<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-University-Purge.html?hp&ex=1157515200&en=207c661dcd9402ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-University-Purge.html?hp&ex=1157515200&en=207c661dcd9402ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage</a></p>
<p>Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country’s universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.</p>
<p>Seems liberalism and secularism are ideologies to be feared world-wide.</p>
<p>I am almost finished with “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. Very sad to see what has happened in that once beautiful country.</p>
<p>I remember reading an article back in the 80s about how, at the insistence of the mullahs, the Iranian universities had removed most of the discussions of probability from their statistics courses to try prevent any application to gambling (dice, etc). They were forced to teach “Islamic statistics.”</p>
<p>yup…seems like they are not with him.</p>
<p>Similar to Katherine Harris mind set.</p>
<p>See!!! Bush and Ahmadinejad would have so much in common…if only they would talk to each other.</p>
<p>It’s a political ploy. The natives surrounding him and with more power than him must be restless.</p>
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<p>Which is truly ironic and sad, given that those Iranian universities were some of the people that preserved knowledge during the Dark Ages and early medieval period, and even “invented algebra” - at least that was what I was taught way back when.</p>
<p>Funny how our “ememies” aren’t that different than alot of us here. “Liberal judges, college professors…blah blah blah…” It always seems that people who want to maintain control over a population seek to control education and it’s content. The fear of the creation of a free thinking person scares them.</p>
<p>Maybe Ahmadinejad is concerned about Iran’s “covert enemies”.</p>
<p>But then again so do Ann Coulter and David Horowitz, our homegrown Taliban.</p>
<p>You mean homegrown Taliban in suites and skirts.</p>
<p>It’s sad that people equate Ahmadinejad’s call to literally purge liberal, secular professors in Iran with a free and open CC discussion regarding liberal, secular influence in American colleges.</p>
<p>Countries with 200,000 well-equipped hostile troops amassed on its borders, representimg a nation with a long-history of torturing and supplying torture equipment to be used against the country’s people and which has worked for almost 30 years to subvert its government, supporting neighboring nations in their use of chemical weapons against them, whose leaders call them “the axis of evil”, and where influential news commentators talk daily of the possibility of an invasion, will often throw up popular leaders with strange notions.</p>
<p>What’s the U.S.’ excuse?</p>
<p>DRJ4- just because something is on a lesser scale, such as the hit list of “liberal” professors, etc., does not mean the REASONS behind it aren’t just as ugly</p>
<p>I think if the Bush administration had its way, it really would (literally) purge liberal professors from the nation’s colleges.</p>
<p>From some conservative speak I read, there are many parents who will not allow their darling children to apply to many eastern colleges, “bastions of liberalism”, for fear that such ideas will sully their children’s thinking.</p>
<p>The action and repercussions may not be the same, but the underlying thinking really is quite a bit more like Iran than we might like to admit, here in the US of A.</p>
<p>CGM: A “lesser scale” is right, I’d say. “Hit list?” Last I looked I thought we still had free speech in this country. Is there someone lurking out there trying to assasinate our liberal professors that I’m not aware of? Anybody making mocumentaries about this as they are in the UK about Bush’s assasination? My favorite reason to tune into CC lately is the pitch of the anti-Bush rhetoric; you guys may not realize it, but it’s hilarious.</p>
<p>AM, The BUSH ADMINISTRATION would literally purge liberal professors from the nation’s colleges? ROFLM*O.</p>
<p>I’d say maybe the reason some parents might support a more conservative college for their offspring is because they <em>FINALLY</em> get to have a CHOICE! Also, their kids may get to be exposed to some new ideas for the first time ever in a classroom.</p>
<p>That’s cute … perhaps you weren’t around these parts when there was a thread going in which the usual subjects of “blue” CC’ers discussed how their kids didn’t want to go to school in a “Red” state. Heaven forbid that they live in a state that perhaps only 45% of the population thought as they did - never mind that in all likelihood the town that the school was in and the school itself was almost certainly deep blue.</p>
<p>HH: perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to what your conservative pals are saying about those terrible and frightening liberals…including the ones teaching in universities. The downfall of America and all, you know. </p>
<p>ROTF all you like…I just read and digest…</p>