French Academic Appears in Tehran Court
NEAR, 11/19

University Weighs Tighter Limits on Stem Cell Research
Monica Davey, The New York Times, 11/19

Academic Researchers’ Conflicts of Interest Go Unreported
Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, 11/18

Israeli Army Grants Hearing to Palestinian Student, but Only After Deporting Her
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/17

Duke Professor Publishes Book with Muhammad Images
Inside Higher Ed, 11/17

Zionist Group in Israel Urges Students to Report ‘Subversive’ Professors
Matthew Kalman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/16

Corporatized universities devalue education
Howard Woodhouse, The Toronto Star, 11/15

Iranian Court Refuses to Release Azerbaijani Scientist
Radio Free Europe, 11/15

Norwegian University’s Board Rejects Academic Boycott of Israel
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/13

Courage on campus
The Baltimore Sun, 11/13

Convicted Terrorist Won’t Speak at UMass-Amherst After All
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/12

Threat to Faculty Free Speech
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 11/10

Iran Condemns Oxford Memorial Scholarship for Woman
Ladane Nasseri and Ali Sheikholeslami, Bloomberg, 11/10

EUROPE: Scoring university autonomy
Ard Jongsma, University World News, 11/8

News Analysis: Converting Adjuncts to the Tenure Track Is More Easily Discussed Than Done
Audrey Williams June, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11/8

President Obama in the Oval Office

Joe Conason writes in Salon that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbbs sound like he is running for office and that if he does it will be the GOP’s nightmare.  “Lou Dobbs for president!” is the headline on the op-ed.

It send a chill up my spine, but I’ll leave Lou and his whole schtick alone for now.  Rather I want to focus on one thing Canuson reports that Dobbs said in his first radio broadcast after leaving CNN that just completely baffles me.  Nor is Dobbs is not the only one who has made the allegation, many on the right have.

He said that President Obama “focuses on the partisan and racial” in a “21st century post-partisan, post-racial society.”  I don’t know what planet Dobbs is living on, but we do not live in a post racial society.  I do think that since the Civil Rights Movement, we have slow progress toward this becoming a nation in which race doesn’t matter, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

I also don’t know what policies or rhetoric Dobbs (or Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly or the tea partiers) are referring to when they accuse President Obama of focusing on the racial.  If you are reading this and he has done so, please enlighten me.  Indeed, a numbers of previous presidents have probably focused on it much more.

It saddens me that those who are demonstrating against health care reform and the economic recovery policies of the Obama administration and almost entirely white.  It is they who are injecting race into the debate, not the President.

As for the Post-partisan, well, just look at the Congressional voting record on pretty much every issue that matters since the 1980s, maybe even before that.  They tend to fall along party lines, and it is hard to believe everyone is voting their conscience or in the interests of their constituents when that happens.

But now there is a new version.  I’d written the iPhone version of TweetDeck off and was waiting for Seesmic to launch their iPhone app, but I was told I should try it, I did, and it has much more in common with the desktop app than just branding.  Just check out the web page for the app and all the features marked with “new” tags.  You’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and I should also mention that in TweetDeck on the iPhone you can update your status using Arabic script or any other alphabet with characters that still don’t display when used in the desktop app.

More Chicago public school students will have the opportunity to learn Arabic, thanks to a federal grant.

Two thousand students in ten schools are currently learning the ancient language.

A three-year, 888-thousand dollar US Department of Education grant will allow Chicago to expand the program to three more schools….

…The grant money will go to professional development and expanding the SAFARI-Blackboard program, which uses computer technology to link students and teachers in different schools with web cams.

Read the full story, CPS Students to Learn Arabic.

First there was this clip:

I mean COME ON PEOPLE! What about the children? Maddy says don’t pass this reform. Please don’t make Maddy cry!

But what really clinched it for me was when I heard Stephen Colbert play back a snippet of the warning North Carolina Congresswoman (R) Virginia Foxx made about the dangers of the Health Care Reform Bill that just passed in the House. She said, “I believe we have more to fear from right now from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist in any country.” Now that is scary!!! The terrorists must be pro universal health care. Now I understand why we need to stop it.  A victory for health care reform is a victory for the terrorists!  Lets hope that the legislation gets blocked in the Senate.

Just in case it doesn’t, I started looking for places I can move to that don’t have universal health care. There’s not a lot of them. Even the poorest countries make a valiant effort, damn them. There has got to be some backwater, third world, war torn cesspool where I can be safe from the tyranny of universal heath care.

TeachMidEast.org

This evening I was happy to learn that the NITLE Arab Culture and Civilization Online Resource is once again publicly available, generously hosted by the Middle East Policy Council, a nonprofit organization that seeks to enhance American understanding of the political, economic and cultural issues affecting U.S. policy in the Middle East. I was principal editor of the site throughout much of its existence, and was very proud of the collaborative effort that went into building, launching, and nurturing the site throughout its life. At the time of its retirement it was registering thousands of hits on a daily basis.

There are two good accounts of it’s history and of the Al-Musharaka faculty collaborative in the Educause Quarterly and in the Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association (direct link to pdf). As NITLE evolved, supporting the site was no longer possible, and the Middle East Policy Council graciously agreed to take it over. It is now part of an impressive set of resources for teaching about the Middle East, North Africa and Islam that are assembled at TeachMidEast.org.

Arab Culture and Civilization Site

Though the site is frozen in the state is was in 2007, I am deeply grateful two the MEPC for making it available, as I continue to receive requests for the materials, and now have someplace to point folks.

In addition to the online resources assembled at TeachMidEast.org, MEPC also offers well known and well regarded workshops on Islam and the Middle East that are delivered to schools, conferences and other organizations. The workshops are non-partisan and provide participants with innovative strategies for teaching complex topics.

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is gravely concerned about reports indicating that Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a respected international scholar and researcher, has been arrested, convicted and sentenced to over 12 years in prison. Reports indicating that an appeal may not be heard are of equal concern. SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails respectfully urging authorities to reconsider his case and ensure that an appeal be heard.

More information on the case and how to respond is available here.

Academic Freedom Media Review
October 30 – November 6, 2009
Compiled by Scholars at Risk

Government backs down on science freedom demands
Mark Henderson, The Times, 11/6

Scholars at Risk Calls for Letters on Behalf of Iranian Scholar Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh
SAR, 11/6

Fiji throws out Australian academic
AFP, 11/5

Israel Boycott Fight Moves to Norway
Inside Higher Ed, 11/3

Amnesty Call for Release of Dr Mohammad Maleki
NEAR, 11/3

Russia: Arrest of historian sparks outcry
Nick Holdsworth, University World News, 11/1

Major University in Russia Eases Fears On Rules
Ellen Barry, The New York Times, 11/1

South Africa: Vice-chancellor faces death threat
Karen MacGregor, University World News, 11/1

Now those radical, bleeding heart, liberal Democrats want to provide insurance to everybody and all these radical groups are lining up to support them, like the American Association of Retired Persons(AARP) and the American Medical Association. Oh, and the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association,
and a whole bunch of other godless communist organizations like that.

Seriously America, reform is in your interest and if it fails the only people who will have won will be the insurance companies!

A 2009 AAA Foundation study found that 91.5 percent of drivers considered talking on the phone while driving a serious threat to their safety; 97 percent said it was completely unacceptable to send a text or e-mail while driving. But two-thirds of those people admitted talking on their own phones while driving, and 1 in 7 have texted while driving.

That little tidbit exposing the hypocrisy of the American driver comes from an article in the Christian Science Monitor, “Texting while driving: the new drunk driving.”  I wouldn’t be surprised if a good percentage of the 1/3 who didn’t admit to talking on the phone while driving were people who don’t even have phones. When the phone rings and you are driving, its a difficult temptation to resist.

I’m going to leave aside the question of texting while driving because, although I must confess I have done it, it is so obviously a stupid thing to do and clearly dangerous.  Apparently simply talking on the phone  is quite dangerous, as well, moreso than I realized.

At the University of Utah’s Applied Cognition Laboratory, Professor Strayer has been testing this do-as-I-say theory for a decade. Using neuroimaging and a drive simulator, he and his colleagues have watched what happens when drivers – including those who claim to be able to text, tweet, and talk safely at the wheel – mix cellphones and cars.

The results are stark: Almost nobody multiprocesses the way they think they can. For 98 percent of the population, regardless of age, the likelihood of a crash while on a cellphone increases fourfold; the reaction to simulated traffic lights, pedestrians, and vehicles is comparable to that of someone legally intoxicated.

Although some critics claim that the simulator isn’t real enough, studies of real-life driving in Canada and Australia had similar findings.

Now here is the thing I find really interesting.  Strayer’s research found that there was little difference between the distraction level of those on hand held sets and hands free headsets.

The disruption, he says, is cognitive. Unlike a conversation with a passenger sharing the same physical space of the car, the electronic conversation takes a driver into a virtual space away from the road.

“We record brain activity,” Strayer says, “and we can show that it’s suppressed from the cellphone conversation.”

That’s odd and interesting, but believable.  Phone conversations are different from in person conversations and even if you could hear both sides of the conversation, you would probably know very quickly it was a mobile phone conversation.  And I feel like a lot of people can’t even walk straight while talking on their mobile phones.  They wander around drunkenly obliviously to everything and everyone around them. Its very odd.

Anyway, this is a good article, full of interesting tidbits.  Check it out.