First of all, I'd like to welcome all the new bloggers, all the new students, and all the new blog-readers to this school year! Everyone else - welcome back!
The beginning of my sophomore year is exactly how I expected - classes, ambitions, and a whole lot of chaos. Also, I might be sick.
My summer was excellent - I worked as a Deputy Field Organizer in the Town of Huntington, running a coordinated campaign for the Town Supervisor, the County Legislators, and the Town Council members. I went to Disney World in Florida with my parents and my little brother.
Move-in day was hectic, since Hunter moved in the same day as the BioBlitz. The BioBlitz was intriguing, if not my cup of tea. The nice part was that I got plants, which meant I got to take the day easy- plants can't run away.
The first week of classes went about as I expected. I'm taking an Asian Religions class, a class on Criminal and Constitutional Law, my Macaulay Seminar, and a class on the Bill of Rights. While I like the topics, I've found a few professors I don't care for. However, I decided not to switch out of the classes. It felt too much like giving up if I did. I guess I'll just focus on the readings and pray that I survive class time. We had quite an odd assortment of days off in the first two weeks (thank god for Jewish holidays) so I went to Buffalo to visit my Grandmother. She had a small conniption when she found out that textbooks really do cost $160 or more. She thought the man on the radio was exaggerating. Oh how I wish he was Grandma, how I wish he was.
Its pretty excellent being back in the city - 24 hour restaurants, 24 hour subway system, constantly surrounded by friends - I missed this when I was home. To be frank though, I miss the sleep I got when I was home. This is "the city that never sleeps" for a reason.
I feel compelled to say something on the subject of General Petraeus' appointment. There has been so much controversy about it - students incredibly excited to learn from such a successful man, students terrified to have him among our ranks. People are continually calling him a "war criminal" and a "misuse of CUNY money".
I don't have an issue with the respectful dissent that is going on - people not signing up for his class, sign-holding, respectful protest against his presence. No one says you have to agree with every decision CUNY and Macaulay make.
But of late, the protesting has gotten out of hand. Students were shouting at him, calling him names, not even related to what his supposed transgressions are. By harassing him and disrupting his class with displays outside of it, they're refusing to respect the intellectual freedom of their fellow students.
If we, as a society, decided to outlaw learning from "criminals", we would be sent back to the stone ages. Many great theorists in politics were technically members of the Nazi party. Wernher Von Braun, the founder of NASA, was a Nazi. Even Henry David Thoreau wasn't a law-abiding citizen. One of the professors here at Hunter was suspected of terrorism, and incarcerated for possession of explosives. Yet, she teaches one of the best classes - Women's Prison Memoirs. General Petraeus isn't teaching a class on warfare. He's not talking about destruction. He's talking about creation, the future- and what we as students might do to make it better.
And for those who claim to know something about the war he helped command, those who seem to determined to say that he is, beyond all doubt, a war criminal - I would remind you "Innocent, until proven guilty.
If you'd care to read it, here is Dean Kirschner's excellent response, on the Macaulay Homepage.
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