CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE Show of Class Please allow me to preface my remarks with a bit of personal background. I served three years in the USMC while President Reagan was Commander in Chief. I...
...My mother, too, was the rare soul who always spoke highly of Dr...
...Hoogstra sets the record straight where my article may have erred: Calvin did not unFEBRUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 7 CORRESPONDENCE dertake a "safe spaces" campaign...
...The worst of it is that I would be vilified as irresponsible and uncompassionate...
...In a recent book by Paul Sperry, Infiltration: How Muslims Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington, the author castigates Mr...
...PETER SKURKISS Stow, Ohio RS...
...When the history is written, I doubt Bush will be seen as the Heaven-sent hero of Ben Stein's fantasies, but a very flawed leader...
...Yes, please, please ridicule the Ph.D.s in California whose crackpot strategies become the flavor of the day...
...MARY ALAN WOODWARD Louisville, Kentucky Good Economics Read with a great deal of appreciation the article on Economics by Brian S. Wesbury (TAS, "Chronic Pessimists," November 2005...
...Yet we greet the challenges as a community of faith, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, seeking to honor him in all we do...
...8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 CORRESPONDENCE If the GOP wants to nominate Mitt Romney in 2008, I recommend that Republicans learn about Mormonism before they vote...
...There is such a thing as good and evil...
...They quietly close the door to all of the hectoring of politicians and pundits, and show kids the love and attention often lacking in broken homes and an increasingly coarsening society...
...The student newspaper debated "whether wearing the ribbon meant just love and respect for homosexuals or endorsing homosexual activity...
...as a cult...
...Nor do faculty here have safe space stickers on their office doors...
...Perhaps these measures were considered necessary because, as one Calvin representative said at the November 2004 event, "gay persons' sensitivities reflect aspects of the image of God...
...however, how about giving the guy or gal in the trenches a little credit every once in awhile...
...Finally, let me commend Calvin and Ms...
...If I say that such an event is too improbable to prepare for and if he is subsequently struck and killed, I would be accused of negligence for failing to give sufficient warning, and I would hear angry demands that I repent for giving wrong advice, even though such advice would seem wrong only by the distorted view of hindsight...
...A very small percentage of our students think they are or may be gay...
...BARRY JACKSON Gilbert, Arizona Paging Dr...
...I quit to become a public school teacher and coach...
...Thanks for some truth for a change...
...The trouble that he and many others on the right have is that they line up "good and evil" with "us and them?' This is naive, tribal thinking, and not worthy of Ben Stein's great mind...
...Perhaps TAS/ SOWF could get some defense corporations to match funds of private contributors...
...It makes me so proud to read this elegant praise of our great country, its real heroes, and the hope and optimism that binds us together...
...We lose sleep over them...
...According to the college, this is necessarybecause "gay persons" face "ignorance, hatred, and fear...
...I may vote for Roman Catholic politicians in many cases because, while their church also has strayed from biblical truth in many crucial ways, it at least acknowledges the Triune God, the divinity of Jesus, His virgin birth, and His bodily resurrection...
...Norquist severely...
...At my request, our school library subscribes to The American Spectator and National Review...
...TUCKER PARSONS Los Angeles, California Thank you for this profoundly moving piece...
...We may leave an Iraq behind with a brighter future than it had when we entered, I sure hope so...
...SHIRLEY V. HOOGSTP.A Vice President for Studen t Life Calvin College Grand Rapids, Michigan Graham Walker replies: I am glad Ms...
...For Walker to dismiss African Studies as another sign of things gone wrong on the evangelical education front is perplexing...
...I don't know which of the phrases are my favorite--there are so many to choose from...
...No class time was spent, nor students neglected, in the preparation of this e-mail...
...For example, suppose that someone asks me what he should do about the remote possibility that he could be struck by a meteorite...
...We do not have nor have ever had a safe spaces campaign for gay and lesbian students...
...I got to know some of the "snake eaters" including Bull Simon and Dick Meadows on that effort...
...If you look at our own history honestly you can see evil we have done...
...As a young USAF officer in 1970 I had the privilege to be a minor player in the Son Tay Raid chronicled in Ben Schemmer's book TheBaid...
...I only intended to question whether they were playing followthe-(secular) leader...
...I also cannot wait for my wife to read the last paragraphs...
...We believe that this mix of educational offerings strengthens our Christcentered liberal arts education...
...We struggle to hold the attention of teenagers raised on cable TV and PlayStation...
...At CaMn we have 100 majors and programs, everything from classic liberal arts majors such as philosophy, history, English, and Classics to such offerings as biotechnology, physics, accounting, Spanish, andAsian Studies...
...For once we did not get the "doom and gloom" of our nation...
...My "15 minutes of fame" are on page 61 of the book...
...Polite, but seemingly forever preoccupied and fond of quoting poetry (his own and others) to baffled young patients and pregnant women alike...
...We work our tails offtrying to convince them that Shakespeare has more to offer them than Snoop Dog and Kanye West...
...This theme also animated Calvin's "Ribbon Week"-renamed "Sexual Orientation Week" in 2004-in which students wore ambiguous ribbons...
...Mary's, our two local hospitals, that he was "much too eccentric for that...
...At Calvin College we care about all of our students, gay and lesbian students included...
...Calvin's "Discussion Group for Gay and Lesbian Students," in its Counseling Center, continues to advertise as "a safe place where gay and lesbian students can 'share each other's burdens.' (Gal...
...I think all married men (myself 33 years) really know this, but don't express it properly...
...Can't wait to see Hillary go down in flames in '08...
...This is especially true of his recent article, "Politically Incorrect Science...
...To have him as one's pediatrician for some years, as I did, was, to put it mildly, a trip...
...Of course, the Indigo Girls were invited to perform on campus for at least two years running, and this sheds some light...
...I may have to abstain from voting for the next president if the GOP makes me choose between Hillary and heresy...
...How about the name "American War Orphans Foundation" (AWOF...
...We spend our own money for other people's kids...
...I can't wait until the time is right and you turn that discerning eye of yours in earnest to Comrade Hillary...
...Happily, they did not implement what they endorsed...
...RICHARD SZATHMARY Clifton, New Jersey FEBRUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9...
...Those on the right who presume American power is righteous are just as bubble-headed as those on the left who presume American power is corrupt...
...You may want to read it...
...It is a great gift to put so much power in so few words--"words of iron," if I may quote from an old movie...
...All students bring challenges: emotionally, spiritually, physically, and intellectually...
...The Book of Mormon says that dark skin is a punishment for sin (2 Nephi 5:21 and Alma 3:6)--a beliefthat, in recent years, has been "divinely revealed" to need correction, leading even some Mormons to wonder what else in their holy book may be wrong...
...However, biblical Christianity and Mormonism have virtually nothing in common (Galatians 1:8-9 comes to mind...
...I then worked as a prosecuting attorney for ten years, and ran a private law practice for three...
...I couldn't stop laughing at the mental images that formed in my mind as I read your critique of Maureen Dowd in "The Continuing Crisis" (TA& December 2005/January 2006...
...I do want to th ank you for paying attention to the world of Christian academia, but I wanted to correct an error and [convey] a support of global studies because we are preparing global leaders...
...I was glad to see Grover Norquist back in The American Spectator...
...Williams Speaking as one of those "some 2000 babies" delivered by William Carlos Williams (natal notoriety...
...Grover Returns I was disappointed to see that you had an article by Grover Norquist, "The Best and the Brightest" (TAS, December 2005/January 2006...
...By giving someone an accurate assessment of his risk and proposing a reasonable response to it, I am taking on the risk of being perceived as careless of human life...
...This is dangerous in an era of identity politics...
...He ate it with relish and seemingly enjoyed it very much?' Mr...
...Tom Bethell has done much to show how the pronouncements of scientists are often far from being objective judgments that are logically deduced from fact...
...Butwe also may leave an Iraq crumbling into civil war and failed statehood...
...and that their primary holy book, The Book of Mormon, is equal to the Bible, if not holier...
...Mormons believe that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer and that faithful Mormons will become gods...
...He was hardly the David Harum type, in other words...
...JIM JACOBS, MAJOR, USAF (RETIRED) Burlington, Iowa Mo the Merrier You're too much...
...KEITH WHITE T L Hanna High School Anderson, South Carolina RS...
...While his analysis was correct as far as it went, I believe that he overlooked one of the most important influences on scientific opinion, namely, the risk of damage to a scientist's personal reputation if he turns out to be wrong in such a way that his misjudgment, or his apparent misjudgment, can be construed as resulting from some defect of character...
...May God--the God of the Bible, that is-bless them...
...There are many good books on the subject, from Hank Hanegraff's Kingdom of the Cults t o (Bob) Larson's New Book of Cults...
...Walker reports inaccurately that "representatives of Calvin College proudly described their 'safe spaces' campaign where faculty put 'safe space' stickers on their office doors to signal their eagerness to talk with students about 'their sexuality' without 'condemnation.'" This assertion is wrong...
...The vast majority of classroom teachers I know don't give kids condoms, they don't abuse kids, force their political beliefs on them, attack their religion, criticize our country, its President, or its troops...
...And get away with it," it hurts...
...Students come to us because they want an education that integrates faith and learning...
...I take the time to give my students an alternative view when, for instance, Gorbachev is given credit for the fall of the Soviet Union in a history book...
...On the other hand, if I give ominous warnings of danger and demand that the gubment spend whatever is required to ensure that there are no deaths by meteoric impact, then I will receive many opportunities to moralize about the sanctity of human life and to show that I am too smart to overlook any contingency...
...Americans are as vulnerable to this as anyone else...
...It is unfair to paint us all with the same broad brush, or to attribute the failings of a small minority to all of the public school teachers in the country...
...Is there a chance that SOWF could be expanded to include all of the Iraq War orphans, not just the special ops dependents...
...GARREL NICHOLSON Thomasville, North Carolina Ben ordered his father-in-law's brother ('Among the Sane," TAS, November 2005), Bob Denman, a steak...
...Williams, who was rated a "weird duck" in general locally...
...Mormonism certainly meets the definition of a cult: Mormons believe that theirs is the one true church and that all others are false...
...Ben, you are my hero...
...He's always good to read...
...But also words of grace...
...Hoogstra for their breadth of curricular offerings...
...6:2...
...Also, the article mentions, somewhat in passing, yet in a derogatory tone, that some evangelical colleges have programs such as "Africana Studies...
...Williams for some years before I was born, in Rutherford, New Jersey, and always assured me that her former employer had never served on the boards of either Passaic General or St...
...It is by the wisdom of the Founding Fathers that the branches of government were structured so as to mitigate against this human weakness...
...Humans as a species have a great talent for deluding ourselves into thinking something absolutely evil-for example torturing or killing innocent people-serves a higher good...
...However, most colleges I know also are not interested in creating unsafe spaces for their students, even those students who are struggling with issues of homosexuality...
...It is Schemmer not Schimmer by the way...
...I was honestly relieved when, at about age 10 or so, my mother (always a pioneer of sorts) switched me to another friend of hers, the only female physician then in town...
...For many scientists, as for many of the rest of us, how others perceive our character is more important than how they perceive our competence...
...At the November 2004 "Consultation on Human Sexuality" organized by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Calvin College representatives spoke in positive terms of a "safe spaces" sticker campaign...
...ROBERT B. EVANS Stowe, Vermont Grover Norquist, in "The Best and the Brightest," notes that "many evangelical churches still circulate tracts attacking Mormonism...
...By all means, go after the NKA_ Attack the politicians...
...I would be taking a chance on perpetual infamy...
...MARIAN J. BUNDAY Green Bay, Wisconsin Relishing Ben Ben Stein is correct ("Unshared Sacrifice," TAS, October 2005...
...Orphan Care On Jed Babbin's article titled "My Favorite Charity" (TAS, December 2005/January 2006), I offer the following...
...My mother, who was an RN, in fact worked for Dr...
...Frankly, the comment is puzzling to me...
...Either way, we still have al Qaeda and the Islamist terror networks to deal with...
...This reveals the core issue: Calvin deeply affirms the identity of some individuals as "gay persons...
...Slavery is an obvious example...
...At any rate Jed's favorite charity, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, has been added to my charity list along with USO and other veterans' organizations...
...I doubt very much he served as "head of the local hospital" ("The Happy Poet," by James P. Lucier, TAS, October 2005...
...that their leader is a revelator and prophet who speaks in God's name...
...Keep TAS coming at all costs...
...At Calvin we recently added an African and African Diaspora Studies minor, so this aside again hit home for those of us at Calvin who were part of the recent Consultation that led to the article...
...It is an error that pulls away from the Bible, which teaches compassion but does not teach that God designs certain persons to break his laws...
...JOSIAH GRAY Honolulu, Hawaii Safe Space I read with regret and surprise your recent article by Graham Walker 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 CORRESPONDENCE ('When Evangelical Colleges Turn Liberal," TAS, November 2005...
...When Tom Bethell ("Politically Incorrect Science," TAS, November 2005) says, "Step by step, the teachers and their unions learned they could put their own welfare ahead of the students...
...I have voted for only two Democrats in my life (both in local elections...
...I wrote this during my lunch period...
...Denman might have enjoyed it even more if he had used catsup or Worcestershire sauce...
Vol. 39 • February 2006 • No. 1
