Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Healey Hurting Babson

"Babson answers critics over choice of Kerry Healey; Protests roil campus over pick as new president" by Katherine Landergan  |  Globe Correspondent, April 10, 2013

WELLESLEY — Babson College is on the ­defensive over its selection of former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey as its next president, ­after students, faculty, staff, and some alumni raised objections to her qualifications and the process that led to the pick.

The chairman of Babson’s board of trustees held two meetings Friday — one with students, the other with faculty and staff — and delivered a five-page rebuttal to questions over the choice. Healey said that she has met with hundreds of Babson community members, including students, faculty, staff, and trustees, to ­answer questions and gain their trust.

“I haven’t been able to touch everyone yet,” she said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “There are still outstanding questions I need to answer. I plan to answer every question and sit down with every constituency.”

Healey, 52, was named Babson’s next president late last month, a position that would make her the first woman to lead the college. The former Republican officeholder is to succeed Leonard Schlesinger, who announced in December that he would step down from the private, business-oriented school....

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RelatedHealey Will Help Babson 

I was wrong.

"Steinem preaches a message to the privileged" March 26, 2013

It’s hard to believe that for 40 years Gloria Steinem has been preaching a message that privileged women are pathetic victims — and even harder to believe that anyone still takes her seriously (“A message about gender, then and now,” Page A1, March 21).

Especially when you know her life story.

This was especially glaring given the juxtaposition of the front-page article about Steinem with one about single mothers trying to make their way in a world where the economics do not work for them (“Crunch hits single mothers hard”).

I noticed that, too.

Steinem’s feminist views have always seemed to be directed to women complaining about what they should be called, and have been expressed with silly symbols such as “Take Your Daughter to Work Day,” rather than being aimed at the woman who wonders whether she can pay the gas bill and buy groceries with this week’s paycheck.

I do not know where Steinem has been over the last 40 years, but in my world and those of many of the rest of us, there is no descriptive adjective for “woman” doctors any more than a woman poet is dubbed a poetess. We have to move the focus past Steinem, Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer and others endowed with manifold means and support women just struggling to get by. 

Agreed.

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Straight from the horse's mou.... well, actually, it's the other end, isn't it?

And speaking of horse faces (with all apologies to horses):

"Margaret Thatcher’s death unleashes division again; Opponents gather at site of protests in ’80s" by Alan Cowell  |  New York Times, April 10, 2013

LONDON — With broadcasters, columnists, and editorialists absorbed in chronicling Margaret Thatcher’s life, times, and demise, Britons on Tuesday mulled the ideological divide that her critics and even some of her admirers depicted as deepening during her years as Britain’s only female prime minister.

While many former and serving politicians seemed to form lines to offer their reaction to her death of a stroke at age 87 on Monday, and radio shows were filled with recordings of her best-known utterances, some isolated protests broke out overnight Monday in London, Bristol, and Glasgow reflecting the same social schism between haves and have-nots that characterized the debate over her legacy.

Hundreds of her opponents gathered at the site of violent protests against her policies in the 1980s, with a small crowd in Brixton, in south London — where anti-Thatcher riots broke out in 1981 — chanting ‘‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie — Dead, Dead, Dead.’’

The gathering harked back the early days of the Thatcher era when joblessness soared as faltering industries were denied subsidies and a record 10,000 businesses went bankrupt. ‘‘Things will get worse before they get better,’’ she said at the time, depicting the economic malaise as a legacy of left-wing rule. Thatcher later recalled 1981 as the worst of her 11 years in office, with riots in Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol as well as Brixton.

At what was billed as a celebratory street party in the city of Bristol overnight Monday, around 200 people clashed with police officers trying to disperse them early Tuesday, police said, and six officers were injured in scuffles. One officer remained in the hospital Tuesday and one partygoer was arrested for violent disorder.

‘'We can’t deny,’’ Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday, ‘‘that Lady Thatcher divided opinion.’’ But some of those who castigated her as divisive also paid grudging respect to her stature.

The venom of the protests recalled policies encouraging private business and crushing labor union power that her admirers depicted Tuesday as liberating the economy from years in the doldrums and that her foes characterized as ruinous for the poor.

Obviously these protests did not meet approval with the agenda-pushing, elitist propaganda sheet I call a newspaper.

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Related: Democracy’s champion

Iron Lady Smelted

Another British b****:

"UK police aide, 17, resigns over tweets" by Cassandra Vinograd  |  Associated Press, April 10, 2013

LONDON — She was hired to teach local police about British youth, but it was 17-year-old Paris Brown who said she learned a lesson after her scandalous tweets about drugs, drinking, and sex hit the tabloids.

I see not much has changed with the British press despite the hacking scandal.

The Twitter postings sparked a furor, questions over why a teen would be named a crime official, and calls for Brown’s resignation.

My first thought was someone was bedding her.

The latter she gave Tuesday, along with an apology, a week after her appointment to the $22,800-a-year role as Britain’s first youth crime commissioner. 

I'd say she got the job via Savile, but he's dead now.

Brown’s brief stint in the job ended after British media on Saturday flagged tweets — mostly posted before she was named to the position — that saw the teen using gay slurs and racist terms.

Good to see tose British investigative reporters ferreting out important stories.

‘‘Been drinking since half 1 (sic) and riding baby walkers down the hall at work oh my god i have the best job ever haha,’’ read one tweet. Another referenced a desire to make ‘‘hash brownies,’’ while separate messages saw Brown describing herself as racist when intoxicated.

After resisting calls to quit, Brown said Tuesday that she was giving up the gig, which was designed as a way to build bridges between young people and police in Kent County. The teen said the recent media attention would hamper her ability to perform the job.

Oh, it was a "gig," was it?

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Yeah, I suppose it is all entertainment and the like if you go by Weiss's wisdom.

Also see: British Babies

UPDATE:  

Didn't make my printed paper.

"Karl Rove draws protest at UMass

A speech by Republican strategist Karl Rove at the University of Massachusetts Amherst attracted dozens of protesters Tuesday night. The Springfield Republican reported that protesters began shouting insults and allegations, including that Rove was responsible for deaths in the Iraq war, shortly after Rove began a 30-minute speech. Hundreds of students turned out to hear him. The chief strategist of President George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns and his deputy chief of staff was invited by the university’s Republican Club in conjunction with the Smith College Republican Club. UMass student and Republican Club president David Kaufman called Rove an ‘‘important, intelligent, and influential’’ figure in American politics."

Yes, he is a war criminal (as well as a criminal leaker of a CIA agent's name), so why didn't some local town cop or sheriff arrest him?

RelatedSunday Globe Special: Rove's Recalibration