Interesting… within a couple hours of when I was gifted with a link to this IntellectualTakeout site, it disappeared, or was disappeared! Here’s the disappearing link:

http://www.intellectualtakeout.com/campusnetwork/displayDish.asp?yd=2005&id=11

What’s up?

(update – as of Tuesday afternoon, it’s baaaaaaack, and it looks a lot different than it did before! A little birdie from St. Olaf told me that the Center for American Experiment held a press conference at the capitol today, where they spread the word that “We’re trying to present fair and balanced opinions.” Uh-huh… right… please refer to the G.W. photo posted 9/13)

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Well, it seems that the Center of the American Experiment does not agree with the St. Olaf theme of “sustainability” for this academic year. OK, 1, 2, 3… AAAAAAAWWWWWWWW… So what’s the bee up their bonnet? The burr under their saddle? It’s a big “so what” yawn kind of thing… It seems their biggest bitch is that St. Olaf didn’t learn from their reactionary tirade some time back. Once more with feeling… AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW…

The short version:

Despite the substantial backlash over that incident, administration officials failed to learn their lesson and are now requiring freshmen students to read their environmental essay and take a survey to ?gauge their environmental values and ecological literacy.? Officials have done so because they have declared ?sustainability? to be the ?theme? for the 2005-2006 school year.

Here’s the real poop of it in its entirety from another site, its parent “Center of the American Experiment,” where the horse’s apple doesn’t fall far from the horse — it’s hard to get worked up into a response. But here is their complaint, see for yourself, and keep checking to see if that link ever comes back:

4. Why do Students Need IntellectualTakout.com? Look No Further Than St. Olaf

Center of the American Experiment staff and St. Olaf Alumni Chris Tiedeman and Britt Haugland have discovered that liberal political indoctrination is alive and well at their alma mater. Here is their take on St. Olaf?s latest liberal shenanigans:

A few years ago, St. Olaf was embroiled in controversy for refusing to present diverse points of view during a ?peace conference.? Administration officials even refused to allow attorney, author, and American Experiment Board Member Scott Johnson to make a presentation on peace through strength.

Despite the substantial backlash over that incident, administration officials failed to learn their lesson and are now requiring freshmen students to read their environmental essay and take a survey to ?gauge their environmental values and ecological literacy.? Officials have done so because they have declared ?sustainability? to be the ?theme? for the 2005-2006 school year.

According to a St. Olaf news release, the sustainability theme will be promoted through lectures by environmentalists and other campus activities ? including communal campus bicycles and a picnic that ?will serve locally grown food, including vegetables grown by the student-run St. Olaf Garden Research and Organic Works (STOGROW), served on biodegradable tableware.?

Incoming students will also be asked to read “The Nature of College,” which includes ponderous passages such as this, ?In this century, earth?s people must learn how to harmonize our lives with the teeming life of a blue-green planet. We must harmonize our ?buy-o-sphere? with the biosphere, nesting human economies gently within fragile natural economies.?

The author of ?The Nature of College,? St. Olaf professor James Farrell, also includes very profound musings such as, ?After s**t does happen, you?ll probably wipe yourself with toilet paper, using some of the 53 million sheets that are used on this campus each year. And if you are a good citizen, you?ll flush the poop and paper (and the water) down the drain, where it will be out of sight and out of mind. If you?re a normal American, you won?t think twice about it.? [Expletive deleted by CAE e-Extra editor.]

According to the news release, the sustainability theme ?will be academic as well, as professors across disciplines incorporate the sustainability theme into their syllabi. Before the Class of 2009 arrives on campus, the students will take a survey to gauge their environmental values and ecological literacy. Upon their graduation Professor of History Jim Farrell plans a similar survey to determine how students’ environmental concerns might have changed.?

What is happening at St. Olaf is happening at college campuses across the state. That is why American Experiment will be launching IntellectualTakeout.com this fall, which is designed to expose students to different points of view than they are hearing in the classroom and at the same time strengthen the intellectual health of universities by spurring debate on the important issues of the day.

Yawn… more diddling while New Orleans is flooding… Get a grip, folks, there’s “important issues of the day” to deal with!

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