[Phys-L] Re: Warning: Don't ask for Library loans on Political Topics

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

Strickert, Rick wrote:
> "Following the student's admission Friday that it was a hoax, Clyde
> Barrow, chairman of the policy studies department, said UMass should
> punish the student and faculty members, in particular two history
> professors who repeated the unsubstantiated assertion of the history
> student to a New Bedford Standard-Times reporter.

In particular, Barrow wants to _suspend_ the student.  OTOH if you read
farther down the story,  "UMass spokesman John Hoey said the university
had no plans to discipline the unidentified student" ... which is as it
should be ... so this is mostly a tempest in a teapot.

IMHO would be better (not good, but better) to punish Barrow ... for
being such a pompous ass.

1) The faculty members who were taken in by the story are presumably
  quite embarrassed and have already learned their lesson.  What good
  could it possibly do for Barrow (or the institution) to tell them
  that they messed up?

2) By shooting his mouth off, Barrow just keeps the story alive, thereby
  heaping more unfavorable attention on his institution.  If he had any
  judgement whatsoever, he would have kept quiet.

  Note:  For any of you who have little experience in dealing with the
  press:  It is quite likely that Barrow is not quite as big an ass as
  the story makes him out to be.  More likely, this flare-up started with
  some Rita Skeeter type who wanted to keep the story alive, and went
  snooping around the university looking for someone dumb enough to
  comment ... and Barrow took the bait.

3) The idea of punishing students for hoaxes is deeply abhorrent.

   3a) The fact that quite a few seemingly-reasonable people found the
  story initially plausible indicates that he did a decent job of creative
  writing ... perhaps not up to Jonathan Swift standards, but certainly
  well within long-established traditions.

   3b) I'm quite sure there is nobody within the university who could
  judge the case without creating the appearance of extreme impropriety.
  Is the student being punished because of what he did, or because of
  how the faculty and the wider community _reacted_ to his provocation?

   3c) By the way, just what are the charges against the student?  I
  reckon the usual charges in such situations are "impiety" and "corrupting
  the youth".

   3d) It is proverbial that you can judge the worth of a person by the
  size of the things that bother him.  If Barrow doesn't know how to deal
  with provocations of this magnitude, then he's got "issues" he needs
  to work on.

  Any decent university (which apparently includes UMass) will instinctively
  and instantly close ranks to protect members of the community who have
  been involved in controversial pranks.

4) In general I don't like _blame_ of any sort.  Rather than a backward-
  looking hunt for somebody to blame, it is better to ask forward-looking
  questions about how to prevent embarrassment in the future.

  Applying that idea, it seems the place most in need of repair is not
  within the university at all, but rather the white house, for creating
  an atmosphere where stories about small-minded thugs in uniform would
  have any credibility at all.
   -- Who was it that defied the world on the global warming treaty, and
    falsified the evidence to support their position?
   -- Who was it that defied the world concerning world-court jurisdiction?
   -- Who was it that defied the world concerning applicability of the
    Geneva conventions?
   -- Who was it that spent weeks arguing against a statuory prohibition
    of torture?
   -- Who is it that openly claims authority to conduct warrantless
    surveillance, in defiance of the constitution, and in openly
    felonious defiance of 50 USC 1809?
   -- Is there or is there not a provision in the Patriot Act allowing
    the government to compel the turnover of library records and credit
    records without any sort of court order, and without even claiming
    any sort of "probable cause" (to borrow a phrase from the constitution)?


It is also proverbial that in insult hurts in direct proportion to its
accuracy.  Not too long ago, the story in question would have been
instantly recognized as ludicrous ... but in today's enviroment, it
caused an uproar because it was too close to the truth.
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