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Showing posts from November 6, 2005

Churchill a model for "Shock Value" Lecture Techniques

Read this article on FrontPage Magazine by Kyle Ellis . I wish more people talked about Academic freedom. Being a conservative in college can be a very frustrating experience. This is why . Like Churchill, Wolfe declared himself a proponent of “shock value” as an essential teaching tool. Elaborating on his distinctive understanding of academic freedom, Wolfe stated that “there is also a value of what I call ‘shock value’ teaching—that is, when a teacher purposely takes a provocative stance in order to jolt students out of places.” As if to demonstrate the point, Wolfe went on to present a composition by the Australian musician and left-wing political activist Martin Wesley-Smith. Entitled “Weapons of Mass Distortion,” it was a snide and cynical attack on the U.S. liberation of Iraq. Wolfe even played a score on his saxophone to accompany the visual graphics. Discussing the work, Wolfe acknowledged that it was little more than political propaganda. Nonetheless, he stressed that it was “

Ward Churchill and the Front Range follies

The latest chapter in the Front Range saga is that one of the scholars assigned to reviewing Churchill's work has quit the committee. This was reported by the Denver Post . The resignation of one of the scholars appointed to a committee investigating University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill could delay the inquiry, a committee official said Thursday. Bruce Johansen, it seems, resigned under public pressure regarding a conflict of interest. Bruce Johansen, professor of Native American studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, resigned from the committee this week after an anti-Churchill Web site suggested Johansen would be prone to "mutual back-scratching" because Churchill endorsed a book he edited. More delays don't help though. CU needs to get this committee moving and get the investigation completed, so us taxpayers can stop paying for this sort of nonsense.

France: Values do matter

I have not commented much on the situation in France, because I have never been there. But, as the conversation goes towards the effects of immigration, the challenge of assimilation, and all the related issues, I find the topic important in how it relates to our own immigration challenges. No doubt there is a HUGE difference between Muslim immigrants in France and our own immigrants. The main difference, is the worldview and value system. Immigrants from Central and South America primarily have a Judeo-Christian worldview, rooted in Catholicism. The major challenge we face is probably language. Albert Mohler focused in on the root of the issue, the value system : Ever since the French Revolution, France has attempted to create a truly secular society. In one sense, they have been hugely successful. Active Christianity is embraced by very few French citizens. But, as is always the case, secularism creates a vacuum at the very center of civilization. These rioting young men want to fil