Critical Mass

This week's Critical Mass Award for the Most Original Way to End a Children's TV Series goes to Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV station. They have just aired the last episode of a show centered around a mickey mouse-type character named "Farfur" (known as "Mickey Hamouse" in Israel). The last episode, to provide happy inspiration for all the pre-schoolers watching the show, features Farfur being beaten to death by an Israeli agent ("terrorist Jew") for refusing to sell his land to the Israelis. Watch this video -- and be sure to catch the phone call they take from a three-year-old at the end of the episode.

- Dan Gelernter  

There is exciting news from the Elm City. In response to mounting crime and the incompetence of the police, members of the Yeshiva of New Haven will be commencing armed evening patrols, which operate in a large chunk of the suburbs from 6 to 10 pm. The patrols will consist of a pair of men, each carrying a licensed, concealed firearm and wearing a t-shirt that reads “Edgewood Park Defense Patrol.”

The leader of the group, Rabbi Greer, is a former city police commissioner. "We can fix all the houses up. We can plant trees. But if we cannot walk our streets securely, all our efforts are for naught," he said.

Of course he his plans have been attacked by the mayor and various alderman who, unlike the people who actually live in this neighborhood, express perfect confidence in the competence of the police force.

As a Yale student, the problem of crime in New Haven has been long on my mind. Yale students may be the least defended of all groups, since Yale forbids us from carrying any means of self-defense, and because most of us are under 21, which is the age requirement for obtaining a pistol permit in this state.

This is an important and unknown point: it is not the job of the police to protect you or anyone.

From a 1997 Cato Institute policy analysis by Jeffrey Snyder: “It is a settled principle of law throughout the United States that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen from crime. That may come as a surprise to many people, but the principle holds even in cases where the police have been grossly negligent in failing to protect a crime victim.” There is a test case that confirms this point: in 1978 in Washington D.C., three women were beaten and raped and held captive for 14 hours. Though they called 911 twice, and even saw police cruisers pass by their house, the police never showed up. They later sued the police – and lost: the D.C. Superior Court ruled that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.” The responsibility for personal protection rests with each private member of the community, not the government. The government has admitted it, so if you don’t protect yourself, you simply won’t be protected.

I wish I could help the community out by volunteering for these patrols myself; unfortunately I am only 20. Nevertheless, as they say in their press release, “Anyone interested in finding out more about the EPDP [Edgewood Park Defense Patrol] or participating in the patrols, should contact Eliezer Greer at (203) 606-3085.”

Read their press release here and a full news story here.

- Dan Gelernter 

Read David Gelernter's brilliant piece on abolishing the public school system on the Weekly Standard website.

A see the features section for my wrap-up of the third-annual Norman Podhoretz Lecture.

- Dan Gelernter 

Dear Readers,

I have just finished by far the busiest term of my life. I am back:

I was watching a DVD of a recent comedy called Music and Lyrics today, and things were going pretty well; it actually looked like one of the better modern movies I’d seen. But then we got to the closing credits, during which a series of little blurbs appeared on screen to let us know what happened to all of the movie’s characters “later in life.” We learn that the two main characters of the movie, Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) and Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) go on to write many more hit songs together and that they are “now living together.” Not married – just “living together.”

“No!” I yell at the TV screen, “They’re not ‘living together!’ They’re married! They’d better be married.” (I find myself yelling at the TV set a lot these days, which is one of the reasons I try to avoid movies produced after 1967). I don’t mean to sound prudish, nor do I think that Hollywood’s liberal bent is anything new, but it just made me wonder: “Comedies,” by definition, are plays that end with marriages – at least this has been the way it has worked for about 2000 years. Remember, this happens past the end of the movie: the plot is over, we’re into the credits after all – it’s no skin off the playwright’s nose to suggest that these characters are simply married as opposed to living together (it even takes fewer letters). So why does this movie go extra lengths to make the “living together” statement? Just to express contempt: contempt for marriage, contempt for tradition, and contempt for America and the very idea of goodness.

But this is not as depressing as it sounds, provided we remember that Hollywood is an irrelevance. Asking a Hollywooder to explain morality is like asking a used-car salesman to fix your fuel injectors: there is no correlation between the ability to be loud and obnoxious and the ability to do something useful. And since Hollywood has been talking to us for a long time, I would now like to talk to them:

Dear Hollywood: Nobody takes you seriously. Hollywood’s pagan views do not interest America, except from the standpoint of a rather pathetic amusement. Hollywooders and academics and the media mercenaries can stand there all day long telling us that morality is a variable thing, that absolute goodness doesn’t exist, that out traditions are simple-minded and bigoted (in fact, this is what they do). But get this Hollywood: America refuses to believe you. A Hebrew proverb states that “silence is a fence around wisdom.” As a good neighbor, I will simply point out that there are few holes in your fence that could use fixing.

-- Dan Gelernter 

Read Guy Benson's article in our Features section.

Northwestern was not to be outdone by "sex week" at Yale. Our editor Guy Benson sent this in:

Northwestern University is enduring its first ever "sex week," featuring the distribution of free condoms and "safe sex supplies," various sex workshops, and the production of "Kama Sutra: The Musical." Amidst the depravity, Northwestern's pro-life student group has invited Feminists for Life president Serrin Foster to present the feminist case against abortion.  Ms. Foster will speak at Swift Hall room 107 on NU's Evanston campus at 7:30pm.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Our Editor Guy Benson published this post on NRO today about an anti-free-love club at Harvard.

This from Guy Benson;

Northwestern's conservative newspaper, "The Chronicle," has an interesting piece in this week's edition.  It's incredible how rude and downright nasty some liberal professors can become when challenged---by a college sophomore, no less!

Yale’s Woolsey Hall sits on the corner of Wall and College Street and divides the campus (roughly speaking) into two chunks: science on one side and liberal arts on the other. The building itself is a huge ‘L’; one wing is Yale’s official auditorium and the other is Yale’s largest dining hall, known as “Commons.” Joining these two arms together is the rotunda, which provides students with a convenient shortcut from one side of campus to the other.

The thousands of Yale students who pass through this rotunda every day are apt to forget that it is a War Memorial, where the names of Yale graduates who gave their lives for their country are carved in stone on the curving walls. Yale has (appropriately) always forbidden students to use this space to sell tickets or promote events, though this edict is increasingly disregarded and the administration makes little apparent attempt to enforce it.

Yale memorializes its veterans on a grander scale than this alone: the entire space enclosed by the ‘L’ of Woolsey, called Hewitt Quadrangle, is a war memorial too, where the handsome World War One cenotaph stands with the inscription, “In Memory of THE MEN of Yale who, true to Her Traditions gave THEIR LIVES that FREEDOM might not perish from the Earth.”

Running along the front of Commons behind the cenotaph are the names of famous WWI battles carved into the architrave. Most Yale students, far from bothering about these names (which include Cambrai, Argonne, Somme, and Ypres) do not even know what they mean: you might hear an unusually curious Yalie ask you “who those people were.”

It’s easy for men to be ignorant of history – even if it stares them in the face every day of their lives. Every Yale student should know those names by heart.

- Dan Gelernter 

Mr. Benson of Northwestern, having technical difficulties, has asked me to post the following for him: 

Unless I'm missing something, this story in The Daily Northwestern is an outrage:

---
Law School Group Leader Resigns Amid Controversy
by Margaret Matray

The president of Northwestern's Student Bar Association resigned from his position Monday following
a controversy over invitations to a breakfast with Chief Justice John Roberts last week.

Third-year law student Peter Pattakos said he was asked to step down by law school administrators
and the association's executive board after a conversation he had with a student who was upset that
representatives from minority-centered organizations were not invited to the breakfast with Roberts.

"During what can only be described loosely as a conversation, I stated my belief that our community
would be better off if all student organizations were organized around ideas, and not ethnicity,"
Pattakos said Tuesday in an e-mail addressed to his classmates.

Roberts came to NU last week as the 2007 Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar. Pattakos
told The Daily that administrators asked him to recommend "academic and community leaders" to invite.

"I chose academic leaders," Pattakos said. "I was never given the impression that my list was going
to be the final list. I was asked for a recommendation."

Administrators said Monday in an e-mail to students that omitting some student leaders was partly
an administrative error, but that Pattakos' comments "dismissed the value of the organizations of
the uninvited leaders."

Pattakos said he sees why students would be upset with his comment, but that he did not speak with
malicious intent.

"We have the ability to work through the complicated issues this situation has raised and emerge a
stronger, safer haven for true diversity," he said.

---
It is a sad state of affairs when a"belief that [an intellectual] community would be better off if
all student organizations were organized around ideas, and not ethnicity" becomes grounds for dismissal.

 - Guy Benson

The Yale Daily News announced today that Yale will take down a painting of the University's founder, Elihu Yale, that has hung in Woodbridge Hall for over a century.  It is to be removed because it shows a black servant standing next to Mr. Yale. The painting will be "replaced with a portrait of Elihu without servants." University Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer is worried about what the YDN called "perceived racist overtones" in the painting; she explained that the portrait is "confusing without the explanation" that Yale did not own slaves.
The Soviets used to air-brush politcally incorrect comrades out of photographs.

Mr. Beckman reflected in his last post on the inadqueacy of the internet for political debate, as it appears to appeal to emotional over logical debate. I would say that the trouble isn't so much the internet itself -- ad hominem attacks and runaway emotions trouble political debate in general; I have noticed in the commentary on the website as well as in the emails I've received that the angry personal attacks are products of the Left. I realize that it is natural for conservatives to sympathize with my views, and for liberals to attack them. Nevertheless, in the stream of blog-comment conversation, the conservative responses (including those arguing directly against leftist comments) favor reason over the bitter ad hominem rhetoric that the Left employs so consistently. The liberals reading this may want to reflect on the now-permanent record of this fact in re the comments on my piece and on Mr. Hutchins' follow-up post.

I have been accused, as have many of my colleagues, of being a religious fanatic of some sort who refuses to part with antiquated moral conventions that cannot be reasonably justified (like the tradition of the uni-sex shower). But the utter bitterness with which I have been attacked (and seen friends in similar circumstances attacked) demonstrates what I will call the religious fanaticism of the Left. Their religion is politics; they put their absolute faith in progress, as if to say, "it doesn't matter where we're headed as long as we don't look back." 

- Dan Gelernter

On Wednesday I published a piece on the National Review Phi Beta Cons Blog about decency at Yale, discussing in particular an article that the Yale Daily News published entitled "Today's Women Can Reject Virginity Myth."

There is a new chapter in the story of Yale's continuing descent into the depths of moral degradation. Two days ago, Jonathan Holloway, the master of Calhoun College at Yale, sent out the following note:

"OK, well THIS is the most awkward college-wide e-mail I've ever had to send....

"The college showers are to be used by individuals for hygenic [sic] purposes only. They are not to be used by couples engaged in intimate activity--especially that kind of activity that leaves the showers in a decidedly less hygenic [sic] state.

"Several times since the start of the spring term some Hounies have come across a couple having the time of their lives in a shower stall. Last night the shower flooded and the bathroom could not be used for over 90 minutes. To the as yet unidentified couple, this may be pleasureable [sic] and exciting for you but it is a violation of community standards. Please stop.

"I really don't want to explore this matter any further as I respect your individual privacy. But such continued brazen public displays of affection will only invite public embarrassment. I beg of you, let's not go there."

 I can first of all confirm that this is a real memo, not a prank. It is not merely unfortunate but pathetic and disgusting that the Master needed to send such a note to us. I certainly wish that Master Holloway had not had to involve himself, but in the moral vacuum that has been created by Yale intellectuals, students seem to be left without even the most basic guidelines for proper and decent behavior.

- Dan Gelernter, class of '09 in Calhoun College at Yale

Yale has already hosted Ned Lamont once; he spoke when he was running for Senate under the Democratic ticket, trying to oust now Independent Joe Lieberman from a seat he had held for the Dems for 18 years. Now Lamont is back, as a (semi) acknowledged failure and the guest speaker of the Yale Political Union's first debate of the Spring term.

This Wednesday he will open the debate by speaking in favor of his own, exceptionally obnoxious resolution, "Resolved, That Congress should Force President Bush to Withdraw from Iraq." I will cover the debate from the floor -- look for the piece in our features section later this week.

-Dan Gelernter 

Dear readers,
For a long time I managed to keep my hand in the blogosphere with a weekly piece. Although I fell off somewhat (that is to say, completely) in my last term, I will now return to writing at least one article a week, the first of which is now up under the features section.

-Dan Gelernter 

This is the time of year in which we are all recuperating from final exams and from our now concluded fall term. This has slowed down our news feed (a lot) but we promise to get back to blogging right away.

- The tired Editors 

Read my piece on the Yale Daily News' take on the election at the Nation Review's Phi Beta Cons blog.

-Dan Gelernter 

Released by the Minuteman Project:

President Bollinger remains missing from any meaningful discussion

Columbia University, NY - Leftist Columbia students destroyed civility and assaulted academic freedom when they disrupted the Republican Club sponsored event by storming the stage at Roone Arledge Auditorium on Oct 4, physically preventing Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist from speaking.

More than two weeks have passed since that outrageous attack on free speech, and to date, nothing of significance has been heard from Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, who seems to prefer anonymity in dealing forthrightly with this important free-speech-on-campus issue.

Is Columbia a real university, where opposing views can be debated openly? Or has Columbia become simply a breeding ground where only leftist so-called "liberal" thought is tolerated?

Silence is acceptance, and in this case, Bollinger's silence speaks loudly that Columbia's policy is to accept racial epithets, hate speech, hate crime, censorship, and hooliganism - so long, of course, as it is directed only at conservative speakers. Leftist speakers come and go on campus, and nothing comparable ever happens to them.

A letter from attorney Jack H. Robbins, of Dana Point, makes demand that President Bollinger conduct "a full and complete investigation in a timely manner." Robbins' letter notes that the university police officers present "did absolutely nothing to prevent the attack, or to stop the violence once it began." And, according to Robbins' letter, no one from Columbia - least of all Bollinger - ever inquired if the speakers' had been injured.

The student bullies of Columbia were abundantly filmed. Their attack on free speech was immediately posted on University websites and in the national news. Yet to date, no arrests or suspensions have been made, and President Bollinger remains missing in action.

If conservative bullies had similarly stormed a leftist event, such as by the Chicano caucus or the socialist coalition, can anyone doubt that enforcement would have been severe, and investigation and punishment immediate? Had anyone shouted racial slurs at leftists, or made false allegations, can there be any doubt that investigation and prosecution would have been called for by Columbia's president?

The Minuteman Project is neither racist, nor violent, despite the hysterical claims of the individuals and groups involved in the disruption at Columbia. Yet the Project and its representatives have been both slandered and libeled by the arrogant, violent, irresponsible allegations of the hooligan disrupters, whose uncivilized acts have been effectively condoned by the silence of the administration.

It's time for President Lee Bollinger to stop being silent and step up to denounce and investigate - then to arrest, suspend, and sanction, without regard to political correctness. He should follow that with a personal invitation to the Minuteman Project to return to Columbia. Only then can Columbia again be considered a real university. Until that happens, supporters, donors, alumni, and entering students are well advised to "steer clear" of this intolerant school.

With plagiarism on the rise at Yale, the administration has decided to apply itself to solving the problem by declaring Yale’s first ever “Academic Integrity Awareness Week,” which will begin on Tuesday, Oct. 24 with speeches from Peter Salovey and Jon Butler, deans of Yale’s undergraduate and graduate schools respectively. They apparently plan to stamp out lying, cheating, and stealing at Yale by asking people not to lie, cheat, and steal.

Now that the administration has acted so aggressively, this surely signals the end of plagiarism (or what the Yale Daily News calls "irresponsible research").

-Dan Gelernter