Every Day Patrick Writes The Book

As reported here, the first piece of legislation sponsored by Patrick Murphy reached the floor of the U.S. House last week and was approved by a vote of 414-0. The resolution was a formal condemnation by the U.S. House of Representatives to the University and College Union of the United Kingdom's recent call for an academic boycott of Israel.

This is nice, safe politics for this country as a whole, and though I’ve read up on the boycott a bit, it appears to be more than a bit wrong-headed. As noted in the final paragraph of this story…

In an effort to counter the boycott, a group of Arab and Jewish Israeli students hosted a stand at the conference to detail academic cooperation projects between Israelis and Arabs and between Israel and the United Kingdom, all of which they said could be affected by the boycott. They also talked to delegates about the achievements of Israeli universities and showcased the projects between Israeli and Palestinian universities, as well as the joint work benefiting Israel's Arab minority, that is threatened by the proposed boycott.

If individual professors or administrators of the UCU are upset with Israel for its occupation (and please understand that I’m not trying to call out either the Israelis or the Palestinians here), then fine, speak out and say so. But don’t do something that will hurt the education of your students.

And (following up on the post title), the newest freeper point of indignation in these parts concerning Patrick is his signing of a book deal for $100,000 about his life in the military and his recent government service. And as you might expect, this is all a snit over nothing; as this story notes, Patrick signed the book deal before he was sworn into office, so it falls within government legal and ethical guidelines.

Update 7/17: This is good news, and as always, to help out Patrick, click here.