We are all aware of the controversy surrounding University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Kevin Barrett�s interpretation of 9/11 and other activities that he claims the Bush administration was purported to have been involved in.
The Danes no longer control the UW-Madison campus, but it was a good run while it lasted. Last Thursday morning the flag of Denmark was flying on the pole high above Bascom Hall, underneath the U.S. and Wisconsin flags. Campus facilities workers couldn’t get it down until Monday.
The flag was rigged with heavy-gauge plastic ties to the pole, and not the flag rope, making it tough to remove. A group calling itself, “The Dane County Danes” has taken credit for the prank. According to Physical Plant director John Harrod, written on the flag was: “In remembrance of our Norwegian cousins in Madison on 17 of May 1957 and to show our support for our American friends.”
Harrod says they had to create a long pole rigged with a cutter to remove the flag.
“Our Danish friends are certainly enterprising,” concedes UW Communications’ Dennis Chaptman. “However, we would have preferred if they would have brought a kringle instead.”
A University of Wisconsin-Madison teacher made headlines recently for stating his belief that the U.S. government, Dick Cheney in particular, masterminded the terrorist attacks of 9-11.
Those of you who haven’t checked the calendar may not realize that Madison’s biggest holiday is at hand.
Yes, I’m talking about Aug. 15 – Move Out Day, also known as Hippie Christmas and Trash-Picker Paradise.
It’s the day when the renters of Madison fling open their doors and throw their belongings onto the curb, so as not to have to transport them to their new place. It’s a messy, festive affair that is one of my favorite events of the year.
Maybe Im just overeducated, being able to read both Sports Illustrated for Kids and the back of a cereal box and all. But it just cant be true that more than a third of the country believes in both ET and Kevin Barrett.
Provost Patrick Farrell writes that a recent Journal Sentinel article did an admirable job of exploring the complex topic of how the University of Wisconsin-Madison manages admissions and enrollment in order to provide a high-quality educational experience for undergraduate students.
However, the article may have left a misimpression that the university seeks to accommodate less-qualified students from elsewhere in the country at the expense of Wisconsin residents. This is not the case.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=482163
Arecent Journal Sentinel article did an admirable job of exploring the complex topic of how the University of Wisconsin-Madison manages admissions and enrollment in order to provide a high-quality educational experience for undergraduate students (“More students, fewer spaces,” July 23).
If you harbored a crackpot conspiracy theory about … let’s say, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks … but pretty much kept it outside your workplace, your employer wouldn’t have much to say about it.
But if you used your job as a soapbox and even went so far as to subject your employer to shame, ridicule and financial repercussions, you might expect to be disciplined. At least, that’s how it goes in most of the world.
Not so at the UW-Madison, where lecturer Kevin Barrett has been pushing his luck like there’s no tomorrow. Barrett is the part-time teacher who uses his course on Islam to spout his theory that the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that left 3,000 dead, damaged the Pentagon and destroyed the World Trade Center. A column by Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
Five will get you 10 that state Rep. Steve Nass, the La Grange Republican whose favorite sport is savaging the University of Wisconsin, has his TV set tuned to Fox News.
He’d be a rare George W. Bush Republican if he’d be enlightened enough to watch a cable channel or even a network news show that was actually “fair and balanced” as Fox claims to be even while it leads the propaganda campaign for the current administration.
But folks like Nass, who can get all bent out of shape over a part-time UW lecturer believing in conspiracy theories, never speak out when a national cable channel, talk radio and a variety of big-time politicians spread false theories of their own.
Don’t expect ballerinas in UW-Madison-area bars this fall.
Instead, get ready for the usual parade of Playboy bunnies, de-chartered frat boys and underage students.
Despite success by UW-Madison’s student government to extend use of the “performing arts license,” the effect of the permit has little in common with its title.
UW-Madison junior Bryna Nielsen competes at the top level of a sport you may never have heard of — underwater hockey.
….The University of Wisconsin System and UW-Madison are easy punching bags for those who want to score cheap political points. Like any big institution, the UW System has its share of flaws. Like any big institution, it is slow to respond, slow to change, slow to learn from its own mistakes. Like any big institution, it has its share of prima donnas. Maybe even more than its share of the latter.
But imagine what life in Wisconsin would be without the University of Wisconsin System. A lot of people seem unable or unwilling to do that.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? So, it has come to this: A degree in molecular biology will be required of anyone wishing to vote in Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s Nov. 7 elections.Or perhaps it only seems so in light of 2006 campaign year claims and counter-claims swirling around the ââ?¬Å?wedge issueââ?¬Â of human embryonic stem cell research. To assist those who wonââ?¬â?¢t complete their doctoral degree by fall, here are a few frequently asked questions based on those frequently made charges.
At least state Rep. Steve Nass can shoot straight.
The Ozaukee County Board just shot itself in the foot. And now it’s encouraging every other Wisconsin county to do the same.
Ozaukee County supervisors voted 18-11 last week to cut $8,427 out of its budget for university services.
Op-ed column by UW-Madison sociology professor Joe Elder notes that it took half a century to achieve the fragile peace between Israel and Lebanon that preceded the recent outburst of extraordinary violence and asks: Is the U.S. really insisting on another half-century of tragedy before calling for a ceasefire?
Chancellor’s speedy recovery
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley was spotted in a coffee shop without crutches or a cane the day after his knee surgery last week, joking that his goal had been to best the knee recovery record of athletic director Barry Alvarez.
Asked about his surgery, Wiley admits the two can’t fairly be compared. His was outpatient via orthoscope for a torn meniscus, not the knee replacement Alvarez necessitated in 1999. But he says Alvarez’s high-profile recovery spurred him on.
“When people told me it would take weeks to recover, I joked that Barry was walking almost immediately, and I intended to do the same. As it happened, my ‘prediction’ was true, but I doubt I have ever beaten any of his injury/recovery records!”
The best news is that Wiley says his knee “is now much better than it has felt in months.”
UW-Madison has one of the brightest undergraduate student bodies in America.
The school’s admissions standards are rigorous. As a result, a diploma from UW is among the most precious of bachelor’s degrees.
But that is changing.
In Wisconsin, we know a thing or two about snowflakes. We also know a really lame snow job when we see one.
Whether you are the president of the United States or a candidate for governor of Wisconsin, when you take a political position contrary to the interests and wishes of more than 70 percent of the American people, you have to do some pretty fast talking to try to explain it away.
The dishonest public statements put out by both George W. Bush and Congressman Mark Green to try to justify their opposition to embryonic stem cell research didn’t even come close.
Consider Downtown Madison. Within blocks of one another are the city police department, the county sheriff’s office, the Capitol police and UW-Madison police. There’s a Secret Service office, U.S. marshals, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and, over on the West Side, the FBI. In addition, Madison’s many surrounding towns and suburbs have forces of their own.
If you drive down the Beltline, you never know which police agency might pull you over.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz wants to send the rowdiness of Madison’s Halloween celebration to the graveyard.
To inhibit rioting, reveling and other incendiary forms of drunkenness this October, the mayor will gate and charge a $5 entry fee to State Street.
Opponents of the plan say that charging and restricting entry to public property challenges the right to assembly. They also claimed it prices individuals out of the celebration.
Columnist Steve Chapman says that even at private colleges, alumni, donors and other interested parties are inclined to question the value of academic freedom when it leads to lunacy.
The tension erupted into open hostilities recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which discovered that one of its instructors has an unorthodox view of recent history. Kevin Barrett, who teaches a course on Islam, thinks the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were “an inside job” masterminded by the Bush administration to justify U.S. aggression in the Middle East.
Support for cloning is an essential aspect of the movement for embryo-destructive stem cell research. This week, Gov. Jim Doyle started to run a shamelessly manipulative attack ad against his challenger, Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.), accusing Green of wanting to “outlaw stem cell research.”
I’d like to think that we have survived an endless stream of theories in the classroom – from President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowing Pearl Harbor to be attacked (Ã?¡ la 9-11) to the fact-light, race and ethnicity lectures that do little to offset bias and segregation nationwide as vocalized recently by President Bush at the NAACP convention.
What seems to be of greater concern is the accepted practice of talking about issues as if there are only two sides: One is right and the other is selling a pack of lies.
Fortunately for Kevin Barrett, UW-Madison apparently discovered that he is a fair teacher and does not indoctrinate his students. But, unfortunately, the administration’s response since then has been remarkably tone deaf.
If the university does not reverse course – which it can, easily – the present melee will continue to escalate and, even worse, occur again.
We sincerely hope this is the last editorial we have to do on UW lecturer Kevin Barrett, his beliefs on the incidents of September 11th and his qualifications to teach at the University of Wisconsin. This should be a done deal already.
A week from today, Bielema will be attending his first Big Ten Conference preseason media bash, getting verbally bull-rushed by those eager to know how he intends to replace the legendary Barry Alvarez as UW coach. Bielema will also take a question or two about his team, one that generated a lot of diverse projections from the preview magazines.
Some see the Badgers hanging around the Big Ten cellar. Some mention UW as a title contender. Who you believe depends on how your psyche is wired.
….Why shouldn’t students at the University of Wisconsin learn that, with whatever evidentiary bases exist for (Barrett’s) assertion, as they also study the conclusions reached by the 9/11 Commission to which most of us subscribe? Why shouldn’t Kevin Barrett have to answer his students’ questions about how such a horrendous and far-reaching disaster could be orchestrated by our government without even one person “blowing the whistle” and bringing the conspiracy to an end?
I predict that classroom dialogue on this subject will reveal that our UW students have the intelligence and analytical powers to sort out fact from fiction and paranoia – what the university refers to as “sifting and winnowing.”
(Jeffrey Bartell is a UW-Madison alumnus and a member of the UW System Board of Regents)
STEVENS POINT — Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle says he’s taking the “life position” on embryonic stem cells.
Pat Hardyman, a citizen from Blanchardville, doesn’t buy it.
And somewhere in between their views is U.S. Rep. Mark Green, the Republican challenger for governor.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz must have had a late night visit from the ghost of Halloween past.
How else to explain his sudden about face?
For the last few years, he’s been Mayor Ebenezer Scrooge, shouting “Bah, humbug!” to Halloween and warning visitors to stay away – far, far away – from State Street.
KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11 have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.
As a member of the UW Board of Regents, I have received e-mails and phone messages protesting the university’s decision to allow lecturer Kevin Barrett to teach a course on Islam culture and religion, given his views on the Sept. 11 tragedy.
Wisconsin lawmakers, we have a problem.
According to one of my former UW-Madison instructors, man never landed on the moon.
This anti-lunar landing educator took more than one small step over the line of academic freedom. He took one giant leap into academic blasphemy.
He should be fired, right?
Wrong.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley has done a thoughtful job of hinting he might not want his job for life and might even retire in the near future.
…we’ve had far too many examples of government cover-ups and outright fabrications to dismiss out of hand as loony anyone who raises questions about the “official” version of events.
And where better to have a free and open discussion of controversial ideas than on a college campus?
Apparently, the biggest mistake made by Kevin Barrett, a part-time instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was appearing on a right-wing radio talk show in Milwaukee.
I admit I have more than a little sympathy for the folks living in the UW-Arboretum area who don’t want to see a developer “improve” three lots at Arboretum Lane and Arboretum Drive.
The latest in the academic follies comes from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where the administration has cleared the way for an instructor to teach his belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were plotted by the US government to create an excuse for war.
By now, most everyone has heard about the recent academic freedom conflict at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
It is a new day, indeed, on campus. I look forward to the UW biology department hiring scholars who support the scientific claims of the intelligent design movement and former Harvard President Larry Summers’ views (more accurately, suggestions) regarding the innate differences in mathematical ability between men and women.
I anticipate the fireworks when the Medical School adds a professor with substantial experience in turning gays and lesbians into heterosexuals. The sifting and winnowing should be hot and heavy. Quaere verum, baby (“Seek the truth,” for those millions of us not as smart as professor Barrett – I looked it up).
Controversial though it is, the decision by UW-Madison to let an instructor who believes the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by our own government fits within the most conservative traditions of the university.
Kevin Barrett will teach a course on Islam at the school. He apparently believes the twin towers of the World Trade Center were blown up by U.S. government operatives in order to provoke war in the Middle East. He said as much during a radio interview.
The University of Wisconsin will allow part-time lecturer Kevin Barrett to teach a fall class on Islam, including his theory that the U.S. government planned the 9/11 terror attacks to launch a war on Muslim nations.
There’s so much information about alleged myths about 9-11 out there that it’s ridiculous not to expect today’s college students to investigate some of this stuff on their own.
As a part-time lecturer at UW-Milwaukee, I support the right of any teacher to conduct his class as he feels fit, within university standards.
We survived visits by the fiery Ward Churchill, who by the way is currently appealing a decision by his school to fire him. The UW System can certainly survive the teachings of Kevin Barrett. With all this publicity, his students will find themselves in a great position to make up their own minds.
That is what education is supposed to be about, right?
Author: Tamir Moustafa, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is a visiting fellow in the law and public affairs program at Princeton University.
MADISON, Wis. — From the back patio of his official residence here, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle can look across Lake Mendota to the campus of the University of Wisconsin and see a forest of construction cranes at the medical research complex and the new Institute of Discovery. Doyle calls the facilities “the epicenter of the world’s work on embryonic stem cells.”
Academic freedom, free speech and ââ?¬Å?sifting and winnowingââ?¬Â are sacred principles at the University of Wisconsin System.
For as long as anyone can remember, candidates for public office have circulated their nominating petitions on the Memorial Union Terrace.
Packed with Wisconsinites, most of them in a mellow mood, the terrace is an ideal spot for would-be contenders to gather the signatures they need to earn a place on local and statewide ballots.
Canon advises congress
On very short notice last week, UW-Madison poly sci prof David Canon found himself in Washington, testifying in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, urging senators to renew and strengthen the Voting Rights Act — the four-decades-old law that ended poll taxes and literacy tests that had disenfranchised voters, particularly African Americans.
The hazards of books
University Communications’ Susannah Jacobson fulfilled a life-long goal by competing on “Jeopardy!” (It airs at 4:30 today on Ch. 15.) She was worried because “with only a few weeks between the call and the taping, I crammed over my lunch hour using a book of lists made for game show prepping. A few days before the show I realized that the book was full of glaring errors.”
However, her final showing was more-than-credible, she reveals.
Look, I don’t denigrate the danger posed by clowns. I lived in Madison in 1970, when four inept young men tried to blow up the ammunition plant near Baraboo by flying over in a single-engine airplane and dropping a Molotov cocktail onto the snow- covered roof of one of the buildings.
A few months later, these same guys managed to blow up Sterling Hall on the UW- Madison campus, killing one researcher and destroying the work of dozens. I don’t think we should wait until clowns manage to get lucky and kill people before we stop them.
I was reminded once again these past few days of the idiocy of that bureaucratic puzzle palace known as the NCAA.
How can an organization that is supposedly run by the top minds of American academia be so inept?
Ever been haunted by a ghost on campus? John Allen, associate editor of On Wisconsin, is collecting campus ghost tales.”I’ve gotten about 50 stories so far,” says Allen, perusing his e-mail. “Ghost stories are a favorite urban legend. I’m hoping to get a list of what is out there.”
The UW Board of Regents calls student fees “stealth tuition.”
A student government committee at UW-Madison uses the slang “seg fees.”
But ask average UW students for their own definition of segregated fees and they will invariably tilt their heads and effuse a blank shrug.
I turn 64 just six days after Paul McCartney. So I’ve been pondering the lyrics of his famous song with more than passing interest and marveling at where the time has gone.
Coincidentally, I completed a 42-year journey a few days ago while christening my new racing bike.
Opinion column mentions a sister city program originated in the 1950s from Ed Zawacki, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor.
The Badger women’s soccer team did not leave empty-handed on its trip to Germany.
Thanks to County Board Chair Scott McDonell, they took a quilt made by Sue Rieser and Catherine Hixon of the Fern Hill Friends quilting club to present to Minister President Roland Koch, the equivalent of a governor of Hessen (Wisconsin’s sister state). And the brought framed photographs by Zane Williams for area mayors.
Bret Bielema, UW-Madison football coach: “There are two things I’m so thankful that my father taught me – and he did it without me knowing that’s what he was doing. Fridays nights I’d play football with the team and they’d be talking about what they were doing the next day … going to the mall or whatever. Every Saturday we’d get up and do chores at 6 a.m. until they were done, around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. (He grew up on a pig farm.) I thought it was a way of life. It taught me discipline.
6.8 PERCENT IN-STATE TUITION INCREASE SOUGHT
The UW Board of Regents are under fire again for a proposal that would raise tuition for in-state students 6.8 percent next fall. According to the plan, up for Regents review this week, the increases would translate to $382 more per year for students at UW-Madison, $374 more at UW-Milwaukee and $291 more at all other UW campuses. The plan would also lower out-of-state tuition at all campuses except UW-Madison as part of a plan to attract more students from other states.
University of Wisconsin campuses will start selecting students more in the manner Harvard University does. The hue and cry among many politicians: The dastardly UW administration is lowering standards.
Funny. The last I checked, Harvard still presided at or near the top of the college heap, despite having used the holistic approach.
Obviously, Tommy Thompson is bored.He wouldn’t have done the Brett Favre-like public hand wringing about his old job if he were really happy as a globe-trotting consultant. Fortunately, I have the perfect job for him.
The news media have been sounding the alarm about a new gender crisis in education: Boys reportedly make up a declining portion of college students. And so the future is clear. Boys are poised to become the newest victim class. That rustling sound you hear is the migration of university deans and ââ?¬Å?diversityââ?¬Â consultants to the next big employment bonanza: helping boys succeed!
Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
With their black gowns, square-top caps and wide smiles, the 800 seniors who graduated this month from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts appeared to be a perfect slice of America. Not quite: A lot more of the graduates were women than men.This gender imbalance is present at most college graduations. More women than men apply to college in the first place. And once there, more women than men make it through.
Madison headache expert Dr. Allan Rifkin said that changes in barometric pressure trigger headaches. Another part of our lifestyle is certainly a factor: widespread use and misuse of alcohol.
Rifkin, who treats UW-Madison students at University Health Services, said the typical college student’s lifestyle fuels our massive municipal migraine. Long nights of studying and stress, followed by exercise and alcohol can be tough on even the hardiest of youth.
