Plantiff Michael Newdow argued yesterday before the Supreme Court against forced recitation of the pledge:
I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God. And every school morning, my child is asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand on her heart and say that her father is wrong. The government is supposed to stay out of religion.
The YDN reported yesterday that international applications to American graduate schools, including Yale, have dropped drasticaly in the past year. Dean Salovey assesses the source of the problem well:
Graduate School Dean Peter Salovey said in an e-mail that the decrease in international applications could be caused by visa regulations and the economy, particularly in the case of China.
“Sensible reform of current visa restrictions and delays facing international graduate students, as called for by President Levin, would help with this problem,” Salovey said in the e-mail. “It may also be the case that economic conditions in China and opportunities there are affecting the applicant pool too, but this is difficult to assess.”
But don’t hold your breath for him and Levin to agree to work with the graduate students who’ve been organizing a national movement to fix the situation.
Three months ago, newly-appointed Yale Vice President for Finance and Administration John Pepper told the Cincinnati Post:
At this point in my life, I feel like I can contribute to a team and an institution that in many ways is like Procter & Gamble.
The Yale community got a better sense of just what that means when Pepper announced (Monday’s YDN still not on-line) the lay-offs of a hundred Yale clerical and technical and managing and professional employees. Yesterday, members of the Yale community came together to protest the University’s breach of faith and call for a better vision of the University:
“We will not let John Pepper strip away all that Yale can and will be in this community under the guise of some fabricated budget deficit,” [Laura] Smith said. “With or without you, John Pepper, we will build a future for Yale that we will all be proud of.”
…Smith called forward approximately 20 laid-off workers to take the stage at the rally. “It’s difficult to go out and start a new career,” Stanley Kobylanski, a 52-year-old laid-off telecommunications worker, said. “I’d like Yale to rescind the layoffs. Our major concern is the battle we wage with subcontracting and outsourcing our work.”
Pepper’s response:
“I believe in dialogue on these subjects,” Pepper said. “Unions are important organizing units and should be respected as such. But we are all part of the Yale family.”
Unfortunately, Pepper is yet to translate his stated belief in dialogue in real partnership with Yale’s workers of the sort John Stepp called for in the RAI Report. Meanwhile, despite what Wal-Mart and other union-busting firms may tell you, paternalism does not a family make.
After what was likely some technical trouble, the Yale Daily News website is back on line, so today I’ll try to mention a few of the articles from the past few days that I would have pointed to had there been links to point to and not just paper copies…
Richard Clarke testifies before the 9/11 Commission:
George Tenet and I tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the Al Qaeda threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials,” Mr. Clarke said, referring to the director of central intelligence, who testified earlier today. “But although I continue to say it was an urgent problem, I don’t think it was ever treated that way,” Mr. Clarke said of his time in the Bush administration.
…Mr. Clarke began his testimony before the bipartisan, 10-member panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, with an apology to relatives of the 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Your government failed you,” he said, his voice close to breaking. “Those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Sooner or later, the next reprisal terrorist attack will come. Eleven Israeli victims, or 19, dozens of wounded, harsh scenes from the hospital, suffering of the families – these will prove the murderousness of the Palestinians, who kill Jews simply for being Jews. And this terrorist attack, or the one after it, which we will not forget and not forgive, will make it okay to cross another red line. On Monday, they waited for Yassin to leave the mosque. Is the day far off when the helicopter crew obeys an order to launch a missile or bomb at the mosque itself? After which it will be explained: there were four deserving-of-death terrorists inside, each with four armed escorts, and, anyway, the imam there refers to Jews as monkeys and pigs.
And will the day arrive when an Israeli pilot fires a missile or bomb at a Palestinian mourning procession because marching in its two front rows are ranking members of Palestinian organizations, and right behind them are 30 armed masked men waving Kalashnikovs or Qassam launchers? Will that happen after or before the attack on a Jewish target abroad, which would take place after Hamas understands how hard it is, under conditions of a closure, to execute a local terrorist attack?
That is when the new Hamas leaders will sprout.
Congressman Barney Frank on gay marriage:
All we are saying is, ‘Please, can’t we in our lives do this?’ When I go home from today’s work and I choose because of my nature to associate with another man, how is that a problem for you? How does that hurt you?
Congress takes Bush to task for failing to make substantive moves towards any kind of immigration reform – including the deeply problematic one he proposed in January:
Administration officials told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing on Tuesday that the president was unlikely to back any other immigration bills pending in Congress, including bipartisan legislation intended to provide legal status to some illegal farm workers and certain groups of students.
Among those expressing frustration at the lack of progress were Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John McCain of Arizona and Larry E. Craig of Idaho, all Republicans, and Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Barbara Boxer of California, all Democrats. They warned that the session would probably end without the passage of any significant immigration legislation unless prompt action was taken.
Farallon Capital Management Update: Unfarallon.info wrote Farallon Capital Management seeking descriptions of any of the factual inaccuracies Farallon Capital Management alleged on the site, and offering to reprint or link to them on UnFarallon.Info, and to correct any material about Farallon Capital Management actually in error. Farallon Capital Management is yet to reply.
Meanwhile, check out UnFarallon.Info‘s new FarallonBlog to get all the latest on Farallon Capital Management.
CNN on Kerry’s Veterans Veterans Against the War days:
By all accounts, Kerry was a moderate voice in the group, who took a grim view even of civil disobedience. Many fellow antiwar vets felt he was too traditional.
“A review of the subject’s file reveals nothing whatsoever to link the subject with any violent type activity,” concludes a May 1972 FBI memo about Kerry provided by his campaign.
By this time, Kerry was engaged in his second, failed run for Congress, embarking on the three-decade political career that finds him one step away from the White House.
From the Post:
While defending U.S. actions since Sept. 11 that he said had made terrorist action against the United States more difficult, Rumsfeld cautioned that it is impossible to defend against all terrorists attacks, all the time, everywhere in the world. “We could have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world tomorrow,” he said. Questioned about whether the 2001 attacks could have been headed off, Rumsfeld said, “I knew of no intelligence during the six-plus months leading up to September 11th that indicated that terrorists would hijack commercial airliners and use them as missiles” against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.
Rumsfeld was challenged on this by commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor, who listed at least eight examples of known terrorist plots between 1994 and 2001 that involved airplane hijackings or using aircraft as weapons. They included a 1995 plot to fly a small plane laden with explosives into CIA headquarters in a suicide bombing and information received in August 2001 about a plan to fly a plane into the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. “Everyone was looking in the wrong direction,” Ben-Veniste said. “Why weren’t people thinking about protecting the United States,” instead of focusing on terrorist threats overseas?
“I didn’t say we didn’t know; I said I didn’t know,” Rumsfeld said. “I was confessing ignorance.” He said the hijacking of civilian aircraft “was a law enforcement matter to be handled by law enforcement and aviation authorities.”
…In his testimony, Powell acknowledged that Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who was key in the move toward war with Saddam Hussein, suggested an attack on Iraq during a meeting at Camp David four days after the Sept. 11 attacks. President Bush “said first things first,” Powell said. “He decided on Afghanistan.”
Walter Cronkite on John Kerry:
In the interests of your campaign and your party’s desire to unseat George W. Bush, you have some explaining to do. When the National Journal said your Senate record makes you one of the most liberal members of the Senate, you called that ‘a laughable characterization’ and ‘the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Wow! Liberals, who make up a substantial portion of the Democratic Party and a significant portion of the independent vote, are entitled to ask, ‘What gives?’
It isn’t just the National Journal that has branded you as a liberal. So has the liberal lobbying group Americans for Democratic Action. … What are you ashamed of?
Josh Eidelson 