ben stein

I've heard of Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Sugar... but "Big Science"? From the NYT this morning:

Shortly before he was to attend a screening in January of the documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” which is about alternatives to the theory of evolution, Roger Moore, a film critic for The Orlando Sentinel, learned that his invitation had been revoked by the film’s marketers.

“Well, you already invited me,” he recalled thinking at the time. “I’m going to go.”

So Mr. Moore traveled to a local megachurch and planted himself among a large group of pastors to watch the movie. In it, Ben Stein, the actor and economist (and regular contributor to The New York Times) interviews scientists and teachers who say that Darwinism gets too much emphasis in the classroom and that proponents of the theory of intelligent design are treated unfairly.

There were nondisclosure agreements to sign that day, but Mr. Moore did not, and proceeded to write perhaps the harshest review “Expelled” has received thus far. The film will open April 18, but has been screened several times privately for religious audiences. Mr. Moore deplored what he perceived as “loaded images, loaded rhetoric, few if any facts” and accused Mr. Stein of using a “Holocaust denier’s” tactics.

Which, of course, was exactly the reaction the moviemakers were hoping to avoid by keeping mainstream critics out.Mr. Stein said in a telephone interview that he had not read Mr. Moore’s review, but that “being compared with a Holocaust denier is nonsense,” adding, “This guy is extremely confused.” He said he decided to participate in the project because “there’s just a lot of people who don’t believe that big science and Darwinism should have a stranglehold on academic life, and they have been waiting for a voice.”

Yes, I am SO tired of Big Science thinking that only THEY have a right to be heard in university science departments. Shouldn't the people decide what's true? Why have speculation, opinion, superstition, hearsay, religious conviction, and moronitude been EXPELLED from science classes? And seriously--we all know, and Mr Stein just reminds us of this, that facts and reality themselves have a well-known liberal bias.

Here's Moore's review. It's sharp--as a rhetorical analysis I'd be proud to see one of my students write it.

david brooks on Bush

David Brooks' piece on Bush in today's NEW YORK TIMES is typical of his strategy these days: write from ABOVE the fray about Iraq, observe the personalities and sociological "facts" while ignoring the actual issues. In a column about how Bush is calm about Iraq even as his own party deserts him, Brooks never once bothers to talk about, or ask Bush about, the actual facts of Iraq: the lies to get the war, the shifting justifications for the war, the dishonest linking of Iraq to Al Qaeda both before the invasion and now, the strategy created with PR in mind rather than with actual success, the bullying and demonizing of anyone who dares oppose the administration's infinite wisdom. No, Brooks would rather talk about how Bush and Tolstoy (??? what the hell is that?) have different views of the power of the individual leader to shape history.

His last column was the same thing. In a piece purportedly examining--again, from on high, with a disengaged voice, never once granting that he was a fervent supporter of this bullshit war from day 1--the "endgame" debate in Congress.

At least Bill Kristol has the honesty to continue to advocate for his war, rather than, like Brooks, pretending he is just a disinterested observer.

gonzales and a bedridden Ashcroft

This story about Gonzales (pre-AG) and Andy Card trying to browbeat a hospitalized AG John Ashcroft into authorizing the patently illegal "terrorist surveillance program" (the illegal wiretapping--why don't they just call these things "the prevention of torturing cute baby bunnies programs"?) is just amazing.

david brooks on wolfie

David Brooks today: Wolfowitz's big mistake at the World Bank wasn't securing a raise for his girlfriend before shipping her off to State; it wasn't having his deputies eviscerate language about family planning and global warming in World Bank reports; and it certainly wasn't bringing the Bush administration philosophy of "we are in charge, you may not question us, nobody has oversight over us" to the bank.

No, it was not being nice enough to the Democrats who aren't going to like you anyway.

Brooks is ingesting more and more of the Kool-Aid coming out of the White House that says "the only reason people have to oppose what we do is that they are either implacable partisan enemies and friends-of-terrorists, or that we just aren't communicating well enough." I thought he was smarter than that.

samuel alito at duquesne

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Samuel Alito came to Duquesne University here in Pittsburgh to receive the Carol Los Mansmann Award for Distinguished Public Service today, and I was there (although I had to leave before Alito spoke). It was a big deal--Alito was there, of course, but so were eleven other justices from the third circuit federal appeals court (where Alito and Mansmann served). Incompetent Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff sent his tribute by teleconference, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sent a filmed dealie, and a bunch of local dignitaries were there. It was a very important day for Duquesne and the Duquesne law school, and good for them.

I do question, though, why a Catholic university, devoted to service to the poor and oppressed and even to prisoners, would honor a man who has almost uniformly over his judicial career sided with the powerful over the weak, corporations over consumers, the state over its citizens, police over civilians. Most recently Alito dissented in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, arguing in essence that the Bush administration has the right to hold Guantanamo prisoners indefinitely, without charging them, without giving them legal counsel, and without allowing them to even challenge their detention. But what's wrong with that? The Magna Carta is clearly "quaint" and outdated, and Republican Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani thinks that the president has the right to throw anyone he wants in a hole forever and never should have to charge them with anything. (His rival, Mitt Romney, is undecided about whether we should revive this element of the divine right of kings--he'd want to talk to "smart lawyers" to see if he could do that. I suggest John Yoo or David Addington.)

(There were only two protesters outside of the speech and they were very quickly sent off-campus by security, although both were members of the D.U. community--the explanation, directly from the mouth of D.U. legal counsel, was that political protests are not allowed on campus because they violate Duquesne's tax-exempt nonprofit status.)

NYU college republicans

I wasn't very fond of NYU when I was there, but this certainly wasn't something I would have expected:

'[M]embers of the [NYU College Republicans] who present their N.Y.U. identification become immigration agents looking for an illegal in the crowd. The agent who successfully identifies the illegal immigrant wins a gift certificate.

Students have sent club officials e-mails calling the the event “racist” and “disgusting.” But the club said it is about stoking debate on the issue of illegal immigrants.

(Further clarification — it seems that an “actor” will play an “illegal immigrant,” wearing a label saying as much. The first contestant to find him or her in the crowd will win a prize.)

On today’s illegal-immigrant hunt, Sarah Chambers, the 21-year-old president of N.Y.U.’s College Republicans, told The A.P., “It’s not a racist event, first and foremost. Just because we don’t want illegal immigrants being able to completely disregard the laws of our country doesn’t make us racist.”'

I don't quite know what to think about this. Does this mean NYU has finally achieved its goal of leaving behind its educate-the-children-of-city-immigrants identity and ascending to quasi-Ivy League status--a haven for the white and smug?

decisions, decisions

Ever since he first said it, back when he was saying that Don Rumsfeld would keep his job until the Second Coming, I've been fascinated by Bush's statement

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."

And just last week:

"I'm the decision-maker."

There's so much there that's so telling about Bush's character. The petulant child, always overlooked in favor of his smarter and more responsible brothers, insisting on the validity of the position he earned (but not fully through his own merit or efforts); the wishfully thinking child; the man reduced to reminding everyone of the powers of his position because nobody takes him seriously anymore; the President stripped of whatever rhetorical powers as "everyday guy" he once had and reminding us that the flip side of "everyday guy" is "guy not equipped for positions of huge power and responsibility." I suspect there's a little message in there for Bar and Daddy, too.

But what keeps running through my subconscious, because it's just so obvious that it doesn't even need to reach my conscious mind, is this: the idea of Bill Clinton saying that, in response to criticism or questioning of his policies, is so absurd as to be laughable.