Category: Uncategorized

From Jason Steorts at National Review: Among the more colorful figures hawking their wares at American universities is self-styled “ecofeminist” Carol J. Adams, known principally for her 1999 book The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Adams traverses the campus speaking circuit and presents a slideshow that, according to her website, addresses “the animalizing of women in contemporary cultural images and the sexualizing of animals used for food.”

Yes, this is the sort of intellectual that university officials like to bring in to speak to students. The woman actually makes her living by talking about the sexual politics of meat. Forget postmodern, this is post-parody. I wonder if she’s ever been to the University of Tennessee?

DB writes: My question to you is would you mind providing a list of your favorite books or whatever book/books you are currently reading? I think it would be a great addition to your blog for all of your fans/readers out here in America. I know that I would thoroughly enjoy it. I saw where you recommended some books to a specific reader on your blog site and was hoping that you could possibly expand it. I actually had another question for you in regards to your opinion of the “The Sopranos.” I know you wrote sort of a mini-review of “The Matrix” awhile ago at your blog and was curious to know what you thought of the New Jersey crime family.

I’m currently reading William Gibson’s Virtual Light, while Space Bunny is reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Yes, gentlemen, she’s hot, blonde and reads quality literature to boot. My ten favorite authors right now are:

Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon is so far the best book of my generation; can’t wait to read Quicksilver

Umberto Eco – the dottore, the maestro. His semiotics stuff is always interesting too.

Herman Hesse – It’s not as deep as it pretends, but it’s still great stuff.

Arturo Perez Reverte – Mystery or thriller? Who cares.

JRR Tolkein – I like most fantasy. This is the original and best.

Douglas Adams – It’s all good, but Dirk Gently is tops.

PG Wodehouse – It’s always the same book. I always like it. Read for the style, not the plot.

George RR Martin – Fantasy as history. Sandkings is a great short story too.

Tanith Lee – the best pure writer out there.

Sharon K. Penman – good historical literary candy.

I have absolutely no opinion of The Sopranos, since I’ve never seen it. I’m not as completely TV-illiterate as I once was, but I am still more than a little out of it where the TV scene is concerned. I rather like Dead Like Me and Scrubs, but I really haven’t gone out of my way to see a show since Willow got interested in that dreadful what’s-her-name on Buffy and Charisma Carpenter cut her hair on Angel. In any case, I tend to find Hollywood’s incessant interest in all things Our Thing to be somewhat baffling.

The College Republicans have laid out a timeline of events. I really do need to have a conversation with Ms Vaughan, as there are some fairly significant dichotomies between what she’s reported to have said and what the facts appear to be.

This statement made me laugh: [Maxine Thompson] states that “I have no reason to lie about receiving a call from Ron Laffitte that Friday, and I do not appreciate you suggesting otherwise.”

Um, sure you do, Dean Thompson. And I bet you don’t. I’m sure Bill Clinton didn’t appreciate people suggesting that he had indeed had sex with that woman either. I notice that she doesn’t actually repeat her assertion that she did receive a call from Mr. Laffitte that evening.

AS asks: I’d like to get your opinion as to why college campuses are such bastions of leftism. The University of Tennessee is just one of countless examples of the political leanings in the academic world. This bias, of course, is nothing new. William F. Buckley showed the world in the 1950s what campus politics were like, and atheism was in vogue for 150 yeas before that. What causes this left political leaning?

I think there’s a few factors. First, those who wind up in academia are usually not the sort of people who know in undergrad what sort of career they’re going to pursue, nor are they ready to handle the responsibility of a full-time job upon graduation. So, instead of working, they avoid the harsh realities of the real world by attending various stages of graduate school and they continue obtaining degrees until they are pretty much unemployable as anything but a professor. This isn’t true of all graduate students, of course, but it fits the profile of the majority.

Second, the sort of people attracted to academia are abstract thinkers. There’s nothing wrong with that – I’m an abstract thinker myself – but in the absence of real-world experience or a serious dedication to supporting your theories with hard evidence, it’s pretty easy for the abstract thinker to divorce himself from objective reality. This is why you still have many economics professors who are avowed Marxists despite the fact that no one has taken the labor theory of value – which only happens to be the entire base and justification for the Marxist system – seriously for over 25 years. A normal person would conclude that the whole system has to be junked since the base is disproven and the model hasn’t worked anywhere in more than 100 years; the left-wing academic will continue to insist that it just hasn’t been applied properly, an argument they can cling to for eternity considering that Marx was incredibly vague about things.

“And then, for reasons that I won’t bother to explain, the State will magically disappear, poof, and everyone will have 70 virgins!” Right, Karl, whatever, now go take a bath.

Finally, in case you haven’t noticed, many professors are still emotional teenagers. They live around 18-23 year olds, they interact with them all the time, and they like to consider themselves much younger than their real age. PJ O’Rourke has a hilarious send up of this in one of his books. As with most emotion-based thinkers, strange arguments based on mythical fairness and what Thomas Sowell calls universal justice tend to appeal to them in the same way it appeals to little kids. The truth is that life isn’t fair, and the most cursory reading of history will show that it never has been fair in any society anywhere. When faced with this reality, the adult shrugs his shoulders and deals with it. The child gets very upset and expects Mommy to do something about it. Substitute government for Mommy and you will get a much better handle on how the academic Left thinks. This is why you cannot expect or hope for any degree of consistency from a leftist academic; it just doesn’t exist.

The deeper truth is that, as Dennis Prager points out, “Wisdom begins with fear of God.” Few in academia have either.

I sent the following questions to Ms Edee Vaughan, the faculty advisor of the UT Issues Committee. Her answers should be very interesting, for reasons I shall divulge soon.

1. How were the emails sent by Mr. Rubinstein, Mr. Comstock and others reported to the Office of Student Conduct on November 14? Who did you contact at the OSC when you reported them?

2. How were the emails “misconstrued”? What is the proper way to construe the comments about shooting ragheads in the face, torturing Mr. Khalsa and the professed liberal bent of the Issues Committee?

3. Which students were “sentenced” to sensitivity training at the ICmeeting on November 17? What was the disciplinary procedure involved in the sentencing, and what, precisely, is sensitivity training?

4. What students were at the IC meeting on November 17? Was Justin Rubinstein at the meeting?

5. Were you at the IC meeting on Monday, November 17?

Here’s one of the actual emails from the now-famous University of Tennessee Issues Committee, not the most infamous one, but the one that I thought was most perfectly illustrative of the mind, such as it is, of the campus left. It was CC’d to the entire committee, which goes to show how smugly assured these jokers happen to be. The literary quality of an email should never be judged as harshly something that is written for public scrutiny, of course, but I nevertheless find some of the word choices to be so bizarre as to suggest semi-literacy. Somewhere, an English teacher is weeping. Rock on, comrade.

Subject: RE: Issues in the Beacon

Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 16:49:09 -0500

fortunately someone brought a beacon to work today, so i got to see our GLORIOUS front page coverage of carlson. i was disappointed to see that the issues committee wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the article, but nevertheless it was great coverage. apparently the guy who wrote the article is aware of his mistake and he has apologized for not mentioning the small detail of HOW tucker came to the university unfortunately my thirst to see the issues committee’s name in print was satisfied on page five.

like most of you, i spent much of my day drafting a letter to the editor in response to the piece. however, i probably spent more time thinking about what a little brat this guy is and what i would do to him given the chance–torture that would put the spanish inquisition to shame, etc–but ultimately i don’t think it would do any good. he simply isn’t worth any more of our time. i think it goes without saying that we shouldn’t be talking to him as much about what goes on within the committee. as he mentioned, he did apply to the committee and he was rejected (largely due to his closed-mindedness and attitude). during the interview he did ask questions about our budget and its source, which we revealed to him because it’s public information that he wouldn’t have to search hard for. however, it’s obvious that he acquired this info (and other info) about us purely for his own interests in bashing us. as witnessed in his past bashings of campus committees, responses to his opines only warranted further insane and unfounded bashings. the WCC found that out the hard way.

i think we can learn from their situation and instead not reply to the absolute bullshit that this guy writes. to paraphrase, i make no allusions as to what this email is. this is not an attempt to change a single rejected applicant/op-ed writer’s mind. this is a desperate plea to tell you that i think we’re doing a fucking incredible job as a committee.

rock

–[name withheld to protect the asinine]

From a College Republican at UT:

Edee Vaughan, the faculty advisor for the IC, [University of Tennessee Issues Committee] has lied to both the news media and administration about corrective actions that she took in the wake of those emails. Vaughan claims that she reported the emails to the Office of Student Conduct as soon as she read them (the day after they were emailed), and that in the next IC meeting (three days later) she took the entire committee to task for its inappropriate responses, and “sentenced” the offenders to sensitivity training.

We have found a student on the committee who is willing to swear that these are ALL lies — that the sole purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to respond to the negative publicity, and that NO rebuke or reprimand of any kind was given to the authors of those emails. There was NOTHING said about sensitivity training — just a reminder that they should be careful to avoid expressing those kinds of sentiments via email, because something might be “misconstrued.”

Yes, misconstrued. I seem to have heard that somewhere before…. It sounds as if the spin operation was already in effect by the time I spoke with the student head of the IC.

I seldom watch Fox News, and I certainly don’t agree with Neal Gabler very often. But I did agree with something he said with regards to the divide between American liberals and conservatives – namely, that the ideological differences are not to be resolved with a few minutes discussion since they involve radically differing views of human nature, history and diverse other elements. It was a pleasant surprise to see that Mr. Gabler is clearly capable of deeper analysis than the average talking head, for whom “bipartisan” is a virtuous concept.

Still, Mr. Gabler’s summary of the conservative mindset was incorrect. He said that conservatives wish to protect business and wealth from the people. This is a significant error, as it reveals how Mr. Gabler believes people = government. This, in 21st century America, is quite obviously no longer the case, assuming it was ever true. This is also why leftists have such trouble admitting that their ideological counterparts quite regularly use the government to kill large numbers of the people. For them, the concept creates terrible cognitive dissonance. How can the people kill themselves? And why would they?

The answer, of course, is that the two are not synonymous.

A&J write: Umberto Eco, respectable as he is, misses the point. Which books will survive, and in what edition? Over the years, I have watched libraries systematically dump “useless old books” to be replaced with post-modern literature(it hurts to call it that). To my own pleasure, I have bought many great volumes for a song. These books will not be available to the general public before long — they will all be held in private libraries and very large university librabries, among other places. Just try to go to your small public librabry and find Gibbon, Newman, Chesterton. Won’t happen.

As a request, (okay I have two) I have a 14 -year-old son with a new and blazing hot interest in good science fiction. He has asked me several times if I would ask you to recommend some good books to start reading. Would you have a moment to reflect on the age-appropriate ones, keeping the hoochey koochey to a minimum? He figures you are an expert on sci-fi taste, and doesn’t want to waste time on junk. And for me, I am always looking for authoritative histories, secondary source-type…like Kitto’s “The Greeks.” These help me collect original sources and give me ideas to work with when teaching.

I don’t know what your son has read already, but here’s a few obvious recommendations for your son:

The Giants Trilogy by James P. Hogan

Foundation (only the first three) by Isaac Asimov

Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein

Dune by Frank Herbert

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Neuromancer by William Gibson

For you:

Citizens by Simon Schama

Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino

Shakespeare’s Kings by John Julius Norwich, also books on Byzantine Empire

The History of the Crusades by Stephen Runciman

Take a fairy tale, like Little Red Riding Hood. The text starts from a given set of characters and situations — a little girl, a mother, a grandmother, a wolf, a wood — and through a series of finite steps arrives at a solution. Certainly, you can read the fairy tale as an allegory and attribute different moral meanings to the events and to the actions of the characters, but you cannot transform Little Red Riding Hood into Cinderella. Finnegans Wake is certainly open to many interpretations, but it is certain that it will never provide you with a demonstration of Fermat’s last theorem, or with the complete bibliography of Woody Allen. This seems trivial, but the radical mistake of many deconstructionists was to believe that you can do anything you want with a text. This is blatantly false.

The text is open, but it’s not THAT open. And the good news is that books will survive.