Update on Professor Schwyzer

It turns out there is more to the story below. The Professor recently was driving under the influence of alcohol and injured a woman in an auto accident. In addition the Professor admitted that he had continued to date students for several years after he had claimed to have broken the habit. He also admitted (or perhaps bragged) that he had conned his way into a position in the gender studies department at Pasadena City College.

The above courtesy of a post at insideHighered

Professor Admits He is a Hypocrite but is he

At the left is Professor Hugo Schwyzer, who is a professor in the Gender studies department at Pasadena City College in California.

He is known for teaching a course on pornography, once bringing in a famous porn star to lecture the class (his academic training is in history and literature). He is also known for appearing on the Ricky Lake show to brag that he had a circumcision at the age of 37. He was also known an a principle contributor to the 'good men project'. One issue that he influenced was the doctrine that to be a 'good man' you should confine yourself to marriage and prior to marriage you should date women your own age.

He recently sent a series of tweets admitting to unfaithfulness with much younger women. In an admission to a reporter, he said that these things were acts of hypocrisy, but, that it was because he was weak willed. If he is telling the truth about the weak will he has found an exception to the hypocrisy definition but if he was just sorry he was going to be caught he is a hypocrite.

A tweet indicated that he would not teach further courses in gender studies and hoped to teach a Western Civilization course (which would be consistent with his academic study).

The above could be an article in The Onion but its not.

Professor Schwyzer's bio is available at wikipedia.
The interview noted above is courtesy of the Daily beast.

Matt Damon and Public Schools

Matt Damon has been an advocate for public schools, for more public spending on public schools, for more status for public school teachers, etc. His mother is a public school teacher and he attended public school growing up. The image shows Damon with his wife Luciana Bozán who was at the time pregnant with a girl who was later named Stella Zavela. He also adopted Luciana's three children from an earlier marriage. Matt and Luciana have three children together (that's six for the family).

Damon moved to Los Angeles in 2012. He recently enrolled all his kids in private school. Some people have accused Damon of hypocrisy.

Damon's argument against enrolling the family in public school was an odd one, it amounted to 'the public schools aren't progressive enough'.

Since I have no idea what 'progressive enough' means in that context and because Damon could have used the privacy argument in justifying private school and because Damon never actually advocated that rich people send their kids to public schools, I'll give Damon a pass on this. 

Interestingly enough though, Damon is starring in a movie called Elysium, about a  future in which rich people live in above ground luxury while the poor live in ground level slums.

A Huffington Post article on this is here.

An article in a Florida paper about this subject using the word 'hypocrite' is here

A wikipedia article on the movie Elysium is here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_%28film%29

Grand Mufti of Kashmir and Jammu - music hypocrisy

The Telegraph carries a new report of a religious leader attending, and apparently enjoying a musical show. This same fellow, one, Grand Mufti Azam Bashiruddin Ahmad, had earlier given a fiery anti music sermon and fatwa. That's the Grand Mufti in the hat.

I wondered whether there was some distinction between listening to music (OK) and playing music (not OK) that would justify the Grand Mufti's actions. As near as I can tell, both listening and playing music are criticized by Mohammud. Also since Mohammud's actions are, per scripture, praiseworthy, they are to be emulated and besides the criticism seems to be divinely initiated.

I suppose that the Grand Mufti's actions could be defended if there were some greater purpose; that is, enjoying the music this one time would help some overarching objective but no such defense has come out. Thus I'm going to have to call this one hypocritical. As for the seriousness, it would seem it isn't trivial because, assuming Muslims aren't supposed to listen to music, the pictures of the Grand Sheik enjoying music would weaken the resolve against music (I'm assuming the Grand Sheik is pretty important). Of course if the entire hadith against music is wrong, then it is the sermon that was a problem and the enjoyment of music actually improved things.


article in Telegraph is here
quotes from anti music hadith are here (this source is anti Islam but no muslim has criticized this content as false)

Mira Sucharov Agonizes over Hawkings Supposed Hypocrisy

Several weeks ago, cosmologist Stephen Hawking said he would not attend a conference in Israel in protest of Israel's policy (Hawking claims Israel is occupying Palestinian land but the policy could also be called 'partially administrating' or something (I'm not sure whether Hawking thinks Israel inside the green line is an occupation).

Several opinions came out accusing Hawking of hypocrisy because he uses Israeli made devices to communicate (including the communication of his non attendance at the conference). 

The accusation of hypocrisy, is I think, incorrect because Hawking didn't say 'everyone should attend the conference and then didn't' or 'no one should denounce Israel and then did, both of which would be hypocrisy. Since the two issues are separate, I don't consider it hypocrisy.

However, I may be in the minority. 

An Haaretz blogger named Mira Sucharov, who is also a professor (the second image is her), assumes that this is hypocrisy and agonizes over it and over an event in her (Mira's) life that she thought was hypocrisy but justified, that is, she bought something from a store with a Nazi poster. (something I would not consider hypocritical unless she had previous said to boycott all stores with Nazi posters).


Mira's column is here.

An opinion piece in a British Newspaper on the Hawkings non attendance of the Israel conference is here.

An Endorsement of Hypocrisy

Larry Flynt (that's him in the image) is the publisher of Hustler magazine. In today's news was word that Flynt is endorsing former Governor Mark Sanford for a House seat in South Carolina. Flynt is also donating funds to Sanford's campaign.

The reason Flynt gives is that while he dislikes Sanford on policy, he likes Sanford for exposing the hypocrisy of traditional marriage.

Actually, Flynt means to say (I think) that Sanford is a hypocrite and also was a pro family value conservative.  (Sanford, while governor of South Carolina) famously flew to Argentina to carry on an affair while telling his wife and the media that he was hiking the Appalachian trail.

I'll not comment on whether Sanford was a hypocrite or Flynt is one. Its just interesting that someone puts money into his pro hypocrisy opinion.

News article on Flynt's endorsement of Sanford is here.

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/larry-flynt-endorses-mark-sanford-449105

MJ Rosenberg says Hagel is a bad liar, not a hypocrite

M J Rosenberg is a political analyst, columnist and consultant (that's him with Obama).. 

He has had a long career. He worked at AIPAC, he worked as a political appointee in the Clinton administration. He was a foreign policy chief of the leftist org Media Matters.  He is currently known to be a critic of Israel's policy in the West Bank. Some would say he is more than a critic and has crossed the line to Israel hater. Whatever.

What concerns this site is his comments on Chuck Hagel, the nominee for DOD Secretary.

MJ Rosenberg asserts that Hagel was lying in his testimony to Congress and that Hagel's difficulty with lying made him (Hagel) come across as stupid. M J does not use the word hypocrite.

Here is a post by MJ on this subject.

Glenn Greenwald Resists the Hypocrisy Label

Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer by training who writes a column for the British newspaper 'The Guardian'. He focuses on civil liberties related issues (that's him on the left - pun intended).

He recently wrote a column entitled,

DOJ kill list memo forces many Dems out of the closet as overtly unprincipled hacks

 The column points out some of the people and groups that harshly criticized President Bush for various executive actions taken (e.g., drone warfare) while either excusing or ignoring President Obama's actions of the same sort. An example is, 

" ... quoted Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor and fervent Obama supporter, as admitting without any apparent shame that "if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms" because, she said "we trust the president"."

"... polls now show that Democrats and even self-identified progressives support policies that they once pretended to loathe now that it is Obama rather than Bush embracing them...."

The point to me is that Greenwald does not use the word 'hypocrisy'. Instead, as in the title, he declares what others would call hypocrites as 'overly unprincipled hacks' (how many hacks are principled I wonder?). Interestingly, while pointing out that former candidate Obama was one of the people who criticized the tactics President Obama now employs, Greenwald chooses not to call Obama a hypocrite or a hack. 

Interesting Greenwald cites the lack of hackery (or lack of hypocrisy - Greenwald uses neither word however) of the Republicans in this particular instance.

"  What also made this last week unique was the reaction of the American Right. Progressives love to recite the conceit that Republicans will never praise Obama no matter what he does. This is a complete sham: conservatives, including even Cheney himself, have repeatedly lavished praise on Obama for his embrace of Bush/Cheney policies in these areas..."

 

The Greenwald column is here.  

Related column in Salon webzine is here

What Difference Does It Make?

Secretary Hillary Clinton was testifying before the Senate on the issue of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. One of the highlights was a statement made in response to a question that had the words, "...we were misled..." where the statement seems to actually be a question of  'were we misled' regarding U.N. Ambassador Rice's statement on five different news shows that the Benghazi attacks were protest of a video on Youtube rather than a planned terror attack.

Here is a piece of the answer:

“With all respect, the fact is we have four dead Americans was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans,” Clinton shouted. “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.”

I seems to some people that the "What difference at this point does it make?" contradicts "It is our job to figure out what happened..." 

or is it

One possible way of looking at "What difference ..." is classifying it as a rhetorical question. If so, it does not contradict the "It is our job...". Of course, that way of looking at it would mean it was, in fact an admission that "...we were misled..." so that is not likely the way Secretary Clinton intended it but who knows.



Video of Q&A here

Colin Powell and dark vein of intolerance

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell defended former Senator Chuck Hegal's use of the term 'jewish lobby' a few days ago (reported by  Bloomberg new service as a remark that while insensitive was not really insulting (the phrase 'jewish lobby' was used in place of the more correct description 'pro Israel lobby' and of course, the pro Israel lobby includes a lot of non Jews)..

But at about the same time, (reported by Politico) Powell criticized Republicans for long ago remarks using phrases Powell deemed to be racially insensitive, e.g., criticizing President Obama as 'lazy' after his performance in the 1st 2012 debate (btw, I don't understand how that is racially insensitive but let's assume Powell actually believes it is).

The two events were within 48 hours of each other. 

Incidentally, NY Gov (a Democrat) used the phrase 'shucking and jiving' with respect to Obama back in 2008; an event which passed unremarked by Mr. Powell.

Hypocrisy?

Unless Powell is very, very forgetful or very stupid, this does appear to be a case of hypocrisy. 

But this brings up a question. Why would Powell be so oblivious to the hypocrisy problem? It seems that because he is viewed favorably by most people, especially in the media, he can get away with it.


Politico article is here
Bloomberg report is here       
Report on the 2008 incident by Huffington Post is here.      .