I hope you’ll check this out.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/19-11

Quite a few in my department at U of I are Iranians, and I’ve always found their political problems “interesting,” to say the least.

I’m glad you posted this because Urbanagora has not said enough about the Iranian elections. It’s a huge issue. I think this issue far outweighs things like health care. On domestic issues, we are smoothing the rough edges, but in foreign affairs we are responsible for spreading freedom. Our pop culture and our sense of freedom is insanely pervasive and influential in the world. It has been far more powerful in changing the world for good than our military.

However, I have heard many Iranians requesting a strong stance from Obama. I don’t think we should send in tanks, but sending in strong words is within our diplomatic rights and strategies. Our last president categorized the entire country as being among the Axis of Evil. This label allowed many of us to forget the mass of progressive and secular Iranians. We see them now. Simply supporting them verbally is far less of an insult than labeling them as “evil.” I have no problems with verbally interfering in a country’s elections when they are patently fraudulent.

Regardless, great post Rosie P :)

Apologies for hijacking this post, but a lot of people here have attended UI’s law school, and I thought they and others would find this article interesting.

” In one e-mail exchange, University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman forced the law school to admit an unqualified applicant backed by then- Gov. Rod Blagojevich while seeking a promise from the governor’s go-between that five law school graduates would get jobs. The applicant, a relative of deep-pocketed Blagojevich campaign donor Kerry Peck, appears to have been pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley, who often carried the governor’s admissions requests.”