Weekly Address

This week President Obama discusses the multitude of problems and opportunities before the world through the prism of Passover and Easter:

These are two very different holidays with their own very different traditions. But it seems fitting that we mark them both during the same week. For in a larger sense, they are both moments of reflection and renewal. They are both occasions to think more deeply about the obligations we have to ourselves and the obligations we have to one another, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we practice...

Len Bahr has more on LSU's termination of coastal scientist and Hurricane Katrina expert Ivor Van Heerden here. Bahr dismisses the limp lie that Van Heerden lacked experience for his position and adds that

Hurricane Katrina created a number of local and even national heroes, some of whom I am proud to know and Dr. van Heerden is high on that list. If having the cajones to blow the whistle on the most catastrophic and expensive coastal disaster in recent US history is grounds for firing, what can possibly be grounds for advancement?

In a devasting quote from a UC Berkeley Engineering Professor Raymond D. Seed, Bahr also exposes LSU's academic cowardice:

My own University (U.C. Berkeley) was also approached [by the Bush Administration] in an inappropriate manner during that same Winter of 2005-06, but such untoward pressures were simply rebuffed. That, in the end, probably goes right to the heart of what really separates a top-flight university with one of the top Colleges of Engineering in the nation (and the top-rated Department of Civil Engineering in the nation) from a university like LSU.

Academic research often leads the researcher into unknown and controversial areas. He must know that, above all else, that his institution has his back. By bowing to crude threats and dismissing such a leading and distinguished voice, LSU failed Van Heerden, itself, its students, its alumni, its faculty, and the state of Louisiana in the most fundamental way possible...

Gitmo = A loooot of fun...

What's bad for trees is good for Bank of America. For the life of me, I don't know why we should bail out banks who practice usury...

Scarred For Life

Ivor Van Heerden, the Louisiana coastal scientist whose forensic investigation team probed the causes of the flooding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, has been denied tenure by Louisiana State University and fired as deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center. While the University has declined to comment, citing confidentiality requirements, this reeks of the worst kind of academic cowardice.

As leader of Team Louisiana, Van Heerden oversaw a report highly critical of the Army Corps of Engineering, reaching conclusions that he echoed in public statements. LSU, apparently fearful of losing federal grants, "asked" Van Heerden to desist public statements on the grounds that he lacked the engineering qualifications to make them. Now, consider a couple of points:

• whatever statements Van Heerden made came not from some arcane LSU academic committee but from his capacity as leader of a state task force investigating one of the most significant events in Louisiana history;
• as head of the task force, Van Heerden was practically obligated to be its public face. His criticism of the ACE were informed by the collective expertise and conclusions of Team Louisiana and were not a result of him playing cowboy. (That was President Bush's job.)

Above all, an academic researcher must feel free to go where the facts lead him or her. That LSU bowed to real or imagined pressure from the Bush Administration -- when its proper role was to have Van Heerden's back -- is a stain on its reputation. For shame. (Editilla and Foxessa have more here and here.)...

Team Louisiana researchers discuss forensic developments at a section of the 17th Street Canal breach (photo: Team LA 2005)

The GOP and the Christian Right: The greatest threat to marriage as we know it...

The Obama Administration has ordered the "decommissioning" of secret CIA prisons and the immediate termination of contracts with the private security firms guarding the prisons...

The Department of Defense has begun testing returning combat troops for brain injuries. The Obama Administration expects to increase funding for the program...

Rushbo Stupidism of the Day (and it's choice):

In the first place, we're making a big mistake by calling them the Somali pirates. These are not pirates. These are merchant marine organizers. They are using the same techniques that community organizers like ACORN and others in this country use. So, from now on, to be totally, purely accurate, the Somali pirates on this program -- I'll probably slip up a couple times and call them that -- but, they're going to be known now as the merchant marine organizers.

What a wit...

Friday's Choice: The great Aussie band Rose Tattoo is "Scarred For Life":