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Columbia and Ahmedinejad

Here’s Stanley Fish’s take on the Ahmedinejad controversy at Columbia. I agree that there are other politics around Middle East Studies at Columbia that Bollinger needs to address. However, I disagree that Bollinger should have taken it down a degree. Columbia is a major world player from its overseas campuses, international fellowships, and just by nature of being in NY with an international student body. The World Leaders Forum functions because of Columbia’s proximity to the UN. I think Bollinger’s statement was poorly worded, his words ill-chosen. I think he should have expressed the sentiment, but expressed it better. Ahmedinejad…

Obama and anti-Semitism

I’ve been watching the subtle anti-Semitism directed against Sen. Barack Obama. First there’s the constant reference to his name that he shares with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack, and now he is being tied to a rabbi, a cousin of his wife’s. We’re now understanding how deep this anti-Semitism runs with the revelation that Gov. Sarah Palin did a little religion baiting in her last race and believes all Jews should be converted. We wouldn’t stand for this attack on a people if they were Muslim or Christian, and we shouldn’t stand for it when it directed to Jews.…

The man who said no

The man who said no. The day commemorates his defiance of Executive Order 9066, the government directive that incarcerated more than 110,000 of his fellow Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. Korematsu’s decision to resist an unconstitutional edict led to his arrest, conviction and disgrace — and then, three decades later, set the stage for a personal vindication and the establishment of a historical precedent whose implications are more relevant today than ever.