Author booed off during stage

[southsider2k5]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisla...ories-headlines

[EvilMonkey]

As he should have been! That was not a place for the guy to offer up his political views to a captive audience. From the article, "Bill Schmidt, 51, of North Bellmore, shared the outrage. "To ruin my daughter's graduation with politics is pathetic," the retired New York Police Department captain said" That line says it all.

[cwsox]

I don't see that he was booed "off the stage." Sounds to me like he finished his speech after the standing O from the faculty and a number of students.

 

The quote that says it all for me:

Some Hofstra professors said Doctorow was on target in discussing the war. "I thought this was a totally appropriate place to talk about politics because that's the world our students are entering," said sociology professor Cynthia Bogard. "I only wish their parents had provided them a better role model."

 

The usual complaint is not that a speech is political. The usual problem is the content of the political message. If a pro Bush or pro administration speech had been given, would there have been a problem? I doubt it.

 

That said, there is such a thing as time and place. There were ways to have said what Doctorow wanted to say and have a more "commencement" type theme and be far less in the face about the political commentary. Time and place should be respected.

 

Yet Hofstra invited E L Doctorow and the content of his speech was as predictable as the earth rotating around the sun. Doctorow was very much being Doctorow. Like asking Freud to speak and being surprised he talked about psycho analysis. They got exactly what Doctorow is well known for doing, being overtly political. Blaming Doctorow for being Doctorow is not being fair. The administrators who invited Doctorow for this event should have thought that one through more. They got what they invited.

[Chisoxfn]

A commencement is not the place for someone to get up on their soapbox and push their political views on someone else. I don't give a damn what views they have.

 

I hate it when teachers and other people in positions of authority go out on their soap box yapping when it has nothin to do with anything.

 

Teachers are more then entitled to their opinion, but almost all of my teachers would get up on their soapbox and completely go nuts if anyone had the balls to step up and say something against them. I did it numerous times and I had even been sent to the office on more then one ocassion (this was in highschool and middle school) for supposedly causing a disruption in the class.

 

And to make things short, I never once shouted, yelled or was rude when I made my statements.

 

Sorry but I hate jagoffs that go out and make this big ass political viewpoints in places they don't belong. Since this is a message board, this is the perfect place for me to put this rant

 

I should add that I had one class where the teacher would open up discussion (during the last presedential election) and even though she had different opinions she would say her thing and then always go to the view of a republican right after. THen it would go back to a democrat or a more liberal person. Basically everyone would be able toa dd their own opinion and their would be a little back and forth. The republicans ended up getting a little perspective on their side as did the democrats on their side and the indy's got their say in as well. Everyone came out more educated because they knew where others stood and sometimes peoples opinions would be changed because of it.

 

Now thats the way a discussion is meant to be had. If your not willing to let it be discussed and openly discussed then a teacher should be suspended for bringing it up (Like I say, I don't give a damn if its a republican, independent or democrat).

 

Hell this year in college I had a professor come in to do evaluations and while he was in the only things he would say were talking about how we need to vote Bush out of the office. A few people tried to make a statement and he told htem to shut up and run for president because they could do a better job then Bush (albeit it was funny, it was further proof of a professor only pushing his agenda).

 

I also had a class where a republican would push his views. I may of agreed with him but he was a dick none the less.

[YASNY]

The usual complaint is not that a speech is political. The usual problem is the content of the political message. If a pro Bush or pro administration speech had been given, would there have been a problem? I doubt it.

 

I'd be willing to bet that professor Cynthia Bogard wouldn't have been so concerned about role models. Odds are she would have lambasted whoever dared taint a commencement with a conservative agendized speech.

[EvilMonkey]

I'd be willing to bet that professor Cynthia Bogard wouldn't have been so concerned about role models.  Odds are she would have lambasted whoever dared taint a commencement with a conservative agendized speech.

I agree. Had the commencement message been of a conservative nature, I doubt that the faculty would have just sat by. It is telling that the people who gave him an ovation were the FACULTY and SOME students. And it didn't say that they applauded HIM, but applauded after the President asked people to calm down.

 

Rabinowitz approached the podium and called for calm. "We value open discussion and debate," he said. "For the sake of your graduates, please let him finish." What discussion? What debate? The asshole had a captive audience to hear his ranting about his political views. As stated later in the article, "he violated the unwritten code that college commencement speeches should inspire and unite a student body."

 

...said sociology professor Cynthia Bogard. "I only wish their parents had provided them a better role model." What would she have liked them to do? SHow them how to sit still and let someone try an shove their viewpoint in your face during a forum that called for a little more class and decorum? All that crap about the speakers having a right to his opinion is just that, crap. He has a right to his opinion, but not to share it with people who don't want to hear it.

 

Man, could you imagine how crazy the various media outlets would be going if this had been Sean Hannity (or someone way out there, like Ann Coulter!) speaking, and they had got booed while criticizing Kerry? This would be front page stuff for a week! Or more! There would be cries of outrage from the Kerry camp, demands for resignations, apologies, etc. Not to mention the 3 or 4 days of monolog material for Letterman. Oh, and I bet the Air America people would have been wetting their pants in glee. People can have their views, but there is a time and place to let everyone else know them. That ceremony was not one of them.

[aboz56]

Right now I have a summer school class in which all of the teacher does for half of our class period is ramble on about his political views, mainly ripping apart John Kerry. Now since I agree with him, I am not offended about his comments, but a lot of the liberals in my class are growing tired of his act and I don't blame them one bit.

 

I think it's totally inappropriate for him to push his views out there constantly, but hey, I'm not the one in charge of the class.

 

However, he did piss me off when, in sox4lifeinpa fashon, he ripped the Beatles by calling them overrated and plain...At that point I wanted to stand up and make a jackass out of him, but for the sake of my grade, decided that would not be in my best interest.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Man, could you imagine how crazy the various media outlets would be going if this had been Sean Hannity (or someone way out there, like Ann Coulter!) speaking, and they had got booed while criticizing Kerry?  This would be front page stuff for a week!  Or more!  There would be cries of outrage from the Kerry camp, demands for resignations, apologies, etc.  Not to mention the 3 or 4 days of monolog material for Letterman.  Oh, and I bet the Air America people would have been wetting their pants in glee.  People can have their views, but there is a time and place to let everyone else know them.  That ceremony was not one of them.

I don't think that is true.

 

I'm sure Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, etc., all do similar invited/paid commencement engagements and if you don'y know where their addresses are going to go then you don't know them. Ditto for Doctorow, whose books, while not particularly left-leaning, are open challenges to the reader to sort history and fiction and to examine what they think they know. I've only read Ragtime by him, but I know from that alone that he is not going to give a canned commencement speech.

[EvilMonkey]

I'm sure Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, etc., all do similar invited/paid commencement engagements and if you don'y know where their addresses are going to go then you don't know them.

Yeah, I am sure that they do make speeches and such, and am equally as sure that they will tend to be heavily political. However, if they were asked to give the commencement speech at UIC, or Michigan State, and spoke with the same type of slant as he did, you would never hear the end of it. Speaking at the Young Republicans convention is different than speaking at graduation ceremonies. I don't deny Doctorow his right to have whatever views he wants, but in some places, it is inappropriate to discuss them.

 

By the way, Happy birthday! Now you are as old as me, for about 2 months! Enjoy!

[Rex Kickass]

People protested Condi Rice at MSU too, but she was smart enough to stay away from the politics.

[AngelasDaddy0427]

Well this is just example that some people just won't put up with ignorance and grandstanding.

[mreye]

I think these speeches and getting someone "important" is way overrated. They should get an educator, not a personality. A few years ago John Mellencamp spoke at Indiana University. He didn't even go to college. I consider that a joke. What has he done to deserve such an honor? Changed his name 4 times?

[False Alarm]

i like cougar and agree with you, mreye, that he's a poor chice to give a keynote address at a graduation. i thought the same thing of bono from U2 doing harvard's. but E L doctorow shouldn't be grouped with those two. for one thing, though i don't think he's teaching right now, he has taught at yale, princeton, and UC irvine, among others. also, important literary writers like him are more appropriate to an academic setting than MTV faces. lit writing is mainly an academic pursuit these days anyway. i agree that it was grandstanding and that doctorow shouldn't have politicized his speech so much, but comparing a TV celebrity like mellencamp to a man of letters like doctorow doesn't seem quite parallel to me.

[mreye]

i like cougar and agree with you, mreye, that he's a poor chice to give a keynote address at a graduation. i thought the same thing of bono from U2 doing harvard's. but E L doctorow shouldn't be grouped with those two. for one thing, though i don't think he's teaching right now, he has taught at yale, princeton, and UC irvine, among others. also, important literary writers like him are more appropriate to an academic setting than MTV faces. lit writing is mainly an academic pursuit these days anyway. i agree that it was grandstanding and that doctorow shouldn't have politicized his speech so much, but comparing a TV celebrity like mellencamp to a man of letters like doctorow doesn't seem quite parallel to me.

Yeah, I understand. I guess I didn't really explain what I meant by that. I think the people that choose the speakers and the speakers, themselves are forgetting that the commencement is supposed to be about the graduates!