Best of the Web Today - February 7, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Great Moments in Higher Education
A second college has canceled a planned appearance by Ward Churchill, the pro-fascist University of Colorado professor of "ethnic studies" who cheered on the Sept. 11 attacks. Like upstate New York's Hamilton College, Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash., is citing "safety and security" as an excuse rather than forthrightly admitting it was a mistake to invite Churchill in the first place. Stephen Jordan, EWU's president, issued a statement Friday:
Two speakers invited to the EWU campus, Ward Churchill and Ron Jeremy, provide this university with a difficult challenge. . . .
We do not see this cancellation as a curtailment of Mr. Churchill's free speech right. Indeed, Supreme Court decisions raise legitimate question as to whether speech that incites panic or an immediate breach of the peace is protected by the First Amendment.
We are canceling an event, not an idea.
Mr. Churchill still has multiple venues for the outlet of his ideas. Neither this University nor the state's taxpayers are under any obligation to provide an appearance venue for Mr. Churchill if his presence threatens the safety and security of this campus.
Mr. Jeremy's appearance is not a security or safety issue, but we did recognize that the program, in its initial conception, inadequately served what the title Eastern Dialogues denotes, as a single viewpoint presentation is not dialogue.
With that in mind, Eastern has enhanced the discussion by providing a more comprehensive discussion of the issues at hand by giving a forum for alternate views before, during and after Mr. Jeremy's program.
With that in mind, Eastern has enhanced the discussion by providing a more comprehensive discussion of the issues at hand by giving a forum for alternate views before, during and after Mr. Jeremy's program.
So who is this Ron Jeremy fellow? The press release doesn't say, but you may remember him from such films as "Buttman at Nudes a Poppin' 7" and "What's the Lesbian Doing in My Pirate Movie?" That's right, EWU is standing up for "free speech" by bringing a porn star to campus.
Blogger Richard Posner (who sunlights as a federal judge and a University of Chicago law professor) has a comment on the Larry Summers kerfuffle that seems apt here:
No one who has spent much time around universities thinks they've ever "encourage[d] uncircumscribed intellectual explorations." The degree of self-censorship in universities, as in all institutions, is considerable. Today in the United States, most of the leading research universities are dominated by persons well to the left of Larry Summers, and they don't take kindly to having their ideology challenged, as Summers has now learned to his grief.
There is nothing to be done about this, and thoughtful conservatives should actually be pleased. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, when one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens. Not being pressed to come up with arguments or evidence to support them, one forgets the arguments and fails to obtain the evidence. One's position becomes increasingly flaccid, producing the paradox of thought that is at once rigid and flabby. And thus the academic left today.
Or as reader Jay Lesseig puts it, "Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots."
The People That Time Forgot
"Two veterans of the ongoing Iraq war addressed 150 people in the Science Center Friday, criticizing the purpose and progress of the war and calling for the immediate withdrawal of American troops," reports the Harvard Crimson:
"The only way you can support the troops is by demanding they be brought back now and they be given the care they deserve when they get home," said Michael Hoffman, a former Lance Corporal in the Marines and a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
Hoffman and IVAW co-founder Kelly Dougherty, who was a Sergeant in the National Guard, asked the audience to follow the precedent of Vietnam protests and take to the streets en masse so American civilians and soldiers alike come to realize that it is not unpatriotic to oppose the war.
It's hard to fathom the mindset of someone who roots for American defeat while still claiming to be patriotic (or at least "not unpatriotic"). Be that as it may, no one who watched the Super Bowl last night can think Iraq is another Vietnam. A stirring Anheuser-Busch ad called "Salute to the Military" showed U.S. servicemen returning from Iraq to a standing ovation in an airport terminal; the words "Thank you" then appeared on the screen. ESPN names it the fifth-best Super Bowl ad, though we'd put it at No. 1 or 2. As reader Michael Segal notes:
It may be true that there is no proof of people spitting on soldiers coming back from Vietnam, but I don't remember people selling beer using the theme of respect for soldiers returning from Vietnam.
Another difference: Whereas in the Vietnam era draft-dodgers fled to Canada, today Canada is seeing a small influx of what one might call democracy-dodgers, as the New York Times Paris edition reports:
In the Niagara of liberal angst just after Bush's victory on Nov. 2, the Canadian government's immigration Web site reported a surge in inquiries from the United States, to about 115,000 a day from 20,000.
After three months, memories of the election have begun to recede. There has been an inauguration, even a State of the Union address.
Yet immigration lawyers say that Americans are not just making inquiries and that more are pursuing a move above the 49th parallel, fed up with a country they see drifting persistently to the right and abandoning the principles of tolerance, compassion and peaceful idealism they felt once defined the nation.
America is in no danger of emptying out. But even a small loss of population, many from a deep sense of political despair, is a significant event in the life of a nation that thinks of itself as a place to escape to.
If it's so significant, how come the New York Times proper hasn't published this story?
Single Bars and Single Women
Here's a brilliant insight from The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel:
A new report recently highlighted in Ruy Teixeira's valuable Public Opinion Watch shows that one of the bright spots for the Democrats in the 2004 election was their performance among single women. The study [link in PDF], done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Womens' [sic] Voices/Women Vote, showed that the "marriage gap is a defining dynamic in today's politics, eclipsing the gender gap, with marital status a significant predictor of the vote, independent of the effects of age, race, income, education or gender."
As Teixeira writes, the new research shows that unmarried women, who voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, "are social and economic progressives advancing a tolerant set of values." One more reason to oppose marriage.
That unmarried women tend to be more Democratic than married ones may come as news to someone who can't name her own congressman, but it's hardly a surprise to those of us who follow politics. Yet it seems clear that the Dems are on the wrong side of the "marriage gap." Most single women, after all, do not "oppose marriage"; they aspire to it. To vanden Heuvel it is a "bright spot" that Democrats do well among a demographic group many of whose members are eager, even desperate, to join a different, GOP-leaning demographic.
Sit and Spin
Yesterday the Boston Globe carried a long interview with John Kerry* in which he described the lessons he learned from his defeat in last year's election. Between the second and third paragraphs of the story, Kerry manages to execute a classic flip-flop:
''I'm not going to sit around, you know. I'm going to learn a lot of good lessons," he said.
Sitting in a wing chair in his Senate office, opposite a historical print of Nantucket Harbor, Kerry offered a wide-ranging assessment of an election he lost by about 3 million popular votes and 35 electoral votes.
Kerry also is continuing his feud with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth:
The furor over military credentials hasn't ended with the campaign. Kerry pledged to sign Form 180, releasing all of his military records, but challenged his critics, including Bush, to do the same.
''I want them to sign it, I want [swift boat veterans] John O'Neill, Roy Hoffmann, and what's their names, the guys on the other boat," Kerry said. ''I want their records out there. They have made specific allegations about my record, I know things about their records, I want them out there. I'm willing to sign it, to put all my records out there. I'm willing to sign it, but I want them to sign it, too."
Kerry later confirmed that his decision to sign the form is not conditional on any others signing, but he expressed lingering bitterness over double standards on military service.
''Let me make this clear: My full military record has been made public," Kerry said. ''All of my medical records and all of my fitness reports, every fitness report involving each place I served, is public. Where are George Bush's still? Where are his military records? End of issue."
But blogger Edward Morrissey notes that in October Kerry acknowledged that some of his military records had not been made public. And blogger James Dwight shoots down the "double standard" complaint: "Kerry's insistence that the Swifties' disclosure match his own would make perfect sense if 87 year old Roy Hoffman were running for President. However, to the best of my knowledge, the octogenarian has yet to even form an exploratory committee."
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge.
The First Social Security Reformer
In Friday's Political Diary (subscribe here), John Fund offered an interesting bit of Social Security history:
In an address to Congress on January 17, 1935, President Roosevelt foresaw the need to move beyond the pay-as-you-go financing of the current Social Security system. "For perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions," the president allowed. But after that, he explained, it would be necessary to move to what he called "voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age." In other words, his call for the establishment of Social Security directly anticipated today's reform agenda: "It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans," FDR explained.
"What Roosevelt was talking about is the need to update Social Security sometime around 1965 with what today we would call personal accounts," says one top GOP member of the Ways and Means Committee. "By my reckoning we are only about 40 years late in addressing his concerns on how [to] make Social Security solvent."
Today's reform opponents, in other words, are backward-looking even by the standards of 70 years ago.
Whatever Floats Your Boat
"Former U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards will begin a two-year stint as a part-time UNC professor this month, heading a new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity and floating into classes for lectures and guest appearances," reports the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun.
He'll be "floating into classes"? Well, the rap on Edwards always was that he was a lightweight.
Reporting Bad News Before It Happens
Check out this Associated Press dispatch from Baghdad:
It's too early to say whether last weekend's vote has dealt a blow to the insurgency. But in Baghdad, where nearly a quarter of the Iraqi population lives, the absence of any catastrophic attacks in recent days has given people a cautious sense of security.
All that could change with a single deadly car bomb in the heart of the city or sustained mortar fire on the Green Zone.
Of course it could also change for the better with, say, the capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or further improvements in the training of Iraqi security forces. The AP here is "reporting" news that hasn't actually happened--and the only such news it anticipates is bad. Who says the press is biased?
Here's another AP Baghdad dispatch:
Some polling stations were shuttered. Others ran out of ballots. A provincial governor's name was left off the list of candidates. And some minorities complain it is all a plot to silence them.
One week after Iraq's historic election, allegations of confusion, mismanagement or worse are surfacing, complicating the vote count and perhaps providing ammunition for politicians to question the entire process if they do not fare well in the final tally.
This is pretty impressive. Iraq has been a democracy for all of eight days, and already the losers are behaving like their counterparts in America. Meanwhile, the AP has some qualified good news from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:
Phone text messages beep candidates' praise and their pictures are splashed in newspaper ads and on billboards across Saudi Arabia's capital--a surprising scene in a country where the depiction of the human face is considered un-Islamic and the idea of even talking about elections used to be considered taboo.
True, the country's first nationwide elections, beginning next Thursday, are only for local councils, with voters electing half of the councils' members and women banned from running and even voting. But the ballot is seen as a concrete step in a reform process no one had expected.
Obviously our friends the Saudis have a long way to go, but they'd never get there without taking the first step.
Weasel Watch
Three cheers for the Czech government, which has quashed a plan by Spain's Socialist government aimed at quashing dissent in communist Cuba, as the Prague Post reports:
In their first foreign-policy victory since joining the EU, Czech officials in Brussels have blocked a proposed ban on inviting Cuban dissidents to receptions at European embassies in Havana.
The ban would have suspended a 2003 resolution that called on EU countries to support anti-Castro dissidents by inviting them to parties celebrating national holidays.
Spain proposed the ban as part of a package of measures--including the resumption of EU missions to Cuba--designed to ease tensions with Havana. It became a sticking point when the Czechs threatened to use their veto in the 25-member Council of Foreign Ministers, where unanimity is required on policy decisions.
Having actually lived under communist domination for more than 40 years makes the Czechs less accepting of Castro's depredations than some of their Western European counterparts. As the Post puts it, "Debate over the ban touched a nerve here, where many former dissidents entered politics after communism fell in 1989."
Zero-Tolerance Watch
The Associated Press reports from Hollywood, Fla., on the latest toy-gun incident:
A fifth-grade student was arrested and released to the custody of his mother after he allegedly brought a plastic toy gun with a red tip to school.
Police say the boy was suspended from Driftwood Elementary School for ten days and charged with one misdemeanor count of disrupting school.
Students at the school yesterday told a school resource officer that another student had a gun. Officials found the student and discovered a toy .45-caliber pistol.
Hat tip: ZeroIntelligence.net. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis Star reports that "a peaceful student sit-in turned unruly at Manual High School, and school police used a chemical spray to disperse the crowd Thursday afternoon":
About 100 students were in a hallway when police sprayed several bursts of the chemical in the air to disperse the crowd. No injuries were reported. Those students had been among about 400 protesting the lack of time they have to pass between classes before being marked tardy. Students now have five minutes to change classes.
Construction in some areas of the Southside high school makes it difficult to get from one side of the building to another. Students caught in hallways after the late bell are written up; three write-ups result in a one-day in-school suspension.
The city's schools superintendent, Duncan Pat Pritchett, "said it appeared officers overreacted by using the spray."
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
"If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
"North Carolina Soccer Squad Hopes to Represent U.S. at the 'Homeless World Cup' "--headline, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 2
Not Too Brite--CLXXXII
"A Russian parliamentary deputy has fallen through ice covering the sea outside the city of St. Petersburg and is feared drowned," Reuters reports from Moscow.
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
What Would We Do Without Evidence?
"The Evidence Piles Up: Men and Women Are Indeed Different"--headline, John Leo column, Universal Press Syndicate, Feb. 6
What Would Nursing Moms Do Without Advice?
"Nursing Moms Advised to Keep Babies Close By"--headline, USA Today, Feb. 7
Is the Pope Amber?
"Pope Alert, Meets With Bishops"--headline, FoxNews.com, Feb. 5
A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing
"Inmate's Rising I.Q. Score Could Mean His Death"--headline, New York Times, Feb. 6
If They're So Good, Why Did They Get Caught?
"Two Crack Cocaine Dealers Headed to Prison"--headline, Kansas City Star, Feb. 4
Homer Nods
Friday's item on the WKMG-TV headline "Red Tide Threatens Migrating Manatees" prompted this response from reader Bruce Andrew:
I'm disappointed in you, James. While it was interesting that WKMG emulates Best of the Web's apt use of synecdoche, you passed up a rare opportunity to deploy homonymic headlines. Yesterday's item "Who Knew Manatees Were Democrats?" should have been titled "Oh, the Hue, Manatee!"
We regret the error.
Feline-American Goats
The Super Bowl ad we found funniest was one for Ameriquest. A man is preparing dinner when an achromic-furred feline-American knocks over a pan of tomato sauce. The man reaches over and picks up the sauce-splattered feline-American, and just then his female significant other walks in the door to find him standing there with the apparently bloodstained feline-American in one hand and a large knife in the other. Then comes Ameriquest's slogan: "Don't judge too quickly. We won't."
Not everyone, however, was amused. On a Boston.com user forum, someone called "YouAnimal" offers this critique (quoting verbatim):
StuporBowl ads were terrible but appropro for the whole lame FOX/Patriotic American spectacle - The worse one was the guy and the white cat and sphagetti - Yup it was sort of initially funny on one level but on another it really offensive making fun of animal torture - which guess what - really goes on! Cats are still the scape-goats for twisted humor - it's ok and acceptable to make fun of mutilating and beheading them. I wonder if such a commercial would have ever made it had it been a BABY for example instead of a cat?? Or even a dog for that matter. That an ad like that can make it past the religious freak censors makes sense tho when you think of it. I for one am going to inform the company what a-holes they are (I think it was some mortgage company) and I encourage anyone else who cares about animal abuse to do the same.
But hey, sauce for the goose: Isn't the reference to "scape-goats" offensive to caprine-Ameircans?
L Is for Lawsuit, That's Good Enough for Me
In Durango, Colo., "two teenage girls decided one summer's evening to skip a dance where there might be cursing and drinking to stay home and bake cookies for their neighbors," reports the Denver Post:
They were sued, successfully, for an unauthorized cookie drop on one porch.
The July 31 deliveries consisted of half a dozen chocolate-chip and sugar cookies accompanied by big hearts cut out of red or pink construction paper with the message: "Have a great night." . . .
Inside one of the nine scattered rural homes south of Durango that got cookies that night, a 49-year-old woman became so terrified by the knocks on her door around 10:30 p.m. that she called the sheriff's department. Deputies determined that no crime had been committed.
But Wanita Renea Young ended up in the hospital emergency room the next day after suffering a severe anxiety attack she thought might be a heart attack.
A Durango judge Thursday awarded Young almost $900 to recoup her medical bills.
The two defendants, Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, may want to think about enrolling at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where they can learn all about the evil of cookies. In the Daily Collegian, the student newspaper, one Amelia Sabadini weighed in the other day with a sophisticated exegesis titled "Id, Ego and Cookie Monster":
My all-time favorite Sesame Street skit features Cookie Monster (hereby dubbed CM) in pajamas and a nightcap staring out the window looking up at the moon in adoration. As CM gazes at the moon, he begins to sing a song with the refrain "If moon were cookie." In the song, CM fantasizes that the moon is a cookie made specifically for him and he flies up to it in a rocket and commences chowing down with his usual endearing abandon. However, amidst the imagined flurry of cosmic crumbs, CM suddenly realizes that if he eats the moon, he'll be all alone at night. He thinks of how much he'll miss the moon, how dark and scary it will be. CM reconsiders his fantasy and decides that it's best not to eat the moon. . . .
I believe CM's dalliance with the moon illustrates an agenda of the id that is especially significant. In this particular skit, CM is entertaining thoughts of treating a companion (CM starts out referring to the moon as his friend) as food. Disturbing as this impulse may be, it seems to be rooted in the natural predisposition of all mammalian infants to seek nourishment from their mothers. Regardless of whether a human infant is breastfed or bottle-fed, they are [sic] born with the rooting and the sucking reflexes. The goal of these reflexes is to help the infant find latch [sic] onto its mother's breast. . . .
Arguably, all the various forms of oppression, from military conquest to domestic violence, from impeding people with stereotypes to actual enslavement, could be considered acts of a sort of social cannibalism.
Young v. Ostergaard is only a start. Class-action lawsuits against Big Cookie cannot be far behind. |
