TexasCHLforum.com

He can make rules on such thinks as skateboards or calculators or cell phones

All of those directly impact the class content. Ringing phones disrupt class. Using a calcuator is part of the pedagogical nature of the class. Skateboard is a nonissue. If you skateboard or do gymnastics in class - you are disrupting it.

A concealed handgun doesn't actively interupt class. You may object to the ideology behind it. However, you might object to a student wearing a Jewish Star of David or a Muslim woman in a head covering. But it is not your business to ban such.

Does the gun have a potential to disrupt - if it is used in a manner to break the law as would the Jewish Student or Muslim student deciding to brain the professor with their text.

Stupid anti-argument. As far as the professor being a genius in his field - that's not relevant to this issue. Shall we come up with a list of racist Noble prize winners, thus arguing for the return of segregation?

b322da wrote:

mreavis wrote: While I personally believe it belongs to the society, either way it sure as crap is not under the sole rule of the teacher or judge.

If one wants to know whether or not a courtroom belongs to a judge, call her, in her courtroom, some of the language used here with respect to Professor Krauss, e.g., moron, blowhard, idiot, intellectually sub-standard, jerk, anti-gun jerk, ridiculous (sic).

Elmo

I agree that would not go well for you and I myself wouldn't test it. However, I think there is a difference between a demand for respect and dictating whether to abide by a state law. It's fine for the teacher to tell a kid to be quite or not bring his skateboard to class, they are distractions. It's fine for a judge to take actions against those disrupting the court room as well. But after our society and state law system has granted us the right to carry a firearm into class (or maybe even court rooms one day? totally different topic), they have no say in the issue imo. It is not like a skateboard where it has absolutely no use in class. While it hopefully will not and may not ever be used, a weapon for self defense lies in wait for such need. They are masters of the area with respects, but they in no way paid for or own these areas more than an average citizen. Again, they just work there, they are actually the ones who are paid to BE there in the situation. While as a student I and tax payer I pay twice over for school to exist period. State funding gives the state rights as well. I don't see where this power of rights comes from for teachers and judges.

Again I would agree though, treat them with respect and follow there rules or you are asking for trouble. However, I think they sometimes exercise more power in areas than they rightfully deserve. But in my opinion there is no way in hell that is going to work long for that teacher. He just doesn't have the entitled rights to do something like that.

Edits: typo

GEM-Texas wrote:As far as the professor being a genius in his field - that's not relevant to this issue. Shall we come up with a list of racist Noble prize winners, thus arguing for the return of segregation?

1. True. Most forum members are not genius professors yet many have good ideas and arguments.
2. No. Please don't.

WildBill wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:This guy Krause is small cheese. He is a minor professor in a second tier university—no offense meant to anyone who went to school there... but it ain't Harvard Law. Academics, by nature of the same sheltered environment that is supposed to support and nurture their work by insulating them from the realities of the economy and job marketplace, know little or nothing about how the real world works—my parents included. I reserve an exception for engineers, who often seem to do creative and useful things in real life.

Of course there are many exceptions to this example. One of the best professors that I ever had earned his PhD from a Tier One University. He could have been on the facility of any university in world, but he decided to teach at a state college. Why? Because he wanted to teach rather than do research and turn out useless journal articles.

He did have one good book in him. It is the best selling book on the subject of analytical chemistry that has ever been written. It is a standard textbook used in just about every college and university in the world. It has been in print since 1971 and translated into at least 20 languages.

And he should be applauded and recognized for that. But I was raised in academia, and I have a very jaundiced eye toward it, not because I don't see the value of a good education, but because I have been more than casually involved in the lives of outwardly great people who turned out to be internally and fecklessly flawed human beings. Consequently, I no longer assume their greatness. They have to prove it, just like everybody else has to. I learned a long time ago that a tenured position in the sheltered confines of academia does not automatically confer wisdom upon its holder. I have heard as much wisdom from the mouths of janitors sweeping the Caltech floors as I have from the faculty holding forth in its classrooms. And as much foolishness too.

Hence my reaction to Professor Krauss (or Krause, or however you spell his name). He spouted inanities which are legal fiction (which is his first amendment right), and stamped his little cosseted feet because there is a strong possibility that his state's government may pass a law approved of by the majority of its citizens. What's he going to do next? Hold his breath until his face turns blue? It is my first amendment right to point out his foolishness.

Bill, I have no doubt that your professor was a sterling character and a fine teacher, deserving of your admiration. Did he use his position to spout foolishness? My guess is, probably not or your memories of him would be less fond. Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

Sadly, you can't fix stupid, and so here we are at the TexasCHLforum, having a discussion about whether or it is wrong or disrespectful to label stupidity in another state as stupid.

b322da wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: Just because Krause (sic) wrote a book about Feynman doesn't mean that he did anything either original or great, just because he is a law professor.

I hope I do not annoy you further, TAM, by stating MHO that of all the insults Dr. Krauss has received here, the worst may well be that he is a law professor.

Take a look at him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_M._Krauss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Elmo

You got me there. I got Krauss confused with David Cantor, the blogger who was linked to in the OP. My bad.

Even so, everything else I said about Krauss still applies, including about whether or not his book about Feynman will turn out to be any good.

I once read "Einstein in Love by Oversbye. It proposed to be written for the layperson with some degree of education. That would describe me. About half way through the book, I thought "OK, I already know that he was a sensitive guy, and a Jew in a place and time when it was hard to be a Jew, and dominated by the women in his life. But I swear to Hercules the Cat that if I see one more number table illustration trying to explain number arrays and unified field theory, I'm going to put this book down and not finish it." About 3 pages later, I put the book down. It was definitely NOT written for someone lacking a thorough, university level grounding in mathematics and physics. The shame of it was that I might have learned something more about Einstein. Oh well. I'll try and find a book about him written for the rest of us.

I hope that Krauss's book about Feynman squares with the man I knew personally. Given his dismissal of the law and disregard for the rights of man, I am skeptical. We'll see. A good biographical writer should be impartial. It's one of the things I really enjoyed about reading Shelby Foote's civil war trilogy. You could tell that he loved the characters, but he was a truth teller about both their flaws and their greatness.

b322da wrote:Prove the truth of each of these allegations in a country, or jurisdiction, where truth is not a defense, and see where that gets the writer.

If pigs had wings...

WildBill wrote:

GEM-Texas wrote:As far as the professor being a genius in his field - that's not relevant to this issue. Shall we come up with a list of racist Noble prize winners, thus arguing for the return of segregation?

1. True. Most forum members are not genius professors yet many have good ideas and arguments.
2. No. Please don't.

GEM's point is valid. If the law passes, and the professor discriminates based on his irrational prejudices, his bigotry is akin to a racist professor banning Blacks from his classroom.

The Annoyed Man wrote:Bill, I have no doubt that your professor was a sterling character and a fine teacher, deserving of your admiration. Did he use his position to spout foolishness? My guess is, probably not or your memories of him would be less fond. Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

I really don't think we are disagreeing. What he did outside of work I didn't know and is not my concern. He seemed to be a very decent man, but I don't know if he was a sterling character or not, but he kept to the subject matter. Since he was the author of a well known textbook, I valued his editing and feedback on my technical papers. I don't put people on pedestals. I value them for who they are rather than what they are.

On the other hand, I had a professor at the same school who would waste a half hour of a lecture ranting about how stupid [two-time Nobel Prize winner] Linus Pauling was.

If you want to make your head hurt, read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

WildBill wrote:I don't put people on pedestals. I value them for who they are rather than what they are.

......

If you want to make your head hurt, read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

Agree on both counts, my friend.

The Annoyed Man wrote: Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

Now hold on there, TAM. I have heard a lot of professors announce recently that they will quit their teaching posts if campus carry passes. I am banking on this to create vacancies, and perhaps get the rest of us through the budget crisis.

J.R.@A&M wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

Now hold on there, TAM. I have heard a lot of professors announce recently that they will quit their teaching posts if campus carry passes. I am banking on this to create vacancies, and perhaps get the rest of us through the budget crisis.

Elmo

WildBill wrote: If you want to make your head hurt, read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

Really was a fun treatment, but definitely not the "last word" I hoped he would write.

b322da wrote: An overstatement resulting from my being so impressed with his genius for so long. Sorry. I'm sure somebody else would have figured it out.

OUCH!

But I will never forget his holding up that O-ring after Challenger went down. So simple, yet so many beautiful lives and minds lost.

Elmo

He admitted to it starting out as a curiosity, and ended up being a bit dramatic about it.

In 1986, I once counted up six related items which, had any one of them been different that day, would have let the flight go on to a successful mission. A classic Failure Chain.

J.R.@A&M wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

Now hold on there, TAM. I have heard a lot of professors announce recently that they will quit their teaching posts if campus carry passes. I am banking on this to create vacancies, and perhaps get the rest of us through the budget crisis.

I may need those extra classes for income when Job #1 gets canceled....

J.R.@A&M wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote: Krause's threat to ban CHLers from his classrooms has no more teeth in it than Alec Baldwin's threat to leave the country if Bush got elected, and it sounds just as stupid.

Now hold on there, TAM. I have heard a lot of professors announce recently that they will quit their teaching posts if campus carry passes. I am banking on this to create vacancies, and perhaps get the rest of us through the budget crisis.

Academic Darwinism.