Saturday, January 31, 2015

* The disease that tells you to kill yourself


 



             theantiyale

o                          

It is disingenuous to suggest that bureaucratic quicksand wouldn't further depress someone who was struggling with mental illness, especially if the result of struggling in that quicksand was permanent separation from Yale.

Depression is an illness, not a character defect, not a lack of strength, not a weakness.
It is the illness that scares the hell out of you because you think you really will kill yourself.
We need to talk about this illness more in public and thereby dilute its stigma.
My sincere sympathy to Ms. Wang's loved ones.

Paul Keane
M. Div. '80



o            
 

Friday, January 30, 2015

* No Number Three




Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

* Yale Police Blow It Again


Twitter photo


After Blow ’16 detained at gunpoint, YPD to conduct internal investigation


http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/01/27/salovey-holloway-higgins-address-blow-incident-in-campus-wide-email/


By Stephanie Addenbrooke



Staff Reporter
Yale Daily News
Tuesday, January 27, 2015


 


theantiyale
Wish I could call Yale Police's trigger-happy encounter with your Yale son "racism' Mr. Blow.
Yale Police have at least a 35 year history, not of racist behavior but of classist behavior.
As a townie dressed in overalls in 1979 , when my personal check was refused for dinner and I protested loudly, I was arrested in the Divinity School Refectory in
by Yale Police, even though I was an enrolled divinity student. The overalls made me look dangerous---and poor.
The judge threw the case out of court (nolle) because he himself happened to have been an eyewitness to the event and said the Yale police "overreacted." http://yalearrest.blogspot.com...
Yale Police kicked a black man on my graduation night in my presence, and I fought
for months with Woodbridge Hall defending him against unreasonable and abusive Yale Police behavior. The charges were finally dropped.
In both cases Yale Police were treating those dressed
like poor town folk, rather than Ivy League preppies, as second class citizens
(one white----me-----and one black ------Mr. S___) .
Their behavior was based on suspicion of those who did not fit the "Yale persona", a form of classism.
Perhaps the fact that they kicked the black man was more racist than classist since they didn't kick me, the white man. They just handcuffed me.
The pistol packin' Yale patrolman's unholstered gun pointed at your son, Mr. Blow, a few days ago makes me wonder if Yale Police still operate out of xenophobic fear rather than calm professionalism.
And xenophobia may be too generous, since their victim's skin was black. Perhaps "racism" does fit here. I'm incorrect, after all, Mr. Blow. My apology.
Paul Keane
M. Div. '80
See attached link
for documents related to both arrests.

http://yalegrad80.blogspot.com


http://yalearrest.blogspot.com/

 

  • Avatar

    I " liked" the comment. And I agree the claims of "racism" in the matter of Tahj's experience are unfounded, at best.
    And perhaps the YPD overreacted in your own old case.
    But there is no evidence of "classism" in anything you provide. Those conclusions seem to be entirely a gloss of your own divising, although screaming in a dining hall is definitely low or no class behavior. Merely acting as a low-class bum and getting swatted for it doesn't prove that social class was the motivation behind the swat. It is also likely that those running the dining hall couldn't stand screamers no matter what their social position. I can't. And anyone who starts screaming in a dining hall over something like this deserves little sympathy, although perhaps not criminal charges.
    That you were the beneficiary of the judge acting in your case despite having an obvious conflict of interest stemming from his personal involvement as a "witness" is not something of which you should be proud. What he did is inconsistent with accepted standards of judicial temperament and ethics, and at a minimum should have been vetted as a substantial impediment to any effort to elevate that judge to a higher position (an appeals court, for example). No doubt the fact that you settled and the case couldn't go to trial caused him to consider his breach de minimis.
    Can you imagine what you would have thought if the case had gone to trial as you wanted before that judge and, during the trial, he had leaned forward from the bench and said:
    "Well, I happened to witness the whole thing, and so I know the defendant is obviously guilty of at least as much as the prosecutor says he is. I saw it myself with my own eyes. The only real question here is how much time he should spend in prison. So let's cut to the chase."
    That's why we try to keep the judiciary disinterested.

        

    Sunday, January 25, 2015

    * Tricky Ricky Jay


    Saturday, January 24, 2015

    * The Table and the Chair


     
    Letters to the Editor
    The Valley News

     Word Count: 350

     Dear Editor:

    During my first year of a two-year term on the Hartford School Board I have tried to alert the public to two  tactics permitted by the board which get my goat.

    The first is allowing a chair and the superintendent behind closed doors to determine what is put on the agenda  instead of allowing any board member to put any item the member feels worthy on the agenda. The second tactic which concerns me and which I brought to the voters' attention in the last meeting,  is a chair determining without the board's advice and consent the amount the budget should  be raised in figuring a budget proposal to bring to the voters. In this case it was 4 % and I asked "why not 1%?" And  why wasn't the board's advice solicited before the superintendent spent months preparing a budget? Why not, for instance, produce a budget tied to the cost-of-living instead  of increasing the cost-of-living?

    Small potatoes you say? This is just a Vermont country school board. Why are you belly-aching about such a tiny matter?

    Belly-aching? Maybe. Tiny? No.

    Our very nation was founded on an attempt to dilute concentration of power in the hands of  an executive:  The king.  Hence three branches of government each checking and balancing the other, sometimes requiring the advice and consent of the other before items can be approved.

    In a five member body like our school board it is impossible to have three branches checking and balancing each other. But it is not impossible to insist that power not be casually concentrated in a chair.

    Both  instances  cited above of  a chair making unauthorized decisions are like stacking the deck before the cards are dealt.

    Small town democracy in Vermont should resist executive actions conducted behind closed doors without  public eyes watching.

    Some of us believe that Vermont small town governing bodies are the purest form of democracy and shouldn't be fiddled with by executives even if they are only called “chair”.

    In Vermont the table is more important than the chair . And it is round.

    Paul D. Keane



    Friday, January 23, 2015

    * Unsafe Sex at Yale: Déjà vu all over again------------30 years later.

    ATTENTION:
    Move bar to 4 minutes 41 seconds to begin this 1984 "60 Minutes" video filmed at Yale about the first case of AIDS  in America known to be transmitted heterosexually (by a New Haven prostitute).




     
    Thirty years later,  there are still problems with safe sex at Yale, according to this article in Yale Daily News today.
    LINK
     

           After "60 Minutes" came to Yale  (1983/84) to film a segment on a New Haven prostitute who was the first woman in America known to have transmitted AIDS, I struggled to get Yale to distribute to graduate students the pamphlet (below) created by a Yale biology professor and myself describing unsafe sex using blunt street language terms. (see letters below to Yale president, A. Bartlett Giamatti).

      Finally, 84-year-old Isabel Wilder, (sister of noted Yale alum, author Thornton Wilder) agreed to pay for distribution of the pamphlet, an act not only of generosity but of courage at a time (1984) when AIDS was still taboo.
    Isabel and Thornton Wilder.
     



     
     
     
    Further documents related to this struggle at Yale can be found at
    http://aidsatyale.blogspot.com/
     

    Thursday, January 22, 2015

    * Thanks Jill Lepore !



    https://web.archive.org/web/20150123025631/http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/
    Headquarters of the Internet Archive in San Francisco



    Thanks Jill Lepore for introducing me to the Wayback Machine  archive.org/web in your New Yorker article "THE COBWEB: Can the Internet be archived?"

    I just put The Anti-Yale on ( in?) the Wayback Machine, link on the top of this page--- which will bring you right back here !

    Friday, January 16, 2015

    * Should I be murdered as punishment for blasphemy in satirizing Christianity's holy book?

          LINK to the full satire:
    http://holysmoke2011.blogspot.com/
     

     
    
    Published in Yale Divinity School's alumni publication
    April, 2013, in an article on "Unconventional Ministries"
    The New Yorker, January 19, 2015, p. 45

    

    * The Nobility of Vermont


    Thursday, January 15, 2015

    * Out of the Chrysalis With Pain


    * Dirt yes. Blood no.

    LINK to Yale Daily News article:


     



    Cordelia De Brossos, true to her namesake in King Lear, has spoken truth in her Yale Daily News 1/14/15 opinion piece "No Freedom Without Courage" about the murders of controversial editors of the Paris publication Charlie Hebdo last week. "

    Not since the early days of AIDS in the 1980's at Yale have I sensed so much fear in society even among intellectuals. Before that, in my childhood in New Haven, it was the fear of McCarthyism which silenced many  at Yale.
    The slight list of contributors to the posting thread for Cordelia's opinion piece may be a barometer of that fear. I doubt it is a barometer of indifference to the Paris murders in Cordelia's piece..
    It would be easy for me to call that fear disgraceful, but it is human to be afraid. I feel fear myself writing these very words.
    Just as I have protested for decades the elitist bullyism of a version of Christianity's Jesus which says 'No one can come to the Father except through me ' (John 14;6),  I reject the bullyism of a version of Islam which says that  those who reproduce images of the Prophet must be physically harmed.
    Perhaps they must be forgiven as Islam itself preaches :  Or "Tout est pardonne" as the cover of yesterday's Charlie Hebdo declares.
    Martin Luther repudiated his own followers when reformers careened out of control destroying statues, images, and killing practitioners of so-called idolatry.

    But Martin Luther was no saint even though he repudiated that violence. He was a vile anti-Semite and the rebellious religion he spawned has been complicit in Christians'  anti-Semitism to this day.

    Yes, I utter those heretical thoughts as a Protestant graduate of an Ivy League seminary. Must I be slaughtered by angry Christians for my words?
    Who has clean hands in our world ?
    But dirty hands need not have blood on them too.
    Dirt yes.: Blood no.

    Lear's madness (IV;6)   "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill " is just that: Madness.


    Paul D. Keane
    M. Div. '80

     

    Wednesday, January 14, 2015

    * Talkin' Trash

    Open Letter to the Yale Daily News Editors




     


    It is worth repeating to you, the editors, as well as to one of your columnists:

    In the midst of the greatest assault on the right to read (Je suis Charlie) in my lifetime we are talking about campus minutiae here and in the entire YDN edition today. 

     Do you have your heads in the sand? 

    The disgraceful --- shameful --- capitulation of Yale University Press to the fear of terrorism two years ago in removing controversial cartoons of the Islamic Prophet from a book it published about those very same cartoons; that capitulation by one of the foremost academic publishing institutions in the world, lead INEXORABLY to the murders in Paris last week.

    This is a story, dear fledgling journalists. It is in your very back yard.

    Either wake up to the world around you YDN and Yale's impact on that world, or fall into the irrelevancy of the "ladies who come and go talking of Michaelangelo."

    I am embarrassed for you.

    Paul D. Keane

    M. Div. '80
    M.A., M.Ed.


    THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED SOON AFTER MY POST---datelined the 13th but in the January 14th edition.

    Paris attacks prompt reexamination of 2009 Yale Press controversy

    University pulled images of the Prophet Muhammad
    In 2009, Yale University Press faced criticism for its decision to redact images of the Prophet Muhammad — including a controversial 2005 Danish cartoon and other historical depictions of the figure — from Brandeis University Professor Jytte Klausen’s book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World.” The University defended the decision at the time, arguing that it had consulted with two dozen authorities that unanimously advised against the publication of the images. However, in light of last week’s attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Yale faculty, students and experts have raised new criticism of Yale University Press’s 2009 decision and urged the University to modify its stance for the future.
    “If the major educational institutions of the Western world cannot summon the courage to defend freedom of speech, who is going to do that?” said Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Jonathan Brent, who was the YUP’s commissioning editor of the book at the time. “[Yale] was not behaving as a beacon of democratic culture or in a self-aware capacity as a protector of liberal values it teaches — it was acting rather as a corporation protecting its interests abroad and protecting its interests in the Arab world.”
    Brent said he argued in favor of keeping the controversial images in the book, but the Press faced pressure from the administration, which feared that publishing the offensive images would incite anger and put the campus at risk. Although he conceded that universities have a commitment to protect their faculty and staff, Brent said the decision set a bad precedent and undermined the very values taught in Yale classrooms.
    Klausen said the University was overly risk-averse in its decision, since there was no credible threat in printing the photographs. She published an article earlier this week in Time magazine condemning Yale’s 2009 decision and arguing that this type of censorship impedes the dissemination of knowledge.
    “I am not in favor of provocation; I am an academic and not a free speech martyr,” Klausen told the News. “In the process of discussing the nature of image, it is of course important in religious law to republish the offending image.”
    However, it appears unlikely that recent events will lead to substantive change from the administration.
    University spokesman Tom Conroy wrote in an email that there is no formal University policy on publishing controversial images or cartoons, nor has there been any cause to revisit the issue regarding Klausen’s book.
    Still, questions regarding Yale’s censorship of sensitive content continue to surface. Not only have the attacks in Paris recast the debate, but some of the authorities consulted in 2009 have since publicly disavowed their decisions.
    Most notably, former Yale Corporation member Fareed Zakaria ’86 wrote in a Washington Post column last month that he “deeply regretted” writing a statement in favor of the University’s decision to redact the images. He said he was swayed by concerns for the institution at the time, but said the correct decision — then and now — would be to affirm freedom of expression.
    Although Klausen’s book was first published in 2009, she said Zakaria’s statements may influence whether the University will print the cartoons in a paperback edition of the book. Six years later, whether the YUP will reprint her book — let alone include the offending images — is not clear. Yale University Press director John Donatich did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
    Students and professors on campus have come forward condemning the University’s decision and have argued that in light of the recent attacks, the stakes are even higher for Yale to act in a way that affirms freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
    “Yale University Press should have published the Danish cartoons because they weren’t created at Yale and were already widely available,” political science lecturer Jim Sleeper wrote in an email. “YUP isn’t a provocative newspaper like Charlie Hebdo; nor is it a propaganda organ. It had a scholarly obligation to pursue truth with relevant evidence.”
    Sleeper joins a multitude of other voices within academia arguing that Yale ought to change its stance on censoring sensitive content, especially in academic texts.
    Religious scholar Reza Aslan, who withdrew a supportive blurb for the book in 2009 after Yale’s decision to censor the images, said universities have a role in distinguishing between free speech and hate speech.
    However, Aslan said Yale’s decision was outside the boundaries of appropriate action for a university.
    “I think the idea that we cannot print images … that are actually part of Islamic history, images that are drawn by Muslims themselves in an academic book about depictions of the prophet, because we are afraid of the Islamic response is gross Islamophobia,” he said. “This was an academic book primarily for an academic audience … and to not produce those images is intellectual cowardice, frankly.”
    Still, some students came to the defense of the YUP’s decision to retract the sensitive images and argued that its decision was within its right as a press to choose which content to publish.
    President of the Muslim Students Association Ahmad Aljobeh ’16, who said he was not speaking on behalf of the organization, said the application of the term “self-censorship” to the actions of the YUP is not entirely correct.
    “If [YUP] decided that publishing them would be gratuitous then they have the right to make that decision,” Aljobeh said. “Some might refer to this as ‘self-censorship,’ but they’re forgetting that we have the moral prerogative to choose to not offend people, just as we have the right to free speech.”
    French citizen Aube Rey Lescure ’15 drew the distinction between the 2009 incident and the cartoons at the center of the events unfolding in Paris. She said that as an academic institution, Yale cannot afford the amount of backlash the publication of sensitive material would create.
    “Yale is not Charlie Hebdo. Charlie Hebdo prides itself for offending and pushing boundaries — it is both a bastion of insolence and an invaluable French institution,” Rey Lescure said.
    Despite the recent backlash, it remains unclear how Yale will decide in future instances regarding the publication of sensitive material. However, some fear Yale’s decision fit into a larger trend of an unwillingness to offend on campus.
    The University’s decision lowered the quality of scholarship and undermined the principle and practice of academic freedom, sociology professor Julia Adams said.
    “At the time, I disagreed with the decision,” Adams said. “I still do, if anything more strongly.”
    “Nous sommes tous Charlie,” she added. “We are all Charlie.”

    _______________


    to BubbaJoe123

    Where is your umbrella, Mr. Chamberlain?
    Paul Keane
    M. Div. '80
     

    To YDN Editors:

    That's better.
    PK


    Let's cut to the chase. Regardless of the claims they make, the YUP didn't censor the images because of concern about what the right role of an academic press is. They censored them because the administration was concerned (and not without justification) that publishing the cartoons could lead to violence against the University or its staff.
    Does this set a terrible precedent, showing that violent action can drive self-censorship? Yes.
    Is it a completely unreasonable concern for the administration to have, that can just be dismissed out of hand? No. I'm not sure that, for example, the Local 35 member opening the mail at the YUP, or the Local 34 member taking out the trash or fixing the radiator, signed up for the risk of having their place of work firebombed, or worse.
     

     

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/be...
    Islam must be freed from radical Islam. We must say and say again: To assassinate in
    the name of God is to make God an assassin by association.
    Bernard-Henri Levy

    ________________________
    As for Yale courage:
    In the 1950's McCarthy commie-under-every-pillow madness , the distinguished Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History and author of the biography of Martin Luther "Here I Stand", Professor Roland H. Bainton, was approached by a former student then working for the government .
    The former student offered Bainton a proposal from his government bosses that Bainton spy on his colleagues at Yale as an act of patriotic service. Bainton, a Quaker, replied: "Tell your bosses to go to hell."
    That courage is missing at Yale today.


    I recall seeing a beautiful painting of the Prophet Muhammad at an art gallery downtown.
    Wonder what the oldest depiction is,where it is,He preached roughly 600 AD?
    Some books have been written, Divine Comedy,Inferno ;
    "No barrel, not even one where the hoops and staves go every which way, was ever split open like one frayed Sinner I saw, ripped from chin to where we fart below.His guts hung between his legs and displayed His vital organs, including that wretched sack Which converts to shit whatever gets conveyed down the gullet.As I stared at him he looked back And with his hands pulled his chest open, Saying, "See how I split open the crack in myself! See how twisted and broken Mohammed is! Before me walks Ali, his face Cleft from chin to crown, grief–stricken"..



    Terror of offending Islam isn't a method to impose some goal.
    Terror of offending Islam is the goal, the new reality, that Islam wishes to impose, apparently. Some religions have never advocated violence, other religions gave it up centuries ago. Only Islam regularly practices murder and enslavement of entire populations in the 21st century.

    Sisi has recommended Islam reform its teaching and drop the right to murder whoever offends them. Obama OTOH, has not. The Democrats in the WH are still calling jihadist murders "workplace violence" and will not name Islam as part of the problem. Why?
    Obama is leading Democrats in the entirely wrong direction on the issue of freedom of speech. It is time for good Democrats to reclaim the principle of freedom of thought and speech. To do this you must first denounce Obama's tolerance of the evil done by Islam's always present Jihadists, because Islam built this.
    Any change will come from the students. Your faculty dare not defy either Obama or Islam...everybody knows that :-)

       





      Monday, January 12, 2015

      * Heroin Hope: Mandatory Minimal Sentencing



      Click on white lettering at top of screen to activate full-screen.


      Two drug and alcohol programs show signs of promise in the alarming world of opiate addiction.

       The first in South Dakota  and several other nearby states is called 24/7 created by Attorney General Long. The second  in Hawaii  is called HOPE run by Judge Alm (see video).
       
      Both have immediate pre- trial probation and both have minimum sentencing ladders and immediate short term (3 day)  jail time for infractions, increasing  for subsequent offenses.
       
      Random daily urine tests  24/7 are a  everpresent component. Three strikes and pre-trial  probation is over  ---- then you actually go to trial.
       
       
      The principle is called  " mandatory minimal sentencing" and it operates on the premise every parent and teacher knows works best: Immediate consistent fair punishment.
       
      Sounds unrealistic?
       
      The success rate in Hawaii is 78 % without any infraction. Those 22% who fail drug tests and serve three days in jail (increased for violation 2 and 3)  go to drug court  (after  3rd violation) in states which are lucky enough to have drug courts ----- therwise to regular court for trial.

      In other words, the mandatory minimal sentencing is an incentive to avoid trial and longer jail time.
       
      Millions of dollars are saved by shorter jail times and unconvened court hearings. All participants must serve 5 years of pre-trial probation.
       
      More information can be found by googling Heritage Foundation.

      Wednesday, January 7, 2015

      Sunday, January 4, 2015

      * What's in a Name

      USE Ctrl+ to enlarge