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 

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 

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. 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 

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

-Dan Gelernter 

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 

As we were reminded this morning by a little rainbow flag at the bottom of the Yale Daily News’ front page, today is national coming out day, which is celebrated at Yale by the installation of a pink door on Old Campus so gays can “come out” “to the cheers of friends.”

To celebrate this at the Yale Daily News, they’ve run not one but two op-eds on the topic. I only mention this because I find the first one particularly entertaining.

The piece was written by Stephen Engel, a grad student who has already published a book entitled, “The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement.” In his article he asks all gay Republicans to come out so they can take back their party, and he makes many unintentionally amusing statements, my favorite one of which is as follows:

“If the Republicans do lose control of the House or Senate or both in the upcoming election, the party will not be compelled to answer the dysfunctional logic of its numerous policy stances such as the war in Iraq, the war on terror or the inadequacies of its Medicare prescription drug policy. Rather, it can avoid any necessary self-assessment and simply blame the gays. It’s not a new strategy for that party. To garner votes in 2004, Republicans often blamed the gays for bringing on the destruction of civilization in the form of same-sex marriage. In 2006, they may again blame gay Republicans for fostering a crisis in the last few weeks before the election.”

For those of you with strong stomachs, you can visit the YDN’s op-ed page here.

-Dan Gelernter 

The software that we use to produce this website currently does not allow us to display our traffic tracker publicly (they are working on that, so they say). For a couple of relevant figures to give you a rough idea of how we're doing: We had 253 unique readers yesterday (our daily readership is steadily on the rise) and we now have over 108,000 raw hits.

As I write this, I would like to be preparing to get to sleep so I can get up on the early side tomorrow morning. This is unfortunately impossible, however, as my college courtyard is full of people screaming,
“Houn B****! Get out of the Way!
The Houn! The Houn!
The Houn is on fire!
We don’t need no water let the motherf***** burn!”

This is “freshman initiation” for Calhoun College at Yale. When I was a freshman, I had the foresight to go to a concert, rather than be led blindfolded to our college courtyard, dancing the Macarena and screaming obscenities. This year, however, I neglected to remove myself (I went to a concert last night instead). Perhaps given another fifteen minutes they’ll get tired of screaming and go home.

This has been another update from the elite Ivy League.

-Dan Gelernter 

As of this month, Yale has stopped sending out paper bills to its students. The new system will of course relieve the administration of a certain amount of work by transferring said work to the students (every Yalie must now create an account for online bill-paying or add “authorized payer” accounts). Unfortunately, I doubt that Yale will be reimbursing us for the discontinuation of this basic service by lowering our tuition costs.

Less than an hour ago I attended Yale’s version of a 9/11 memorial service, which was considerably worse than I had expected. To put it in brief: We were told that we were citizens of the world and need to concentrate on love; we heard the national anthem but there was no “God Bless America”; the Muslim chaplain got up to read us an Arabic poem; President Levin didn’t (couldn’t?) attend, and sent a student to read his speech for him (in which the word “terrorism” was not exactly featured); the Yale Rabbi reminded us that we were all of the “three Abrahamic religions” that had some share in 9/11.

Perhaps I heard all these things wrong or just imagined them, but the Yalie standing next to me was just as angry as I was. I hoped that we weren’t alone in expecting a 9/11 memorial service to concentrate on the beauty, greatness, and courage of America, but Yale's administration doesn't love our country, and didn’t feel like praising the US tonight.

A snapshot of a liberal university.