What The Holy Hell Is Going On?

[Ralph Baer]

I received the following by email. I don't think that it has been posted here yet, but I am too lazy to search through over 1000 messages to be certain. I think that the late Dr Seuss, himself, would have done a lot better (but then again, he might have been a pacifist).

THE BINCH

Every U down in Uville liked the U.S. a lot,
But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not.
The Binch hated U.S! The whole U.S. way!
Now don't ask me why, for nobody can say,
It could be his turban was screwed on too tight.
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
But, Whatever the reason, his heart or his turban,
He stood facing Uville, the part that was urban.
"They're doing their business," he snarled from his perch.
"They're raising their families! They're going to church!
They're leading the world, and their empire is thriving,
I MUST keep the S's and U's from surviving!"

Tomorrow, he knew, all the U's and the S's,
Would put on their pants and their shirts and their dresses,
They'd go to their offices, playgrounds and schools,
And abide by their U and S values and rules,
And then they'd do something he liked least of all,
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,
Would stand all united, each U and each S,
And they'd sing Uville's anthem, "God bless us! God bless!"
All around their Twin Towers of Uville, they'd stand,
and their voices would drown every sound in the land.
"I must stop that singing," Binch said with a smirk,
And he had an idea--an idea that might work!

The Binch stole some U airplanes in U morning hours,
And crashed them right into the Uville Twin Towers.
"They'll wake to disaster!" he snickered, so sour,
"And how can they sing when they can't find a tower?"
The Binch cocked his ear as they woke from their sleeping,
All set to enjoy their U-wailing and weeping,

Instead he heard something that started quite low,
And it built up quite slow, but it started to grow--
And the Binch heard the most unpredictable thing...
And he couldn't believe it--they started to sing!
He stared down at U-ville, not trusting his eyes,
What he saw was a shocking, disgusting surprise!
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small, Was singing!
Without any towers at all!

He HADN'T stopped U-Ville from singing! It sung!
For down deep in the hearts of the old and the young,
Those Twin Towers were standing,
called Hope and called Pride,
And you can't smash the towers we hold deep inside.

So we circle the sites where our heroes did fall,
With a hand in each hand of the tall and the small,
And we mourn for our losses while knowing we'll cope,
For we still have inside that U-Pride and U-Hope.
For America means a bit more than tall towers,
It means more than wealth or political powers,
It's more than our enemies ever could guess,
So may God bless America! Bless us! God bless!

[NCAA watcher]

Originally posted by Bronco
I am all for the end of the taliban, but before we support the Northern Alliance do we know anything about them besides they are fighting against the taliban?

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/25/ret.afghan.opposition.ap/index.html

[HankWP]

Ha! Justice moves with a swift and silent (black balled) hand... to quote Jerry Seinfeld , "That's a shame"... read on:

" OPINION

Published on Wednesday, September 26, 2001
Oh, the Pain of Rejection

By ARIANNE R. COHEN
Crimson Staff Writer


It’s rejection season. Common casting, Crimson column, performance group and Harvard fellowship rejections all went out on Monday. I am one of the many to weather a major disappointment: I was not chosen as a Crimson columnist for the fall semester.
The saving grace is that there are many other wonderfully talented students currently in the exact same boat. They too all really wanted their own personal forums in The Harvard Crimson and are now stuck voicing their opinions to bored roommates and family members. Even more comforting is the thought of the hundreds of students across campus wallowing in bitter Rejection Land. They too have seen their short term plans take a nosedive, felt their pride take a kick in the stomach.

It’s funny how rejection works. Application and tryout-based opportunities seem extremely pivotal to your life only when you find out that you can’t have them. There are lots of Harvard students who have been completely happy without a Marshall Scholarship, and who will continue to be so. There are even more students who have never played a lead role in a production, never will, and will still lead successful lives. And yet that rationality is just not there when you receive the rejection letter.

In my case, it suddenly doesn’t matter to me that I’ve survived 20 column-less years in perfect contentment. It doesn’t matter that the time I’ll save not writing columns will probably be quite helpful with my heavy course load. Never mind that I enjoy my current position as Goddess of the Editor’s Notebook, and apparently will continue to do so. I’m sure that in 10 years I won’t remember The Crimson, let alone this little blip in my writing career. But right now this failure seems to be the major catastrophe of my existence on earth. As far as I’m concerned, my life is in shambles.

This scenario of partial failure is typical at Harvard because of the high quality applicant pool. Everyone is over-qualified for all positions, so good people get turned down. I can rest assured that when the column editors said that "deliberations were exceptionally difficult,” they weren’t lying. Picking superior Harvard students is extremely difficult, since clear standouts usually don’t exist.

This past summer I worked on a Harvard Student Agencies book project and was partially in charge of hiring four writer-researchers out of a pool of 45. After reading through all the applications, we cut 30 and interviewed the most promising 15. From there, we whittled down to eight highly qualified applicants, all of whom could have easily done an amazing job on the book.

The discussion of the final eight largely surrounded writing styles—which four writers would fit together the best, a distinction that has much more to do with luck than with ability. In the end, our final cut of the last four highly qualified applicants had nothing to do with talent (because they were all talented), and everything to do with writing styles. Surface characteristics suddenly mattered a lot. I should add that we depended heavily on gut instincts, since predicting future writing ability based on a few paragraphs and a 15-minute chat isn’t an exact science. These gut instincts changed right up to the last second. Still, there was always the safety of knowing that whoever we hired would be good.

In this way, Harvard becomes the reverse of a meritocracy, because when everyone’s competent, superficial details become the deciding factors. First-years and sophomores, for example, regardless of how talented, are always at a huge disadvantage to the upperclass students who are “running out of time,” and therefore more “deserving” of a position. Friendships carry more weight with hirers, as do small meaningless details, such as e-mail grammar. Ability is no longer the determining characteristic where everyone’s able. The Rhodes Scholar applicants who didn’t receive Harvard’s support on Monday, and the writers who applied for columns and were rejected, and the singers who were refused membership to prestigious groups, and anyone else who has ever been rejected from anything at Harvard, all heard this message loud and clear. It’s hard to win at a genius school where everyone is not only competent, but exceptional.

At least competent people won. (My mother brought up this point by reminding me that at least I’m not Al Gore.) Too much competency will always be better than not enough.

And there are always opportunities outside of Harvard. "

[Jim W]

LOL. Pretty funny how she spent the entire column convincing herself that she was in fact qualified but some "surface characteristics" and upper-class bias did her in. :p

It's also funny that she is absolutely sure that she's going to be so successful later in life that she won't even remember The Harvard Crimson. Boy is she in for a fall if that doesn't pan out.

[HankWP]

In my own warped kind of way :rolleyes: I hope it is fallout from her last piece in the Opinion section. :D

Henry.

[The Sicatoka]

My, she is quite full of ..... herself ..... isn't she.

[RoyalTea]

the afghans have torched the american embassy in kabul. these are the same people that these bleeding heart pacifists want to protect?

am i missing something?

[bsaeagle64]

Originally posted by RoyalTea
the afghans have torched the american embassy in kabul. these are the same people that these bleeding heart pacifists want to protect?

am i missing something?

No, you are not missing anything.

It would really be interesting to get a reaction from the leader of these "bleeding heart pacifists". I wonder if they changed their tune. ....probably not!!

[phb]

I pity the poor person who marries that little Harvard delight. How could you stand that attitiude for more than 15 minutes. If that's Harvard, thank God I went to UNH--worked out great.

[HankWP]

Hmm... no... making the generalization of "thank god I went to UNH instead of Harvard" is no better than the generalization she makes... in fact, it kind of supports her notion of barrier setting... I am sure UNH is a good school... but even after getting outraged by her comments... I am glad that I went to Harvard - not that there is anything wrong with UNH.

Henry.

[redeagle]

What I like about Ms. "Ain't I great, even though..." Cohen is her "Even more comforting...." comment. She is comforted by the fact that there are a lot of disappointed, suffering people out there. Nice. That slip tells you a lot about her.

[phb]

No, Hank, you miss the point. the statement was "if that's Harvard." I was waiting for you to come to its rescue.

[Todd Patten]

Just a note to the admin -- this one deserves Hall Of Fame status. I think that this thread demonstrated how much of a community this board really is.

[Ralph Baer]

Agreed. I've been wondering about that for over a week.

[HankWP]

I asked the board admin to put it in that status... as this, our thread, represents all of us and what we've been through... together.

Henry W. Piel, III

[The Sicatoka]

From the Drudge Report ( http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm ):

Report: Bin Laden Linked to Russia
Tue Oct 02 2001 12:49:53 ET
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

U.S. intelligence agencies have uncovered information that Russian criminal groups have been supplying Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist group with components for chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, The Washington Times reported. The Foreign Ministry called the report an attempt to undermine relations between the United States and Russia at a time of increased cooperation.

The Washington Times, citing U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity, reported last Wednesday that bin Laden is believed by U.S. intelligence to have a secret nuclear-weapons laboratory inside Afghanistan. This is believed to be one of the sites sought for U.S. military strikes, the newspaper said.

There is no hard evidence that bin Laden or his followers have actually produced chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But bin Laden has worked with Russian mafia groups in obtaining components for weapons of mass destruction, according to officials familiar with the intelligence reports.

The U.S. State Department's latest report on international terrorism says that al-Qaeda continued to seek chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities, the newspaper said.

Intelligence officials say al-Qaeda is probably trying to produce the nerve agent Sarin or biological weapons made up of anthrax spores.

A former State Department counter terrorism official, Larry Johnson, said the contacts between the Russian mafia and bin Laden could be related to drug trafficking and that such cooperation would not be surprising, the newspaper said.

The Foreign Ministry said the new report raises a question: ``Why should such information be splashed out on newspaper pages instead of discussing it through the channels existing between our countries, including confidential ones?''

''One may get the impression that some in the United States oppose the positive tendency in Russian-American relations that has made itself felt recently,'' the ministry said in a statement carried by Interfax.

[Craig P.]

I'm not sure why they're worried about a Russian Mafia problem souring U.S.-Russia relations. I mean, <em>we</em> have trouble with the Russian Mafia by all accounts, so I certainly wouldn't expect the Russians to have them under control.

[Jim W]

"We meet here to pay glad homage to the memory of our illustrious dead; but let us keep ever clear before our minds the fact that mere lip-loyalty is no loyalty at all, and that the only homage that counts is the homage of deeds, not of words. It is but an idle waste of time to celebrate the memory of the dead unless we, the living, in our lives strive to show ourselves not unworthy of them. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world. Justice among the nations of mankind, and the uplifting of humanity, can be brought about only by those strong and daring men who with wisdom love peace, but who love righteousness more than peace. "

- Theodore Roosevelt

[Todd Patten]

I just think this deserves a revisit to the top. It's a great reminder of why we should all still be pi<b></b>ssed off beyond imagination.

Yippee--kay-yey MF'ers...

[HankWP]

I heard on MS-NBC this morning (10/26) that "...the government found anthrax in the CIA headquarters-main building..." ... if I had to guess, I'd say there is a lot going on that we are not hearing about...

:(

Henry.