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Name: Ed Lilly
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Name: Disgruntled in NY
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"This isn't Russia. Is this Russia? This isn't Russia."

Posted by Ed Lilly on Tuesday, September 01, 2009 10:45:10 PM

I immediately thought of Ty Webb's question from Caddyshack (the title of this post) upon learning of the extremely creepy idea of President Obama's scheduled address to a captive group of kids who are "suggested" to "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.  These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."

So my kid now should be putting down goals for how he or she can help the president (NOT the Country, mind you), and somehow be "accountable to their goals" at a later time?!

Here's the letter from the Secretary of Education (and thanks again, President Reagan, for following through on that campaign rhetoric about abolishing the waste of taxpayer funds that is the Dept. of Education) to the nation's school principals. (see the attached suggested classroom activities for the Pre-K to 6 for the letters to themselves idea)

If I'd wanted this type of interaction between the nation's chief executive and my kids, I would have moved to North Korea or Cuba.

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Finally a GOOD idea from Massachusetts

Posted by Ed Lilly on Sunday, May 11, 2008 7:14:32 AM
In the spirit of true bipartisanship, I think that were I in the Massachusetts state legislature, I would have no problem casting a vote for the plan outlined by Prof. Paul Caron at his taxprof blog (h/t Instapundit):

Massachusetts lawmakers desperate for additional revenue are eyeing the endowments of deep-pocketed private colleges to bolster the state's coffers by more than $1 billion a year, asserting that the schools' rising fortunes undercut their nonprofit status.

Legislators have asked state finance officials to study a plan that would impose a 2.5% annual assessment on colleges with endowments over $1 billion, an amount now exceeded by nine Massachusetts institutions.

Now, if only we could Barack Obama's pastor to recognize this type of scenario as a true instance of chickens coming home to roost, we'd be getting somewhere.


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I'm not holding my breath waiting for Universities to divest themselves from this source of funding

Posted by Ed Lilly on Sunday, May 04, 2008 8:17:52 AM
Perhaps a forward thinking approach to university evaluations by magazines like U.S. News and World Report would include a requirement that the universities provide transparency in disclosing the sources and amounts of all financial gifts, grants, endowments, etc., and universities should also have an office that has complete records, freely available for review online by those who may be interested, that details all correspondence, notes to the file, and program evaluations for the various projects that are funded by these gifts, grants and endowments so that the “buying public” knows exactly what kind of environment their high school graduate may expect when they get to campus.

What prompts such a sweeping suggestion of reform and full disclosure from our higher education system?  Here’s the background from The Australian (h/t Instapundit):

THE cheque from the Saudi Government for $360,000 was enclosed in an envelope.
It was a donation, a gift, a part payment to subsidise the construction of a building that would become Sydney's Muslim heartbeat: Lakemba mosque. More than 35 years after Sydney cleric Khalil Shami received the cheque, he insists it came with no strings attached. But while the cheque had no tangible conditions in the form of written instructions or binding contracts, the cleric received a message from his donors several months after depositing it.

"They said: 'Please, can you mention the tragedy of the Palestinian people and what's happened to them in your sermon?"' Shami tells Inquirer. "Which is really a very noble cause, a very noble cause, I couldn't see a negative in their request."

The message Shami received from Riyadh brings into question the influence petro-dollars can have on their recipients, whether the money is bankrolling a religious centre, a clerical allowance or Queensland's Griffith University, which was exposed by The Australian last month for seeking a $1.37million Saudi grant, of which $100,000 was received, and offering to keep elements of the deal a secret.

The Saudi Government - largely through its embassy - is believed to have funnelled at least $120 million into Australia since the 1970s to propagate hardline Islam, bankroll radical clerics and build mosques, schools and charitable organisations.

But the Saudi cash that has flowed into Australia, that also allegedly has paid the allowance of hardline Canberra cleric Mohammed Swaiti, who has publicly praised jihadists, is dwarfed by the $90 billion Riyadh is believed to have pumped into promoting Islamic fundamentalism internationally.

Ninety.  Billion.  Dollars.  So how much have American universities received?  What has been funded by it?  Who are the professors and staffers who have applied for and received grants from the Saudis?  What kind of academic work have those people done with that money?  Just a few of the many, many questions that need to be asked and answered.

I’m not sure I follow Daniel Pipes’ argument here:

US-based Middle East expert and author Daniel Pipes says it is wrong to presume that all academics would follow their donor's line merely to keep the stream of funds rolling.

"Academics have a distinct point of view and are not about to be bought and change their point of view for any sum of money," he tells Inquirer. "But they are willing to shape their work and their views. So you can't buy them but you can rent them. So someone who might have been inclined to ask tough questions will do something else. It's subtle. It's not like the Saudis come to town to buy up academics who grovel before them, as was the case with Griffith University."

Last month, Britain's MI5 director-general Jonathan Evans reportedly told his Government that the Saudi Government's multimillion-dollar donations to universities, along with other funds from Muslim organisations in countries such as Pakistan, had led to a "dangerous increase in the spread of extremism in leading university campuses".

You can’t buy them but you can rent them?  They won’t change their point of view, but they will stop asking tough questions?  Sounds to me like it, contra Mr. Pipes, it is in fact entirely correct to presume that academics who are receiving significant funding from the Saudis are in fact following the Saudis’ line in order to keep the funds rolling.  I understand that Pipes has probably forgotten more about terrorism than I may ever know, but if he is somehow trying to argue that we should still trust American academics who are getting funding from the Saudis, I think he’s about as wrong as can be, and he’ll need to expand significantly on these comments to convince me otherwise.
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Mixed messages at the school library?

Posted by Ed Lilly on Thursday, May 01, 2008 1:03:52 PM
I have been doing some substitute teaching lately, and many of the assignments the past few weeks have been in our local middle school.  During planning periods I often spend time in the school library catching up on news and other things.  Near the bank of computers in the library are a set of posters designed to appeal to teenagers and let them know the wide variety of things they can find and/or learn in the library.

The posters build on the fundamental idea of using the "Five W's."  Thus, we have:

Say Who?  Find Biographies Here!
Say What?  Find It Here!
Say When?  Find History Here!
Say Where?  Find Your Way Here!
Say Why?  Find Answers Here!
Say How?  Find Out Here!

And centered in the display area is a poster reading:

Teens Say READ!

I'm certainly in favor of improving kids' literacy and research skills.  So I was a little disappointed to see the tagline at the bottom of each of these posters:

The Library is WHERE IT'S AT.

I understand that may be very common phraseology.  But shouldn't we do students a favor and try to use proper grammar?

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Maybe Harvard could relocate to a remote area of New Mexico

Posted by Ed Lilly on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:41:40 AM
So there will be sufficient space for female students to exercise with proper male supervision.  The excellent blog, Urgent Agenda, has a post on this article from the Washington Post.  Here’s the snippet that caught my eye:

Powerful religious clerics also ban sports for girls in public schools, deeming it un-Islamic, and recently canceled two rare all-women's events, a soccer match and a marathon. Gyms for women were closed in the early 1990s and have been allowed to reopen, but only when affiliated with hospitals.

Further in we find:

Banning the opening of these sports centers is not a ban on sports. A woman can practice sports at home, and there are many ways to do that, or she can race her husband in a deserted area, like the prophet Muhammad ... who raced with his wife Aisha twice.

So what will Harvard do when their Islamic overlords in Saudi Arabia, who have most likely donated millions of dollars to fund various things at Harvard, point out that they don’t want women using gymnasiums?  Will the whole separate but equal system for Harvard’s recreational facilities collapse?  Will there be a re-thinking of Title IX as culturally insensitive to the wealthy donors who call the shots at Ivy League universities?

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