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UW-Madison students exploring political activism of today's youth released a short documentary on Friday titled "Youthanized." The video, which is available at http://www.youtube.com/youthanized compares activism of today's UW students with those of the late 1960s and early 1970s -- when Madison was a national hot spot for Vietnam War protestors. The documentary, which started to take shape in the fall of 2007 as a school project for Mark Korshak, begins by posing the question, "Is Generation Y uniquely apathetic?""There really isn't a simple answer to that question," said Korshak, a Los Angeles native who in May earned his undergraduate degree...

A U-W Madison professor is back in the United States and recovering after being drugged, robbed and dumped in a remote Russian park. David Bethea is chairman of the university's Slavic languages department. Bethea has visited Russia more than two dozen times. But, he says he made a mistake he hopes other tourists can learn from. He accepted a cup of coffee from a cab driver, who apparently had laced it with a date-rape-like drug. A stranger found Bethea in a remote park in St. Petersburg about 12 hours later. He spent eight days in a St. Petersburg hospital before...

(UW's Mexican party has dancers, food) Members of the UW-Madison's Chicano student group and others interested in Mexican culture gathered Friday night for El Dia de los Muertos, an annual holiday that celebrates those who have died, not with sadness and tears but with lively festivities. "On this day, it's believed that spirits come back and celebrate with their loved ones," said Vanessa Sanchez, a legal studies major from Waukesha, and co-chairwoman of the student group, called MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan). "Day of the Dead" is an indigenous celebration that dates to the time of the Aztecs, she...

UW students march on Pentagon with over 50,000 people WASHINGTON, D.C.— “What do we want? Troops out! When do we want ‘em? Now!” Pro-peace chants rang through a Van Galder coach bus filled with members of UW-Madison’s Campus Anti-War Network, as it drove out of a gray, windy Madison toward an even colder, blustery Washington, D.C., Friday. The members marched on the Pentagon to protest the war—Saturday marked the four-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The 51 protesting bus riders represented a variety of political ideologies, from Democrat to Green Party to Socialist. The political atmosphere on the...

In less than a week, a little girl from East Troy with a rare genetic condition will get on a plane with her mother, aunt and cousin and head to China to receive more than 60 million stem cells. Brooke Barels, 9, suffers from Glucose Transporter Deficiency, a condition caused by a genetic mutation of the gene that processes glucose from food into fuel for her body. As a result, Brooke suffers from cerebral palsy-like symptoms and cannot function like normal children.  She's the 83rd person in the world diagnosed with GLUT-1, as it's better known. She'll be the first...

The increasing intensity of hurricanes hitting the U.S. is partly driven by global warming, and the ferocity of storms to come is likely to increase as surface temperatures of the ocean rise, says a noted scientist visiting UW-Madison. "The effects of global warming do not only concern scientists," Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Kerry Emanuel told an audience at a public lecture Thursday. "I want to put this issue into a societal context."Emanuel, a professor in the department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at MIT, has published two books and over 100 scientific articles. One article published in the...

Howard Zinn, a celebrated American political scientist, addressed University of Wisconsin students at the Memorial Union Theater Tuesday about the importance of history and democracy to provide context to current issues in government and war. Zinn said his focus is on “clear” history, which he defined as making individual decisions about how to perceive historical and current events, because it makes people aware of their own interests. “It is a lie to say we are one great happy family with the same interest,” Zinn said. “Exxon and I do not have the same interests, and Bush and the soldiers do...

A new group, called "Middle East Solidarity" (AKA support the terrorists and worship Saint Pancake, Rachel Corrie), was created by the ultra left on my campus. The reason for formation of this group is that Stop the War had it's Student Org status revoked due to it's vandalism to the ROTC building (cutting the rope to the US flag) and constant harassment of recuiters at events. Also, I suspect a link to the International Solidarity movement, thus the Saint Pancake reference earlier. There is one catch however. The problem with the new group is that it is a contiuation of...

MADISON, WI (AP) -- A part-time instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison taught the first class of his course on Islam Tuesday after drawing intense scrutiny for his belief the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks. Days before the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Kevin Barrett touched only briefly on them but told students the subject would be covered in discussions in early November during his twice-a-week course, "Islam: Religion and Culture." Barrett, castigated by some legislators after his views were publicized over the summer, used self-deprecating humor as he began the class, describing himself as an Irish...

There may be a reason why academics are nearly as reluctant to discuss welfare reform as they are to do a recap of The Cold War: most professors were wrong about the War on Poverty too. “Washington declared war on poverty and poverty won,” former President Ronald Reagan famously said. Most pedagogues never saw it that way. “In Wisconsin, 33 families a day entered the state from Illinois and Chicago lured by higher benefits,” the Claremont Institute’s Eloise Anderson remembers of the land-o-lakes she called home for three decades. “The academic community denied that was a motive to move from...

According to Kevin Barrett, the US government planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks, the World Trade Center imploded due to explosives set up ahead of time in the buildings, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crash was no accident, and Osama bin Laden has probably been dead since 2001. Mr. Barrett is not a radical anarchist or a teenager peddling conspiracy theories; he's a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison - a fact that has outraged some state politicians. The case has drawn national attention and provided grist for conservative talk-show hosts, while the university has been deluged with...

Hired by the University of Wisconsin to teach “Islam: Religion and Culture,” this fall at the Madison campus, Kevin Barrett believes that the 9/11 attacks on America were planned and executed by the U.S. government and not the work of terrorists. Barrett co-founded Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Barrett’s views have caused a divide in Wisconsin. Barrett and university officials have stated that Barrett’s personal views will not be discussed or taught in the class. Supporters of Barrett argue that he has the right to academic freedom. Some state legislatures called for the university to fire Barrett immediately. So which...

(AP) -- Kevin Barrett believes the U.S. government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the twin towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners. These men aren't uneducated junk scientists: Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose mainstream academic job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists. Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely...

Critics of higher education who say American colleges do not prepare students for life after graduation may be way off base: Among federal judges, the problem may be that they do try to apply their education to the post-graduate day jobs that they hold. “At a seminar for federal judges in Kansas City, one of the more conservative judges said, ‘Isn’t it a shame that people don’t know the five rights in the first amendment,’” historian John Kaminski remembered in a recent forum at the Cato Institute. “One of the more activist judges said, ‘Five rights, I’ve been giving 25...

Many people in Madison will welcome the news that Kevin Barrett has been allowed to teach a course on Islam at the UW. Most will see it as a triumph of academic freedom. Others will rejoice because they believe what Barrett alleges: that the terrorist attack of Sept. 11 was "an inside job" and a "gargantuan, Satanic lie" concocted by the U.S. government to wage an endless war. I, however, will not be one of those celebrating. Barrett's accusations about Sept. 11, as most of us well know, have no grounding in reality, forensic evidence or common sense. But by...

<p>A University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer who has sparked controversy by teaching that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job lashed out Sunday at public officials who have questioned his right to teach.</p> <p>Speaking at a gathering at UW-Milwaukee, Kevin Barrett took aim at state Rep. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater), U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.) and Gov. Jim Doyle.</p>

Following a thorough review, University of Wisconsin-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell today announced that lecturer Kevin Barrett will teach, as scheduled, a class titled "Islam: Religion and Culture." Barrett's remarks regarding his theories on the events of Sept. 11 recently drew widespread attention and criticism. As a result, Farrell, along with Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, and Ellen Rafferty, chair of the department of languages and cultures of Asia, met with Barrett. They reviewed his course syllabus and reading materials and examined his past teaching evaluations. "There is no question that Mr. Barrett holds personal opinions...

Wisconsin's Ward Churchill? UW-Madison lecturer on Islam is leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist who thinks the U.S. government blew up the Trade Center and wrote letter discussing Bush execution ++++++++++audio coming soon How is UW-Madison lecturer Kevin Barrett like Ward Churchill? Actually, he's not. He's whackier. Churchill believes the terrorists caused the World Trade Center attacks. He just thinks they were justified in some manner. And now the university where he has tenure in Colorado is trying to fire him. Remember how upset we all got about Churchill, who was just a prof from another state who was in town for...

MADISON, WI (AP) -- University of Wisconsin-Madison investigators have accused a former genetics professor of distorting research findings in grant applications and her published papers. Elizabeth B. Goodwin improperly relabeled charts and graphs in the applications for three grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health, investigators found. The investigators' findings became public Wednesday. "There is compelling evidence of scientific misconduct by Dr. Goodwin," the investigators' report said. For example, a diagram in one of the applications is a replica of a diagram taken from a published paper, the report said. The protein depicted in...

A UW-Madison professor dismissed earlier this month for a felony conviction collected pornographic images on his school computer for a decade, according to documents released Friday. The UW Board of Regents voted April 7 to dismiss L. Keith Cohen, a 30-year faculty member of the UW-Madison Department of Comparative Literature. On Friday, the UW released a copy of the board's decision to The Associated Press under an open records request. The firing was done over the objections of a UW-Madison faculty committee.Cohen was arrested in March 2005. Authorities said he had driven to suburban Milwaukee to meet a 14-year-old boy...

A recent survey found that women fret about the shape of their bodies every 15 minutes, even more frequently than men think about sex, if that's possible. This insecurity does not seem to bedevil 19 female students at UW-Madison who get bucky naked or nearly so in the May issue of Playboy and its glossy tribute to America's top 10 party schools. Madison came in at No. 1, the magazine says, for throwing huge bashes like the Mifflin Street Block Party, which is Saturday, and the annual Halloween riot. All across Wisconsin and beyond right now, male high

A UW-Madison student group that aims to teach students responsible gun use has also done advocacy work for Wisconsin’s concealed-carry amendment. Student Alliance for Firearm Education and Responsibility, a student organization since the mid-’90s, allows students to compete in shooting and discuss gun-related issues. According to UW-Madison senior and SAFER President Lucas Keith, the group’s success lies in the commitment of its members, a mix of avid shooters and students who have never seen a gun in their life. “People are reluctant to come out and try it … and we try to alleviate some of those concerns,” he said....

MADISON, WI (AP) -- The University of Wisconsin System was unaware it employed a total of 40 felons this fall, including two who committed homicides in the 1970s and four child sex offenders, according to an audit released Tuesday.UW System President Kevin Reilly promised a review of all 40 cases cited by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau to determine whether the crimes were related to their employment and the system should dismiss the employees. He said 12 of the employees no longer work for the system and 25 committed the crimes before they were hired. State law prohibits job discrimination...

(Anti-gay epithets and spit left on dorm door...) Four college students were charged with hate crimes for an incident during which they allegedly wrote anti-gay statements and spit on a dorm room door.According to a criminal complaint, the victim, whose door displayed a red sign reading "LGBT Liaison" and several gay-themed posters, told police he was awakened in his Ogg Hall dorm room at about 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 21 by someone yelling, "All faggots should die" and "I hate f-- faggots." He opened the door to find "I hate f--- faggots. Die," written on the dry erase board on...

Two University of Wisconsin freshmen appeared in court Jan. 17 facing felony charges of disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property as hate crimes. The students, Benjamin Chamberlain and Michael Riha, allegedly vandalized the dorm room door of a UW student and LGBT liaison in Ogg Hall Dec. 21, according to court documents. Also charged and due to appear in Dane County Court Feb. 13 are Purdue University freshman Kevin Cochacki and Auburn University freshman Caleb Moore, both of whom were visiting Riha, their Naperville, Ill., high school friend. According to court documents, Chamberlain is a U.S. Marine ROTC student,...

Students, faculty and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were shaken after learning this week about an apparent hate crime in Ogg Hall. Earlier this week, four men were charged with hate crimes after a Dec. 21 incident in which an Ogg Hall lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liaison had his door defaced.The victim, inside his room, heard someone in the hall yelling epithets; he found that someone had written "I hate f--- faggots, Die" on his dry erase board, UW Police said. Saliva was dripping down his door and pictures on his door were defaced, police said. Two of...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

Here is the list so far for sponcers to this hate America fest: ANSWER Code Pink UFPJ NION Al Awda World Workers Party Ruckas Revolutionary Communist party Moveon.org ACORN Campus Antiwar Network International Socialist Org Greens Party Muslim Student Association CPUSA

At its 20th anniversary dinner, Accuracy in Academia will make its first annual presentation of its Little Churchill awards, named after Ward not Winston, for dubious academic achievement. Just as the colorful Ethnic Studies professor has distinguished himself for calling the victims of the World Trade Center attacks of 9-11-01 Little Eichmanns, thus comparing them to the notorious Nazi from the Second World War, so too have a host of academics distinguished themselves by their ethnic sensitivity in an age of "tolerance." But Ward Churchill's achievements do not end there. He has also produced scholarship that either already appeared elsewhere...

A UW-Madison team has taken another step forward in producing power from biomass such as cornstalks. UW College of Engineering researchers led by Steenbock Professor James Dumesic filed for two patents a few years ago - one for producing hydrogen from biomass and the other for producing sulfur-free liquid alkanes that could be an ideal additive for diesel fuel. The hydrogen technology is being commercialized by Virent, a fledgling company that recently gained its first institutional funding. The alkanes technology was more problematic, Dumesic said. "It was very volatile and not very good fuel material," he said. However, he said...

A state lawmaker said Thursday the Legislature needs to send a message of disapproval to the University of Wisconsin System after a school clinic urged students to get advance prescriptions for emergency contraception before leaving on Spring Break. Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told his colleagues during an Assembly committee hearing that his proposal to prohibit the UW System from dispensing or prescribing the so-called morning-after pill would do just that. But Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, countered that the legislation was a misguided attempt to change the sexual behavior of college students, and taking away the morning-after pill from college women...

ontact UW-Madison Stop the War (member of Campus Antiwar Network, campusantiwar.net): Chelsea Lauing (608) 264-0671, lauing@wisc.edu Paul Pryse (608) 264-2700, pryse@wisc.edu Student Protest Prevents Annual ROTC Information Day at UW-Madison The Air Force Reverse Officer Training Corps (ROTC) annual information day on April 30 was cancelled. At the information day, students were “to learn about Air Force scholarship opportunities and Air Force careers” and receive free lunch, according to an e-mail sent out to the student body. According to Air Force ROTC representatives on campus, the event was cancelled due to the threat of a protest called by the University...

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has a history of being a harbinger for social discontent, and as such is generally unreceptive to the precepts of conservatism. The newest addition to the radical right on campus of a local chapter of an international organization called 'Protest Warrior.'Founded in the midst of the Iraq war debate, the Protest Warriors are a group than infiltrates anti-war protests and demonstrations with the intent of fulfilling their manifesto of 'arming the libert loving Silent Majority with ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the left.'At a recent ROTC protest rally, the Protest...

Emotions Flare At War Protests On Campus MADISON, Wis. -- University of Wisconsin campus police spent the day Thursday dealing with some students who walked out of classes to protest the Iraq war, military recruiters on campus and the ROTC program. Jane Jensen of Military Families for Peace began her speech at the rally by saying she supports the troops, but that no more should be sent to war. "We support the troops by doing all we can do for the soldiers who are there now and their families," Jensen said. Then in the middle of her speech there was...

Divestment resolution goes down in vote at University of Wisconsin MADISON, WI — The continuing campaign to get the University of Wisconsin system to divest from companies doing business with Israel suffered another defeat this week, this time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The campus’ Teaching Assistants’ Association — a union of some 1,800 voting members representing about 3,000 graduate students, according to a member at the organization’s office — voted to amend and reword a resolution that originally had called for divestment from Israel. The new resolution, according to a report in a student newspaper, the Daily Cardinal, called...

Three openly gay scholars have left the University of Wisconsin for other schools in recent years, each citing the state's policy to refuse health insurance for domestic partners. Warning that UW-Madison is at a competitive disadvantage for recruiting and maintaining gay faculty, Gov. Jim Doyle has asked lawmakers for $1 million over the next two years to fund domestic partner benefits for system employees.UW Madison last year became the only Big Ten school that does not offer such coverage when Penn State changed its policy.Republicans who control the Legislature said Doyle's plan faces opposition from members who say it is...

The UW sociology department considers the signs from ProtestWarrior to be Racist, Sexist, Libelous, and promoting violence.