Early disclaimer: I was suffering from a combination of allergies and allergy medication when I wrote this/Fogive me if it goes astray
Firstly, I could not hope to write a more thorough report of the evening's presentation than the one provided by Dr. Wharton at A Little Urbanity.
I'll freely admit: There was only one reason why I went to this presentation. I had already seen Dr. Adams on a C-SPAN "Book Talk" episode or some-such close to a year ago, where he was probably presenting (ie. shilling his book) at some ivy league law school. Just when I was about to change the channel, having rolled my eyes enough to cause one of those base-of-the-brain headaches, he started fielding questions from the audience and my interest was piqued once again when he proclaimed my degree was pretty much worthless. "Any university department with a something-'studies' as its title" was extraneous to Dr. Adams. (Of course I'm paraphrasing. This was a show I watched about a year ago, don't count on me to get the quotes perfectly correct.)
So I already knew what to expect from Dr. Adams, he was only partially what drew me out last night. The only reason why I went out last night was to get his take on a certain Carolinian columnist who annoyingly and consistently reports hearsay.
Dr. Adams talked a lot about courage and student bravery. There is nothing brave in what Lil'Anne does in the Carolinian. Dr. Adams set an example by having the cajones to drop names "on record" and incriminate offending university administrators and professors. Melissa has no such spine. Her columns amount to sorority girl gossip ("Well Kathy told me Jonathan knows this guy, Paul, who was in this class four years ago where this liberal guy went up and said--"...you get the idea.) and she is doing her "cause" a grave disservice. Irresponsibly reporting the actions in anthropology classes she doesn't even attend amounts to "crying wolf"; if she really wants to dress herself up as the Champion Against Liberal Bias she should find a more constructive way to expose the "problem".
Anyway, back to a review of the event: I suffered through Dr. Adams' puns and not-terribly humorous anecdotes. Maybe it's these allergies, maybe it's the fact that I went there for only one reason; either way, I wasn't really in the mood to be entertained. I was glad to hear Dr. Adams' story about him challenging a like-minded conservative on free speech issues. He declared censorship, whether it came from liberals or conservatives, was an evil that should be fought by all people who call themselves "true Americans". Three cheers for Dr. Adams on that one.
When we went to questions we got an obligatory "Listen to this awful thing my professor is making me do" story that I have zero sympathy for. It's called Dropping the Class, bud! You had several weeks to bail out beforehand. I waited respectfully and then had a chance to ask my questions about columnists reporting on events based on second-hand information. He addressed it like a Criminal Justice professor would: "Oh, you gotta watch out to make sure you got your facts straight on that." So, as far as I'm concerned, message sent. As two letters to the editor reveal, Melissa did not get her facts straight on her column. Melissa brought this guy to campus. It was a joy to hear her guest basically say she wasn't really doing a bang-up job as a Carolinian columnist.
I got a sly chuckle out of Dr. Adams railing against "groupthink", but then when a young girl asked about his reactions to Ayn Rand books I thought I caught an ironic, unspoken moment where the girl just blankly nodded and agreed with whatever Dr. Adams had to say.
Oh great! More Clinton jokes! I also don't laugh at underwear jokes anymore, I either must have heard them all already or grown up since I found them amusing. Hey, but by all means Dr. Adams, go to that well one more time!
The zing on the professor who "wasn't dead; she's just working at Appalachian State" was petty. Especially coming from a Criminal Justice professor working at...[radar bing] [radar bing]...nothing coming up yet. Oh yeah! UNC Wilmington. You know, the school that ranked lower than Appalachian State in the latest US News & World Report Graduate School edition.
Yes, well, that's about all I think of at the minute. Gotta run and find some new medication...
3 comments:
Oh, Mike Adams...
From this week's Carolinian column, which is primarily about Cornel West:
"The point is that speech, texts, ideas – from the right or the left – shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand before we take a good look, hear what people have to say, decide for ourselves. I’ve read Mike Adams’ book and dozens of his columns, even heard him speak – so I feel completely justified in calling him a graceless hack and insecure homophobe who is lucky to have a job at a third rate university and scribble his little treatises on how mean the liberals are to him and everyone who loves Jesus. But if anyone who wasn’t familiar with Adams said that to me I’d ask them how they knew and tell them to shut up until they’d had a proper look."
I went to one of Adams' two talks last year. Would have gone again this year, if only out of curiosity - but I was working. Doesn't seem from any of the reports I've read that he busted out anything new that I should kick myself for missing.
You know what has to make Mike Adams' balls ache?Tristan Taormino is, even as we speak, criss-crossing the country to speak to capacity crowds at Ivy League schools and being treated with respect and admiration wherever she goes. This guy's stuck preaching to the same choir reeatedly, relegated primarily to the Bible Belt or any school where he can wrangle a couple of dozen people to justify whatever small fee they'll pay him, whining about how more popular speakers get paid more, so he should too.
But, as I said, with what he's got and what he's peddling he's lucky to be scratching out anything anywhere.
Dr. Adam uses humor, oh god kill him because he tries to make a joke or two, I'm sorry you are above his jokes you pompous ass. Your question was petty and silly; Melissa is a columnist for that shoddy rag the Carolinian which is about as important as the crap written in the Jackson library rest rooms (or your blog for that matter). I'm glad you got to ask your question, it made Melissa "uncomfortable". Oh no uncomfortable, maybe we should have screened the questions so no one was offended, perhaps we could have implemented a speech code prior to the Q&A?
Dad? Is that you again?
Or is it just one of Missie's inconsequential groupies?
Either way, you're right. I am above cigar jokes. You can be too! All you gotta do is grow up!
Thanks for taking the time to comment. "If I got you posting, I succeeded."
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