Despite what you may have heard, education, especially higher education, in the US is highly regulated by some very coercive regulations, usually tied to school participation in federal financial aid programs (talk about your unfunded mandates, oh my).

FERPA is a decades old law that regulates the ability of schools to release private student information to third parties without the student's explicit permission. Every now and again, someone in Congress gets a bright idea how to improve legislation that actually works fairly well. I'm informed by AACRAO, the professional organization of Registrars and Admissions Officers, that there are two more doozies working their way through the House this week.

AACRAO is a relatively tiny organization, so if you can spare a call or an email to your rep to stop these disasters now, my colleagues and I would sincerely appreciate it.  Text below is taken from an AACRAO press release.

The Washington state marriage decision has prompted AmericaBlog to whine over the past few days about what a bad idea politically pushing for marriage now is (repeating the discredited assertion that gay marriage cost Kerry the election).

I don't really want to hash through the marriage question again (the paragraph above should indicate my feelings on constantly being asked to take one for the team on the issue), but I was struck by something in Wednesday's post:

Someone in the [gay] community with some influence needs to stand up and say "enough already," and get our agenda back.

My question in the comments thread was, "Who?"

Everyone's tossing out advice, so here goes:
Give up on using "Hate" and "Hypocrisy" as pejoratives.  It doesn't work.  

People outside the hardcore whose minds might be changed won't think of themselves that way (Think men who have sex with men "On the Down Low."  They're not gay.  Not even a little gay.  They just like having sex with other guys--Ignore that it makes no sense and your head would explode from the cognitive dissonance if you tried to hold the idea on an ongoing basis; it's their coping mechanism, and they're not giving it up.)

It's in the news, so it must be true...

You may have defeated my Southern Hook Palm technique, but can you defeat the 1000 styles of Rumsfeld?

I live with an amature military historian (and peacetime veteran).  His take on the current Iraq situation:
'Look at the breakdowns from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam from any armed force and, on average, of 10 casualties (KIA or WIA), 7 will be enlisted, 2 will be NCOs, and 1 will be an officer.  In Iraq, of 10 casualties, 10 are enlisted and between age 18 and 21.  They're sending the children out to die.'

He's predicting the revival of fragging very shortly.  He's also (putting aside the question of whether it should have been fought in the first place) at a complete loss to understand how the war could have been conducted so incompetently.  I try to explain that the administration believed its own propaganda (and more frighteningly, it apparently still does).

The topic seems so quaint (rather 90s) amidst the prospect of gay marriage, the borderline psychotic disconnect between reality and perception of the Iraq war, and the speacter of mad cow.  MTV News is airing a follow-up half hour that graphicly demonstrates just how screwed up the decade old policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is.

Recall Real World: New Orleans and the house's pretty young gay boy, Danny, and his GI boyfriend, Paul.  I remember thinking at the time that the ever-present blur covering Paul's face was the single best indictment of DADT ever presented.  All the fear mongering worst-case scenarios about allowing fags in fatigues out of the closet seemed so absurd every time the distorted voice under the pixelation spoke.  I also figured Paul was Danny's age, enlisted, and a short-timer.

Wrong on all counts.

Paul was career.  A bit older than Danny, he was a captain, a Ranger, and had served on the ground in Bosnia.  Third-generation military with a field of ribbons pinned on his dress uniform.  So, after the show aired, he ended up backed into a corner with a choice, career or love.  He picked Danny, and the US Army lost what appeared to be an excellent officer (he certainly made the right call on this decision).

Their statements are here:
http://www.mtv.com/bands/r/real_world/news_feature_122403/
The follow-up show is rerunning several times this week:
http://www.mtv.com/onair/schedule/airdates.jhtml?channelID=1&SeriesID=11942

It's easy to forget there are still lots of lives being ruined by this policy, to say nothing of the fact it's costing the military valuable personnel when they're already stretched thin.

Don't forget.

Mallard Fillmore, a King Features strip carried in 400 papers as a conservative alternative to Doonsbury (except it's not funny and never takes a conservative taget to task unless they've done something "liberal") has been laying into Dean this week.  He's going for the effete, liberal, out-of-touch New Englander meme.  The link to the strip is http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/mallard/about.htm (the web posting runs two weeks behind the dailys, so the Dean strips should hit around New Years).  Actually, it's a pretty good strip today about the only thing the cartoonist hates more than liberals, overpriced band fundraising candy.

Guess Dean's doing something right.