Electronic Writer

Jeff,

Your misappropriation of the details is grandiose enough to deserve my attention. After re-reading your opinion, I think you might win my coveted “Idiot of the Week Award”–normally reserved for bad blogs . . . . The core of your argument is that everyone is “Liberal” in Universities, and it is not representative of the real world. The rest of your editorial logically dissects the results of this “imbalance.”

Please don’t get offended if I use a kindergarten teacher’s tone. I think you are an idiot for not seeing these fundamental tenets. I’ll try to suppress it, but I will use 6th-grader language in order to reach you.

Let’s begin with the concept of the University. So, the University is a place where people go to learn. One primary reason for attending college is to make changes: to your own life, to figure out how to change/shape your future industry, to challenge your personal assumptions, and to learn how to think critically in the future. I have a very good friend who begins this argument with, “The definition of a Liberal is any person who seeks to change [. . . . ]” The institution itself is a place that fosters that change. The relationship between Liberals (seekers of change), and the University is a very tangible one. Perhaps there are 6 to 8% of students (to use your number) who are “Conservative” and already know everything. They might be attending University to simply get a paper degree that certifies their knowledge. The rest of the students, however, are there to learn.

In order to make my motives transparent, I must establish my biases. I am an academic who is no longer in academia. I work and live and get funded by my own business, and the fruits of my own labor. But, I vehemently (oooh, sorry, big word–means: aggressively) will defend the Institution of Academia and the role it plays and needs to play in our world. Another friend in Academia states to his students a very succinct definition of the purpose of Academia: “It is my job as a Professor to show you ‘Utopia,’ or the perfect-world version of our subjects. The real world already exists. It is up to you, the students, to find a balance between the two. If I were to teach you the ‘real world’ ways, you would certainly be skewed in how you translate the materials you learn here to the future world.” While you, Jeff, want the debate between Conservative ideals and Liberal ones to take place within Academia, I believe that is a recipe for disaster. The debate will certainly take place outside of the “Ivory Tower” for the remainder of your life, but if you never learn or practice the skills of questioning the fundamental tenets or your reality you will not have the ability to question any ideals–conservative or liberal.

Lastly, I have an economic argument to challenge your “alarms” that have sounded about Academia. Perhaps the reason why most of Academia voted for Democrats is the history that the party has for financially supporting Academia–and the history the Republican party has for NOT financially supporting the institution. I live in California and voted to recall former Governor Davis (a Democrat that supported Academia heavily), and I voted for now Governor Schwarzenegger because he was, in my opinion, the best leader for our state. One of the first ways that he trimmed the California budget, however, was to cut funding for the California State University system. The 21 campus system is no longer in an expansion mode–they are reducing the number of students they educate each year. Less American’s will have a college education as a result.

At a Federal level, our Conservative President or Ultra-Conservative President, or Extremist President, or whatever President has just recently made a HUGE cut in the Student Loan program. Again, a Conservative choice that is going to reduce the number of college degrees in the good ole USA.

Perhaps the Conservative agenda does not find a home on college campuses because conservatives do not want to pay for Academia. If University Professors use the same logic as the rest of the nation, they need to vote in a way that supports and maintains their economic well-being. Namely, if Academia shrinks, they might lose their job, or not get a raise for cost-of-living increases, or might not have as many students in their classes. If we were to zoom out and take a look at the grand scheme of things, perhaps the Liberal agenda on college campuses is not too dissimilar to the Conservative one in the rest of nation. After all, it just may be the economy, stupid.

This is an opinion/editorial republished in full from the Boston Globe.

A left-wing monopoly on campuses

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | December 2, 2004

THE LEFT-WING takeover of American universities is an old story. In 1951, William F. Buckley Jr. created a sensation with “God and Man at Yale,” which documented the socialist and atheist worldview that even then prevailed in the classrooms of the Ivy League institution he had just graduated from.

Today campus leftism is not merely prevalent. It is radical, aggressive, and deeply intolerant, as another newly minted graduate of another prominent university — Ben Shapiro of UCLA — shows in “Brainwashed,” a recent bestseller. “Under higher education’s facade of objectivity,” Shapiro writes, “lies a grave and overpowering bias” — a charge he backs up with example after freakish example of academics going to ideological extremes.

No surprise, then, that when researchers checked the voter registration of humanities and social science instructors at 19 universities, they discovered a whopping political imbalance. The results, published in The American Enterprise in 2002, made it clear that for all the talk of diversity in higher education, ideological diversity in the modern college faculty is mostly nonexistent.

So, for example, at Cornell, of the 172 faculty members whose party affiliation was recorded, 166 were liberal (Democrats or Greens) and six were conservative (Republicans or Libertarians). At Stanford the liberal-conservative ratio was 151-17. At San Diego State it was 80-11. At SUNY Binghamton, 35-1. At UCLA, 141-9. At the University of Colorado-Boulder, 116-5. Reflecting on these gross disparities, The American Enterprise’s editor, Karl Zinsmeister, remarked: “Today’s colleges and universities . . . do not, when it comes to political and cultural ideas, look like America.”

At about the same time, a poll of Ivy League professors commissioned by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture found that more than 80 percent of those who voted in 2000 had cast their ballots for Democrat Al Gore while just 9 percent backed Republican George W. Bush. While 64 percent said they were “liberal” or “somewhat liberal,” only 6 percent described themselves as “somewhat conservative’ — and none at all as “conservative.”

And the evidence continues to mount.

The New York Times reports that a new national survey of more than 1,000 academics shows Democratic professors outnumbering Republicans by at least 7 to 1 in the humanities and social sciences. At Berkeley and Stanford, according to a separate study that included professors of engineering and the hard sciences, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is even more lopsided: 9 to 1.

Such one-party domination of any major institution is problematic in a nation where Republicans and Democrats can be found in roughly equal numbers. In academia it is scandalous. It strangles dissent, suppresses debate, and causes minorities to be discriminated against. It is certainly antithetical to good scholarship. “Any political position that dominates an institution without dissent,” writes Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts, “deteriorates into smugness, complacency, and blindness. … Groupthink is an anti-intellectual condition.”

Worse yet, it leads faculty members to abuse their authority. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has just released the results of the first survey to measure student perceptions of faculty partisanship. The ACTA findings are striking. Of 658 students polled at the top 50 US colleges, 49 percent said professors “frequently comment on politics in class even though it has nothing to do with the course,” 48 percent said some “presentations on political issues seem totally one-sided,” and 46 percent said that “professors use the classroom to present their personal political views.”

Academic freedom is not only meant to protect professors; it is also supposed to ensure students’ right to learn without being molested. When instructors use their classrooms to indoctrinate and propagandize, they cheat those students and betray the academic mission they are entrusted with. That should be intolerable to honest men and women of every stripe — liberals and conservatives alike.

“If this were a survey of students reporting widespread sexual harassment,” says ACTA’s president, Anne Neal, “there would be an uproar.” That is because universities take sexual harassment seriously. Intellectual harassment, on the other hand — like the one-party conformity it flows from — they ignore. Until that changes, the scandal of the campuses will only grow worse.

But, you didn’t have to prove it. So, y’all failed my test, but it doesn’t really matter. I am gonna keep writing anyways. I guess that I am going to just have to get a little more caustic in order to illicit a response.

We Need Dialog

Now, more than ever, we need to keep interacting. The deadline is coming for the electors to vote. Kenneth Blackwell is not eveer going to tell us the results of the votes that were counted behind closed and locked doors. So, stay close and stay active. We have a four-year typhoon that is about ready to hit with Biometric Passports, electronic listening, and a further suspension of our personal rights. Do not be lulled into complacency by the media that can only report about their famous anchors retiring . . . .

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Okay, I have been posting for nearly a month, and with absolutely no feedback, comments, etc., it is starting to wear thin. How about pressing the little ol’ “comments” button at the bottom of this post, give me a shout out, and recharge my public-writing batteries.

Round Two

I went back the next day to the same Coffeeshop, and they offer FREE wireless Internet for their customers.

This chicken has found a new coop!

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

An Evening Out

I have been told that we create our own reality. And, I am starting to believe it. Although the coffee shop is not new, it is new to me. The scene is really good. Weather Report is playing in the main room. The coffee is strong. The are copies of poetry-related things and glass bricks. It is cool. In fact, the scene is pretty nice.

The feeling here is academic and open-minded. People are arguing about the value of religion in our world, among people finishing their next paper. It is a great scene

Independent coffeeshops have an inherent disingenuousness that makes them really attractive. While Starbucks has been stone-washed and sterilized into conformity–the very element that makes them a successful business, indie-coffee houses can display graffiti on the walls as art, publicize local art shows, and play alternative (and even offensive) music.

I have found Independent coffee houses to be moody–closer to the human spirit than any other establishment. You know when your favorite barrista is working, and the lattes are just better. While the coffee is consistent in the Other, the workers are faceless and nameless and may express themselves in subtle and corporate-approved forms.

It is sort of the prozac of the industry. The Other gets to be a nice and steady establishment–slightly better than normal. On the other hand, the Independent Coffee shops are like real people. Real moody people. They complain, and kick, and scream, and they are have good days, and bad days. They are, in short human, and it is the inconsistency that makes them interesting.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1124-11.htm

This is a great article with very specific steps to end our occupation of Iraq. This is worth the read.

That literature list with all the books on it (a couple of posts ago) was inappropriate. I don’t need to go spouting the number of books that I have read. If you want to talk literature, I’d love to do it. But, I certainly do not need to brag about my good fortune for having read so much literature.

So, my apologies.

I was, however, reacting to my current favorite idiot http://tahoediary.blogspot.com/. He has his little blog out there (don’t misinterpret–I am glad that he is writing) and he claims to be part of the Right Wing Conspiracy! So, I read some of his post looking for some evidence to support his claims.

What I found, however, was a bunch of garbage! I found nothing of substance, an unusually large image of his cat, and this literature list where he claims that having read 33 of the 101 must-read books is an accomplishment!

I am sorry, Mr. Right Wing Conspirator–if you want to be part of your group,CONSPIRE! Do something with your blog. Make it interesting. Make it caustic. Say something! (You might want to consider what you tell people about your relationship with your cat . . . .) But, just posting mundane links doesn’t make you part of the conspiracy. Instead, it renders you to a much lower position–merely background fuzz or perhaps an info-mercial.

Ah, yes. The Sacred Institution of Marriage

If I hear one more “deeply religious” person tell me that the motivation behind same-sex marriages is the “tax break,” I am going to vomit. The core of that statement has a deeper, more sinister message. It implies that same-sex relationships are founded out of necessity and usership of our system–not out of love. It would be a slippery-slope for me to continue by thinking that perhaps gays and lesbians cannot even experience love because “it goes against nature.” Although, I recognize the logical fallacy of that claim, I bet there are others out there who don’t. Slippery-slope or not, there are those who would not stop there with their fuzzy logic and overgeneralizations . . . .

I am a straight, single male who has never been married–which, probably disqualifies me from making statements about gays, lesbians, and even married (I think we should call them “natural” –at least that is what THEY would prefer) couples. So, rather than talk about them, I am going to espouse some historical trivia about their precious institution called “marriage.”

Marriage was Based Upon Practical Reasons

Way back when, at the time marriages were founded, the ceremony held a dual role in society. There was the traditional role where a couple asks for communal recognition of their previously-existing relationship. The participants already HAD a relationship. They were simply asking for everyone else to recongnize it.

In addition, marriage had a practical side to it. As the kids got married, it became time for them to move out of their parents’ houses and get a place of their own. So, the entire community would assemble together and give them gifts–all of the things necessary to maintain/run a household. Couple that with a nice dowry, and voila–parents could get the spare room and the office back–all in a good weekend.

The idea that their relatioship is being “blessed” by God was tacked on somewhere by the men in charge. A religious element probably existed somewhere as part of the process because many early communities were formed around spiritual groups, but the ceremony of marriage itself was really devised for practical reasons.

Does Anyone Actually Know Someone who Married for Tax Reasons?

I guess the other big question that I have about the sanctity of marriage relates to a story that has been quoted to me more times than I can count about two little old ladies . . . .

Invariably, the discussion begins with the concept of same-sex relationships, and the return shot is about the tax breaks. How it is not right to use the God-granted institution of marriage for the associated tax breaks. The next step in the argument is then about two, mythical old ladies who wanted to get married-for the tax breaks. Someone thinks that is fine, and someone else thinks it is terrible. My point is: I think it is a lie!

I have heard about the mythical grannies, but have never met anyone from that generation that would mix sexual mores and their reputation for a taxbreak! In all probability, they woukd be a likely group of career taxpayers who would pay more taxes to keep their reputation clean. After all, we are talking about the “Leave it to Beaver” generation with their white-washed reality and no camera shots of the bedroom,

I also have a message for the “au naturale” couples:

If you are married for the tax breaks, go see a counselor. You are an idiot and a loser, and you need spiritual cleansing/replacement treatment, you need to engage the cerebral portions of your brain (go ahead, plug them in–even for a minute–it wont hurt you), and you must cease and desist projecting your inadequecies onto others.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

This list of essential books is floating around in the blogosphere, and I thought I would keep it going. I have bolded the books that I have read.

1. Beowulf
2. Achebe, Chinua – Things Fall Apart
3. Agee, James – A Death in the Family
4. Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
5. Baldwin, James – Go Tell It on the Mountain
6. Beckett, Samuel – Waiting for Godot
7. Bellow, Saul – The Adventures of Augie March
8. Brontë, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
9. Brontë, Emily – Wuthering Heights
10. Camus, Albert – The Stranger
11. Cather, Willa – Death Comes for the Archbishop
12. Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
13. Chekhov, Anton – The Cherry Orchard
14. Chopin, Kate – The Awakening
15. Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
16. Cooper, James Fenimore – The Last of the Mohicans
17. Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage
18. Dante – Inferno
19. de Cervantes, Miguel – Don Quixote
20. Defoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe
21. Dickens, Charles – A Tale of Two Cities
22. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor – Crime and Punishment
23. Douglass, Frederick – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
24. Dreiser, Theodore – An American Tragedy
25. Dumas, Alexandre – The Three Musketeers
26. Eliot, George – The Mill on the Floss
27. Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
28. Emerson, Ralph Waldo – Selected Essays
29. Faulkner, William – As I Lay Dying
30. Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury
31. Fielding, Henry – Tom Jones
32. Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
33. Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary
34. Ford, Ford Madox – The Good Soldier
35. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von – Faust
36. Golding, William – Lord of the Flies
37. Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the d’Urbervilles
38. Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter
39. Heller, Joseph – Catch 22
40. Hemingway, Ernest – A Farewell to Arms
41. Homer – The Iliad
42. Homer – The Odyssey
43. Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
44. Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes Were Watching God
45. Huxley, Aldous – Brave New World
46. Ibsen, Henrik – A Doll’s House
47. James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady
48. James, Henry – The Turn of the Screw
49. Joyce, James – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
50. Kafka, Franz – The Metamorphosis
51. Kingston, Maxine Hong – The Woman Warrior
52. Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
53. Lewis, Sinclair – Babbitt
54. London, Jack – The Call of the Wild
55. Mann, Thomas – The Magic Mountain
56. Marquez, Gabriel García – One Hundred Years of Solitude
57. Melville, Herman – Bartleby the Scrivener
58. Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
59. Miller, Arthur – The Crucible
60. Morrison, Toni – Beloved
61. O’Connor, Flannery – A Good Man is Hard to Find
62. O’Neill, Eugene – Long Day’s Journey into Night
63. Orwell, George – Animal Farm
64. Pasternak, Boris – Doctor Zhivago
65. Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar
66. Poe, Edgar Allan – Selected Tales
67. Proust, Marcel – Swann’s Way
68. Pynchon, Thomas – The Crying of Lot 49
69. Remarque, Erich Maria – All Quiet on the Western Front
70. Rostand, Edmond – Cyrano de Bergerac
71. Roth, Henry – Call It Sleep
72. Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye
73. Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
74. Shakespeare, William – Macbeth
75. Shakespeare, William – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
76. Shakespeare, William – Romeo and Juliet
77. Shaw, George Bernard – Pygmalion
78. Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
79. Silko, Leslie Marmon – Ceremony
80. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
81. Sophocles – Antigone
82. Sophocles – Oedipus Rex
83. Steinbeck, John – The Grapes of Wrath
84. Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island
85. Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
86. Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
87. Thackeray, William – Vanity Fair
88. Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
89. Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
90. Turgenev, Ivan – Fathers and Sons
91. Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
92. Voltaire – Candide
93. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. – Slaughterhouse-Five
94. Walker, Alice – The Color Purple
95. Wharton, Edith – The House of Mirth
96. Welty, Eudora – Collected Stories
97. Whitman, Walt – Leaves of Grass
98. Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
99. Williams, Tennessee – The Glass Menagerie
100. Woolf, Virginia – To the Lighthouse
101. Wright, Richard – Native Son