The State Attorney General of Virginia (henceforth known to this Misplaced Yinzer as “The State That Proves We Should Have Let the South Leave When We Had The Chance”) is at it again. Not satisfied with just suggesting that Virginia’s public schools that they should end protection on gay rights -- because isn’t legalizing discrimination what real ‘Mericans are about? — he is now busy launching a fraud investigation at the University of Virginia. because of the “radical” idea that — gasp — global warming might be real.
According to the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, A.G. Ken Cuccinelli is going after thousands of documents (down to every e-mail sent) from a climate change researcher previously working at U.Va, The Chron asks:
Is Mr. Cuccinelli, as he says, safeguarding taxpayers’ interests by making sure that Mr. Mann did not seek money through a state university based on manipulated climate-research data? Is he misusing his prosecutorial powers to bash higher education for political gain, as critics assert? Is he fishing for potentially damaging information at the behest of climate-change skeptics, as Mr. Mann suggests?
Um, based on his past, I’m guessing its more like options B and C. And it makes me a little worried. I was going to assign some class theory for my literature students this term, but that might involve the name Marx. And what if Mr. Cuccinelli decides I’m “defrauding” Virginia’s taxpayers … taking their tax dollars as salary and trying to churn out little Communists? I mean, I’ve already got Toni Morrison on the syllabus, and she believes in another idea Virginia’s current leaders think just too far lefty -- you know, that slavery was a big, bad stain on America and maybe, just maybe, the Confederacy shouldn’t be celebrated — and adding anything else that goes against those “real ‘Merican” traditions might be pushing it.
And, all those e-mails to Hungary are definitely going to raise flags if he subpoenas my work.
