The Bleeding Heart Capitalist

Two Languages Good, Two Versions Bad

A neighboring school district sent middle school children home with a bi-lingual dress code note containing two extra requirements in the Spanish version.

But the accompanying Spanish version had two extra lines, not found in the English: Children must have a "clean body and clothing," it said, and cannot wear "accessories affiliated with gangs."

How embarrassing for the Tarrytown school officials. They chalked it up to a bad cut and paste job, and I would be inclined to agree were it not for the two items being almost completely based in negative stereotypes of Latino students. What's more, are we to believe the letter was first drafted in Spanish, cut and pasted, then translated into English?

Our own school district has a similar demography, complete with a growing Hispanic immigrant population. I recall reading a quote recently from the high school principal which I can no longer find, but reassured me that the administration didn't have their head in the sand over the challenges of a bilingual student body. In a district that had some bad race riots in the early 70's, it was nice to see how far we have come. Tarrytown doesn't seem to have gotten that memo. Sad.

Currently, Westchester is experiencing a notable dichotomy, with the real estate boom and other factors creating more and more wanna be snobs nouveux riche  concurrently with a fast growing immigrant population. It is ironic to watch a group whose politics would suggest otherwise to be so awkward in dealing with people who are a little different. Given that my own children are biracial, this does affect me. I recall that when Ann first spent significant time in Westchester how offended she would get when people would lean forward and speak louder or some other asinine thing. Her best retort was once when she asked a village official if she needed to carry around her Columbia diploma to be spoken to like an adult.

One more thing, Tarrytown: proofread.

Abusive Teachers are Female Too

This story from the local NBC affiliate highlights a strange phenomenon. Mary Kay Letourneau is not a unique story by any means. Of the 5 teachers in the piece accused of sexual or inappropriate contact with students, 3 are female. We have had a whole pile of these stories in the New York area in recent years. One particular teacher would allegedly take her boy-toy to a motel right by the Whitestone Bridge in the Bronx, a place I pass with some frequency. It makes one wonder just what it is about these twenty-somethings that they would risk their careers and reputation for an illicit encounter with a teenage pupil. I'll resist the temptation to ask where these women were when I was in school. I am sure they existed then, and I had no shot. I get the whole bad boy thing, but I think they take that too literally.

What is Going on at Villanova?

16 years ago, diploma in hand, I set off from Villanova University to live life as a college graduate. I have always been proud of my experience there and have remained plugged in as an alum. Lately, I have begun to wonder if the place has evolved in a strange direction. This past Autumn, as part of the election lecture series, they had a pro choice priest, Robert Drinan, speak. Then there was the whole Mine Ener issue. The latest thing to have me scratching my head is this article in the campus newspaper entitled  "Seminar presents bleak picture of Iraq."

A professor of Islamic Studies and native Iranian told students last Tuesday that America's nation building efforts in Iraq will fail. The seminar was conducted by the Villanova Muslim Student Association, and the keynote speaker for the evening's event was Dr. Farhang Erfani of the University.

Erfani painted a bleak picture of the current state of the war in Iraq and the chances of creating a successful and peaceful democracy. The majority of his lecture was dedicated to the idea of nation building in Iraq.

A self-described political junkie, Erfani spends the first three to four hours of each day catching up on the situation in the Middle East by listening to radio broadcasts from the region over the internet.

From his perch atop the desk Erfani was at once both self-effacing and confident, humble yet full of conviction. When he spoke, the room was silent, as everyone seemed to be captivated by his words and conclusions.

Huh? Did he have on fabulous cologne as well? Has he been there? What should we make of the encouraging stories our returning military tell that are supressed by the MSM?

I am all for diversity of opinion and academic freedom. I also support equal time for dissenting views. But here is my question: does the University even bother to seek out speakers with views that do NOT dissent? Will anyone speak on Iraq there who has a point of view that isn't "bleak?" Don't hold your breath.

Anti Semitism at Columbia University

One of the nasty things we deal with in a post 911 world is the fear many liberals have of pissing Muslims off. Case in point: one Dr. Joseph Massad, who has been accused of intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students in and out of his classroom.

From the Daniel Pipes website:

It has become increasingly clear that Columbia's standing as one of the great research universities in the nation is jeopardized by a contingent of professors whose disdain for Israel, America, democracy, and freedom has a remarkable influence over Columbia's curriculum and quality of its research. To appreciate how commonplace and accepted anti-Israel sentiment has become at Columbia, one simply has to take a look at the Web site Columbiadivest.org, the home page of a recent effort at the Morningside Heights campus to persuade Columbia's administration to divest its holdings in companies that sell arms and military hardware to Israel. More than a third of the full-time faculty of the MEALAC department signed the petition, as have a total of 107 Barnard and Columbia faculty members. Signers of the petition include Joseph Massad, a non-tenured professor of modern Arab politics who teaches a course on Middle East nationalism. Mr. Massad is not shy about his hatred for Israel, a country whose legitimacy as a Jewish state he denies and whose policies he routinely calls "racist." He is the professor, as described in an underground film produced by the Boston-based David Project, who upon completing a lecture refused to answer a question from an Israeli student but ordered the student to say how many Palestinians he killed as a soldier. Rep. Anthony Weiner is absolutely correct to call, as he did yesterday, for Columbia to fire him.

Anthony Weiner is a liberal democrat. However, he had the guts to speak out, even if it was for political purposes.

Two things complicate this issue. First, Columbia did an internal investigation which found no wrongdoing on anyone's part, which is ludicrous. Secondly, aside fom the critical NY Times link a sentence ago, the Times has been easy on Columbia in exchange for the scoop. Not one Times article contained any reaction to the white wash internal probe from any student involved.

Worse yet, Massad is up for tenure as I write this. He'll get it.

Update: There is quite a bit of intellectual warfare going on about this issue. A google search of Joseph Massad yields a highly ranked link to Thesauras.com/bigot. A Yahoo search for the David Project has, at the top of the search results, Aneurysm Information Project. The implication is not subtle.