03.14.07
Posted in Crazy Academia at 12:59 am by JEG
I warn my good buddy JB in jest, although I’m a bit worried myself, even though I can’t claim to be a no-holds-barred Republican.
More follies from Academia!
OK, I’ll admit that this is most likely a frivolous (albeit lame) attempt at humor by another obviously left-wing Professor, but is it appropriate for a classroom setting? Of course not. When can we expect Academics to simply teach facts and impart knowledge? English Composition is such an important, straightforward discipline, applicable to writers of all political persuasions. Just teach the kids how to write!!!!
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09.19.06
Posted in Crazy Academia at 2:52 pm by JEG
I’m normally a big fan of brevity, precision, and clarity in writing. Brevity, in particular, is a virtue for all good writers. I’m reminded of the scene in one of my favorite movies - A River Runs Through It. The elder son composes a written product for his Presbyterian father, in hopes that he will soon be freed from the burdens of English composition to be allowed to run free and pursue the big trout on the river near his home. Twice, his father marks up the paper, and says “half as long.”
Brevity, on this occasion, will be impossible. I came home from work today with a bad cold, so I had some time to do some reading. I recently received a stunning and revealing book written by David Horowitz, entitled “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.” There are so many absolutely shocking things in this book that brevity is not an option. People - particularly parents of college-bound children - need to know this stuff. I obviously haven’t had the opportunity to read the book in its entirety, which I will be doing over the next couple of days. The following examples, however, taken from merely a cursory glimpse at the book’s contents, ought to disturb anyone in his/her right mind.
“We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.” - Jose Angel Gutierrez, University of Texas, Arlington.
As a proud “gringo” who admires and respects many latino friends, I’m ready to face termination. My Mexican/latino friends, however, might not be so eager to see me go down to a grade-A prick like you.
“I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” - Bill Ayers, University of Illinois, Chicago.
Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, which placed bombs in both the Pentagon and the Capitol, not to mention dozens of other locales.
“Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers’ throats.” - Amiri Baraka, Rutgers University.
Poetic words from a former poet laureate of New Jersey. “Poetry” is in the eye of the beholder. There’s a reason you’re a “former” poet laureate.
Communist China and Cuba have been “successful in instituting political and economic democracy.” - Gregory Dawes, North Carolina State University.
Incarceration of political dissidents - that sounds like democracy to me.
“Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!” - Bernadine Dohrn, Northwestern University.
Wild indeed. In fact, disgustingly savage. The quote comes from a speech at a 1969 “War Council.”
27 December-31, 1969 – The Weathermen hold a “War Council” meeting in Flint, Michigan, where they finalize their plans to submerge into an underground status from which they plan to commit strategic acts of sabotage against the government. Thereafter they are called the “Weather Underground Organization” (WUO).
By the way, Bill Ayers (see above) was her running mate and husband.
“The U.S. qualifies as the main terrorist government in the world today.” - Norman FINKlestein, De Paul University.
Yeah. That’s why everyone wants to live here.
“I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the Bush White House.” - Eric Foner, Columbia University.
Let’s see. Almost 3,000 dying horrible, burning, painful deaths or the President verbally calling it like it is? Not sure which scale everyone else might use, but I’d say on the “frightening” scale, 3,000 dying is infinitely more scary.
“One is Not Born a Man.” - Alison Jaggar, CU-Boulder.
Especially if one is born a woman, one is not born a man! I get it! Thanks. (Boulder again. How tiresome). In this case, I’ll quote the book for humor’s sake.
“To overcome women’s oppression, Professor Jaggar believes the act of childbearing must no longer be limited to one sex.”
Sign me up! If I can carry a child to term, I’ll be a rich man! Book and movie rights! More from Jaggar: “This transformation might even include the capacities for insemination, for lactation and gestation so that, for instance, one woman could inseminate another, so that men and non-parturitive (non-child-bearing) women could lactate and so that fertilized ova could be transplanted into women’s or even into men’s bodies.”
“Jews are a race of skunks and animals that stole Africa from the Black Man.” - Leonard Jeffries, CUNY.
I would have guessed Adjunct Faculty, Nation of Islam.
“The only contributions the ‘Euro-American’ Founders brought to the New World were ‘cultural genocide,’ ‘racial hierarchy,’ and ‘gender politics.’ ” - Oneida Meranto, Metro State College, Denver.
Well, what do you expect? Metro State. Boulder-in-training.
There are so many examples of lunacy in this book, it honestly makes me scared for the future of American academia. Particularly since some of our most prestigious schools (Columbia, Colorado-U, Northwestern, Penn, Berkeley, Rutgers, Stanford, MIT, Georgetown, and countless others) are represented in the pages of this book.
There are some professors included that don’t concern me all that much - John Esposito and Yvonne Haddad at G-town, for example. I appreciate and respect academic freedom. I’ve pulled the most egregious offenders out and cited them here. Some express unpopular ideas - American policy vis-a-vis Israel, for example - that have some merit. But most are shocking.
Sorry for the long post, and a major ten-gallon hat-tip to David Horowitz. Think about this, folks. We’ve got serious issues to think about.
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09.17.06
Posted in Crazy Academia at 5:53 pm by JEG
I give the Buffs a hard time, but normally just when the CU-CSU game comes rolling around each year.
When I read this, however, I found new reason to laugh at the folks down in Boulder. Can anyone give me more of a reason to bust a gut? Here’s what your tuition money can get you at good-old CU.
FEMINIST THEORY
Sociology 5006
http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/feminist.html
Professor: Anonymous (name deleted by TTA)
Course Description
This seminar is designed to examine the materialist feminist challenge to postmodern feminist theorizing, tracing the development of materialist and marxist feminist theory, contrasting their assumptions and political implications with those of postmodern feminism, and comparing their relative contributions to the understanding of the connections between class, gender and race and the contradictory implications of identity politics in the context of the global economy.
Huh????
A little brevity might help me discern what the hell this course is supposed to accomplish!
And business leaders have the nerve to suggest that Universities aren’t preparing students for the real world!!!!
YAWN…
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09.08.06
Posted in Unhinged, Crazy Academia at 4:01 pm by JB
You tackle the Wisco dude, JEG…. I think this clown is my favorite prof to despise.
A controversy over words at BYU this morning. According to a copyrighted Deseret Morning News article, a professor is on paid leave for suggesting the government is responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center.
The man on paid leave is Dr. Steven Jones. He’s a physics professor involved in the so-called “9-11 Truth Movement.”
Jones believes unnamed government agencies orchestrated the fall of the twin towers and he says there’s evidence to back it up.
Two weeks ago he published his theory in a paper called “Why Indeed did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?” In it, the professor says the towers fell not because of planes hitting them but rather pre-positioned demolition charges.
Still sucking up tuition money, but not actually able to spill his bile anymore.
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09.02.06
Posted in Politics, Unhinged, Crazy Academia at 4:27 pm by JEG
Ward Churchill was bad enough. Kevin Barrett was worse. Here we go again.
I was hoping this idiocy was a passing fad.
Apparently not. But thank God there are folks in Academia with some common sense. Here’s the most eloquent and reasoned statement on Academic freedom that I have ever seen:
In a recent piece for the New York Times, Professor Stanley Fish clarified these points noting: “All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught — no list of interdicted ideas or topics — there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.”
Beautiful, Dr Fish.
A psychologist claims that Dick Cheney blew up the WTC. Lovely. I’m sure his qualifications are stellar! When will this madness end? Someday I might have children. If so, I am horrified at the prospect of going into debt to send them into an environment where they might run into the likes of this guy.
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08.22.06
Posted in Unhinged, Crazy Academia at 10:12 pm by JEG
…with a few exceptions.
“The main argument against retaining Barrett is that anyone who believes in this conspiracy lacks the competence to teach a class at a major university. But when the dust settles, some fundamental principles of academic freedom support the provost’s decision.”
No, some fundamental principles of common sense would dictate that we render the provost’s decision unacademic and unreasonable. When an instructor’s views are so reprehensible and so outrageous that they tarnish the reputation of a fine institution like UW-Madison, that instructor ought to become a pariah that deserves neither acknowledgement nor support, let alone a paid teaching position. As the author himself said very rationally,
“Farrell’s decision has caused uproar because Barrett is a proponent of a bizarre and outlandish conspiracy theory: that the attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001 were perpetrated not by jihadist terrorists, but rather by the government of the United States. That’s right: We did it to ourselves.”
My problem with all of this is that analytic rigor and the standards of scholarship are thrown completely out the window. Sorry, U-dub. I’m not yet convinced that one iota of evidence supports the “outlandish conspiracy theory” that somehow deserves a hearing in an institution of higher learning. Most academicians deserve credit for supporting and introducing controversial ideas into the classroom. This particular instance, however, is the height of lunacy, and has no place in an entity charged with the sacred duty to educate.
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08.18.06
Posted in Politics, Unhinged, Crazy Academia at 11:54 pm by JEG
I warned everyone that I’d be watching this issue.
“The faculty member who devotes part of his course on physics to the proposition that the moon is made of cheese could rightly be accused of professional behavior that amounts to incompetence. But short of that, colleges and universities are places where ideas of the most unusual sort ought to be tested before students and peers.”
So says the “big cheese” from the American Association of University Professors.
If my father - a former academic - is a member of this organization, I’ll beat his big butt.
Paul Wellstone’s plane crash was no accident. The US government planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks. The World Trade Center imploded due to explosives set up ahead of time. According to the Christian Science Monitor, these are the viewpoints of Kevin Barrett at UW-Madison. Call me crazy, but these ridiculous notions are right up there with the moon being made of cheese. I’m ready to enroll for the spring semester at U-Dub to hear this madness for myself. And with all due respect to the AAUP, if there was ever a case for “professional behavior that amounts to incompetence,” this one wins 1st prize. Notice, in addition, the concept that these “ideas of the most unusual sort” are somehow to be “TESTED BEFORE STUDENTS AND PEERS.” That’s what worries me. Students being “tested” on these “unusual” ideas is precisely what we don’t want from academia.
Oh, and if the moon is indeed made of cheese, sign me up for the next space mission. I’ll bring my fork, some chips, and salsa. Nachos for everyone!
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