Professor Michael Niman of Buffalo State University wrote a column suggesting the likelihood of Wellstone’s murder — even though he admits he has absolutely no evidence that the deadly crash was suspicious. Niman demands an international investigation, perhaps involving the UN, because he says that other nations like France and China need to be reassured and because foreign officials are more trustworthy than U.S. authorities.
When this kind of unfounded extremism is taught to our young people — by a journalist, no less — using taxpayer money to spread anti-American paranoia, it’s time to take another look at the whole scandal of higher education, which has moved further and further to the feverish fringes of the radical left.
Resenting Their Own Irrelevance
During a recent trip to Germany I heard many people express the anti-American attitudes that helped re-elect Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Like most other Europeans, many Germans feel almost hysterically upset by the prospect of America going to war against Iraq, while at the same time saying they despise Saddam Hussein.
Professor Michael Niman of Buffalo State University wrote a column suggesting the likelihood of Wellstone’s murder — even though he admits he has absolutely no evidence that the deadly crash was suspicious. Niman demands an international investigation, perhaps involving the UN, because he says that other nations like France and China need to be reassured and because foreign officials are more trustworthy than U.S. authorities.
When this kind of unfounded extremism is taught to our young people — by a journalist, no less — using taxpayer money to spread anti-American paranoia, it’s time to take another look at the whole scandal of higher education, which has moved further and further to the feverish fringes of the radical left.
Indians Suffered Long Before Europeans Arrived
For years, political correctness insisted that the Americas were a virtual Garden of Eden before the arrival of European explorers, with Native Americans living in perfect harmony with their environment. Now a massive new studio, analyzing 12,500 skeletons from sites in North and South America, shows that there is no basis at all for this sentimentality.
Researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Arkansas conclude that Indians were already in terrible health for centuries before Europeans arrived, and already suffered from many of the deadly diseases that have previously been blamed on white settlers. In fact, the spectacularly poor health of native cultures helped make them easy targets for the arriving conquistadors.
This doesn’t justify the cruelty that those settlers often showed to Native Americans, but it does illustrate how wrong it is to glamorize primitive, brutal cultures or to attribute all the suffering of those unfortunate people to the explorers and adventurers who followed Columbus.
Big Sister Imposes Maxim(um) Penalty in Las Vegas
University campuses once celebrated for freedom of speech now face the chilling impact of political correctness.
At Brandeis, students face “hate speech” charges for distributing a leaflet that graphically but accurately described Arab terrorism against Israelis. And at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a first year law student drew sexual harassment complaints from two female colleagues. His only crime involved his personal laptop computer, which he used to access a Web site for Maxim magazine. His classmates looked over his shoulder and saw images of women in bikinis, then complained to the Diversity Dean.
His punishment requires sensitivity training, and composition of a public letter of apology to the university community. When administrators crack down on students for material on their own computers, it illustrates how Big Brother, or at least Big Sister, has arrived at a state-supported school — ironically located in that well-known center of modesty and respect for women—Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Film critic and USA TODAY contributing board member Michael Medved hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio show focusing on the intersection of politics and pop culture. You can visit his website by clicking here.)
