The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

University Logo as Rorschach Inkblot

Posted on | April 27, 2013 | 41 Comments

Instapundit calls our attention to the case of a feminist student at the University of Connecticut who saw rape in the school’s revamped logo for its Huskies sports program. And to understand just what this reaction means, you really should read the “open letter” that Carolyn Luby wrote to UConn president Susan Herbst:

Dear President Susan Herbst,
I write to you today as a UConn student, but more specifically as a UConn woman and feminist. I want to first express my admiration for you as a woman who has made it in a “man’s” world, who has faced the odds and done the seemingly unthinkable; become the first woman president at UConn over the course of its 130-year history. You serve as a shining example that even the most challenging of ceilings can be broken, and you speak to the considerable strides women have made over the last 50 years in academia and the professional world. One of the most vivid memories I have of my admiration for your accomplishments was when Gloria Steinem gave you a standing ovation for your successes, along with a full auditorium of students and faculty, during her speech at the 40 year anniversary of the UConn Women’s Center this past fall.  It is on behalf of that standing ovation, my feminist foremothers, and the respect that I feel for your success personally that I write this letter of concern and intervention to you today. . . .

This is what we call bad writing. Before we can even begin to engage Carolyn Luby’s argument — such as it is — we must first overcome our revulsion at the ghastly wretchedness of Luby’s prose. And I think that the awfulness of Luby’s writing is more than coincidentally related to the awfulness of her purpose, i.e., to signify feminist solidarity by way of inviting President Herbst to sympathize with Luby’s heinously opportunistic purpose in writing.

Luby wishes to hijack the discussion of the university’s new sports logo in order to humiliate Herbst with a reiteration of criminal accusations made against various UConn athletes. For example, football running back Lyle McCombs was arrested for domestic violence after an argument with his girlfriend, and basketball center Enosch Wolfe was charged with trespassing and other charges — recently dropped — after an incident at a woman’s apartment. Excuse me for inflicting this jargon-laden Carolyn Luby paragraph on readers:

Instead of giving these problematic aspects of male athletic peer culture at UConn a second look or a giving the real face of athletics a true makeover, it appears that the focus of your administration is prioritizing the remodeling of the fictional face of the Husky Logo. Instead of communicating a zero tolerance atmosphere for this kind of behavior, increasing or vocalizing support to violence against women prevention efforts on campus in the face of such events, or increasing support to student run programs that seek to work with athletes on issues of violence as well as academic issues, it would appear that your administration is more interested in fostering consumerism and corporatization than education and community. Another example of this shift in priorities can be seen in the current administrations selection of the new logo — a selection made with no involvement from or consultation with the normal, everyday, non-Olympian student body . . .

Ah, yes —  “fostering consumerism and corporatization”: President Herbst’s administration is accused of being pro-capitalist.

Reasonable people can have intelligent debates about the influence of big-time college athletics on university life, and about the extent to which the term “student-athlete” is a cruel fiction when applied to those players of limited academic aptitude whose only ambition is making it to the NFL or NBA. We can also reasonably discuss the degree to which coaches and administrators tolerate occasional thuggish behavior by star players as the necessary cost of having successful athletic programs.

Certainly, UConn isn’t the only school dealing with “Jocks Gone Wild” issues, but “these problematic aspects of male athletic peer culture,” as Luby verbosely describes them, aren’t really what her letter is about. Her letter is about signifying, about displaying the ideological banner of radical feminism and humiliating President Herbst for her insufficient loyalty to that banner: Betraying the Sisterhood.

We see this signifying jive most clearly in the decision of Carolyn Luby to close her letter with an ostentatious literary allusion:

In the words of Audre Lorde, “this letter is in repayment.”

Yes, the radical lesbian poet — who died more than 20 years ago and whose relevance to the problems of University of Connecticut athletics is, well, problematic — must be name-checked by Luby as a symbolic appeal to unity among the intended audience within UConn’s department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies:

Carolyn Luby is a Senior at the University of Connecticut. She is double majoring in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Spanish and minoring in Puerto Rican and Latino Studies. She is fluent in Spanish and just returned from a semester abroad in Granada, Spain. In addition to academics Carolyn is also a peer educator for the Violence Against Women Prevention Program . . . She is an active advocate for Women’s Rights and Human Rights and works to promote community involvement and interaction with these issues on both a university level and a national and global level.

This biography of Luby appears at the “Latinas & Media” blog, which is in fact a class project for a course of the same name which is WGSS 3260 in the UConn undergraduate catalog and taught by Cal-Berkeley alumna Diana Rios. What this means is that Carolyn Luby is getting a diploma for ax-grinding — an apostle of angry entitled victimhood, catechized in the gospel of grievance — which is now accorded the status of an academic discipline on many campuses.

Isn’t this a problem that is, in its own way, more pervasive and harmful than occasional outbreaks of thuggery by college athletes?

UPDATE: Linked by Gene Hackett — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers! Y’know, this problem of students getting useless degrees in meaningless subjects while university administrators are mainly concerned with enhancing revenue opportunities — somebody really ought to write a book about that.

 

Category: Education, Feminism, Intellectuals

Army Plans to Cut Eight Brigades by 2017

Posted on | April 26, 2013 | 32 Comments

COLUMBUS, Georgia
At graduation ceremonies for my son’s infantry training unit this morning, the speaker was a retired general who sounded dire warnings about the threats facing the United States. The old man’s speech was sufficiently remarkable as to constitute actual news, so I pulled a scrap of paper out of my pocket and took notes:

“It is absolutely unacceptable for leaders in Washington not to be prepared for the unexpected,” retired Army Lt. Gen. R.L. “Sam” Wetzel said in an address during graduation ceremonies for infantry troops at Fort Benning.
Wetzel, who first saw combat as a company commander in the Korean War, remarked that America’s historic pattern is for military decreases in times of peace, followed by unexpected crises caused by enemy attacks like Pearl Harbor, which plunged the U.S. into  World War II, and the Communist invasion that began the Korean War.
Wetzel, 82, noted the current threat from North Korea — which has developed ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons — and especially the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. He said the current problem posed by Islamic radicalism can be traced to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution in Iran.
“These radical Islamists are out to destroy our American way of life,” Wetzel said during his speech at the graduation ceremonies at Fort Benning’s National Infantry Museum.

What I didn’t realize, until I got back to the motel and did some research, was why General Wetzel was so concerned: The Pentagon is actually proposing the elimination of a brigade the general once commanded. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

A decision is possible this summer on whether the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division remains at Fort Benning or will be cut to reduce the Army force by 2020. . . .
To save money, eight brigades will be deactivated with two coming from Europe. The other six brigades would be considered from installations across the nation. . . .
At the listening session [Wednesday in Columbus], officials said the cuts are aimed at reducing the force from 562,000 to 490,000 by 2017. . . .
Lt. Col. Brent Selnau, who works at the Pentagon for the Department of the Army, said the driving factor in the cuts was the budget control act of 2011. . . . Officials are left with trying to cut a chunk of about 80,000 soldiers from the force. . . .
Retired Lt. Gen. R.L. “Sam” Wetzel, a veteran of Korea, Vietnam and former commander of Fort Benning, asked the panel of civilian and Army officials to keep the brigade he once commanded in Germany on the post. Going back to conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Wetzel asked if anyone saw the conflicts coming.
“We must not be unprepared for the next one,” he said. “That is the message I want you to take that back to Washington. I think everybody in this room agrees with me. We’ve got to be thinking about the future.”

How did I miss this news earlier? Army Times, April 7:

The Army plans to cut eight of its 45 active-duty brigade combat teams as it shrinks the force from 562,000 soldiers to 490,000 by fiscal 2017.

There was a Senate hearing this week:

To slash its end strength by 72,000 soldiers, the Army will be forced to discharge up to 29,000 personnel involuntarily, Thomas Lamont, assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, told the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee Wednesday.
Between 23,000 and 24,000 enlisted personnel would be asked to leave involuntarily, and between 4,000 and 5,000 officers would be forced out, reported CQ Today.

Slashing eight brigades could seriously weaken our national security, and I’m stunned that there has been relatively little discussion about this policy. You can’t make up for the loss of eight active-duty brigades by using National Guard troops. One of the problems exposed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was that repeated long-term deployment of Guard and Reserve units has harmful effects on morale, recruiting and retention. Such a substantial reduction in the active-duty force will likely degrade overall readiness, and make it more difficult to rotate units to overseas assignments, particularly in the case of a major war.

Honestly, when General Wetzel started talking about the threat to “our American way of life,” I thought the old man had slipped a cog. But as soon as I found out about this proposal — shrinking the Army by 72,000 troops, a 13 percent reduction — I realized there was a serious policy argument involved that isn’t getting nearly as much attention as it should. Thank God for notes on scraps of paper.

UPDATE: Possibly related?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) went after the Obama administration’s handling of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation in a radio interview Thursday — and along the way he claimed that Muslim Brotherhood members are in the administration and influencing its decisions.
“It’s very clear to everybody but this administration that radical Islam is at war against us,” Gohmert told WND Radio. “And I’m hoping either this administration will wake up or a new one will come in at the next election before irreparable damage is done. Because radical Islam is at war with us. Thank God for the moderates who don’t approve of what’s being done. But this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America.”

Not trying to stoke anyone’s paranoia here, but cutting the Army by eight brigades? Who benefits from that, huh?

 


Category: Military

Why Is This Idiot on National TV?

Posted on | April 26, 2013 | 32 Comments

The enduring mystery of Chris Matthews:

Matthews insisted that he opposes intervention into Syria and said that America spends too much of its energy intervening in Arab nations. . . .
“As long as Syrians are fighting Syrians, that’s better than us fighting Syrians,” Matthews continued. “If we don’t stop killing Arabs on international television one of these days. It’s all we do is kill Arabs on international television.”
“I think that might have something to do with Jihad,” he concluded. “Just guessing.”

 

Category: MSNBC

VIDEO: Terrorist Floyd Corkins Tells FBI He Used SPLC ‘Hate’ List to Find Target

Posted on | April 25, 2013 | 23 Comments

Steven Ertelt at LifeNews reports:

In a chilling new Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogation video just released, Floyd Lee Corkins, who shot up the offices of the Family Research Council, on August 15, 2012, says that he picked his target from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) website.
Corkins pled guilty to three charges, including committing an act of domestic terrorism while armed – the first such charge in Washington, D.C.

Category: Gays, Terrorism

Terrorists Fear Him

Posted on | April 24, 2013 | 48 Comments

Cowards who strike against the innocent to advance ancient hatreds and fanatical agendas have one certain enemy in the world, who will courageously seek them out and destroy the evil doers. Above all, this is the enemy that terrorists fear most . . . Read more

Category: Family, Military

Paul Ryan Intern Adam Savader Arrested

Posted on | April 23, 2013 | 77 Comments

Adam Savader, a former intern for Paul Ryan, was arrested by the FBI and charged in a weird sexual extortion scheme:

A 21-year-old Great Neck, New York man was charged in a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan with Internet extortion and cyber stalking, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade. . . .
According to the affidavit, from May 2012 through February 2013, Adam Paul Savader sent anonymous text messages using Google Voice numbers to 15 women stating that he had nude photographs of the women and threatening to distribute the nude photographs to the women’s friends and family members unless the women sent him more nude photographs of themselves. Savader sent some of the victims links to a photo-sharing website where nude pictures of the victims had been posted.
The case was brought to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by detectives from the Ann Arbor Police Department, who received a complaint from a victim stating that she had received threatening messages from a person who had illegally obtained nude photographs of her from her e-mail account. Detectives with the Ann Arbor P.D. partnered with FBI agents to investigate the case and together identified 15 victims in Detroit; Washington, D.C.; and Long Island, New York.
If convicted on these charges, Savader faces a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

Via Adam Steinbaugh who explain the details:

[A] recently-unsealed complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan . . . alleges, essentially, that a New York man — Adam Paul Savader — used a variety of Google Voice numbers to text women under the monicker “John Smith.”  ”Smith” told the women that he had nude photos of them (or, in one victim’s case, her mother) and that he would post more online if they did not send more nude photos.  He allegedly threatened to send the photos to their family members, sorority sisters, and the Republican National Committee, telling one that everyone in “D.C” would see the nude photos.  The unidentified victims apparently attended the same college as Savader.
On Twitter, Adam Savader brags that he was “Formerly @PRyan’s sole intern on @MittRomney’s campaign and a @newtgingrich campaign staffer” and notes that his website is savader.com.  The whois registration for the site lists his abode as being the same Great Neck, NY address as the address affiliated with the IP address used to register many of the online accounts allegedly used in the sextortion plot.

Savader’s Twitter account has not yet been deleted.

UPDATE: Reading the complaint — and trust me, it’s a must-read — I’m wondering: Do all college girls now have naked photos online?

Hey, I could have a great future as a Republican intern . . .

UPDATE II: Welcome, Twitchy readers! It turns out, because I know everybody, I’m just one degree of separation from Adam Savader:

There is a lesson here about the perils of the digital age: Anything you put on the Web — even uploaded to private accounts — can be accessed, if someone with enough skills really wants to get to it bad enough. And naked pictures? Yeah, don’t do those. Ever. Because that boyfriend you’re sending them to may not be your boyfriend forever.

 


Category: Scandal, Sex

Blame Bush: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Does!

Posted on | April 23, 2013 | 26 Comments

Notice the not-too-subtle Washington Post spin here:

The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews.
From his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has acknowledged his role in planting the explosives near the marathon finish line on April 15, the officials said. . . .
Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police as the two attempted to avoid capture, do not appear to have been directed by a foreign terrorist organization.
Rather, the officials said, the evidence so far suggests they were “self-radicalized” through Internet sites and U.S. actions in the Muslim world. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has specifically cited the U.S. war in Iraq, which ended in December 2011 with the removal of the last American forces, and the war in Afghanistan, where President Obama plans to end combat operations by the end of 2014.
Obama has made repairing U.S. relations with the Islamic world a foreign policy priority, even as he has expanded drone operations in Pakistan and other countries, which has inflamed Muslim public opinion.

In other words, the Brothers Tsarnaev shared the Left’s worldview that U.S. military intervention abroad in the wake of 9/11 was illegitimate. And so “they were ‘self-radicalized’ through Internet sites” — maybe DailyKos, Think Progress, MoveOn.org, etc.?

 

 

Category: Media Bias, Terrorism

Why Did Fox News and Townhall Scrub the Todd Starnes ‘Saudi National’ Story?

Posted on | April 23, 2013 | 47 Comments

Let me start by saying that I consider the obsession with the “Saudi national” — a student who was questioned after the Boston Marathon bombing — an annoying distraction from the main story of the terrorist act committed by the Brothers Tsarnaev.

This is not to say that the story isn’t interesting in its own right: Why would authorities be so hasty to turn Abdul Rahman Ali Alharb loose, at a time when the actual perpetrators were still at large and it was impossible to rule out a larger conspiracy?

An interesting question, and Tiffany Gabbay at the Blaze reports that Glenn Beck is trying to get some answers about it:

While Alharbi has gone from a person of interest, to a witness, and now to someone deemed unimportant to the case, sources have told TheBlaze that there is more to this story than is being told by the media or the government.
“We let everyone have all of the other information because we care more about the truth, more about you getting the news,” he said before explaining that since he owns TheBlaze outright, readers and viewers needn’t worry about the network being beholden to outside interests or foreign (i.e. Saudi) money.
“There is not ever going to be a member of CAIR crossing this threshold to have a private meeting with me to tell me exactly what would be in my best interest. I’m not taking the meeting. We move differently here. We are an American network, owned by an American. I am sick and tired of being told there is nothing left to see, move along,” he added.

Ah! This is it, you see? Glenn Beck (and others) believe the “Saudi national” story is being suppressed because Certain Unnamed News Organizations — which might sound like Nox Fews — are beholden to Arab money  and being intimidated by Muslim Brotherhood pressure groups. And who am I to say they’re not?

More likely, however, I think the bosses at Nox Fews and other organizations share my newsman’s instinct that this “Saudi national” angle is a distraction, a detour from the main story, and quite possibly a snipe hunt — a complete waste of time and energy. But if you think the Saudi national story is important, your paranoia about it being deliberately suppressed by a CAIR-directed conspiracy is likely to be stoked when you discover that a Certain Unnamed News Organization deleted Todd Starnes’s article about it.

Fair and Balanced. We Report, You Decide. IYKWIMAITYD.

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Media Bias, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism
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