Ambiguities overwhelmed

Anybody know if the paper by Prof. Thomas Brown abstracted at Plagiary (scroll down fo' Thomas Brown) but not yet linked, has been published anywhere else?

Ward Churchill's Twelve Excuses for Plagiarism

Abstract

This article observes that Ward Churchill and his defenders have offered twelve different excuses for the plagiarism charges against Churchill. The excuses are contrasted with the established ethical standards governing American scholars. Each excuse is also compared against the available evidence in Churchill's case specifically. It is found that several of Churchill's excuses highlight ambiguities in the established ethical standards, indicating the need for further debate in the scholarly community in order to more precisely delineate the boundary between ethical scholarship and unethical scholarship. It is also found that the evidence of Churchill's plagiarism overwhelms any ambiguities, and that each of his twelve excuses fails to justify his plagiarism.

It's dated 30 August 2007, but again, no link.

More: Churchill will be at the Edmonton Anarchist Book Fair October 25, speaking on the Tony Robbins-like subject, "Organizing to Win."

Found stuff

It was windy in Denver while I was gone, and this was among the stuff that congregated in the yard:


Coin purse (empty).



"Bail agent's" card.



Note: God bless you. You must be very thin. Thanks for thinking of me.

Update: More stuff I found, you ungrateful morally monstrous freaks.

CU instructor Whitmer still facing assault charges?

Looks like the assault complaint filed with CU cops by Boulder Daily Camera reporter Heath Urie after he was forcibly ejected by ethnic studies instructor Ben Whitmer and another goon from a free class taught by Ward Churchill is still alive. The Campus Press:

Ethnic Studies instructor Benjamin Whitmer, who was involved in a classroom incident on Oct. 2 at the unsanctioned class being taught by ex-Professor Ward Churchill, maintains that there is no truth in the accusations against him.

On Oct. 2, Daily Camera reporter Heath Urie entered the classroom where Churchill was teaching his unsanctioned class organized by CU students. According to Churchill, Urie was repeatedly asked to leave the classroom and eventually was escorted out by Whitmer and another individual. Urie then called CUPD and filed a report of the incident.

"Urie can claim whatever he wants," Whitmer said in an e-mail sent to the Campus Press on Oct. 4.

While Urie has declined to comment on specifics of the story, he does believe that the investigation by CUPD will vindicate him.

"The police report is the accurate version of what happened," Urie said.

Furthermore, Urie denies that he meant to cause a scene with his actions.

"I don't think that any of us want to become the subject of our own stories," Urie said.

Whitmer said he firmly believes that since the class is run by students, he had every right to ask Urie to leave.

"These classes are organized by the students, and the students have every right to dictate who's allowed inside," Whitmer said.

So why did they use an instructor as enforcer?

Churchill, who was just beginning to lecture at the time, said that when Urie entered the room, Whitmer put a hand up to stop him and Urie ran into Whitmer's hand.

Ran into his hand. Classic.

"He was agitated, loud and disruptive, maybe even threatening," Churchill said.

Oh, that's believable coming from you, Wart.

Churchill does not believe that what Whitmer and the other individual did constitutes assault, but he did suggest that Urie's actions could be construed as trespassing and intrusion. He agreed that Urie had the right to ask to be admitted, but believes that Urie had no right to enter the room after being asked to leave.

"I'm here as a volunteer, I have a prerogative to say who I want to talk to," Churchill said. . . .

At the beginning of class on Oct. 9, he posed the following question to his students:

"Is anyone here so afraid of the judicial system that they will not be a witness if this case goes to trial?" No one in the classroom said they wouldn't defend Whitmer.

Now there's a surprise. The true believers will lie for Ward.

The investigation into Urie's report is still ongoing. According to CUPD Detective Brian Jordan, in a story reported on Oct. 3 by The Campus Press, Whitmer and the other individual Urie identified in his report could potentially face charges of 3rd degree assault and harassment. Jordan believes that Whitmer's account of what happened is not very realistic.

Not very realistic.

"This is a pretty extreme perspective," Jordan said in the story, referring to Whitmer's comments he posted on his blog.

Oh goody, didn't notice the first time around that the cops know about Benjie's blog. That'll make him popular with them. Might be time for Churchill's dog to call David Lane, see if he has room for another pro bono case.

The university's policy on the use of university facilities has very clear rules on who can and cannot be allowed to attend private functions. Section V of that policy defines the rules for open meetings:

"Those who qualify to schedule the use of university facilities may set their own policies concerning opening or closing their scheduled activity to the public and news media, and such policies shall be stated at the time of scheduling. If such scheduled activities are closed to the public, they may be open or closed to the news media at the discretion of the sponsoring user."

But, of course, they never stated their policy at the "time of scheduling." This is something they've pulled over and over again, all the way back to the pathetic "teach-in" last February when Benjie called the cops to stop a videographer from recording the event.

Update: PB, with his flair for--well, I'm not sure what his flair is for, thank God--is calling the ill-fated classroom confrontation between the reporter and the instructor, "The Genocide of Benjie's Hand."

Update II: the dress-for-success types at the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement have posted their take on the Denver Columbus Day protest. Fun quote:

A white-trash blogger or similar scum were in the protest crowd trying to stir up people. RAIM-D members and others confronted them many times. RAIM-D did its share of agitation to give balance to the regular liberal sentiment and chants. RAIM-D is tired of the lame “hey hey ho ho chant fill-in-the-blank has got to go” and tried to mix it up a bit with “down with all settler states, down with the united snakes.” Many asked us to tone it down, but many others appreciated our efforts.

Update III: At the blog Intellectual Conservative, Richard L. Cravatts contrasts the reaction at UC-Davis to a proposed speech by former Harvard president and ostensible sexist pig Lawrence Summers (horrified) and the welcome given to actual anti-semites like Norman Finkelstein and Ward Churchill (who will give his "Zionism, Manifest Destiny, and Nazi Lebensraumpolitik" speech there November 1):

Both Finkelstein and Churchill serve a purpose for the Leftist academics on American campuses who profess an adoration for academic free speech, even speech that those with normal sensibilities and intellect would find repulsive, vitriolic, outlandish, anti-American, and sometimes nearly seditious. In their zeal to prove how open they are to “diversity” of thought, campuses welcome these academic charlatans who need not exercise restraint in their fulminations as long as they attack those institutions and ideals already reviled by liberals. So on a campus where the former president of one of the world’s leading universities — a true intellect with a prodigious record of academic and professional achievement — is not welcomed because he dared question prevailing liberal thought, vitriol-spewing academic charlatans are given open invitations without a whisper of dissent from the same University’s administration and faculty.

His-toe-ree

It's over. I can see the fireworks at Coors Field. The Rockies are going to the World Series.

Update The Post has it first at 11:40.

NorthDenverTribuneWatch!

Many Drunkablog readers I meet during promotional visits to airport restrooms (topical humor) ask me, "Mr. Drunkablog, darling, why don't you just let this feature die? After all, it is not funny"--often even before they ask for spare change.

Always I tell them the truth: I have no imagination.

And now, NorthDenverTribuneWatch!

Damn, three issues of the paper sitting here and I can't find a single interesting item. Well, that's just too bad--for you! For there are many uninteresting items:

Front page: "20 years of NW optimism" (piece on the Northwest Denver Optimist Club); "The power of the pow-wow" (about Brown Elementary's Transnat--I mean International Baccalaureate Program and its "annual celebration of the soul of the American people, the Native American Indian" (as opposed, of course, to the immigrant American Indian); "Oktoberfest moves to Ballpark location"; Pipe band scores tenth" (in the world, you cynical bastards); and so on.

Inside: well, how about "Citizen Readers delight crowd in Elitch Carousel Pavilion"; "Saint Mary Magdalene celebrates 100 years in neighborhood" (jeez, and I always thought she was just some old bum); "Many educational programs have taken place over past 100 years"; and "Denver public works seeks input about sidewalk conditions."

Wow. And only one "Crime Beat." In between homey sounding but strange [update: and as Caz points out in comments, stupid] advice ("Now is a great time to talk to your children about the importance of 'stranger danger'"), "Crime Beat" writer and Denver cop Kristin Jacoby quotes Douglas Adams:

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Talk about police brutality.

Finally, the editor of the North Denver Tribune recounts her experience teaching journalism at North High School: "These past few weeks with North High School students have proven to be exhilarating and consumptive."

No doubt.

Information, please

A sockpuppet at CU ethnic studies instructor Ben Whitmer's filthy Try-Works blog asks your darling D-blog a series of questions:

PWood Says:

Do you taste Bens scrotum in your mouth when you dream jgm? Do you think about him when you lick your dogs dick? When you assfuck your uglyass wife? Do you write him love letters? Do you fantasize about him the way you been fantasizing about the Glenns [NQWS]? I think youre in love you obsessed motherfucker.

To which practically the only sane people who comment at Try-Works (including me) reply:

What the Says:

^ A proud graduate of CU Boulder.

Laurie Says:

Learned on the knee of his esteemed instructor.

Ain't it the truth. But for the record, PWood, Bloodbath Boy and I are just good friends.

Remember, folks, Ben Whitmer is allowed to instruct students at CU.

Indoctrinate me? Indoctrinate you!

Stanley Fish in the New York Times on Evan Coyne Maloney's Indoctrinate U:

“Indoctrinate U”’s thesis is contained in its title. You may think that universities are places where ideas are explored and evaluated in a spirit of objective inquiry. But in fact, Maloney tells us, they are places of indoctrination where a left-leaning faculty teaches every subject, including chemistry and horticulture, through the prism of race, class and gender; where minorities and women are taught that they are victims of oppression; where admissions policies are racially gerrymandered; where identity-based programs reproduce the patterns of segregation that the left supposedly abhors; where students and faculty who speak against the prevailing orthodoxy are ostracized, disciplined and subjected to sensitivity training; where conservative speakers like Ward Connerly are shouted down; where radical speakers like Ward Churchill are welcomed . . . .

Fish, of course, doesn't buy all of this, but:

Still, when all the red herrings and non-issues have been checked off, there remain some serious questions. Why, Maloney asks, should “schools pay people to operate offices and programs that are blatantly political in nature?” (He has in mind offices and programs like Women’s Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies, African American Studies, Chicano Studies.)

The answer to that question is to pose two others: (1) Are there programs with those names that are more political than academic? (2) Do programs with those names have to be more political than academic?

The answer to the first question is yes, to the second no. It is certainly the case that many of these programs gained a place in the academy through political activism, but that doesn’t mean that once they are in political activism need be, or should be, the content of their activities. Race, gender and class are not myths. They are realities and as such worthy of serious study. There are more than enough legitimate academic topics to keep an ethnic or gender studies department going for decades — the recovery of lost texts, the history of economic struggle and success, the relationship of race, ethnicity and gender to medical research. And there is no reason in principle that such investigations must begin or end in accusations against capitalism, the white male Protestant establishment and the United States government.

But they always do. And it's partially the self-isolation in supposedly victimized little enclaves that leads to it happening every time. While Fish rightly argues that the "studies" programs should be allowed to maunder on about race, class and sex, er, gender, until their heads explode, he makes no case for their continued existence as independent disciplines. They shouldn't be. They should be part of the broader history department (say), where an adult can keep an eye on them.

Update: "Dot, dot, dot": Ward Churchill holds forth on some radio program. Nothing really interesting or new except the incredible lame-osity of the program itself. The spoken word/music intro is actually painful to listen to. Once you get a dose of that just skip in five minutes or so to Ward.

Update II: I wasn't clear that the spoken word/crap music-intro to the show actually lasts at least five minutes. Just skip on by if you must, little missies, but listen if you can, for it is dorky to the max.

Update III: PB notes Susan Shown Harjo's encomium (and it really is one) to Vern Bellecourt. Wart Churchill makes a brief, rude appearance.

Unbelievable

The Rockies are one out away from going up three-zip on the D-backs in the NLCS und vun game avay from zee Vorld Seerees! Heil! Oh, sorry. Der, uh, the Rockies haven't lost a game since literally before I was born, and they've looked not just good, but possessed, especially defensively, in not doing so.

Nobody will believe this, but back in April one of my bros-in-law and I agreed that this, yes this, was the Rockies' year. We predicted it. Unfortunately, we were being sarcastic. Go (consulting notes here), Rockies.

Vernon Bellecourt

American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bellecourt has died. The NYT:

Vernon Bellecourt, who fought against the use of Indian nicknames for sports teams as a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, has died at age 75.Bellecourt died Saturday at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications from pneumonia, said his brother, Clyde Bellecourt, a founding member of the militant American Indian rights group. . . .

Vernon Bellecourt — whose Objibwe name WaBun-Inini means Man of Dawn — was a member of Minnesota's White Earth band and was an international spokesman for the AIM Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis.

No mention of Vern's probable hand in the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, or the Stalin v. Trotsky-like feud with Ward Churchill and Glenn Morris's Colorado AIM. But still the Times obit gives other reasons not to speak too highly of ol' Vern, even in passing (his, that is):

After Wounded Knee, Vernon Bellecourt became a leader of AIM's work abroad, meeting with presidents such as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his brother said. He said they plan to list them as honorary pallbearers.

AIM got lots of money from Gadhafi, too (link is to the Drunkablog's very first post); Vern's failure to be sufficiently generous with this booty toward Churchill and Morris was another cause of the falling-out between the groups.

Clyde Bellecourt said his brother had been in Venezuela about four weeks ago to meet with President Hugo Chavez to discuss Chavez' program for providing heating assistance to American Indian tribes. He fell ill around the time of his return, Clyde Bellecourt said.

(via PB)

Update: One breathlessly awaits the Try-Works' encomium, doesn't one?

Update II: And thar she blows: "That's one way to evade a grand jury indictment" (no link).

Saturday Night at the Radio!

Around Dodge City and in the territory on west there's only one way to handle the killers and the spoilers. And that's with a U.S. Marshal and the smell of--Gunsmoke!

I just made that up. This one's called "Renegade White" (2 August 1952). Yes, "Renegade White." No, it's not about Ward Churchill, but the bad guy is nearly as nasty, low and skulking as Ward. Dillon and a Cheyenne chief have a nice little philosophical conversation. Great stuff.

Columnist plagiarizes self

Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin October 12 on the Rockies' first playoff game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, in a piece titled "So who's watching this 'serious baseball?'" (third graf):

It was billed as a series for the serious baseball fan, which, as we know, is hardly a recipe for ratings success. For most baseball fans, being "serious" means getting to the concession stand twice before the national anthem — not memorizing the stats of players they literally can't tell without a scorecard.

Nobody seemed to care about this series outside of Denver and Phoenix, and, let's face it, you had to be generous to include baseball-mild Phoenix in that calculus.

And today, on Friday's game, in a piece titled "Theme for the night was walking" (24th graf):

This was billed as a series for the serious baseball fan, which, as we know, is hardly a recipe for ratings success. For most baseball fans, being "serious" means getting to the concession stand twice before the national anthem — not memorizing the stats of players they literally can't tell without a scorecard.

Nobody seemed to care about this series outside of Denver and Phoenix, and, let's face it, you had to be generous to include baseball-mild Phoenix in that calculus.

That's it, those two paragraphs. One might wonder why Littwin would find such feeble japes worthy of recycling, and from one column to the next, yet, but whatever the reason, there they are. I now demand an examination of every single (except, I suppose, the first) column of the (estimated) 16,782 Littwin has written over the last 400 years for similar self-plagiary. (Or any other kind, for that matter.)

Incidentally, Littwin, a sportswriter promoted to his level of incompetence as a liberal political columnist (who still occasionally covers sports), has written on the Churchill scandal a number of times in columns noted for their cluelessness.

Deer playing chicken

Check this out.

(via Mason of the Ollers)

Update: Well, I don't know how to make it work, goddamnigt. Don't know how to spell goddamnigt either. Here's the video as seen on Yougtube:

Let's not let him back in

Some Canadian thing called "The Dominion" has an interview with the Wart:

It might be said that the measure of any decent smear campaign is the level to which the subject's own peers turn against them. If that's the case, Ward Churchill's defamers must be pretty pleased with themselves these days, as people of all political stripes line up to heap scorn on him. . . .

True, true.

Talking to him, you know this man is anything but defeated [uh-huh]. Following his recent dismissal from the University of Colorado, he's taking his polemic show on the road, with stops next week in Ottawa, Toronto and Guelph. . . .

Churchill is no stranger to unpopular ideas. Many of his writings have focused on the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the US. Inspired in part by resistance to his own work, Churchill's current speaking tour focuses on what he calls "the denial of genocide in American academia."

He gives Canada a small attaboy:

Overall, he says, Canadians have been more receptive than Americans to his message. He does as many talks in Canada as he does in the US, despite the much smaller population.

But immediately takes it back:

"One suspects it is in part because Canadians - and even progressive Canadians - tend to view their history as rather less genocidal than that of the United States," he muses.

"Canada didn't resort to the same direct killing techniques... but that's hardly an indication that the genocidal policy wasn't effective, just that the techniques employed were different."

"Surely in Canada it's clear that native peoples are subjected to various forms of psychological battering, and physical battering in the sense of endemic poverty," he says. . . .

Likewise, the Canadian myth of a "mosaic" society is deliberately oblivious to systemic racism. "You have to be in a state of extreme denial to be blind to the profundity of racism in society," he adds. "You really have to be a Nazi or a Klansman to come out and celebrate being a racist... At least they're honest. They're relatively easy to deal with. It's the mass of deniers who continue to profit from a racist society which is far more insidious."

He ought to know. Nobody's profited more from "racist society" than Wart.

"Give me a Klansman any day; at least I know exactly who I'm dealing with."

That apparently passes for wit in Canada:

Churchill's sense of humour comes through again as he turns to the controversy surrounding his 9/11 essay. His favorite moment, he recalls, was reading a headline in a Maoist publication: "Ward Churchill fired for calling little Eichmanns little Eichmanns."

Gee, haven't been over to MIM in a while. (It was MIM that said that, wasn't it?)

"The only people upset are in fact those who would be encompassed within my meaning of the term little Eichmanns," he says. "I'm not getting it from communities of colour. I'm not getting it from poor people."

Parking lot attendants, baggage handlers, homeless people . . .

With all of the focus on his dismissal from university, there is a risk that people aren't listening to what he has to say about racism and imperialism, and clearly that's what frustrates him most.

Yeah, sure.

"If they can discredit my scholarship they can discredit my analysis, and if they can discredit my analysis they can reinforce the status quo," he fumes.

If?

Some detractors went as far as questioning his Native American heritage. And although there were rumblings that Karl Rove had a direct hand in his targeting [bwahahaha--oh, chest pains again], Churchill, who has written extensively about the government's illegal and corrupt Counterintelligence Program (Cointelpro) against civil rights era activists, shrugs them off.

"Cointelpro has been assimilated into the media to the point that you don't actually need intelligence agencies' involvement most of the time," he says.

Still, there's more than a hint of those bad old days in the air, with leftist writers and academics eagerly siding with those who want to dismiss Churchill as a kooky extremist. People like Todd Gitlin--who are considered left, but not too left, get a big share of the media attention surrounding this case.

Todd who? Just kidding, but I don't remember him saying anything about the case.

"Most of my generation has sold out so long ago for so fucking cheap that it gives me generational embarrassment," Churchill says.

He believes that there is still hope for a broad social justice movement, outside of the currently established left. "It's not going to be people who work for the Nation, or the Progressive. It's certainly not going to be any part of the 'responsible left.'"

No, we need an irresponsible left:

"We need to constitute an actual left. And that's going to come by and large from the new generation."

Well, Benjie's not exactly "new generation," but he'll have to do.

As a professor, Churchill was extremely popular with University of Colorado students, who have invited him to teach a "voluntary" class. The course is entitled "ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide, and Formation of the US Settler State."

So that's what it's called. Snappy. I like the capital "V" in "ReVisioning." You think when the interviewer was writing this down, Chutch leaned over and said, "that should be a capital 'V'."

After years of weathering attacks, Churchill offers advice to budding activists. "Take clear positions and remain consistent and people will come to you. Don't worry about alienating people who are fundamentally sold out... Strip them of their privilege, they're gonna be alienated. I thought that was the goal."

Then, for those who might follow Churchill around like a fatter, heavier-smoking, (much) less-talented Jerry Garcia, the Dominion gives Chutch's speaking schedule:

OTTAWA: October 16, 7 pm
Alumni Auditorium, University of Ottawa
$5-20 sliding scale admission, nobody turned away
Tickets available at Exile Infoshop, OPIRG Carleton, and OPIRG Ottawa

TORONTO: October 17, 7 pm
MacLeod Auditorium of the Medical Sciences Building, 1 King's College Circle
University of Toronto
Sliding scale of $5-$20
Organised by:
CERTAIN DAYS calendar committee - www.certaindays.org
EXILE INFOSHOP – exilebooks.org
York GSA - www.yugsa.ca

GUELPH: October 18, 7 pm
University Centre, Room 103, University of Guelph
Suggested donation $5-20. Proceeds will go to Indigenous struggles and solidarity work
Space is limited – register in advance to guarantee a seat
OPIRG-Guelph, 519.824.2091, opirgguelphvolunteer@yahoo.ca

Weird Bird Friday

Put a suit on a chicken and you get immediate attitude

This is serious stuff:

The inventors of the chickenssuit, this ingenious “piece of freedom“, truly believe that there is a real need for this world to suit its chickens. We talk from experience. Chickenssuit has made our lives richer.

--Drunkawife

UPDATE: When you go to the chickenssuit site, be sure to click on "Chick on the Catwalk." You'll get to see lots of chicken suits.

Go, Rockies!

Die, Dinger!

Go, Rockies!

Die, Dinger!

Update: Die, Ding--I mean, Rockies up 5-1 on the D-backs in the seventh. Not at all controversial interference call at second and the classless Phonix fans go nuts, throwing bottles and crap onto the field. Clint Hurdle just pulled the Rockies off the field.

Update II: Rockies ween!

Update III: Die, Deeng-air!

Glenn or Glennda?

Pirate Ballerina notes that the Columbus Day arrest reports of American Indian Movement of Colorado leader Glenn "You'll Be Getting It" Morris and Transform Columbus Day twit Glenn Spagnuolo bear the same home address: "2584 State Highway 67, Sedalia, Colorado—which also happens to be the address of Woodbine Ranch, a Christian camp and school owned by the Rocky Mountain Conservative Baptist Association."

The only pirate who parrots his parrot comes up with two possibilities: Glenn 'n' Glennda gave false information to the police, or they are, as the euphemism has it, "long-time companions."

I think he's kidding about that last. My own theory is that they were trying to be funny like Abbie Hoffman was funny: that is, not funny at all (David Horowitz has that same sense of humor). In any case, giving false information to the police is a class 3 misdemeanor in Colorado, he said as if he were sure.

Scrolling through the reports, by the way, I ran across this account of American Indian Movement leadership council member Josh "I'll Kill You!" Dillabaugh's arrest: "The D[efendant] tensed up when [the officer tried to put him in handcuffs]. The D had been advised he was under arrest. It required several officers to place the D in handcuffs." This was not because the D was superhumanly strong, of course, but because the police were going out of their way to play nice while arresting protesters. Otherwise they might have used any number of painful methods to persuade the D that resistance was futile--and charged him, of course, with resisting arrest. Which they didn't. Bloodbath, my ass.

More Sangre de Cristo pictures

As if you had a choice. Let's start with a couple of pics of the dawg on his first backpacking trip:


Billy Bob, noble protector. (Photo by the thoroughly un-deracinated Mr. B.)


Billy Bob, scavenging pig. (That's Mountain House brand freeze-dried Kibble &--I mean, Stroganoff--Billy Blob is eating. Mmmmm, Stroganoff.)

Stupid dog started eating one of those oxygen-absorbing packets that come in freeze-dried crap to preserve its freeze-dried crapness, and when I tried to get it out of his mouth he bit my thumb so hard it broke the skin. Wouldn't touch the freeze-dried eggs, though.


No dams here, man.


Aspen, semi-nude.


See, if there were a dam here, I'd blow it the fuck up, man. No shit. Ward Churchill would be happy to teach me how.


I'm an ardent environmentist.

Whitmer explains deletion of post alleging "beatdown" of Columbus Day protesters

Yeah, I'm overdoing it pretending CU ethnic studies instructor Benjamin Whitmer has any credibility to lose, but he finally explained his removal of that post:

I’ll post what I want to post, and I’ll remove what I want to remove. I’ll explain what I want to explain. It’s a fucking blog.

Oh. Well, then. Carry on. But Benjie isn't through. He taunts me with horrible tauntery:

Feel free to be as outraged as you wanna be. Scream, yell, pull your hair out, chew on the couch, break down in tears.

My style is more mocking laughter followed by relentless exposure, Benjie, but in principle I agree with you.

So there it is, the way of truth at the Try-Works blog: post outrageous and false accusations, remove same without notice or explanation, arrogantly refuse to defend your actions.

Did I mention that Benjie's an instructor at CU?

Oh, and in case Churchill's lying little dog has forgotten what he wrote in the "beatdown" post, here it is:

Everyone’s out of jail. I just spoke to one of the American Indian men who participated in the final protest. When they locked down, the police rushed in and immediately started a beat-down. One of the female pigs grabbed him by the testicles and started yanking on him. Another got him by his braid, cranked it up in his fist, and was jerking his head around. Then they laid into them [sic] with their nightsticks, destroying [sic] one of the men’s faces. When they were arrested, the pigs ground the cuffs on and left them cuffed in the holding cells; their hands were swollen and turning purple by the time they were released. It was a fucking bloodbath [sic], but they’re all out of jail at least.

Update: Luckily, old Indian icon Russell Means was spared during what observers (well, me) are calling a new Wounded Knee, but he still plans to sue for his Guantanamo-like mistreatment:

"My lawsuit is going to be on torture," said longtime activist Russell Means. He said police put him in a cell with a buzzing fluorescent light.

"I tell you, it drives you batty," Means said.

He also charges police misplaced his heart medication for several hours.

(via PB)

Churchill anti-semitism watch

Meryl Yourish notes a University of California at Davis student's comment on the anti-semitism endemic at the school, the latest example being the invitation to Ward Churchill to speak there next month on "Zionism, Manifest Destiny, and Nazi Lebensraumpolitik":

I am a UC Davis student and have been doing some research into the strong anti-semitic problem at this campus.

In 2001 the UC Davis Hillel was SET ON FIRE. There is a history of strong anti-semitic and/or anti-zionist speakers coming to the UC Davis campus.

However the upcoming speaker being brought by “Students for Justice and Peace” takes the cake: Ward Churchill.

There’s no fighting this. The UC system statewide has this problem. Look up Irvine where a muslim student union member encourages the slaughter of Israelis. See other schools where swastikas are painted on the doors of Jewish students.

Yourish offers some advice.

Tuesday Night at the Radio!

I need to get the decayed stench of the try-works out of my nose. Here's Jack Benny entertaining the Marines at El Toro Air Station, California (16 January 1944). As John Dunning used to say, funny, funny show.

And Information Please, this week with semi-regular Oscar Levant and Stephen Vincent Benét (or Bonet, as it's spelled in the archive), author of The Devil and Daniel Webster (19 September 1941). Clifton Fadiman: "They tell me that Ted Williams is now batting over .400. Can you name four major league batters since 1900 who've done the same thing?"