Dartlog caught this new development in the Dartmouth blogging world before it was mentioned here (that I've seen, although with the seeming DNS trouble with this site I've been off a bit lately). The site is very heavy on the letter "L" for some reason.
Posted by Jonathan,
6:51 PM
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Friday, October 31, 2003
Free Speech on the college campus has been a tricky issue lately
Rainbow Network's article says"Rap star Elephant Man has been banned from appearing at an American university (Alfred University in New York) because of his anti-gay lyrics." However, the article goes on to say that the University has simply "decided to cancel the singer’s appearance" which is decidedly different. They won't be *paying* him to come and advocate violence against gays.
When is it acceptable to ban an artist from your college, or simply decide not to invite them, because of the controversial content of their art? Obviously, the large majority of people would find it unacceptable to use Dartmouth's funds to pay someone to come whose lyrics advocated killing all the gay people... but what if he came for free - would Dartmouth have a right to nix his performance? Would they have the responsibility to do so - or would that enforce unacceptably tight speech guidelines on the campus? I'm not sure how I feel about this.
see the article at: http://www.rainbownetwork.com/content/News.asp?newsid=3870
Posted by Sarah,
7:59 PM
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The Most Badass City in America
Now this is grassroots feminist activism. Don't mess with Philly. CNN has got the story here.
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said Friday.
Posted by Jordan,
5:53 PM
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More Grist for Social Norms
Drinking rates among higher-risk drinkers on American college campuses -- those who are white, male and underage -- are significantly lower on college campuses with larger proportions of minority, female and older students. Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study reported these findings in a study appearing in the November 2003 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
"The results may shed light on why fraternities, sororities and freshman dorms have particularly high binge-drinking rates and account for a disproportionate share of alcohol problems on campuses," Wechsler said. "These social and living arrangements tend to group higher-risk drinkers together, with little chance of their intermingling with those who drink less heavily."
Posted by T. Wood,
2:49 PM
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A bit of food for thought... This is especially interesting given the context of the Army's new hip-hop campaign seeking to increase the number of minority recruits: http://www.bet.com/articles/0,,c1gb7802-8643,00.html
A Tale of Two Soldiers By Christine Phillip, BET.com Staff Writer
Posted October 24, 2003 -- Army Spec. Shoshana Johnson, the African American women who was held prisoner of war in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was looking forward to a quiet discharge from the Army in a few days.
Battle scarred and weary, she has said not a word as her fellow POW comrade in arms Jessica Lynch cashes in with book and movie deals and a celebrity status in the media.
But it is the Army that is forcing Johnson to break her peace.
A few days ago, military brass informed her that she would receive a 30 percent disability benefit for her injuries. Lynch, who is White, was discharged in August and will receive an 80 percent disability benefit.
The difference amounts to $600 or $700 a month in payments, and that is causing Johnson and her family to speak out. The are so troubled by what they see as a "double standard," that they have enlisted Rev. Jesse Jackson to help make their case to the news media.
Jackson, who plans to plead Johnson's cause with the White House, the Pentagon and members of Congress, says the payment smacks a double standard and racism.
"Here's a case of two women, same [unit], same war; everything about their service commitment and their risk is equal. . . . Yet there's an enormous contrast between how the military has handled these two cases," Jackson told The Washington Post.
Johnson's father, Claude Johnson, himself an Army veteran, says that while neither he nor his family begrudge Lynch her celebrity or disability payments, he believes that his daughter should get her due, and it is more than a 30 percent disability benefit.
For its part, the Army, in denying charges of double standard, said Friday that claims are awarded to soldiers according to their injuries.
Johnson, 30, the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, was held captive for 22 days, when her unit stumbled into an ambush in southern Iraq last March. Eleven solders were killed, and six, including Lynch and Johnson, were taken prisoners.
Johnson was shot in both legs and is still traumatized by her war experience. In addition to walking with a limp, she suffers from bouts of depression.
Why do you think Johnson is getting 50 percent less in disability benefits than Jessica Lynch? Lynch's "fame" or racism or what?
Posted by Ms. Anthrope,
7:42 AM
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Brother Dean's Least Favorite Former Personal Preacher of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business We do our fair bit of kidding about the various presidential candidates here in sunny Hanover. But I am curious what the general consensus among the Free Dartmouth community is on everyone's favorite Reverend, Al Sharpton. My take: The man debates charmingly and has been a class act for most of the presidential process. He also has a horrible history of race-baiting and has long antagonized and angered New York City, one of the most Democratic places in the country (the last two mayors are Republican, progressive on many social issues). Sharpton has stolen much of his campaign agenda from Jesse Jackson's 1988 and 1984 agendas and from Jesse Jackson Jr.'s work in congress. Sharpton's tax evasions and financial corruption long ago became a running joke in the metropolitan sections of the NY Times (Lexis-Nexus 'Sharpton' and 'tax evasion' and you won't be disappointed with either the volume or the flavor of the results…I stuck an example below). And don't get me started on Tawana Brawley and the blight Sharpton inflicted on New York, the NYPD, or urban race relations. The Reverend does a great job during the debate. He is also one of the reasons why the Democratic debates have been irrelevant. Every line he delivers with aplomb is nothing more than a nuisance to the serious process of nominating a candidate to the Democratic ticket. He obviously just wants to “replace” Jesse Jackson So I pose the question: Is Sharpton a negative and if so, how damaging is he?
Mr. Sharpton was indicted in 1989 on charges of income tax fraud and stealing from charitable donors but was acquitted at a trial. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file a tax return for 1986. In December 2000, he said in a deposition that he had not filed tax returns since 1998.
Posted by Brian,
1:40 AM
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Thursday, October 30, 2003 France are assholes
To the five or six people out there who are still unconvinced that Jacques Chirac is at best morally tantamount to George W. Bush, if not a few notches below him, France is now willing not only to engage in premptive strikes on rogue states (like us) but to drop the big one if it feels sufficiently threatened:
France is preparing to change its policy on nuclear weapons to include a threat to unleash first strikes against "rogue states", a newspaper reported yesterday.
The shift may seem strange in the light of France's refusal to approve the US-led invasion of Iraq, which was justified by American and British allegations that Baghdad was developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. But Paris said there was no clear proof that Iraq held such weapons and that, in any case, a military invasion would not set a sensible precedent for controlling the proliferation of WMD.
A military invasion isn't a sensible precendent, but a nuclear strike is? I guess then you would never be forced to demonstrate WMD existed. You'd just have to assume you hit 'em all.
This is why all "southern candidate" , "southern VP on ticket" rhetoric is rediculous. if we cant have our own senators support us, how are we going to win republican states?
Bush. Miller -- a conservative Democrat who has frequently broken with his party to support the President in key votes -- told the Weekly Standard that Bush is "the right man at the right time" to govern the country. The two men have been friends for nearly a decade. Miller earned much scorn from Dem leaders last month for his new book -- A National Party No More -- in which Miller criticized the party for being too liberal, too elitist, and too subservient to special interest groups to win any more Presidential elections. As an aside, Democratic leaders have also been frustrated by their inability over the past ten months to recruit a viable candidate for Miller's open Senate seat.
He can critisize of for being too liberal, but i say southern dems are too hawkish, backwards and unreliable for the party. concede the south, withdraw dnc funding, and take it to the battlegrounds of the midwest.
Posted by janos,
8:23 PM
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Rumsfeld, Rockefeller Republican?
I was just starting in Washington when Rumsfeld was starting at the OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity], and I vaguely remember him being outspoken for the agency and for the poor, but when I went through the documentary material in the Nixon archives, it really came through that he was fighting pretty hard for OEO and fighting in an Administration with a President who really didn't like the whole agency and its mission. And what comes through, of course, after thirty years is that we know that that's not an automatic thing. We've got all kinds of counter-examples over the years where people were named to be in charge of government agencies where they did their utmost to weaken the power and the mission of those agencies. That's a commonplace phenomenon in Washington, the fox in the henhouse. Regulators who don't like regulation, anti-environmentalists who get appointed to environmental jobs. Rumsfeld wasn't like that. He was trying to do a good job and trying to make some sense of this program that he'd been appointed to take over.
I ran the text of Free Dartmouth since 21 Oct. through the Gender Genie. Out of 5566 words, the Female Score is 7274 while the Male Score is 12180. By my crude calculations, this means that Free Dartmouth is about 4906 more male than female.
Now that should settle all this gendermandering. Yep, settle it good.
Posted by T. Wood,
4:22 PM
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Howie: A Metrosexual?
In Denver on Tuesday, Howard Dean came out as a metrosexual, I'm guessing in an attempt to reach out to the sensitive urban male demographic (not to be confused with the NASCAR dads). I'm not sure if I buy it though: I don't see Dean as the type to get a manicure before a big date. (LINK)
Posted by Laura,
10:56 AM
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Observations on Clark from 10 feet away
I wrote this after getting home from a fundraiser in DC tonight. It's pretty long so I'll just put the first part on FreeDartmouth, and those of you that want to read the whole thing can see it here.
"Tonight was my first time seeing Wesley Clark in person and I wanted to share some reflections. First, he was introduced by Rep. Charlie Rangel, one of the most liberal, party-stalwarts in all of Congress. For those of you that have doubts about where Clark’s party loyalties ties lie – the endorsement of Charlie Rangel alone should convince you otherwise. True, Rangel is an establishment DC-insider, but Rangel is FAR from being the type of person to kowtow to the party line or to Republicrats.
Clark is extremely un-used to speaking to a crowd in a fundraiser setting and it shows. His speaking style vacillated between the empty one line declarations he’s given in the debates and more thoughtful reflections on America today that seemed like the pensive observations of a retired general (he has a great line about meeting with wounded Gulf War II vets, but he barely spent any time on it, almost like he knew it wasn't right to use them for political gain). Also, he talked about returning to the good ol’ days of the 1990’s – which is a bit bizarre since I’ve never heard of a Democrat campaigning on a platform of reversal policies. On the other hand, maybe Clinton was so good and Bush is so bad that this is how we need to start thinking."
Posted by Dan,
12:13 AM
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003 Why Do Conservatives Suck So Much?
England's Conservative Party has voted to oust its leader, Iain Duncan Smith. Despite Tony Blair having the lowest approval ratings of his career due to the massive war opposition in GB, the Torries have failed to catch up to Labor in the polls. I've enjoyed watching Smith duke it out with Blair during Prime Minister's questions on C-SPAN and I will be sad to see him go. Still, this cannot bode well for the party. It was looking like Blair was in trouble but somehow it was Smith who bit the dust first. NY Times has the story here.
Also, the paltry state of the Conservative Party in England begs the question: is America the most conservative Western nation?
Posted by Jordan,
4:00 PM
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003 A sign of things to come
Here's some opinion data that will be important for the 2016 presidential election. CNN has a poll that compares 18-29 year olds opinions with people over 29. There are some interesting suggested trends. Generally CNN's conclusion was that young people just don't have any clue what's going on compared to older people. The notion that young people don't care simply because they don't vote, is so stale it borders on ageism.
Also, I don't really understand why they chose 29 as the division between young and old. I think it would be more interesting to see the 18-30 year olds vs. the 48-60 year olds (aka, our parents). We all know grandma doesn't approve of gay marriage. She also doesn't approve of me dating non-jewish girls, but I try to avoid that conversation. I wish they had asked fiscal policy questions -- especially since the tax cuts/Iraq spending is a de facto tax increase on us.
Interviews with 421 Americans between 18 and 29 years old and 884 Americans over the age of 30 conducted by telephone October 24 to 27, 2003:
Opinion of George Bush (Favorable/Unfavorable) Young: 66-34 Old: 62-37
Opinion of Bill Clinton (Favorable/Unfavorable) Young: 67-32 Old: 54-45
Laws Should Recognize Gay Marriage (Yes/No) Young: 53-45 Old: 32-64
Iraq worth going to war for (Yes/No) Young: 61-38 Old: 53-45
Should we bring back the draft (Yes/No): Young: 9-88 Old: 18-79
Posted by Dan,
11:31 PM
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Just plain Disgusting. House Republicans, who have been trying to experiment with no home rule in DC schools by forcing vouchers upon the city/colony, scheduled a key voucher vote during one of the Congressional Black Caucus sponsored debates, knowing that Gephardt, Kucinich, and four members of the CBC wouldn't be able to be on the floor. The resolution passed by one vote.
Posted by Clint,
6:03 AM
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Monday, October 27, 2003 John Hart Ely, RIP The author of Democracy and Distrust had died.
Posted by Timothy,
6:26 PM
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Sexism on this blog? This has come up a lot lately. Hash it out here in the comments thread. There is a gender gap in terms of the number of posts by males and females. Does that indicate sexism though? Snide remarks are made, pictures of Jessica Simpson (in the comments) and some guy with a cowboy hat are posted. Childish? Perhaps. Insulting? Maybe to some. Is any of this sexist?
Have at it.
Posted by Graham,
2:09 PM
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Sunday, October 26, 2003 Debate Wrap-up
Another outstanding battle that showed why the Democrats are going to beat the hell out of George Bush. The usual breakdown: WINNER- AL Sharpton- by about a mile. 2004 will be a showdown between the Christian Right and the right Christians! I don't know why the Party doesn't give this man the podium whenever he wants it- he's our Pat Robertson, except he believes in science. Other winner- Mosely Braun- her best debate yet. Pretty Good- Kerry, Koose, Dean Mediocre- Brother Clark- he reminds me a bit of Bush the way he never answers the question and depends on catch-phrases Edwards- Just looked kindof irrelevant for most of the debate Terrible- Gephardt - where was the tomahawk chop?
Beyond Terrible Smokey Joe- Lieberman should crawl in a hole and die At least, that what it sounds like hes doing most of the time he's talking
mad work post homecoming, but those are the basics
