The Try-Works

The funniest part, as usual, came with the antics of John G. Martin. I actually had the wrong guy entirely pegged as Mr. Martin, but just before the event began I noticed this weird little middle-aged cat leering at me and kinda hopping up and down in his seat. I went over and asked if he knew me. He jerked around and yelled something at me I couldn’t catch, getting even hinkier and jumpier. So I asked his name, and he refused to answer. Then I figured it out, and asked, “John Martin?” He went apeshit, arms and legs all over the place, and asked me why I want to know. I held out my hand, and said I wanted to shake his hand. He bleated out something about he’d never shake my hand and he wanted to know if I was gonna throw him out personally. I shrugged and told him no, I wasn’t in charge of security and walked away.

He then lost his mind entirely. Started leaping around the auditorium, snapping pictures of students and yelling “Gotcha!” at them. Most of them had no idea who he was. They seemed to think he was just some creepy middle-aged guy who was a little on the disabled side. I didn’t disabuse them of that notion, it being fairly accurate. Every time I glanced his way he was either training a video camera on me or frantically snapping my picture. More power to him. At the beginning of the event, however, he was told to put away his cameras, and after only a little whining, he did so.

He saved the best for last, though. I was walking out of the auditorium at about the two and a half hour mark, and saw a card pinned to the door. I did a double take and realized Martin had pinned it up. It was a corny laser-printed business card with his blog address on it, the background being a picture out of Ten Nights in a Barroom. Just as I picked it off the wall to get a better look at it, I heard this strange, high-pitched, strangled laugh, and looked up to see Martin leering at me again, just before scuttling out the exit door and down the walkway away from the building.

Anyway, we pulled all cards down. Most of students were a little confused as to who the monkeyish old man was. The ones who knew hipped the others to the freakshow Ballerinas that show up to these events. A bunch of people had tried to talk to him, I guess, and he’d done his weird, little aggro bit with everyone. They were a little weirded out, but the final consensus was that these freakshows are gonna show up from time to time to try and provoke a conflict. Best to ignore them.

Update: As non-conferee notes rightly, I didn’t say a whole lot about the actual conference. Fair, I just had to jot the above down while I was still chuckling over it. All in all, I thought the event went well. I agree generally with Jim Paine’s numbers. I looked around every so often, taking count. I thought it was criminally under-attended, particularly given the prominence of the speakers. But, that said, I could only stay for about half the event, so I don’t know how the numbers turned out.

Dean Saitta was wonderful. His discussion of interdisciplinary knowledges really pegged why I’m interested in Ethnic Studies in the first place. I’m a Literature guy, particularly interested in depictions of American Indians in Euro-American literature, and that’s a branch of literary studies which I think demands an interdisciplinary approach. There was a lot there in what he said, and I’ll have to decompress a little before I get too into it.

I also thought Matthew Abraham tied in Norman Finklestein’s case with Ward Churchill’s beautifully. I liked his defense of Ward Churchill’s original essay. As you know, if you’ve been reading here, I liked that essay. Abraham really nailed why. Chris Mato Nunpa was also very compelling. A great speaker. Very funny, very engaging.

And, of course, the students who spoke were wonderful. Y’know, this is their gig. They’ve been the ones pushing this resistance, and I think they’ve done a wonderful job. They’re out there on a limb, with very little support, doing what they believe in. You can agree or disagree with it, but it takes a measure of courage that I’ve been humbled by for the last semester.

Update II: This just in from Pirateballerina:

Churchill’s dog, Benjie, has posted his own report on the Emergency! National! Forum! (formerly the National! Emergency! Forum!) at CU. Apparently, John Martin of Drunkablog was so bored with the droning sound emanating from the stage that he had to improvise his own entertainment, a sort of over-the-top “Top o’the world, Ma!” burlesque, the sheer comic genius of which completely escaped Benjie, judging by his humorless account. Fascinating and well-acted it must have been, though, since Benjie focuses entirely on John’s antics, and fails to mention the low turn-out or the no-doubt thrilling harangues delivered by the usual host of useless idiots. We do hear the lunch was good, though—just not from Benjie.

Okay, sure. It might’ve been brilliant performance art on Mr. Martin’s part. If so, write the man a contract. It looked to me like a minor meltdown by a serious neurotic. Sure, I was laughing, but by the time he left, I was just happy he hadn’t flashed anybody.

(Thanks to the man in the mansion on the hill.)

In Brecht’s play Galileo the great astronomer sets forth into a world dominated by a mighty church and an authoritarian power: “The cities are narrow and so are the brains,” he declares recklessly. “Superstition and plague. But now the word is: since it is so, it does not remain so. For everything moves my friend.” Intoxicated with his own radical discoveries, Galileo feels the earth shifting and finds himself propelled surprisingly toward revolution. ” It was always said that the stars were fastened to a crystal vault so they could not fall,” he says. “Now we have taken heart and let them float in the air, without support… they are embarked on a great voyage—like us who are also without support and embarked on a great voyage.” Here Galileo raises the stakes and risks taking on the establishment in the realm of its own authority, and it strikes back fiercely. Forced to renounce his life’s work under the exquisite pressure of the Inquisition he denounces what he knows to be true, and is welcomed back into the church and the ranks of the faithful, but exiled from humanity—by his own word. A former student confronts him in the street: “Many on all sides followed you with their ears and their eyes believing that you stood, not only for a particular view of the movement of the stars, but even more for the liberty of teaching— in all fields. Not then for any particular thoughts, but for the right to think at all. Which is in dispute.”

The right to think at all, which is in dispute—-this is what the Ward Churchill affair finally comes to: The right to a mind of one’s own, the right to pursue an argument into uncharted spaces, the right to challenge the church and its orthodoxy in the public square. The right to think at all.

It’s no surprise that this outrage against Professor Churchill occurs at this particular moment— a time of empire resurrected and unapologetic, militarism proudly expanding and triumphant, war without justice and without end, white supremacy retrenched, basic rights and protections shredded, growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots, fear and superstition and the mobilization of scapegoating social formations based on bigotry and violence or the threats of violence, and on and on. There’s more of course, and this isn’t the only story, but this is a recognizable part of where we’re living, and a familiar place to anyone with even a casual understanding of history. Here the competing impulses and ideals that have always animated our country’s story are on full display: rights and liberty and the pursuit of human freedom on one side, domination and war and repression on the other. The trauma of contradictions that is America.

Keep reading.

Seems he went to a Ward Churchill rally that met at CU’s UMC Fountain and was shocked to find no one at Norlin Library.

Things are heating up, what with everyone on earth hopping on the Ward Churchill bandwagon.  I like to keep on target with the Churchill/media stuff, but I also like posting about books, etc.  As such, I’ve started my own place.  You want Ward Churchill and Vincent Carroll, you come here.  You want random essays, books and whatnot, you go to Kick Him, Honey.

As you were.

I haven’t lived in Boulder for a long time, but Christ I used to enjoy Jann Scott.  Anyway, here he is with the kind of subtle, nuanced take you’d usually expect from me or Mr. Arthur.

Yep, Vincent Carroll’s heard about the Magnificent Boulder Seven Plus Two, and he ain’t happy.

Seven University of Colorado professors have issued a warning to their colleagues who were brave enough to serve on a committee that condemned a plagiarist and fraud. If that committee’s report on Ward Churchill isn’t retracted, the seven promise, they’ll consider “filing charges of research misconduct against the authors.”

This ominous pledge is also signed by two non-CU professors, one from Cornell and the other from Kansas, and alleges five specific “violations” of scholarly norms in the anti-Churchill report.

Keep reading.

A last-ditch attempt to turn the tables? Of course, and from professors who in at least some cases share Churchill’s political outlook. But fear not: Even if the committee’s report were as rotten as this gaggle of Churchill defenders contends, it would still provide more than enough basis for the professor’s eventual, much-delayed firing. Indeed, the committee’s conclusion that Churchill is a serial plagiarist is not even challenged. Apparently that is now conceded by all sides.

Well, Mr. Carroll would know, wouldn’t he?  After all he’s the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell, who specializes in federal Indian law and American Indian Studies.

Oh.  Right.

Moron.

The money line, however, comes towards the end of the column.

In issuing a report of 124 pages, the committee investigating Churchill undoubtedly made a few mistakes.

Undoubtedly.  Just as in a publishing career which includes around 25 books, Ward Churchill undoubtedly made a few footnote errors.  Funny, how when those you agree with make mistakes you’re so easy to forgive them, Mr. Carroll?  While calling for the lynching of anyone you happen to disagree with for similar oversights?

Smacks of selective prosecution, don’t it?

Tell you what.  I’m starting to get real smug about this.  My money still says you shitheels will find a way to fire Churchill, due process be damned.  I don’t think it matters what the appeal committee says, Hank Brown’ll still fire Churchill.

But my money then says that the court case is gonna put a hurting on CU that’ll continue for generations to come.

And they couldn’t deserve it more.

Any takers?

The past few days have been absolutely delightful, watching Jim Pain trying to wriggle off the skewer of Circe Sturm’s prose. The most delicious morsel of all on that front was when he tried to redeem his old, stale, and thoroughly discredited “Ethnic Studies Echo Chamber” screed—which, it turns out, seems to have been “borrowed” without attribution from an earlier rant by David Horowitz—using Sturm as an illustration, but apparently forgetting that in order for her to serve as an example within the framework he set up therein, she would have had to have actually cited “Jaimes/Churchill.”

Which, at the critical juncture, and for quite a while thereafter, she did NOT. (That’s a period there, Jimbo, and your extracting random sentences from the text at points later in her book doesn’t help. Instead, it underscores just how desperate you’ve become in your quest to “prove” that the opposite of everything is true. So, as we’ve said before, “Spin, Little Pony Pimp, Spin, Spin, Spin.” We’re lovin every moment of the show.)

The bottom line on this one is either Sturm’s unannotated recapitulation of “Churchill’s” interpretation of the General Allotment Act at p. 78 of her book must be accepted as being her own independent assessment, or you have to accuse her of flat-out plagiarizing him, Jimbo. So which is it?

At least one PB reader, “Anonymous” (aka, John LaVelle), not only has the answer, but pushes the envelope still further. In a post dated 04.25.07 - 8:28 am, he asserts that, “The evidence is building that Churchill was the actual author of the ‘Circe Sturm’ piece. Could the same be true of the ‘Angela Gonzalez’ piece, Cheyfitz’s other “reputable independent source” for Churchill’s lies about the General Allotment Act? Anybody taking bets?”

Well, yeah, we are, dipshit. With your usual “scholarly” flair, you’ve not even gotten up to speed enough to realize that the “‘Circe Sturm’ piece” is actually a book before starting to place your wagers. Which would make you an easy mark. But, on second thought, in view of your much-demonstrated deficiencies where matters like ethics and honesty are concerned, you’d undoubtedly welsh the bet, so we’ll pass.

Which is to say that the license your idiocies give us to have an endless supply of laughs at your expense might just be satisfaction enough.

All of this and more has been superbly amusing, but the best show by far has been that provided by Ernie Vigil (aka, “Noj”), who’s driven himself into a literal frenzy—fluttering chicken neck, and all—trying to play every conceivable end against the middle. Let’s start with this one, a post on PB dated 04.25.07 - 10:06 am: “While this has got to embarassing for Circe Sturm, let’s not lump her in with Churchill. Her book is really a pretty good piece of anthropology. I think it qualifies as first rate Indian Studies scholarship. The little flaws we are discussing happen in Sturm’s historical survey sections. History is not her field, and these sections are peripheral to her central focus in this book.”

An hour later, a second post (04.25.07 - 11:02 am): “I see Sturm as a dupe of Churchill. She assumed that published scholarship is valid and reliable. She was sloppy, in that she did not check the primary sources and instead accepted someone else’s characterization of those sources. That is bad scholarship, but it is not research misconduct. Sturm skated dangerously close to plagiarism, but she copied only two words and one sentence structure, and she did cite her source. That is bad writing, but it would not meet the test for plagiarism.”

Two minutes later, a third (04.25.07 - 11:04 am): “One other ding on Sturm: It looks like she copied the Limerick quote out of the Churchill/Jaimes essay, and also accepted Churchill’s misrepresentation of that quote. Had she actually gone and read Limerick, it is unlikely that she would misrepresent Limerick’s meaning in exactly the same way that Churchill did. This again is very sloppy scholarship, and skates dangerously close to the line of plagiarism without actually crossing over.”

Wow, Ernie, we couldn’t have made you look like more of a moron if we’d written your comments for you (you know, like Churchill wrote your book). In fact, we doubt we could’ve done as well.

Like, copying a quote from somebody else’s work and pretending that you found it on your own ain’t plagiarism? We’re real sure your ever-so-”scholarly” view of the matter will be a real comfort to the late Stephen Ambrose, since it was exactly this sort of SOURCE MINING that constituted about 75% of the serial plagiarism case against him. But, hey, do feel free to present your ideas about “little flaws” and “line crossing” to Peter Charles Hoffer over at the AHA. (Better hold forth to the SCRM up at UCB while you’re at it, ’cause they’re about to get hit with a whole shitload of research misconduct complaints against members of that famous Investigative Committee for engaged in the same sort of plagiarism as Ambrose and—according to you, at least—Circe Sturm).

And, jeez guy, aren’t you worried about getting sued by Vernon Bellecourt? You, of all people, should know that he’s got a patent on the word “dupe” (say, ol’ Vern didn’t happen to ghostwrite that comment for you, did he?).

And further, for all your self-proclaimed expertise on all such things, Mr. “Professional Researcher,” you STILL don’t know the difference between Indian Studies and Anthropology? How ’bout the difference between either of those disciplines and rocket science?

But, really-truly, Ernie, the best of your best was in its overall framing: Sturm copies Churchill’s language verbatim, steals his quotes and sources (without so much as glancing at the latter), and adopts his ideas without the least attribution, but, somehow, that’s all HIS fault.

Like we said: Wow.

Keep it up, boy, and they’re gonna hire you to replace Vincent Carroll.

Looks like the particulars of Saturday’s shindig are up at the usual place, Mr. Martin. Breathe, sir. Breathe.

National Emergency Forum to Protect Dissent and Critical Thinking: Why Ward Churchill Must Not Be Fired

Saturday, April 28 ~ 10:00am – 3:30pm
Muenzinger Auditorium EO50

Welcome

Tom Mayer –- Prof. of Sociology, CU-Boulder 5mins

The Implications for Students and Faculty

Aaron Smith, Ann-erika White Bird, Dave Staub — CU Students, Students for True Academic Freedom
Elisa Facio — Assoc. Prof. of Ethnic Studies, CU-Boulder
Dean Saitta — President of the Faculty Senate and Professor of Anthropology, University of Denver

The Impact on Indigenous Studies, Critiques of Empire

Chris Mato Nunpa — Assoc. Prof. of Dakota and Indigenous Nations Studies, Southwest Minnesota State Univ.
Matthew Abraham –- Asst. Prof. of English, DePaul University (Chicago)
Jennifer Harbury (by video) –- noted attorney, author and activist for human rights reforms in Guatemala and the US

Lunch

Remarks — Vijay Gupta, Member of CU-AAUP, Prof. of Civil Engineering, CIRES, CU-Boulder

Solidarity Messages with Introduction

Reggie Dylan, Organizer, National Defend Critical Thinking Initiative

Keynote: “Drawing the National Connections”

Alan Jones — Dean of the Faculty, Professor of Psychology/Neuroscience, Pitzer College

Followed by a roundtable with forum speakers

Moderated and with opening remarks by Emma Perez, Assoc. Prof. of Ethnic Studies, CU-Boulder

I’ve obviously been reading too fast. As Charley Arthur points out, the Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors is also calling for the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s report to be rescinded.

(Yeah, you know where I got it.)

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT, COLORADO CONFERENCE OF THE AAUP

April 24, 2007

The Honorable Hank Brown President, University of Colorado

Dear President Brown:

The Executive Committee of the American Association of University Professors’ Colorado Conference has reviewed evidence regarding criticisms of the “Report of the Investigative Committee on Research Misconduct at CU-Boulder concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Prof. Churchill” (May 9, 2006). The Executive Committee agrees that the evidence, supplied by Professor Eric Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White, Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University, is compelling.

In light of this new information, we believe the request that the report be rescinded, as called for in the “Open Letter from Faculty Calling for Churchill Report Retraction,” should be taken seriously. As outlined in the faculty letter, the flaws in the Report are so serious that that no legitimate action can be taken on the basis of the information contained therein.

If the Report is not rescinded, it is incumbent upon the University of Colorado to ensure the Cheyfitz evidence is thoroughly examined for its validity and its impact on the original Report. The integrity of scholarly practice and the procedures governing reviews, due process, academic freedom and faculty governance at CU require that this examination be done by an independent, qualified, and unbiased panel, not by the investigating committee that made the apparent mistakes in the first place. Further, no action should be taken on the basis of the Report until this examination is completed.

Sincerely,
Myron Hulen, Ph.D.

Methinks the dune buggy attack battalion is on a roll. (Thanks yet again to wardchurchill.net.)

Attention All Students and Faculty Nationwide

As some of you may know, the investigation and firing decision of University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill is coming to a close. Students and Faculty for True Academic Freedom at CU (a group of committed people supporting dissent and critical thinking as well as Academic Freedom) need YOUR help. We are hosting an Emergency National Forum this Saturday, April 28th, 2007 to discuss Ward’s case and its implications for students and faculty here at Boulder, its impact on Indigenous Studies, and how it can be used to critique imperialism. We are reaching out to build an action network to stop the firing of Ward. If anyone can make it to Boulder, Colorado, we can put up 10 people in billets but beyond that we can tell you how to find cheap lodging in Boulder. If you cannot make it we need your support on Friday, April 27th. We are planning a national walk-out for students at noon to show that we will not be silenced and that we demand fair and equal respect for all professors. I urge you all to stand up, come together and send out press releases before the walk-out. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Kim Collins at kim4wardchurchill@yahoo.com or at 719-321-4343.

Jim Paine, via commenter Noj (Ernesto Vigil), has responded to the nine professors as follows:

Noj points out that the Boulder Seven’s citing of Circe Sturm as support for Churchill’s claim that the Dawes Act enforced “blood quantum” is a circular reference, in that Sturm cites Churchill’s own assertion (ghostwriting as his wife, M. Annette Jaimes) to that effect to support her claim.

Keep reading.

You’re getting sloppy, gentlemen. Circe Sturm does no such thing.

She does discuss Jaimes/Churchill’s argument as to why a blood quantum was used, but she most definitely does not cite Jaimes/Churchill as to the existence of a blood quantum. In fact, the only reason she addresses Churchill at all is to disagree with him.

Here’s a tip: if you’re gonna flat-out lie, best not to do it about texts which Amazon has been kind enough to make searchable.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence,” indeed.

All together now: fucking idiots.

Update: Trying to wriggle out from under the crushing weight of their own stupidity, Mr. Ballerina and friends have now switched the terms of their original discussion.

Thanks to a commenter — who really has to be setting them up for a very steep fall — they’re now contending Ward Churchill actually wrote Circe Sturm’s book. (Make sure to read the comments.)

This presumably around the time he killed JonBenet Ramsey.

Even better, Mr. Ballerina links to an essay — if you want to call it that — which he wrote a year ago entitled “The Ethnic Studies Echo Chamber,” which included another of Mr. Ballerina’s more egregious whoppers.

Ward Churchill’s entire career has been both a mirror and a prototype of this merging of academia and activism. And now that career, as well as his body of work, has been called into question. Of course he will defend himself. But the real threat of the investigation of Churchill’s work is not merely to Churchill’s continued employment at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Most onlookers understand, at least on a visceral level, that this battle represents much more than that.

Most telling of the true scope of this battle is that Churchill’s academic peers are so vociferous, so strident in defending him. The simple fact of the matter is that they must defend him. Their own sinecures are threatened when Churchill is threatened. Much of their work would be eviscerated should the vast array of Churchill citations suddenly be rendered worthless. The work of Vine Deloria, of Bruce Johansen, of Winona LaDuke, of Robert A. Williams, Jr.—activists all, Churchill supporters all—the work of all of these is hopelessly intertwined and interdependent, each providing rationale for the others’ theses.

Keep reading.

See, Mr. Arthur and I were curious how many of these alleged “vast array of Churchill citations” there really were in the work of the aforementioned scholars and activists. Y’know, seeing as how the crux of Mr. Ballerina’s argument is that those scholars and activists must defend him lest their work be gutted.

So we asked Mr. Ballerina.

And, after several months of searching, he found all of, get ready now, three.

One citation from Robert A. Williams, and two from Winona LaDuke — who it’s worth noting, ain’t even an academic.

None from Johansen.

None from Deloria.

Let the evisceration begin!

As with the above, Mr. Ballerina tried to waffle his way out of that lie by playing bait-and-switch with his original statement, but it was just the same old steaming heap of horseshit we’ve all come to expect from him.

(Thanks to wardchurchill.net.)

Looks like I won’t be bitching about the cowardice of CU professors anymore. Or, at least not about seven of them. They, along with Professor Eric Cheyfitz, have released an open letter to the Daily Camera, demanding the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct’s report about Ward Churchill be retracted by CU.

And the kicker is, if it ain’t retracted, they’re planning to file academic misconduct charges against the authors of said report.

Open Letter from Faculty Calling for Churchill Report Retraction

Faculty Call to Rescind Summary of Violations

Call to Rescind Documentary Evidence Packet

It’s by far the strongest defense of Churchill to come out of CU, wholly gutting the report on five specific points. Y’know, for the same reasons we’ve been harping on around here for some time: the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct had no background in what it was they were supposed to judging.

Which was the point, of course. They didn’t have to know what the hell they were talking about; it was irrelevant. They were an academic lynch-mob put in place to rubber stamp Ward Churchill’s firing for exercising his right to free speech.

Ironically, had it not been for the efforts of Mr. Pirateballerina, KHOW jocks Caplis and Silverman, and Rocky Mountain News editorial page editor, Vincent Carroll, the committee might’ve included an actual expert in American Indian Studies. Meaning, some of the more obvious and cringingly embarrassing errors might have been avoided. Instead, the geniuses involved only made Churchill’s appeal — or eventual lawsuit — that much harder to dismiss.

Anyway, I’d provide quotes from the above, but I want you to read them all. Particularly the summary of violations and the evidence packet. That’s the meat.

Things are looking up all over.

Update: Alright, I can’t help myself. This from the open letter:

Prof. Wesson, the chair of the committee that authored this report, has already publicly acknowledged and corrected one of these violations in the report (Silver & Gold Record, April 12). But our investigation has uncovered such a pattern of these violations that the report cannot be salvaged through individual corrections. As with any scholarly document found to be so deeply compromised, the Report must be retracted. The violations of standard scholarly practice that are contained in the Report are serious enough to justify failing a PhD thesis, let alone an investigative report that is to serve as a basis for firing a tenured, full professor.

I almost felt sorry for Professor Wesson there for a second. Almost.

Thanks to Peter Kirstein, a statement of support for Ward Churchill from no less than Howard Zinn.

Can Matt Damon’s be far behind?

I have declared my support of Ward Churchill because to defend him is to defend the principle of academic freedom, the idea that no one should lose his or her job or status in education because of factors outside of teaching and scholarship. Those factors — political, ideological, — are evident in his case, and they are joined by a mean-spiritedness which does not belong in an academic or any other environment. The attack on Ward Churchill comes at a time in our nation’s history when constitutional rights are under attack by the national government, when war threaten the lives and well-being of all, and therefore we need the marketplace of ideas to be as open as possible. If we want to live in a democracy we must protect that openness. That is why defending Ward Churchill has an importance far beyond his particular situation.

Howard

The ACLU is all in.

“The issue is whether the police overreacted on what was a college-class discussion, or given who Max is, it may have been a bias to begin with,” said Kathryn Hazouri, the executive director of ACLU of Colorado. “I don’t care what he has done or said in the past, that’s certainly protected by the First Amendment, and it shouldn’t supersede in the latest issue which is based on controversy and is what the First Amendment is supposed to protect.”

Keep reading.

And this from a student who was in the class.

One student who’s in the women’s-studies course — who said the class has about 25 women and four men — thinks Karson’s comments were taken out of context.

“Max is honest, and people aren’t always willing to hear what he has to say,” said the student, who didn’t want her name published.

She said Tuesday’s debate started as an effort to understand how someone could go on a killing spree like the Virginia gunman’s.

Karson — who circulates a controversial underground publication called The Yeti on the campus — told his peers that he thinks institutions provoke anger in people, which eventually causes them to “crack,” the student said.

“He said, ‘Anyone who has walked on this campus and hasn’t wanted 30 people dead is lying to themselves,’” she said.

When Karson was asked why institutions make him so mad, the student said Karson used the women’s-studies class to illustrate his point: The room was in a basement and had unfinished walls and fluorescent lights.

According to a police report, Karson said: “The basement room with fluorescent lights and the unfinished wall make him angry enough to kill people.”

“But I didn’t feel threatened,” the student said. “He was just theorizing in an intellectual discussion about why people kill.”

Police said one of the more-serious comments students reported Karson making that day came as an answer to the question, “Are you going to do something Thursday?”

Karson’s reply: “Well, not necessarily this Thursday,” according to police.

But the student said that wasn’t the end of Karson’s statement. She said he added, “Or any other day.”

“Generally, Max makes the class uncomfortable, and they disagree with him often,” the student said. “But I think people were reacting in fear because 30 people had just died, and they don’t want to be one of those people.”

Keep reading.

I must have recently lit a fire under Grant Crowell’s ass. He has finally, although 46 days later, posted the Ward Churchill Teach-in audio ……..well, almost.

Apparently Grant’s “paid provocateur” Peter Fotopoulos only managed to record just over half of the event, and the recording is littered with background noise. I guess you can’t expect much for $50. Next time, Grant should provide his paid provocateurs with some recording tips. I wonder why Mr. Fotopoulos wasn’t able to record the entire event though? I bet he needed to apply some Seven Exotic Oils: (scroll down)

I’d been working as an electrician during the winter of 1995, when one dark and stormy night I dropped into Alfalfa’s (now Wild Oats Market) in Boulder to pick up some groceries. At the end of one aisle I spotted an exceptionally attractive woman standing behind a table covered with bottles and jars, doing some kind of product demo.

I had no idea what the product was, nor did I care. All I knew was that she was cute, and I wanted to flirt with her. She could have been offering samples of SPAM-on-a-stick for all I cared, and I still would have pretended to be interested just to strike up a conversation.

Luckily for me, she was, in fact, not sampling SPAM-on-a-stick, thus sparing me the classic dilemma of having to choose between eating gross, chemical-laden, factory-farm-raised hog parts (for the record, I eat only vegan SPAM), or talking to a beautiful woman.

The items on the table consisted of various lotions, creams, and sprays from a company called “Lily Organics.”

“Great,” I thought to myself (which is my favorite way), “a bunch of chick stuff I’ll have to pretend to be interested in.”

I told the demo lady, whose name I don’t recall, that my hands were perpetually dried-out and cracked from my occupation as an electrician, which required having to work bare-handed in harsh conditions in the low-humidity, bone-dry Colorado winter (if you’ve never spent a winter in a dry, high-altitude place like Colorado, you have no idea how damaging the climate can be to your skin even if you don’t work a construction job). The tips of my fingers frequently developed cracks so deep and dried-out that nothing would heal them, and I frequently resorted to super-gluing them closed (this actually works, but you have to be very, very careful anytime you’re working with super-glue, especially if you’re actually going to put it on your skin! Also, you must never, ever, ever allow children to see you doing this, unless you are prepared for the inevitable “look what I did!” disaster).

“Try this,” she said, and squirted something called “Seven Exotic Oils” into the palm of my hand. Mind you, I had tried a myriad of different creams and lotions to soothe my hands, including mass-market products like Corn Huskers Lotion, Jergens, Vaseline Intensive Care, Nivea, Lubriderm, plus a variety of upscale, niche products more typically found in health-food stores.

The mass-market stuff usually smelled like scented laundry detergent, or the cheap perfumes and colognes you’d find being sold at a flea market next to the Dale Earnhardt bath towels. They barely made any difference, and if my hands got wet within an hour of applying these products (and a lot of the “health food store products” as well) they became slippery and slimy-feeling, which told me that the cream or lotion was sitting on top of my skin, and hadn’t been absorbed by it.

I noticed that while the Seven Exotic Oils blend initially felt oily, within about a minute it had been absorbed by my cracked, weathered, beat-up hands, which suddenly felt incredibly soft, smooth, and re-moisturized. And while it initially smelled of lavender, that scent only lasted for a few minutes and then went away, which was great, as I was, after all, a construction worker and masculine guy, and didn’t want to walk around smelling like lavender.

I bought the first of many bottles of Seven Exotic Oils that night, and have been using it daily ever since, even though I’m no longer a construction worker. I’ve tried many other products; most stores like Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Vitamin Cottage, etc. have plenty of testers which allow one to sample a wide range of products and brands for free. Nothing I have ever tried works as well as the Seven Exotic Oils.

So impressed was I by the product, I called the company and suggested they ought to market the Seven Exotic Oils to construction workers like me. The person I spoke with told me the reason it works so well is that the blend of oils selected closely mimics human skin oil, hence the absorbability and natural feel. I’ve since met the lovely and charming Lily; she joked that maybe she could repackage the Seven Exotic Oils as “Bob’s Lotion For Men.”

While some might find the price of Lily’s Seven Exotic Oils expensive, I find it to be very cost-effective, because you need so much less of it than other skin care products. Also, the ingredients are of the highest quality. The reason the cheap stuff doesn’t work and turns slimy when you get your hands wet is because they use inferior ingredients that give the illusion that they’re moisturizing your skin, when in reality they’re mostly coating your skin with smooth-feeling waxy substances your skin can’t absorb. A lot of the other products are full of artificial colors and fragrances as well.

I’ve also discovered that all oils are not created equal. I thought I could achieve the same effect with garden variety massage oils you can buy for ¼ the price, but they just aren’t absorbed like Lily’s Seven Exotic Oils is. Try putting corn oil, olive oil, or some of the inexpensive “massage oils” and other products on your hands and compare the effects to Lily’s Seven Exotic Oils. Nothing else holds a candle to this stuff!

There’s not an easy way to do this, since you can’t try several different products on top of each other. I’ve watched people in stores trying one lotion, cream, or oil after another. How can you tell what any of them but the first one you try will actually do for you?

My recommendation is to wash your hands with a strong soap (like dishwashing liquid), then get over to a store that carries Lily’s (Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Vitamin Cottage are the only ones I’m aware of at this time, but I’m sure there are some smaller independent stores that carry Lily’s products).

Find the tester bottle of Lily’s Seven Exotic Oils, put one or two squirts on your hands, and rub it in. Resist the temptation to use more than a small amount — a little bit goes a long way! You can try this with all the other products out there if you wish to. Trust me, I can save you the trouble. I have tried virtually every moisturizing product known to the industry, either by having purchased or store tested them, and nothing works like Seven Exotic Oils by Lily.

When I was a carpenter and an electrician I didn’t skimp on the quality of my tools. No one who’s serious about his or her work uses cheap, low-quality tools because they don’t perform well and aren’t durable. The money you “save” initially ends up costing you in the long run when you have to redo a task or replace broken and worn-out tools. For example, Klein Tools virtually rules the market for electrician’s tools because everything they make is built tough, lasts almost forever, and does the job right.

I consider Lily’s Seven Exotic Oils a “tool” that’s worth every penny I pay for it, because it does the job right. It rescued my construction-trashed hands years ago, and I still use it daily — and nightly. Put some on the soles of your feet before you go to bed and you’ll never have cracked, rough feet again.

If you work in a capacity that requires frequent hand washing (medical, dental, restaurant, automotive) you’ll become addicted to this stuff.

I also like the Lily’s Moisture Mist, which I spray on my face. In the summer I’ll keep a bottle in the refrigerator overnight and carry it in my car during the day. It’s awesomely refreshing and has a great scent which, like the Seven Exotic Oils, goes away shortly because it uses essential oils, not cheap scent additives.

Recently Lily came out with a book, Beauty, Health and Happiness. I was skeptical at first, thinking “Yeah, sure, yet another person who thinks they know it all and can write some bowl-a-granola nutrition/health/self-help book.” Then I actually started reading a copy in a store, and discovered it’s great! Very informative, educational, inspirational, and helpful. And, like her products, worth every penny.

You owe it to yourself to try her most excellent products (it won’t cost you anything but time if you avail yourself of the free testers in stores), whether you’re a man or a woman, and read her book!

Peter Fotopoulos
peter@peterfotopoulos.com

(Boulder, Colorado freelance writer, radio commentator, photographer, ex-construction worker and single guy)

(By the way, the picture accompanying this testimonial shows me cutting the bottom off a hotel room door — one of some two hundred twenty or so — while I was a carpenter in 1999, working on the Golden Hotel in Golden, Colorado. Seems that the architect forgot — doh! — there was actually going to be carpet on top of the concrete floor (ha ha! — surprise!). As soon as the carpet layers got there and discovered that after they finished the first room none of the doors would swing unless you got a good running start at them, we had to take them all down and “carpet cut” them. You’d be amazed how many projects I’ve worked on, with different architects, where this happened.)

Does anyone else think Mr. Fotopoulos looks like David Hodo about to break into song?

John G. Martin is still insisting that his estimate of 60 people was generous. This just happens to be the same “estimate” he gave for the April 12th event. Coincidence? Or is 60 just his favorite number? Would anyone like to bet on how many people he will “estimate” attends the upcoming April 28th event?

And Jim Paine says that the “teach-inners are often unitelligible”, but aside from when Mr. Fotopoulos was busy building a rat’s nest, the speakers were clearly audible. Maybe Mr. Paine should try turning up his hearing aide.

This from our man, Clint Talbott, of the Boulder Daily Camera, about Mr. Karson:

Karson spent the night in jail and was charged Wednesday with “interference with staff, faculty or students of an educational institution,” and he was ordered to forgo alcohol, drugs, weapons and the CU campus.

Karson’s father bailed him out of jail and said the police over-reacted. “Max was arrested for making intellectual contributions in a class discussion about the tragic shooting in Virginia,” the father said.

Karson clearly made contributions. But it’s hard to call them “intellectual.” The more fitting term is “gratuitous provocations.”

Karson likes to “push the envelope,” to test the boundaries of free speech. Last fall, for instance, he offended women and ethnic minorities with his newsletter, “The Yeti.” What looks and smells like racism and sexism, he calls satire. Of course, satire is an art, and Karson’s art is, well, stunted.

Speech is one of America’s first freedoms, and its importance is signified by its eminence in the Bill of Rights. What Karson uttered this week may well have been — and probably is — protected speech. Karson may find his gratuitous goading gratifying. But he shouldn’t expect people to see the acts of a provocateur as those of an intellectual. And he shouldn’t be surprised to learn that faux threats, implicit or explicit, are sometimes taken seriously.

Keep reading.

To be honest, I don’t even know what the hell that last paragraph means. “Speech is one of America’s first freedoms, and its importance is signified by its eminence in the Bill of Rights?” No, it’s a right, idiot, because it’s in the bill of rights. It’s a legal right. If Mr. Karson’s speech “may well have been — and probably is — protected speech” then why the fuck are you attacking Mr. Karson? Seems your place might be to protect the first amendment right, don’t you think? Instead, as usual, you’re equivocating like Bill Clinton with a half dozen interns and a cigar in each hand.

I don’t care about Max Karson. I don’t care if he’s a jerk, has poor timing, is wholly immature, or is just, er, “cryptic.” He had a right to say what he said. A constitutional right. The only thing scarier than watching state and institutional power come down on him like a ton of bricks, is watching the media justify it. The media should be in the business of checking government, of defending our rights. You’re not a watchdog, Mr. Talbott, you’re a lapdog.

Oh, and since I’m on the subject, how’s about this from the Colorado Daily:

We’ve got some bad news for you CU: you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Following the arrest of CU student Max Karson on Wednesday after a heated classroom discussion with other students about the dreadful killings at Virginia Tech, it seems like university administration and students are trying to stuff their fat faces with high-minded social libertarianism and stay on a strict diet of political correctness all at the same time.

Sorry folks, but you can’t defend Ward Churchill’s right to call dead New Yorkers “Little Eichmanns” out of one side of your mouth and condemn Max Karson for saying he can identify with a mass murderer out the other.

Keep reading.

I hate to beat a dead two-bit hack editorial page editor here, but I rather have to inject the following: CU hasn’t defended Churchill’s rights. Horseshit lip service aside, they’ve caved on every point. They’re in the business of railroading the professor as we speak, and their passion for free speech is just about equal to mine for, well, Clint Talbott.

Told you so.  I was enjoying the speculation, however.  Might I suggest you’ve got a hell of a future career as a CNN analyst.  Or, y’know, as Snapple.  But, really, who could tell the difference these days?

Grant Crowell graciously made the following offer regarding the National Emergency Forum to Protect Dissent and Critical Thinking scheduled for April 28th: “If I happen to be in town that day, I’ll offer to film the entire event.”

Getting a little ahead of yourself aren’t you Grant? I mean, after all, it’s been 44 days since you informed Jim Paine that you should have the audio/video of the Ward Churchill Teach-in posted soon!!

I wonder whatever happened to that? I have my own theory: you ran into some editing difficulties….like toning down the applause so that it sounds more like 60 people.

John G. Martin’s claim that it “was in a regular classroom, which wasn’t even full — maybe 60 people, tops” was a whopper, wasn’t it? Room 180 of the Earth Sciences Building is estimated to hold 150 people. And since anyone there can verify that the room was nearly full, and in fact, people were having to stand, it would be a little difficult to explain how the applause of “60 people” actually sounds more like 150 people!

Update:  Looks like Grant Crowell has sent Jim Paine a raw unedited transcript of his November 2006 interview with Ann Neal.  I hope this isn’t any indication of how long we could be waiting for the Ward Churchill Teach-in audio/video.

That distinction belongs to the First Amendment:

A University of Colorado student was formally charged Wednesday — and warned by a judge not to “press the limits of certain envelopes” — one day after being arrested on suspicion of threatening his classmates by saying he’s angry enough to kill.

Max Karson’s father paid a $1,000 bond to set his son free from jail on the eve of the student’s 22nd birthday.

Max Karson wouldn’t talk about the incident after leaving the jail. But his father said officers “overreacted” to reports that his son — during a class discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings — said he “could relate to the killer” and “was angry enough to kill his classmates.”

“Max was arrested for making intellectual contributions in a class discussion about the tragic shooting in Virginia,” Michael Karson said, just before getting to hug his son and take him to dinner.

“We’re going to go try to remind ourselves that this is a great country,” he said.

Michael Karson, a professor at the University of Denver, said he expected his son’s charges to be dropped when he appeared before Boulder County Judge Noel E. Blum. Instead, he was officially charged Wednesday with “interference with staff, faculty or students of an educational institution” and ordered to stay away from alcohol, drugs, weapons and the CU campus — unless he’s meeting with officials for a judicial-affairs review of his case.

Blum warned Max Karson that now is not the time to push the envelope.

“You don’t want to test me on that,” Blum said.

Max Karson has a history of pushing the envelope: The newsletter he circulates on CU’s campus called “The Yeti” spurred controversy in the fall over what he said were satirical comments about women and minorities.

Keep reading.

I didn’t pay much attention to the first Max Karson brouhaha, but this one’s a joke. Unless Mr. Karson directly threatened his classmates with imminent physical harm, he has every right to push whatever envelope he likes. Sounds like Judge Noel E. Blum could use a refresher course on the Constitution. Here’s hoping Mr. Karson has the wherewithal to make a hell of a row over this horseshit arrest. Not to mention the — and don’t dislocate your jaw in shock here — cowardice and absolute contempt for free speech evidenced by CU.

This is the shit that scares me whenever one of these school shooting erupts. The onslaught on the Constitution begins immediately, from both sides. Cheap analysts slick around the networks, gibbering on about rap music, violent movies, videogames, etc, and the Michael Moores of the world begin their gun control crusade. I even heard a CNN anchor opine about the need to weed “strange people” out of universities.

I’ve been resisting the leftist urge to compare the Virginia Tech shooting to the Iraq war, because it’s so obviously nonsense. Of course the Iraq war’s the greater atrocity, and of course, the American population could give a shit about dead Iraqis. They’ve been proving that for twenty years. So what? And the analogies coming from the right are equally stupid. I’ve heard the shooter compared to suicide bombers and the 9/11 highjackers, for instance. That’s inane. As everyone from Pat Buchanan to old you-know-who has pointed out, the 9/11 highjackers had a political goal, as do suicide bombers. This kid didn’t. He was a lunatic, rather precluding much in the way of goals at all.

I don’t know why schools get shot up, but I know more will be. It seems like a facet of modern life we’re gonna have to learn to live with. We’re a nation of 300 million. There are more lunatics out there. We ain’t gonna figure out why they shoot people, because their actions ain’t gonna make sense. Rather self evidently, that’s what it means to be a lunatic. No amount of analysis is gonna get at the problem.

I submit that ain’t the point of the talking heads, anyway. Coming from the left or the right, they have an agenda and see an opportunity to exploit. They’re hoping you’re dumb enough not to notice what they’re saying is nonsense until it’s too late, until they’ve found some way to strip yet another freedom from you. For the record, I ain’t willing to give up even one freedom, even if I thought doing so had any prayer in hell of succeeding in stopping these shootings.

Anyway, if nothing else, all the jaw-wagging has given me a goal for the weekend. I’m gonna gorge myself with guns and violence. I’m up to the mountains for some target practice with my Glock 19, then down to the multiplex to see Grindhouse, then home to play Grand Theft Auto. Listening to Ludakris, all the while.

Update: Okay, so I don’t have a videogame system. And I’m not much of one for multiplexes. And though I do have a Ludakris album I got from the library after hearing he told off O’Reilly and Oprah, I’ve never actually listened to it all the way through.

But I will go shooting.

Unless a long-awaited package from Amazon is at the front door. In that case, I’ll probably do some reading.

But I’ll turn the pages violently.

Update II: Speaking of asinine analogies, Jim Paine and John Martin are now comparing me to the shooter. Because his plays are laced with profanity and violence, and, y’know, I’m profane and use violent metaphors, now and then. Mr. Paine being the dramatically smarter of the two seems to be joking. Mr. Martin, possessing the critical faculties of a woodpile, ain’t joking at all.

I just went through this, so I won’t do it again, but if Mr. Martin ever took it upon himself to crack a book, he might notice profanity and violence being kinda rather prevalent in the last millennium or so of Western Literature. If that’s his sole criteria, he might as well compare the shooter to Shakespeare, Chaucer or Hemingway.

Idiot.

Update III: Yes, I know I call Mr. Martin an idiot in every post, but good God, I can’t help it.

Update IV: This from Caplis and Silverman. Max Karson’s statements weren’t direct and they sure as hell didn’t pose any imminent danger. The word that keeps popping up is “cryptic.”

Of course, Caplis and Silverman are for expelling Mr. Karson. (Although, maybe not arresting him. Maybe.) The argument they keep posing about Mr. Karson is the same argument often made about Ward Churchill, and the same one posed by Judge Blum: that it’s his timing that’s the problem.

That dog won’t hunt. Constitutional rights are rights. They ain’t situational and they ain’t subject to temporary revocation. As I said above, here’s hoping the kid sues CU back into the stoneage.

Update V: After Ward Churchill sues CU back into the stoneage, of course.

Cho Seung-Hui’s Plays.

I’ve taught undergraduate creative writing classes, and the two plays herein ain’t radically different from much of what gets turned in. Not entirely lacking panache, but not entirely interesting either.

I’m having a hard time with the dipshit literary analysis going on amongst the locals, to be honest. I’m with the gun bloggers on this: analysis wouldn’t have stopped this young man, but a bullet sure as hell would’ve. His case ain’t an argument for greater gun control measures, it’s an argument for concealed carry permits. The right to self-defense is a human right. Period.

Update: “The Brown Button” beats either of his plays, hands down. Just saying.

Update II: God to I hate to be on the same page as El Presidente. But there it is.

Update III: From the aforementioned El Presidente, Gun Control is Bullshit.

Update IV: This guy would hate everywhere I stand on most issues.  But he’s one of my favorite bloggers, and right now, he’s well worth reading.