Where's your sackcloth, Laughing-Boy?

This morning’s OC Register ScienceDude column:

Outspoken UC Irvine author-historian Mike Davis will give a free public lecture Oct. 31 titled “Katrina in the Suburbs? The Politics of Fire in Southern California.” He will speak at noon in Room 3008 on UCI’s Calit2 Building, next to Bren Hall, on Ring Road.

In an e-mail, Davis told me, “I will discuss the relevant political background (lack of county fire department, failure of rural lands initiative, underfunding of fire departments, etc.) that might help us answer the questions: why are these men smiling (the governor, mayor of San Diego, etc.)?

“Shouldn’t they be wearing sackcloth or seeking exile in Paraguay instead of turning this tragedy into a celebration of conservative values...?”

Davis is a former MacArthur “Genius” Fellow who is well-known for his barbed social commentary, especially that which has appeared in his books “City of Quartz” and “Ecology of Fear.”

(Photo by Chunk)

From Bob Park's WHAT'S NEW:

INTERROGATIONS: BUSH DEFENDS INTERROGATION METHODS.

Earlier this month there was a remarkable reunion at Fort Hunt, VA of surviving members of the group responsible for interrogating Nazi prisoners of war. All in their 80s and 90s, they are shocked at the methods reportedly used today.

Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist, told Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post that he had been assigned to play chess with Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess. They took prisoners out to steak dinners and played ping-pong with them - and got information out of them.

During WWII when the news carried reports of torture by the Nazis, people would shake their heads and say "you couldn’t get American boys to do that." Now we know you could. The President insists "we don’t torture." The only way he could be sure would be to submit to "waterboarding."

In today's INSIDE HIGHER ED:

David Horowitz, the conservative activist, and his allies have been giving speeches denouncing radical Islam on campuses all week as part of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” — viewed by many critics as a cover for spreading fear about Muslims. At Emory University, Horowitz was largely unable to give his speech, and police had to escort him from the stage as protesters shouted “Heil Hitler,” among other things, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported (last item). A detailed account and an online discussion of the incident appear in The Emory Wheel. On Horowitz’s Web site, the Emory protesters are being described as “leftist brown shirts.”

From yesterday's IHR:

San Diego area colleges remain closed, as institutions deal with the fires raging in the area. The colleges emphasize that their campuses and students are not in danger, but that they realize people can’t commute to and from campus right now. Several colleges — among them the San Diego Community College District, San Diego State University, the University of California at San Diego and the University of San Diego — have called off classes for the rest of the week.