My alma mater made news today.

In one of the most vicious and ignorant rants that I have ever read, some fool named Rene Gonzalez attacked American hero Pat Tillman as an idiot who deserved his death. "This was a 'G.I. Joe' guy who got what was coming to him," the grad student said of Tillman. "That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy."

The hatred and bad writing continued: "You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the 'real' thick of things. I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish. Even Rambo got shot in the third movie, but in real life, you die as a result of being shot. They should call Pat Tillman's army life 'Rambo 4: Rambo Attempts to Strike Back at His Former Rambo 3 Taliban Friends, and Gets Killed.'"

How Mr. Gonzalez could divine so much just by looking at Pat Tillman's picture was left unexplained.

UMass-Amherst breeds crackpots like Rene Gonzalez. Its 26-floor library is named in honor of a communist who renounced his American citizenship. It once did away with Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day. Every few years, a serious effort is made to erase the school's Minuteman nickname because, the reasoning goes, the Revolution's freedom fighters were really racist, sexist, white men with guns.

Knowing that this is the air Rene Gonzalez breathes, should we be surprised?