Scrapbook

...the Times did not...

...Rather than bow to the union, she is calling for reform beyond black studies departments...

...If this is the New Statesman's attitude towards political violence, how can it profess outrage that its readers are similarly indifferent to the taking of innocent life in far-off Colombia...

...Hollings said White House budget chief Mitch Daniels, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and Securities and Exchange Commission head Harvey Pitt had been on the Enron payroll...

...Forster, and John Maynard Keynes once wrote...

...Then came outburst number two last week...

...He quoted Daniels as insisting Enron "get" $254 million in the economic stimulus bill...

...De Russy, chairman of the SUNY academic standards committee, told Newsday that most black studies departments are "flabby, feel-good programs that carry an anti-American bias"—programs that, over the years, "became therapeutic in nature . . . as opposed to conveying solid scholarship...

...But just a few days later, Mathematica issued a press release (which they first leaked to the Times) saying the gains were premature, because they were concentrated mostly among 6th graders (the study includes grades 3-6...

...Last month, because the general secretary of the Yumbo Municipal Workers' Union had received death threats from a right-wing group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), Thomas decided it was time for tit-for-tat...

...Last month, a group of researchers at Harvard and Mathematica Policy Research released the latest results of their ongoing voucher study, which revealed large test-score gains after three years for black students receiving vouchers in New York...

...Who at the New Statesman decided that Thomas had £4,320 worth of journalism that it wanted to buy...

...First came his comments on February 4, the day Ken Lay took the Fifth before his committee...

...Which gives rise to a couple of questions, like: Why doesn't Thomas go to Yumbo and issue his death threat to the right-wing AUC directly...

...You heard it right...

...But when George W Bush became president, the effort ceased, thanks to economic adviser Larry Lindsey, who had served on an Enron advisory panel...

...And finally, isn't it an amazing coincidence that the magazine Thomas writes for has the same name as the great left-wing magazine for which George Orwell, E.M...

...Wrong again...

...Thatcher suffering a minor stroke, while it didn't have me throwing a hat in the air, definitely did put a spring in my step...

...Fast-forward to last month's release of the year-three results, which showed even greater test-score gains, across all grade levels—thus vindicating the Harvard team, as even the Mathematica folks now admit...

...This barely qualifies as controversial, though it's an opinion rarely voiced by a university trustee...

...Not that you would know this from reading the Times...

...Voucher Vindication The recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the Cleveland school voucher case put vouchers back in the headlines...

...Hollings said President Clinton had tried to combat Osama bin Laden by shutting down off-shore tax havens...

...The Harvard group wrote a letter to the editor explaining the grade-level disparity, but the Times chose not to print it...

...The academic casualties of these programs, she adds, are disadvantaged students who are steered into them out of ethnic solidarity...

...Which is strange, since the Times paid the Harvard study plenty of attention in September 2000 —in order to trash it...

...You don't have to bring me his head or snack on his heart...

...Hollings Rants Again Have you heard about the latest outrageous statements by Fritz Hollings, chairman of the Enron-probing Senate Commerce Committee...

...Poor Thomas, saying all these "controversial" things and still no one seemed to be reading him...

...As for the union's call to dismiss her, de Russy says her biggest detractors— union president William Scheuerman and SUNY-Stony Brook Africana studies chair William McAdoo—should examine black studies programs and prove her wrong...

...After all, he is helping to bankroll the AUC...

...The fact that this served to debunk the voucher movement smack dab in the middle of the presidential campaign was doubtless a coincidence...

...Group identity-based studies have proliferated wildly over the last 30 years, leaving the undergraduate curriculum fragmented and incoherent," she told The Scrap-book...

...That was all Thomas had time for that week, since the rest of his column was taken up with celebrating Margaret Thatcher's recent stroke...

...But don't look for any truth-squadding of Hollings from the media—they're too busy going after Republicans...

...Hollings blamed Bush for the terrorist attacks...

...Probably not, because the media blackout of Hollings's excesses continues...

...The result, according to Hollings: "You had 9/11...

...Candace Quixote When State University of New York trustee Candace de Russy commented on black studies programs to Newsday last month, she represented what she thought was one side of a legitimate academic debate...

...Scrapbook Death Threats from the New Statesman A young man named Mark Thomas has lately been using his column in London's left-wing New Statesman to gripe about the West's indifference to the trade-union movement in Colombia...

...So you'd think the New York Times might take an interest in new research showing the positive effects of vouchers for black students in New York City...

...The Post and Times both ran the story...

...Back then, the Harvard/Mathematica team released the results from the end of year two of the study, showing test-score gains for black students...

...Think again...

...So in the New Statesman's latest issue, he has decided to issue an outright death threat, straight to the top: "Given that Osama Bin Laden has a price on his head and is wanted dead or alive for organising acts of terrorism," Thomas writes, "it seems only fair to offer a bounty to anyone who can kill George Bush...

...USA Today, the Washington Post, and CNN all found this newsworthy...

...Nor is Hollings's potted history of Clinton's anti-bin Laden efforts anything but science fiction...

...Therefore (the syllogism continues), Bush ought to die, and, "if it happened, it should be enough to stop Vice-President Dick Cheney's already weak heart...

...Then they should "thank me for caring about maintaining high intellectual standards at SUNY...

...Of course, investigators have discovered that offshore tax havens were not used by bin Laden in financing the attacks...

...Nothing weird, just kill him and send me your bank details c/o the New Statesman...

...With rare exceptions, not a word of Hollings's novelistic approach to the truth was reported in the mainstream press, including the Washington Post and New York Times...

...Because the United States gives military aid to Colombia, Thomas reasons, George Bush is practically wringing those poor Yumbo-ites' necks with his own hands...

...When it comes to academic rigor, "No field of inquiry, including black studies, is exempt from scrutiny," de Russy says...

...Does the general secretary of the Yumbo Municipal Workers' Union know that these death threats are being issued in his name...

...The Times trumpeted Mathematica's reservations...

...The day she dies, they will be queuing up the Ml to dance on her grave," Thomas wrote...

...Wrong on all counts...

...So my contribution to the war against terrorism is to offer £4,320, my total earnings so far for writing in the New Statesman, to anyone who can bag Bush...

...Within a week, the United University Professions, a SUNY union, was calling for De Russy's ouster...

...A February 9 resolution, approved unanimously by over 250 union delegates, condemned the "ignorance, the bigotry, the intolerance, and the anti-Americanism inherent in Trustee de Russy's public comments...

...Indeed, the gains came close to cutting the black-white test-score gap in half...