Author Archives: James Kirchick

For most Yalies, the name Chesa Boudin ’03 is not likely to ring a bell. He is the son of Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, who in a 1981 robbery gone awry, aided in the murder of two police officers and a Brinks security guard in Nyack, N.Y. They were members of the Weathermen, a »

Rahmatullah Hashemi and Malalai Joya seemingly have much in common. Both are 27, come from the same region of Afghanistan and are interested in international relations. But the similarities between Hashemi, silver-tongued former spokesman for the Taliban, and Joya, one of the new Afghani Parliament’s youngest members, end there. Not long ago, while Hashemi toured »

I was more than a little puzzled to see the self-satisfied mug of Rahmatullah Hashemi ’09 smiling at me from the front of the News on Monday. The last time I saw that Cheshire grin was in Michael Moore’s otherwise manipulative “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which, for all its demagoguery and factual errors, at least captured the »

There is one word that drives me nuts. It’s not a curse. Its timbre does not make me cringe. Rather, it is the way in which this particular word is used — often to describe me, and others like me, totally against my will — that I find to be so offensive. The word, if »

God Bless Alan Kennedy-Shaffer. If he did not exist, someone would have to invent him. Earlier this week on this page, my friend and colleague Dan Koffler called for the impeachment of the President of the United States (“Surveillance should carry dire consequences for Pres. Bush,” 1/18). I doubt Dan would have expected to be »

This month’s riots in the immigrant ghettos outside Paris are only the latest manifestation of a continent in decline. Expressly, Europe has abandoned its culture. Thus, it has lost the means by which to assimilate Muslims who have shown no inclination to emulate those who seek American citizenship and accept the pluralistic values our country »

What a difference a summer makes. Here was Ward 1 Alderwoman Rebecca Livengood last spring, stating that “while some requests of the cancer center, such as planning open public space into its construction, were negotiable, others, including obtaining representation in the Service Employees’ International Union for hospital workers, were not” (“Candidates talk at Ward 1 »

As the race for Ward 1 alderman heats up, the most important issue facing the city is the proposed $430 million cancer center affiliated with Yale-New Haven Hospital. Proponents argue that the center would rival Boston’s Dana Farber Cancer Institute and New York’s Sloan-Kettering, both world-class institutions. Aside from the obvious medical benefits the center »

Annual graduate student stipend (2005-2006): $18,000 Health benefit to graduate students with two dependents: $2,796 Graduate student summer research fellowship: $3,500 Pretending you’re a real union: priceless It’s a modern wonder how Yale graduate students find the inclination, never mind the time, to advocate for a union; there is just something unseemly about making demands »

I thought “The Passion of The Christ” came out last year. Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old Florida woman who has been in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) for some 15 years, may not bear a physical resemblance to Jesus. But the way in which a valued electoral constituency — the religious right — has portrayed these »

Believe it or not, I agree with the ideas underpinning the Undergraduate Organizing Committee’s financial aid reform proposal. No, you did not read that incorrectly. It is inexcusable that Yale lags behind rival institutions like Princeton and Harvard when it comes to the generosity of financial aid packages. Administrators in the provost’s office may worry »

One would expect — or at least hope — that an election in a country once tyrannized by rape rooms, poison gas attacks and aggressive militarization would bring some degree of happiness to self-described liberals. But as with many things in life, reality hardly lives up to expectation. When the United States captured Saddam Hussein »