Featured, On Campus - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 8:30 - 5 Comments
Anti-Muslim Prof Shouldn’t Get Fired, But Not For the Reasons WSN Thinks
Last week, Suri wrote about a recent column by Stern professor Tunku Varadajaran in which he used the term “going Muslim”–inspired by “going postal”–to describe the shooting at Fort Hood. And yesterday, Washington Square News runs what, if they’re lucky, will go down in history as the most baffling editorial they’ve ever run on any subject, ever. Their argument is that not only should Varadajaran keep his job, but the NYU administration should pretend that nothing happened, because, well, blockquoting is the only way for me to do this justice.
Having said that, we do support Cooley and Sexton’s decision not to penalize Varadarajan. We believe that every viewpoint from students, faculty and administration is just as valid as any other. We wrote as much two months ago in discussing prospective law professor Thio Li-ann, whose stance on gay rights drew considerable opposition among NYU students: “Intellectual discourse is rooted in conflicting opinions, and for this to happen, people of disagreeing perspectives and paradigms must come together to engage one another … No viewpoint will ever satisfy all sides, but each belief is as valid as any other.”
Featured, National - Monday, November 16, 2009 9:30 - 14 Comments
9/11 Mastermind to Get Civilian Trial, Neocons Up in Arms
Nobody should be surprised to hear former New York mayor/failed presidential candidate/potential future governor of NY/blood-sucking specter of doom Rudy Giuliani express the above views. Stomping all over civil liberties and the rule of law is his job! It’s just unfortunate that, also unsurprisingly, the entire Republican party has mobilized behind him, to say with one voice: Due process for me, but not for thee.
For example, there’s the house minority leader claiming that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being granted a trial by jury to appease “liberal interest groups.” And there’s another failed presidential candidate, John McCain, shaking his wizened head from side to side to express his disappointment.
Now you’re probably wondering: Is Joe Lieberman in on the grandstanding too? You bet your sweet ass he is! Dude could smell an opportunity to wrap himself in the neocon flag and condescend to the proles if it was twenty miles away and buried under a heap of garbage, which he would undoubtedly burrow into like a mole to get to the sweet stuff.
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On Campus - Friday, November 13, 2009 10:00 - 7 Comments
NYU Presents: A Very Glenn Beck Christmas
Remember Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special from a couple years back? Remember how funny that was? Well good news! If you think that was awesome, think about how fantastic it is that the real, non-ironic doppleganger of Colbert’s narcissistic stage person will be bringing his own lame Christmas special to NYU’s Skirball center.
Glenn Beck, he of the golden tears and incitements to revolution, will be reading from his modern-day holiday classic, A Christmas Sweater, which Publishers Weekly praises as “a weak attempt at a holiday classic in the vein of It’s a Wonderful Life.”
I haven’t been able to find any info on tickets yet, but believe me, figuring out some way into this event is my project for the next three weeks. It’s going to be glorious: readings from the Good Book (no, not The Bible), awkward, gratuitous crying, and live music! Presumably it will all wrap up with the greatest Christmas tradition of all: Glenn Beck peddling his merchandise and toxic right-wing ideology. God bless us, everyone!
National - Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:30 - 4 Comments
Post Ft. Hood, the Far-Right Anti-Muslim Backlash Begins
Bill O’Reilly conceding that ‘killing all the Muslims would be challenging, so we might as well try something else’ may be one of the low-lights of the recent spike in anti-Muslim bigotry, but it doesn’t get much better from there. Not when you’ve got Pat Robertson calling Islam a “violent political system,” the author behind the House GOP’s anti-Muslim intern-hunt wishing aloud for (and I can’t stress enough that this is his own words) a “professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders,*” Michelle Malkin railing against Muslim soldiers with “attitude,” and the American Family Association calling for an outright ban on Muslims serving in the military.
Looks like the teabagging crowd’s long-simmering anti-Muslim bigotry is now back in full force. So it’s time for a reality check.
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Featured, National - Monday, November 9, 2009 9:25 - 1 Comment
How the Conservative Inability to Pick Their Battles Helped Health Care
Above is a pretty curious sight: Republicans using every parliamentary trick they’ve got to try and delay the passage of the health care bill. Of course, it didn’t work, and the whole incident seems an awful lot like an ineffective temper tantrum.
Which, as of late, has more or less been the right-wing modus operandi. Take, for example, the minor Tea Party freakout in DC the day before. Complete with out-there Holocaust comparisons that are almost too self-evidently ridiculous to be offensive.
The thing is, all of this nonsense produced a better bill. After all, imagine if the Republicans had taken on the role of the Blue Dogs–vowing to cooperate with the Democrats in crafting the language, and then gradually weakening it into an unrecognizable lump. Instead, they paid lip service to bipartisan cooperation, and then promptly made it as obvious as possible that the only acceptable bill to them was none at all.
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National - Friday, November 6, 2009 10:00 - 0 Comments
Hopes for Two-State Solution Dwindling, and Obama’s Not Helping
Yesterday, Middle East expert and University of Michigan professor Juan Cole had a piece in Salon in which he suggested that a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict had reached a dead end. And it’s true, things look pretty grim right now. Sadly, the Obama administration, while initially signaling a promising shift in US policy towards Israel, has only exacerbated things by retreating to the reflexively pro-Israeli government posture of the Bush administration.
It started with the Goldstone Report, the product of a UN investigation which found evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups (most notably Hamas) were guilty of war crimes. Needless to say, the Israeli government was displeased.
Pop quiz: Did the Obama administration A) acknowledge the slaughter committed by their ally, or B) do everything they could to suppress the report? The depressing answer is below the fold.
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National - Thursday, November 5, 2009 9:00 - 0 Comments
Other Election Results from Tuesday
Josh and Kenny have already noted the passage of Prop 1 in Maine and Bloomberg’s narrow victory earlier this week, but there were some other noteworthy races going on. Let’s see how they shook out.
New Jersey Gubernatorial: The above video is, of course, the loathsome Chris Christie declaring victory over the also pretty loathsome Democratic incumbent, John Corzine. The polls had been neck and neck therefor a while, but Christie eked out a victory in the end, demonstrating that all the money and fat jokes in the world can’t help an unpopular incumbent during a poor economy. This must have been a disappointment for the White House, which put a lot behind the campaign.
Virginia Gubernatorial: Another Republican victory here, and by a significantly larger margin. But the conventional wisdom is that Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds never had a prayer in the first place (VA’s not a blue stronghold yet), and the grassroots weren’t terribly enthused about him, so no biggie.
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National - Monday, November 2, 2009 10:00 - 1 Comment
Staffer Error Gives Us Sneak Preview of Ethics Committee Investigations
The New York Times reports that two Democratic congresswomen, including the high-powered Rep. Maxine Waters (pictured) are under investigation for potential ethics violations. What they don’t mention until a little further down is that civilians are getting a peak behind the signs of the ethics committee deliberations thanks to a less-than-competent staffer:
A committee statement about the security breach said a junior staff member, working from home, improperly placed a document listing all the continuing inquiries into a file-sharing software system to which people outside the committee had access. The staff member, whose name was not released, has been fired, and committee officials said Thursday that they did not know who had gained improper access to the document.
So who else is on the list? There’s another nascent investigation going on focusing on 5 other Democrats and 2 Republicans. On the Democratic side, you might recognize the names John Murtha and Marcy Kaptur (both of whom are in positions of influence on the appropriations committee and relevant subcommittees).
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City - Friday, October 30, 2009 15:00 - 0 Comments
Taxi Cab Fares to Go Up $0.50
Just as we’re celebrating the return of the late night/weekend L-train, New York City transit takes another blow: this time in the form of a cab fare hike.
But before you go cursing the name Travis Bickle, keep in mind that this was a tax imposed on cab drivers by the MTA, and the drivers themselves are decidedly unhappy about it. From the article:
“It’s going to be affected, because it’s going to be too much [money],” said one driver. “Like after 4 o’clock, it’s going to be almost $5 just sitting in the car.”
“Why are we paying for the MTA?” asked another cab driver. “We don’t have any benefits from the government. So this is not good.”
Not good, indeed.
City - Friday, October 30, 2009 13:00 - 2 Comments
Monday: Williamsburg/Bushwick Commuters No Longer Have a Curfew
Speaking of the L train, here’s a happy public service announcement: as of November 2 (this coming Monday), the repairs on the L train tracks will be wrapped up and Brooklyn commuters can once again depart from Union Square late at night or on the weekend secure in the knowledge that they won’t have to transfer to a shuttle bus somewhere along the way. New York City’s 24-hour subway system is well on its way to doing its thing again.
