I am not exactly a believer in all kinds of spirits, save one (that which could be attained from a bottle). The problems of cheapening the higher learning by fashionable political endeavors, like in the case of MESA, where characters like professors Juan Cole, Hisham Sharabi and their supporters pave their way to fame and/or notoriety by bleating (and frequently cheating) about the all-powerful Zionists, are not the problems of ghosts/spooks/spirits. Rather of malicious little men poisoning the wells of academy in general and higher education in particular.
And not only in US of A, I haste to add. Woe to our children and grandchildren.
2 hours ago
10 comments:
What I liked about Hagel is that he offered up reality based solutions. He had an Israeli/Palestinian peace plan which I did not agree with, but as part of it, there would be an American occupation of the West Bank replacing the Israelis. This was an acknowledgement that peace could not be accomplished by signing a piece of paper; There are realities in the world. Kerry's striving for a peace agreement is based on facts on the ground that simply do not exist. It is like trying to get a binding Security Council resolution that the sun will come up in the West.
Without Hagel, I am concerned that President Obama's foreign policies will go even further out into La La land.
Stan
I agree, Stan, that American military involvement in West Bank isn't a solution, but I believe Hagel meant well. He had a good working relationship with our military chiefs, and I agree with your prognosis. Unfortunately, these two coming years don't bode well.
You can at least take heart in the fact that the American academy is slowly imploding. The bubble, as some call it, is sustained by federal loans to students for the exorbitant tuition and fees charged to keep clowns like Cole in groceries. Then the graduates get to spend their working lives paying back the loans in the real world which could care less about Cole's opinions. More and more of these students are catching on to what a rip-off it all is and skipping the academy altogether in favor of something more practical, like plumbing or carpentry. This will eventually put the Coles out of business. In the meantime, of course, they will be cockroaches. But there is hope for the future.
Well Lurch won't change course. And Abbas won't become a statesman and Iran won't stop building its bomb.
Whoever Wormtongue chooses to replace Hagel will also get bogged down trying to make the military play by la-la-land rules. Square peg meets round hole.
The only thing I liked about Hagel was that he was the first enlisted combat veteran to hold the office. All the others were officers, if they ever served at all.
Poor consolation. This sounds as a guarantee that Chinese and Indians will soon outrun US in all technology-related enterprises, space exploration included.
Yep, all true.
I do expect they will be building bases on the Moon and maybe even Mars long before we do.
Too bad then. We all know what it means in the long run.
Not the Indians, surely. And, BTW, the predictions are that it's the various "studies" the academy won't have money for. STEM isn't likely to be shelved.
You never know with Indians. They tend to surprise, and in some sciences they have top notch people.
As for the "studies" - you mean the gender studies, LGBT studies etc. - I guess. Good then.
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