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Sunday, April 17, 2016

The Writer's Life 4/17 - It's Academic

In an op-ed piece in today's NY Post, Kyle Smith highlights a new book, Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University by Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn. Many conservative educators keep their political beliefs a secret for fear of retaliation, especially in terms of career aspiration. Here are excerpts from the article, edited and pared by yours truly: "Among the disturbing anecdotes: A study of sociologists found that, given a choice between offering a job to a Republican and a communist, they’d prefer the latter... There are more avowed Marxists than Republicans serving as professors in the United States... After defending the post-9/11 war on terror, a professor discovered a colleague was circulating a leaflet accusing him of training Nazis. His office door was covered with swastikas and yet administrators shrugged: 'I was the nuisance that was bringing it up.'... Academics who sought to do research on reverse discrimination against whites and/or men had more difficulty getting projects approved, often for explicitly political reasons. A typical reaction was this: 'The findings could set Affirmative Action back 20 years if it came out that women were asked to interview more often for managerial positions than men with a stronger vitae.'... A Jewish historian at a state college said that when he advocated political diversity for a panel on reparations, one colleague 'called me a racist while another called me a Nazi.'... A professor who accepted a job in the Bush administration found that colleagues 'I’ve known for years stopped speaking to me.'... A sociologist who had attended Catholic college was 'shocked' by the 'venom' that spewed forth from colleagues whenever he expressed a pro-life sentiment... A political scientist said his free-market ideals offended his colleagues, one of whom chastised him for possession of ideas 'so far outside the parameters of normal discourse that they were disruptive.' Belief in campus discrimination against conservatives is widespread: 81% of conservative professors say they feel it, and even 30% of liberal professors agree that conservatives face a hostile ideological workplace. Only 7% to 11% of faculty members in social sciences and humanities are Republicans, according to surveys. Yet of 536 federal elected officials in Washington, 301 are Republicans. This isn’t a fringe group. It’s America’s leading political party. 31 governors are Republicans against 18 Democrats. While virtually every college and university in America receives federal funding, and many are funded by their states, higher education is unabashedly hostile to conservative thought. Colleges are essentially ignoring the ideological preferences of roughly half of the citizens who so lavishly support them."

And on to fun stuff. Last night Movies!, channel 113 on Cablevision in NYC, ran Ship of Fools (1965), which features an impressive international cast. It was an hour before I realized who played the Captain -- it was Carlos, the dancer in that famous episodes of The Honeymooners, which ran ten years prior to the film. He was born Geza Korvin Karpathi, not in a Latin country but in what is now Slovakia. Professionally, he was known as Charles Korvin. Although he was blacklisted in 1951, he was not ruined. He amassed more than 100 credits and lived into his 90's... Barbara Luna, born in NYC, played a flamenco dancer/prostitute. Her blood has many flavors: Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese and Filipino. Now 77, she is still active, her latest film in post production. She has 106 credits under her name at IMDb, which doesn't count multiple appearances on popular prime time TV series. She will always have a place in the heart of Trekkies for her role in Mirror, Mirror, the fourth episode of season two. She was married only once, for two years, to TV star Doug McClure, the second of his five wives. I doubt she lacked suitors.

My thanks to the young woman who bought a book on memory enhancement, the only sale on this glorious day.
Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc
Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

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