show up at the crime scene to watch the detectives work.
Or maybe he’s William Beebe?
I think he’s in his 20s. Who is William Beebe
Well, if he’s the same Sean Cannan who runs in local races then he’s 45.