JawsBlog

The silly, silver-spooned protesters at NYU have finally given up their sit-in

An (unofficial) transcript of the discussion at Yeshiva University, titled: “The Kosher Quandary: Ethics and Kashrut” has been posted at my cousins’ blog.

It touches on Agriprocessors/Rubashkins and the fallout from it.

As the State of Israel is about to celebrate her 60th birthday, it is important, as always, to look back on the young state’s (modern) history.

Even in its young age, the narrative of the State’s history is still a subject of debate, with the “new historians” trying to rewrite the facts of the State’s history.

In the halls of academia, the war for Israel’s history is still ongoing as pointed out by Efraim Karsh.

Karsh also debunks the new historians much more throughly in his book: Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians’

(h/t: Solomonia)

Only in the bizarro backwards world of Academia, could one come up with an excuse like this to excuse plagarism.
Is academic integrety becoming a thing of the past?

The alma matter is now starting to get heat from all over the country over the way it handled a complaint that a professor said a racially insensitive comment.
My take is that, even though the professor is almost totally and completely misguided politically (he’s from the Sociology department–need I say more?), the way the administration appears to have handled things is inappropriate.  Furthermore, what ever happened to “truth unto its innermost parts”?

In what is a most unlikely scenario, a Republican Senator was able to have a letter published in The Justice.

Not only that, it was a letter from Tom Coburn (R-OK), in which he argues against increased gun control

How this managed to make it into the paper, seems to be somewhat of a fluke.  Are pigs flying in Sherman? (Well, on the non-Kosher side at least?)

Compare the reception Ahmadinejad got at Columbia with the one he got at Tehran University
What’s wrong with this picture?

On the heels of Ahmadinejad…

Perhaps they’ll invite:

Robert Mugabe to speak on Economic Development

(share your ideas in the comments)

Common sense would dictate that one shouldn’t do anything to provoke any reaction from the TSA.

Apparently one MIT student didn’t think along those lines and decided to wear something provocative (in terms of security) and thought that there’d be nothing wrong with it.

Obviously this student didn’t learn the lesson of the Mooninite affair and how hyper-sensitive Boston is.

Yet another example of where academic smarts don’t correspond with common sense.

The NYPD and the Port Authority had the sense to deny Iran’s loony rambling leader the change to get a photo op at Ground Zero.
However, Columbia University has made the (stupid) move to give the ranting man another forum and microphone.

As if the simple fact that “despot and dictator week: here in NYC wasn’t bad enough (a/k/a UN General Assembly Opening Week).

College application causes bomb scare
The student should’ve applied online…

There’s a reason that certain disciplines (e.g. Math, Engineering, Physics, Biosciences, Chemistry) are known as the “Hard Sciences”

An abstract presented at last weeks Sleep 2008 in Miineapolis further hammered home this point.

Students with Medical-related majors more likely to have poor quality sleep 

Amongst the reasons given for this finding is the amount of studying that they have to do relative to their fellow humanities majors?  Or all the time they spend in the lab?

The Family comes to town tomorrow!

Everybody Panic! (Well, at least I will be panicking)

The Family members are coming for the occasion of the Sister’s graduation from College.

Alas, she has not one graduation ceremony–but three separate ones! Egad–think of all the boring speeches she’ll be subjected to!)

Not sure what the Family members have in mind for this upcoming week….but here goes nothing….

Some professors have too much time on their hands:

Content analysis of O’Reilly’s rhetoric finds spin to be a ‘factor’

From Mark Kilmer’s “The Sunday Morning Talk Shows – The Review”

On Fox New Sunday:

George Washington University president Steve Trachtenberg boasted that at GWU, not only are the faculty and students disarmed, but so are the campus security officers.

Is this something to really be proud of?

(For that matter–my alma matter is still the same way…which isn’t right either)

Perhaps that’s the motto George Washington University should’ve embraced in choosing a Commencement speaker to address their graduates.

Instead, they decided to have the university president give the address

The student reaction appears to be what one would expect….

On a college campus, the presence of a 50′ inflatable rocket, isn’t usually interpreted to mean what it’s intended to.

Rather, the majority of students will perceive it as a giant 50′ phallus….

The event being promoted by the rocket does sound interesting:

“American policy options in the face of Iranian nuclear proliferation”

Sponsored by the College Dems and Reps and a pro-Israel group.

Related:
Press Release

A tale of preschool admissions

It’s like this in a lot of other Northeastern cities as well from what I’ve heard.

Makes college admissions seem like almost nothing by comparison.

Saw this post over at The Corner and it got me thinking about all the time I used to spend at the library.

Should shelf space be given to literary classics or should famous novels, not really in circulation be “bumped” for trendier/current reads?

Personally I see a a place on the shelves for works like: For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sound and the Fury, The Glass Menagerie, The Aneid among others.
(Don’t they assign these as reading in school? I read a few of them as part of my English courses) .

Furthermore, many of the non-fiction books which sit/sat on the shelf provided me with countless hours of education and entertainment (caveat: I’m a bookworm).
Granted, with the advances of the internet, the process of doing research is now different from the way I originally learned. No longer do kids necessarily begin their research by sitting with stacks of 3×5″ note cards navigating their way through books.

While the current bestsellers may make for a good read, down the road, do they really deserve to displace books that may be more valuable to local students (of all ages)?

Jimmy Carter turns down an offer to debate Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis.

Good for the alma matter (Brandeis) for offering the oppertunity for such a forum to be held. It’s a shame that Carter doesn’t want to debate and defend his arguments.

More to say about this story (including more praise for the University) in coming posts.

I can only begin to imagine how mad this is going to make the noisy far-far-far-far left segment of the Brandeis community. (*Pausing to laugh*)