The AP has picked up the story of the unsavory firing of Thomas Klocek by DePaul University for arguing vociferously about the Middle East with some Moslem students. Marathon Pundit is correctly credited with a seminal role in unmasking this display of intellectually bankrupt “political correctness” by the educational institution.
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Ah, hell. I got, um, counselled for using the word “copulation” yesterday, because (as I was told) the person listening knew what it meant and so could figure out I meant “fuck”, which is offensive.
This is really getting ridiculous.
Agreed, Charlie. Hyper sensitivities can hamper good intercourse
That’s what I tell the guys who whine about having been circumcised.
DePaul is my alma mater. They will never get another dime from me and I hope other alums feel the same way.
“He basically told me my religion was a religion of terror,” said Ahmad Zahdan, a DePaul senior on the board of United Muslims Moving Ahead.
Well. When apostate’s are routinely murdered, people tend to get that opinion, they don’t need the help of a college professor. We know that its a religion of pieces, we’ve seen the heads roll.
I teach elementary school in Los Angeles. At the behest of my PC principal, I was told to put together a Cinco de Mayo play last week on short notice. I did so, with no help from any of the other teachers, and the administrators did not attend; however, it went very well.
Afterwards, my Liberal, Union-loving, non-flag-saluting colleagues were perturbed that my play contained a few anti-French jokes. Amazing hypocrisy coming from those who bad mouth the U.S. to these impressionable youths.
In the public schools, especially in LA, only certain kinds of speech are protected.
Roger,
Don’t you mean “educational” “institution”?
Hey, one guy claimed to have been “deeply offended” by Klocek’s implication that Islam wasn’t perhaps the world’s most loving, progressive, forward-looking religion.
That’s nothing. Pour a few drinks in me and he’ll find out what “deeply offended” is really like.
The consensus view of most liberal Catholics is that the Palestinians are victims of oppression. This is nothing new! These Catholics also gravitate toward Jews like Norman Finkelstein who are filled with self hatred. It took me only a few minutes to find these links to pieces in the National Catholic Reporter, America, and The Commonweal:
http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2005b/051305/051305u.htm
http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/022803/022803g.htm
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_12_41/ai_n9510527
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php?id_article=569
http://www.americamagazine.org/editorial.cfm?articleTypeID=3&textID=1855&issueID=338
Ron
I obviously agree with you on this matter, but concerning the claim against Thomas Klocek by Ahmad Zahdan (senior on the board of United Muslims Moving Ahead)…
‘basically told me my religion was a religion of terror,’
That was the one-sided claim of the supposed offended Muslims, this is PC crap (and a PC trap) that is about free speech for leftist liberals only. The lack-luster and quite frankly horrible job DePaul did of not fairly arbitrating and employing reasonable fact finding is an embarrassment, and I hope that alternative media like blogs again expose what has been given a general pass by the MSM for years. Maybe they will wake up, then again maybe not, but deal with it!
————————————————————————-
DePaul Math professor Jonathan Cohen did his own fact checking and concluded that Klocek had been unfairly treated but this is his characterization of the statement you referenced…
In the course of the argument Tom quoted the director of Al Aribya TV as saying that “while not all Muslims are terrorists, it is a sad fact that almost all terrorist are Muslims”. This statement and the ensuing argument appears to be the basis of the students? claim that they were the victims of a racist incident.
Yes, Tom quoted Muslim television and what isn’t true about the assertion?
The last thing Klocek said was, “I stood for Israel, because it is in the right. I paid the price at a Christian University.”
I have an evangelical friend (I’m Jewish) who said to me a short while ago… “Standing up for Israel is the Christian thing to do.”
I guess unless you are on the campus of a politically correct university, for even if Christian or religious based, PC orthodoxy trumps all. Unbelievably Ward Churchill lives on. I’ll add that as a Jew I am grateful many Christians feel this way for strength in numbers is not Jews and Israeli’s strong suit.
A few things:
1)The blogsphere hasn’t done a very good job keeping this issue front and center. Roger has mentioned it, and Marathon Pundit has done yoeman service (where did that expression ever come from, anyhow?) but we haven’t seen the kind of sustained drumbeat that was accomplished on Rathergate. If you’re a blogger, think about posting something on this.
2)Roger, any chance of bringing this up next time you’re on Kudlow & Company?
3)I think someone (ideally someone Catholic) should be bringing this pointedly to the attention of the Church hierarchy. The new Pope has denounced relativism: some of the remarks made by DePaul in defending their actions seem like a great example of malign relativism.
DePaul is my alma mater. They will never get another dime from me and I hope other alums feel the same way.
It’s one of mine, as well. My mother and I endowed a scholarship there in the family name; when they gave an honorary degree to Jesse Jackson, I informed them that we would finish the contributions to make the scholarship endowed, but that they would get no more money, and I told them why.
Don’t you mean “educational” “institution”?
No. He means educational institution. I did my graduate work at Stanford, and the level of instruction, while better on the whole than at DePaul, was not all that much better, and there were certainly professors at DePaul who were better than their counterparts at Stanford.
“He basically told me my religion was a religion of terror,” said Ahmad Zahdan, a DePaul senior on the board of United Muslims Moving Ahead.î
A woman also recently contended that John Bolton chased her down the halls of a hotel. A short time later she conceded that she merely felt that he did so. How does one define ìbasically told me my religion was a religion of terror?î What is the objective criteria to determine an actual insult against someoneís religion—especially if the ìvictimî is a member of a so-called oppressed minority? Is the speaker in a Catch 22?
“Yeoman’s service” is “effectual service characterized by hard and steady labor,” cf this note.
Charlie…thanks! Makes one wonder, though…did the yeomen demonstrate more staying power than either the knights or the “common people”? Sounds like they did, or at least people thought they did…
Charlie (Colorado) ó You are showing a niggardly degree of sensitivity to the feelings of those around you.
And why are we surprised at this sort of nonsense from a college named after a celebrity cross-dresser?
Well, if muslims are so offended by ‘religion of terror’ then why were there only 150 people at the rally in D.C. today?
ìwhy were there only 150 people at the rally in D.C. today?î
150 people? This is a disaster. There is no way to pretend otherwise. Even a poorly organized effort should have attracted a far higher figure. It clearly indicates that most American Muslims, at least on a gut level, perceive themselves as victims of an oppressive Western society. Someone like Osama bin Ladin may not be a warm and friendly human being—but we should presumably understand why he is waging war on America and its allies.
Uh, Richard, I think you’re thinking of “Ru Paul”.
“United Muslims Moving Ahead”.
i read somewhere that
Al Qaeda essentially represented muslims displaying a distinctly modern disease:
nostalgia.
now they’d like to move “ahead”.
interesting.
Here’s my conversation with http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=depaul+reelcobra
Charlie, I’m interested in knowing how you used the word “copulation”. Perhaps “copulate you” or “mothercopulater”? What? This is very funny to me (although I certainly don’t wish to seem insensitive to your insensitivities). And, Charlotte, hyper sensitivites can also enhance good intercourse, depending, naturally, on which hyper is stimulated. AJ Kaufman, my man, you made it to the end of the year! Congratulations and boy did you get a bum rap. If you can’t make fun of the French at a Cinco de Mayo celebration, where can you. As you can see, I have nothing of substance to add to this discussion, so I think I’ll just go to bed now.
David Horiwitz of Frontline.com has been writing about Political Correctness and ‘diversity’ for a couple of years now. His contention is that this is the last bastion of the neo-marxists in the United States. They have life long tenure and are now trying socialist subjugation by utilizing a 5th column teaching the youth of the United States. Victor Davis Hanson http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0505130296may13,0,267671.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed in a column in the Chicago Tribune says that tenured professors like the infamous Mr. Churchill are virtually impossible to get rid of even if he is a faux indian and that it is time to look at tenure itself and modify it so that what is happening on campus can be rectified. Something has to be done about the situation, the neo-marxists and their clique have taken over the campuses of our country and they are trying to change the country we have into something foreign, something which will toady to our enemies. If that is what it takes, lets do away with tenure.
Great Catholic thinkers not afraid to condemn “the dictatorship of relativism” and pronounce the superiority of their faith:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/ratzinger-is-right.html
“United Muslims Moving Ahead”. UMMA,doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
Thanks for that link truepeers, interesting reading. Perhaps more so as I saw “Kingdom of Heaven” last evening. One and a half stars. Sets, costuming good. Filming OK. Writing, directing, editing and acting not so good. I’m not read well enough to critique historically, though it was not difficult to see why it was CAIR ‘approved’ and likely would have been De Paul approved as well.
Kyda, what I said specifically was that the way that the offshore partners were dealing with the performance issues I’m supposed to be trying to fix was “akin to copulation but not as productive.”
… it was not difficult to see why it was CAIR ‘approved’ and likely would have been De Paul approved as well.
But what does Ru Paul think?
Charlie.. I’m not sure I would be willing to delve deeply enough into his psyche to find out..lol
Whoops…forgot the /her.
150 people? Isn’t it more like 2 or 3 dozen, excluding reporters and speakers? If you think 150 is a disaster, what’s worse than a disaster?
C’mon, Charlie, admit it, they got upset after they interpreted ‘and the trusty steed on which you arrived’.
Charlie, even talk of “performance issues” puts withering pressure on some people. Try to be more sensitive, OK?
Kyda, thank you. Those are my sentiments exactly. I have posted your words on my blog, anonymously, of course. There is no place in public education for Conservatives. Sad that it has come to this.
Thomas Klocek is a white man and that is the number one reason why he is in hot water. If he were black or Hispanic—nothing would have happened. A white male is guilty of racism until proven innocent. Klocek was in trouble regardless of what he said to the young student. It was merely sufficient that this immature individual was upset. And no, Iím not even slightly exaggerating.
Rick, I think you’re thinking of “equine conveyance”.
And Charlotte, I think you may have just finally explained why my field of “performance engineering” seems to be so hard to sell sometimes.