Wednesday, May 21, 2003
IT MUST BE GRADUATION TIME AGAIN
CNN reports that some graduating students were more than a little annoyed at being lectured to for one last time by one of the "usual suspects":
A New York Times reporter cut short a keynote address to graduates at a private Illinois college over the weekend after audience members shouted down his comments about the war in Iraq.
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of a recent book that describes war as an addiction, was booed Saturday at Rockford College, a small liberal arts school 80 miles northwest of Chicago. After protesters rushed the stage and twice cut power to the microphone, Hedges cut his speech short.
"He delivered what I guess I would refer to as a fairly strident perspective on the war in Iraq and American policy," college President Paul Pribbenow said Tuesday. "I think our audience at commencement were not prepared for that."
Does it get more condescending then that? They were under the impression they were attending commencement -- NOT an anti-war rally. Had they known it was to be the latter, I'm sure MOST WOULD have been VERY prepared.
Many audience members turned their backs on Hedges, while others booed and shouted, said Pribbenow, who at one point pleaded to let the speech continue. . .
. . ."I was surprised at how vociferous it was and the fact that people climbed onto the podium," Hedges said. . . .
The local paper, the Rockford Register, said this:
. . .Hedges began his abbreviated 18-minute speech comparing United States’ policy in Iraq to piranhas and a tyranny over the weak. His microphone was unplugged within three minutes.
Voices of protest and the sound of foghorns grew.
Some graduates and audience members turned their backs to the speaker in silent protest. Others rushed up the aisle to vocally protest the remarks, and one student tossed his cap and gown to the stage before leaving. . .
With a train wreck on his hands, the gut reaction of the school's president was to defend Hedges' right to "free speech". . .
. . .Mary O’Neill of Capron, who earned a degree in elementary education, sat in her black cap and gown listening. She was stunned.
She turned to Pribbenow and asked him why he was letting the speech continue. He said it was freedom of speech. Pribbenow later said when people stop listening to ideas, even controversial ones, it is the death of institutions like 157-year-old Rockford College.
In tears, O’Neill left the ceremony.
Her husband, Kevin, sat in the audience with their daughter and was as indignant as his wife.
“This is a ceremony. ... The day belongs to the students. It doesn’t belong to a political view,” he said. . .
. . .but then the college and Hedges' backers naturally became all righteously indignant that students might have not chosen to sit there like geraniums taking the abuse hurled their way at themselves and their country, but instead LOUDLY shared their disagreement with HIS MICROPHONE assisted remarks. . .
. . .Pribbenow said Rockford College takes no political stance, but the job is to challenge students. He reminded audience members of the liberal arts college’s commitment to listening to other viewpoints.
Elinor Radlund of Rockford read Hedges’ book on war and was horrified at what she said was the audience’s rude behavior. She was indignant she couldn’t hear the speaker.
“They were not behaving as people in an academic setting, where you’re supposed to be open to a great many ideas,” Radlund said. . .
Really. Perhaps all things being equal. This is not one of those cases. Some freedom of speech. Some "great many ideas." In "university think", that translates as Hedges is allowed to speak; everyone else must shut up and listen -- TO HIM. You, if you disagree, are NOT allowed to cause HIM upsetment, but he is allowed to vomit all over you to his weasel heart's content.
Rockford pulled the commencement link off their home page. However, the Google cache is here. And this April announcement of Hedges' upcoming address is found in the school's Press Release Archives, in which the college tells us that Hedges' book:
. . . addresses humanity's love affair with war, offering a moving and thought-provoking perspective on the subject. He draws on the literature of combat from Homer to Shakespeare and from Erich Maria Remarque to Michael Herr. Hedges cautions that, even for the winners, war unleashes a litany of unforeseen consequences. During a time when the U.S. deals with the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the message of this book is particularly timely. . .
Yep, there you have it. You've actually seen Homer and Hedges referred to in the same paragraph.
Can I stop laughing now?
Seriously, any 9th grader can tell you that war has unforeseen consequences, for winners and losers alike. So this can't be much of a book, if that's Hedges' main point.
I vaguely remember "Yes, Prime Minister's" Sir Humphrey once warning the P.M. against taking an action because he could foresee many unforeseen consequences. The P.M. caught out Humphrey when he asked in response: how could you foresee them when they are unforeseen? But I digress.
Think on this for a moment. This Hedges launches into an anti-American, oh the war will have unforeseen and TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, EVIL consequences (not better consequences, of course) speech at a commencement in Illinois. . . and claims to have been unprepared for a vociferious response?
You would have thought "Mr Deep" would have been half-intelligent enough to have realized that stupid commencement addresses also have unforseen consequences.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. . . .
¶ by Robert, Wednesday, May 21, 2003
CNN reports that some graduating students were more than a little annoyed at being lectured to for one last time by one of the "usual suspects":
A New York Times reporter cut short a keynote address to graduates at a private Illinois college over the weekend after audience members shouted down his comments about the war in Iraq.
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of a recent book that describes war as an addiction, was booed Saturday at Rockford College, a small liberal arts school 80 miles northwest of Chicago. After protesters rushed the stage and twice cut power to the microphone, Hedges cut his speech short.
"He delivered what I guess I would refer to as a fairly strident perspective on the war in Iraq and American policy," college President Paul Pribbenow said Tuesday. "I think our audience at commencement were not prepared for that."
Does it get more condescending then that? They were under the impression they were attending commencement -- NOT an anti-war rally. Had they known it was to be the latter, I'm sure MOST WOULD have been VERY prepared.
Many audience members turned their backs on Hedges, while others booed and shouted, said Pribbenow, who at one point pleaded to let the speech continue. . .
. . ."I was surprised at how vociferous it was and the fact that people climbed onto the podium," Hedges said. . . .
The local paper, the Rockford Register, said this:
. . .Hedges began his abbreviated 18-minute speech comparing United States’ policy in Iraq to piranhas and a tyranny over the weak. His microphone was unplugged within three minutes.
Voices of protest and the sound of foghorns grew.
Some graduates and audience members turned their backs to the speaker in silent protest. Others rushed up the aisle to vocally protest the remarks, and one student tossed his cap and gown to the stage before leaving. . .
With a train wreck on his hands, the gut reaction of the school's president was to defend Hedges' right to "free speech". . .
. . .Mary O’Neill of Capron, who earned a degree in elementary education, sat in her black cap and gown listening. She was stunned.
She turned to Pribbenow and asked him why he was letting the speech continue. He said it was freedom of speech. Pribbenow later said when people stop listening to ideas, even controversial ones, it is the death of institutions like 157-year-old Rockford College.
In tears, O’Neill left the ceremony.
Her husband, Kevin, sat in the audience with their daughter and was as indignant as his wife.
“This is a ceremony. ... The day belongs to the students. It doesn’t belong to a political view,” he said. . .
. . .but then the college and Hedges' backers naturally became all righteously indignant that students might have not chosen to sit there like geraniums taking the abuse hurled their way at themselves and their country, but instead LOUDLY shared their disagreement with HIS MICROPHONE assisted remarks. . .
. . .Pribbenow said Rockford College takes no political stance, but the job is to challenge students. He reminded audience members of the liberal arts college’s commitment to listening to other viewpoints.
Elinor Radlund of Rockford read Hedges’ book on war and was horrified at what she said was the audience’s rude behavior. She was indignant she couldn’t hear the speaker.
“They were not behaving as people in an academic setting, where you’re supposed to be open to a great many ideas,” Radlund said. . .
Really. Perhaps all things being equal. This is not one of those cases. Some freedom of speech. Some "great many ideas." In "university think", that translates as Hedges is allowed to speak; everyone else must shut up and listen -- TO HIM. You, if you disagree, are NOT allowed to cause HIM upsetment, but he is allowed to vomit all over you to his weasel heart's content.
Rockford pulled the commencement link off their home page. However, the Google cache is here. And this April announcement of Hedges' upcoming address is found in the school's Press Release Archives, in which the college tells us that Hedges' book:
. . . addresses humanity's love affair with war, offering a moving and thought-provoking perspective on the subject. He draws on the literature of combat from Homer to Shakespeare and from Erich Maria Remarque to Michael Herr. Hedges cautions that, even for the winners, war unleashes a litany of unforeseen consequences. During a time when the U.S. deals with the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the message of this book is particularly timely. . .
Yep, there you have it. You've actually seen Homer and Hedges referred to in the same paragraph.
Can I stop laughing now?
Seriously, any 9th grader can tell you that war has unforeseen consequences, for winners and losers alike. So this can't be much of a book, if that's Hedges' main point.
I vaguely remember "Yes, Prime Minister's" Sir Humphrey once warning the P.M. against taking an action because he could foresee many unforeseen consequences. The P.M. caught out Humphrey when he asked in response: how could you foresee them when they are unforeseen? But I digress.
Think on this for a moment. This Hedges launches into an anti-American, oh the war will have unforeseen and TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, EVIL consequences (not better consequences, of course) speech at a commencement in Illinois. . . and claims to have been unprepared for a vociferious response?
You would have thought "Mr Deep" would have been half-intelligent enough to have realized that stupid commencement addresses also have unforseen consequences.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. . . .
¶ by Robert, Wednesday, May 21, 2003
