Individuals from the greater Providence community and a Brown University student held a prolife rally outside Brown’s med school. They alledged that the Warren Alpert School of Medicine was teaching its students how to abort babies. To convey their point, the protestors posted pictures of dismembered fetuses. These are some scenes from that protest.
I completely agree with the cause. I disagree with the methodology.
UPDATE:I empathize with the cause. I disagree with the methodology. I think abortion is disgusting. It’s murder. After discussing Brown Med’s curriculum with Brown med students, however, it seems that Brown Med does not actually teach students to abort babies. Also, the flier encouraged students to start a med students for life group. If the protestors had done their homework, they would have easily found the following group listed on Brown Med’s website.
Brown Medical Students for Life Leaders: Brenna Sullivan Treasurer: Marshala Lee Description: Brown Medical Students for Life is a broad based coalition of medical students and faculty concerned with ethical issues surrounding the termination of human life in medical settings. Our concerns include but are not limited to induced abortion, euthanasia, and destruction of human embryos. We hope to add balanced and thoughtful perspectives and initiate discussion about these and other human life issues. We will also serve as a resource for students with concerns about the ethical situations they may encounter as medical students and as physicians. This is a nonreligious, apolitical, nonprofit organization.
Today the BDH published an article discussing a new petition making its way around the net called Support Bill Ayers. If you don’t know who Bill Ayers is, He’s a “former” TERRORIST and a current educator in Chicago who participated in a number of bombings during the late 60s and early 70s including bombing the pentagon in 1972. In a NYT article published on 9/11/2001, Ayers said that he did not regret setting bombs. “I feel we didn’t do enough” he said. And your faculty supports him. While Ayers does not use bombs anymore, he views his current projects which focus on educational reform as an extension of his 60s and 70s radicalism. Thank God, however, that excepting Mr. Keach, the faculty that support Mr. Ayers, are little more than no-name, ersatz pedagogues. Their signatures are likely little more than a self-important desire to pay lip-service to the all-important intellectual diversity. Sure, when a conservative speaks out, he is spewing hate speech, but when a liberal bombs stuff, we should, as Constance Crawford says, consider his point of view. These signatures don’t make me suspect of McCain’s criticism of Ayers. They make me more cognizant of the radical position of a number of our professors.
Wanna know who signed the petition. Here are their profiles: 1) Signature #312, William Keach William Keach is, at the very least, a semi-serious academic. He’s written a number of books and he knows a lot. Not really surprising that he signed this thing. As he makes clear in the BDH article, Keach is an unapologetic leftist who opposed Vietnam. He even has (or had at one time) a picture of Lenin proudly displayed on his office wall. He says that he doesn’t support Ayer’s actions, but let’s be honest, he does.
2) Signature #486, Tracy Steffes Tracy has only recently joined us here at our fair Brown University. She came from the University of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. in history in 2007. Tracy’s research and dissertation (not surprisingly) has focused on educational reform (sort of like Ayers). Tracy may or may not have a shrine in her office with an Ayers effigy as its centerpiece. Of course she signed the petition.
3) Signature #1313, Tracie Shea
M. Tracie Shea’s research is in personality disorders. Maybe she signed the petition because she wants to gain favor with Ayers so that she can research him. I couldn’t find a picture of Shea, so, for now, she’ll just have to remain faceless.
4) Signature #2213, Rebecca Schneider
Rebecca is the Chair of the Dept. of Theatre, Speech, and Dance. Wtf! Why are theatre people even pretending like their opinion matters? It’s like when Sheryl Crow talks about politics, no one cares!
5) Signature #2255, Constance Crawford Connie, who was a finalist on SNL’s “Anyone Can Host” contest in 1977 sounds nothing like a committed communist. If her BDH quote is accurate, she is nothing more than a bleeding heart who wants everyone’s perspective to be aired. I generally agree with Connie. But I think that Ayer’s was already heard. He was heard loud and clear everytime one of his bombs exploded.
6) Signature #2282 & #2285, Kym Moore
Kym Moore was so enthusiastic to join the ranks of her radical, faculty cohorts that she signed her name to the petition twice. Kym directs a lot of plays at Brown, and they all seem to focus on race.
Apparently, our whole theatre department is filled up with radical crazies. Either that or these theatre-types have no idea what they signed.
6) Signature #2415, Student Michael Da Cruz Michael Da Cruz is a member of Brown’s now infamous SDS. It’s no wonder that SDS members would support Ayers. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground which actually split from SDS back in the 60s. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s a surprise, but SDS is and always has been a radical organization. While the Weathermen were always regarded as more radical than the original SDS, it’s no secret that their ends were one in the same. Good luck with what’s to come Mr. Da Cruz. Supporting terrorists openly is probably not the best way to secure a good future for yourself.
Not sure how many friends this column will make me among the new-right conservatives, or the few neo-conservatives, in the Brown Right. But, I was proud of my defense of the Puritans, especially against the charge (often repeated by Roman Catholic conservatives) that there is a logical transition from Protestantism to progressivism. My overarching argument is that the Puritans were in fact highly conservative (and therefore great lovers of liberty), despite the ostensible radicalism of some Anabaptists who made common cause with them; and that the real legacy of the Puritans is individualism and the celebration of non-conformity.
The French revolutionaries — who, I might add, only became as radical as they did out of [extreme] reaction to the authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic establishment in France — and the 19thC/20thC Marxists, were in fact the ones who threw a monkey wrench into history. Now, I have my problems with Roman Catholicism, especially as it existed in the Middle Ages, but I would always prefer to live under its control than under the control of an atheistical, collectivist Marxism. (I have made these feelings known to my Roman Catholic friends on many occasions.) Of course, a Protestant-inspired, Anglo-American constitutional Republic is best of all.
Competing historical interpretations welcome, but this particular issue always seems to get personal.
UPDATE ALL HOROWITZ LECTURE VIDEOS ARE POSTED AND WORKING
For those of you who don’t know who David Horowitz is and why his name is significant at Brown, follow the trolley to the land of make-believe where I’ll tell you the story of Mr. Horowitz’s infamy.
Way back, like a million years ago, (on March 13, 2001) David Horowitz ran an ad in The Brown Daily Herald entitled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea—and Racist Too”. The essay (which ran in other campus publications as well) was a well-reasoned set of ten problems with the idea of reparations. But Brown students, on the whole, disagreed. The campus erupted in irrational, riotous, idiocy as Brown students are prone to do, stole the next day’s press run of the BDH, and promised to do the same day after day until the BDH gave the protestors a free page to advertise and tossed the money they were given for the ad into the trash can. Professors repudiated the ad, and demanded that the BDH do the same; the BDH refused. For that, Professors repudiated the BDH staff (your fellow student’s names were dragged through the mud by your professors).
For a while, life at Brown was pretty tense. But after the event had happened, the Brown Republicans decided to invite Mr. Horowitz to campus. But there was a backlash, and the lily-livered republicans rescinded their invitation. When Ruth became President, though, one of her first acts was to reinvite the uninvited Horowitz to speak. And so he did.
Now, this is the short and sweet version. You can read the long version here. But I only bring it up to draw some parallels. The other day, Horowitz published an incredibly inflammatory advertisement in the BDH that attacked the Muslim Student’s Association. It’s not a group I know much about, so I don’t know whether what he said about them is true. The day after the ad ran, the BDH published a letter to the editor by Anthony Badami (a kid I have a lot of respect for), demanding that the BDH repudiate the ad. And now, I imagine that there will be a rash of letters agreeing with Mr. Badami.
Unfortunately, while Horowitz can be elegant and even convincing, his lecture the other night was terrible. He took a shotgun approach, and because of that, he had no coherent thesis. And, while Horowitz had a lot of truth strewn throughout his lecture, he insisted on throwing in platitudes that did nothing but weaken his already non-existent syllogism. Despite all that, I’m sorry Anthony, we do not live in a fascist society. If Horowitz wants to publish his anecdotal evidence that the Muslim Students Association is part of this Islamofascist conspiracy, you would do better to address his arguments than to demand repudiation by the newspaper that published the article. This is the same thing that happened when the BDH published his reparations piece.
Anyhow, rant aside, for those of you who care to watch the lecture, here it is in full (minus the breaks between me changing the dvd in my camera): Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
A student (who I will assume was the last person taken off the wait list his year) insists that Sarah Palin = Muslim terrorist. Hilariously, this student seems to be completely sober. He’s under the influence of only his brain. RAH RAH BRUNONIA!
Horowitz fights with a Palestinian (I think) girl. Fisticuffs may or may not be exchanged.
Part 4
This was the sarcastic kid. Horowitz takes the bait and looks really stupid. Horowitz proceeds on a rant about the faculty at Brown. “These people are communists…. You have at least sixty communists on your faculty.”
Another kid tries to bait Horowitz. He attempts sarcasm but is even too stupid to be sarcastic (the most simplistic form of humor). The student asks where we can find these Islamofascists. Apparently he wants to play hide-and-seek with them.
Part 5
Horowitz and an English kid go at it. “I’m right. You’re wrong,” Horowitz says. The english kid then stands up and throws a cup of tea in Horowitz’ face and stuffs his mouth full of crumpets. With that, Horowitz bids us farewell.
Anthony Badami ’11’s letter to the Herald on Friday made several good points, but ultimately fell short. First, I do not understand how he could be ’shocked’ by Horowitz’s ad — considering Brown’s actually shocking student culture, as well as the fact that Horowitz’s ideas have a fair amount of traction nationwide, ’shocked’ is an inappropriate choice of words. Perhaps he was ’sad’ or ‘upset’, but ’shocked’?
And whether or not one agrees with the premises of Horowitz and his group — I myself have my disagreements — they both are rather upfront and consistent. They view the MSA as a political group (with unsavoury ties), which masquerades as a religious-cultural group. Are they right? Again, I tend to disagree, though not entirely. But Badami cannot honestly expect the Herald, or his readers, to repudiate Horowitz and his group simply because he tells it, and us, to do so.
And on the matter of repudiation, why is brinksmanship so fashionable these days? Badami disagrees with Horowitz and his group. Oh, well. But to demand repudiation? Talk about the chilling effect on free speech…
Quick background: Thursday evening David Horowitz gave a lecture in MacMillan Hall of Brown University about the threat of radical Islam. Of course liberals in the audience somehow tried to refute the facts. One left-winged student thought it would be funny during the question-and-answer session to pose as a Horowtiz admirer. After raising his hand and being chosen by Horowitz, the student proceeded to make comments such as “It is soooo good to have your views represented on campus. I can’t stand being surrounded by all these liberals,” and “You should come teach here.”
It is pretty sad when the best attempt that a Brown student has to discredit Horowitz is to sarcastically mock him. The entire audience never fully caught on that the student was sarcastically complimenting Horowitz, indicating initially the poor quality of the joke.
Further, the rebuke emphasizes the student’s ignorance on the subject matter. Imagine with me, a debate between Obama and McCain. If McCain’s rebuttals to Obama’s arguments consisted solely of sarcastic praises, viewers would consider McCain an idiot. The same can be said of the dolt in the audience of Horowitz’ lecture. Brown needs to further analyze their prospects to prevent admittance of students like the aforementioned embarrassment to higher learning.
Obama keeps harping on McCain’s corporate tax cut proposal. He says that McCain wants to give huge tax cuts to oil companies. COME ON! Saying that McCain’s corporate tax cut is aimed at giving oil companies huge tax cuts is like saying that Obama’s proposal to cut middle class taxes is aimed at giving child molesters a tax break. I’m sure that some child molesters would benefit from a middle class tax cut just as oil companies would benefit from a corporate tax cut. Regardless, all this talk by Obama about decreasing tax rates is BS. Human events does a good job discussing Obama’s tax policy.
“Government spending is completely out of control” McCain said. Amen! It’s unfortunate that he is proposing some ridiculous programs like the bombshell he proposed last debate involving buying up bad mortgages. On the other hand, Obama’s claim that McCain is the same as Bush is ridiculous. It’s interesting that the media has loved McCain until Barack Obama—savior of the world—came along.
Obama does pal around with terrorists. Even the New Yorker discusses Obama’s relationship with Ayers.
“What we can’t do is try to characterize each other as bad people,” Obama says. But Obama is the one who accuses McCain of being a racist.
Why does Obama keep bringing up Warren Buffet. I wish Americans understood that Buffet, an incredible businessman, would love to have influence in the White House. The guy has made his fortune by exploiting high taxes—particularly in regards to the estate tax. Boy oh boy, if Obama’s elected, put your money into Berkshire stock ladies and gentlemen.
Which vice presidential candidate would be a better president should something happen to either candidate? Good question. I’m in a room full of liberals, and they cheered at the question. All of them are yelling “she’s a Maverick!” When McCain said that she has been a good example to women, everyone in the room laughed. Look, there is no doubt (especially after seeing the Couric interview) that Palin may have risen a bit too quickly. She’s probably not ready to be Vice President, much less President. But look at her record. If you think she’s stupid, watch her debates from the Alaska gubernatorial debates. She’s actually very well spoken. If you doubt her credentials as a maverick then you need to look at how she governed Alaska. She actually did get rid of a lot of corruption. She actually did take on the establishment.
Obama thinks that in 10 years we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Not if we don’t start drilling NOW!! Not if we don’t provide incentives for inventors to create better or more efficient engines. It’s clear on this issue that Obama doesn’t understand market forces. Does he think that local companies and local speculators don’t want to find oil? Use the land that they have for speculation or lose them? That’s not a bad policy. But give them some new land to wildcat. The reason that the land isn’t being used is because either there isn’t oil there or it’s inaccessible. Simple economics. And beyond that, while Obama may be right, it may take us 10 years to reduce our dependence, McCain hit the nail on the head. When speculators see that a new supply of oil will be put into the supply line, the price drops instantly. As a unrelated note: did you know that 15% of American oil comes from Venezuela.
McCain hits on the charter schools. I would love to say that I don’t really hate Obama’s plan to encourage students to go to college by giving them a credit toward college in exchange for community service. But let’s be honest, what would happen? Schools would increase their price by exactly the same amount that the credit covered. Why? Competition. People will pay to go to college, and lenders will always lend money to soon-to-be college graduates because the federal government requires that those loans be paid back. Basically, students would end up with the same amount of debt, and have to do a few years of community service which oftentimes pays below minimum wage. What would happen? Record numbers of students would be forced to join the military rather than the peace corp or Americorp in order to pay the college debts that the credit was originally supposed to help them get out of college without debt.
Regardless of the critiques of Columbus, this great man popularized the New World and initiated the exploration of the Americas. Because of Columbus’ feat, other Europeans followed in his footsteps (or I guess ‘wake’ would be more appropriate) across the Atlantic, ultimately leading to European colonization of North America. As the United States is a direct result of European settlement in North America, we should pay tribute to the man who started it all. To not celebrate Columbus is to not celebrate the founding of the USA, a beacon of freedom to the world. Erasing Columbus out of mainstream society would be a disservice to our heritage, an offense against our origins, and a shameful act against the great nation in which we reside.
