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Sliming Lincoln
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Howdy!
I don't go looking for trouble. I tend not to buy pinatas filled with angry hornets, and I rarely shout at a group of Hells Angels "Hey, you guys don't look like you could kick the crap out of anybody!" For the most part, so long as I have a comfortable chair, a good cup of chai tea and a Bengals game to watch, I'm happy. Oh, and smelts. I need some fried smelts. Plus it doesn't hurt to be getting a shiatsu massage. And a live Klezmer band is always nice. Also, a disco ball, and nunchucks, just in case. The point is, I'm usually a pretty contented guy.
The same thing is true in my career. I don't go around looking to investigate people or point out their personal foibles. Ken Starr is not my hero (except of course for the haircut) and if I somehow ever gained subpeona power the only person I would grill would be whoever it was that gave Celine Dion a record contract.
Last Thursday was no different. I was just sitting in my office doing what I usually do, drinking cans of red bull and wondering what it would be like to be a hamster, when one of my staffers brought to my attention the crazed rantings of one Kaukab Siddique.
Mr. Siddique is a literature professor at Lincoln University, which is a state-related and supported school in Chester County. But unlike most literature professors, Mr. Siddique is interested in more than pretending that Beowulf is a BLAST to read. It seems Mr. Siddique enjoys mixing a little Mein Kampf in with his Shakespeare and Chaucer. Specifically, Mr Siddique has either publically said or written the following:
= ON ISRAEL - We must stand united to defeat, destroy and dismantle Israel. We must Unite against this hydra-headed monster that lives in Tel Aviv.
= ON The HOLOCAUST - The Auschwitz "gas chambers" story has been meticulously rebutted and destroyed...Don't take the Holocaust myth lightly, it is Israel's milk cow...The concentration camp photos show emaciated inmates as well as piles of bodies. These were from starvation and disease caused by allied bombing. The German's behavior was so good that Ellie Weisel left with the Germans when the Russians advanced towards the camp. He also wrote that the Nazis were really the victims of World War 2.
= On AMERICAN JEWS - We can see how you Jews operate. You kill, rape, destroy...Jews have taken over America by immoral and devious means. They control the government, the media, education, libraries, book chains, banks, Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
As you can see, Mr. Siddique is quite the literature professor. He is also quite the conspiracy theorist. He makes Glen Beck look like Allistaire Cooke. But knowing this, what should be done?
To begin with, it does seem legitimate to question whether we really should be spending tax-payer's money to fund the salary of the President of the local Third Reich Fan Club. At a time when we are cutting such basic programs as child-nutrition, environmental protection, and politician junketeering, can we really afford to subsidize dramatic readings of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?
Of course, this has to be juxtaposed against the back-drop of academic freedom. Professors should generally have the right to express unpopular, off-the-wall, even bat-shit crazy opinions. I once had a professor claim that he heard voices talking to him from some big guy up in the sky. Admittedly, it was a religion professor, but still.
But as Danger Mouse once said (I think it was him) "you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts". A professor does not have the right to purvey false factual information to their students. A geography professor cannot teach that the world is flat. A professor of "Elizabethan England" cannot adopt the perspective that Elizabeth never existed, and "there's no such stinkin' thing as England".
Similarly, if Mr. Siddique just purveyed his own unique brand of hate to drunk guys at the local sports bar, that is very different than if he actually used his classroom for the same purpose. "OK kids, tomorrow we'll cover chapter 5 of Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliffe embraces Cathy, symbolizing the Jews' hold on the stock market". Which is closer to what is happening? We're still investigating.
The other thing to consider is the noble historical role of Lincoln University. Lincoln was the first degree-issuing university in the world to provide a higher education to black students. The first university in the world to provide a higher education to white students was...every other university in the world!
Lincoln can take pride in the fact that such notables as Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway graduated there. Also, Sarah Palin did not, which they can also take great pride in. I am personally a big fan of Lincoln and I worry in this time of extremely tight budgets and demands to cut everything, it might be harder to get legislative support for their subsidy given Professor Himmler's remarks.
It is profoundly ironic that Siddique has chosen a university that was founded on the ideals of equality and understanding (and that inexplicably gave him a paying job) as a platform for his hate. He is not only biting the hand that feeds him, he is smearing it in slime.
Daylin
Howdy!
I don't go looking for trouble. I tend not to buy pinatas filled with angry hornets, and I rarely shout at a group of Hells Angels "Hey, you guys don't look like you could kick the crap out of anybody!" For the most part, so long as I have a comfortable chair, a good cup of chai tea and a Bengals game to watch, I'm happy. Oh, and smelts. I need some fried smelts. Plus it doesn't hurt to be getting a shiatsu massage. And a live Klezmer band is always nice. Also, a disco ball, and nunchucks, just in case. The point is, I'm usually a pretty contented guy.
The same thing is true in my career. I don't go around looking to investigate people or point out their personal foibles. Ken Starr is not my hero (except of course for the haircut) and if I somehow ever gained subpeona power the only person I would grill would be whoever it was that gave Celine Dion a record contract.
Last Thursday was no different. I was just sitting in my office doing what I usually do, drinking cans of red bull and wondering what it would be like to be a hamster, when one of my staffers brought to my attention the crazed rantings of one Kaukab Siddique.
Mr. Siddique is a literature professor at Lincoln University, which is a state-related and supported school in Chester County. But unlike most literature professors, Mr. Siddique is interested in more than pretending that Beowulf is a BLAST to read. It seems Mr. Siddique enjoys mixing a little Mein Kampf in with his Shakespeare and Chaucer. Specifically, Mr Siddique has either publically said or written the following:
= ON ISRAEL - We must stand united to defeat, destroy and dismantle Israel. We must Unite against this hydra-headed monster that lives in Tel Aviv.
= ON The HOLOCAUST - The Auschwitz "gas chambers" story has been meticulously rebutted and destroyed...Don't take the Holocaust myth lightly, it is Israel's milk cow...The concentration camp photos show emaciated inmates as well as piles of bodies. These were from starvation and disease caused by allied bombing. The German's behavior was so good that Ellie Weisel left with the Germans when the Russians advanced towards the camp. He also wrote that the Nazis were really the victims of World War 2.
= On AMERICAN JEWS - We can see how you Jews operate. You kill, rape, destroy...Jews have taken over America by immoral and devious means. They control the government, the media, education, libraries, book chains, banks, Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
As you can see, Mr. Siddique is quite the literature professor. He is also quite the conspiracy theorist. He makes Glen Beck look like Allistaire Cooke. But knowing this, what should be done?
To begin with, it does seem legitimate to question whether we really should be spending tax-payer's money to fund the salary of the President of the local Third Reich Fan Club. At a time when we are cutting such basic programs as child-nutrition, environmental protection, and politician junketeering, can we really afford to subsidize dramatic readings of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?
Of course, this has to be juxtaposed against the back-drop of academic freedom. Professors should generally have the right to express unpopular, off-the-wall, even bat-shit crazy opinions. I once had a professor claim that he heard voices talking to him from some big guy up in the sky. Admittedly, it was a religion professor, but still.
But as Danger Mouse once said (I think it was him) "you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts". A professor does not have the right to purvey false factual information to their students. A geography professor cannot teach that the world is flat. A professor of "Elizabethan England" cannot adopt the perspective that Elizabeth never existed, and "there's no such stinkin' thing as England".
Similarly, if Mr. Siddique just purveyed his own unique brand of hate to drunk guys at the local sports bar, that is very different than if he actually used his classroom for the same purpose. "OK kids, tomorrow we'll cover chapter 5 of Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliffe embraces Cathy, symbolizing the Jews' hold on the stock market". Which is closer to what is happening? We're still investigating.
The other thing to consider is the noble historical role of Lincoln University. Lincoln was the first degree-issuing university in the world to provide a higher education to black students. The first university in the world to provide a higher education to white students was...every other university in the world!
Lincoln can take pride in the fact that such notables as Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway graduated there. Also, Sarah Palin did not, which they can also take great pride in. I am personally a big fan of Lincoln and I worry in this time of extremely tight budgets and demands to cut everything, it might be harder to get legislative support for their subsidy given Professor Himmler's remarks.
It is profoundly ironic that Siddique has chosen a university that was founded on the ideals of equality and understanding (and that inexplicably gave him a paying job) as a platform for his hate. He is not only biting the hand that feeds him, he is smearing it in slime.
Daylin
posted by Daylin Leach at
1:12 PM
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