Interversity.Org

So McCarthyism only had to endure half a century of ignominity before experiencing a big comeback. Not bad. Any ideas how we can escort it back to its place in the graveyard of bad ideas?

UCLA alumni group targets 'radical' professors

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views at the University of California, Los Angeles.

One of the professors calls it McCarthyism.

It breaks my heart.  They did the thing that always bothered me the most:  The Sisters were the first to leave the city. Back when Betsy hit, I asked, why aren't we 'out there' helping?  So I was sent to scrub some flooded, now receded waters, of a back room of the Sisters' house in Arabi.   It made me angry when I was 22.  I didn't take a Vow to wash the back walls of a house.  I took a vow to Serve the Poor.   And I didn't even know where they were.  Big secret back then.  Not now.      Back in the 20's, all the Sisters of every Order stayed.  When the cholora epidemic hit, they stayed and helped.  They were THERE!  It's why every Sister rides free on every bus and trolley in New Orleans.  It's the city's thank you.

I read the info on the Eng-Teach listserv about kids of poverty and the clientel they become and what happens to what they learn within their own heads.  I thought instantly of the first year of being 'out'.  I took a Class at the University of UMSL in St. Louis.  At that time it was the first month I was 'out'.  School was always an equalizer for me so I took a geology class.  But somehow, someway, nothing made sense to me.  I didn't want to ask questions anymore.  If felt different.  I was afraid.  I didn't want anyone to make friends with me.  I didn't want to have to explain anything.  I didnt' want anyone to feel sorry for me.

The Associated Press
Friday, May 27, 2005; 8:03 AM

LOS ANGELES -- Posters that depicted President Bush with a Groucho Marx-style mustache and cigar were ordered torn down at a high school after a student complained.

Theater students, who had created the posters to advertise a satirical play, countered with new posters with a First Amendment message.

Principal Kenny Lee ordered 100 posters removed from the campus of El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills area last week on grounds that they promoted smoking and "endorsing one ideology over another."

"That's our take on the student speech and conduct," Lee said.

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Student journalists sued their Bakersfield high school district Thursday in an effort to keep the school's principal from censoring student newspaper articles on homosexuality.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, requests an emergency order to allow the paper to publish the stories in The Kernal's year-end May 27 issue.

"The Kernal staff, along with the gay students we interviewed, we have lost our voices," said the paper's editor in chief, Joel Paramo, a plaintiff in the case filed in Kern County court.

East Bakersfield High School Principal John Gibson said he blocked publication because he is worried about violence on campus.

I found some of my old journals, and read pieces of them. I think I have always been a warrior, a fighter for a cause, a seeker. And I have never been settled or at peace or totally content. Whatever I do, it isn't enough. I'll be glad when I am old enough to simply wear out and die and go see God. Too much evil around; too many demons to fight. The worse part is that the demons look good to people in power, or the demons don't even seem to be there at all to the ignorant. But, they are. They really are. Why is it that when I think I am free to be and to think as I do, then it is that I get struck down? The only place I am at home is inside my own head. Or, drawing. Drawing is a freeing up of my thinking in a very colorful way. It's always been this way. I can remember when I was a little kid, and I couldn't play in a sandbox because a hornet's nest was there. Well, I took care of that hornet's net. I kicked it. Good and hard too. Then they all came after me, furious at the disruption, and bit me all over. I ran like the wind blows and got into the house. So much for playing in that sandbox. I learned: never kick a hornets nest. They kick back. I went to Postulatum. I hated Sister Margaret and she most likely disliked me. I couldn't kick her; she was too old. I just prayed everyday that she would die. She didn't--not while I was there. I learned: some prayers just don't get answered. Period. Seminary was very different. It was another world, like a play, only you always wore your costume. I played at being a 'Little Sister' as the Habit Sisters called us. I learned a lot of things, like, how to wash everyone else's snotty hankerchieves in the attic as my 'duty', how to fall on a pile of pillows and make my duty partner laugh, how to take a bath and never look at myself, and how to clean toilets. I learned how to bound out of bed at 5 a.m., and kiss the floor and say my first prayers. I also learned to look under the bed and see how many other sisters were doing the same. I learned; I could play this game. All I had to do was follow. Following is easy. There was a book in the ancient library we had written by some guy named Tanquery. It was all flowery and stuff and hard to figure out. I remember years later when I had left the Community and saw a billboard with the word: TANQUERY and a picture of some sort of hard liquor, I thought: "wow! Tanquery definately has gone downhill since Seminary." I learned: there are many meaning for the same word. It's curious that I never missed TV or movies or anystuff like that in those first years of training. I did miss exercise, and running, and swimming. Mostly swimming. I loved the water. Then, years later, when I was out and got to see TV and read newspapers, none of it made sense to me. It seemed empty and inane. It didn't deal with issues I thought were important at all. I learned: you can't just 'fit in'. you have to have something to hook yourself to that is meaningful to you first. That was the greatest, the biggest, the longest search: trying to find a cause that meant something to me. Most things turned into 'chicken bones and butter' and went right through my fingers after a time. I think I have found it now. However, it is not easy to hang with it. Sometimes, I am scared, so scared, my knees flutter. But, I know I am doing the good thing now. It is just an awfully tough thing to stay hanging with.gh

In Steinbeck's Birthplace, a Fight to Keep the Libraries Open
By CAROLYN MARSHALL
April 4, 2005 in The New York Times

SALINAS, Calif., April 3 - The reputation of this farming community, known as the Salad Bowl of the World, has been burnished by giants of American history like the civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, who organized the area's farmworkers, and John Steinbeck, a native son who borrowed images from the landscape and Depression-era residents in writing "The Grapes of Wrath."

The pride, fear and hope Steinbeck described were in evidence this weekend as residents, celebrities and best-selling authors gathered for a 24-hour emergency read-in to try to avert an unwelcome footnote to Salinas's legacy: the impending closing of the city's three public libraries.

By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
February 11, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - The Ohio Senate is considering a bill intended to encourage different viewpoints at state-funded colleges and universities.

Conservative supporters call it the "Academic Bill of Rights," but critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, call it an "academic bill of restrictions."

The bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Larry Mumper (R-Marion) was quoted as saying the bill would "open up debate" by curbing a perceived left-leaning political bias at the state's colleges and universities.

CNN
Wednesday, February 9, 2005 Posted: 11:01 AM EST (1601 GMT)

BOULDER, Colorado (AP) -- A University of Colorado professor who likened September 11 victims to Nazis got a standing ovation when he told a campus audience of more than 1,000 people that "I'm not backing up an inch."

Ward Churchill, who had filed a lawsuit after the state university threatened to cancel his address, was interrupted several times by thunderous applause.

Churchill has resigned as chairman of the university's ethnic studies department. Gov. Bill Owens has called for Churchill to be fired, and the university's Board of Regents is investigating whether the tenured professor can be removed.