As a University of Tennessee alumna and proud Volunteer, I have never been more disappointed in my University.

The UT Board of Regents wants to award Former Vice President Al Gore an honorary doctorate. They’re voting on it it today. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The proposal was approved by the UT Board of Trustees Academic Affairs and Student Success Committee, but the proposal will go before the full board for final approval this afternoon. Trustees are on the UT Martin campus for their winter board meeting.

As a donor to the UT system, I pledge to NEVER give my alma mater another dime if this happens.

If you are just as outraged as me, call the Chancellor’s office at 865-974-3265. Tell the administration and the Trustees that this is not acceptable. Also join the Facebook Page.

Why does UT want to recognize someone who is currently in the spotlight for pushing questionable science? Regardless of how you feel about Climate Change, should you give such a high honor to someone who is possibly a flake? Al Gore should not be honored by the University. It’s even more sketchy since he endowed the department chair of the degree he would be getting. Can anyone pay to play to get an honorary degree?

Look at the situation.

The now infamous hockey stick graph that he used in an Inconvenient Truth has been debunked.

The IPCC is distancing themselves from Climate Change science.

Senator Inhofe is threatening to haul Gore before the Senate for a hearing on Climate Change.

There are calls for Al Gore to return his Nobel Prize, which is one of the reasons the UT Trustees want to recognize him. Per the KNS article:

Board vice chairman Jim Murphy encouraged trustees not to view the honorary degree as an endorsement of Gore’s advocacy areas or political beliefs but as a way to recognize Gore as an accomplished Tennessean who has received national acclaim. By shying away from awarding honorary degrees to people who are deemed too controversial, “more people would be disqualified from receiving honorary degrees,” Murphy said.

“Not many Tennesseans have received the Nobel Prize – that alone distinguishes Al Gore from many other folks,” Murphy said. “The area of his current advocacy is an area UT and Oak Ridge National Lab have a significant area of expertise, and it’s an area we need to promote that area across the globe. Nothing will do that more than (presenting the honorary degree to Gore).”

This can only bring disgrace and ridicule to the University of Tennessee. Why recognize someone this controversial? The earned media isn’t worth the reputation and potential loss in donation dollars. This is a bad move.

As the Center for a Just Society noted, Al Gore has not been very prominent in answering the recent challenges to Climate Change credibility:

In the face of the embarrassing Climategate scandal and an unprecedented winter season that has for the first time ever delivered measurable snowfall to all 50 states, Al Gore’s absence from the public stage has been conspicuous.  Perhaps he’s taken a page from Punxsutawney Phil’s playbook and is hibernating in hopes of a sunnier forecast come April.

Why is the University doing this now? In a time when corporations and scientists are distancing themselves from climate change research, this only makes UT look foolish and will hurt them in the future. Students at Penn State have protested the actions of Professor Michael Mann. Why does UT want to willingly walk into this controversy?

Also at Instapundit and Post Politics.

Been a busy week. Between preparation for CPAC and unexpected car trouble (I’m cursed), this week has flown by.

For the remainder of the week, I’ll be camped out a CPAC 2010. It’s awesome to be back. The conference last year encouraged me to dive back into the blogosphere. After a number of years, I had just stopped blogging completely. CPAC 2009 motivated me to get back into the fight.

This year, I’m here for work. It’s nice to have access to more events and receptions. My magic lanyard gets me into nearly everything. I’m also having fun sitting at blogger row. It’s almost pointless to tweet since nearly everyone I follow is here.

CPAC 2010 morning audience

In March, Tina Fey will appear on the cover of Vogue. According to an excerpt of the article in PopEater, she blames the backlash of playing Sarah Palin on being a woman:

“The partisan nature of politics continues to appall me. I’m almost paralyzed by my inability to see things in black-and-white… I felt uncomfortable to be in that discussion. The weird thing is, when Darrell Hammond or Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey did an impersonation of a president, no one assumed it was personal, but because Sarah Palin and I are both women and people think women are meaner to each other, everyone assumed it was personal.

Granted the writer of Mean Girls is probably going to see this as personal, and I believe there may be some truth behind her view. As Fey notes in the article, SNL has a long history of satirizing politicians, and they are never flattering. Why the backlash when she played Palin?

It may have resulted from what she said last year at the Emmy’s:

“I want to be done playing this lady Nov. 5,” she said. “So if anybody can help me be done playing this lady Nov. 5, that would be good for me.”

With that short statement, Fey went from satirizing the 2008 Election to inserting her personal opinion. Will Ferrall, Dana Carvey, Chevy Chase and Darrell Hammond mocked politicans, but they never made it personal. Fey crossed the line and made the impersonation appear mean-spirited. It was no longer lampooning a politician but was a political ploy to bring her down.

I like Tiny Fey. Mean Girls is a favorite movie (although Baby Momma was terrible), and I enjoy watching 30 Rock. However Fey lost a lot of respect the moment she publicly opposed Palin. That’s were the backlash started.

All over the web, I’ve read the reaction of feminists to the Tebow Superbowl commercial and almost universal laughter at their charge of domestic abuse. When I first saw Amanda Marcotte’s tweet and then saw that NOW, Women’s Media Center and other organizations were going with that angle, I rolled my eyes. This was clearly a group that picked an unwise battle, came out on the losing side and was desperately trying to save face.

After seeing Megyn Kelly’s interview with Women’s Media Center spokesperson, (always use gender neutral speech when referencing feminists) Shelby Knox, I remembered a few facts about the feminist movement’s relationship with domestic violence. After the video, let’s examine other high-profiles of domestic violence* and the feminist movement. It’s not such a supportive history.

Superbowl Sunday 1993
The week prior to the Superbowl, numerous women’s groups announced that calls to domestic violence shelters dramatically increased the day after the Superbowl. Watching men beat each other up on the gridiron caused men to rough up their wives, girlfriends and mothers.

Wrong! It turns out a “coalition of women’s groups” in California had fudged some numbers from a study conducted at Old Dominion University and actually misquoted an expert on domestic violence in their press release. However, the damage was done. If you Google “Superbowl, domestic violence” hits come up for nearly every year since then. Christina Hoff Sommers also examines the evolution of this myth in Who Stole Feminism?

O.J. Simpson 1994
In her book, The New Thought Police, Tammy Bruce recounts here experience in leading the California NOW chapter’s efforts to fight domestic violence after Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered. Regardless if OJ did it or not, there was clear evidence that she has frequently abused in the relationship. Bruce use the high-profile story to lead candlelight vigils and increase advocacy efforts to fight domestic violence. She was making so much noise in California that conservative Christians were donating money to their domestic violence efforts.

A problem emerged when higher-ups in the NOW told Bruce to stop. She was making the NAACP and other minority partners upset. In the grand scheme of leftist politics, race counted more than sex (according to Leslie Sanchez’s book, We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe, this was also was a factor in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign). According to the hierarchy of Democrats, feminists couldn’t highlight the domestic abuse issue in the OJ Simpson case because OJ was black. Despite the good that might come about, it ruffled feathers in the liberal coalition. Bruce was maligned by the highest levels of NOW and the feminist movement and officials distanced themselves from her.

Bill Clinton, late 1990s
Despite mounting evidence that Bill Clinton took advantage of women and potentially raped them. Aside from Monica, which would have been deemed inappropriate by any private workplace, (Harassment of interns should never be tolerated even when “consensual.”) there was Juanita Broadderick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones. Not one feminist group stood up to Clinton. Like the Bruce situation, they sacrificed one for the team in order to protect their waning voice in Democratic politics.

Domestic Violence in LGBT Relationships
Domestic violence PSAs and images are very stereotyped. What do you call a man’s sleeveless undershirt? A wifebeater! Where do you think that name came from?

A dirty little secret among feminists and other liberal groups is that domestic violence is just as prevalent among LGBT intimate partners as it is among heterosexuals. That mans that middle-aged white men are not the most dangerous individuals around, as feminists would have you believe. Anyone can perpetrate violence against an intimate partner, women against men, women against women and men against men. When was the last time you heard that talked about during Domestic Violence Awareness month?

Feminists are quick to play the domestic violence card when it suits their purposes. However, whenever it might place them in a sticky situation or make their friends look bad, it doesn’t happen. Every time they cry wolf about an issue and then fall back on a domestic violence charge, it cheapens the actual problem of domestic abuse in our society. Every false charge hurts women (and men and children) who are stuck in violent situation. Having seen and talked to kids and women who were real victims, it makes me sick to see them attempt to gain political capital from a bad strategic decision.

High profile groups such as NOW and Women’s Media Center may give lip service with a few PSAs and press releases throughout the year, but they cause real harm to the small groups and hard-working advocates fighting this terrible problem in society. On the same day that they called Pam Tebow’s tackle “bizarre” or “violent,” a real case of high-profile abuse by a Warren Sapp, former NFL player and Dancing With the Stars finalist, was reported. Did you hear any feminists condemn his actions? Joe Henderson, columnist at the Tampa Bay Tribune has a problem with the situation:

NOW fights legitimate issues and has been a strong (if occasionally strident) voice against real problems in society.

This isn’t one of them.

A statement like this actually hurts women’s causes because it comes across as irrational wide-eyed rhetoric, especially when you consider the timing.

Hours before the Tebow ad ran, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Warren Sapp was arrested in Miami on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery against a woman.

Where was Terry O’Neill on that one? (H/T NeW)

Groups that claim to fight domestic violence should not be selective when it has the potential to get their names in the news and raise a few dollars. Either they fight every case or they don’t engage. Sadly, there are enough high-profile domestic violence cases that they could made an difference if they actually lived up to their name. Instead, they tried to fight pro-lifers and looked like idiots, so they changed strategies and exploited a cause that has the potential to inflict real damage in the lives of women.

The images from Haiti have been horrifying. Americans have an amazing tradition of helping others in need and coming to the rescue during tragic events. Since I don’t know much about Haiti, I’ve been confused about what organizations to trust. After 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, I just don’t trust the Red Cross. I’d much rather support a faith-based organization with an established network on the ground.

There are so many nonprofits out there, who is legit? The White House directed everyone to the Red Cross, but again, I don’t trust them. Nor do I trust the Clinton Foundation. The Smoking Gun also questions the Wyclef Jean Foundation and their partner, Yele Haiti Foundation (of Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie fame). If you want to help with a financial contribution, please check out GuideStar first. GuideStar tracks nonprofit financial data and has guidelines for giving to Haitian relief programs.

I’ve worked for a number of nonprofits, and volunteered for even more. The problem with large nonprofits is the administrative costs. Salaries and equipment are expensive. The rule of thumb for the nonprofit world is to keep admin costs to under 10% of the budget. Some foundations require 6% in order to win grants. Having worked in fundraising, it’s hard to keep admin costs that low.

The other option is to donate to smaller nonprofits that are typically staffed by missionaries. I was struck by a Fox News interview with the Joy of Hope orphanage. Tabitha Hale also did an interview with the director.

What about the UN? Remember that the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the UN Foundation are all part of the United Nations. The World Food Programme has a long track record of corruption. This past summer, Save the Children UK released a study on child abuse among aid workers, and one of the countries cited was Haiti. A majority of the abusers came from UN programs. Please do not give money to UN programs!

InterAction has a listing of member organizations with outreach to Haiti. The Huffington Post also put together a Twitter list of NGO’s helping out.

Baptist Haiti Mission is also asking for donations, and a friend of mine did some work for the Haiti Foundation Against Poverty web site.

World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse are also respected faith-based organizations working in international aid.

Before you click on the donate button, please do a little research. If something seems off, donate to someone else. Trust your instincts. You want your dollars to go directly to the people as much as possible. Please be responsible with your giving.

FYI: There’s also a Haiti e-mail forward going around that Snopes has already debunked.

UPDATE: Two friends on Facebook directed to me to Convoy of Hope, which is where NCC will donate, and Heartline Ministries, which works with Haitian women.

Truthfully, I didn’t realize that the decade was ending until Time Magazine informed me that this was the worst decade ever. I was under the impression that 2010 was the end of the decade not 2009. Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode along these lines?

While Worst Decade Ever sounds like a VH1 special with Michael Ian Black, I don’t think it was that terrible. America faced a number of challenges, and only time will tell if we made the right decisions.

This decade, which I never quite figured out what to call, had a lot of terrible things happen, but positives did emerge. I think that historians will define the Industrial Revolution ending and the Technological/Information Revolution beginning at some point.

The 2000s were the decade in which I became an adult and went through all of the proverbial twentysomething experiences. In 2000, I graduated from high school, moved away to college and voted in my first presidential election. 2000 could be seen as an omen for a decade of divisive politics. I’ll always remember the cheer that erupted at the Knox County GOP party when Al Gore lost his home state. I’m still proud of that vote.

Technology and terrorism are the two takeaways of this decade. In 2000, I was shocked to fill up my 1 gig Gateway computer with songs downloaded from Napster. Those were the days when file-sharing was still murky. I would sit in class, writing playlists in the margin of my notes, and go back to the T1 line in my dorm room to download anything I wanted. Now, I have a $10 USB drive that has twice the memory of that computer and is the size of a band aid. It also cost a fraction of the Gateway desktop. Are Gateways even around anymore?

I never thought that I’d buy my last CD in 2005 with Coldplay’s XY? Who anticipated that we’d need iPods with hundreds of gigs in order to carry around every song ever recorded? I wonder if 20 years from now the Surgeon General will release a report detailing how headphones are causing generations to prematurely lose their hearing. It can’t be healthy.

When I got my first cell phone in 1999, I never thought that it could one day double as a computer. My Sprint Quaalcom was only analog and had a battery life of 3 hours. I kept it off and only used it for emergencies since I had about 1 hour of minutes per month. It was huge and would never die. Since it could also double as a self-defense weapon, I named it Mr. Clunky.

Social media wasn’t even a concept, and only a few nerds were blogging. Crazy to think that the technologies that have changed our society weren’t around ten years ago. My career field didn’t even exist when I graduated from college in 2004 and was just emerging when I got my master’s in 2007. When I wrote my thesis on social media there weren’t any academic texts to use. My adviser looked at me and said, “You’re on your own here.”

It’s been 10 years of huge changes in culture, society, economic and technology. A new generation entered the workforce, and 9/11 forever changed our way of life. Yes, it was a decade of challenges, but I’m hopeful that we can face those as a nation and be better for it.

While this is mostly a political blog, I do love the domestic arts. Christmas is my favorite time of year, and decorating for Christmas is an art form. Yesterday, I decorated both of the Christmas trees in my apartment, a giant 7.5′ tree, which looked much smaller in Target than in my apartment, and a 4′ silver tree covered with my collection of vintage Shiny Brites.

Anyway, this is to premise my questions on this year’s White House Christmas decorations, which are the pinnacle of Christmas regalia.

I looked at a number of sites showcasing this year’s decorations. I don’t know. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. Something is just off. This isn’t to slam the Obamas because I disagree with nearly every policy they support or sometimes dislike the First Lady’s wardrobe. I just love Christmas and look forward to seeing the White House decorated each year. For the record, I also disliked a few years of the Bush Administrations’ decorations, particularly 2006 when I got to tour the White House at Christmas.

The theme this year is “Reflect, Rejoice, Renew,” which is perfectly fine. Vague themes are harder to decorate around since they have no parameters. My favorite year to date was in 2001 when Laura Bush chose “Home for the Holidays” and had an abundance of flocked trees, icicles and “snow.”

Overall, the decorations are just ok. I think that might be my problem. There’s no “wow!” factor. It’s Christmas at the White House for goodness sake. Decorations should be magical or over-the-top. This year is ok, but it’s not anything special. They look like decorations that could be seen in my mom’s living room or any random issue of a holiday decorating magazine. There’s nothing original.

My biggest issue is the tree in the Blue Room. Something is just off. I think that it’s the  proportions. The gold bows simply overpower the tree, and you don’t notice that it’s covered with unique ornaments. I think it would look better if the ornaments were oversized to match the giant ribbon. When you have a huge tree, decorations need to be big as well.

Compared to up close:

I do like the cranberry mantle decorations in the Red Room. I’m a fan of using fruit and natural decorations

And I love the red topiaries in the Green Room.

There you have it. It’s ok and everything matches, but it looks like Michelle hired an upscale florist found in every American city. It’s not what I would expect with the resources of the East Wing staff who spend months working on Christmas plans. The White House should look more impressive than any random house in upscale suburbia, which is most evident in this slideshow. Pinecone wreaths in the East Hall?

At times, it’s a nice reminder that the left has far bigger issues than the right. After all, we have an actual philosophy on which we base our values, policies and beliefs. Liberals just have identity politics, anger and entitlements. Sometimes liberals make their issues known in very funny opinion pieces that could be cross-posted in The Onion. For example, this open letter to students at Pace Universty in which Karla Jay, an early feminist, bemoans the lack of uprising going on today with America’s youth:

Reflecting back on these catalytic events, I wonder why you, my beloved students in women’s and gender studies at Pace University, aren’t out at the barricades in the fight against the interminable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, widespread genocidal acts against women, the lack of equality for the queer community and evildoing by the banking industry.

Aside from “wahhhhh!” I can’t really think of anything else to say. But why aren’t student’s protesting in the streets (unless they attend a college in the UC system)?

It seems to me, that many of you don’t see current “issues” as connected to you. That nothing is “real” unless you’ve seen it on reality TV. The violence in the world can’t match the latest hit film. Since there is no draft, attending college is no longer a prelude to going to Iraq or Afghanistan, except for those on ROTC scholarships. You think feminism is passé. For those of you who are white, racism is over, too, because Obama is president. There is no gender or racial gap at your minimum wage jobs at Abercrombie, The Gap and as student aides, but you haven’t entered the real work force yet. There’s a Stonewall Coalition at the university, but you don’t need that because New York City has so many queer bars and you have the fake I.D. to get in. You’re oh-so-out, though most of you can’t apply the LGBTQ words to yourself in my queer courses.

Those harmful reality shows. Watching the Biggest Loser or Dancing With the Stars just ruins everything for us. Then there’s the evilness of The Gap. Those overpriced khakis are seriously hurting our society. I guess that I was wrong in assuming that not having a draft was a good thing. Shouldn’t we be proud that our voluntary armed services are protecting us? But is that all? Nope.

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Tea Parties are every where these days. They’re even on your TV now.

Next Tuesday, December 2, Tea Party: The Documentary will premiere in DC aptly at the Reagan Center. I plan on attending. Rumor has it that the event is black tie optional, so it looks like another opportunity to pull out a cocktail dress.

The film:

follows the struggles of five grassroots individuals and their transformation from home town rally goers and rally organizers to national activists in the 912 March on Washington. In the process, the film reveals what is at the heart of this nationwide surge of civic engagement – a return to and respect for a Constitutionally limited government, personal responsibility and fiscal restraint at the Federal level.

This week, you can watch a 30 minute sneak peak. A great way to escape family this Thanksgiving or rile up some liberal relatives.

Perhaps it’s my job, but every day I grow more and more disenchanted with the academic world. Between the supression of free speech to the the politization of research, academics are doing their best to create a completely insulated world that only furthers a few pet causes.

I’ve written before about the silly “bingo” game for gender equality. I’ve also written about the absolute lack of academic research done on female conservative voters. Now, thanks to Russian hackers, we know that academia whored itself for research money and covered up the truth about global warming. Not surprising. While I’m a strong conservationist, I’ve questioned global warming for a long time.

All of this actually makes me sad. It’s heartbreaking actually.

I’m a nerd. I’m one of those people who love school. Since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be a professor and share my love of learning and research with others. I’ve always been drawn to the ideal of study, debate and research to further knowledge. “The marketplace of ideas” concept is a beautiful thing. I love the idea that places exist in our society for people to just pursue ideas, enjoy the freedom to debate and question existing bodies of knowledge or the status quo. Historically, academics have been the true rebels.

Those ideals simply don’t exist on the modern college campus.

Politics long ago entered the classroom, and dissenters are not allowed to question. Academia is such a police state that individuals are not allowed to pursue entire fields of research because it’s not politically correct. Does anyone else find it ironic that the academy now resembles the Catholic Church in the days of the Spanish Inquisition?

Phi Beta Cons at National Review linked to an article in Harvard Magazine, “The PhD Problem,” which covers some of my qualms about academia.

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