YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: The federal government subsidizes a lot of work in Middle Eastern Studies, in the hopes that it will produce knowledge useful in war and diplomacy. Martin Kramer says we’re not getting our money’s worth. Excerpt:

Now no one can object to lectures on clothes and sex. And reading through the program, I confess that many of the more obscure subjects appeal to my antiquarian tastes. But there is very little in this program to justify the notion that Middle Eastern studies serve the national interest, or that they deserve the massive increase in federal funding authorized by Congress last January. Given the fact that the conference is meeting in Washington, the omissions are even more striking.

Actually, it looks as if much of the work is worse than merely useless:

The words “al-Qaeda” and “Osama bin Laden” are nowhere to be found. The word “terrorism” is either between quotation marks or in the context of “Arab Responses to America’s War on Terrorism.”

I hope some journalists will attend, and ask about this stuff. (Link via The Corner).