Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 05:01:11PM -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: OK. How about well-funded? :) I count $1,270,000 in grants to the organization since its creation as the Compared to giants like Brookings? Not well-funded, well-known, big, nor powerful. Few folks even in DC have heard of it. $1M in grants over a period of years is not much by Washington policy group standards. - -Declan Last year, Brookings had revenues of 29 million. The RAND Corporation had revenues of 157 million. One year, one hundred fifty seven million. Their grants and contracts for last year alone totaled 142.7 million. Sort of adds a new dimension to the idea of being giant and well-funded, doesn't it. ~F. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBPBlGS/g5Tuca7bfvEQJbJACgpwMX2yolpxFpLAImBj0l3QWYZacAn12z BU19/N1jMfShiZEvzFHKJJwY =9qFa -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: CDR: Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
Faustine wrote: Last year, Brookings had revenues of 29 million. The RAND Corporation had revenues of 157 million. One year, one hundred fifty seven million. Their grants and contracts for last year alone totaled 142.7 million. Sort of adds a new dimension to the idea of being giant and well-funded, doesn't it. I think we're kind of missing the point here. ACTA is well-funded for being an annoying little pressure group that tries to increase the heat around people who say things it doesn't approve of. It's silly to compare its budget to Rand or SRI or the NSA. And having spent a million to try and redirect $29 billion in alumni donations makes it a much bigger operation than the usual Christians for Niceness or Mothers Against Baby Exploitation groups most of us are sick and tired of hearing spew on news programs. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law
Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, Eric Cordian wrote: I think we're kind of missing the point here. ACTA is well-funded for being an annoying little pressure group that tries to increase the heat around people who say things it doesn't approve of. It's silly to compare its budget to Rand or SRI or the NSA. Not when they're playing in the same pool it isn't. -- Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Activist, Inc. (ws Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark)
Faustine wrote: Last year, Brookings had revenues of 29 million. The RAND Corporation had revenues of 157 million. One year, one hundred fifty seven million. Cooincidentally, I bumped into *this*, today. Reminded me of the time, in my teens, when I finally discovered exactly how much unions gross a year in dues, and what they paid for. Put a big hurt on the whole crunchy-granola rosy-colored hippie-glasses power-to-the-people-raht-on thang, that did... Cheers, RAH http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=95001590 SCENE HEARD Activist Inc. Professional agitators can't claim to be a grassroots movement anymore. BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Thursday, December 13, 2001 12:01 a.m. It seems every time you read a story about a domestic conflict--whether it's drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, free trade clashes, or tobacco litigation--two adjectives always describe the opponents. On one side are the grassroots organizations--disorganized, under-funded, struggling folk willing to live hand-to-mouth in the name of their noble goal. On the other are powerful corporate and political interests--fat-cats with loads of money, contacts and discipline, willing to use any tactic to get their way. David-and-Goliath descriptions add the touch of drama, which is no doubt why journalists continue with the grassroots-powerful routine. Yet even as they do, the rest of America is cottoning on to the fact that such descriptions are not only outdated--they're completely backward. These days, most grassroots groups are far better moneyed, networked and operated than many corporations and political lobbies. And they've become far more ruthless in accomplishing their goals. snip... ActivistCash.com, unveiled yesterday, is run by the Guest Choice Network, an organization of 30,000 restaurant and tavern operators. The Guest Choice Network has become a front line defense against today's nanny culture. Or, as its first Web site--nannyculture.com--puts it: Unofficially we include anybody who stands up against the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, vegetarian activists and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.' The site offers, among other things, information on junk science and food scares. Now, however, the group has gone further. Over the past year it has used freedom of information laws to get the IRS documents of the country's leading activist groups--more than 100,000 pages of information the activist hope Americans won't see. What we uncovered is an intricate, organized, well-funded web of what you might call the 'new left,' says John Doyle, the group's communications director. It allows a person to finally link the environmental activists with the animal rights activists with the anti-corporate activists, and see that they all operate together in the anti-choice arena. Details elided about how most of these organizations have more interlocking boards than a gilded-age Morganized railroad trust, and so on -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA ... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience. -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
RE: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
Eric Cordian[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: There's also a blacklist on the Web of people in academia who have publicly stated less than glowing support for Bush's war against evil. Where is it? [...] Eric Michael Cordian 0+ Peter Trei
RE: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
-- From: Eric Cordian[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Peter Trei writes: There's also a blacklist on the Web of people in academia who have publicly stated less than glowing support for Bush's war against evil. Where is it? [...] It was released by ACTA, formerly the NAF, run by Lynne Cheney, formerly arch-conservative Bill Bennett's heir at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the wife of the federal government's favorite cardiac patient, Vice President Dick Cheney. [...] You might want to wade through http://www.goacta.org/ and see if you can find the report. I took a quick look, but my javascript and .pdf patience levels were quickly exceeded. [...] Well, http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf doesn't actually name names, but the quotes are given enough attribution that, at least on a given campus, the speaker is probably identifiable. For example... 2 2 . What the U.S. calls counter-terrorism is terrorism by another name. Operation Infinite Justice-the Bush administration's code name for proposed military action against terrorists - is 'cowboy law.' Professor of linguistics, MIT. ...isn't too hard to identify. On the other hand, ACTA has specifically condemned the U of NM for their punishment of Berthold (which started this thread). http://www.goacta.org/Press%20Releases/11-14-01PR.htm AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI DEFENDS UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PROF Controversial Comment on Terrorist Attack Is Not Grounds for Punishment WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 14, 2001) -- The American Council of Trustees and Alumni today came to the defense of University of New Mexico professor Richard Berthold who is under investigation by the University for remarking: Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote. Professor Berthold's comment is certainly crude and debatable, but it is not punishable, said Anne D. Neal, ACTA's Vice President and General Counsel. While we clearly disagree, academic freedom requires a free exchange of ideas-no matter how controversial. [...] There is a big difference between criticizing someone's comments, and punishing those comments, said Neal. It is the responsibility of a university to teach that the right way to counter ideas with which one disagrees is with more speech, not less, said Neal. -- end of quote - Peter Trei
Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 12:58:49PM -0800, Eric Cordian wrote: Imagine the joy of being a university professor, and waking up one morning to find that a big powerful organization run by the Vice President's wife has issued a report practically calling you a traitor. I'm hardly defending the group's blacklist, but big and powerful? Come, now. -Declan
Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
Declan opines: Imagine the joy of being a university professor, and waking up one morning to find that a big powerful organization run by the Vice President's wife has issued a report practically calling you a traitor. I'm hardly defending the group's blacklist, but big and powerful? Come, now. OK. How about well-funded? :) I count $1,270,000 in grants to the organization since its creation as the National Alumni Forum. The NAF sold the idea that alumni should contribute to the NAF's Fund for Academic Renewal instead of directly to their institutions. The NAF then gave the money to the institutions as targeted donations, removing the institution's discretion over how alumni donations were spent. They went after the $2.9 billion alumni gift market with big ads in Ivy League magazines. Later they changed their name to the more impressive sounding American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and broadened the spectrum of pressure tactics employed to shove patriotism down the throats of universities behind the smokescreen of promoting intellectual freedom and raising academic standards. In what sense is such an undertaking neither big nor powerful? -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law
Re: Professor Punished for Witty Remark
Peter Trei wrote: Well, http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf doesn't actually name names, but the quotes are given enough attribution that, at least on a given campus, the speaker is probably identifiable. For example... Are you sure that's the report all the fuss is about? All the newspaper stories I've read on this were pretty specific that names were named. What the U.S. calls counter-terrorism is terrorism by another name. Operation Infinite Justice-the Bush administration's code name for proposed military action against terrorists - is 'cowboy law.' Professor of linguistics, MIT. ...isn't too hard to identify. Yes. Kind of like... Fuck America. Fuck it to death and start over. Crusty Retired Engineer, Intel. Har. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law
