PirateBallerina's Footnotes & Fallacies

Or more precisely, Ward Churchill's. Pirate Ballerina has begun a detailed analysis of Ward Churchill's Summary of Fallacies, which is his response to UC Boulder's investigation of his scholarship. It worth reading solely for the entertainment value.

Imagine a man walking busily down a sidewalk, brushing people aside as he goes, oblivious to his own rudeness. Then he slips on a banana peel and falls flat on his butt, only to look up to find a crowd of people laughing at him. We've all seen a sequence like this before, in movies or comedy skits, and it's because it resonates as an object lesson. It reminds us that we should not be utterly oblivious to those around us, or those around us will take great pleasure in watching us fall.

Ward Churchill's saga is another kind of object lesson, because now that we have a detailed investigation of his work we can take great pleasure in seeing his mendacity exposed. Lurking in the shadows of academe he was able to indulge his intellectual vices. He no longer enjoys that luxury.

Pirate Ballerina's analysis merely compares what Churchill claims the committee report says to what the report actually says. Despite it's simplicity it is remarkably powerful.

Recall the common dream of showing up for a test only to find it's written in a language you don't understand. Ward Churchill's Summary of Fallacies is what that dream looks like when it actually happen to someone. Churchill himself is the only one who doesn't see that he is utterly unequipped for his circumstance.

Technorati tags: Ward Churchill

Gapers Block -- Looking Over Your Xanga

The Plainfield South controversy gets I described in Blogspulsion? gets a mention over at Gapers Block:

In more School Boards vs. Blogs news, a 17-year-old student in Plainfield School District 202 has been suspended and threatened with expulsion because of his criticism on his blog of the school's disciplining of another student. His Xanga.com site isn't accessible from the school's computers, but administrators are saying that his comments caused "a disturbance at school".

They link this article in the Chicago Tribune.

It's just a blurb, but I think it too superficially characterizes what happened. "Criticism" is bloodless when compared to the actual post, and unjustifiably elevates its adolescent vulgarity. Referring to "the school's disciplining of another student" as a descriptor of the activities, an act of petty arson and threatening statements which named a school official, rather understates the actions. He wasn't just smoking in the parking lot. Finally, Gaper's Block frames the issue in terms of the school visiting a place that has been blocked by the school's own computers. This buys into a theme that I saw on the student pages. They were generally stupefied by the fact administrators went to Xanga at all, and assumed they must have done so after hours on their own time out of sheer boredom.

It apparently didn't occur to them that administrators at the school might have a different level of security on the network, or that officials felt it was necessary to review Xanga because it related to their duties as officials. Further, there is an entire blog ring devoted to the school at Xanga, linked to dozens of student sites. Having viewed just a handful I can say that there are probably a number of students at that school who would be unamused by fires in the bathroom and vague, aggressive open letters to the school. It is not at all unlikely that the officials who found the site did so after being notified by another student.

Again, I think none of the talk about free speech makes a lot of sense until we understand the underlying activities that took place on these blogs. I don't think this is a simple issue at all, and it wearies to see all these stories pop-up that fail to do justice to the back story at Plainfield.

Technorati tags: Xanga | blog | education

More Ward Churchill

Many Ward Churchill updates at PriateBallerina, including a post from May 23 that informs us of that the Revolutionary Communist Party (!) has, unsurprisingly, come out on Churchill's side. The ethic of personal freedom inherent in communism no doubt drives this stance.

Technorati tags: Ward Churchill

MySpace My Speech

FIRE comments on the issue of schools monitoring student blogs on places like Xanga (spefically they mention MySpace).

Technorati tags: education | free speech | Xanga

More Children Left Behind

The Washington Post runs a comment today that argues children not getting the tutoring they have a right to under NCLB. Here's the key point:

These school administrators claim that of the 1.4 million children eligible for such tutoring during the past school year, only 233,000 (17 percent) had parents and guardians who found this offer worthy of acceptance. All the rest apparently declined free tutoring for their children.

That is simply preposterous.

My experience from working with several states is that a combination of bitterness and bureaucratic sclerosis has conspired to make working with a district to effectively tutor their students nearly impossible. The regulations they thrust upon the tutoring companies are onerous. The districts, partly because they must, partly because they can, require tutoring companies to log so many details that it is nearly impossible to tutor students profitably, given the cost of compiling the required data. The districts are also quite horrible at getting tutors basic information that is needed to meet these requirements, like class lists. It would be similar to the IRS demanding tax returns but not printing up any forms. One district required everybody to record all of their SES information online, but their SES website, which cost them millions of dollars to develop, was down half the time.

The only way to break even at tutoring is to have 80% attendance, which actually can happen with younger kids when the on-site school liaison does his or her job.

The schools themselves are often uncooperative, even disruptive. They fail to notify parents of the opportunity to enroll students in tutoring classes, they notify parents only on behalf of companies who have a special relationship with a principal and ignore every other company, they fail to administer the programs within the guidelines set by their own district, and they fail to complete the tasks needed to ensure the students are tested.

It's really something of a joke, and Hickok is, in my experience, right to assign blame to schools and districts.

The commentary is written by Eugene Hickok of Dutko Worldwide and is no favorite of the Schools Matter blog, a status I suggest lends great credibility to his arguments.

Technorati tags: education | NCLB

2006 Merit Scholarship Winners

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. has announced its 2006 winners. There qere 7 winners from Chicago, pop. 2,869,121; there were 13 winners from Naperville, IL, pop. 137, 894.

Technorati tags: education | illinois

Nap Time, Please!

Please guys, I'm beggin' ya, take a nap!

Technorati tags: Chicago

Lincoln Park Hit & Run

A few days a go, a little girl was killed in a hit and run accident. The driver was arraigned on Tuesday and the Sun-Times provides some backgroubd.

He appears to suffer from a very disturbed psychology, and his past includes a "felony robbery conviction, two DUIs and misdemeanor domestic battery in which his aging mother was the victim...."

The article ends thusly:

"The defendant choked and punched his 80-year-old mother," [Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Maria ] McCarthy said in court. In 1993, Roth was sent to traffic school for disregarding stop signs, McCarthy said.

Roth's attorney, public defender Susan Smith, said her client is unemployed and on disability. Roth recently received a degree in gerontology, Smith said.

Emphasis added.

Technorati tags: chicago | crime

Blogspulsion?

A student at a public high school in Plainfield, IL, a far southwest suburb of Chicago, faces an expulsion hearing next week. Not so meaningful in itself, perhaps, so let me trickle out the details.

The hearing has been called because the student posted on his blog at xanga.com that his district, District 202, had bullied and threatened him. The ACLU has insinuated itself into the controversy.

At this point, the meaning of the hearing begins to clarify: the student is being, if not persecuted, at least being made an example of. Schools have recently become aware of MySpace and Xanga, and are increasingly adopting policies that allow them to influence the content of student web pages. This student, it would seem, may be simply be a victim of poor timing, falling between the period when students believed they could say anything and the period when students understood that officials at their school be checking their site.

Now let's add this: on May 2 the student wrote, without mentioning the school by name, that "I feel threatened by you, I cant even have a public Web page with out you bullying me and telling me what has to be removed." He added in the same letter, "Did you ever stop to think this will start a community backlash? The kids at Columbine did what the did because they were bullied.... In my opinion you are the real threat here."

The meaning of the hearing thus sharpens further. The school, perhaps prematurely, has decided that the above quote constitutes a threat. I have to say that if the student didn't understand the implication of the above statements, then perhaps the school should reconsider the nature of it's English curriculum: the student is laying out for the district, the primary audience of a public letter, the events that might follow should the school not leave him alone. Those events contemplate violence against the school community. Further, the statements treat those events as the inevitable result of a bully's actions and as events for which the student cannot be held responsible. While American school officials have not distinguished themselves in recent years with regard to sensibly responding to potential threats, in this case a hearing about the student's words seems reasonable.

Now that a possible motive behind the hearing has been discerned, another detail. The student, after writing the above letter, had been suspended for 10 days. The mother angrily asked whether the school, since they seemed to think her son was such a threat, had contacted the FBI. The school said no. She then asked if they had contacted the Joliet police, and again the school said no.

So now, it seems to me, we are back to a victim-of-circumstance explanation. The school has decided that they need to draw a line, and given the extremity of his statements this student provides them with an arguably valid excuse to set policy.

The above is described in the Sun-Times. It adds some blather from the kid's ACLU attorney and some comments from a police officer about the difficulty police have discerning aggressive chest-thumping from legitimate threats.

I have no particularly strong opinion about the case. I suspect the student is a bit of a troublemaker who has discovered painfully that his actions might cause reactions that he cannot control, that authorities, when barked at loudly enough, may bite back. And what he is threatened with, contrary to his attorney's claims, is not really a threat to the foundations of free speech. If expelled, and at this point it is still an "if", his education can still continue; prison expulsion is not.

Still, I can't help but sympathize with his predicament. I find it hard to believe that he really meant harm. He is an ordinary example of a teenage male impressing himself upon the world with loud, aggressive words. All that is extraordinary is that people responsible for his safety and that of all of classmates have decided to take those words seriously.

The article did not mention the student's name, probably because he is a minor. This has the effect of preventing us from knowing about events prior to the May 2 letter mentioned above, as well as a related post from the day before. Both are clearly responses to a demand from his school that he remove something previously posted on his blog. Since we don't know what he was asked to remove, we can't really evaluate the character of his May 2 letter. I would have a radically different impression of the entire case if the school had asked him to remove a swastika than I would if they had asked him to remove merely typical, teenage, hyper-masculine babble.

The nearest I could come to finding the student was this blog of a Plainfield student. The student references the case in this
May 4 post, where she refers to the student facing expulsion as her brother. The article only briefly describes the May 1 post while quoting from the May 2 post. The blogger has a May 1 post that suggests to me she was also targeted by policy announced that day at their school or in days previous.

I'll close with the May 4 post from the blogger that I was able to find, including all the errors that were in the original. If there is any indictment to be brought in this case, it is of this girl's English teachers:

dear plainfield south or district 202,

now that my brother isnt in school for the time being you must guess that everything is going to stop...your wrong...we dont stand down...as americans we have the right to speek our mind...as a matter of fact i think that im going to speek mine now on what i think about south...south is a school were they think that they have control over the world...wrong! they think that they can go around and acuse people of threatening us...hmm is saying if you dont take that post down we will be forced to suspened you...well then do it...your not scary...how is it that you can read our xanga's anyways...they are blocked at school grounds...hmmm which means that you took the time out of your personal lives to look and see what we are doing...kinda stupied move if you ask me...go ahead suspened me and prade around the school "the bad kids are gone. we wont ruin our perfect school code." you just dont want your school to be in the news about everthing that is wrong with it...for example...your dress code is violated everyday and yet you put the people who dont show skin all the time in CONTROL CENTER...hmm sounds like your only punishing a few...if someone isnt fallowing the school code then take action...dont take action on thoughs who do it once...i see girls with skirts up to their butts and they will walk right by a dean, asistant principle, or hall monitior without complaint...fix what you made wrong...all you want to do is pin point people...go ahead and suspened thoughs that speek out...we will always know that we are right and you arent...no matter what i say you cant stop me...

i hate plainfield south they are a bunch of power hungry witch hunters...

meghan h...

UPDATE: I was looking at some of the people who this blogger lists as her friends (hoping to find the blogger discussed in the article), and I discovered some interesting things. It would seem hate mail in the form of open letters to school officials is quite de rigueur in Plainfield.

First, this post from April 27 which includes this quite intriguing sentence: "Mrs. Mekenzie, or however the fuck you spell your name, doesnt matter becuase you suck at life anyway, i hate you too, and you know what, it really was magic that started that fire. MMAAAAGIC." This student then expresses the hope that the aforementioned lady will soon die. On May 1 he wrote the following:

well, no school for 14 days. exactly what i needed. seriously. this is exactly what i needed. but therepy. . .ehhhh

im bored.

I'm thinking suspension.

The next on the list was the blog of an extremely well spoken Christian student who was also on that blogger's list. Several others in that list were similarly well spoken and articulate.

Then, after a few more blogs, I decided to try a search for the quotes from the article. When I first started the post I had done such a search but didn't get a meaningful result, but I tried again, this time searching for a whole string from the quote and not just keywords. Jackpot.

Here is his blog, here is the May 2 post cited by the article, and here is the May 1 post. The blog also includes a "Suport Our Troops" chain-post that a number of blogs from these students contained.

The May 1 post included a reference to another student's suspension due to what he had included on his Xanga site; the names and dates don't seem to line up, so I don't think it's the same student as above, but I could be mistaken. While vulgar, the May 1 post is not really all that much besides one student venting. The May 2 post, though, is not misrepresented in the Sun-Times article. Prior to that, the blog is extraordinarily ordinary. It seems the kid is included in part of a crackdown, one that probably started after the fire he mentions, and that he has the benefit of an ACLU lawyer pursuing an aggressive PR strategy.

I said that my opinion of the case would vary accoriding to what he wrote prior to May 1. It's my peronal opinion that he probably shouldn't be expelled because he seems to a kid whose bark is worse than his bute. It's also my opinion that he won't be expelled, since this all seemed to start with some kids starting a real fire, kids who didn't themselves get expelled. But we'll see; the PR may backfire.

Here is one last post that describes what seemed to start all this excitement on Xanga, by a student who himself seems to have been suspended:

so yea as some ppl know goldy, kyle, miles.
goldy wants a vacation...from school.
kyle got suspened for lighting the b-room on fire and then suspened from the accadimy from putting a pic of the acc. buring down. on his OWN COMPUTER!!
miles wrote a letter to the school. and said to kiss his ass. well its the computer and im going 2 say what the usa is free ....freadom....freadom of speach. FIRST FUCKING ADMENDMENT.

UPDATE 2: Out of curiosity, I looked up the school report card for Plaifield South High School, which is the school where these events took place.

The school's average ACT scores are around 19. They are about a half-point below the average of the four high schools in the district, and about a point below the average for the state. Nationally, the average ACT score is usually between 20 and 21.

In Illinois, there are four performance levels used to judge students at a school. From lowest to highest, they are "Academic Warning", "Below Standards", "Meets Standards", and "Exceeds Standards". At Plainfield South, 45% of students were at the lowest two levels in reading, 57% percent were at the lowest two for math, and 53% were at the lowest two for science.

I have seen the test that is used to place these students in these categories. In fact, it is pretty much my job to be an expert at these tests. I can assure you that the phrase "Below Standards" does not do justice to the amount of ignorance required to achieve that rating.

There are 2,805 students at the school. (It has always struck me as insane, all of these giant high schools we have in this country.) The school is 72% white, 16% hispanic, 7% black, and 5% other.

technorati tags: education | Xanga | weblog | blog

Again, Never Again

Recently I wrote a post, stemming from an article in the National Post, about a law passed in Iran that required Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to wear badges. The veracity of the story was subsequently questioned, and the National Post ran a muddled retraction.

Now, Amir Taheri, who had helped to fuel the story's importance, has written further about this law. It appears that the fog of the Iranian legislative process has confused many in the media, as the law, whose current status is detailed in Mr. Taheri's response, appears to be on its way to becoming a reality.

Once again, for those who missed it the first few thousand times, this is the kind of thing they were talking about when they said "Never Again".

Via this post at Power Line.

NCLB In Chicago

The Chicago Public Schools are planning changes to correct a massive number of schools that have failed to meet the standards set by NCLB. From the Sun-Times:

Up to a third of Chicago's public schools are supposed to undergo radical "restructuring" this fall after being branded as chronic failures by the federal No Child Left Behind law.

It sounds like CPS will be getting those schools into shape in no time!

Or maybe not. From the very next paragraph:

But for most of the schools, the changes won't be that dramatic; Chicago officials are adopting the least severe of five restructuring options allowed under the 4-year-old law. Their plans will be formally released today.

So the changes are radical but undramatic, which means they are not radical at all, which means the reporter buries the lede. Perhaps this will state the matter a little more clearly:

The Chicago Public Schools are planning to do the absolute minimum that they can possibly get away with to correct schools that have failed to meet NCLB standards for five years running. By doing as little as possible, CPS plans to circumvent the intentions of the law without actually breaking it, hoping that a new, Democratic administration in 2008 will relieve them of their burden to actually educate Chicago students.

Gateway Pundit: More on Rep. Lacy Clay's Debacle at UMSL (with audio)

Via InstaPundit, this from Gateway Pundit on a rather poorly received graduation speech at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.

My First Link, From An ACTA Comment

ACTA has a commentary responding to criticisms of it's report on academic radicalism, How Many Ward Churchills.

In the fourth comment, posted by Brian, I get the first, and hopefully not the last, link to an article on this blog. Thankfully, Brian's comment was positive, calling the post insightful. There's nothing I like better than being called insightful.

So thank you Brian, whoever you are, and God Bless.

Leopold Is Lower Than I Thought

Eric Umansky has a terrific post detailing Jason Leopold's track record. Leopold threatened a lawsuit when Umansky used the word "fabulist" to describe him, a description not unwarranted by the evidence Umansky gives.

Leopold is the "journalist" who first rumored that Karl Rove would be indicted in the CIA leak investigation. Discussed here and here. The original arcticle, from which truthout.org has partially backed away, is here.

Cities of the Anglosphere

A very interesting post with very interesting comments at Albion's Seedlings: Cities of the Anglosphere

Those Brawling, Losing Cubs

The crosstown series is taking place this weekend in Chicago, and the Cubs, despite two wins against the Nationals last week, are proving themselves the weaker team. The White Sox, who deserve the most attention from Chicago fans but still seem to receive less than the Cubs, won the first two games of the series 6-1 and 7-0.

Today, Cubs catcher Michael Barrett threw a punch at White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski after a rough play at home plate. Barrett is claiming that he saw Pierzynski turn back towards home plate after the play was over and simply responded as though this was a threat; Pierzynski claims he merely turned back to the plate to pick up his batting helmet. Not sure who to believe, but the consensus seems to be that Barrett, being a bit of a hothead, overreacted.

I'm posting this for the picture alone. No doubt it will bring true pleasure to the hearts of Angel fans, given the events of last fall.

Flagging SAT Cheaters

Via Joanne Jacobs, a discussion at Slate of students who take the SAT untimed:

...And when test prep is not enough, there is another option with increasing appeal to well-off families: a diagnosis of dyslexia or attention deficit disorder that allows a student to take the SAT and other standardized tests untimed.

Given the often unseemly scramble for slots at top colleges, it's not surprising that the learning-disability diagnosis has become something of a racket. But until a few years ago, alert university admissions officers could check whether students might be exploiting an advantage: SAT scores resulting from untimed tests were marked, or "flagged." Then Mark Breimhorst, a Stanford student who was born without hands, sued the Educational Testing Service to stop the flagging, which he called a "scarlet letter" for disabled students. ETS settled rather than face a trial against a sympathetic plaintiff. In October 2003, the College Board stopped flagging the SAT, the GMAT (for business school entrance), and the GRE (for graduate study). The only holdouts are the medical- and law-schools boards, which continue to flag results from students given additional time on the MCAT and the LSAT, despite court challenges.

It is a racket to say the least. More accurately, it is a fraud. But the College Board, or whoever came up with the idea of extra time, is probably the one too blame. The fact is, for students who do not actually need extra time because they suffer from a physical barrier, the extra time policy simply makes not knowing the answer last longer.

A standardized test question is a simple thing. To answer it correctly you must identify what the question wants, decrypt the information provided, and apply a skill to deduce the answer. Success for only one of those steps can be improved by having extra time, and that is the process of decrypting the test. But practically, even that step won't be improved with extra time, as the test provides only as much information as is required to answer a question within one or two minutes. Extra time merely allows people to re-read the same, simple information over and over again. If they didn't understand the information to begin with, then re-reading it won't help.

One of the biggest problems with the extra time myth is that people with true learning disabilities aren't usually helped by extra time. Such students tend to give up on the test after a few minutes. What people with learning disabilities need is a different measure; a timed, multiple-choice test just won't show their talents, if they actually have any.

I have heard the standard objections to strict time limits over the last decade-plus of teaching test prep classes. I reject all of them.

To the objection that a score seems to improve when a student has extra time, I would point out the obvious: coincidence is not the same as causation. The people that report improvements usually improve only marginally (3 or 4 on the ACT, 30 or 40 on the SAT, GRE, or GMAT). They are also people who take measures between one test and the next, and these measures are more likely the extra time to cause such a score increase. It really doesn't take a lot to get such a score improvement. I've learned from my students that just attending my classes and listening is worth 20 points, even if they do none of the homework and do not actively participate. That is not to my credit; it simply exposes the fact that knowing a little about how the test works is enough to get you a few more correct answers, and that is enough for a marginal score improvement. And note that you can only see an improvement if you take the test twice, which allows for learning inbetween tests.

I would also add to the above that the people who most often claim that the extra time helps are the parents. I think what happens is that the parents "earn" the extra time by convincing a psychologist their child has a learning disability. The parents do not "earn" the actual knowledge the test taker gains between tests. Thus, the parents attribute causation to what they themselves have "earned", because it is what they are best able to value.

To the objection that extra time helps you read material, I would offer that people who need that much time to read either do not know what they reading for, or cannot read well enough to find what they need. As to the former, the extra time probably won't help them because they do not suffer from poor reading skills, but from ignorance about what the test wants them to do (the first step described above). As to the latter, reading ten times a sentence too complex for their understanding is no improvement on reading such a sentence twice. That student won't get the answer right, no matter how much time they get.

To the objection that the extra time helps someone deal with complex math problems, I would suggest that actually observing the content of the math problems proves this objection is unwarranted. The math is really quite simple even if you know only half of what the question requires. If a person has an idea of what to do, they can start in on the problem and come up with an answer within the time constraints. If a person does not know what to do, extra time won't help. The only people it may help are those who belabor their initial confusion, people who hem and haw over the numbers they see before finally, agonizingly reaching the realization that they had better do something with the item. These people are not aided by the extra time; they would have gotten the answer right if they had just started working right away. The extra time merely indulges indecision, which is silly because the right action is always to start work right away. Going back and changing course will take less time than staring at the problem and hoping the answer jumps out.

Finally, to the objection that the extra time calms a test taker so that he or she can perform better, I would say this: the right approach to any standardized test is to take a deep breath, acknowledge one's anxiety, and from the time the test starts to the time it is finished, ignore your feelings. Extra time does not help a test taker to do this; it merely extends the anxiety.

To the people who think extra time might help them, I would only say this. You will not do better on the test if you feel better, you will simply feel bad more slowly. If you nonetheless think that extra time will help you, then you have a choice to make. You can either defraud the College Board, or you can, for a period of four horus, think despite your feelings. Four hours is all that there is to a test. So think about it: you can be a Vulcan for a few hours, or you can be a cheater. Your call.

More Churchill

Eugene Volokh provides a succinct description of the Churchill committee's findings:

As the report points out, "public figures who choose to speak out on controversial matters of public concern naturally attract more controversy and attention to their background and work than scholars quietly writing about more esoteric matters that are not the subject of political debate" (p. 4) (emphasis added). That seems to me to be exactly what happened here. Unfortunately for Ward Churchill, it turns out that his scholarship couldn't bear the attention that his statements prompted.

Something Is In The Water In Elmhurst

According Google Trends, Elmhurst, IL leads the nation in searches for the word "sex".

The results put a twist on the term "bedroom community."

Yes they do. And that comment puts the reader in a mindset that makes the next sentence sound irredeemably dirty.

With a motto of "Tree Town," Elmhurst advertises itself as "a wonderful place to live and raise families."

Yes, you read that correctly, the motto of the town that has the highest ratio of searches for the word "sex" is "Tree Town".

More seriously, [Elmhurst Mayor Thomas D. Marcucci] added, "Sex isn't necessarily a bad thing." A lifelong Elmhurst resident, Marcucci, 54, said that when he attended the local Immaculate Conception Catholic school, "the nuns taught us that sex was a gift from God."

First of all, eww. Secondly, this is why it isn't polite to talk about sex. Thirdly, eww.

Here's Google Trends.

UPDATE: I just took a quick look at Google Trends for myself. When I looked up the word "sex" I found that of the top ten cities searching for that word worldwide were, two were in Turkey, three in India, and that the top city was Cairo, Egypt. Under regions, or realy, nations, among the top ten were Egypt, Viet Nam, Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The nation with the highest number of searches was Pakistan.

I couldn't find Elmhurst, IL anywhere, but the article did say the conclusion was for the U.S. only.

For the hell of it I tried a few other words. Oddly, the city with the highest search ratio for the word "blog" is Lima, Peru.

UPDATE 2: I just took a slightly longer look and finally noticed the "Region" drop down menu at the far right of the page. I did the "sex" search for the U.S. only, and the results did not include Elmhurst, IL. The city which now has the highest ratio of searches for that word is Richardson. I assume that is Richardson, TX, but have no idea if that is really the correct Richardson.

Not Reporting

Michelle Malkin details yet another example of MSM incompetence, in this case in a pro open-borders article in the LA Times.

Malkin assumes that the reporter's mistake was deliberate and the report itself was mere propaganda. She may be correct, but I would still suggest the possibility that the reporter was simply an idiot. Or more fully, I would suggest that the reporter was as liberal as Malkin assumes, wrote the story the way he did because it tends to validate his instincts about the subject of immigration, and was too stupid to think that this savvy business person might pull one over on him.

Let's parse the dumb for a moment, at the risk of getting some on ourselves. He features the contractor by name in the first line of the article. The writer, possibly, fails to uncover the most easily discovered facts about the contractor, or alternatively fails to admit them. No one at the LA Times uncovers the most easily discovered facts about this woman. The paper then publishes the article online, on, you know, the internet, where people can look up about anything.

It is possible this was propaganda, with the contractor working with the reporter to misrepresent herself to readers, in which case it was idiotic to think the dishonesty of this report on controversial topic would go unnoticed.

It is possible that neither the writer nor his editors thought it important to do a simple search about this person, in which case they are idiots for not considering that the contractor might be misrepresenting herself.

Or finally, they might know that the contractor was a fake, might know that people online would figure this out, and might simply not care, believing that the influence the paper edition of the story might have would make the dishonesty worthwhile to their cause. In this case they are idiots for thinking their influence is still so profound.

Da Vinci Code History

A smart perspective on the Da Vinci Code.

I'm reminded of my experience reading Caesar's Women, part of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. On the one hand, I can't recommend it as either fiction or literature. On the other, I can't say there is anything egregiously ahistorical about the book, unlike Dan Brown's Da Vinci code, at least according to Elizabeth's critique.

One of the things that bothered me in the Caesar's Women was that she rearranged some of Cicero's speeches during the first Catilinarian conspiracy. As I recall, she defended her logic by arguing that the dramatic effect of portraying the speeches differently helped the reader understand the history better than had they been portrayed in the same order as given by the sources. It struck me as a bit of authorial malpractice. If she cannot articulate the drama in the manner historical fact requires, then perhaps she does not understand the drama. Put another way, if the only a way a person can make sense of a story is by changing it, then perhaps they are not competent to make sense of the story.

While I don't think what McCullough did openly (she articulated her reasons in the forward, if I recall correctly) is quite as bad as what Dan Brown has apparently done, a similar criticism can be applied to Brown. If the only way he can make sense of God is to rewrite the story of His only Son, perhaps he isn't competent to be discussing God.

The other thing that bothered about McCullough was the book's lack of moral imagination. Although she seemed to accurately detail the events in the years just after Caesar's return from his questorship in Spain, I have a hard time believing that the atmosphere of Rome in the time period of her novel was quite so precisely analogous to the atmosphere of a telenovela. All of the heroes were handsome; all the villains physically ugly. The morals that she favored were the victorious morals; those she disdained were those of the losers. Virtue was virtue by virtue of it's might; vice was vice by virtue it's unpopularity. It is though she were a new girl at high school who tried to attach herself to cool crowd by praising them in her journal.

This to me was at least shallow history, if not ahistorical in itself. It is not to say that her book was wrong, just much smaller than the subject to the point the subject itself is misrepresented. Whatever Rome was in the last days of it's republic, a high school it was not.

Propaganda Has Propagated

A few days ago I linked to a report from ACTA that detailed many of the more egregiously propagandistic course at American colleges. I said it would not surprise me when some would make "claims that the authors are trying to censor college professors."

This in fact has happened. John K. Wilson at InsideHigherEd is arguing that the Ward Churchill committee's findings, in particular their use of the term "misconduct", has opened the door to "a vast new right-wing witch hunt on college campuses that conservatives could easily exploit across the country."

As detailed extensively by PhiBetaCons here and here, Mr. Wilson's arguments are not only unpersuasive, but profoundly dishonest. He is scaremongering.

Not Reporting

From IraqPundit, another example of American media incompetence:

Yet in recent days, Jabr has added a new public role to go with his "achievements" as a pro-Iranian militia leader and disastrous interior minister: He has become a source for The Washington Post on the issue of the infiltrated Iraqi police force.

When will the media take responsibility for their failed Iraq policy.

C.f., Amir Taheri in Commentary.

Both via Instapundit.

Never Again: "Iran eyes badges for Jews"

Via Allahpundit at Hot Air, the Iranian government plans to make Jews and Christians wear badges.

Sound familiar?

And by the way, when people said "Never Again" after the Holocaust, this is the kind of thing they wanted us to prevent. Just a reminder for those who didn't quite catch the gist of it.

UPDATE: The National Post has published a story that backs away from the report linked above. The new story has many complicated details, the sum of which amount to a retraction of the statement that a new law will require religious minorities in Iran to wear an identifying mark. The truth apparently ranges from the policy being a proposal, an idea thrown around in committee, a portion of the law awaiting signature, and a real law that is being minimized by the Iranian government so that they might avoid a backlash. I report, the National Post can't decide.

"The best writing on the worst people"

Via Elephants in Academia an update on Cuba, "The best writing on the worst people".

The two links which stood out to me were these:

The Real Cuba: a discussion of documents that shed light on the true character of the Cuban revolutionaries.

The Spain Herald: an article about Castro gangsterism.

Changes to NCLB

Via EducationWonk, a discussion of some changes to NCLB. The Washington Post article is here; the press release it is based on is here. According to the Post:

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced yesterday that under a new pilot program, North Carolina and Tennessee will be the first states permitted to change the way they assess student progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The "growth model" assessment will allow the schools to be in compliance by measuring the progress of individual students annually, instead of an entire grade of different students.

[...]

Many schools prefer the growth model to the current policy because they believe it gives them more flexibility to meet the standards by showing that individual students are improving.

EdWonk is uninmpressed:

It's so nice to see that the Secretary is being, as she calls it, "Open Minded." I wonder if she'll ever be "open minded" enough to call for parents to step-up and do their part in helping to ensure that their children have the greatest chance of achieving academic success by getting kids to school on time, well rested and prepared to learn?

Maybe Spellings would be "open minded" enough to come into my classroom and model for me exactly what I should do when the parent of one of my 173 students refuses to come to the school for a conference, answer the phone, or even come to the door and speak with me or any other school employee?

With all respect to EdWonk: tough nuts. NCLB targets schools because Education is the schools responsibility, and if it did not set high standrads the sclerotic bureaucracies of districts and state governemnts would be more successful than they already have been at defeating the puropse of the law. Schools are also the target because of all the things that are wrong with education, the schools are the thing that government can best effect.

Educators no longer have the luxury of blaming someone else when things go wrong. They have to find a way to reach even the poorest students. It possibly means they have to give up on fads like Whole Math and suffer from the stress of negative evaluations, but in return for government jobs, government pensions, and tenure, it's really not too much to ask.

Democrat Job Creation

From the Hired Truck Trial here in Chicago:

A former City of Chicago personnel director -- who lied on some forms and altered others to get political workers city jobs -- never faced the threat of being fired if she balked.

So why did she do it?

"Because that was my job, and that was part of the culture," Mary Jo Falcon testified Tuesday at the political corruption trial of Daley's former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, and three other men.

[...]

Falcon was the personnel director for the Sewers Department and later the Department of Water Management who also ran a political organization of 25 to 30 Asian Americans, mostly city workers.

[...]

Falcon testified that she knew she was doing something wrong by altering interview scores of city job applicants so political workers could get city jobs. But she didn't know it could amount to fraud, she said.

[...]

"I'd never look at the applications to see if they were qualified or be a good fit with our department," she said.

She knew it was wrong, but did it anyway because whatever was wrong with it, she didn't think it was fraud. She didn't think that altering and official document constituted fraud. Really, that's her story. Textbook gall.

Harcourt Screws Up

The Illinois Board of Ed may cancel contratcs with Harcourt after Harcourt fails to deliver standardized tests on time to schools.

The problems led nearly 200 districts to delay testing 3rd through 8th graders this spring and ignited a furor in Springfield, where lawmakers lambasted Harcourt and the Illinois State Board of Education, which oversees state testing.

The article, however, never manages to say how many students were affected.

The results of the test were probably not terribly different than what they would have been had they not been delayed. As always with educators, there was much gnashing of teeth:

The timing of testing is important in achieving a valid comparison, educators said. For instance, if some children were tested after spring break, they might have performed more poorly.

Sorry, dear educators, but you're wrong. Or at least wrong enough. If you get a "failing" label because too few kids have made adequte yearly progress, it's not because the tests were taken after spring break. Standardized tests just don't work that way. There is enough redundancy built into an exam that a student whose skills may have dulled over break will not have dulled so far as to meaningfully effect the result. Regardless of the timing, if you taught them well, it will show.

Cancel the Harcourt contracts if you must, but then go and fix your schools.

More Churchill

PirateBallerina has some further material on Ward Churchill. Apparently, Churchill might sue if he is fired.

More depressingly, at least one academic is refusing to acknowledge that using a Churchill text in a class is any problem at all:

[Tony] Affigne, chairman of the political science department at Providence College in Rhode Island, said Wednesday that he won't abandon Churchill's texts as supplemental reading unless he finds that the specific books or chapters he uses in class "have been identified as intellectually spurious."

Umm, did you read the committee findings, professor? You can read, can't you?

Ebert's Code

Roger Ebert reviews 'The Da Vinci Code' and makes a useful point:

Both contain accusations against the Catholic Church and its order of Opus Dei that would be scandalous if anyone of sound mind could possibly entertain them. I know there are people who believe Brown's fantasies about the Holy Grail, the descendants of Jesus, the Knights Templar, Opus Dei and the true story of Mary Magdalene. This has the advantage of distracting them from the theory that the Pentagon was not hit by an airplane.

Still, I'll be joining the "othercott". There is no point encouraging them.

And I have a suspicion that this movie will flop miserably. Tom Hanks is best as an actor who plays a version of ourselves. That is, he is very convincing as ana ctor, but the appeal is that he always seems to be our friend, and always makes us feel good about who we are, even when his character suffers. I don't think this role quite suits that talent; I don't think a mincing academic with a bad haircut, out to destroy an ancient faith, is going to make us feel too positive about ourselves.

The Reason Of Unreason

A quote in a post at Phi Beta Cons caught my eye:

Compare this mentality [of college protests against a speech by Sen. John McCain] to Ortega y Gasset’s description of the “’reason of unreason’” which characterized the rising fascist mindset in the 1930’s:

[T]here appears…a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions. This is the new thing: the right not to be reasonable…[the] detestation…of…objective standards…This means …a renunciation of the common life based on culture which is subject to standards, and a return to the common life of barbarism.

Eerie stuff, these outbreaks of elites eschewing both rational dialogue and the logical defense of their opinions.

FreeRepublic Wonders

Every once in a while FreeRepublic provides something like this:

Someone just parachuted over my house in Phoenix in a hurry
Posted on 05/17/2006 8:43:02 PM PDT by AZRepublican

I was just now saw someone in a wing parachute falling very fast from my backyard in Deer valley. Looks like he was falling way to fast to have survived and went down on Union Hills and 7th ave. Can not hear any aircraft that he may have come from. No one would be out skydiving at 8:35PM over a major city?

If anyone hears anything on this let me know!

From A Favorite Relative

I did not create this image, I am only reporting it's existence and will offer no comment whatsoever:



UPDATE: Mrs. Occidentality, approximately 8 seconds after she saw this on my blog, asked me to remind all of you that the above equation does not apply to nice Russian girls such as herself.

Cubs Win! No, Really!

The Chicago Cubs, who prior to their home series this week against the Washington Nationals had lost 14 of 16 games, are currently leading the Nationals 5-0. The Nationals have not scored a run against the Cubs in 16 innings of play.

The Cubs, who are truly playing horribly, will have an additional chance to shut out the Nationals when the teams meet again tomorrow. That of course assumes that the Cubs don't blow a 5 run lead in the next 2 innings.

I saw the Cubs play in San Diego a couple of weekends ago, and it was easy to see why the Padres were at the apex of a hot streak and the Cubs at the nadir (one hopes) of a losing streak. They were impatient at the plate, lackadaisical on the bases (when they managed to get on), their pitching was ineffectual, and the fielding was indifferent. They could lose 100 games playing like that.

But all is well for now.

UPDATE: The Cubs survived the 8th inning. 3 more outs and they are officially hot!! Well, not really, but I expect Cubs fans tomorrow will be ecstatic. Their expectations are low enough to be called subterranean.

Leopold Is Low

A while back I mentioned the false rumor that Karl Rove would be indicted in the CIA leak investigation. Here's an update on the person that first promulgated that rumor:

Leopold is standing his ground in the face of flat denials from Rove's side, an apparently complete lack of supporting evidence, and growing skepticism from bloggers who would normally be allied with him.

Deranged rightists huddle alone in rural cabins, sharing their bizarre conspiracy theories and political fantasies with a handful of compatriots. Deranged leftists get to appear on national radio.

(I realize I've just set up a bunch of Limbaugh jokes, but honestly, how crazy is this Leopold guy that he would keep this story going?)

UPDATE: title changed

History News Network

Ralph Luker has some comments on the Ward Churchill report at Cliopatra. Or rather, he comments that he is reserving comments until he reads the report, save for some statements about ACTA and David Horowitz:

It seems to me, however, that ACTA's title and methods are enormously irresponsible. Insofar as they are to be judged at all, and I think they should be, faculty members are assumed innocent until found guilty – found guilty by their peers and, then, only on a case by case basis. ACTA's claim that "Ward Churchills Abound" is highly irresponsible. You can dress David Horowitz in an academic gown and call him respectable, if you will. He's still a demagogue and I'm sorry to see ACTA, Erin, and the Phi Beta Cons trying to dignify his tactics.

I can concede part of his point for the technical reason that ACTA is probably not practicing perfect academic scholarship by using course descriptions to make their point. (See also the informative comments at for Luker's entry).

However, this misunderstands what ACTA has produced. ACTA has created a polemic, and as such, their arguments can be rejected or accepted. But Luker's criticism in fact holds them to a higher standard than the academics ACTA criticizes, and, if followed, would dismiss ACTA's arguments for reasons other than their persuasiveness and truthfulness, the only criteria on which a polemic should be judged.

An academic, as seen by the Churchill case, can produce shoddy, dishonest polemics for many years, yet be protected by tenure from any effects criticism of that work might have. They can even have such polemics regarded as scholarship. Those outside of academia not only have no such protection. They must produce work that is not polemical in any way before their criticisms of polemics will be indulged. Their polemics must be footnoted and peer-reviewed before their criticisms of dishonest footnotes and incestuous peer reviews will be engaged at all. A faculty member, merely by virtue of being faculty, is thereby granted privileges to pontificatee on a subject that equally qualified non-faculty do not have.

The test of whether ACTA or David Horowitz is worth listening to is not the academic perfection of their scholarship, but whether their conclusions are persuasive to those who have experienced contemporary University scholarship first hand. In my experience, their criticisms are fair and accurate. I would further argue that if their initial conclusions are pursued more thoroughly, that academics would look even worse than ACTA's report makes them look.

Ward Churchill Responds

In A Travesty of an "Investigation" Ward Churchill responds to the UC Boulder report of his misconduct.

As a result, it was necessary to devote much of the 120-day investigative period, not to examining "the facts" at issue in my case, but to acquainting the committee with some of the most rudimentary procedures employed in American Indian Studies. Had qualified individuals been included on the panel, this preemption of my ability to respond to substantive matters would not have occurred.

In other words, they were too stupid to understand my work.

This complaint was, I believe, addressed in the report itself (page 68):

During the course of our investigation, Professor Churchill was unable to present any evidence that demonstrates that at the time he wrote those essays he was basing his account upon knowledge of the oral traditions of the tribes that were at or near Fort Clark in 1837. Instead he disrespectfully introduced Indian sources only belatedly, as a defense against this allegation.

What can be reasonably inferred is that the "rudimentary procedures" Churchill cited were really an attempt to justify what he himself had simply fabricated. His bitterness at being unable to fool the committee as easily as the radicals who flock to his speeches seems the obvious source of his rage.

The committees contempt for his ploy of claiming some specially methodology for himself is more evident later in the report (page 94).

He did not mention native oral sources in his published essays but adduced them only retrospectively and disingenuously in an attempt to defend himself against charges of academic wrongdoing....

They also anticipated the vitriol of his response in their own findings:

We note, however, that [Churchill's] habit of responding to an accusation by disparaging the accuser rather than addressing the question serves as a way to evade genuine confrontation with the charges.

Churchill Goes Down (Sort Of)

Prof. Ward Churchill's career will be negatively effected by the findings of UC Boulder's investigative committee concerning allegations of plagiarism and academic misconduct. But despite the damning findings, he will not be fired, and it's because as a tenured professor his mendacity is indulged by his employer.

The full report can be found here, and is in itself a fascinating piece of historical research, even given the context of a judicial ruling. It is a searing indictment of Churchill's character and should be read in full. The key conclusions regarding his misconduct is this, from page 95 of the report (which also contains the citations given):

We have noted and discussed a number of distinct but related patterns of misconduct that deserve mention. One is an indifference to the proper attribution of scholarly work to its genuine author. This indifference has taken the form of misappropriation of the work of another, the attachment of the names of others to Professor Churchill's own work, and the use of uninformative titles such as "Institute of Natural Progress"” to muddy the assignment of credit and responsibility for work.²³³ The conventions of scholarly attribution are not empty forms of etiquette; they are central to the progress of scholarship and the accountability of the scholar. Professor Churchill's disregard for them is therefore troubling. We have also observed several instances in Professor Churchill's work of a willingness to make claims about legislation or historical events not supported by the evidence he cites or by any other evidence the Committee could locate.²³⁴ A related pattern is the employment of vague or obfuscating citation and reference practices. More serious still is the pattern of citing one's own work, disguised by its attribution to another living scholar in the same field, as authority for assertions and claims that lack independent support.²³⁵ We do not know whether these practices are the result of inadequate training or the desire to obscure the lack of support for his claims from other scholars and the historical record (we suspect the latter), but they make it difficult for the reader to verify or discredit his claims. Such practices are of particular concern because Professor Churchill has repeatedly stressed the importance of full documentation as a means of promoting dialogue.

Professor Churchill has, on more than one occasion, claimed that certain acts that appear to have been his were instead the responsibility of some other actor: his editor or publisher, his assistant, or his former wife and collaborator. In some cases we have not found these claims credible; in others we were unable to arrive at a judgment about their veracity. But apart from their plausibility, we have come to see these claims as emblems of a recurrent refusal to take responsibility for errors (whether or not abetted by some other person's act or omission), and a willingness to blame others for his troubles. In our view, this repeated behavior bears on a proper judgment about the seriousness of his misconduct.

If there is one crucial pattern that most affects our assessment, however, it is a pattern of failure to understand the difference between scholarship and polemic, or at least of behaving as though that difference does not matter. There are some signs that Professor Churchill does recognize the distinction: he correctly segregates the portion of his Curriculum Vitae that lists his publications into such categories as Books, Scholarly Essays (unrefereed), Scholarly Essays (refereed), Book Reviews, and Polemics. None of the writings discussed in this report appear as Polemics; it is the work he claims as scholarship that is the subject of this investigation. But the Committee has found repeated instances of his practice of fabricating details or ostensible written evidence to buttress his broader ideological arguments.²³⁶ While his general claims may be correct, it is unacceptable scholarship to create fictitious support for them.

Emphasis mine.

What also intrigued me is that only one of thecommitteemittee members recommended dismissal; the other four recommended suspension without pay for either 2 or 5 years. And whatever sanctions are applied, they will only take effect after further administrative procedures.

It is a kind of institutional madness that a person the committee found so thoroughly guilty of misconduct should be so well ensconced.

I was also intrigued by the committee's mention of the timing of the report (page 3):

The Committee notes that this investigation was only commenced after, and perhaps in response to, the public attack on Professor Churchill for his controversial publications.

The public "attacks" occurred only because Prof. Churchill exposed himself to be a petty, shallow, and malicious, so narcissistically anti-American that he could not distinguish the innocent victims of 9/11 from a Nazi war criminal. His comments screamed intellectual incompetence, and once this was exposed to the general public it would have been a dereliction of duty for the public university that employs him not to investigate his scholarship.

The handwringing of the committee and unneeded references to academic freedom betray their unwillingness to admit the actual context of their investigation. It is no different than a medical board investigating the qualifications and abilities of a surgeon who gives a speech that betrays an ignorance of basic anatomy.

It is a sorry thing that this man has been so successful in an American university, that no one noticed his incomeptence sooner.

Why Professors Stink

Mark Bauerlein at Phi Beta Cons examines why college campuses are so closed minded and radical.

This article explains why I so easily chose law school over graduate school.

Chicago Changing

The Sun-Times details demographic changes in Chicago neighborhoods.

The article is very positive about redevelopment in Chicago, even to the point of being a bit of cheerleading for the Daley administration. But I think it probably papers over some of the tension this must be causing in these neighborhoods. For example:

For decades, the stretch of 63rd Street near Pulaski was the Arab neighborhood.

"It was like one family living in a huge building," said Steve Adawi, owner of Steve's Shish Kabab. "You walk up the street and you see [Arabs] everywhere. There was a feeling that this was our neighborhood."

Those days are gone.

It's very fun until someone loses an eye.

A neighborhood where I live has experienced similar changes. When my wife first came to the U.S., it was almost entirely Russian. No we see more and more Arab and Indian shops opening up. In fact, a huge Russian bookstore faces a huge Islamic bookstore across the street, a combination I was quite surprised to see.

Alice in Alice

Alice Cooper, looking appropriately ghoulish, receives the keys to the city of Alice, SD.



Alice Cooper is from Phoenix, AZ, and went to high school at the same school as did my sister-in-law.

I once saw him in a golf shop in my hometown of Scottsdale, AZ. He was wearing a white golf shirt, white bermuda shorts, and, as God is my witness, white knee-high tube socks. He was quite a sight, discussing putters with the clerk.

It Is Not News That A Pope Believes In Miracles

This story, here reported from Pakistan, deserves more energy than I have to spare at the moment. But it is worth noting that while Christianity presumes no worldly power, even though it has in fact a great deal of such power, Islam demands all worldly power be brought unto it, allowing no room in the polity for that which is not Islamic. Thus the notion of a Muslim nation growing to respect the rights of religious minorities, in a way that we in the west would recognize as fair, is patently absurd. From the article:

Pope Benedict XVI urged Islamic countries to ensure religious rights for Christian migrants on Monday, and also said Christians should continue welcoming Muslim immigrants with open arms. Benedict stressed the need for reciprocity in Christian-Muslim relations during a speech to members of the pontifical council for migrants....Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the migrant office, has recently complained that while Muslim immigrants are often welcomed into largely Christian countries in Europe and allowed to practice their faith freely, Christian immigrants in the Islamic world are denied those same rights.

But as indicated by the title, it is not news that a Pope believes in miracles.

What Are They Trying To Say?

What comparison is this New York Times economics writer going to draw following this opening?

Things that seem temporary can have a sneaky way of becoming permanent. Anyone who's ever bought a home knows how it works. At first there are dozens of fixes you plan to make -- that dreadful carpet, those dingy tiles in the bathroom, maybe even a silly door knob. Ten years later, you find yourself still staring at them.

Is it some useless billion dollar earmark in the federal register that somehow gets renewed every year?

Is it some huge government subsidy to an industry that is no longer in financial danger, yet somehow manages to get the taxpayers money anyway?

Is it an ineffectual federal bureaucracy that manages to perpetuate itself year after year?

Is it a progressive educational system that hasn't experienced real reform for over a century, yet sucks in more and more money each year and refuses to allow parents real educational choice?

No! It's none of those things! It's the Bush tax cuts!

Of course that's what it is! What could be more like a crappy old house than the people retaining more of their income in one year than they did the year before!

What Hath Dan Brown Wrought

The Chicago CBS affiliate suckles up to the promotional teat that is the Da Vinci Code: Behind The Secret Sect Of Opus Dei

They make them sound just horrible enough to make you think that the books portrayal of Opus Dei might be realistic, but not so horrible that they can be accused of being unfair.

Stoke that controversy, boys, you have air time to sell!

"...the company of the clueless..."

From the First Things blog (second item at the link), an extended excerpt from an unamed blogger complaining that his religious conservatism makes him feel uncool. Fr. Neuhaus has a wise reply:

Exclusion from the charmed circle of the cool is, in this way of looking at things, the price he pays for his Christian and conservative convictions. To be derided by the fashionably ignorant is no price at all. To be concerned about the other guy’s thoughtlessness is a mark of friendship. To envy his association with the company of the clueless is a mark of poignant insecurity.

Nevermind!

Michigan Trial Lawyers seem an unappealing bunch: Rove rumor red meat to blue state audience

Notwithstanding their name, they decided not to wait for a trial, or even for verification.

The rumor in question was started by Jason Leopold at truthout.org, a left wing site with a conspiritorial bent. A good report of the rumor and its veracity can be found in this post at the Corner.

The event where this eruption of fairness and thought took place was a fundraiser for Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat.

Granholm, who hadn't made her way into the banquet when Raitt made his premature announcement, came away with more than a dubious rumor. Her campaign grossed $525,000 at a $1,000-a-head MTLA fund-raiser immediately preceding the dinner -- enough for three or four days of TV advertising at the blistering pace set by Republican rival Dick DeVos.

Propaganda Propagates

Remember, tenured professors cannot be fired!

A report on radicalism within the American professoriate is promised by this press release from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni: "How Many Ward Churchills?" (pdf)

The conclusions promised by the press release are not surprising to anyone who has attended college in the last twenty years. More things that will not be surprising:

• complaints about the bias of those who authored this report


• complaints about the report's methodology


• claims that the authors are trying to censor college professors

It's the last point that is so frustrating. It is utterly reprehensible that so many academics, who if tenured cannot be fired, think that they are immune from criticism.

Here's the gist of the report:

...What we found is that Ward Churchill is not alone, and that the kinds of politically extreme opinions for which he has become justly infamous are not only quite common in academe, but enthusiastically embraced and rewarded by it.

In colleges and universities across the country, in both traditional disciplines and new-fangled programs, the classes offered and the faculty who teach them are displaying an ideological slant that is frequently as uniform as it is severe....

HT: Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online

Not Reporting

This is what happens when reporters reprint press releases: New federal rule shifts more tax bucks for disabled to private schools

Commentary (Fisking really) at Edspresso.

Instruction Methods

I love D-Ed Reckoning's work, because he regularly has posts like this: Your Own Lying Eyes.

The Chicago Way

From the Sun-Times:

Army soldiers who belong to the Gangster Disciples have robbed people to raise money for the gang, orchestrated drug and gun deals, and even killed two people after gang members were kicked out of a bar.

The article details the work of a Wisconsin National Guardsman, Jeffrey Stoleson. Sgt. Stoleson sent the Sun-Times his photographs of gang graffiti he found in Iraq, including the photo here. The caption from the article: "This picture was taken at Camp Anaconda, a large U.S. base north of Baghdad. The graffiti represents the Chicago-based Black Gangster Disciples. To the left is a message from a soldier shipping out telling comrades to 'Be safe.'"

The article primarily details the criminal careers of two individuals, both of whom were convicted at court martial for gang related crimes. The careers are really quite dramatic, but they can hardly be said to represent a meaningful trend, given that both individuals were investigated (and presumably convicted) in the late '90s.

The article is really just an excuse to publish Sgt. Stoleson's pictures. The photos are really quite interesting, though it would be nice to have a little more information about the graffiti's particular purpose. The article ends with a paranoid suggestion from a Chicago police lieutenant that the gangs may have infiltrated the Army to make criminal contacts with drug suppliers in Iraq. It seems a rather convoluted strategy, and I don't think it explains the graffiti. I suppose a general desire to mark one's territory would explain the graffiti, but that doesn't explain why this particular graffiti appears in the particular places it is found.

Finally, a question about the media. From the article:

The Army Criminal Investigation Command has downplayed the problem, saying gang activity in the Army is insignificant. Whatever the scope of the problem -- both overseas and on the home front -- the cases in Texas and Colorado show it's not new and it's not harmless.

So, basically, the reporter dutifully reports the quote from the Army, acknowledges that he doesn't know if the problem is big or small, but then tries desperately to keep the reader from turning away by reminding the reader that death is in the offing. An utterly pointless paragraph: the story sells itself, and there is no need for the sociological handwringing.

Reporters always seem to feel the need to remind the reader that what they are reading matters in some larger, sociological sense. Why is this?

More Bad Heroin

It is a bad time to be a smack addict in Chicago.

By Saturday, May 13, 15 people had received emergency treatment after taking heroin laced with fentanyl.

On Sunday, the number was upped to 21 receiveing treatment, and one death.

Paramedics initially were called to the 1100 block of North Springfield to check on an overdosed man who was thrown onto the street from a blue pickup truck about 10 a.m. [May 13], Harding said.

Once on the scene, they found the three men passed out in the garage behind a two-story brick home on the same street, Harding said. A hazardous materials team was called to clean up all of the needles at the garage "shooting gallery," Harding said.

"At first, we tried to pick it up ourselves, but there were so many that we had to call for a haz-mat response," Harding said.

This particular rash of overdoses occured within a one-mile radius in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Blogged previously here, here and here.

UPDATE: Had not at first noticed this in Sunday's article: "Police did not know if Saturday's overdoses were related to five from the day before that stemmed from bad heroin passed out at Chicago and Cicero -- a mile away."

Funeral Home Assembly

The Chicago Tribune has an article about presentations to Chicago students by a woman who works at a funeral home.

She talks to the students about the grisly work she has to do, hoping that they will be scared straight.

[Concepcion "Concha"] Rodriguez showed a documentary video made by her brother, another reformed gang member. The men in the video, many of whom were killed after the footage was taken, talk about how gangs ruined their lives.

Ex-HBO Exec Ordered to Serve Jail Time

Ex-HBO Exec Ordered to Serve Jail Time (reg. req'd)

Unfortunately, it's not the jackass that greenlit Arli$$.

Poll: Most students think biz ethics optional

The Sun-Times reports on a poll on the subject of business ethics. The gist is that adult business owners are more likely to believe that ethics and integrity are important than are high school students.

More than 96 percent of business owners surveyed said they believed that having others view them as a person of integrity is very important, while only 37 percent of high school students surveyed shared that view.

When asked whether it was better to bend the rules and win or play by the rules and lose, 79.2 percent of business owners said the latter was better, compared with 41.7 percent of students.

Here's the thing though. They only spoke to 70 high school students and 80 business owners, and all the business owners were women.

So they bend the rules of representative polling to bemoan the fact that high school students in Chicago think it's okay to the bend the rules. How remarkably silly.

CPS Grad College Graduation Rate

The Chicago Public Schools released a report on the college matriculation rates of its grduates. Shockingly, it was far more positive than a report issued a few weeks a ago by the University of Chicago's Consortium on Chicago School Research. According to the Sun-Times, school watchdog groups were unimpressed:

"I am very suspicious of the [new CPS] data. The numbers don't match the realities we see day to day in high schools on Chicago's West and South sides," said Derrick Harris of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization. "We don't see kids excited about going to college because the prognosis and their preparedness is not there. The reality is very bleak."

What caught my eye in the Sun-Times was a quote from CPS CEO Arne Duncan:

In the U. of C. study, researchers found low grade-point averages relegated CPS graduates to two-year or "non-selective" colleges, many of which have poor graduation rates. Duncan, however, called that study "ancient history."

"The part everyone missed is that the consortium measured students who entered the Chicago Public Schools in the late '80s, when it was arguably the worst system in the country," Duncan said. "All that changed in 1995."

When the consortium's report came out a few weeks ago, he had this to say to the Sun-Times:

Still, schools CEO Arne Duncan did not dispute the 6.5 percent number; he just wants to improve it.

"It affirms my absolute belief that we need dramatic change," he said.

The contradiction stands on its own.

Gutierrez For Mayor Of Hell Freezing Over

Perhaps I am judging too quickly, but I don't think that Rep. Luis Gutierrez really knows how unlikely his career plans really are.

According to a 2003 Census Bureau report, summarized at the City of Chicago website, Hispanics account for about 27% of the population. By comparison, blacks are about 36% and whites about 46%. Given a demographic disadvantage and the entrenched Daley machine, I doubt Rep. Gutierrez has a good chance of winning.

Cruising Into The Side Of A Wall

I see that Tom Cruise's MI3 has performed below expectations (reg. req'd). My wife, whenever she sees Tom Cruise, reminds me that he at one time left his pregnant wife for another woman. In her opinion, his latest antics are of a piece with a man who abandons his family and have been so publicized that many women have reached the same conclusion about him that she did many years ago: that he is a callous jerk.

I don't know whether that is sufficient to explain a poor performance for MI3. I suspect that it is also due to the fact that this is the third in a series of films that had a weak story line to begin with. If you have ever seen the original series you would have to agree that no matter how entertaining, the plots are rather simplistic: super agents take on an impossible mission (hence the title), they prepare an intricate plan to effectuate their mission, they struggle against obstacles that no one really believes will thwart them, they live to mission impossible another day. It has become no less predictable in the hands of Tom Cruise. That being the case, I doubt that anyone was too excited to go see this movie.

What is perverse in all of this is that the movie still made over 100 million dollars worldwide. If this is failure, sign me up.

Aviary Ovaries

Pigeons in Thailand may be given birth control pills to reduce the spread of the bird flu virus. Whether pigeon parents will be notifed is not confirmed by the article, although one would hope that authorities would respect the integrity of pigeon families and let parents know if their children are sexually active.

The pigeon pope is, of course, against the plan. This is perhaps unrealistic of him: extramarital pigeon sex is common in contemporary Thai society. However, I have to respect his consistent pro-life position, and also, although this is talked about less, his belief that every pigeon has the capacity for self control and sexual integrity.

O'Hare

Currently on my way with my wife to San Diego for a vacation. Got up at 5:00 am, got dressed, ate, got in a cab at 5:25. (Mrs. Occidentality, who, ironically, is Russian, was up at 4:30 am). Had an absolutely lunatic driver to whom I will be forever grateful, seeing as how he got my wife and me from West Rogers park to the terminal in about 20 minutes. Through security and sitting at the gate by 6:05. The terminal is nearly empty, so we're sitting comfortably by the window.

The cab ride was unusual in that it was the first time I've had a really crazy driver in Chicago. To be fair, crazy overstates it: he simply drove about twenty miles over the speed limit and weaved agressively through traffic. In other cities this is not strange, but in ten years of living in Chicago (mostly on the north side or in the north west suburbs) this was the first cab ride I've had where I felt anxious for my own safety.

So now we have an hour and a half to board our flight. Whenever I travel on business (about once a month) I have no problem arriving an hour before the flight and rushing to the gate. If I miss the flight, my company will buy another ticket or cancel the meeting. When I travel for pleasure, I'm at the airport at least two hours ahead.

God Is Trying To Kill Keith Richards

Keith Richards, while in Fiji, fell out of a coconut tree. No, really, he did.

He was tranported to a hospital in New Zealand, and is now scheduled for surgery to stop a brain hemorrhage.

Meanwhile, God is sending a earthquakes and tidal waves to both Fiji and New Zealand. There is not yet an indication from God as to whether the tsunami is meant to punish Fiji for injuring Richards, or to punish Richards for, well, just about everything.

On a more serious note, my father had a similar surgery as a result of a similar injury, and while it's not necessarily a life threatening matter, I find it doubtful that Richards will be ready to go to Barcelona for the scheduled Rolling Stones concert at the end of May. It took my father several months to get back to his old self.

More Girls Than Boys in CPS Prep Schools

An interesting piece in the Sun-Times: In city's prep schools, girls rule

Girls are soundly beating boys this year when it comes to winning admission to Chicago's prized college prep high schools. The disparity between accepted girls and boys is so high -- almost 70 percent girls to 30 percent boys at one school -- some say it's time to consider giving boys a break at the city's eight selective-enrollment high schools.

I'm personally not terribly surprised, and I think one educator quoted puts her finger on the reason for the disparity:

Developmentally, girls are 18 months ahead of boys, [Judy Kleinfeld, director of the Boys Project] said. On top of that, they walk into classrooms -- often headed by female teachers -- that play to their strengths.

"The big issue is writing, both neat work and verbal skills," Kleinfeld said. "No matter what the subject, if the test requires writing, girls are at an advantage. More and more schools require students to write about their answers, even in mathematics."

Meanwhile, many boys' strengths -- such as "innovative, out-of-the-box thinking where you don't follow the rules" -- are ignored, Kleinfeld said.

Back in the 1950s, Kleinfeld said, "girls would hide their intelligence because it wasn't feminine." But today, girls may be overtaking boys because "what's changed is that girls are giving it their all. . . . They are trying their hardest. . . .

"For girls, especially in the 21st century, all the messages they get say, 'Go, girl, go.' "

A couple of points jumped out. First, it appears most of the solutions offered involved setting spots aside for boys, and for all the gitchy-goo reasons normally cited. From Jones HS Principal Donald Fraynd :"For a citywide school, we ought to as much as possible reflect the city we serve."

Or, for a citywide school, they ought to educate students at the level they can handle, and thus accept only those who can meet certain requirements. It might be nice to live in a city that rewards merit; currently, Chicago is not such a city.

Second, a quote from one girl accepted by a prep school stood out:

"I'm actually a little blown away," [Pasteur Elementary eighth-grader Erin Hederman] said of the girl-dominant statistics. "Usually you hear boys are more superior to girls, but I think now we're proving that girls shouldn't be looked down on because they're girls.

I suspect she has never once heard someone actually say that boys are superior to girls, but that she has heard over and over again what a sexist country this is. In other words, I suspect she's been utterly propagandized by her teachers. I suppose sophistication enough to see through politically correct rhetoric is a lot to ask of an eighth-grade girl, but really, have her teachers not taught her to use her own eyes? Has she not noticed all the academically gifted girls sitting next to her at her own school? The gender gap doesn't start when they take the admissions test.

Finally, as usual in the Chicago media, the article ends with a playful wink at the corruption in this city. From Julie Woestehoff of Chicago's Parents United for Responsible Education:

"Gender weighting would only increase the likelihood that the kids who will get in will be the kids that somebody [with clout] sent.

"After all, this is Chicago."

Yes, it is so amusing that we are so corrupt.