Posted on 11/17/2001 4:04:08 AM PST by tom paine 2
Hundreds of Earlham College students consider conservative columnist Ann Coulter to be a lemon, so they decided something sweet should come from the convocation she delivered at the school Wednesday. Before Coulter's address, a group of students created Project Lemon-Aid.
The group's goal was for students and faculty to sign their names and offer pledges for every minute Coulter spoke. With the project slogan "HAHA," or "Help Ann Help Arabs," the money would go to an emergency fund for Earlham's 70 international students.
"It started as trying to find a way to make something good out of Ann Coulter's hateful words that offended a lot of people," said Earlham senior Matthew Schreiber. "We want to express our right to protest and her right to free speech."
Coulter, a lawyer, author and legal and political analyst, focused on issues such as the Supreme Court, abortion, the death penalty and sexual harassment.
But students packed Goddard Auditorium to question Coulter about statements she made about Muslims in recent newspaper columns. Coulter's column appears regularly in the Palladium-Item.
Several students took issue with her written statements that "every Muslim is not a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim" and "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
One individual asked, if Coulter believes in the value of life as she said, why would she recommend going to the Middle East to commit murder.
"We are not going out looking for civilians to kill," Coulter said.
She said, once the Taliban began hiding in and around mosques, thus making targets of the places for Muslim worship.
"If you're going to turn the mosque into an instrument of war, they will be bombed," she said.
Coulter said missionaries should enter Afghanistan to convert Muslims. When questioned, she said that was the case in Japan after World War II and in Korea after the Korean War. In Korea, she said, individuals converted by the thousands.
About 12 students left before Coulter began speaking.
"This action is in response to words already published," one student announced to Coulter before the group left. "You've called for the destruction of my friends and their homes. You've attacked me and my community."
Of the hundreds of students who remained, a majority of them seemed angry when the convocation ended.
Some students displayed their anger, frustration and disagreement with Coulter's thoughts by tossing balled paper over the balcony and raising their voices when making comments.
Earlham senior Francesca Jeffries said she thought Coulter showed the students disrespect when she answered questions with sarcasm and, in one case, asked if anyone had "a real question."
"Earlham College has been very aware of things in trying to keep ourselves respectful," Jeffries said. "She should feel ashamed. She's a professional but her whole manner was very teasing and rude."
Other students thought Coulter had a tough assignment when she agreed to appear at a campus known for its liberal views.
"I thought she teetered on the border of being arrogant and condescending," said first-year student Shawn Connell. "She had a tough job. When the audience disrespected her, she didn't react that badly."
Connell said, while he disagreed with most of Coulter's viewpoints, he learned something from the experience. "Now I understand better the conservative viewpoint," Connell said. "I may not agree with it, but I feel better that I know it."
Does this mean it's "GROUP HUG" time now???? Isn't that SSSSSSSSSSPECIAAAAAAAL!!!!!!
Huhh??!!
What a truly grammatical and articulate sentence!
There will be many fronts and facets in the war on terrorism. The stakes are now too high to let it go.
The students seem to have warmed to their role as trained seals. See if Annie or any other representative of the real world will ever stoop to cast pearls before these swine again! Sheesh!
BTW, we've all heard of Annie before and we surely will again. Earlham has been dropped down the memory hole.
Did she really say this ? You have to admit that is a pretty stupid thing to say. I guess she's never heard of Timothy McVeigh.
Why do the students need an emergency fund?
And, I replied, bowing my untrousered seat, this is in response to deeds already committed.
"You've called for the destruction of my friends and their homes. You've attacked me and my community."
You've DESTROYED my friends and their homes. You've attacked me and my community.
Your absence is requested.
I'm involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship here, and our speaker Thurs. was a man named Bob Hunter. Mr. Hunter is the IV staffworker, and also a part-time professor, there at Earlham. I didn't realize that's where he was from until Thursday, when our M.C. announced that Mr. Hunter was from Earlham and was going to speak on loving our enemies.
My first thought was, "I wonder whether he heard Ann Coulter speak yesterday." A few minutes later, when he starting speaking, he answered my question by using the Earlham students' reactions to Ann Coulter as an example of how NOT to respond to your enemies.
I was expecting flat-out pacifistic garbage from Mr. Hunter, considering he worked at a Quaker college, but I was surprised when he took a more moderate view (amazed, actually).
Anyway, apparently -- at least according to Bob Hunter -- Ann managed to offend almost everyone (liberal and conservative both -- again, according to him). I'm not sure how much I believe that she managed to offend the conservatives there, too, but if they were pacifistic conservatives, then I could see how.
Bob Hunter did bring up an interesting point, though -- Ann's columns before 9/11 and after 9/11 seem to be vastly different, almost as if she were grieving (she did lose her friend Barbara Olson in one of the plane crashes that day).
God bless Ann Coulter.
TG
Just what I would expect from upset liberals! No, they can't provide a thought-out response like mature adults, could they? They then have the gall to say something like this:
Earlham senior Francesca Jeffries said she thought Coulter showed the students disrespect when she answered questions with sarcasm and, in one case, asked if anyone had "a real question."
I suspect Ann didn't field many real, intelligent questions that day, only hate-filled, sarcastic comments. She responded as one should respond to such things.
"Earlham College has been very aware of things in trying to keep ourselves respectful," Jeffries said.
AAAAAAAAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!
"She should feel ashamed. She's a professional but her whole manner was very teasing and rude."
Maybe that's just cause you guys didn't prove yourselves to deserve better treatment. You act like children, you get treated as such.
I believe the quote actually stated that every Muslim was not a terrorist, but (on Sept. 11) every one of the hijackers was a Muslim. This is a correct statement, and I suspect that Coulter, being a lawyer, chose her words carefully as she is trained to do. I would assume that the youngsters at the college got it wrong.
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