Saturday, December 27, 2014

Pakistani Officials don't like "Homeland" any more than the North Koreans like "The Interview"



Leo Castagnera

10:21 AM (51 minutes ago)
to me
I thought you might be interested in this article Pakistani officials upset with 'Homeland'<http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/12/27/pakistani-officials-upset-with-homeland/>.

[http://global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/U.S./pakistan-islamabad.jpg]

Pakistani officials are not happy with how the Showtime TV Series “Homeland” portrays the country.

Sent via the Fox News App. Download the app here<https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fox-news/id367623543?mt=8>.

Query:  Are these dictators trying to boost viewer interest?  (They couldn't do better if they were consciously trying.)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Monday, December 22, 2014

January 28th: National Adjunct Walk Out Day


Introducing a New Webinar:
National Adjunct Walkout Day:
Strategies for Preparation & Response
Wednesday, January 28th • 2-3:30 pm (ET)
A great deal of attention has been paid to the issues of compensation and working conditions for adjunct faculty on campuses across the U.S.

     In a grassroots effort designed as an anonymous “call to action,” the first-ever National Adjunct Walkout Day has been planned for February 25, 2015. Contingent faculty — and other supporters — are being encouraged to participate on campuses throughout the U.S.
         The movement is gaining momentum — and traction — on social media sites and in news media.

    What will this look like on your campus?
    And, are you prepared to respond? 


         With no central organizing committee for National Adjunct Walkout Day, this event will look unique on every campus. Join us for a lively and informative webinar that will explore what your campus needs to know to prepare for and respond to National Adjunct Walkout Day.
     
     
    Participation Outcomes
    As a result of this webinar, you will be able to:
    • Understand the motivation behind the upcoming National Adjunct Walkout Dayand how events surrounding this movement may look on your campus.
    • Explore the short- and long-term implications of this kind of grassroots action.
    • Discuss the potential downside, including legal implications and campus safety considerations, of the planned event.
    • Increase your awareness of how National Adjunct Walkout Day can be the focal point for increasing awareness of the importance of adjuncts on your campus.
     
    What You Get When You Attend a PaperClip Webinar:
    • Great Value: Invite your entire staff for one low price! (one location)
    • Certificate of Completion: A printed certificate for each participant is delivered after the event.
    • Multimedia Discs: Add the event recording and materials to your professional library to use over and over again.
    • Convenient Access: Call in and log in online to attend the 90-minute live event.
    • Specific Feedback: Ask your questions during the Q&A session. 

    Please do not reply to this e-mail as we are not able to respond to messages sent to this address.
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    Professor Ely Karmon on the Syrian situation

    Coat of arms of Syria -- the "Hawk of Qur...
    Coat of arms of Syria -- the "Hawk of Qureish" with shield of vertical tricolor of the national flag, holding a scroll with the words الجمهورية العربية السورية (Al-Jumhuriyah al-`Arabiyah as-Suriyah "The Syrian Arab Republic"). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Karmon Ely ekarmon@idc.ac.il

    Attachments5:06 AM (2 hours ago)
    to Karmon
    For those of my friends and colleagues who work until last minute before the holidays or those who read serious material even during those happy days I recommend several important articles about the civil war in Syria, which will not be stopped by the New Year festivities elsewhere but will surely influence the regional and global arena.

    David Kenner, "Rewriting Syria’s War," at http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/18/syria-assad-ceasefires-surrender-nir-rosen-hd-centre-report/.

    Kenner mentions the leak of an influential, unpublished report which looks how to radically revise notions of how to achieve peace in the war-torn country. The author of this report, former journalist Nir Rosen, is a researcher with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre), a Geneva-based conflict mediation organization. The report came out of meetings Rosen held with U.S. officials and analysts in Washington. It was sent to officials at the State Department and the National Security Council where it was distributed among Syria policy groups. The HD Centre, meanwhile, produced an 11-page version of Rosen’s report that contained the same policy proposals, but omitted the quotations from regime officials and many of the sweeping statements about the nature of the armed opposition and the Assad regime.

    James Traub, "Bashar al-Assad and the Devil’s Bargain," at http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/14/bashar-al-assad-and-the-devils-bargain/.

    Traub, who received the Rosen report and quotes from it, presents it as a new plan to stop the bleeding in Syria by agreeing to a limited truce with the regime in Damascus. It’s repugnant -- but is it wrong? he asks. The premise of the HD report, titled "Steps to Settle the Syrian Conflict," is that neither the regime nor the rebels are capable of defeating the other and the stalemate creates conditions in which both ISIS and al-Nusra Front, the local al Qaeda offshoot, can thrive. The report emphasizes that the proposals it advances "emerge from Syrians and would be implemented by Syrians in a bottom-up fashion, rather than imposed by outsiders from the top down." The problem with the Rosen solution is that it actually permits the survival of the Assad regime and was published just after Damascus suffered some military reversals, including in the strategic Qalamoun area bordering Lebanon.

    Sadik J. Al-Azm, "Syria in Revolt: Understanding the Unthinkable War," at http://www.bostonreview.net/world/sadik-al-azm-syria-in-revolt.

    Al-Azam presents a comprehensive picture of the unfolding Syrian uprising he calls "intifada" and argues that "the West has failed, perhaps wilfully, to understand the revolution." Contrary to the reality on the ground, the author claims that in Syria "there are no indications of sectarian contest." However, at the end of his long paper he affirms that "the solution can come only with the termination of political Alawitism."

    Yezid Sayigh, “The Assad Regime’s Political “Achilles’ Heel,” at http://carnegie-mec.org/publications/?fa=57455.

    Sayigh argues that the Assad regime has repeatedly exuded its confidence over the improvement of its strategic situation during the past twelve months. Territorial gains on some fronts have encouraged it to maintain its hardline military approach in dealing with the Syrian rebellion without any political reform. But, according to Sayigh, the regime is increasingly stretched, militarily and financially and its refusal to engage politically with its own constituencies threatens it. The regime clearly believes that loyalist constituencies have no choice but to continue fighting, but its margin for manoeuvre is narrowing and by insisting on an exclusively military approach, it takes itself closer to the point where it has no political or social cushion domestically. This is its Achilles’ Heel.

    Jennifer Cafarella, "Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria," at http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/JN%20FINAL_.pdf.

    This is probably the most comprehensive and in-depth recent article about the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabbhat al-Nusra (JN). It's main argument, carefully demonstrated by a wealth of examples, is that it has developed into a serious and expanding threat both to the West and to the future of Syria. JN is not less dangerous than ISIS. It shares al-Qaeda’s aims and is working to achieve them. The differences between JN and ISIS are not in objective, but rather in methodology, claims Cafarella. JN follows a more gradualist approach to state-building than that of ISIS. JN is gaining control of terrain in Syria even as U.S. forces target ISIS with airstrikes. The most interesting part of the paper is the analysis of JN’s strategy of working through networks of partnered or affiliated rebel groups which aggregate its level of influence throughout rebel ranks. JN serves as a force multiplier for other rebel groups and contributes an essential special forces-like capability to rebel military offensives. JN complements this influence with a nonlethal campaign for local support within rebel-held Syria.

    From the Israeli point of view, it is amazing how JN, with other rebel forces, has taken control of most of the strongholds on the border with the Golan Heights and the Quneitra border crossing without a clear Israeli military response to this immediate threat. At this stage of the Syrian conflict, JN is the main threat to Israeli interests and not ISIS.

    Sorry for duplicates.

    Happy holidays and a successful New Year,

    Ely Karmon, PhD
    Senior Research Scholar
    International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and
    The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at
    The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC(
    Herzlyia, Israel
    Tel.:   972-9-9527277
    Cell.: 972-52-2653306
    Fax.: 972-9-9513073, 972-9-7716653
    E-mail: ekarmon@idc.ac.il<mailto:ekarmon@idc.ac.il>
    Web: http://www.ict.org.il/

    NLRB refuses to extend Yeshiva to contingent faculty

    English: Looking southwest across Amsterdam Av...
    English: Looking southwest across Amsterdam Avenue and 187th Street at Zysman Hall on a sunny morning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
    The Board's new decision says that non-tenure-track full-time faculty are not managerial employees exempt from the NLRA's coverage.
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/22/nlrb-ruling-shifts-legal-ground-faculty-unions-private-colleges
    The message to higher ed is: You can't have it both ways, i.e., you can't replace tenured faculty with contingent faculty and also enjoy the benefits of the 1980 Supreme Court ruling in the Yeshiva University case that tenured faculty are managers who do no enjoy the federal labor act's protections.

    Whether this case will reach the Supremes and whether they will want to revisit Yeshiva remains to be seen.

    Friday, December 19, 2014

    Rick Perry turning modest?

    He declines to have a Texas A&M building named for him.
    https://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/18/texas-m-may-name-iconic-building-after-rick-perry/


    And another one bites the dust?

    Yesterday it was Dowling College, today it's Cheyney University.
    http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/oldest-us-black-college-verge-financial-collapse

    The shake out seems to have begun in earnest.

    Luck of the NCAA... the organization is in need.

    An AD takes the regulatory post at the beleaguered organization.
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/19/athletics-directors-hope-luck-can-bring-hands-campus-experience-ncaa

    I only applied to two back in the day.

    Commentator suggests that comparing lots of schools, ala the DOE rating scheme, may not be all that helpful.
    http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Comparing-Lots-of-Colleges/150937/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

    The Department of Education will unveil its college-rating scheme today.

    http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-s-College-Ratings-Plan/150939/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

    Thursday, December 18, 2014

    I guess I'll have to go see the last of the Hobbit Trilogy next week.

    http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/18/ap-source-us-probe-links-to-sony-hacking/21118161/?icid=maing-grid7|aol20-ns|dl1|sec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D584457

    In the wake of hacking and threats to film goers, Sony will not be releasing "The Interview," a gory comedy about assassinating North Korea's dictator, as planned on Christmas day.

    So... the Jihadists are not the only fanatics willing to resort to violence and threats to stifle free speech.  


    Is this idea the Goldilocks of sexual assault?

    This commentator argues that, while many alleged victims are reluctant to press criminal charges, at the opposite extreme --- as I have been saying --- colleges are ill-equipped to substitute for the legal process.  So, he says, why not
    use civil proceedings?
    I think he may be onto something here:
    http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/12/17/use-civil-law-to-adjudicate-campus-sexual-assault-cases/?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en


    College Campus Sexual Assault: Protecting Victims’ Rights & Reducing Possible College and University Liability

    Best For: Higher Education
    Date/Time: 1/20/2015, 1 PM Eastern
    Duration: Scheduled for 90 minutes including question and answer session.
    Presenter(s): James Ottavio Castagnera, Ph.D. and Attorney at Law
    Price: $299.00 webinar, $349.00 CD, $399.00 webinar + CD. Live webinar may be viewed by an unlimited number of attendees in one room using one unique login. CD includes full audio presentation, question and answer session and presentation slides.
    Who Should Attend? Administrators, faculty, staff, higher education counsel


    Sexual assault on our nation’s campuses is becoming all too familiar, leading some to conclude that it has reached epidemic proportions. It seems that no institution is immune. Preparing to respond to a report of a sexual assault should take place before one occurs—not after an incident has been reported. The risks of not responding properly can be significant and can often undermine both the rights of victims and the accused alike, while at the same time exposing the institution to legal liability and adverse publicity.
    In mid-2014 President Obama declared his intention to stamp out what he perceives as an excessive number of sexual assaults on our university campuses, and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights has named 100 plus universities which it claims have mismanaged sexual assault cases on their campuses. Under Title IX of the Higher Education Act and the Clery, both of which were amended in 2014 by the Violence Against Women Act, training of faculty and staff is no longer optional.
    Everyone shares responsibility for promptly and effectively responding to sexual-assault allegations. Opportunities for mishandling such super-sensitive cases, however, are ever-present from the moment a victim levels an accusation until the allegation has been resolved and the accused employee or student has either been disciplined or exonerated. The chances of you and your institution being sued by the accuser or the accused are roughly equal ... even if you do everything right! Following best practices is absolutely critical to make sure that both the victim’s and the accused’s rights are protected and the potential risks of your school being sued are minimized. Please join Dr. James Ottavio Castagnera, Esq., managing director of K&C HR Enterprises and legal counsel at Rider University, for guidance and best practices for protecting both your school and the victims in situations of sexual assault.

    WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

    Just a sampling of what this webinar will cover:
    • Creating your policy and procedures
    • Promulgating your policy and procedures
    • Educating your campus community about sexual assault
    • Integrating your sexual assault policy into your institution's student and employee handbooks
    • Defining the roles of your own public safety officers, as well as the local police department
    • Training your designated intake officers to handle complaints as well as anonymous allegations
    • Training your investigators and hearing officers
    • Identifying and/or establishing support services for survivors of sexual assaults
    • Planning for adverse publicity and litigation threats
    • Maintaining confidentiality within the limits of the law
    • AND MUCH MORE!

    YOUR CONFERENCE LEADER

    Your conference leader for “College Campus Sexual Assault: Protecting Victims' Rights & Reducing Possible College and University Liability” is Dr. James Castagnera. Dr. Castagnera holds a law degree and a Ph.D. in American studies from Case Western Reserve University. Jim brings three decades of experience in higher education to this webinar. Prior to law school he served Case Western Reserve as director of university communication. He went on to teach as a full-time faculty member at the University of Texas-Austin and the Widener University Law School, and as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton Business School. Currently, and for the past 18 years, he has been Rider University’s associate provost and legal counsel. His diverse duties include risk management, regulatory matters, faculty and student disciplinary cases, litigation management, governance and institutional policies.
    He is the author of 18 books, including the Handbook for Student Law for Higher Education Administrators (Peter Lang, 2010, revised edition 2014) and a text book titled Counter Terrorism Issues: Case Studies in the Courtroom (CRC Press 2013).
    His teaching experience includes continuing legal education courses, webinars and presentations at numerous national forums, including the Annual Conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Annual Homeland Defense and Security Higher Education Summit sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School.

    EducationAdminWebAdvisor.com QUALITY COMMITMENT

    EducationAdminWebAdvisor, a division of DKG Media, LP, wants you to be satisfied with your webinar. If this webinar does not meet your expectations, email us at service@educationadminwebadvisor.com.

    CERTIFICATES OF PARTICIPATION

    EducationAdminWebAdvisor certificates of participation are available to everyone completing this webinar.

    A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you're talking about real money. --- Late Senator Everett Dirksen

    Tulane becomes the next university to launch a billion buck fund-raising effort.
    http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/tulane-prepares-launch-1b-fund-raising-campaign

    From Vanderbilt Estate to failing college: Long Island's Dowling peers into the abyss.

    The challenge for its seventh president in ten years is to try to save it with union concessions, tenure buy-outs and more.
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/18/long-island-private-college-hopes-make-it-past-next-fall


    Report says community colleges have fallen short and explains why.

    http://chronicle.com/article/A-Call-for-Big-Changes-to-Meet/150927/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

    Access the full report here:
    http://www.jff.org/publications/policy-meets-pathways-state-policy-agenda-transformational-change

    Wednesday, December 17, 2014

    Under proposed NJ law, colleges would be fined for failing to report sexual assaults. How far is all this going to be allowed to go?

    http://www.nj.com/education/2014/12/colleges_would_be_penalized_for_mishandling_allegations_of_sexual_assaults_under_assembly_bill.html

    The politicians just can't jump on this bandwagon fast enough, can they?


    Meanwhile, many more pressing problems go unaddressed.  Such aswhat, you ask?  The facts that:

    • Many inner city neighborhoods are virtually garrisoned by police, while grand juries refuse to indict for excessive force.
    • Our criminal justice system has become a plea-bargain bizarre.
    • America has the highest per capita incarceration rate of any nation, due largely to the so-called war on drugs.
    • We still don't have a federal law that outlaws LGBT discrimination across the board.
    • The gap between the rich and poor is vast and growing, with 400 Americans having assets equal to the bottom 150 million of us.  And these wealthy few now are free to spend all they wish to buy elections.
    Meanwhile, "sexual assault" bedazzles the media.  Obama's "1-in-5" assertion about the number of co-eds assaulted during their college days went unchallenged for months.  At last, some are recognizing that the statistics on which that assertion is based include as little as an unwanted kiss.

    Please don't misunderstand me.  Real sexual assault is a terrible thing.  It should be eradicated.  By whom?  Well, how about the police... who wouldn't need humvees and body armor to do it either... instead of making our colleges into criminal justice surrogates and fining them if they fail in that task


    Student-protesters argue they shouldn't get "F"s while on the streets.

    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/17/colleges-consider-how-flexible-be-students-protesting-killings-unarmed-black-men

    In my day, many profs refused to fail draft-age men who might flunk out and be shipped to Vietnam.

    In my view, neither position is defensible.

    Even U of PA's Prez participated in a "die in" to protest recent racial/police issues.

    Meanwhile, campus police still struggle with racial issues sometimes.
    http://chronicle.com/article/Campus-Police-Departments/150903/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en


    Tuesday, December 16, 2014

    Professor Ely Karmon on the Sydney Cafe Siege

    Dear friends and colleagues,

    Please see my interview on the Sydney siege to the Tel Aviv radio station TLV1 (from min. 7):

    http://tlv1.fm/so-much-to-say/2014/12/15/sydney-cafe-siege-not-completely-out-of-the-blue/

    I hope to follow soon with a more detailed article about Australia “in the eye of the [jihadist] storm”

    Best regards and Happy New Year,


    Ely Karmon, PhD
    Senior Research Scholar
    International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and
    The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at
    The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC(, Herzlyia, Israel
    Tel.:   972-9-9527277
    Cell.: 972-52-2653306
    Fax.: 972-9-9513073, 972-9-7716653
    E-mail: ekarmon@idc.ac.il
    Web: http://www.ict.org.il