FIRE, one of the good guys in watching out for academic freedom, is fighting on behalf of University of Oklahoma professor David Deming:

“Professor Deming has filed a federal lawsuit after OU removed him from his department, stripped him of most of his classes, and moved his office to a converted basement lab, all while claiming to respect the principles of academic freedom.  Public records requests have uncovered damning evidence that OU administrators schemed to marginalize and isolate him for his attempts at whistleblowing and for his political expression.”

At least they didn’t take his Swingline stapler.

It’s no knock on the London Times that I want to wait until we have real proof to believe this story about Yushchenko’s poisoning. (Yes, I suspect he was poisoned, but I’m skeptical of there being any hard proof to confirm it. If there is, then the KGB sure has lost a step.)

None of that’s important. Check out this graph about what a tough-guy Yuschenko is:

Yushchenko fell ill on September 6 and was rushed to Rudolfinerhaus four days later with severe abdominal pain and lesions on his face and trunk. His liver, pancreas and intestines were swollen and his digestive tract covered in ulcers, but doctors could not explain the symptoms. Against their advice he went back on the campaign trail after a week, but returned to the clinic two weeks later with back pain.

Again he returned to campaigning, with his face half paralysed and a catheter inserted in his back so that doctors–still baffled–could inject painkillers into his spinal column.

TR would approve.

This ABC News story on the European reaction is so slanted that it isn’t really worth reading. (For instance, it mentions the attacks on Muslim schools in the Netherlands following Theo van Gogh’s murder–which amounted to penny-ante vandalism, but makes no mention of the more serious Muslim attacks on Christian churches and schools.)

However, in trying to bend over backwards to cosset Islam, author Leela Jacinto unearths one very revealing quote about the van Gogh murder from Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission:

“We do need infrastructure to limit extremism, and this has to come from all sides. If the Dutch government had prosecuted van Gogh for his racism, he may have been alive. I’m not saying that anything, absolutely anything legitimizes a killing, but we also need to limit hate speech–on all sides.”

You see, if Theo van Gogh had just kept his trap shut, maybe he would still be alive, God be praised.

One of the great disappointments about President Bush has been his unwillingness to speak seriously about the civilizational–as opposed to physical–threat presented by radical Islamists.

Ironically, it may be Europe, which has been so loathe to confront the physical dangers of Islamofascism, which leads the way on the war’s cultural front.

A New Jersey man is waging a fight with municipal authorities for the right to build a 20-foot model of a Jawa Sandcrawler (one of the three Star Wars toys I did not own as a child).

A guy who wants to build the Sandcrawler? What a dork, what a loser. I mean, if he was trying to do the AT-AT . . .

Mickey Kaus predictably attacks Peter Beinart’s bold call to arms to save liberalism. Why is Kaus’s sniping predictable? Because Beinart is obviously right and Mickey’s steroid-enhanced, super-capacity brain power would be wasted by simply concurring.

By way of argument, Kaus says, “Attacking Communism didn’t threaten to radicalize billions of otherwise peaceable socialists the way frontally attacking Islamic fundamentalists threatens to radicalize billions of Muslims.” First of all, even the most generous estimates only put the total world number of Muslims at about 1.2 billion, so Mickey should ramp down the hyperbole. (He’s so excitable!) Second, who says that the Muslim population isn’t already radicalized? If September 11, 2001 is what a non-agitated Muslim world looks like, then it seems as though we should be willing to risk further instigation in search of a solution.

Kaus also says, “If Communism had been a non-state ideology that embraced suicidal terrorism and was potentially adopted by billions of individuals and small groups with increasing access to weapons of mass death–individuals who could be whipped into anger by Internet-era media technology in the wake of anything that smacked of an ‘assault on Communism’–the Cold War might have looked very different back in 1947.” Billions? There he goes again. But in fact Communism did embrace much terrorism and was adopted by individuals and small groups from Cuba to Nicaragua to Vietnam, often with quite bad results.

But in other news, a close reading of the blogosphere this morning suggests that Kaus’s latest poke at Andrew Sullivan has been well and truly joined. Hissss!

From the people who brought you CrushKerry.com, comes . . . Passion for Fairness. The site seems dedicated to influencing Academy members to vote for The Passion of the Christ for Best Picture over Fahrenheit 9/11.

In fairness, I haven’t seen The Passion–and I don’t plan to. If some audiences have felt enriched by it, then good for them. But it looks to me like a graphic, prolonged snuff film. And that’s not really my thing.

Sigh. Andrew Sullivan and others are taking shots at my review of Closer. The main complaint seems to be something which approximates to: “Older men have been lusting after pre- or mid-pubescent teenage girls for a long time; this is no big deal, don’t be such a bluenose; and–not that there’s anything wrong with it–it isn’t Natalie Portman’s fault, get off her case.”

What to say? First off, just because something has a cultural legacy doesn’t make it right. There were generations of precedent for slavery, the subservience of women, and even a general looking-of-the-other-way at rape. As a society, we’ve progressed to a point where these long-standing norms are now frowned upon. If you want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with grown men having sex with 15-year-old girls, go right ahead. But don’t tell me that it must be okay since them-there frontier folk did it way back when.

Even so, my main criticism isn’t about pedophilia, per se (silly me, I thought that was settled law). It’s about the culture which celebrates the explicitly sexual objectification of young girls. Think of it this way: I’m bothered much more by the “TOTALLY raining teens” Vanity Fair cover and the Olsen twins countdown clocks (and the nudge-nudge, wink-wink stories about these clocks in places like USA Today) than I am by Léon or Beautiful Girls (which is a fine film). The problem is that movies don’t exist in a vacuum. If we’re going to be four-square in favor of freedom of artistic expression (as we should be), then we also ought to be pretty rigorous about expressing our concern for creepy cultural trends which result as unintended consequences of this expression.

As far as Miss Portman is concerned, I made it pretty clear that the current state of affairs “isn’t entirely (or even mostly)” her fault. She may have starred in the movies, but she isn’t editing the entertainment press. As I said, she has handled herself in public with dignity and grace and seems like a nice young woman. I wish her nothing but the best.

I’m sure my fellow Galley Slaves really appreciate my hijacking this forum and turning it into a U2-fest, but as they are both occupied at the moment, I’ll throw in one additional entry on my previous subject and try to restrain myself from further comment.

GS friend CSG recently took on my naming (in my humble opinion) the top three U2 albums of all time: The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and All That You Can’t Leave Behind. CSG prefers War, Unforgettable Fire, and Boy, all of which I agree are indispensable. Indeed, if you were to ask me one of favorite U2 songs ever, I would say “Bad” (though I do prefer that eight-minute version on Wide Awake in America). I tend to think less of War because I suffer from “Sunday Bloody Sunday” fatigue. I don’t think I have the strength to hear that anthem again. Regardless, I respect CSG’s picks and assure him I haven’t suffered from dementia lately. But you just can’t ignore The Joshua Tree.

Yes, the songs had mass appeal and penetrated the mainstream Top 40, but just because everyone else loves them doesn’t mean you should stop loving them.

A few final thoughts: Bono recently rediscovered the missing lyrics he had penned while in the U.S. back in the early 1980s. The lyrics were suppose to be the basis of the album after Boy. Instead, he had to start from scratch and came up with the less satisfying October. Can we hope that the band will finally turn these scribbled notes into an album of sorts? I know I’d buy it.

And secondly, for fans of the Boy album, have you noticed in recent years that U2 has been playing some of those old songs in concert again, such as “I Will Follow”? In their recent New York performance by the Brooklyn Bridge last month, a fan who was there tells me they even played “Out of Control.” Others have heard them play “11 o’clock tick tock” and “Party Girl.” Be on the lookout for more old-school favorites in next year’s tour.