URLs du Jour - 11/22/2005

  • Shawn Macomber continues his march toward world domination, journalist division, in an article at NRO recalling the olden days when leftists routinely apologized for Communist tyranny. But, oops, it's not the olden days, it's now, and it's the National Lawyer's Guild giving North Korea a tongue bath.
  • I used to like Kurt Vonnegut's writing, when I was much, much, younger. James Lileks never made that mistake:

    I never "got into" Vonnegut, or "dug" his work like my "buds," several of whom pronounced his work as "intense," so I am not particularly bothered to find he applauds suicide bombers, and thinks they experience "an amazing high." In the literal sense, perhaps; it's possible that skull fragments may reach the third floor before they carom off a balcony and patter back to earth.

    The phrase "addled old fool" appears later in the article. Read the whole thing.

  • And then there are addled young fools, like an adjunct instructor named John Daly, teaching employed as of this moment at Warren County Community College in Washington NJ. Enraged by an e-mail invitation to a lecture featuring an Iraq war veteran, he responded to the event's organizer, a first-year student named Rebecca Beach:

    I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs--such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.

    Prof. John Daly

    Interviewed for an article at Inside Higher Ed, "Prof." Daly now says that the "turn their guns on their superiors" was meant "in the most metaphoric sense".

    Did I mention that "Prof." Daly was an adjunct instructor in English? No, but you probably guessed. The article concludes, ludicrously:

    The possibility that he might be fired, Daly said, reflects the lack of job security facing the increasing number of professors who work off the tenure track. "As more and more professors are teaching part time, this is a direct attack on our academic freedom," he said.

    Academic freedom: it's all about trying to intimidate students and advocating murder ("in the most metaphoric sense").

    UPDATE: Prof Daly apparently quit his Warren County Community College position. To be clear, Daly had every "right" to abusively e-mail Ms. Beach, and shouldn't have been fired solely on the grounds of his intolerant and obnoxious views. Academic freedom issues aside, however, I bet he was a lousy teacher.

  • Ah, but it's not all lefty moonbat chronicles here at Pun Salad. Red at Surviving Grady lovingly describes his favorite baseball fights. Especially good is Red's imagining of Robin Ventura's thoughts as he charges Nolen Ryan (warning: contains words I'd rather not hear my kids say, one completely spelled out):

    "Hit me? How dare he hit me! I'll show him. F--k. Okay. Here I come. Shit. He's pretty big up close. Go for the legs. Go for the legs. Ulp. Oof. He's got me. Gotta try to--- nope, he's got me. F--k. Ouch. OUCH. Cut it out! My god... no.. please... must not wet pants... must. not. wet. pants."

    Illustrated with signed photo. The kind of prose that Prof. John Daly can only wish he could produce.

  • If you thought a post-Rather/Mapes 60 Minutes had any credibility, think again. Paul at WizBang! does a rather (heh!) thourough analysis of a recent story.

Last Modified 2012-10-26 5:35 AM EDT