[Guest post by DRJ]

The University of Colorado at Boulder, home of Ward Churchill and the Pot Smoke-Out, is so liberal that even the University’s Chancellor is searching for a right-wing professor to add diversity to the campus:

“How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder? The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor’s analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.

Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. “We should also talk about intellectual diversity,” he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation’s first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical.

“Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.” Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and “global gender justice.” While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.” We “fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus,” replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.”

Chancellor Peterson is (surprise!) a Republican and he hopes to lure conservatives to campus as visiting professors — people like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, columnist George Will and Philip Zelikow, who chaired the 9/11 Commission.

However, even Chancellor Peterson knows it’s going to be a hard sell. That’s probably why he acknowledges that the visiting professors of conservative thought may not actually be conservatives. After all, some French teachers aren’t actually French.

– DRJ

Posted by WLS:

This would have been a kooky post 2 weeks ago, but I think this subject may now find its way into the bloodstream of the body-politic, and I think the events of this week elevate it above crackpot conspiracy theory.

For several decades since the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, there has existed at the fringe of that movement a BlackNationalist  movement.  One of the tenets of the “Black Nationalist” movement is the idea of “racial separation” in the United States — the creation of a majority black sovereign entity within the confines of the United States as a remedial measure to redress the long-standing impact of institutional racism.   

This Black Nationalist movement found intellectual heft in the writings of W.E.B. DuBois, but was most prominently embodied in secular terms by the creation of the Black Panther Party by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.

At the same time, however, the Black Nationalist movement found traction in the Mosques of the Nation of Islam …… in Chicago.  Black Muslims advocated the establishment of a separate African American homeland in the United States. Wallace D. Muhammad, who succeeded his father Elijah Muhammad in 1975, downplayed black nationalism, admitted nonblack members, and stressed strict Islamic beliefs and practices. In the late 1970s, however, a dissident faction, led by Louis Farrakhan assumed the original name Nation of Islam and reasserted the principles of black separatism.

This is the same Louis Farrakhan that was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Trinity United Church and Rev. Wright.

And, as pointed out in his column  today by Michael Medved, a heretofore unexplored aspect of the political theology of the Trinity United Church that Obama has been a member of for 20 years is the Church’s self-described “Black Value System”. 

The website for the congregation begins with an introductory paragraph under the heading, “About Us,” that unequivocally proclaims: “We are an African people, and remain ‘true to our native land,’ the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.”

For many years, the next paragraph (recently removed due to the Wright controversy) appeared on the website and shamelessly explained explained: “Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System….We believe in the following twelve precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered.” Those “precepts and covenantal statements” include, “Commitment to the Black Community” (Number 2), “Disavowal of the Pursuit of ‘Middleclassness’” (Number 8), “Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System (Number 11) and “Personal Commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.” (Number 12).

  Medved points out that still on the Church’as website is a Rev. Wright’s “10 Point Vision” for the Church, which begins with “A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITTMENT TO AFRICA.” 

So, Obama has been a member of a Church for 20 years, and developed a close and abiding relationship with a minister who preachs hate from the pulpit, who advoctates in writing a ”Black Value System” that is based on racial identity, and has a vision that is fixated on an ancestral land and not the land and country of one’s birth that is responsible for the blessings he has received in life.

How are these “values” different from the racial separatism values of the Nation Of Islam and the Black Nationalism movement?  They arose in the same city by religious leaders who are contemporaries, friends, and political allies. 

Does Barack Obama’s embrace of the political theology of Rev. Wright, and all that it entails given its foundation and city of origin, create less than Six Degrees of Separation between Barack Obama and the Black Nationalist movement for racial separatism? 

These are questions that deserve to be asked now.

Is Barack Obama simply a the smiling face and eloquent voice of a new Black Panther Party built upon the twin spires of racial identity and liberal white guilt?

[Guest post by DRJ]

It’s tough to be Santa Claus these days:

“Life is not so jolly for the 21st century Santa Claus.

He keeps his white gloved hands where parents can see them and buys liability insurance, just in case. He doesn’t ask for names or where children live — that might arouse suspicion. He’s given up the pipe, and the jelly belly might be next. And while he may bring tidings of joy, the man in the red suit endures criminal background checks like everybody else.

“A lot of people think all you gotta be is a nice old man,” says Timothy Connaghan, professional Santa instructor and president of The Kringle Group, a conglomeration of North Pole-centric businesses. “Put a suit on, sit in a chair. But you have to be politically correct.”

Today’s Kris Kringle is poked, prodded and tailored to fit our times. It’s no longer enough to show up at the mall, laugh merrily and hoist children on his lap. In fact, that job is now considered better left to parents, to avoid inappropriate touching. In mistletoed shopping malls across America, Santa Claus is watching his back.“

Aspiring Santas learn their trade at Santa University:

“Everything is choreographed in the land of Santa, down to each word and hand movement. The tricks of the trade are passed down at various Santa schools scattered across the country. Connaghan takes his academy — The International University of Santa Claus — on the road, making pit stops in different cities.

Major topics of study include how to hold children correctly, managing sticky conversations and proper care of hair and beard. Santa’s hands should be visible in all photos, Connaghan says. And he must never make promises he can’t keep.

And what if a little girl or boy confides in Santa, revealing physical abuse at home? Though it may surprise some, Santa can’t just leap off his chair and tell the police. Instead, he must enlist the help of a teacher or principal, who are protected from libel in case of false accusations, according to Trolli.”

Modern Santas are also health-conscious and environmentally friendly:

“In keeping with the anti-smoking times, the man from the North Pole put down his pipe a long time ago. Now, defying his rotund image, Santa is trying to lose weight.

“People expect Santa to be big, big, big, big,” says Ron Levine, a Santa from Wappingers Falls, N.Y., who is, in fact, Jewish. “I’m 225 to 250 pounds, so my belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly. Am I trying to lose some weight? Oh yes, every day. Because it’s necessary for my health.”

The AORBS [Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas], that alliance of bearded Santas, will stage a weigh-in this summer at its annual convention in Overland Park, Kan. Each Santa who fails to meet his weight-loss goal will pay a fee toward a charity. “The problem is the children don’t care if Santa’s fat,” Trolli says. “It’s the parents who want Santa fat.”

Santa has recognized the importance of being eco-conscious, too. Levine, billed as the “Green Santa,” is donning a suit of that color and promoting the environment at FAO Schwarz this Christmas season while promoting a new children’s book: When Santa Turned Green.”

It sounds like 21st Century Santas need that union … as well as psychological services and hazard pay.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

A county sheriff in Colorado plans to decorate a Christmas tree on county property to make the point that America is a Christian nation and most people like it that way:

“To heck with white lights and an all-inclusive “holiday” celebration as touted by a Fort Collins citizens group, the Larimer County sheriff said this week.

Sheriff Jim Alderden believes such a secular event runs counter to what most people in America and Larimer County hold to be true - Christ and Christmas. So Alderden is putting up his own Christmas - “not a holiday” - tree outside the county sheriff’s administration building and is asking people to decorate it Dec. 1.

Alderden wants “members of the public who share our faith or object to government intrusion into our religious freedoms to join us,” he wrote Wednesday in his weekly newsletter to employees and outside subscribers.”

Alderden’s actions pit him against the secular actions of the city government. He believes “the city is trying to brush aside the building blocks of American society - Christianity” and he wants to change the debate:

“The fact that we are even engaged in a discourse of whether Christmas trees and Christian symbols of faith should be allowed on city property is absurd,” Alderden said. “Our country, and sadly our own community, has reached that point where people of good faith and good conscience can no longer stand silently while a belligerent minority usurps our heritage.”

The sheriff’s office is on county-owned land and is exempt from city restrictions. The county administrator has no problem with the sheriff’s position:

“County Manager Frank Lancaster said the county has no policies against erecting Christmas trees on its property. “The sheriff is very passionate about this,” Lancaster said. “And we have no problems with it.”

I file this under backlash.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Hiccup.

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[Guest post by DRJ]

Where else but San Francisco?

“City health officials took steps Thursday toward opening the nation’s first legal safe-injection room, where addicts could shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses.

Hoping to reduce San Francisco’s high rate of fatal drug overdoses, the public health department co-sponsored a symposium on the only such facility in North America, a 4-year-old Vancouver site where an estimated 700 intravenous users a day self-administer narcotics under the supervision of nurses.”

San Franciscans have surrendered when it comes to the War on Drugs.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

I know modern children are precocious but this is novel.

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[Guest post by DRJ]

Thoughts on the intersection between American patriotism and dissent that I’ve added to my “I With I’d Thought of That” file …

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[Posted by WLS]

Question:  If a deaf gay guy used sign language to proposition another deaf gay guy in a gay nightclub, would it be a crime?

If not, then why is a toe tap and a hand gesture under the partition of a men’s room stall a crime? 

My question is purely one of legalities — not of politics.  I think he should and must resign simply due to his inability to control his impulses. 

But, he’s being driven from office upon the canard that he “pled guilty” — but I can’t find the elements of a crime in the taped interview. 

When did the solicitation of consensual sexual encounter — not for financial renumeration — become a crime? 

No sex act in public took place.  Maybe Craig would have only exchanged telephone numbers with a willing paramour for the purpose of making a later rendevous. 

Or maybe he wanted to have sex in the men’s room stall.

WE DON’T KNOW.  The ”crime” to the extent its defined here is in the mind of the cop.  A guy touches the cop foot to foot and makes a hand gesture, and the cop slides him a card that says “Police” and he’s under arrest.

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[Posted by WLS] 

60 Minutes ran a disheartening repeat of an episode it first aired last spring about the take-over of civic duty and responsibility by the hip-hop culture’s ”Stop Snitching” campaign. 

In reading some of the backstory on Newark Mayor Booker in a NYT Series titled “The Hard Part”, I found this by Andrew Jacobs titled “Newark Battles Murder and its Accomplice, Silence.”

What can a community really expect from its police when it refuses to help itself?  Note from the fourth graph a depressingly similar crime perpetrated in Newark just four months ago — a group of young men surround an 18 year old college student before one shoots him in the back of the head.

Ho-hum.  Four months later, another crime. 

Why is Newark in an uproar only now?  Why not four months ago?

Here’s the text of the 60 Minutes piece if you missed it and you’re interested.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/60minutes/main2704565.shtml

[posted by Justin Levine] 

Remember the terrorist attack at LAX in 2002 when the Middle Eastern terrorist killed 2 people and injured 4 near the ticket counter at El Al Airlines?

What’s that you say? You don’t recall it being a “terrorist attack”?? Well I guess you could be forgiven. After all, CNN, the FBI, the Bush Administration and L.A. Mayor James Hahn said that there was “no indication of any terrorism” and that it was just an “isolated incident” that was nothing more than a “criminal act”.

In other words, in the face of so many “experts”, you could be forgiven for not using your own common sense and deliberately choosing to be ignorant.

At the time, media outlets (including the L.A. Times) deliberately chose to be ignorant as well – publishing stories with headline howlers such as “FBI Still Seeks Motive in LAX Shootings.”

Some observers, including Patterico guest-blogger Jack Dunphy called them on their B.S.

Apparently, the L.A. Times managed to grow a brain this week when

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[posted by Justin Levine]

KFI host John Ziegler is claiming he has sources telling him that Clinton Administation officials “at the highest levels” are now lobbying Disney officials to pull (or at least edit) “The Path To 9/11″ from ABC before it airs on 9/10 & 9/11.

[The lobbying reportedly includes efforts directed at former Democratic Senator George Mitchell, whom I believe is still Chairman of the Disney company, if I’m not mistaken.]

I have no independent verification of the above claim, but the Internet war over this film is now picking up steam.

The ironic part is, the critics of this movie who haven’t seen it yet are going to have egg on their face. This film in no way “blames the entire event on Clinton” as some falsely claim. “The Path to 9/11″ absolutely slams Bush in a number of ways:

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