"Busybody CU Bigwig" Ron Stump Decides What Is, Isn’t Free Speech

This RMN editorial takes CU administrator Ron Stump to task for exploring legal options against student whose newsletter might have given offense:

University administrators’ knees jerk whenever a member of a protected group claims to be offended, whether or not the offense is justified.

So after Ron Stump received complaints that a newsletter distributed by University of Colorado sophomore Max Karson was offensive to women, he jumped right in. Stump, vice chancellor for student affairs in Boulder, told the Daily Camera that CU was investigating whether Karson’s newsletter violated any student code of conduct.

“We’re looking into it from a legal perspective,” Stump said.

If there’s a code of conduct that requires students to avoid saying or writing anything offensive, then the legal perspective should be clear: It’s the code that has to go, not the offensive speech.

That’s the First Amendment in action, and it is an embarrassment to CU that a senior administrator wouldn’t understand it.

Other CU officials apparently do understand, and a university spokesman said Thursday that CU would not punish Karson, while expressing strong disapproval of what he wrote. Yes, that’s how it’s done.

Note that we take no position on whether Karson’s newsletter is offensive. Our point is that it makes absolutely no difference to his exercise of his constitutional rights unless what he writes falls into one of the very limited categories of unprotected speech.

Stump told Karson “that as a member of the (CU) community, you have a responsibility to try to protect it.”

No, he doesn’t. Reasonable people differ on what kind of speech “protects” a community, and public university administrators, who are agents of the government, have neither the legal authority, nor the wisdom, to adjudicate the matter.

Anyone familiar with CU or Stump in particular knows that both the editorial and Stump’s new appellation are accurate. In fact, “busybody CU bigwig” is probably the understatement of the year, as far as CU administrators go.

"Busybody CU Bigwig" Ron Stump Decides What Is, Isn’t Free Speech

This RMN editorial takes CU administrator Ron Stump to task for exploring legal options against student whose newsletter might have given offense:

University administrators’ knees jerk whenever a member of a protected group claims to be offended, whether or not the offense is justified.

So after Ron Stump received complaints that a newsletter distributed by University of Colorado sophomore Max Karson was offensive to women, he jumped right in. Stump, vice chancellor for student affairs in Boulder, told the Daily Camera that CU was investigating whether Karson’s newsletter violated any student code of conduct.

“We’re looking into it from a legal perspective,” Stump said.

If there’s a code of conduct that requires students to avoid saying or writing anything offensive, then the legal perspective should be clear: It’s the code that has to go, not the offensive speech.

That’s the First Amendment in action, and it is an embarrassment to CU that a senior administrator wouldn’t understand it.

Other CU officials apparently do understand, and a university spokesman said Thursday that CU would not punish Karson, while expressing strong disapproval of what he wrote. Yes, that’s how it’s done.

Note that we take no position on whether Karson’s newsletter is offensive. Our point is that it makes absolutely no difference to his exercise of his constitutional rights unless what he writes falls into one of the very limited categories of unprotected speech.

Stump told Karson “that as a member of the (CU) community, you have a responsibility to try to protect it.”

No, he doesn’t. Reasonable people differ on what kind of speech “protects” a community, and public university administrators, who are agents of the government, have neither the legal authority, nor the wisdom, to adjudicate the matter.

Anyone familiar with CU or Stump in particular knows that both the editorial and Stump’s new appellation are accurate. In fact, “busybody CU bigwig” is probably the understatement of the year, as far as CU administrators go.

Comcast, Qwest And Xcel Pony Up For Denver’s 2008 DNC Bid

Gathering cash to reel in the coveted convention:

Three Fortune 500 companies – citing civic support and not politics – have pledged at least $11.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions for Denver’s bid to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Qwest and Comcast have pledged $5 million each, and Xcel Energy $1.5 million, said attorney Steve Farber, co-chairman of Denver’s host committee.

The goal is to raise $20 million from the Colorado business community as a part of the $80 million tab for the convention. It would be held at the Pepsi Center in August 2008 and attract an estimated 35,000 attendees to the city.

Denver and New York are finalists for the event.

“Where would you rather be in August?” Farber asked.

Comcast, Qwest And Xcel Pony Up For Denver’s 2008 DNC Bid

Gathering cash to reel in the coveted convention:

Three Fortune 500 companies – citing civic support and not politics – have pledged at least $11.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions for Denver’s bid to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Qwest and Comcast have pledged $5 million each, and Xcel Energy $1.5 million, said attorney Steve Farber, co-chairman of Denver’s host committee.

The goal is to raise $20 million from the Colorado business community as a part of the $80 million tab for the convention. It would be held at the Pepsi Center in August 2008 and attract an estimated 35,000 attendees to the city.

Denver and New York are finalists for the event.

“Where would you rather be in August?” Farber asked.

Pope In Turkey: Day 1

Exhaustive coverage of Pope Benedict’s journey to Turkey:
American Papist
relapsed catholic
Pope and Patriarch

Pagosa Springs Peace Wreath Okayed–Removal, Fines Withdrawn

Bill Trimarco and Lisa Jensen stand next to their peace wreath at their home near Pagosa Springs on Friday. The couple received a letter Tuesday from their subdivision’s homeowners’ association telling them to take down the sign or face a fine of $25 per day.
RANDI PIERCE/Special to the Herald

“We put this up without any thoughts of a political message – just peace,” Trimarco said. “People are dying everywhere. And this is the season – if you can’t say peace now, when can you say it?”

Exactly. ‘Tis the season and all.

Jensen said she put up the wreath to honor the biblical call for peace and goodwill toward men.

Peace on Earth in Pagosa Springs as the war on the Christmas peace wreath ends (video):

When Bill Trimarco and Lisa Jensen hung their holiday wreath in the shape of a peace symbol Nov. 19, it touched off a battle within the Loma Linda Homeowners Association board that engulfed the residents of the rural subdivision.

The president of the association, Bob Kearns, and two other governing board members demanded Jensen and Trimarco take down their wreath or face a $25-per-day fine for violating subdivision sign restrictions, said Jack Lilly, former chairman of the association’s Architectural Control Committee.

Kearns also demanded the resignation of Lilly and the other four members of the committee charged with enforcing subdivision rules after the committee ruled that the wreath was not a violation.

Monday, the homeowners assocation board withdrew its objection to the wreath and threat of daily fines.

“We want to let you know that this evening we just received a letter from the Loma Linda Home Owners Board of Directors stating: ‘We had a misunderstanding with your Christmas decoration and for that we apologize. We withdraw any and all previous requests for removal of your decoration,’ ” Jensen told The Associated Press.

With that settled, the striking reason for not permitting a Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace sign came not from its political significations, but from a perceived (and bizarre) anti-Christian religious statement:

Kearns had told The Associated Press he’d received several complaints before ordering Dunbar to take down the symbol. Kearns also told the Durango Herald that the peace symbol “has a lot of negativity associated with it. It’s also an anti-Christ sign.”

Some people believe the symbol is satanic and represents an upside-down cross with broken arms.

Let’s leave the moonbattiness to the usual suspects, okay folks? Christians and those with political positions in opposition to peaceniks and other dhimmis/liberals should not succumb to the same type of overreaction that characterizes the Cindy Sheehan/Michael Moore/Howard Zinn crowd.

The flap began less than a week ago, and made the jump to national headlines in less than a day:

Then came a local news story, followed by a wire-service story, followed by national news stories, followed by blog and message-board posts, and radio and TV segments, and on and on – until by Monday evening the second-most popular story on CNN.com was an article about the controversy titled “Peace on earth? Not in our subdivision!”

The article gets the order a bit confused, as it was first blogs and internet sites that broke the story, long before the MSM and CNN lumbered into the fray.

Previously:
Pagosa Springs Peace Wreath Stirs Opinions, HOA Bans Wreath

technorati: Pagosa Springs Colorado peace Christmas wreath Lisa Jensen

Blair Expresses "Deep Sorrow" For Slavery, Reparations Sought

And as usual, this apparently is not enough for the reparations crowd:

Tony Blair reignited the debate on slavery yesterday by making a partial apology for Britain’s role in the “profoundly shameful” trade. The Prime Minister said he felt “deep sorrow” for the country’s involvement in what was “one of the most inhuman enterprises in history”.

But his declaration, which comes ahead of next year’s bicentenary of the abolition of the trade, fell short of the formal apology demanded by many campaigners and drew criticism as well as praise.

Black rights activists denounced it as “empty rhetoric” that failed to address the issue of reparations.

Mr Blair said in an article for the black community newspaper New Nation that although Britain was the first major nation to abolish the trade 200 years ago, it was right for the country to acknowledge its active role until then. “It is hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time,” he said.

“Personally I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was — how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition — but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened and to rejoice at the different and better times we live in today.”

The activists don’t want apologies, they want cash.

Blair’s lament follows the long line of apologies or Clintonian “I feel your pain” moments from those who didn’t commit the crime to those who didn’t suffer from them. Claims for reparations by the victims of historical injustices (Holocaust) are justified; claims that have passed centuries and multiple generations are nothing more than shakedowns.

technorati: Tony Blair Britain slavery reparations abolition

UK Breakup: Polls Say England, Scotland Should Be Independent; Segregation Increasing

Polls show English, Scottish want home-rule and their own countries:

The United Kingdom should be broken up and Scotland and England set free as independent nations, according to a huge number of voters on both sides of the border.

A clear majority of people in both England and Scotland are in favour of full independence for Scotland, an ICM opinion poll for The Sunday Telegraph has found. Independence is backed by 52 per cent of Scots while an astonishing 59 per cent of English voters want Scotland to go it alone.

There is also further evidence of rising English nationalism with support for the establishment of an English parliament hitting an historic high of 68 per cent amongst English voters. Almost half – 48 per cent – also want complete independence for England, divorcing itself from Wales and Northern Ireland as well. Scottish voters also back an English breakaway with 58 per cent supporting an English parliament with similar powers to the Scottish one.

The poll comes only months before the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland and will worry all three main political parties. None of them favours Scottish independence, but all have begun internal debates on the future of the constitution.

So even 300 years of “British” identity could not break rival nationalisms–stoked in part, no doubt, by PC attacks on local identities by diversity fanatics and old-fashioned resentment. A three-century old experiment in forging a new identity has not succeeded, and demonstrates the power that tribal and religious ties carry great value and triumph over “diversity” and “tolerance”. These primeval connections supersede decades of ideological conformity under Communism or even centuries of religious uniformity under Christianity or Islam.

Confirming that ancient prejudices still exist and the notion that given a choice, people want to live with those just like them, comes another story from the UK:

The flight of the middle classes from the inner cities is threatening to undo 30 years of progress that has made Britain the best place in Europe for ethnic minorities, the country’s race equality chief said yesterday.

Trevor Phillips, the outgoing chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), said increased polarisation and segregation in areas deserted by the better-off was “the great threat” to the development of a diverse and harmonious society.

. . .

“As a nation we are becoming more ethnically segregated by residence and inequality is being amplified by our separate lives,” he said.

“The real crisis lies in the areas which the middle-class minorities are leaving behind — areas which are becoming more and more ethnically concentrated and exclusive.”

Research commissioned by the CRE for the convention showed that despite the greater number of ethnic minorities in Britain, few mixed. Two out of three people hardly ever choose to meet someone of a different ethnicity in their own homes.

A quarter of Britons want to live in an all-white area and more than half — including those from ethnic minorities — think there is too much immigration. More and more communities were “shut off” and vulnerable to political and religious extremism.

I wonder which communities were especially susceptible to “religious extremism”? Note too how most of the “segregation” is blamed on “white-flight” and is detrimental only to the ethnic minorities, and then says that middle-class minorities are leaving as well.

Paul Campos: "Well-Paid Parasite Who Infests Our Fabulously Wealthy Nation"

Paul Campos is a moonbat law professor at CU-Boulder who calls English-speaking Americans “parasites”.

Using the logic of his article on illegal immigration and pressing “1″ for English, Campos himself must be one of those “well-paid parasites”:

Yet the most significant fact to keep in mind about people who speak Spanish in the United States is this: such people are invariably performing useful labor. In fact, it isn’t too much of an exaggeration to say that the odds a person does the kind of work that simply has to get done in order to keep civilization afloat go up in direct proportion to the probability that this person speaks Spanish.

Those among us who build the buildings, and cook the food, and clean the bathrooms, and trim the trees, and care for the children – in short, the people who, in Orwell’s phrase, “make the wheels go round” – are increasingly the people who press “2″ in order to hear their options in Spanish.

Meanwhile, the immense mass of well-paid parasites who infest our fabulously wealthy nation – the financial analysts, the political consultants, the managers of human resources, the vice presidents for West Coast promotion, the producers of television commercials designed to increase the consumption of certain breakfast cereals, and, needless to say, the syndicated newspaper columnists – will continue to become annoyed at the need to press “1.”

Yes, if it wasn’t for those financial analysts, HR managers, and others who grease the wheels of the economic engine that makes this country the wealthiest on the planet, there would be no need for an “immense mass of well-paid parasites who infest our fabulously wealthy nation” including lawyers, law professors, and academics in general.

In poor and undemocratic societies there is little need for such a large class of intelligent, educated individuals whose creativity is precisely the cause–not the parasite of–the fabulous wealth present in the country. If the United States were a poorer society there would be no need for mass immigration of a poor and uneducated underclass to “do the work Americans won’t do”. People would emigrate from these lands, presumably to countries with better economies. Campos’ disparaging of the economic creators of the wealth this country uses to employ expendable legal academics such as himself confirms not only his detachment from reality, but his contempt for the system he both praises and condemns in the space of a few words.

Predicting The Unpredictable: Errors In Forecasting Hurricanes

From Tampa Bay, casting doubts on Al Gore’s inconvenient truths:

It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.

With cataclysmic predictions that hurricanes would swarm from the tropics like termites, no one thought 2006 would be the most tranquil season in a decade.

. . .

As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of future performance.

This year’s uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will be as calm.

Which makes the likelihood of the certainty of “global warming” or “climate change” as certain as the people who place bets on a roulette table based on the display indicating the last 20 numbers or so–just because red has come up 12 times in a row does not mean that black is “due”. Likewise, forecasting the hurricane season usually relies on models that offer no better than a predicted range. Sometimes they hit right on, sometimes the fail badly, like the hurricane predictions of 2006.