Much was made this past election cycle of former Weather Underground member, Bill Ayers, and the extent to which he might have had an ongoing and significant relationship with Barack Obama. Ayers, now a college professor and a recognized authority on the subject of education, as you may recall, had served on the board of a Chicago-based non-profit with Obama. The McCain campaign, running out of options, chose to play up the relationship between the men, running ads featuring images of domestic bombings, like those perpetrated by the Weather Underground, with captions and ominous voiceover narration suggesting links between Obama and “a known domestic terrorist.” Well, it looks like Bill Ayers is going to be speaking at the University of Michigan on Monday, as part of a national speaking tour, and, as you might expect, conservatives are up in arms and threatening to demonstrate. The following two quotes come from readers of the Ann Arbor News website.
-Its good to see the University openly supporting terrorists now. At least they aren’t trying to hide it.
-Can UM can bring in some little kids so Mr. Ayers can show them how to build bombs? Merging his two loves, building bombs and education…how sweet that would be. I only wish that Tim McVeigh could be there to share some cool stories.
For what it’s worth, I support the University in their decision, just as I supported Columbia when, a few months ago, they provided a forum for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. That, in my opinion, is the role of a university. They should be dedicated to free speech above all else, and to the open, honest debate of ideas… And to those who would take this opportunity to bash the school as a bastion of the far left, I’ll remind you that UM not only graduated Bill Ayers (class of 1968), but also Ann Coulter (Law School class of 1988). It should also be noted that UM is just one of many universities that Ayers will be speaking at in the coming weeks (as he tries to capitalize on his new wave of public interest).
As for Ayers, for what it’s worth, I don’t consider myself a fan. I think it’s great that he’s dedicated himself over the course of the past 30 years to more noble undertakings, but, in my opinion, that doesn’t make up for the fact that he was responsible for acts of domestic terrorism, and very well could have caused good people to have lost their lives. The Vietnam war was certainly something that had to be fought against, but I prefer the course of MLK to that of the Weathermen.
update: As someone in the comments section just pointed out, it looks as though the UM isn’t the only local institution of higher learning to give Ayers a platform. He will also be speaking this afternoon at EMU. See the comments section for details.
I don’t get on Facebook too often, but, when I do, I like to leave a witty little update about what I’m doing at the moment. That’s what most folks there do, and, as I’m somewhat competitive by nature, I can’t just walk away. If my friend Pete leaves a comment about how he’s longing for the touch of David Lee Roth, for instance, I feel as though I need to counter with something as good or better. So, today, as I was sitting here at the kitchen table, across from my aquarium, reading everyone’s updates on Facebook, I began thinking about how I wouldn’t have to use my feet for hands if I could put an aquarium heater in the tub with me. My back, you see, has been out these past few days, so I’ve been spending quite a bit of time just lying still in the tub, occasionally using my feet to work the faucet and the drain, to exchange cold water for hot. So, I was sitting here thinking about using an aquarium heater to keep the tub warm, when it occurred to me that it would make a nice replacement for the update I had up on Facebook at the moment, which was, “Mark is working on his enemies list.” And here’s what I wrote:
