[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-10-05 at 20:24 +0200, Joy Vriens wrote:

> You can't be serious! He must be recording it on an MP3 player for notes...
> Please tell me this is irony!

Yes, it was a half-serious joke, a sort of mock paranoia. The background
of it is that there is a well-known right-wing talk show host in the USA
named Sean Hannity who has encouraged students to report professors who
are too liberal, and he has said on the air that students should record
what their overly liberal professors are saying so that they can use it
as evidence of their professor's liberal bias. 

Also there is a website called www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org that
is advocating a Students Bill of Rights, which would guarantee that
every student be allowed to hear what they call "dissenting views". The
subtext is the claim that the overwhelming majority of professors are
social and political liberals, that liberals are intolerant of any kind
of disagreement with their positions and that students who hold
conservative views are in serious danger of failing their classes if
they dare to state their real opinions about things. 

I have seen it said specifically about my university that 83% of all
professors whose political affiliations are known are registered
Democrats, 11% are registered Republicans and 6% are Green or
independents. It is also reported that over 50% of the departments on
this campus do not have a single registered Republican, and that 100% of
the Faculty of Law are registered Democrats. These statement are nearly
meaningless, of course, because the vast majority of people do not make
their political affiliation public knowledge. Nevertheless, the local
chapter of college Republicans is making a great deal of noise about the
"atmosphere of fear" that allegedly prevails in classrooms dominated by
liberal professors and that Republican students are living in constant
fear that if they let their views be known, they will be ridiculed in
class, denied letters of recommendation, disqualified from scholarships,
and prevented from getting jobs. There are editorials every week in the
student newspaper complaining about the tyranny of liberal professors.

One of my colleagues told a joke in his class, and a complaint was
lodged against him. Here's the joke:

\begin{joke}
In a daily briefing in the White House, an aide reported to George Bush
that three Brazilians had been killed in an accident. Bush grew quite
alarmed and said "Oh my God, that's terrible." All his aides were
surprised by the force of his consternation. Then Bush said "How many is
a brazilian, anyway?"
\end{joke}

A stupid joke, no doubt. But worthy of being reported? You decide.

In an atmosphere such as the one that is being created on some campuses
in this country, it is of course a joke when I say that a student is
pointing his cell phone at me so that Sean Hannity can hear me saying
that Intelligent Design is not science and therefore should not be
taught in a biology class. But like most jokes, it is funny partly
because there is a recognizable grain of truth in it.

Speaking of which, did you hear the one about the Buddhist at the hot
dog stand?

-- 
My Unitarian Jihad Name (http://tinyurl.com/6valr ) is:
The Logging Chain of Loving Kindness
You can get your own at http://homepage.mac.com/whump/ujname.html