Get Out Your PDA II

Tuesday, April 10th 7:00pm, AMU Ballroom E
Jodi Cobb, a world-renowned photographer for National Geographic Magazine, will be speaking. Sponsored by the Helen Way-Klingler College of Arts and Sciences Student Council and MUSG, the topic of Ms. Cobb’s speech will be Human Slave Trade: The Scandal of the 21st Century.
As I have said before, human trafficking is an important foreign policy issue that America needs to address. I appreciate the leadership this President and Administration have shown in prioritizing fighting this scourge.

Wednesday, April 11, 8pm, Marquette Hall 100
Bobby Schindler, brother of Terri Shiavo, and Fransiscan Brother Paul O’Donnell, family friend, will be speaking. They will discuss the misconceptions surrounding Terri’s case and how decisions are being made to stop treatment for some patients. Learn about The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation and what each of us can do to help.
I always enjoy the events put on by Students for Life. This one will certainly be interesting, and I’ll do my best to be there. Hope you will too.

Thursday, April 12, 2007, 6 PM -7:30 PM, Cudahy Hall 001
Debra Davis, a transgendered woman, will speak to the issues that transgendered people face. Ms. Davis is a nationally known speaker. According to her website, “Debra Davis is the Executive Director of the Gender Education Center, a Minnesota-based advocacy and education organization working toward understanding, acceptance and support for the GLBT communities with an emphasis on transgender issues.” Sponsored by the Gay/Straight Alliance, in cooperation with the Department of Psychology and the Department of Management.
You can go if you want; I, for one, won’t be…

Thursday, April 12, 7pm, Weasler Auditorium
Dr. Francis Fukuyama, political and economic development author and scholar, will deliver the Marquette University Allis Chalmers Distinguished Professor of International Affairs Lecture, “American Foreign Policy after the Bush Doctrine.”
Dr. Fukuyama is a top scholar of foreign policy. Once strongly associated with neoconservatism, he has since distanced himself from the common conception of the term. This will be a fascinating lecture.

Thursday, April 12, 2007, 7:30 pm, Olin Engineering
Three women from Israel/Palestine share their stories, their fears and their hopes for peace:
Huda Abu Arqoub: A Muslim Palestinian, Ms. Abu Arqoub is a Consultant with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and advocate for students and teachers in the Hebron region.
Tal Dor: A Jewish Israeli, Ms. Dor is a community activist focusing her work on underprivileged communities and forgotten narratives in Israel and Palestine
Amal Nassar: A Christian Palestinian, Ms. Nassar is a Nurse and a grassroots organizer developing nonviolent responses to war and occupation in the Bethlehem region.
I have blogged before that this event seems to me a continuation of the anti-Israel drumbeat on campus.

Friday, April 13, 12 noon, Sensenbrenner Hall #338
Professor Stephanos Bibas, University of Pennsylvania Law School, will speak on “Originalism and Formalism in Criminal Procedure: The Triumph of Justice Scalia, the Unlikely Friend of Criminal Defendants?” In two recent lines of cases, governing the admissibility of hearsay in criminal trials and judicial fact-finding at sentencing, Justice Scalia has driven major new pro-defendant doctrines in criminal procedure. Though he is normally thought of as hostile to criminal defendants, he justifies these doctrines based on originalism and formalism. LUNCH PROVIDED – RSVP to andrew.hitt@mu.edu.
The Federalist Society always puts on great events (admittedly, I’m biased). This one shold be no exception. For the other Scalia-lovers out there, or for those studying criminology, y’all should come by.

Friday, April 13, 3:00 – 4:30pm, AMU 227
The (Samuel) Johnson Society of the Central Region conference – Frans De Bruyn (University of Ottawa), “William Shakespeare and Edmund Burke: Literary Allusion in Eighteenth-Century British Political Rhetoric”
I’m on an Edmund Burke kick, reading The Conservative Mind, so I’m planning to crash this particular panel.

Friday, April 13, 2007 3:30 P.M., Raynor Conference Center.
Professor Claudia Card will give a presentation entitled “Ticking Bombs and Interrogations” as part of the Spring Philosphy Department Colloquium Series. Professor Card is the Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also an affiliate professor in LGBT Studies, Women’s Studies, and Environmental Studies. Author of Lesbian Choices, editor of Feminist Ethics, Adventures in Lesbian Philosophy, On Feminist Ethics and Politics. Also Philosophy Book Review Editor for Journal of Homosexuality, Former chair of APA Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People in the Profession, (1997-2001).
Another one I’ll be skipping.

Saturday, April 14, 2007, 9am, AMU
MUSG Diversity Conference. “The objective of the conference is to challenge participants to move beyond indifference and tolerance and toward becoming active agents of positive change against oppression. The conference also seeks to examine racial issues that permeate the metropolitan Milwaukee area. The goal of this conference is to look honestly and realistically at oppression and how each individual plays a role in either combating or perpetuating it in this society. This process can only begin with education and dialogue.
The conference is structured around the three segments that focus on the following themes: 1) Understanding oppression and its history, 2) current issues of privilege and oppression, and 3) becoming an agent of change.”
Another one I will be missing. Although I must give credit where credit is due. On the bottom of the call for papers is this caveat: “Please note that Marquette University is a Catholic Jesuit University. Program submissions will be considered with the university’s mission and purpose in mind.” Good for them.

Saturday, April 14, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Cudahy Hall 001
Marquette and America’s Black Holocaust Museum will host “Holocausts and Healing: Race, Globalization and the Prison Industry,” about the crisis of unemployment and high rates of imprisonment facing the African American community in Milwaukee. Panelists include: Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, a national voice on the connection between globalization’s impact in the U.S. and criminalization of African Americans and impoverished communities.
Debra Fifer, Mothers Against Gun Violence
Reggie Jackson, ABHM historian
Laura Manriquez, registered nurse and community advocate
Dr. Pamela Oliver, chair of sociology at UW-Madison
Lena Taylor, state senator

Saturday, April 14, 4:30pm – 7:30pm, Helfaer Theate, dinner discussion to follow in Raynor
The “Vagina Monologues” will be the center of a symposium sponsored by the Marquette Honors Program titled “Academic Conversation on Catholicism, Sexuality, and Human Rights.”
Those of us who think the Monologues don’t belong have made our case, and I’m sticking to it.

Tuesday, April 17, 4pm, Weasler Auditorium
Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald, S.J., Ph.D., will deliver “Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research: Prometheus or Pandora?,” a free, public lecture will explore how biomedical research raises philosophical and theological issues regarding human nature, health and the human good. Father FitzGerald holds the Dr. David Lauler Chair in Catholic Health Care Ethics and is a research associate professor in the Georgetown University Medical Center’s Department of Oncology.
As previously noted, Fr. Fitzgerald is a preeminent medical ethicist and a “good guy” on questions of life, cloning, and stem cell research. Be there for this one.

Tuesday April 17, 2007 8 pm – 9:30 pm, Chapel of the Holy Family, AMU
Join fellow students during Night of Praise for an inspiring evening of concert and song led by the Campus Crusade worship band. All students are welcome to enjoy the opportunity to sing aloud and hear students share an encouraging word from personal experience.

Wednesday, April 18, 12:15pm, Sensenbrenner Room 325
Mayor Tom Barrett will discuss his vision for Milwaukee—what he sees as obstacles to the city’s achieving greatness and what accomplishments are a source of pride. The Mayor, a former Congressman and an attorney, will also talk about his life in public service and offer his perspective on how business gets done in the nation’s capital.
I’m afraid I’ll be in class for this one, but it certainly looks like an event worth attending. Mike Gousha has brought a series of Wisconsin’s top leaders to our law school, and we look forward to that continuing. Many of these events pack the law school’s largest room – time for a new building?

Thursday/Friday, April 19/20, AMU
The tenets of a free press and those of national security often conflict during wartime. Marquette University will host representatives from 14 countries who will discuss and debate the relationships among news coverage, global conflict and war. The panels will tackle such topics as “Delusions of Peace: Why America Was Unprepared to Address the Ideological Dimensions of the War on Terror,” “To Report or Not to Report: Freedom of Expression and War Reporting” and “Journalism During Terror Attacks.”

Saturday, April 28, 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sensenbrenner 307
Second Annual Wisconsin Blog Summit. A packed schedule includes top bloggers and commentators in the state, including: Ed Garvey, Charlie Sykes, Brian Fraley, Owen Robinson, Jessica McBride, Jay Bullock, Eugene Kane and Tim Cuprisin.
I attended last year’s blog bash, and will do so again this year. Showering, getting out of my pajamas, and leaving my mother’s basement is a sacrifice I’m willing to make…

• Tom Barrett's Savings Plan - June 8th, 2010
• C.J. Abrahamson on J. Stevens - April 11th, 2010
• Why always Bill Bablitch? - March 24th, 2010
• Suhr on Nixon on Health Care - February 23rd, 2010
• Did the USCCB Foresee Dead People? - February 8th, 2010