So what is still going on at Duke can reasonably be extrapolated to at least the Humanities departments of America’s universities and colleges. And that is not pretty.

One of the Lacrosse players who was NOT accused by the pathetic Crystal Gail Mangum was nonetheless caught up in the blast and suspended by the university at roughly the same time as the other players. He is now suing. As you can read here, Ryan McFadyen is arguably the person who behaved with greatest honor in the whole affair. He certainly behaved with greater honor than prosecutor Nifong or Durham police — who tried to suborn him into giving false evidence. There is another glimpse of his character here.

And when McFadyen refused to be intimidated into giving false evidence, Nifong and the police must have realized that he had put them into a dangerous position. Fabricating evidence is a crime with severe penalties. So they immediately went all-out to blacken his name. And that blackening still shows up today in that he has become something of a hate figure to many.

So he is now suing over that defamation and the illegal and improper behaviour of all concerned in the matter.

The trial has however produced some document disclosures that reveal the full depth of the moral depravity of senior Duke U officials. The documents contain bombshell emails from Duke President Brodhead and others suggesting that Duke’s primary concern was to protect its PR, even if that meant sacrificing innocent students.

In documents submitted February 3 by Plaintiffs’ lawyers, President Brodhead is quoted in an email sent very early in the case to other Duke staff:

“Friends: a difficult question is, how can we support our lacrosse players at a devastatingly hard time without seeming to lend aid and comfort to their version of the story? We can’t do anything to side with them, or even, if they are exonerated, to imply that they behaved with honor. The central admin can’t, nor can Athletics.”

And Joe Alleva, then of the Duke Athletic Dept., also testified during his deposition on January 20, 2012, that he made positive and truthful statements about Plaintiffs and their teammates’ character at the University’s press conference on March 28, 2006.

Mr. Alleva testified that he was “crucified” immediately afterwards for making those statements by President Brodhead himself and in front of the Crisis Management Team, all of whom knew how “off-message” Mr. Alleva’s truthful, positive statements about plaintiffs were.

Alleva was the one who later told Duke lacrosse coach Pressler that “it’s not about the truth” any longer; that the case was about the interest groups and the integrity (reputation) of the university. (Hence the title of coach Pressler’s book, “It’s not about the truth”).

Or as Robert K. Steel (then chairman of Duke’s Board of Trustees) said in explaining why Duke would not be defending its falsely-accused students: “Sometimes people have to suffer for the good of the organization”. More details here

You would think that all the exposure of their moral depravity might have created some caution among Duke faculty about race-related matters. It does not appear to have done so. Just a few days ago I ran a large excerpt (scroll down) from an article which summarized the Arcidiacono affair. I will simply refer readers to there for a treatment of that little explosion of rage and hate. See HERE for the full article. Having their warped view of America threatened is intolerable to Duke’s Leftist Mafia.

No Leftist will admit it of course but I cannot see why Duke should be regarded as atypical. I don’t think there is anything especially poisonous in the air at North Carolina. I think we have seen coming to the surface at Duke what is smouldering away beneath the surface at most of America’s universities and colleges. They are true heirs of Stalin and the ghastly Soviet Union. They are a nest of vipers.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

A physics education does however seem to have given them some faint attachment to the scientific method, so they go to considerable lengths to substantiate their claims. But do they turn to physics to substantiate their claims? Not at all. Far from offering any comparison of male and female work in physics, they turn to sociology! Like sociologists they have faith that questionnaire surveys will tell them something about reality. I did such surveys for many years and eventually concluded that they don’t.

Their anti-scientific orientation is most clearly revealed by “the dog that didn’t bark”, however. They ignore over a hundred years of research that repeatedly reveals women to have better verbal ability and men to have better mathematical ability. And since physics these days is little more than applied mathematics, that datum could hardly be more relevant. It suggests that not many women have what it takes to be good physicists.

They could of coures disagree with what is one of the most replicated findings in science but instead of disagreeing with it, they simply ignore it — thus violating one of the most fudamental canons of science: That you must have regard for what others before you have written on your subject.

So their own writing suggests one very good reason why there are not many women physicists: They are just not very good scientists. Their own work suggests that hormones take the place of rationality.

And in the end why does it matter that most physicists are men? I can’t see that humanity is badly served by that reality but the case that it does matter is presumably arguable. But they make no attempt to argue it. They just resort to that terminally destructive and totally unrealistic Leftist obsession with “equality”. They are very poor intellects indeed. Procrustes would be proud of them.

For reference, I reproduce below the concluding section of their article:

The global survey follows a body of work that has examined the importance to career success of access to resources and opportunities. The survey found that women are less likely than men to report access to various resources and opportunities that would be helpful in advancing a scientific career. It also confirmed, consistent with cultural norms, that men are more likely than women to have a spouse who will shoulder the burden of housework. We noted the cultural expectation that women are responsible for child care and documented survey results showing that parenting affects the careers of women more than it does the careers of men.

Admittedly, our results are derived from the testimony of survey respondents, and it is conceivable that the sex differences we have found exist not because women are treated differently but because they differ from men in their expectations about work. However, the results reported here will come as no surprise to the researchers who have already found that resources, opportunities, and family responsibilities affect women’s careers.4,6 We believe the results reflect an underlying reality of disadvantage—not differing work expectations—and that all the sex-based differences documented here adversely affect the careers of women physicists.

The low representation of women in physics is a problem the community needs to address, but the community also needs to address inequities in access to resources and opportunities. Cultural expectations about home and family also inhibit the progress of women physicists; those, of course, are much more difficult to change. Nonetheless, we look forward to a future in which science truly means science for all.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Superintendent Todd Carlson of Shawano High School in Shawano, Wisconsin is sorry a student observed his First Amendment rights and had his article published in the school newspaper that denounces homosexuals adopting children. And so Superintendent Carlson is making amends by punishing this Christian kid for being so darn Christian. Superintendent Carlson has also decided in his infinite wisdom to censure this article by having it sent down the memory hole so that no one else will be confronted with this evil Christian’s views.

That’ll show that darn Christian kid, won’t it?

The article, “Should Homosexual Partners Be Bale to Adopt?,” was written by Brandon Wegner who was assigned the task of writing a counter-point to another student’s pro-homosexual adoption article. The piece was then published as an insert in the school newspaper, the Shawano Leader.

Shortly after the newspapers containing the insert were distributed, Superintendent Carlson issued a formal apology to the school and parents, removed the insert from surplus issues of the paper, and censured young Mr. Wegner claiming his article violated the school’s “anti-bullying” policy.

Wegner says that Carlson grabbed him up out of class and began to brow beat him in an attempt to get the kid to disavow his religious-based beliefs. According to Liberty Counsel, a First Amendment law firm, Wegner was quixotically bullied by Superintendent Carlson in an attempt to deter bullying.

Brandon was hauled before the superintendent on charges that he had violated the school’s bullying policy. Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

Carlson’s action is itself “ignorant.” Ignorant of our American laws, ignorant of tenets of tolerance, ignorant of public comportment, ignorant for abuse of his position as an authority figure, and just plain ignorant in a moral fashion.

Carlson’s bullying also makes the lie to the claim that our schools are meant to teach our children. The truth seems to be that Mr. Carlson simply wants to indoctrinate, not help students come to their own conclusions when offered all sides of the issues.

In fact, the school newspaper deserves kudos for having handled the issue properly. It gave room to advocates of both sides to air their views so that readers could make up their own minds. But Carlson doesn’t want any of this horrid teaching going on. He wants to tell kids what to think based on his own warped, left-wing ideology. None of this freedom of choice nonsense in HIS school, I’ll tell you what.

Superintendent Carlson should be fired. Not because he’s an extremist liberal, but because he has violated this kid’s rights at worst and violated the principals of actual teaching at best. He is no educator. He is an indoctrinator and that is just un-American.

(H/T Moonbattery.com)

Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.

Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.

Unfortunately, every time Obama focuses on the economy and job, they both go downhill. Because the guy still has no clue how either work.

Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.

So, the Left is going to be upset by reduced government spending? This should show up in a Republican commercial about “spending other people’s money”. I bet if they had to more of their own paychecks, for the 41% of Democrats who actually pay federal taxes, they’d be in favor of reducing the Central Government spending.

Back to jobs. SCOAMF’s election website, via their silly #attackwatch, links to a Talking Points Memo article which whines about Romney saying Obama has no jobs plan

Mitt Romney levels plenty of attacks at President Obama, but his claim in Monday night’s South Carolina debate that the White House “doesn’t have a jobs plan” is so blatantly misleading it really deserves a moment here.

President Obama has been pushing a bill called the American Jobs Act for months, a $447 billion package that includes billions in tax cuts, funding to prevent teacher layoffs, and investments in education and transportation infrastructure. You may remember it from the time he called a rare joint session of Congress in September to announce the legislation or from the many times the Senate debated its individual components throughout the rest of the year. By all indicators, it will play a central role in his re-election campaign. Disagree with it if you will, but it’s factually inaccurate to say he doesn’t have a plan.

Is Obama still pushing that diarrhea of a plan, which includes the same measures that failed in the Stimulus, and only save jobs in the public sector, along with helping out union jobs, mostly in the public sector? Giving people education, particularly college education, doesn’t actually create jobs, and creates depression among those who get their sheepskin in social studies and realize that they are only qualified to work as a burger flipper, if there are any burger flipper jobs around.

And, yeah, it should play a central role in his defeat campaign: the eventual GOP nominee should highlight that Obama’s plan would fail just like the Stimulus.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Fox News) School districts and their supporters around the US have launched a wave of lawsuits asking courts to order more spending on public education, contending they face new pressures as states cut billions of dollars of funding while adding more rigorous educational standards.

About half of the school districts in Texas have sued the state since the legislature cut more than $5 billion from school budgets last year, citing fiscal pressures.

School-funding suits also are pending in California, Florida and Kansas, among other states. The suits generally claim schools lack the resources to provide the level of education required by state constitutions.

Critics of such lawsuits — and states being sued — say it is the prerogative of legislatures to decide how much states should spend on education.

Perhaps The People should start suing the Government to stop spending so damned much of the money The People work hard to earn.

And perhaps the schools should learn to live within their means. Spending more of the appropriations on the classroom instead of the administrative offices would be a good start. Perhaps the power of the public sector unions should be pared back so that incompetent teachers can be terminated. Perhaps the pay system should be based on merit, rather than seniority. Perhaps tenure could be done away with. Perhaps they should start teaching subjects, instead of sociology, political leanings, and ways to increase feeling good.

There’s the old Benjamin Franklin quote “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” I wonder what he would say about one government entity suing another government entity for more money forcibly taken from private citizens.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

◼ Student privacy at risk from Feds – NY Post

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent?

Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality.

The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer.

How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.

Get it?

Remember last week – ◼ California ‘qualified’ for “Race To The Top” monies. Not a dime of which is going to educate your kids, but is instead being used for the creation of ‘cradle to career data systems.’

Watch the terms. Language is being used to obscure the true meaning and intent. Most people only hear the easy rhetoric… “raise academic standards, improve teacher and principal quality, build cradle to career data systems and turn around persistently low-performing schools.”

Ask yourself. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? You already know what happens when they try to fire teachers, or go for merit pay. What school doesn’t already work to “raise academic standards”? Why is all this money, which the schools, we are told, are in desperate need of, being wasted on another bureaucratic program? Does privacy matter? Now, what does the Federal Government need with all that personal information? Does your elected representative know about this? can he/she explain it?

Abdullah Faaruuq, a Muslim “spiritual advisor” and chaplain from Boston-based Northeastern University, was a key speaker at a fundraiser for al Qaeda’s Ma Barker, the criminal female terrorist named Aafia Siddiqui, also known as “Lady al Qaeda.” This man, Faaruuq, is living off American taxpayers yet advocates for his followers to use “the gun and the sword” to advance Islam in America.

The fundraiser for Siddiqui was held at the Islamic Center of Worcester, Mass. on Dec. 8 with the stated goal of raising $30,000 to assist this female terrorist convicted in 2008 of attempting to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

As Steve Emerson of Family Security Matters reports, Abdullah gave Siddiqui high praise.

“What a brave woman she continues to be, and how much her bravery and her faith and her belief warrants our support at this time,” said Faaruuq, an imam at Roxbury’s Mosque for the Praising of Allah. “It is said that we’re trying to raise $30,000 tonight. I would say it’s better that we’ve raised your awareness and raised your ire, as your anger against a government who would level the charges that they have against this woman and they say she is guilty. I would say she’s only guilty of defending herself.”

In addition to lauding Siddiqui’s “bravery,” Faaruuq also condemned American soldiers, the very people who defend America, as “kafirs,” meaning infidels.

“And if my mother was in the same place,” he said, “she would have took (sic) her West Indian machete and cut her way through those kafirs.”

According to the Northeastern University website, “Imam Abdullah serves as Northeastern University’s Muslim chaplain, as well as spiritual advisor to the Islamic Society student group.” Sadly he is advising students at a public university in the ways of violent jihad. And our taxes go to fund his actions.

Imam Abdullah has for some time been a controversial figure. As part of a violence-advocating, jihad-pushing, terror-funding mosque that was helped to come to fruition by public officials and politicians in Massachusetts, Abdullah has been advocating violence against Americans for years.

No wonder radical Islamists think America is the “weak horse” in the world. We are with our own taxes funding our own home-grown terror supporters like Abdullah.

The paper was of course zealous to rule out genetic differences but that does rather leave them without an explanation for Chinese excellence in mathematics. Regardless of the country in which they reside, Chinese tend to be prominent among leading mathematicians — and China itself is a major centre of mathematical excellence. Yet China is still in many ways a very traditional society in which the very notion of gender equality would normally be scoffed at. The way they abort girl babies is surely enough evidence of that.

Anyway, the paper more or less assumes what it has to prove. In a rather self-contradictory way, the authors seem to assume that educational performance fully indexes innate ability. The paper draws its “evidence” not from IQ tests but from various international measures of educational attainment. And educational attainment is the product of many things other than IQ. Hard work anyone? Social pressures anyone? So I partially agree with the first line of their “Conclusions”:

In summary, we conclude that gender equity and other sociocultural factors, not national income, school type, or religion per se, are the primary determinants of mathematics performance at all levels for both boys and girls

You note that they skate entirely over IQ.

They go on to argue that eliminating gender “inequities” is needed to lift female mathematical achievements. After decades of feminism and affirmative action it is hard to imagine how more might be done on that front in the USA other than by procrustean quota systems so the recommendation is as vacuous as it is irrelevant.

Women will always be up against their lower level of mathematical ability that IQ tests reveal so clearly. In recent years women have been pushed into mathematics to satisfy feminist dogma but few will rise to the heights.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

It’s heartening, but not entirely surprising that the Catholic Church overturned the decision of the Sacred Heart Primary School in Broken Hill to reject the enrolment of a young girl whose at-home parents, two women, are in a lesbian relationship.

Heartening for the little girl, even though the mums have wisely decided to spare her the inevitable unpleasantness of attending a school where she’s not wanted. But not entirely surprising, because if the Church had allowed this story to spin out of control it risked having to answer some very awkward questions about just how much money it sucks off the public tit, when it’s unwilling to comply with public standards as expressed in legislation such as the Anti-Discrimination Act.

The Catholic Church and its fellow travelers in the other denominations are pretty much out on their own when it comes to punishing kids for the sexuality of their parents. And be assured, that’s what was at stake here, and what Bishop Kevin Manning has avoided airing in public with his order to Sacred Heart to enrol the child.

All religious schools in this country, not just Catholic ones, enjoy the benefits of a grotesque double standard, where they put their hands out for a hand out, and a massive one at that, draining off billions of dollars from the education budget, while not having to measure up to the same standards demanded of public schools, most of which are woefully underfunded because of subsidies to the private sector.

Surely if the private religious schools are to trouser billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, at the expense of taxpayers who can’t afford to send their own children to those privileged institutions, more might be demanded of them when it comes to, say, not behaving like ignorant, medieval bigots. There’s no reason they can’t hang onto their vile opinions, but there’s no reason the rest of us should have to pay for them.

As long as they enjoy a free pass from the Act, however, we will continue to subsidise their ignorance, stupidity and hatred.

They know it too. Or at least the smart ones do. That’s why they moved so quickly to shut down debate on this most recent outrage.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

**UPDATED** Hammerman removes paragraph from story
**UPDATE 2** Rabbi scrubs offensive post

In the category of bigotry and hatred spares no religion, we find such hatred hiding behind religion in one “Rabbi” Joshua Hammerman of New York City. Hammerman has indulged his inner Father-Coughlin-in-reverse by proclaiming that if Tim Tebow wins the Super Bowl, why, Christians will go on a rampage that will result in the burning of mosques and the bashing of gays. Now, are you ready for some football?

Hammerman disgorged his absurd claims at his New York Jewish Week blog posted on December 12 titled, “My Tim Tebow Problem.” It is instead Hammerman’s civility problem. Tim Tebow has nothing to do with this neer do well’s extreme hatred of Christians.

Calling Tebow the “poster boy of the Christian right,” Hammerman is disgusted by the fact that the footballer — oh the horrors — “thanks Jesus after every game.” It all makes the “rabbi” expound upon his “fear” about “what will happen if the hulky Denver Bronco quarterback wins the Super Bowl.”

And what will happen you might ask? Let’s let this so-called rabbi take it from here:

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants. While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

Rabbi Coughlin is serious, here. He really thinks that Christians will riot in the street because Tim Tebow is part of a Superbowl winning team. Yeah, because there is such a long contemporary history of Christians taking to the streets and rioting because they are jubilant over football.

He goes on to hyperbolically wonder if “legions of Southern Baptist missionaries” will “hit the college campuses the very next day, spreading this new gospel of Tim?” And he laments that already there is a “Jews for Tebow” Facebook page. This nut will even hate fellow Jews just for admiring the inoffensive Tebow.

But it shouldn’t surprise that this anti-Christian bigot might come to these conclusions. The key to this is in how he mischaracterizes Tebow’s belief in his God and in himself. Hammerman claims that Tebow is, “absolutely confident that God is on his side.” I can see why he might be worried that Tim Tebow might be a new, destructive sort of charismatic leader if he thinks that.

But this is not what Tebow has ever said or even intimated. Tebow has said that God has guided his career but he has not placed himself as equal to God’s interests. Only a supremely arrogant man would think God has taken sides with him as opposed to simply being there for him. The arrogance to assume God reveres the man and his goals enough to “side” with him is not what Tebow has displayed. Tebow simply has never exhibited this kind of arrogance. In fact, just the opposite. Hammerman is just wrong in his characterization of Tebow’s Christian character.

This yutz winds up his anti-Christian screed claiming that he doesn’t fear Christians — a claim hard to square with the other ten paragraphs of his piece so chock full of loathing, mistrust, and hatred. Instead he claims he “fears people of certainty.”

This is probably the most ignorant part of Rabbi Hammerman’s muddled thinking. It isn’t “certainty” that causes the problem, rabbi. It is what people do with that certainty that causes the problem. Thomas Aquinas was probably one of the most certain Christians in history yet he is responsible for some of the most loving and peaceful explications of Christian belief in human history. No one is rioting after football games because of Thomas Aquinas!

In this, though, Hammerman proves that he employs a prosaic modernist’s lack of critical thinking. He displays the sort of empty, nihilistic, modernist’s blather that assumes that there can be no right or wrong, that everything is relative and anyone who believes in something with anything approaching certainty, then they must be dangerous, unstable, and prone to violence.

But, the problem with this sort of modernist’s “thinking” is that it is logically untenable. Hammerman is sure “certainty” is dangerous… yet he is certain that this is a fact! By his empty thinking, then, he is just as dangerous as those rampaging Christians that infests his fevered imagination because, well, he’s certain of something, isn’t he?

He is hoisted on his own petard with his lack of critical thinking. But his is a perfect example of why most universities and modern liberalism is both dumbing down our nation and growing hatred everywhere its baneful influence appears.

I don’t fear Tim Tebow winning the Super Bowl. I do fear morally deficient cretins like this rabbi infesting in others his rabid hatred of others.

**UPDATE**

Since my criticism of Hammerman’s Tebow anti-Christian screed, he’s gone into his post and edited out the paragraph I reported here. Hammerman did not note on the story that he edited the piece to remove offensive material. So, down the memory hole goes the truth once again.

I have a screen shot of the original, though. CLICK HERE to see it.

**UPDATE 2**
Hammerman’s edited piece has now been completely removed from The Jewish Week website. Hammerman has also removed the piece from his own blog and replaced by a message that reads: “The piece has been taken down and I apologize to all those whom it has offended. Some additional reflections will be forthcoming. Thank you.”

One hopes that the rabbi will reflect on his personal animus against both Tim Tebow and Christians and that a more acceptable apology is forthcoming.

**UPDATE 3**

Now “rabbi” Hammerman has deleted his entire blog. Talk about memory hole, now he’s trying to deep six everything he’s ever written! Driven out of the gates and into the wilderness!

**UPDATE 4**

The Jewish Week Has Issued the following statement:

We apologize for posting an Opinion column on Dec. 14 by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman entitled “My Problem With Tim Tebow,” the Denver Broncos quarterback who is an Evangelical Christian. The column, in fact, violated our own standards calling for civility in posting comments on our website. The policy statement notes that “name calling in any form will not be tolerated, and comments that denigrate any religion or Jewish religious stream will always be rejected.”

The column was removed from our website later that day.

Rabbi Hammerman is a respected spiritual leader and longtime Jewish Week columnist whose writing over the years has been exemplary. This column, however, was more inciting than insightful, and we erred in posting it, which we deeply regret.

Repentance and forgiveness are cornerstones of all major faiths, as is the recognition that we all make mistakes. We trust that the sincerity of our remorse, as expressed by the rabbi as well, will be taken into account by those whom we offended.

Hammerman has made his blog publicly visible again and has posted this statement:

This week I wrote an article for the Jewish Week in which I attempted to explore the phenomenon of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow to make broad points about society and extremism. I now realize that some of my statements had the reverse effect of what I had intended and for this I deeply and sincerely apologize.

As many of you know, I have spent my entire career engaged in dialogue with people of all faiths while speaking out passionately against all forms of bigotry. I have the deepest respect for those who are committed to their faith, including Mr. Tebow. I realize the way in which I attempted to make my points was clumsy and inappropriate, inadvertently suggesting the kind of intolerance and extremism my article was intended to disparage. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Tebow, his family, the Broncos and Patriots and all those whom I may have offended.

(H/T All American Blogger)