Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
James R. Rummel The title of this post is attributed to Archimedes, a Greek genius whose amazing colossal brain not only devised new advances in mathematics and the sciences, but also invented defenses to protect his nation.
The quote concerns the lever, a simple device that everyone will recognize at once. In one context the quote can be taken to be nothing more than hyperbole concerning a common application of physics. But there’s something about it that always gets my heart to quicken just a little bit.
I came across a blog that I think would be of interest to everyone here. It’s Rantingprofs. It’s authored by Cori Dauber, who’s an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina.
So what’s the subject of her blog? Cori posts about the media coverage of the War on Terror.
From what I can see, she’s none too happy about the news media’s performance.
More than 10 years ago, the Israel and the PLO worked out the Oslo Accords. This was an agreement where Israel was to allow the Palestinians to form armed internal police forces, which were then supposed to confiscate weapons and forcibly disband terrorist cells. The PLO itself, on the verge of achieving a Palestinian state, would disband. Israel would relinquish some of the territory that had been seized for Jewish settlements, and the Palestinians would hold free and fair elections in order to form a legitimate government instead of being run by a bunch of terrorist organizations.
This was pretty much just the first steps, though. The idea was to eventually have a nation called Palestine which would rule its own territory and leave the Israelis alone, while Israel returned the favor.
A few of the first steps were actually completed. Some of the Jewish settlements were bulldozed and the land was returned to the Palestinians. The Palestinians were allowed to form armed internal security forces. Next step was elections.
Didn’t happen. The newly armed secruity forces recruited and armed many more gunmen than they said they would, many of them murderous terrorists. Of course, the first thing these guys wanted to do was use their shiny new AK’s and murder even more people.
And do you think that the “police” even tried to shut the PLO down or arrest terrorists? Don’t make me laugh.
I’m reminded of this painful episode of naivete on the part of the Israelis because of this news item. The terrorist organization Hamas is claiming that they’ll agree to a “truce” if Israel releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners. They also want the Israelis to redeploy their troops away from Gaza. Don’t worry about Jewish civilians after the army pulls out, Hamas says, because they’ll station Palestinian police forces in order to protect them.
Does anyone else see a pattern here? Or is it just me?
UPDATE
Francis Porretto says that calling a truce simply to gather strength for further hostilities is a favored Islamic tactic.
According to this news story, a high raking al-Queda operative has confessed to the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. He also claims that al-Queda has constructed about 75% of the car bombs that have been used in Baghdad.
AQ has been suffering from a loss of prestige so far as radical, murderous Islamo-Fascist terrorist groups go. This is probably some has-been blowing smoke to puff up his sense of importance. Sort of like those copycat serial killers who confess to crimes they didn’t commit so the cops will think they’re such big deals.
Still, he is a mover and shaker in AQ. There’s also no doubt that he’s one of the bad guys, a murderous punk with innocent blood on his hands. And it’s beyond question that he was captured in Iraq while up to no good.
But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s like all of those angry op-eds in the NYT told us. Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism, invading Iraq isn’t really attacking international terrorism, and the current attacks in Iraq are conducted by local “freedom fighters” trying to defend their homes without support from foreign terrorists desperate to prevent the formation of an Arab democracy.
So what was this al-Queda guy doing there? Uh…He was on vacation!
I hear that he was thinking of going to Disneyworld instead, but he looked like a geek in those mouse ears.
The headline reads “TWO TENURED PROFESSORS RESIGN FROM UCLA”.
Hey, people quit their jobs all the time. Why should we care?
The professors in question were a couple of performance artists who were working in the art department. They’re all in a tizzy ’cause a student wasn’t suspended for a performance.
Anyway, some graduate student had a peice where he aimed a real-looking gun at his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire, the kid walked out the door, and the sound of a gunshot rang out from outside the room.
Yeah, yeah, I know. People get to apply for grant money for this? I’m in the wrong business.
But any negative reaction is unwarranted. Near as I can tell, no one was threatened with the gun. In fact, no one was harmed at all. The cops aren’t even sure if the gun used was real. Sounds like a whole lot of nothing to me.
That’s what the school administration figured, since they refused to suspend the kid for his (heh) art. That’s why the two profs, Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins, decided to call it quits and turned in their walking papers.
What’s really fascinating to me is that Chris Burden is bitchin’ about this. He first gained fame in 1971 as a young performance artist who had a buddy shoot his arm with a .22 rifle. (Here’s a blurry picture of the moment of impact.)
Oh, but that was different! Burden claims that the graduate student who faked suicide committed an act of “domestic terrorism”. Having his own arm shot way back when wasn’t the same since no one in the audience felt they were in any danger, while the kid at UCLA caused “genuine fear”.
Wah wah wah. Cry me a river, Chris. He’s probably just jealous that he didn’t think of the idea first.