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June 30, 2005
Those Expendable Iraqis
"Iraq has become an employment agency for terrorists, which is fine. I'd rather fight them in Iraq than in New York any day."And what's basically happening is all of the suicide bombers, the homicide bombers, the airplane hijackers that would be hitting us in the United States are buying tickets to Iraq and fighting us there. And if we can use Iraq as a method of luring in terrorists and defeating them there, that's great."
Allow me to quote the hard-hitting response from Alan Colmes and guest host Rich Lowry to Morris's nauseating argument for using thousands of Iraqi civilians as terrorism decoys:
click here.
I think this may be the worst thing I've ever seen on Fox. Maybe.
Posted by Eric at 12:17 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Their Chief Weapon Is Tolerance ... And Compassion!
(Story spotted at Ed's place.)
Posted by Eric at 9:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 29, 2005
'Nuff said.
Posted by Eric at 8:08 PM | TrackBack
All The News I Need I Get From The Blogosphere
If Eugene scooped the Times, that'd be pretty cool.
UPDATE (a moment or two later): Eugene punked me. Nicely done.
Posted by Eric at 7:47 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Old Faithful Online
Posted by Eric at 3:03 PM | TrackBack
Two Priceless Minutes of National Television
"When you go to war, it's very important that you kill the right people."
Posted by Eric at 8:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A Conservative Liberalization Up North?
Posted by Eric at 8:14 AM | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
Just Kidding?
The hat tip was to a blogger who said he "loved" the story about the plan to condemn Justice Souter's house, and who said he hoped the effort wasn't just a publicity stunt.
Randy's post called the idea a "taking for an excellent public purpose" and twice (to my eye, at least) indirectly assured his readers that he wasn't sure the effort to take Justice Souter's house was for real. ("An entity I know nothing about" and "possibly tongue-in-cheek".) If Randy didn't think there was some sense to the effort to take Justice Souter's home, then I don't understand why he needed to tell us that he doesn't know anything about the group proposing the idea.
I'm very glad to see Randy's clarification, but I don't believe that he saw no merit too the idea when he initially posted and linked to it.
These are scary times to be a federal judge.
UPDATE: Another lawprof blogger calls for retaliation against Justice Souter, without any sign at all that he's jesting.
FURTHER UPDATE: Apparently Dave Hoffman missed the "humor" too. (Unlike Hoffman, though, I definitely don't see an ethical issue here for the lawprof-bloggers.)
STILL FURTHER UPDATE: Randy Barnett and I have had a private correspondence that leads me to conclude that my original posting should have more greatly emphasized, and praised, his quick repudiation of the idea of condemning Souter's house. That was a very responsible and welcome repudiation, especially because it identified reasons why the idea is a bad one. I continue to believe that he wasn't joking at first, but I'm glad he so quickly thought better of it and said so publicly and clearly.
Posted by Eric at 9:08 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Thou Shalt Put That Guitar Down This Instant
Today I learned that they also have a musical one.
(Link via April Winchell.)
Posted by Eric at 2:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
Justice Breyer Needs To Spend A Little Time In Cody
Several factors lead Breyer to see the Ten Commandments tablets on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol as secular, but the one he calls "determinative" is that nobody has publicly complained about it before.
As far as I can tell, 40 years passed in which the presence of this monument, legally speaking, went unchallenged (until the single legal objection raised by petitioner). And I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that this was due to a climate of intimidation. Hence, those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their system of beliefs, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to favor a particular religious sect, primarily to promote religion over nonreligion, to engage in any religious practice, to compel any religious practice, or to work deterrence of any religious belief. . . . Those 40 years suggest that the public visiting the capitol grounds has considered the religious aspect of the tablets message as part of what is a broader moral and historical message reflective of a cultural heritage.
What could Justice Breyer mean when he says that "40 years passed in which the presence of this monument, legally speaking, went unchallenged?" Breyer is trying to gauge whether people visiting the Capitol see the monument as religious, and to do that, he asks whether people have repeatedly filed lawsuits?
That is supposed to be a measure of what the average visitor sees in the monument?
Why does Breyer limit himself to asking whether the monument has "gone unchallenged" "legally speaking?" Do people's views register only if people have the courage and the resources to sue? Here's the truth: Justice Breyer hasn't the faintest idea how "the public" actually sees this monument. He's just making this up.
Justice Breyer leaves open the possibility that decades of "legally unchallenged" display of a religious message might run afoul of the Establishment Clause if the absence of "legal challenge" were due to a "climate of intimidation."
How, exactly, is a person to show such a "climate of intimidation?" Perhaps there is no such climate in Austin, Texas, but monuments like this grace the parks of little towns across the country -- towns like Cody, Wyoming, where there is nary a mosque nor a Buddhist church nor a Hindu temple to be found.
The social pressures toward conformity and against public complaint (not to mention litigation) can be overpowering in America's small towns. Take it from someone who lived for four years in Laramie, Wyoming (which, by the way, is a melting pot compared to Cody). I could never "prove" a climate of "intimidation" on religious matters in Laramie. But that doesn't mean it's not there.
Justice Breyer has obviously never lived in a small town. He's mistaking his own view of this monument for "the public's." And he's missing the Establishment Clause dangers that lie in towns so homogeneous--and there are many of them--that "the public" could never be expected to produce a soul brave enough to complain.
Posted by Eric at 12:47 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Help Not Wanted.
UPDATE: And it looks like city workers in Cody, Wyoming, should break out the bulldozer.
Posted by Eric at 10:24 AM | TrackBack
Just Next To The Horseshoe Pit.
In honor of the day, I share with you this photo of the tasteful four-foot-high gravestone tablets that sit smack in the middle of the city park of the City of Cody, Wyoming.
Posted by Eric at 12:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 26, 2005
Two Scouts
The scout on the right, Alan Simpson, went on to become a U.S. Senator from Wyoming. The scout on the left, Norman Mineta, went on to become the mayor of San Jose, California, a member of the House of Representatives, and then a Cabinet secretary in two presidential administrations. He currently serves as Secretary of Transportation.
Both men spoke today at the dedication of the new interpretive walking trail at the site of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. The walking trail was created by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, on whose board of directors I sit.
Simpson introduced his old friend Mineta as "a public servant to trust."
I have no photo of Secretary Mineta speaking, because the heavens opened as he began speaking and I was busy holding an umbrella over his head.
Mineta spoke not only of the injustice of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, but also of the many good residents of northwestern Wyoming whom he met while in camp and of the importance of working to ensure that a tragedy like the internment never happens again.
UPDATE: The always entertaining Commander W.J. Hopwood, a frequent commenter on this site and revisionist extraordinaire, chimes in with an explanation of why the young Norman Mineta was really interned at Heart Mountain:
Obviously small children were not considered security threats and Mineta, like other such children, was allowed to accompany his parents to Heart Mountain because of the wartime government's humanitarian policy of keeping evacuated and interned families together.
Ah, I see. Mineta was simply "allowed to accompany" his parents.
Perhaps Commander Hopwood can explain, then, why orphans as young as six months old were excluded from the West Coast and placed into an orphanage at Manzanar.
Posted by Eric at 12:20 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
June 24, 2005
Heart Mountain.
I took the photograph you see above this afternoon while out at the site setting up for tomorrow's ceremony. That's the old boiler building in the camp's administrative area, with Heart Mountain in the background.
Posted by Eric at 8:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 23, 2005
Remembering Heart Mountain
Transportation Secretary (and former Heart Mountain internee) Norman Mineta and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson are scheduled to speak at Saturday's dedication. I'll blog about it on Saturday, probably with some photos.
Posted by Eric at 9:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 22, 2005
Spam spam spam spam
And there was much rejoicing.
Posted by Eric at 8:36 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Good Radio.
It's like Talk Soup (the original, with Greg Kinnear), but about politics.
Stated differently, it's like the Al Franken show, but funny.
UPDATE: Just found the live stream of the Stephanie Miller Show. It's here, 9 a.m. to noon Eastern.
Posted by Eric at 9:32 AM | TrackBack
June 18, 2005
Vroom. Vroom. Amen.
Posted by Eric at 11:53 AM | TrackBack
June 16, 2005
Why I dislike Holocaust deniers
"The main reason that people dislike Holocaust deniers isn't just that they're factually wrong, methodologically wrong, or even foolish.I can't speak for what "people" think or what "we" suspect, but the main reason I dislike Holocaust deniers is that they are factually and methodologically wrong (and therefore, incidentally, much more than just "foolish"). They deny a truth that I know and feel at the very core of my being. I don't care what leads them to deny the Holocaust (anti-semitism, for example) or what agenda they wish to serve with their denial (neo-Nazism, for example). It is the simple fact of the denial that I detest.Rather, it's that we strongly suspect that the deniers either dislike Jews, or want to make apologies for Nazis."
Posted by Eric at 9:12 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
Dishonesty by Academics: Will Blogging Fill The Vacuum?
There's a valuable question to ponder in all this, and the newspaper article identifies it here:
After printing both speeches out and analyzing them, Greene found herself squarely in the middle of an ethical dilemma."I felt that I had unwillingly been placed under a moral obligation," said Greene . . . . "I had this information that a scholar had done something inappropriate. The obligation I felt was to the scholarly community, to expose this impropriety."
Every university I'm aware of has a system in place for reporting, investigating, and sanctioning academic dishonesty by students.
When it comes to faculty, however, the situation is quite different. As David Glenn reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education last December,
plagiarism inquests are a dense thicket of tangled jurisdictions, misunderstandings, rumors, and lawsuits. The result is that people who believe they are victims of plagiarism are often left wondering where -- or whether -- to bring their complaints. Serial plagiarists occasionally drift serenely through their scholarly careers, even years after colleagues have begun to whisper about their work.Most fundamentally, there is no basic agreement about who should take the lead in investigating plagiarism allegations. Some people insist that scholarly associations play a role -- in part, they say, because universities cannot be trusted to be disinterested when scrutinizing their own faculty. Others believe, equally strongly, that scholarly associations lack the resources and the clout to police their own members effectively. For just those reasons, the American Historical Association decided last year that it would no longer investigate charges of scholarly misconduct.
In light of all this, if you're googling and you discover what you think is plagiarism by an academic, what should you do? What Sally did was to contact the reporter on the plagiarism beat at the Chronicle of Higher Education. That reporter was able to compare the case to lots of others that the Chronicle is told about but decides not to pursue, and he made the judgment that this was a serious enough case to write up.
Other choices Sally could have made:
1. she could have contacted Dean Le Beau and allowed him to decide what to do about it.
2. she could have contacted the provost at UMKC and allowed him to decide what to do about it.
3. she could have contacted Cornel West (and, now, Russell Baker) and allowed them to decide what to do about it.
4. she could have just blogged the story herself without offering it for "screening" (as it were) by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
5. she could have decided it was none of her business and ignored it.
Personally, I reject option 5 out of hand. It's craven and contributes to the problems identified in the Chronicle article by David Glenn I quoted earlier.
I think option 1 is also not a good option. I think it gives too much control over the situation to the suspected plagiarist. Given the investigative and enforcement vacuum for faculty-level academic dishonesty that David Glenn describes in the Chronicle article I quoted above, handing control over the story to the suspected person seems no solution at all.
Option 3 (telling the "victims," Cornel West and Russell Baker, and letting them decide what to do) strikes me as inadequate. Plagiarism is not merely a private wrong, in my view; its victims extend beyond those whose words are copied.
I think Sally made the right choice in this case by contacting the Chronicle (and I told he so when she was reflecting on what to do). The Chronicle sees these sorts of allegations all the time, and is in a better position to distinguish a significant from an insignificant case.
But what if the Chronicle had declined to pursue the case? That leaves the two other options above: contact the provost at the suspect's home institution, or just blog about it.
I'm not sure what the right answer is there. I lean toward the blogging option, mostly because I think it's impossible for a person to know enough about the rigor of a university's enforcement mechanism and the university's internal politics to trust that the matter will be handled on the up and up. I would imagine that the public disclosure through blogging would create external pressure on the suspect's home institution to handle the case rigorously.
Your thoughts?
Posted by Eric at 9:39 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
June 15, 2005
How Is Google Like An Elephant?
Posted by Eric at 2:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
How many commencement speakers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
(This is a slightly edited version of a comment I left earlier this morning at the Volokh Conspiracy.)
Eugene Volokh thinks that Dean Bryan Le Beau's copying of the opening of a commencement speech by Russell Baker is not "particularly bad" because it's just a "borrowed witticism."
I agree with Eugene's point, at least in principle and in isolation. There's no problem with starting off a commencement speech with someone else's joke; I'm sure it happens all the time. (The Le Beau incident may not be such a case on the facts, though; more on that below.)
But Eugene's point strikes me as missing the bigger picture.
Dean Le Beau's apparent copying from Russell Baker at the start of the speech precedes his near-verbatim copying of Cornel West for the guts of the speech. When challenged on the copying of Cornel West, Dean Le Beau issued a statement explaining it (and maintaining that it was not plagiarism) without mentioning that he took the opening of his speech essentially verbatim from a speech by Russell Baker. It was only through an additional google search that the copying of Baker was revealed. And it turns out that both speeches (Baker's and West's) are to be found on the same website that compiles great commencement addresses. In short, the copying of Baker, to my eyes, seriously undermines the credibility of the defense of the copying of West. (And it's not just my eyes: see Ralph Luker's comments at the history blog Cliopatria.)
Now, as to Eugene's point about the permissibility of borrowing speech-starting witticisms without attribution: is this really such a case? Consider the two passages:
Russell Baker, Connecticut College, May 1995:
"In a sensible world I would now congratulate the Class of 1995 and sit down without further comment. I am sure the Class of 1995 wishes I would do so. Unfortunately for the Class of 1995 we do not live in a sensible world.
"We live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom than we like to admit. And ancient commencement-day custom demands that somebody stand up here and harangue the poor graduates until they beg for mercy. The ancient rule has been: make them suffer."
Bryan Le Beau, UMKC, December 2003:
"In a sensible world, and it I were a sensible person, I would simply stop right here and sit down without further comment. And you would probably prefer I do so. Unfortunately, we do not live in a sensible world. Instead, we live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom than we like to admit, and I have been asked to contribute to that slavish custom. Commencement-day custom – dating to the 12th century, as Chancellor Gilliland just noted -- demands that someone stand up here and harangue you poor graduates until you beg for mercy. The ancient rule has been: Wear a funny hat, and make them suffer."
There's no problem with a rule that says you don't have to attribute jokes. ("How many college graduates does it take to screw in a light bulb?" and that sort of thing.) But this isn't a joke (as Eugene notes by calling it a "witticism"). It is instead a fairly elaborate introduction designed to note the specific occasion and get people smiling. I see a difference between using the punchline without attribution (the ancient rule for commencement speakers has been to "make them suffer") and using the whole opening, including its rather unusual word choices ("harangue," "slavish in its obedience to ancient custom," "beg for mercy"). The latter is not just treating a joke as community property. To my eye, it's unattributed copying.
Posted by Eric at 8:16 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
A Brief Reprise on the "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History"
Cathy Young ("Woods is a bad ally for libertarians, though his message may appeal to those who can’t distinguish the flaws of America from those of outright despotisms. Decentralization is an important libertarian value, but surely our first principle is individual liberty; and nothing is more inimical to liberty than slavery or totalitarianism. The Civil War may not have begun as a war for abolition, but it nonetheless led to the end of slavery and to fuller enfranchisement of blacks in the North. And U.S. intervention in World War II and the Cold War may have been vital to defeating totalitarianism. On those two crucial battles, Woods is wrong.")
Jeff Lipkes ("Particularly in his discussion of events in Europe in the 20th century, Woods’s contempt for the evidence is as thoroughgoing as that of any p.c.-textbook-writing hack. It does students no service to expose one set of myths if you’re going to substitute another.")
Posted by Eric at 7:20 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 14, 2005
UMKC Plagiarism Case Takes A Turn For The Worse
Baker:
"In a sensible world I would now congratulate the Class of 1995 and sit down without further comment. I am sure the Class of 1995 wishes I would do so. Unfortunately for the Class of 1995 we do not live in a sensible world."We live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom than we like to admit. And ancient commencement-day custom demands that somebody stand up here and harangue the poor graduates until they beg for mercy. The ancient rule has been: make them suffer."
Le Beau:
"In a sensible world, and it I were a sensible person, I would simply stop right here and sit down without further comment. And you would probably prefer I do so. Unfortunately, we do not live in a sensible world. Instead, we live in a world far more slavish in its obedience to ancient custom than we like to admit, and I have been asked to contribute to that slavish custom. Commencement-day custom – dating to the 12th century, as Chancellor Gilliland just noted -- demands that someone stand up here and harangue you poor graduates until you beg for mercy. The ancient rule has been: Wear a funny hat, and make them suffer."
I wonder whether this additional "borrowing" is among the things that Dean Le Beau announced to his colleagues at UMKC in his private statement of yesterday, or whether he was waiting to see whether Google is really as good as it's cracked up to be.
Incredible.
UPDATE: Dean Le Beau has posted an explanation of his use of West's words at the History News Network. You can read it here. Dean Le Beau says his use of Cornel West's words was not plagiarism because he did not intend to deceive anyone. He does not mention using Russell Baker's words in the same speech.
Posted by Eric at 6:16 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Looking Tough
"Fortas is agreeable to a further reduction in, but not an elimination of, military police providing external security at relocation centers. [H]is approach is not so much that the military police are necessary for security but conducive to better public relations." (National Archives, Record Group 107, Entry 183, Box 33)One wonders: which of today's supposedly security-protective measures are being maintained primarily because they're "conducive to better public relations?"
UPDATE: An astute reader catches my error: Fortas was at Interior at the time in question, not at Justice.
Posted by Eric at 2:05 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Where Have All The Cowgirls Gone?
Who could imagine such a thing?
Posted by Eric at 1:06 PM | TrackBack
Update on Plagiarism Allegation
Dean Le Beau has thus far made no public comment. I understand, however, that he did issue a statement to his UMKC colleagues yesterday. That statement has not, however, been made public.
The article in the Kansas City Star quotes UMKC Interim Chancellor Steven Lehmkuhle as saying that UMKC's "academic affairs office is currently reviewing this issue and will determine next steps according to the University of Missouri's collected rules and regulations."
I don't know whether to infer from this that Dean Le Beau's position is that his heavy borrowings from a speech by Cornel West do not constitute plagiarism.
Posted by Eric at 9:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 13, 2005
Prominent Historian Charged With Plagiarism. Will There Be Consequences?
How did it come to light? Google. A few weeks back, while doing some reseach, my friend and colleage Sally Greene googled a phrase from a work by Hegel. She found the phrase in a 1993 commencement address by Cornel West. And then she found it in a 2003 commencement address by LeBeau.
But that's not all she found. It turns out that big pieces of West's 1993 speech had been picked up and plunked down pretty much whole in LeBeau's. Read the two speeches yourself, and do your own comparison: West's speech. LeBeau's speech.
Sally, who knows a thing or two about literary theory and close textual analysis, has posted an analysis of LeBeau's "borrowing" on her blog this afternoon, and it's a must-read. Her point--and it's a perceptive one--is that LeBeau, who is white, ended up having to make small changes to West's words that drained much of the power out of the original speech:
To study the texts side by side is a fascinating exercise. What's remarkable is not just the sameness: there's a remarkable difference as well. West's speech comes from a position of authority as a black American intellectual. This is a position LeBeau, who is white, cannot claim, nor does he attempt to. Rather, he drains the color out of West's speech so that, in the end, it is not so much an appropriation--though it is that--as a misappropriation, a watering down and a flattening out of a message that had its own particular power and edge.
What intrigues me, at this point, is the question of consequences. Back in December, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a on plagiarism in academia, and the articles in that report make clear that even well-documented charges of plagiarism against prominent academics often founder.
This is, of course, deeply ironic. If you're a student in Professor LeBeau's "Religion in America" course, you are warned as follows:
Students found to cheat on an exam, plagiarize their written work, or in any other way misappropriate the intellectual property of others will receive penalties ranging from a failed grade for that exercise to failure for the entire course and notification of designated university officials depending on the severity of the violation.
Professor LeBeau's home department at UMKC, the History Department, announces the following Policy in Regard to Allegations of Research Dishonesty":
Plagiarism is an inexcusable act in the view of the History faculty. Any student guilty thereof will be liable to expulsion from the program. A detailed statement by the faculty is available in the history office. Research dishonesty refers to any conduct that is intended to mislead or communicate false research data or results, or which communicates such data or results in reckless disregard of their false or misleading character.Illustrations of research dishonesty include, but are not limited to, the following:
• False or misleading statements or publications concerning research data or results;
• Intentional or reckless distortion of misinterpretation of research data or results;
• Use of research methods which the researcher knows to be unreliable or which produce erroneous results, unless appropriately explained in publications and reports of the research;
• Release of research date or scholarly efforts of other persons, and representing them as one’s own or failing to give appropriate credit to their sources; or
• Misuse of the work of others or misrepresentation of authorship as that of the student.
It will be interesting to see how the University of Missouri at Kansas City reacts to the allegations against Dean LeBeau. Will the university take them as seriously as it would take charges of plagiarism by one of the dean's students?
Posted by Eric at 2:39 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
June 10, 2005
A Sloppy Argument Against Slavery Reparations
How is it "apt," though, to argue against reparations from the fact that the slave ownership in question occurred "decades before the Civil War," when "slavery was still lawful throughout the South?" Is this a claim that this slave ownership was not in fact wrong? If not, what is the purpose of that piece of the argument?
And I also don't find this sentence from the piece "apt" at all: "America long ago paid the price for slavery: a horrific Civil War that killed 620,000 soldiers, more than half of them from the North."
I find Abraham Lincoln's words on the point rather more apt:
"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."The Civil War was no final accounting for slavery. Slavery's legacy is all around us. It may be impossible to calculate the present cost of that old injustice, and it may be unjust to expect certain parties to pay it. But that doesn't mean that the nation has in fact paid down the debt of the historic injustice of slavery, or that the injustice of slavery is truly in our remote past.
Posted by Eric at 12:17 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack
June 9, 2005
All Deliberate Foot-Dragging
Posted by Eric at 4:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bittersweet.
If you see me today with slightly puffy eyes and a tissue in my hand, you'll know why.
Posted by Eric at 8:07 AM | TrackBack
June 7, 2005
I'm Looking For Something Other Than "They're All Musicians."
The answer--which will probably surprise you (it did me)--can be found here.
Posted by Eric at 8:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Get the Knack of Real Estate
Can we do the closing at nine, Sharona?
Got it all on the HUD-1, the HUD-1
And the Truth-in-Lending looks fine, Sharona
Such a great idea, paying out on a jumbo loan!
What recording fee? Get my attorney on the phone!
My my my I I woo!
M-m-m-my Sharona
M-m-m-my Sharona
Posted by Eric at 3:51 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
"Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."
Yes, that's right: mandatory.
Section 111 of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005, signed into law in December of 2004, provides that "[e]ach educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution."
Maybe I'll suggest a program on academic freedom and the dangers of federal control over curriculum.
Posted by Eric at 11:09 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
June 6, 2005
A Moving Conference
He also ended up spending much of the weekend getting his ear bent by people (including especially former internees) troubled by his decision to stock Michelle Malkin's bogus book "In Defense of Internment" in the site's bookshop. It was especially moving to hear the daughter of the late attorney Kenji Ito, whom Malkin goes out of her way to defame in the book, speak about the devastating impact on her and her aging internee mother of Malkin's assassination of his character.
Posted by Eric at 9:14 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
June 3, 2005
Taking Down Shacking Up?
Sally Greene's writing about it, and making sense.
Posted by Eric at 10:49 AM | TrackBack
June 1, 2005
A Glimpse Into A Capital Sentencing Jury's Deliberations
It's "Twelve Angry Men"--but real, and balanced, and deeply thoughtful.
Check it out!
Posted by Eric at 10:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
"Turn Me On, Dead Man."
Posted by Eric at 10:12 AM | TrackBack
History: A New Victim of the "War on Christianity" Meme?
A naïve person might mistake a cross-burning in the South for a racist act, but no: Durham resident Teresa Lovell argues in a letter to the Durham Herald-Sun that these cross-burnings were a persecution of Christians:
"I personally feel that the burning of the crosses was not racially motivated, but motivated as an act against all Christians. Burning the cross is worse than desecrating the United States flag. It is a symbol of burning the cross that Jesus bled and was beaten on and died on, so that we might be saved and live with him in eternity. It is good to see Christians of all races banding together to show their love for one another and their disgust with this horrible act."I "personally feel" that she doesn't have the faintest idea what she's talking about. In these parts, Ms. Lovell, cross-burning has been a menace to non-whites (because of the fact that they're non-white, not because they're Christian) and to Jews (who, if I'm not mistaken, are not Christian at all).
Posted by Eric at 10:03 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack