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_discussions.htm). It was a discussion of a novel assigned to all new students for summer reading, Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup. 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.

The Pickup tells the story of an interracial romance in post-apartheid South Africa. Julie, a wealthy, progressive white girl, falls in love with Ibrahim, an illegal immigrant Muslim who fixes cars. When Ibrahim is deported to his unnamed home country, Julie goes with him and "finds herself." 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." Judging by the farcical discussion that ensued, it didn't speak to them very loudly.

An English professor deplores Julie's friends and family members, who are not progressive enough. A law professor who helps illegal immigrants and Muslim-Americans who claim discrimination bemoans inequality between "global haves and have-nots." Students yawn, chat, listen to iPods. More than one's eyes are half closed.

An African American studies professor then asks how many didn't like the book. The room erupts in cheers and a majority raise their hands. Moody-Adams is dismayed.

She opens the floor to student comments. One life sciences student remarks that the "diversity" cause is too fashionable and insinuates that the book's message is superficial. 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. "I don't know if any of you have ever read it," he says to the panel with a smirk--no response. Two black girls say that while the book brought up important issues, it was simply boring.

Given the tenor of this discussion, perhaps we don't have to worry about liberal indoctrination, after all. Moody-Adams said the book would be particularly useful to Cornell students because beginning Cornell is like moving to a new country. THE SCRAPBOOK would have to agree.

Survey Says

"U.S. Losing War on Terror, Experts Say in Survey," reads the headline of an August 21 article from NPR's popular Morning Edition program. As you might imagine, this got THE SCRAPBOOK's attention.

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. Characteristically, NPR describes the Center for American Progress merely as a "Washington think tank."

It gets worse. 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. Among the "more than 100 foreign-policy experts" Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress surveyed? 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. Add to that Democratic fixers like Madeleine Albright, Dan Benjamin, Steve Simon, Joe Cirincione, Tony Lake, Robert Malley, Gary Hart, and Susan Rice. With "experts" like these, who needs partisans?

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. 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. "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. "Is it a government-run system?" 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. 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?" Edwards, in between autographs outside Dan's Pizzeria in Onawa, Iowa, replies, "I watched Sicko," later adding, "It's a great movie." .  .  . Is this a cinematic flip flop? Another hairy situation for the Edwards camp? As they say in the NFL, after further review, ABC News says it may not be so. 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." In the exchange, barely audible over the twang of Willie, Edwards adds, "I didn't quite get to see the end." 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?

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.

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. But director Peter Berg started to worry when he showed his new movie, The Kingdom, to an audience in California farm country. 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 Bateman) 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. Most directors would have started popping the champagne. But Berg was thoroughly freaked. '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. 'I thought, Am I experiencing American bloodlust?' "

-- Entertainment Weekly, August 24, 2007

She Could've Been Worse

"You've got to say this for Leona Helmsley: She had nothing to do with global warming and she never got us into war."

--Gail Collins on the recently deceased "Queen of Mean" Leona Helmsley in the August 21 New York Times

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