Americans love conspiracy theories. From the JFK assassination to the Trilateral Commission, conspiracy theories may be the one place where the far right and far left, libertarians and other fringe groups can find common cause. The latest one, that 9/11 was actually a hoax perpetrated by the American government, is subscribed to by some, including loud-mouthed University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer Kevin Barrett. The outrage from politicians and bloggers over Barrett’s views has been mighty indeed.
When I attended college, a 20th century history course I took considered the question of whether FDR deliberately ignored warnings of the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the time, the majority of Americans opposed entry into World War II, something the president favored. Would he have cynically allowed Americans to be killed to create a pretext for war? Most historians reject the idea, but I don’t recall any politicians or op-ed writers outraged at this “partisan” attack on a revered Democrat. The evidence for the theory, pro and con, was briefly presented, and we moved on to the next topic, no harm done.
Barrett’s course is called “Islam: Religion and Culture.” The course syllabus allows one week to study differing viewpoints on the 9/11 attack, including the theory that it was “probably an American operation to launch a war on Islamic countries.” This cockamamie theory is out there already, getting Googled to death, so why not give students an academic context for this discussion, where they can examine and argue evidence?
We’re talking about one week of one 16-week course among the gazillions offered at the university. Barrett insists he has never presented his personal opinions in class. The university’s 10-day review of Barrett concurred, finding that he presents a variety of viewpoints to students. Should Barrett start promoting his personal views, you can bet some student will tape his utterances or snitch on him and Barrett will be duly dismissed.
The only real issue raised by Barrett is why the university would hire someone with opinions so suggestive of intellectual flabbiness. Barrett, however, isn’t a professor but an instructor, one of an army of lower-paid teachers (he gets $8,247 to teach the course) without which a 21st century university cannot be run. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and that may be the case here. But does anyone really believe the democracy is at peril because a questionable theory about 9/11 is going to be debated for one week by a handful of UW students?
What the Barrett controversy proves once again is the power of talk radio to simplify political topics to stoke outrage and gain ratings. That in turn generates e-mail to the newspapers, which pushes them to give more coverage to a very minor issue. Maybe we should all calm down.
Ex-Congressman Scott Klug’s Ethical Conflicts
Republican Scott Klug served as congressman for eight years, from 1990 to 1998, in the seat now held by Democrat Tammy Baldwin. Klug has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and was a TV newsman before running for Congress. There is no excuse for him not understanding journalistic ethics.
Klug is now chairman of Trails Media Group, which publishes Corporate Report Wisconsin. In its April 2006 issue, Klug wrote an adulatory column about Jim Barr , the retiring chief executive of Madison-based TDS Telecom. Barr wasn’t the kind of lobbyist who summoned up “images of sleek black limos, leggy blondes and tawdry payoffs,” Klug wrote, but a “pioneer” in the telecommunications industry who pushed Congress for enlightened changes in regulatory laws.
Perhaps, but Barr is also someone with whom Klug has a business relationship. Klug’s column did disclose that he is himself a lobbyist for the Foley & Lardner law firm. But Klug did not tell readers that he lobbies for Barr and his TDS Telecom company. Federal records show that Klug is listed as lobbying for TDS over a period of several years, generating as much as $80,000 in income from the company in 2004.
Adding insult to injury, the Spring 2006 issue of Capitol Report Wisconsin , another Trails Media publication overseen by Klug, ran an admiring profile of Ted Bornstein , a lawyer with Foley & Lardner. Bornstein works with Klug in the public affairs division of Foley, and federal records list Bornstein as a fellow lobbyist (along with Klug) for TDS Telecom.
Just to close the circle completely, Klug’s former congressional aide, Drew Peterson , also went on to lobby for TDS, according to State Ethics Board records. That is one well-served company.
Ironically, Klug gave a speech in San Francisco for the national “Best Practices in Journalism” project affiliated with public television. The speech did not address the issue of ethical conflicts.
The Strange Tale of Robert Rindler
The announcement that Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design President Robert Rindler had resigned after just one year on the job brings an end to an odd chapter at MIAD. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel account suggests that his micromanaging style so annoyed MIAD staff that he was pushed out.
Rindler’s hiring was seen as a coup for MIAD, as he came from New York’s Cooper Union, where he was dean of the School of Art. But one insider familiar with the New York school says the faculty there gave Rindler a letter of no-confidence and that he was essentially let go from that institution as well.
Rindler’s supporters here say he tried to bring higher standards to MIAD. His detractors call him a micro-manager. Both could be true, but Rindler’s personal style is surely that of an over-organizer.
A 1996 profile of him by Chronicle of Higher Education writer Lawrence Biemiller noted that Rindler, as a boy, helped his mother by sorting pearls into velvet trays according to their size. As an adult, he became an organizer of detritus — collecting plastic toys, rubber stamps, little shrink-wrapped watercolor sets from dime stores, lamps made out of old toasters. “I basically have every article of clothing I’ve owned since I was adult-sized,” he told Biemiller. Not to mention owning “a major collection of patterns of the insides of bank envelopes.” Thank heaven it wasn’t just a minor collection.
Everything seems to get organized by Rindler. He has mounted exhibitions, Biemiller wrote, “of prints of his shirts, selected small objects grouped by color, 100 one-minute drawings of a woman he once lived with and self-portraits taken every seven minutes by a camera mounted over his bed at night.… Now he deploys pens, calculators, toys and remote controls in tidy, perfect regiments on the broad table he uses for a desk, betraying the same compulsion for order that leads him to rake the beach behind the Cape Cod house he shares with his partner.…”
One wonders how Rindler had enough time left over to do his job at Cooper Union. In retrospect, the MIAD board of directors probably needed to more fully investigate the reasons Rindler left Cooper Union before hiring him. Or were they just beguiled by all that detritus he had to offer?
Research assistance by JD Rinne
