sydnor wrote:youseff, what is collectively decided about 20 people from swarthmore telling the Berkeley chancellor to stay away? It's beyond moronic to chase away a woman like Christine Lagarde because she works for the IMF.

I mean if I squint, I can sort of, SORT OF see what monkeyboy is saying with Condi Rice because of wars and blood. But the IMF? Does Christine Lagarde have that much blood on her hands that you can't at least hear her thoughts on women and leaning in to the work force and all that happy crap?

You know who loses here? All the students that don't give a crap about any of this and just want to have a nice graduation day and maybe had a commencement speaker they've heard of (though not that important and obviously doesn't apply to swarthmore's pick).

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:Again, who the hell cares?

SK790 wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:Again, who the hell cares?

It's a Very Important Thing

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:Again, who the hell cares?

pacino wrote:''ultra liberals'

SK790 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

Youseff wrote:If students collectively decide they don't want to hear a person that they are morally opposed to speak, and be the most notable speaker one of the bigger days of their lives there's nothing wrong with that.

But they're not collectively deciding they don't want someone to speak. A small, loud segment of the student body is voicing disapproval, suggesting the speaker needs to be changed because she will disrupt the day (because they, themselves, will disrupt the day).

The petition was like a quarter of the student body, no?

td11 wrote:seems kind of like an overreaction Lagarde's part to withdraw based on a petition that had 477 signatures on it

td11 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:That's like half of Smith's undergrads.

Enrollment
About 2,500 undergraduates in Northampton and 150 studying elsewhere

http://www.smith.edu/about_justthefacts.php

jerseyhoya wrote:I think it's pretty comprehensively stupid for a student at one of the leading all women institutions of higher learning in the US not to want to have arguably the second most powerful woman in the world as the school's commencement speaker even if you are not a fan of what the IMF does.

td11 wrote:
so, only about 20%. very tiny segment, indeed

TenuredVulture wrote:I wanna talk about Voteman. Because that is just the kind of thing I think would make political ads more appealing. I was talking with someone JH knows and wondered if political campaigns (which have tons of money to spend on these kinds of things) actually tried to get creative (instead of the same old voice over crap) would people hate the ads less and maybe even engage in politics more?

Or is voteman a satire? (Because the cinnamon thing.)

But if we must talk about commencement speakers, no one is going to be happy until Dave Barry does every commencement speech.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I wanna talk about Voteman. Because that is just the kind of thing I think would make political ads more appealing. I was talking with someone JH knows and wondered if political campaigns (which have tons of money to spend on these kinds of things) actually tried to get creative (instead of the same old voice over crap) would people hate the ads less and maybe even engage in politics more?

Or is voteman a satire? (Because the cinnamon thing.)

But if we must talk about commencement speakers, no one is going to be happy until Dave Barry does every commencement speech.

I think it was real.

My initial thought upon seeing it was it would be really cool to do an experiment with that and a more typical GOTV message to see if there were any effects. But seeing as no one else in the thread was moved by it, maybe it would not dislodge voter apathy.

jerseyhoya wrote:It was on a website called Back She Goes dot com

sydnor wrote:youseff, what is collectively decided about 20 people from swarthmore telling the Berkeley chancellor to stay away? It's beyond moronic to chase away a woman like Christine Lagarde because she works for the IMF.

I mean if I squint, I can sort of, SORT OF see what monkeyboy is saying with Condi Rice because of wars and blood. But the IMF? Does Christine Lagarde have that much blood on her hands that you can't at least hear her thoughts on women and leaning in to the work force and all that happy crap?

You know who loses here? All the students that don't give a crap about any of this and just want to have a nice graduation day and maybe had a commencement speaker they've heard of (though not that important and obviously doesn't apply to swarthmore's pick).