Freshman orientation, Leona Helmsley, etc.
The Life of the Ivy League Mind One of The Scrapbook's undergraduate friends pointed us to an amusing webcast from a Cornell freshman orientation event—or perhaps that should be indoctrination...
...Add to that Democratic fixers like Madeleine Albright, Dan Benjamin, Steve Simon, Joe Cirincione, Tony Lake, Robert Malley, Gary Hart, and Susan Rice...
...The View from Hollywood Not a parody: "Of all the things that fill a filmmaker with dread, huge applause at the end of a test screening isn't usually one of them...
...Candidates should address a cover letter and resume to hr@weeklystandard.com...
...Among the "more than 100 foreign-policy experts" Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress surveyed...
...The survey was conducted by the folks at Foreign Policy magazine and the lefty Center for American Progress, a holding pen for Clinton administration wonks that supports American withdrawal from Iraq...
...Losing War on Terror, V.^ Experts Say in Survey," reads the headline of an August 21 article from NPR's popular Morning Edition program...
...But director Peter Berg started to worry when he showed his new movie, The Kingdom, to an audience in California farm country...
...Julie, a wealthy, progressive white girl, falls in love with Ibrahim, an illegal immigrant Muslim who fixes cars...
...Students yawn, chat, listen to iPods...
...Vice Provost Michele Moody-Adams explained that this book will "speak to the . . . contemporary experience of our incoming students who are thinking about sort of how to find themselves in college...
...With the help of our able colleagues at ABC News Radio, we isolated the audio, enhancing it to hear a key phrase that Edwards says between his claim of seeing Sicko and proclaiming it "a great movie...
...A shaggy-haired, well-spoken white boy says he was disappointed in The Pickup and thinks it was trivial compared with other books the administration could have chosen, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, a survey of events leading to WWI...
...About two hours into the high-voltage political thriller—about a group of FBI operatives (played by Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bate-man) investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia—the packed house went completely bonkers, erupting in cheers when the Americans gun down a group of jihadists...
...Moody-Adams is dismayed...
...Survey Says . . . CCT T.S...
...Gail Collins on the recently deceased "Queen of Mean" Leona Helmsley in the August 21 New York Times Help Wanted The Weekly Standard has a fulltime position available for an editorial assistant...
...Moody-Adams said the book would be particularly useful to Cornell students because beginning Cornell is like moving to a new country...
...The purpose of the assignment, according to Cornell's website, was to stress "the intellectual benefits of reading" to incoming freshmen at the Ivy League institution...
...While not a silver bullet, the exchange begs the question: does one really need to see the end of Sicko to know that communist Cuba provides government-run healthcare...
...It gets worse...
...But Berg was thoroughly freaked...
...Characteristically, NPR describes the Center for American Progress merely as a "Washington think tank...
...More than one's eyes are half closed...
...An African American studies professor then asks how many didn't like the book...
...The Pickup tells the story of an interracial romance in post-apartheid South Africa...
...She opens the floor to student comments...
...The Scrapbook, for its part, is confident John Edwards will reject Castro's health care system—the instant he learns that you can't sue doctors in Cuba...
...I thought, Am I experiencing American bloodlust?' " —Entertainment Weekly, August 24, 2007 She Could've Been Worse CC\7"ou've got to say this for Leona X Helmsley: She had nothing to do with global warming and she never got us into war...
...Judging by the farcical discussion that ensued, it didn't speak to them very loudly...
...As they say in the NFL, after further review, ABC News says it may not be so...
...John Edwards's Cuba Ignorance The latest installment of "If Bush had said it . . . " comes courtesy of John Edwards, Democratic presidential hopeful and staunch advocate of universal health care...
...The room erupts in cheers and a majority raise their hands...
...Is it a government-run system...
...The list was clearly tilted to the left of the political spectrum, which meant the views of participants James Woolsey, Aaron Friedberg, and Weekly Standard contributing editor Robert Kagan were drowned out in a sea of anti-Bush opinion...
...Two black girls say that while the book brought up important issues, it was simply boring...
...The Life of the Ivy League Mind One of The Scrapbook's undergraduate friends pointed us to an amusing webcast from a Cornell freshman orientation event—or perhaps that should be indoctrination event (viewable at reading.cornell.edu/panel_discus-sions.htm...
...One life sciences student remarks that the "diversity" cause is too fashionable and insinuates that the book's message is superficial...
...I was nervous it would be perceived as a jingoistic piece of propaganda, which I certainly didn't intend,' says the actor-turned-director, hunched over an outdoor table at a shabby Santa Monica coffeehouse...
...In the exchange, barely audible over the twang of Willie, Edwards adds, "I didn't quite get to see the end...
...Edwards, in between autographs outside Dan's Pizzeria in Onawa, Iowa, replies, "I watched Sicko," later adding, "It's a great movie...
...As Willie Nelson's classic "On the Road Again" blared, Edwards leaned out of a window of his campaign bus dubbed "Fighting for One America," to hear an off-camera voice howl, "I wanted to ask ya, is it required that everyone go see Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko...
...Is this a cinematic flip flop...
...A law professor who helps illegal immigrants and Muslim-Americans who claim discrimination bemoans inequality between "global haves and have-nots...
...Given the tenor of this discussion, perhaps we don't have to worry about liberal indoctrination, after all...
...Most directors would have started popping the champagne...
...With "experts" like these, who needs partisans...
...Noted Iraq war opponents such as Richard Clarke, Larry Johnson, Larry Korb, Mary McCarthy, William Odom, Paul Pillar, Shibley Telhami, Stephen Walt, and Michael Scheuer...
...It was a discussion of a novel assigned to all new students for summer reading, Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup...
...I don't know if any of you have ever read it," he says to the panel with a smirk—no response...
...Duties will include answering phones and emails, updating our website, research, and proofreading...
...As reported by Rick Klein on the ABC News "Political Radar" blog earlier this month: When an Iowa resident asked former senator John Edwards Thursday whether the United States should follow the Cuban healthcare model, the 2004 vice presidential contender deflected the question by saying he didn't know enough to answer the question...
...As you might imagine, this got The Scrapbook's attention...
...But just three days earlier, the candidate was asked a question about the Michael Moore documentary Sicko—which focuses extensively on the Cuban healthcare system...
...When Ibrahim is deported to his unnamed home country, Julie goes with him and "finds herself...
...I'm going to be honest with you—I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system," Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa...
...An English professor deplores Julie's friends and family members, who are not progressive enough...
...The Scrapbook would have to agree...
...Another hairy situation for the Edwards camp...
Vol. 12 • September 2007 • No. 47
