Rabbi Moshe Cotel

In today's New York Times, there is a moving obituary of Rabbi Moshe Cotel, whom I met when I belonged to the West Side Minyan (an independent minyan that is part of congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) in the late 1990s. I never got to know him very well, but his fierce dedication to Judaism was apparent when he led services or gave a d'var Torah.

He was a well-known composer who taught at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University for many years. Many of his compositions were on Jewish themes - and I would love to find them and listen to them now. Those listed in the obituary include "Deronda," an opera based on George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda, "The Fire and the Mountains," which commemorates the Holocaust, and "Night of the Murdered Poets," about poets and intellectuals murdered by Stalin in 1952. He also wrote an opera on the Dreyfus Affair, which apparently led to his return to Judaism.

There is one cute story involving a cat in the obituary. In 1996, while he was playing the "Well-Tempered Clavier," his cat, Ketzel, pounced on the keyboard, and he "grabbed a pencil and inscribed a descending paw pattern from treble to bass." This work he named "Piece for Piano - Four Paws," and he later wrote a longer composition based on the original piece, which was only one-minute long. This longer composition was named "Mews' Muse."

Another account of his life appears at his website - Bio.

Jews and "warning signs"

The Forward has provided the full text of the e-mail that the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee sent to 75,000 Jewish voters in the state. It emphasizes the attacks and smears that have spread about Obama which would most raise Jewish voters fears:

Dear Fellow Jewish Voter: In the 5,769 years of our people, there has never been a more important time for us to take pro-active measures in order to stop a second Holocaust. Israel faces immeasurable threats from its neighbors, most especially Iran. The global community and the United Nations are strongly influenced by many Muslim nations and have therefore turned their backs to Israel and the Jewish community. We did not write this letter to scare you, but rather, to help you make an informed decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. When voters elect a new President in less about two weeks, it is imperative that the Jewish community elects the one man who understands the challenges facing Israel and the Jewish people—John McCain. John McCain has always been a friend to Israel and the Jewish people and as leaders of the community throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we want to remind you of the importance of your vote to the future of our Jewish homeland. John McCain has never wavered on the need to keep Jerusalem the capital of a Jewish Israel. He has even vowed to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

More importantly, John McCain understands that radical members of the Islamic faith from Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups seek to do us harm no matter how we try to appease them. He will not cave into the pressures to divide OUR homeland as a result of threats from people whose agenda is deleterious to the fate our people. John McCain is an American hero who has selflessly served the United States since he was 18 years old. America and Israel need John McCain as President of the United States NOW MORE THAN EVER. What do we really know about Barack Obama?

He has served in the Illinois legislature before joining the U.S. Senate in 2006 having sponsored no meaningful legislation in either body.

· Prior to beginning his legislative career, he served as a corporate lawyer and community activist.
· During his days of community activism, he taught members of ACORN to commit voter registration fraud.
· He associated with a known terrorist, William Ayers, who thought the terrorists didn’t do enough on 9/11. Later, Obama used Ayers’ home to launch his Senate campaign, but referred to Ayers as “just a guy in the neighborhood”. If a known terrorist lived in your neighborhood, would he just be a “guy in your neighborhood” or would you be calling the FBI to have him removed?

This is a ridiculous charge. Ayers did not say that the terrorists didn't do enough on 9/11. In the interview with him published in the September 11, 2001 edition of the New York Times, he was referring to what he and his comrades in the Weathermen had done while they were planting bombs to protest the Vietnam War. And the meeting in Ayers' house did not "launch" his Senate campaign - it was one of several local meetings held with people in Hyde Park when Obama was running for the Illinois legislature in 1995.

For 20 years, Obama and his wife attended the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright who called Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan “one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century.” (National Press Club Speech, 4/28/08)
· Farrakhan said Obama is the “hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better.” (Associated Press, 2/25/08)

Obama, as we know, has severed his relations with Wright and has publicly denounced anti-semitism - see the speech he made on Martin Luther King Day this year.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says: Israel is “a stinking corpse” and should be “wiped off the face of the earth.” (The Jerusalem Post, 5/8/08)

Ahmadinejad says: “The real Holocaust is what is happening in Palestine where the Zionists avail themselves of the fairy tale of Holocaust as blackmail and justification for killing children and women.” (The Jerusalem Post, 5/22/06)

Obama says: HAMAS and Hezbollah have “legitimate claims.” (David Brooks, Op-Ed, “Obama Admires Bush,” The New York Times, 5/16/08)

Obama says: “I would” when asked if he would be willing to meet separately, without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. (CNN/YouTube Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Charleston, SC, 7/23/07) The World on Obama

The Wall Street Journal said Barack Obama’s foreign policy “could strengthen Mr. Ahmadinejad.” (Jay Solomon, “Obama’s Foreign-Policy Pledge Sparks Criticism from Rivals,” Wall Street Journal, 3/26/08)

“We don’t mind - actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election…” HAMAS Political Advisor Ahmed Yousef (Mosheh Oinounou, “A Hamas Problem For Obama?” Fox News’ “Cameron’s Corner," 4/16/08)

Of course, Obama did not solicit this endorsement! If we're going to bring up this pseudo-endorsement, how about the statement made on an Islamist website that Al Qaeda wants McCain elected? Does that mean that McCain supports Al Qaeda? Of course not!

“The four years ahead are far too critical for global security to place the presidency of the United States in the hands of a leader whose campaign is leaving us with more questions than answers.” (Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon, Op-Ed, “Who Are You, Barack Obama?” The Jerusalem Post, 1/23/08)

Jesse Jackson said of Barack Obama’s foreign policy, “Jackson believes that, although ‘Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades’ remain strong, they’ll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.” (Amir Taheri, Op-Ed, “The O Jesse Knows,” New York Post, 10/14/08)

This is an article from the same man - Amir Taheri - who brought us the false charge that the Iranian regime was planning to force Jews to wear a yellow badge to identify them. Anything he says should be read with the greatest skepticism.

Do you really think that the Jewish community’s interests could be in line with that of William Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farrakhan? Do you really think that Barack Obama has shown proper judgment by associating with such individuals? Can America, Israel and the Jewish Community really rely on someone as dangerously inexperienced as Barack Obama? NO! Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008. Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let’s not make a similar one this year! As leaders of Pennsylvania’s Jewish Community, we strongly URGE you to VOTE for John McCain for President of the United States—a true friend of Israel and the Jewish Community. Thank you.

Sincerely yours, I. Michael Coslov Mitchell Morgan The Honorable Sandra Schultz Newman
Paid for by Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008

Of course, the most offensive line is saved for the last - that if we vote for Barack Obama, it's the same as our ancestors who made a "tragic mistake" in the 30s and 40s by ignoring the "warning signs." Not only is this an outrageous smear on Obama, it is offensively blaming Jews who died in the Holocaust for their own deaths, because they ignored the "warning signs." Unfortunately, many of those Jews who did see the warning signs were not able to leave Europe and gain refuge in the United States and other countries because we closed our borders to more than a trickle of Jewish refugees.

Academics support Bill Ayers

There are plenty of issues currently more important than whether Barack Obama was close to Bill Ayers - for example, the current meltdown of our economic system - but this minor issue has come to the fore due to the vile efforts instigated by Sarah Palin and John McCain to tar Obama with the terrorist brush..

Obama knew Ayers and worked with him in Chicago on educational issues. But he was not a close friend of his, and he's already denounced Ayers' terrorist past.

Now, some academics, with the perfect instinct for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, have set up a web site to defend Ayers - Suppport4 Bill Ayers - gathering signatures on a petition to support him for all the work he's done in the past twenty years in education. I could understand why colleagues and those who have used his research might want to support him, except for the fact that the petition engages in egregious whitewashing of Ayers' record during his Weathermen days.

The current characterizations of Professor Ayers - “unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist” - are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans. His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution - including publishing 16 books - to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of “exposés” and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue. Like crusades against high school and elementary teachers, and faculty at UCLA, Columbia, DePaul, and the University of Colorado, the attacks on and the character assassination of Ayers threaten the university as a space of open inquiry and debate, and threaten schools as places of compassion, imagination, curiosity, and free thought. They serve as warnings that anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target, and this, then, casts a chill over free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy.

Italics mine. Ayers did not just "participate passionately" in the civil rights and antiwar movements - he joined the lunatic fringe of the antiwar left, the Weathermen, which committed terrorist acts which could very well have killed innocent people. They did manage to accidentally kill three of their own members in the Greenwich Village townhouse where they were making bombs.

And Bill Ayers never repented of his actions, and in fact has said in his own memoir of those days (Fugitive Days) that ''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.''

I don't know if he is a "lunatic leftist," but he certainly never repented of, never renounced, never criticized his own violent actions or the violent actions of his fellow Weathermen. Academics and intellectuals who sign this petition in his defense gloss over his original actions, and his self-justifications and obfuscations. They are guilty of intellectual dishonesty by ignoring the blatant evasion of the truth in this petition. People whom I respect have signed this petition - and I simply don't understand how they could lend their names to this dubious and dishonest project.

I am not sure, but I would wager that the reference to "crusade" at the University of Colorado points to another dubious case that some on the left have taken up - the defense of Ward Churchill. Ward Churchill lost his job for plagiarism - which was finally proven - not for his offensive political opinions.

The attacks of Sarah Palin and John McCain against Barack Obama are vile - but they are not correctly refuted by calling for support of a man who, in truth, never repented of his earlier terrorist actions.

Tikkun magazine publishes vicious anti-semite Israel Shamir

The Engage website has just reported that Tikkun magazine published an article this summer by Israel Shamir, the notorious anti-semite (article on Searchlight), on the the first bulldozer attack this summer in Israel, in which a Palestinian attacker killed three people.

With this paragraph, Michael Lerner justified his publication of a vicious anti-semite:

[Editor's note: Like most of what Israel Shamir writes about Israel, this article reflects a perspective that has far too little sympathy for the fate of those killed and wounded when the Palestinian named Hosam charged his huge tractor into a bus in the center of Jerusalem. We publish it here nevertheless because of our commitment to provide our readers with perspectives that they are unlikely to hear in the mainstream media and which present ideas with which we must grapple. In this case, the attempt to humanize the Palestinian is part of our discourse--a Tikkun commitment to see the spirit of God in every human being, even those who do hurtful or muderous acts. We only wish Shamir could do the same thing for Israelis as he does so well here for Palestinians. And his hatred of Judaism itself might have been grounds to simply dismiss the article, except that it represents a growing sentiment among many Israeli secularists.]

Hatred of Judaism? How about hatred of Jews? How about rank anti-semitism? Read the Searchlight article I link to learn who Israel Shamir is and what he has done.

This is also a terrible libel of secular Jewish Israelis - who like other Israelis, saw the attack in July as a terrorist attack aimed at innocent civilians, both Jewish and Arab. If secular Israelis have arguments with religious Israeli Jews (and they do) it does not lead them to the vicious Jew hatred of an Israel Shamir.

Another thing - Shamir quotes another vicious anti-semite, Gilad Atzmon, to support his case. Read about Atzmon in Harry's Place - Legacy of Atzmon.

Is this who Tikkun wants to be associating with now? Is this what they've fallen to?

Remembering September 11, 2001

This photograph is from today's New York Times, in an Dress Rehearsal in Light article about the Tribute in Light, which has been projected every year since 2001 - beams of light in the place that the World Trade Center towers used to stand.

To see 360" panoramas of previous years Tribute in Light, go to this page. There are some amazing images of the lights rising in the sky and meeting far above.

"The fish stinks from the head" revisited

I wrote about this proverb once before, but I just found an interesting reference to it in an article by David M. Bunish, "Judeo-Spanish Culture in Medieval and Modern Times," p. 65 of Zion Zohar, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry. In the section of the article dealing with spoken genres of Sephardic culture in the eastern Mediterranean, he writes that "Today Westerners tend to shy away from the use of proverbs (riflanes) and sayings (dichas), seeing them as being trite or passe. Judezmo speakers, on the other hand, used them generously in both speech and writing. Just as 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' a proverb was felt to express succinctly what might otherwise require whole paragraphs of ordinary prose." Judezmo was the spoken language of Sephardim (the word means "Jewish"), while Ladino was the literary language.

About "the fish stinks from the head," he writes, "Other Judezmo proverbs corresponded to sayings used in other cultures of the region, e.g., De la kavesa fyede el pishkado "The fish stinks from the head" (i.e., where there is corruption, it inevitably starts at the top), variants of which are used among the Turks, Arabs, and other Mediterranean peoples."

I would guess that the expression entered Hebrew via Judezmo, or perhaps Arabic, and it has become a very handy saying in denouncing political corruption in Israel.

Jews for Jesus speech at Palin's church

Steven Waldman at Beliefnet has posted the complete text of David Brickner's speech at Palin's church. (Brickner is the executive director of Jews for Jesus).

Photos of Western Wall

And now, down from the Temple Mount, a couple of photos of the Western Wall - first the women's side (which you'll notice is much smaller than the men's) and then the men's side.

From Old City of Jerusalem

From Old City of Jerusalem

Another Temple Mount Image

From Temple Mount Summer 2007

I thought it might be nice to show another image of the Temple Mount. This is a view of the Dome of the Rock from the bottom of the steps that lead up to it.

Searches - Ayers, Cats, Temple Mount

It's always interesting to see how people get to this blog. One of the most consistent searches that ends up here is for Bernardine Dohrn and/or Bill Ayers. Another perennial favorite is my post on cats in the Bible. Another one is my photos of the Temple Mount.

So, for those interested in Bill Ayers - here are all the posts: Bill Ayers.

For those interested in Bernardine Dohrn - Bernardine Dohrn.

Cats in the Bible - Cats & Bible.

Or, on the other hand, just cats: Cats. Although you will find a truly random selection of posts in which the word appears, not only those centered on cats. Also photos of my cat, Zachary.

As for the Temple Mount - click here and you'll find all of my posts that mention it, including some photographs. If you'd like to see all my photos of the Temple Mount that are online, go to Picasa - Temple Mount Summer 2007. I didn't manage to visit the Temple Mount this summer, however.

Palin's church and Jews for Jesus

Ben Smith of Politico reports on the many reasons that Jewish voters may be wary of Palin. The reason that repels me the most is that her church recently hosted one of the leaders of Jews for Jesus, who gave a sermon that expressed classic Christian, anti-Judaic, supersessionist theology.

An illustration of that gap came just two weeks ago, when Palin’s church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with deep hostility by many Jewish organizations: David Brickner, the founder of Jews for Jesus.

Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, introduced Brickner on Aug. 17, according to a transcript of the sermon on the church’s website.

“He’s a leader of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that is out on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism,” Kroon said.

Brickner then explained that Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jewish.

“The Jewish community, in particular, has a difficult time understanding this reality,” he said.

Brickner’s mission has drawn wide criticism from the organized Jewish community, and the Anti-Defamation League accused them in a report of “targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception.”

Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity.

"Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's very real. When [Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment — you can't miss it."

Palin was in church that day, Kroon said, though he cautioned against attributing Brickner’s views to her.

Ugh - it was God's judgment on Jews for not believing in Jesus that led to the deaths of people this summer from Palestinian terrorist attacks?

If Obama endured months of attacks for his membership in his church in Chicago and had to publicly dissociate himself from it, I think that Palin should also be asked what her views are on theology like this, and whether this theology has affected her thinking on Jews and Israel.

Teaching in difficult times

I'm sitting here listening to CNN's coverage of Gustav, and also reading a website from UC Berkeley about how to improve one's teaching. They have a useful page on Teaching in Difficult Times, which was originally developed for teachers thinking about what to do after the 9/11 attacks.

From the same website is another interesting page on sensitive topics in the classroom.

Are Jews a People?

An interesting discussion by Flesh is Grass, sparked by the boycott Israel campaign in Britain. She points to a lecture by Michael Walzer on this topic: Michael Walzer. (Clicking on this brings you directly to the audio file).

More on Gustav

My friend Ben Greenberg has an excellent post at Hungry Blues on approaching Gustav and the threat not only to Louisiana and New Orleans but also to the whole Mississippi coast, which was utterly devastated by Katrina.

Getting Real About Palin

More on Sarah Palin's pressuring the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner to fire her brother-in-law. Josh Marshall writes:

The Palin family had a feud with Wooten prior to her becoming governor. They put together a list of 14 accusations which they took to the state police to investigate -- a list that ranged from the quite serious to the truly absurd. The state police did an investigation, decided that 5 of the charges had some merit and suspended Wooten for ten days -- a suspension later reduced to five days. The Palin's weren't satisfied but there wasn't much they could do.

When Palin became governor they went for another bite at the apple. Palin, her husband and several members of her staff began pressuring Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan -- a respected former Chief of the Anchorage police department -- to can Wooten. Monegan resisted, arguing that the official process regarding Wooten was closed. And there was nothing more that could be done. In fact, during one of the conversations in which Palin's husband Todd was putting on the squeeze, Monegan told Todd Palin, "You can't head hunt like this. What you need to do is back off, because if the trooper does make a mistake, and it is a terminable offense, it can look like political interference."

Eventually, Palin got fed up and fired Monegan from his job. (Palin claims, not credibly, that she fired Monegan over general differences in law enforcement priorities.) This is an important point. Wooten never got fired. To the best of my knowledge, he's is still on the job. The central bad act was firing the state's top police official because he refused to bend to political pressure from the governor and her family to fire a public employee against whom the governor was pursuing a vendetta -- whether the vendetta was justified or not.

Even if Wooten (the brother-in-law) did everything that Palin's family accuses him of, her actions - pressuring the Public Safety Commissioner to fire her brother-in-law, then firing him because he wasn't willing to fire the man - are an abuse of power. Is this someone we want, as they say, "a heartbeat away from the presidency"? And secondly, what is wrong with McCain and his campaign operation that they didn't take account of this story when she was being considered as a candidate?

The mother of all storms

So now Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered an evacuation of New Orleans New Orleans, saying "I must tell you, this is the mother of all storms."

I think about this phrase, "the mother of all ___" every now and then, because my memory is that Saddam Hussein introduced this phrase into English before the Gulf War in 1991 when he threatened that if the U.S. coalition attacked Iraq, it would be the "mother of all wars." It's interesting that the phrase has been so naturalized into English that it can be used for anything really big. I wonder how many people who use the phrase remember its origin.

So how long will Sarah Palin be McCain's running mate?

I think the thing that most surprises me about McCain's choice for V.P. is not her inexperience, or the transparent ploy of picking a woman on the presumption that other women only vote on the basis of who has ovaries, or her very right-wing politics (that's not surprising at all, that's his attempt to get the right-wing evangelical voters on his side) - but the fact that there is a scandal brewing about her in Alaska. I was under the impression that the campaigns did their best to carefully vet V.P. candidates so that they don't have any surprises about the person before Election Day. Anyone remember Thomas Eagleton? At least no one knew about his problems before he was nominated. Palin's ethics problems are being covered by TPM Muckraker in this very interesting story:

The scandal began on July 11, when Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was removed from his post with little explanation, a move whose abruptness quickly raised questions in Alaska. A few days later, Monegan decided to blow the whistle, and came forward to tell local media that he had been dismissed because he refused to fire trooper Mike Wooten, the ex-husband of Palin's sister, after having been pressured to do so by aides to Palin. (Monegan's replacement, former Kenai Chief of Police Chuck Kopp was only lasted two weeks on the job once past complaints of sexual harassment from 2005 were publicized.)

Critics pointed out that the effort to fire the trooper might have been directly related to the fact that Palin's family had a longstanding grievances with Wooten. In an internal state police investigation in 2005, Palin herself had accused Wooten of threatening to harm her father during the breakup of her sister's marriage. (The Palins claimed, among other things, that Wooten had used a taser on his 10-year-old stepson, and shot a moose without a permit.)

Since Monegan made his allegations, Palin has denied that she personally had a role in the effort to fire Wooten. On July 28, the state legislative council, a bipartisan panel of senators and representatives, appointed a special commission to probe the matter.

Her backtrack on her office's role was prompted by the preliminary findings of a separate ongoing investigation into the matter by the state Attorney General, launched on August 4, that she herself put into motion. At a press conference at which Palin revealed some of that investigation's finding, she acknowledged that in February, state troopers had taped a phone call from Frank Bailey, Palin's director of boards and commissions, whom she appointed in August 2007, in which Bailey appeared to push for the firing of Wooten on Palin's behalf.

In the call, Bailey appeared to say that Palin and her husband were frustrated that Wooten still had his job. "The Palins can't figure out why nothing's going on," Bailey said in the recorded phone call. "Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads ... 'Why is this guy representing the department, he's a horrible recruiting tool.' You know? So from their perspective everybody's protecting him."

The investigation could be particularly poorly timed for the GOP. Steve Branchflower, a former state prosecutor who is conducting the investigation, has a three-month contract for his work, which started August 1, and will end October 31, according to Alaska State Senate Judiciary Committee chair, Hollis French (D), who is overseeing the probe. French told TPMmuckraker that he expects Branchflower to release his report in the days before the November 4th presidential election.

A spokeswoman for Palin told TPMmuckraker that the governor's office would be fully cooperating with Branchflower.

Palin won the governor's office in 2006 as a squeaky clean reformer. "She portrayed herself as an open-government, ethical person," Rep. Mike Doogan, a Democratic state lawmaker, told TPMmuckraker. "You can see the obvious problem." He added: "These things don't help her [politically]."

And they may not help John McCain either.

(ed.note: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that the state legislature was in Democratic hands and ordered the probe of Monegan's firing. In fact, the senate is under the control of a coalition of Democratic and dissident Republican lawmakers and the House of Republicans. The state legislative council, which ordered the probe, is a bipartisan panel made up of members of both bodies.)

And this woman might be next in line to the presidency?!

Gustav in Cuba

And this is what Gustav just did to Cuba:

Gustav slammed into Cuba's tobacco-growing western tip as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane Saturday while both Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the storm as it roared toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

Forecasters said Gustav was just short of becoming a top-scale Category 5 hurricane as it hit Cuba's mainland after passing over its Isla de la Juventud province, where shrieking 150 mph (240 kph) winds toppled telephone poles, mango and almond trees and peeled back the tin roofs of homes.

It's happening again in New Orleans

Many in New Orleans Flee as Storm Grows

Hurricane Gustav grew significantly in intensity as it approached the Louisiana coast on Saturday, and officials issued increasingly urgent pleas for everyone to leave New Orleans....

City officials said if the threat worsened, as anticipated, they would to issue a mandatory evacuation order beginning Sunday morning, the first since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city three years ago.

Scary - they want everyone to leave. I hope it all works out better than it did three years ago, when anyone who watched CNN had a better idea of what was going on than President Bush.

Presidents' letter against UCU boycott call?

I've been following the recent discussions on Harry's Place and Engage about the arguments on the UCU activists' list with interest. And I've started to wonder what response there was to the UCU's renewed boycott call. Was there another call by U.S. university and college presidents to denounce the UCU motion? I don't remember that there was. (This is relevant to something I'm working on now). If any of my (not so numerous) readers know the answer to this, please let me know.