To Henry Grunder et al.:

  Still, academic governance for all its problems, should not be compared
with Yugoslovia.  When we talk about "graves of academia" we are not
actually talking about thousands of murdered scientists in a physical mass
grave.  Comparing academic governance, of any kind, with "ethnic cleansing"
implies to me at least that these are similarly bad.  Issues of academic
tenure, for example, between academic departments, is not comparable to
"ethnic cleansing".  There has been too much of a willingness of late to
compare our problems with the w orst problems imaginable, just as Mark
Fuhrman for all his bad qualities is "worse than Adolf Hitler", as Mr.
Cochran has implied.

  As professionals we should be careful of the analogies that we give.  To
give inappropriate analogies suggests to me a willingness to distort
information.


Kevin McCartney, Ph.D.
Associate Prof., Geology
Director, Northern Maine Museum
  of Science (in development)
University of Maine at Presque Isle
Presque Isle, ME  04769