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Category: UW Experts in the News

UW prof: I tried to warn School Board

Capital Times

As the Madison School Board was meeting Monday night to confirm its decision to name a new elementary school for Gen. Vang Pao, reports were coming in that the Hmong general had been indicted and arrested by federal authorities as the alleged mastermind of a plot to violently overthrow the government of Laos.

The irony was not lost on Alfred McCoy, the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. McCoy had been fiercely criticized by supporters of the school-naming proposal, including members of the School Board, for loudly challenging the notion that Vang Pao should be honored.

Vang charges reignite school name debate

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison history professor Alfred McCoy and others have long alleged that Vang Pao presided over drug running and summary executions while working with the CIA on the so-called secret war against communists in Laos during the Vietnam War. Many Hmong and other researchers deny the allegations.

Wisconsin speller finishes 3rd

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mentions that Madison’s leading speller was tutored by Jeff Kirsch, a professor of Portuguese and Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has been working with Isabel Jacobson weekly since last February, for no fee. The story also quotes Kirsch.

Hmong attend Vang Pao Elementary groundbreaking

Reynolds has helped gather 500 signatures asking the Madison School Board to reopen the naming of the school because Pao has been accused by UW-Madison professor Alfred McCoy and others of running drugs and permitting summary executions during the Vietnam War. Other researchers and Hmong dispute the allegations against Pao.

Cook: A critical juncture for Giuliani (National Journal)

MSNBC.com

University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin has his own Web site on polling, Political Arithmetik, and partners on a second site, pollster.com.

These are two must-visit sites for those fascinated with political polling. On both sites, Franklin regularly publishes updated graphs of his “trend estimator,” something more sophisticated than, but similar to, a moving average showing the relative strengths of each presidential candidate in recent national polls.

UW to open stem-cell center

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison may be known worldwide for stem-cell research, but the campus has lacked an organized way to get its stem-cell scientists to share lab equipment, train new researchers, educate the public and garner federal grants, campus authorities say.