There are 37 comments.

1. Thatcher
   Percival

   @Percival

   

   3:48 PM EST ⋅ Nov 18, 2017

   Gromrus (View Comment):
   My son is a Boilermaker…a junior civil engineering student.

   My wife and I have been ecstatic with the stability of tuition and costs at Purdue as well as the even keeled sense of fairness and value of hard work that we feel when we visit.

   We are also ecstatic that he made a 100 on a test this past week in Structural Analysis ! (shameless pride).

   Here are some points about Purdue, though not elicited during the interview, which might make @Freesmith and @RufusRJones feel better about Mitch Daniels.

   The Purdue website http://www.purdue.edu/purdue/about/free-speech.html says reassuringly:

   ” Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe.”

   Moreover, Pres. Daniels (doesn’t that have a great ring to it) was an early supporter of the University of Chicago Report on Freedom of Expression.

   See more here: https://www.thefire.org/purdue-president-and-students-join-forces-for-free-speech-on-campus/

   Purdue is an excellent school. And they beat us 29-10 in football this year, rot ’em.

   But we still lead them (23-10) in Nobel Prizes. So there’s that.

2. Inactive
   Skybalon

   @Skybalon

   3:49 PM EST ⋅ Nov 18, 2017

   James Lileks (View Comment):

   Freesmith (View Comment):
   I’m not really interested in Purdue’s budget forecasts and debt loads; but as someone who is deeply concerned about the state and future of American higher education I wish that Peter Robinson and James Lileks had taken a conservative, values-laden approach in their conversation with Daniels. That’s why I listen to conservative podcasts, not to get an accountant’s lowdown on the travails of US colleges.

   What a wasted opportunity! I give both interviewers an “F.”

   Ouch! Well, I think – or would like to think – I’d have brought it up if Purdue had been through Evergreen / Mizzou situations. Seeing as it hasn’t, the question would produce boilerplate about Freedom of Expression, etc., and it wouldn’t accomplish anything more than agreeing about agreeing. I was (obviously) more interested the subject of college as a means of bestowing credentials, which strikes at the liberal notion of who’s an authority, and who should be automatically accorded respect. I think that’s a fundamental divide, and perhaps has deeper implications. But I would think that, wouldn’t I. ;)

3. Inactive
   Skybalon

   @Skybalon

   4:13 PM EST ⋅ Nov 18, 2017

   James Lileks (View Comment):

   Freesmith (View Comment):

   Ouch! Well, I think – or would like to think – I’d have brought it up if Purdue had been through Evergreen / Mizzou situations. Seeing as it hasn’t, the question would produce boilerplate about Freedom of Expression, etc., and it wouldn’t accomplish anything more than agreeing about agreeing. I was (obviously) more interested the subject of college as a means of bestowing credentials, which strikes at the liberal notion of who’s an authority, and who should be automatically accorded respect. I think that’s a fundamental divide, and perhaps has deeper implications. But I would think that, wouldn’t I. ;)

   I believe during the radical ’60’s Time magazine referred to Purdue as a “hotbed of apathy”. When I was there during the late ’70’s there was a brief radical moment when someone painted “Protest the Shah’s US visit” which caused a bunch of engineers to both wonder who the Shah was and theorize about the best method to remove spray paint from concrete. Purdue, traditionally, doesn’t have the kind of environment where Mizzou/Evergreen type things occur.

4. Member
   DJ EJ

   @DJEJ

   4:50 PM EST ⋅ Nov 18, 2017

   On Bob Costa’s May 12th, 2017 appearance on the Ricochet podcast he was pushing the Russian collusion narrative, taking the bait that the Washington Post’s sources were feeding him, and that the Trump administration had to prove the absence of collusion for the controversy to go away . Has he had a mea culpa/Maggie Haberman moment yet (i.e. turns out our anonymous sources [Clinton campaign people] were lying to us the whole time about the source of the Steele dossier)? My comments on that podcast episode still hold true:

   “Do they [Washington Post] publish stories based solely on anonymous sources? Do the sources have to actually offer proof that what they’re saying is true and does a reporter attempt to verify their claims with other than anonymous sources before they publish a story? If Mr Costa’s answers to these questions are “yes” to the first and “no” to the second, my next question would be – how do I know that anything he writes is factual and not merely he-said-she-said or a friend of a friend of a friend told me speculation? “Trust us, we’re the press, we can’t tell you who they are but they’re good sources” just doesn’t cut it for me.”

   Jonathan Allen, co-author of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign, also appeared on that same episode. As fellow Ricochet member Pepe LePew pointed out in that episode’s comments, “Jonathan Allen’s book asserts Podesta and Mook seized on unfounded Russian interference theories right after the loss as Hillary’s excuse.” A few months time passing has shown Allen’s assertion to be the foundational background to where, at least in part, the collusion narrative came from, while Costa and the WP to be merely the anonymously sourced bearers of narrative driven sloppy reporting.

5. Member
   RufusRJones

   @RufusRJones

   12:59 AM EST ⋅ Nov 19, 2017

   Gee, how did it come to this?

    

    

    

6. Inactive
   Small Metal Owl

   @Mustango

   7:23 AM EST ⋅ Nov 20, 2017

   James Lileks (View Comment):
   Ouch! Well, I think – or would like to think – I’d have brought it up if Purdue had been through Evergreen / Mizzou situations. Seeing as it hasn’t, the question would produce boilerplate about Freedom of Expression, etc., and it wouldn’t

   That’s odd, I thought a boilermaker’s job was to process boilerplate rather than produce it.

   Always good to hear things are well at my alma mater. Someday on a trip up north I will detour back that way, even though I may hardly recognize many parts of the campus.

7. Inactive
   JosephSK

   @JosephSK

   7:43 AM EST ⋅ Nov 20, 2017

   As a Purdue alum I wanted to also add the detail that not only is the team named “boilermakers” because of a history of train manufacturing and burly student athletes, there is also a truck dressed up to look like a train that drives around campus when it’s warm outside and travels with the teams for away games

   

   Purdue Boilermaker Special 7 (Purdue University/ Mark Simons)