“You have presumably made a study of how important it is for the people — the people and not the oil plutocrats, the people and not the fantasists in right wing think tanks, the people and not the virulent lockstep gasbags of Sunday morning talk shows and editorial pages and all-Nazi all-the-time radio ranting marathons, the thinking people and not the crazy people, the rich and multivarious multicultural people and not the pale pale greyish-white cranky grim greedy people, the secular pluralist people and not the theocrats, the metaphorical imaginative expansive generous sensual rational people and not the sexual hysterics, the misogynists, Muslim and Christian and Jewish fundamentalists, the hard-working people and not the people whose only real exertion ever in their whole parasite lives has been the effort if takes to slash a trillion plus dollars in tax revenue and then stuff it in their already overfull pockets – whatever your degree, you have presumably read history and thought about justice and freedom and the relationship between ideas and action and you know how important it is for the sizable community of decent sane just egalitarian people, comprising many minority communities constituting if not a majority then a plurality, a substantial smart let’s- say-40%- plurality community (more than large enough in a pluralist democracy) (which for the time being the United States still is) if it uses its brains and works together, to wield decisive power, power for enfranchisement and economic as well as racial justice and gender justice and sexual political justice and environmental sanity and in the name of a real globalism, a real internationalism, a real solidarity with all the peoples of the world, to wield power infused with the knowledge that democracy is created not by military machines, not by MOAB bombs and smart bombs but by smart peaceable people, fed people, educated people — democracy is created by making an aggressive determined and longterm effort at eradicating the real axis of evil: poverty, homelessness, no health care.” – Tony Kushner, in one sentence, explaining his political philosophy.
ACADEMIC DIVERSITY: A professor gets denied tenure at Smith College after publishing an anti-p.c. piece in National Review Online. Two members of the tenure committee cited writing that could be construed as conservative in their defense of their no-votes. Some students feel otherwise:
“It’s hard to point to a single professor besides Jim Miller that is an active conservative voice in the economics department,” said Borell. Politics aside, “We think he stands on his own merits,” Kringen said. “He’s just a really excellent teacher. He requires students to think critically.”
But he’s a Republican. And there are some aspects of diversity that simply cannot be countenanced at some universities.
The Dish 