The Hill of Hypocrisy

Mike Adams

Late Friday morning of last week, I got interrupted by a call from Katie Pavlich. It's not like I was working - I haven't worked on a Friday morning since I got tenure back in 1998. It's just that I was cleaning one of my favorite .44 magnums and didn't want to be disturbed at that particular moment. Nonetheless, Katie was having some problems with the folks at UNC - Chapel Hill and she needed some help. So I put down my Smith and Wesson and gave her my best advice.

For those who haven't yet heard, Katie was invited by the College Republicans to speak at UNC-CH. But the folks in student government said she was "non-intellectual" and had "no value" as a speaker. So they refused to fund her speech and gave it to some feminists and anarchists instead. (Please pardon any redundancy in that last sentence).

Although Katie contacted me for support, I had to be honest with her. I agree with the UNC-CH student government. Katie is a non-intellectual with no value as a speaker. Furthermore, the funding debacle at UNC-CH is entirely her fault. If Katie knew anything about the UNC system, she could have taken any number of measures to ensure full funding of her event. I shared a number of examples with Katie. Just in case you're a conservative woman seeking an audience at UNC-CH, I'm sharing these tips with you, free of charge.

- Dress up as a six foot vagina. A few years ago at Appalachian State, which is in the UNC system, a feminist at the Women's Center went parading across campus dressed in a six foot tall vagina costume. She and her fellow feminists managed to get funding for The Vagina Monologues. They were also allowed to advertise for it with the giant vagina costume. Katie could have borrowed that costume and even given her speech wearing it. She would have looked every bit as intellectual as an Appalachian State feminist. Then, the UNC system would have funded her speech in a heartbeat. Sometimes appropriate business attire really makes a difference. This is especially true when you want to come across as a true intellectual.

On a side note, UNCW Feminists also managed to get funding to sell little vagina-shaped lollipops when they put on the Vagina Monologues. If Katie were to put in a request to sell these p*ssy pops (that is what they actually called them) at her speech, then she would likely get full funding. It's not a truly intellectually stimulating event unless feminists are walking around licking sugar-coated treats that look like genitalia.

- Drop your guns and celebrate "kick ass" feminism. Katie needs to get off of this gun kick. Last year, one of my feminist colleagues, Donna King, published a book called Men Who Hate Women: And the Women Who Kick Their Asses. In it, she advanced the concept of "kick ass feminism." One of the chapters in her book praised a feminist in a Stieg Larsson novel who retaliated against a man who had previously raped her. She accomplished the retaliation by finding him, tying him up, and then shoving metal objects up his rectum.

Clearly, Katie's ideas about preventing violence via lawful gun possession are anti-intellectual, even if supported by the work of scholars like John Lott. If Katie wants to be a true intellectual, she needs to renounce guns and convince women to wait until after they are raped to deal with the rapist via vigilantism. No need for guns. All you need is a little rope and a few metal objects to shove up the rapist's rectum once he's safely bounded and gagged. If a feminist intellectual recommends a vigilante course of action, you know it has to be sound. Plus, the word "vigilante" sounds similar to vagina. And that's always reassuring.

- Tell UNC feminists that some handguns can also be used as sex toys. A few years ago, UNC Chapel Hill decided that "orgasm awareness week" was of enough intellectual value to merit funding from the university. In fact, they built a temporary vibrator museum right there in the middle of the campus. I told Katie that she should just tell campus feminists that they don't have to be afraid of handguns. Tying it into sex (please, no bondage jokes) is a sure way to win over the hearts and minds of sex crazed, I mean, intellectually gifted UNC feminists. Tell them the guns can also be used as sex toys and you'll get full funding. Tell them that guns can also be used to perform late term abortions (4th trimester and beyond) and they'll make you director of the Women's Center.

- Dress up as a gorilla and throw bananas at the audience. A few years ago, our women's center paid for a group called the Gorilla Girls to come to campus. They were some serious intellectuals. They dressed up in gorilla costumes and threw bananas at audience members. I told Katie she should emulate them. Put on a gorilla outfit and throw bananas at students who are there earning extra credit. Hit them in the face with those bananas. I mean, knock the crap out of them. Hit them hard enough and they'll start to agree that they need to be armed with handguns to protect themselves from assault and battery.

- Fly in on a private jet. Arianna Huffington was paid $12,500 to fly into UNC - Wilmington on a private jet. During her tree hugging feminist speech, she lectured the audience about driving SUVs and wasting precious gasoline. Nothing communicates a need for a giant honorarium better than having your own private jet. And people who use a private jet to facilitate a lecture on energy conservation tend to be intellectually gifted, high value speakers.

- Stop wearing makeup and shaving your arm pits. I know she's never heard this before but Katie is not ugly. And that's a serious problem for her. These UNC feminists are tough on good looking women. They have a real disdain for makeup and razor blades. If Katie started looking a little more like a French foreign exchange student then she might be taken more seriously by the UNC feminists. In a nutshell, when a woman dresses and carries herself like Katie Pavlich, bad things are bound to happen. She really brought the whole thing on herself and should have sought my advice much sooner. If she had, she would be rubbing elbows with Gorilla Girls and making a down payment on her first private jet.

In all seriousness, I believe it’s time for UNC-CH to stop holding itself out as an institution interested in achieving intellectual diversity through the free and open exchange of ideas. And it's past time to get rid of its official motto, Lux Libertas.  How about Collis Hypocrisi instead?

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Illinois School Keeps Students—and Parents—In the Dark

The lights are off every Tuesday inside Grove Avenue Elementary School in Barrington, Illinois, thanks to the Green Tuesdays program, aimed to raise awareness about the environment. The school also asks its K-5 grade students to wear an article of green clothing Tuesdays.

The program has some parents concerned about their children’s safety.

“I could see a kid tripping and getting hurt in some of those dark hallways by the lockers,” said Kenneth Rusin, who has two children in the school and two younger children who will attend in the next few years. “I’m also concerned if there was some type of intruder, a pedophile or somebody who would want to harm my children. I don’t know how it would be witnessed well in those dark areas.”

The school’s security cameras may not get clear images of intruders, he said, and the darkness could contribute to poor mental well-being.

“It just doesn’t feel very welcoming and comfortable to walk in the dark hallway,” he said.

The project is in keeping with safety codes, said principal Cindy Kalogeropoulos.  “We are a school with a lot of windows, so ... even with our hallways dimmed, it’s not like we’re searching for how to get down the hallway,” she said. “It’s dimmer light, there’s no doubt about it, but kids can easily find their way.”

Kalogeropoulos said administrators checked school codes to ensure they could keep the lights off for one-fifth of the school year, “So everything is fine.”

“It’s just a day every week that we try to raise everybody’s awareness,” she said. “Kids are very basic when they’re in elementary school, so it’s kind of a wakeup call for us to be conscious of things.”

The school also encourages children to donate to the local food pantry, allowing them to wear hats on Wednesdays if they bring in a donation. Food grown in the school’s garden is served in the cafeteria and, in the summer, donated to the food pantry.

The program happened without parents’ or school board members’ knowledge, Rusin said.  “It just came up,” he said. “The public didn’t hear about it, and the board didn’t know about it till I brought it to their attention.”

Rusin wrote a letter complaining to the principal, who wrote back explaining and defending the program. He has approached local public officials, including the police and fire departments, and an insurance company. The consensus was that everything’s up to code and their hands are tied until someone is hurt or files suit, he said.

“The superintendent told me that if I came to another school board meeting, that he and the principal would have 100 parents that agree with him,” Rusin said.

The fire department, insurance agency, and superintendent did not return calls for comment.

Kalogeropoulos said parents and staff have been “absolutely” supportive of the program, and that she has not heard any complaints from parents. She did not return calls or an email for comment about her response to Rusin’s letter.

The school board and principal are “adamant” about keeping the program, refusing to hear criticism of it, Rusin said.

All board members were emailed for comment but returned none, and Jeff Arnett, chief communications officer for the board, emailed back a week later to say media requests should go through his office.

The school board has never been involved in the program, Arnett told School Reform News.

“To my knowledge it’s never been raised during the public comments portion of a meeting, and it has not been an agenda topic at any of their meetings,” he said. “The school board makes decisions about things that have district-wide implications, and this is specific to Grove Elementary.”

Rusin said he’s been the most outspoken, but many parents are similarly concerned. He knows one family that pulled their children out of the school “because they didn’t like the way the principal was agenda-driven.”

“Most people think it’s not something that should be done and they’re against it, however, to get anybody to come to a board meeting or to write a letter or to bring it up, people ... don’t want to upset the staff, because maybe they’ll take it out on our children,” he said.

Safety issues aside, Rusin said schools aren’t the place for this.

“The way we’re looking at it, please just teach our kids reading, writing, arithmetic. Keep that stuff somewhere else, because it doesn’t seem like the right place for this age group, and it’s a little awkward when you walk into the main doors of the school and it’s pitch black on Tuesday.”

He said he feels the school is pushing a political agenda on the students.

“If there’s any question of jeopardizing health and safety, why is it important for them to hear about global warming when other schools aren’t doing it, at the expense of the children?” he said.

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'Greedy' Scottish universities offer more clearing places to fee-paying English students

Scottish universities have been accused of “greed” for offering hundreds of courses through clearing to fee-paying English students that are not available to local school-leavers.

With just weeks to go until the start of the new academic year, institutions in Scotland still have nearly 1,000 subjects with places open to applicants from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, who must pay up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees.

However, Scottish students, who are not charged for undergraduate degrees, are now only able to apply for 326 different courses at their home universities through clearing.

The latest figures show that 4,150 English students won places at universities in Scotland this year, up 2.5 per cent on 2012 and the largest number in four years.

The Scottish Conservatives have accused the SNP-run Scottish Government of pursuing a “discriminatory” higher education policy that has put pressure on universities to take more fee-paying students.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, argued that Scotland was only able to waive tuition fees for its students thanks to extra funding from Westminster.

He said: “It is really a bit greedy that they should be treating students from England differently because this is how they are able to afford the generous support for Scottish students.

“I think they are wanting to demonstrate that they are an effective government and that they can provide the support that the UK government is unable to provide in England.

“But they don’t acknowledge that they are only able to do it because of the generous tranche of UK taxpayer money that they get compared with England.

“Whether they are making a political point or doing it to generate income, I would guess is an interesting question.”

The popular University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, which levies the maximum £9,000 tuition fee for students from other parts of the UK, was today offering 236 subjects through clearing for English students, including history, modern languages, maths and physics, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) website.

By contrast, the only course still open to those living in Scotland was a post-graduate law degree.

Edinburgh Napier University had 162 subjects for English students and just one for applicants from north of the Border, while the figures for Glasgow Caledonian were 91 and none, and 80 and one for the University of the West of Scotland.

The institutions said the discrepancy was caused by the fact that the Scottish Government effectively imposes a cap on the number of taxpayer-funded degree places for students from Scotland, but there is no limit on how many fee-paying undergraduates can be admitted.

Alastair Sim, the director of Universities Scotland, said the fees paid by English meant that they chose to study at Scottish institutions for the quality of education on offer rather than because it was a “cheap option”.

He added: "The number of places available to Scots is controlled by the Scottish Government. Universities can only recruit to fill the places available and over-recruitment would result in fines.

“However, there has been a modest funded expansion of places for Scottish students this year, and this has resulted in an increase in the number of Scottish students accepted into university this year compared to last."

The Scottish Government said a record number of Scottish students had been accepted into universities north of the Border this year, meaning they had less need to depend on clearing.

“Access for Scots to Scottish universities is based on the ability to learn not the ability to pay, with students from Scotland receiving free tuition and the best package of support available anywhere in the UK,” a spokesman added.

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