Larry Summers, Martyr In an otherwise thoughtful column, New Republic editor Jonathan Chait takes an egregiously wrong shot at the critics of Larry Summers.

Chait begins thusly: "There are certainly subjects that liberals refuse to discuss without resorting to hysteria and name-calling. (Ask Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who has spent much of the year groveling abjectly for having delicately suggested the possibility that maybe inherent differences play a role in the paucity of female scientists.)"

Now, just hold on a second there, fella. Let's consider that throwaway parenthetical a little more carefully.

What Chait is really saying here is that the idea that "inherent differences play a role in the paucity of female scientists" isn't such a big deal, certainly not one that anyone should have to "grovel" about.

This is the kind of statement that only a white man could say and believe to be true.

Larry Summers posited a genetic deficiency to women. ("Prove me wrong," he added.) And I think if you're a woman, you'd have every right, and maybe every responsibility, to take that seriously indeed.

Imagine if Summers had said that "inherent differences" played a role in the paucity of African-American scientists. The outrage would be fast and furious, and few would deny its legitimacy.

So why is this argument seen as a kind of casual, harmless intellectual meandering when it's applied to women?  ¶ 7:52 AM 0 comments   

  A Shout-Out to Garry Trudeau Kurt Andersen has a lovely review of Garry Trudeau's new Doonesbury book, "The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time," in today's Times.

The book is something of a twist for Trudeau; it's a collection of his strips about B.D., the football player-turned-soldier who lost his leg in Iraq. I read a number of the strips when they were published in newspapers, and remember thinking how odd it was that one of the few places in the American media dealing so honestly and poignantly about the wounds of war was...a comic strip.

However much later it is now—a year?—I still feel that way. There is so much important reporting, so much urgent storytelling, to be done about this war, and, with the exception of all-too-brief segments on the national news, our major networks do none of it.

When I was a kid, my mother, who is slightly to the left of George McGovern, hung a poster in our kitchen that said, "What if they had a war and nobody came?" I didn't really understand what the Vietnam-era slogan meant till later, but now I think the slogan should be updated: "What if they had a war and nobody cared?" Or: "What if they had a war and everyone watched reality TV?" Because the visual media seems to have decided that the war doesn't exist if they don't show it.

A second thought about Andersen's review. He concludes by writing that "Garry Trudeau, who by all rights should be phoning it in by now, still takes his responsibilities to the strip and his audience seriously, and in service to them still takes large and interesting risks."

I couldn't agree more. I think that one key to leading a meaningful life is to cherish the presence of genius in the moment, not simply to value it after its passage. That's why I watched Michael Jordan play as much as I could, even though I'm not a particularly big basketball fan, and why I was heartbroken when John Belushi died, and why I prayed that Jerry Garcia would finally quit using heroin (how well he played during those years when he was free of it!).

Garry Trudeau has been writing Doonesbury for, what, 35 years now? Remarkable. We should never take this man for granted.  ¶ 7:22 AM 0 comments   

  Cue: Real Estate Crash I've finally joined the ranks of the landed and purchased an apartment in Manhattan, which means that posts may be erratic over the next few days. (It's also a sign that anyone thinking of going into real estate speculation shouldn't, as my entry into any market is generally a good sign of its imminent collapse.)

We'll see how our conglomerates—Verizon, Time-Warner, Con-Ed—and newer challengers (Earthlink, Vonage) perform in the next few days. Hopefully this transition will be as seamless as possible.

Meantime, thanks so much to all who came out for the Harvard Rules discussion in Washington yesterday, and to the organizers of it. I know I enjoyed it, and I hope you did too. And fantastic questions....  ¶ 12:42 PM 0 comments   

  The Decline and Fall of a Second Term

Here's an anti-Bush plank for Democrats to run on in 2006 and 2008: corruption. As in, the Bush administration is full of it.

There's more evidence of that today, as the Times reports that political appointees at the Justice Department "overrode the objections of career lawyers running the government's tobacco racketeering trial and ordered them to reduce the penalties sought at the close of the nine-month trial by $120 billion."

The man who made this bizarre decision, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, happpens to be a Skull and Bones—mate of Bush's who—it's so predictable—was previously a partner at an Atlanta law firm that represented the tobacco industry.

But let's return to that $120 billion figure. Career Justice Department lawyers had spent years building their case against Big Tobacco, and at the very last minute, the penalties they were seeking were reduced from $130 billion to ten billion by one of the president's cronies.

Imagine what that money could go to. A hell of a lot of medical care. Funding for public education. Or, if you prefer, a year of war in Iraq.

McCallum is the second Bush official in recent days who's been shown to have greater loyalty to his prior employer than to his present one. Phillip Clooney, former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality—the man who used to work for the American Petroleum Institute—doctored already approved White House documents to soften warnings about global warming.

This trickle of corruption will become a torrent as Bush's second term winds down. That's the way second terms work—especially when you have a president who polices the morals of everyone except the people who happen to work for him.

  ¶ 8:34 AM 0 comments   

  Larry Summers and Older Drivers The president of Harvard appears to have become a touchstone for every social debate about prejudice of any sort.

Writing originally in the Washington Post, Abigail Trafford cites Summers in a column defending—yes—older drivers.

I'll quote a little bit, because it contains one of the most glaring examples of fallacious argument I've seen in quite some time.

"'Oh, my God, they're sooooo slow." These words, quoted in a newspaper article, come from a 20-year-old woman in Florida. The subject of her condescending mirth: older drivers. Florida is full of them - white hairs in big cars, poking along... chuckle, chuckle.

"But what if the "they" in such a quote were black postal workers? Sooooo slow!"

"Or girls in algebra class? Sooooo slow!"

Instead of chuckles there would be outrage and charges of racism and sexism."

Okay, let's just dissect this. In the first instance, a 20-year-old attributes a quality to a demographic group—bad driving and old people. The ability, driving, is directly linked to the physical condition of the aged, at least in this young person's mind.

But in the latter two examples, the argument is applied to another group—African-Americans—based on their skin color, and to girls based on their gender. Totally different.

"Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, nearly lost his job after he crossed the "ism" line with his remarks about the scientific ability of women," Trafford writes. So how come we don't get so upset about age-ism?

Well, lots of reasons. First, while there is certainly age-ism (what a terrible word) in American society, the elderly are also an enormously powerful political group, and are hardly discriminated against.

Second, because many older people (like many younger people) are terrible drivers, albeit for different reasons. It's not their fault that their coordination has deteriorated. But I've seen lots and lots of older drivers who clearly shouldn't be on the road, and just can't afford (or don't want) to give up their mobility.

I write this as someone whose father recently lost the ability to drive, and I know how difficult that is....  ¶ 7:45 AM 0 comments   

  Here It Comes Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen muses on the recently reported study arguing that Jews have a genetic basis for superior intelligence. No one got particularly upset about this study, Cohen argues. So why did Larry Summers take so much flack for suggesting that there may be innate differences in aptitude between men and women?

Key graf: "I cannot be certain that Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has read the article. But if he did, I bet he wondered why it is possible to suggest that certain Jews are smarter than other people but not remotely possible to suggest that women might not be as brilliant in science and engineering as men. When Summers did precisely that back in January -- when he wondered out loud about such matters as "intrinsic aptitude" -- he got his head handed to him. He was not, mind you, stating this as a fact -- just throwing it out along with other factors that might account for why men outnumber women on the science, engineering and math faculties of first-rate universities. What he did not do -- and this was his mistake -- was limit the possibilities to the only politically correct one: sexual discrimination of one sort or another."

I can be certain that Larry Summers read the article. You bet your ass he did. And I'll admit, when I read of this study, I imagined Summers reading it and feeling some sense of aggrievement.

There are differences, though. Important ones.

First, the Jewish-intelligence study attributed positive characteristics to one particular group, but unlike Summers, it didn't single out any specific group as coming up short.

Second, it's possible that when it comes to genetics, people are more likely to believe such assertions about specific ethnic groups, rather than entire genders. In other words, we may believe that Jews have great intelligence as compared to some other groups, but find it hard to accept that intelligence is divisible by gender.

A corollary: this is potentially quite troubling. Cohen must surely understand that one reason people didn't make such a fuss over this survey is that it reinforces prevailing stereotypes: Jews are smart and good at business. That happens to be a positive stereotype. Perhaps if that conclusion had been phrased differently, the reaction might have been more violent.

Third—and how many friggin' times do I have to repeat this?—the greatest outrage over Summers' remarks was not his assertion of differences between men and women, but his strong suggestion that this, rather than discrimination, was the greater explanation for the paucity of women in the sciences.

What's clear is that we're just beginning to understand the relationships between genetics and intelligence...but the amount we don't understand is vastly greater than that which we do. And until that ratio changes, people have to be very careful about drawing conclusions based on pop-science and the occasional isolated study, no matter how provocative they may be. It's kind of like the blind men and the elephant. Give some people just a little knowledge, and they can draw some bizarre conclusions.  ¶ 7:24 AM 0 comments   

  The Backlash Continues Writing in Slate, Hua Hsu takes the piss out of Coldplay. Why is Chris Martin so sad? he asks. After all, Coldplay's lead singer is married to Gwyneth Paltrow (that one's too easy) and has a new baby. Maybe his songs don't really mean anything at all. It's not enough that Martin takes political stands for fair trade and other issues. His songs ought to be more political, to match the band's big sound.

Hsu's argument is smarter than Jon Pareles' silly, self-conscious takedown of Coldplay in the Times a couple weeks back, but I still think it's off-base.

I've listened to X & Y about twenty times in the week since it came out, and it's steadily grown on me. To judge it as an explicitly political record is a mistake (though, to be fair, one Martin might have encouraged, as he's frequently said that he wants Coldplay to be "bigger than U2").

X & Y is an album about love. It's the work of a man who's recently married and become a new father. You can hear it in every song: Martin can't believe his good luck—and he's terrified that it's going to change. He wants to make everything right—to keep it right. Images of repair abound, as when, in the gorgeous "Fix You," he sings, "Lights will guide you home/And ignite your bones/And I will try/To fix you."

Not the most graceful writing, but you get the point—Martin's a husband and a father now. He wants to protect. And haven't we all been in that position, where we can't believe our good fortune, and we know—we know, in our bones—that life doesn't stay so blissful for long, that our happiness is transient and will invariably be threatened by tragedy and illness and loss. In a strange way, the better off things are, the more we stand to lose, and the more we'll hurt when it happens.

So Martin wants to stop time, to enjoy a moment he feels is already slipping away. In the title cut, he sings, "I know something is broken/And I'm trying to fix it/Trying to repair it/Any way I can." And then, the lovely chorus: "You and me/are floating on a tidal wave/You and me/Are drifting into outer space/And singing...."

Is this life? Or death?

That may be a tough view of the world, but such existential anxiety has been Martin's philosophy consistently, ever since Coldplay's first album, Parachutes. On X & Y it is wed to an expansive sound that conflates the intensely personal with an album of arena-appropriate rock. To me, there's something courageous about that; no rock star makes himself more vulnerable than Chris Martin.

We have plenty of bands singing about why George Bush is a crummy president, and that's fine. Let Coldplay sing about love. Isn't that political? Isn't that enough?


  ¶ 7:22 AM 0 comments   

  Conservatives Love Virgins Recent studies by the Department of Health and Human Services found that teenagers who took a pledge of virginity actually had similar rates of sexually transmitted diseases as did teenagers who declined to take the pledge. (Apparently, they also have a lot of anal sex, in the curious belief that backdoor-love "doesn't count.")

Now a conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, has come out with two studies contradicting that finding—studies that seem more politically motivated than scientifically sound.

According to the Times, "Independent experts called the new findings provocative, but criticized the Heritage team's analysis as flawed and lacking the statistical evidence to back its conclusions. The new findings have not been submitted to a journal for publication, an author said. The independent experts who reviewed the study said the findings were unlikely to be published in their present form."

Conservatives remind me of the Catholic Church: They're both so anti-sex, they contort science and the truth to support their dogma. Both try to control what they fear—or what they see as a threat to their own hierarchical authority. And both wind up corrupting themselves internally as a result. Catholics have the child abuse problem; conservatives have the awkward truth that, as one high-level Republican friend of mine recently said to me, "they're all gay." He wasn't really joking.

No one wants to see teenagers screwing like bunnies. (Well, teenagers might, but otherwise....) But can't we just accept that sex is a normal, healthy part of life—even teenage life—and maybe it's better to teach kids about sex than just telling them that they shouldn't have any?  ¶ 6:54 AM 0 comments   

  Harvard in the News Here are various stories wrapping up the Shleifer case and the photoshop incident:

AP/New York Times
"U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodcock found that Shleifer and Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while working on a federal contract to assist in Russia's transition to capitalism."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice, Harvard University, and two other defendants reached a tentative agreement on Monday to settle a civil lawsuit in which the university, a professor, and a staff member were accused of conspiring to defraud the federal government through a program intended to help Russia make the transition to a market economy."

The Washington Post
"A Harvard brochure sent to thousands of prospective students included a doctored photo of the student newspaper's front page that removed a headline about the university president facing a confidence vote."  ¶ 6:36 AM 2 comments   

  Having Said That I wouldn't be surprised if the Harvard top brass tried to keep secret the details of the Shleifer settlement. But the symbolism of Shleifer's remaining presence at Harvard is urgent and awkward. Here's a man who likely broke the law—and more importantly, cynically exploited the opportunity to promote democracy abroad for personal financial gain.

Regardless of whether Shleifer has admitted to breaking the law, is there really a place on the Harvard faculty for such a figure?

What does Larry Summers think?

If, say, Shleifer were an outspoken, liberal, African-American professor—and not one of Summers' closest friends—would there be any doubt? No. He'd be gone.  ¶ 6:26 AM 0 comments   

  What It Means I've been thinking about the concurrence of two events—the photoshopping of an embarrassing headline out of an admissions office brochure, and the postponement of the lawsuit settlement until after Commencement—and why they bother me so much.

After all, to some of you, such media manipulation might simply be seen as standard operating procedure for any large institution, especially one that is the "best brand in higher education."

At the risk of sounding either naive or self-congratulatory, I'd say that this behavior bothers me because I am idealistic about Harvard.

I believe that officials of the world's greatest university should hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior than the standard operating procedure in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, these recent examples of media manipulation and public dishonesty have become the norm at Harvard over the past four years.

I believe that the university has an obligation to deal with the press in straightforward, candid, and intelligent ways, lest it degrade the values that a university is supposed to stand for, values that are increasingly hard to find made manifest in American society, and consequently increasingly important.

I believe that photoshopping a newspaper headline to eliminate potential embarrassment has a symbolic connotation of Orwellian behavior that we might expect from big business or the federal government—and that if we are not shocked by such behavior from Harvard, then we have truly lost something profound.

I believe that veritas, though it may be difficult in the short run, would serve Harvard well in the long term. I do not believe that truth has to be sacrificed in the conduct of a large and wealthy institution, and that if any place should stand by that credo, it is Harvard.

I believe that the university has an obligation to treat its alumni like intelligent human beings, integral parts of a worldwide community, rather than pawns to be manipulated and then solicited for money.

I believe that manipulating the media and public opinion may ease the pain of a short-term embarrassment, but over time, contributes to public cynicism regarding Harvard's behavior and the erosion of public support for higher education.

I believe that none of this will matter at Larry Summers' Harvard.  ¶ 6:03 AM 0 comments   

  So Predictable Yesterday Harvard and economist Andre Shleifer settled the government lawsuit against them regarding Shleifer's financial escapades in Russia.

"Continuing its newfound tradition of burying bad news over Summers vacation—whoops, summer vacation—Harvard is reportedly about to settle the federal lawsuit against the university."
—Shots in the Dark, 8:40 AM, June 14, 2024

"Yesterday’s hearing, originally scheduled for March, was postponed four times, most recently on the first of this month. That delay, according to a Harvard official who has been briefed on the case, was a public-relations move intended to push the settlement announcement until after Commencement, when the news would receive less attention."
—Reporter Zachary M. Seward in a Harvard Crimson web update published later that day  ¶ 5:52 AM 0 comments   

  The Report Card—An Addendum It occurs to me that I've been unfair to Larry Summers in one way; I neglected to give him credit for his efforts to promote financial aid for Harvard students, both undergraduate and graduate.

So...allow me.

Financial Aid: A
Raising the subject of class disparities and access to higher education may well be Larry Summers' finest achievement to date. It's an important subject, he's well-positioned to talk about it, and he's done more than talk: Summers' decision to make Harvard free for families making less than $40,000 was smart and progressive. It also put pressure on other universities, and some, such as Yale, have now followed Summers' lead. Summers has also pushed to expand financial aid for graduate students, a far less sexy topic, but one that's very important; as an ex-grad student myself, I can vouch for that.
On the subject of access to higher education, then, Larry Summers has been an effective and important spokesperson, and he's made good use of the Harvard bully pulpit.  ¶ 3:24 PM 0 comments   

  I Should Mention... ...that on Thursday night I'll be giving a talk at the Chevy Chase Club in Chevy Chase, MD. I think I'm going to talk about competing visions of college life as manifested in Harvard Rules and Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons."

And I'll probably talk about LHS a little, too.

It's not a public event, so if you're interested in coming, drop me an e-mail.....  ¶ 2:06 PM 0 comments   

  Hotter Still A number of e-mailers have mentioned to me that I missed another pick-up of the deleted headline story: this, from CNN.com.  ¶ 12:46 PM 0 comments   

  Token Celebrity News 1) The verdict in the Jackson trial seems to me the right one: Who could honestly say that there was no doubt about the accusers?

2) Jackson is a creep, nonetheless.

3) Can we all let it go now? I don't mean to be a scold, but there is a war going on.....and the news isn't good.

4) A final thought: I followed the O.J. Simpson trial closely, because it seemed to me that that case raised important issues of race and justice and a vast gulf between the way blacks and whites saw their intersection. Plus, there was a terrible tragedy involved. But the Michael Jackson trial wasn't anything important. Whatever the verdict, who could possibly care about either the accused or the accusers? The theme of this trial was decadence—Jackson, for his life style, his accusers, for willingly contributing to it in order to be close to celebrity—and about that, who can muster a heartfelt thought?  ¶ 9:22 AM 0 comments   

  Hot! Hot! Hot! And no, I'm not talking about the weather; I'm referring to Larry Summers' ongoing ability to attract media interest, particularly when the news is bad.

Both the Boston Herald and the Tuscaloosa News of Alabama pick up on the Crimson's piece about Harvard's doctored brochure for potential students, in which a headline embarrassing to Larry Summers was photoshopped out of existence.

(As I've noted before, some editor in Tuscaloosa has a jones for Summers; it's quite weird.)

I noted in my previous entry (see below) on this incident that dean of admissions Bill Fitzsimmons, someone I have quite a lot of respect for, had given an unfortunately weasely answer when asked about the brochure, which is put out by his office.

And I suggested a more, um, honest answer.

So here's another free lesson in media management: When you give an answer that covers your ass in the short term but makes it look like you've got something to hide, you actually create more media interest in what should be a non-event, as this incident was.

Which is another way of saying that when it comes to the press, honesty is the best policy.  ¶ 9:15 AM 0 comments   

  Score One for Larry The American Press Institute comes to Summers' defense with a new study of men and women in the newsroom. (Fascinating, I'm sure.)

Here's the opening paragraph: "Despite the recent backlash over remarks by Harvard President Lawrence Summers about women in science, more than 30 years of research on gender differences points to one conclusion: Men and women are different. They think differently and they have different aptitudes."

Couple of things....

First, I question that use of the word "backlash," which I've seen used several times in this exact context—the backlash against Summers. The word implies that somehow the reaction to Summers' women-in-science remarks was illegitimate, perhaps even contrived.

Second, though the statements the author makes about men and women thinking differently are so vague it's hard to say whether they're true or false, it's important to remember that that wasn't really the reason for the Summers controversy. The issue was whether differences in the way that men and women think explained the paucity of women in the sciences and mathematics—or whether discrimination was a far more plausible factor.  ¶ 9:03 AM 0 comments   

  Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Well, not yet. Not technically, anyway.

Continuing its newfound tradition of burying bad news over Summers vacation—whoops, summer vacation—Harvard is reportedly about to settle the federal lawsuit against the university.

You may recall that the government brought the suit over the behavior of economist Andre Shleifer, whose Harvard Institute for International Development received massive sums from the US to consult on the Russian economy in the 1990s. Turns out that Shleifer was allegedly investing in the very same things he was consulting on. Oh, well. Shleifer teaches economics, not ethics. (And a good thing, too.)

As Marcella Bomardieri and Alex Beam report in the Globe, "a federal judge had already found that Harvard economics professor Andrei Shleifer and former employee Jonathan Hay conspired to defraud the government by making personal investments in Russia while working on a federal contract to help the country's transition to capitalism. The judge also ruled last year that Harvard breached its contract with the US Agency for International Development. Damages in the case have not been determined."

No one's talking about the terms of the settlement yet, but inevitably it will raise this awkward question: If Harvard admits wrongdoing, and/or agrees to pay a fine, does Andre Shleifer get to keep his job? He won't exactly be a convicted criminal, but close enough to think that his continued presence on the Harvard faculty would be a stain on the university.

The matter would seem a no-brainer...except for this relevant detail: Shleifer is one of Larry Summers' best friends.....

Will Summers continue to support his friend? Or will he put Harvard's best interest ahead of his own sense of loyalty?

Hey, no one ever said being a university president was easy.  ¶ 8:48 AM 0 comments   

  One Less Sleazeball in the White House Last week I wrote that President Bush should fire Phillip Clooney, the former oil industry lobbyist who, as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had doctored reports to minimize the threat of global warming.

On Saturday—huh, I wonder why they announced it on Saturday?—the White House announced that Clooney resigned.

Here's a wonderful example of Washington double-speak for you:

Clooney's "departure was 'completely unrelated' to the disclosure,' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"'Mr. Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration,' she said. 'He'd accumulated many weeks of leave and decided to resign and take the summer off to spend time with his family.'"

(Harvard and Washington are now speaking the same language. Discuss.)

Ignore the pathetic disingenuousness of this statement. We can safely assume that Bush told Clooney that he'd become a liability and it was time for him to go.

But here's the way this announcement should have been made—with a statement from Bush saying, "As you all know, I have my doubts about global warming. Nonetheless, any member of my administration must reflect my stands on issues and not those of the special interest group for whom he used to work. Mr. Clooney should have known better. Now he does."

Wouldn't that be cool?

  ¶ 10:54 AM 2 comments   

  When Journalists Try Too Hard... ...to coin a term:

"Instead of trying to meet new men, I opened my address book and called up the guys I knew from high school, camp, and Jewish youth group. We’d make dates and reminisce, and sometimes the evenings would end in making out, or more. Though my recycling, or blue-binning, didn’t lead to anything serious, it gave me the self-esteem I needed to start fresh."

—Amy Sohn, The Devil You Know, New York magazine, current issue

Feel Sohn slog away as she tries to invent a term which will add to her reputation as a mistress of the zeitgeist....

I met Amy Sohn once, and in person she's quite sexy. But her "Mating" column in New York arrives at your doorstep every week with all the excitement of a wet newspaper. I'm sure it's not easy to write a good sex column once every seven days—not, mind you, that I've ever tried—but in all of New York City, can't Adam Moss find someone who makes sex, well, sexy?  ¶ 9:44 AM 6 comments   

  The Re-Ethicist Third in a series: alternate takes on questions for The Ethicist, in the Sunday Times magazine....because right now, the column is dull, dull, dull.

First question:

My company produces journal-writing software that includes encryption and password protection. The parents of a customer recently wrote that their daughter had died tragically. They asked me to unencrypt her journal so they ''may access her last words.'' I sympathize, but feel bound to protect a customer's privacy. Do you agree that I should send a gentle note declining to decode the journal? Ruth Folit, Sarasota, Fla.

The Ethicist's answer: Yup. "You have an obligation to protect the privacy of your customer." If the daughter had wanted her parents to read her journal, she could have told her parents the password or left instructions in a will.

The Re-Ethicist's response: Here's a first—I'm inclined to agree with Randy Cohen on this one. I wish I knew, though, whether the daughter in question was a minor, and how she died. If she was 25 and she died after a long battle with cancer—and still didn't leave instructions on how her parents could read her journal—then she clearly didn't want them to read it. But if she was 16 and she died of a drug overdose, she probably wasn't thinking about dying, and wouldn't have left a will—so that part of Cohen's answer is silly. Moreover, if she died under those circumstances, her journal could give a hint as to who was selling her the drugs.

(If any lawyers out there would care to comment on the legal status of the deceased's right to privacy if she was a minor, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Under what circumstances does a 15-year-old have a legal right to privacy? If a 15-year-old can't get a credit card, is she able to enter into an implied contract with a software company?)

That's just one hypothetical; you could imagine others under which the parents might have a compelling reason to be able to read their deceased daughter's writing.

But you could also imagine scenarios under which reading her journal might only cause them pain. (Ever read someone's journal writings about you? Not a good idea.)

So without further information, we'll say Cohen is correct!

2nd question:

One of our neighbors, a 12-year-old boy, has a teacher who penalizes students if they turn in handwritten assignments. Our neighbors cannot afford a computer, but students are permitted to use the computer lab after school. However, when there is no teacher to supervise, the lab is not available. Is this teacher's policy ethical? Julie Beman Dixon, Hartford

The Ethicist:" This teacher would be wrong to impose a demand that unduly burdens students with little money. By providing a computer lab, however, the school has reasonably accommodated kids who lack computers of their own. (Assuming, that is, that a teacher is generally on duty and the computer lab is widely available.)"

Moreover, Cohen says, it's good to require kids to learn how to type.

The Re-Ethicist: Wrong!

The teacher is not within his rights to compel a sixth-grader to type papers. In fact, he's abusing the student's right to have an actual childhood. For one thing, sixth graders should learn how to write longhand, and that's rarely a finished process by age 12. More important, the point of the requirement seems primarily about making the teacher's life easier, rather than helping the student learn. At this point in his/her development, the student would be better served by putting more time into the composition of the paper than its logistics.

Finally, it's wrong to make a kid stay after school because he doesn't have a computer. This kid's family obviously doesn't have a lot of money. Maybe the kid has, say, a job after school, and doesn't have the time to go to the school's computer lab to type up his paper all so that a sixth-grade teacher doesn't have to strain his eyes.

The Re-Ethicist says: We have enough pre-professionalism in our society without making sixth-graders type papers. This teacher should be severely reprimanded.
  ¶ 8:15 AM 0 comments   

  How To Tell When Your City Has a Bad Newspaper When it runs articles like this:

Behind the masks
"Who is Batman? Savior or tortured soul? After all these years, we still don't know."

—The Boston Globe, June 13, 2024

To truly appreciate just how bad this story is, imagine it in a more serious paper—the Times or the Journal—and the gales of laughter it would provoke.  ¶ 7:57 AM 2 comments   

  Summer Vacation Well, for the next two days, anyway. I'm off to spend some quality time with Dad. Back Sunday, with the third edition of "The Re-Ethicist." And perhaps some thoughts on Commencement.  ¶ 12:18 AM 1 comments   

  The Report Card And you thought I forgot, didn't you? (And at least one of you hoped I'd forgotten.)

Here it is: graduation day for Larry Summers' first class of freshmen. Today marks the end of Larry Summers' first four years as Harvard president. And what a wild ride it's been! Who could have guessed, back in March of 2001, that naming Larry Summers to the presidency of Harvard would produce such interesting headlines?

Let's recap:

October 2001: Summers criticizes African-American professor Cornel West, saying that he disapproves of West's scholarship, travels away from campus, and political views. Weeks later the Boston Globe reports the story, leading to months of politically-charged headlines. Then West leaves for Princeton.

May 2002: Senior and Commencement speaker Zayed Yasin inadvertently kicks off a controversy when he titles his graduation speech "My American Jihad." A furious Summers forbids his staff to say anything publicly supportive of Yasin.

September 2002: Summers gives a Morning Prayers talk at Appleton Chapel in which he says that signers of a petition seeking Harvard's divestment from Israel are "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent." More headlines follow. While the talk is appreciated by many, others feel that Summers has just called several dozen Harvard faculty members anti-Semitic, and think that possibly there was a better way to address the divestment issue.

Fall 2002: Summers directs a million—dollar alumni gift to the DuBois Institute so that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. won't depart Harvard in Cornel West's wake.

November 2002: With Larry Summers' approval, English department chair Larry Buell cancels a speaking invitation to outspoken (and probably anti-Semitic) poet Tom Paulin. Concerned about the precedent, the English department votes to re-invite Paulin, who never accepts the invitation.

March 2003: With Summers' approval (at the very least), FAS dean Bill Kirby fires Harry Lewis, the dean of Harvard College, for not being a team player.

November 2003: Summers declines to stand up for gay students who want Harvard to protest the federal government's enforcement of the Solomon Amendment, which would cut off federal funds to universities which banned military recruiting. His rationale: the issue was not important enough to risk offending the Republicans.

February 2004: The Harvard Crimson editorializes about Larry Summers' hostility to the open flow of information at Harvard. "Summers' tactics...hint at contempt for students and faculty," the Crimson says. "Why does the ivory tower seem to have been occupied by sentries?"

2003-2004: Out of 32 new tenure appointments, only four are women—a 30% drop from the last year of Neil Rudenstine's presidency.

January 2005: Summers suggests that the lack of female faculty in the sciences and mathematics may be a result of "innate differences." You know the rest.

February 2005: Publication of Harvard Rules adds fuel to the fire. Summers' critic Randy Matoril will later cite the book in a faculty meeting, suggesting that it be mandatory reading for every Harvard professor. (The author concurs.)

March 2005: The faculty votes that it lacks confidence in Larry Summers' leadership.

Today: Commencement. Summers to speak on Harvard in the world, dodge any substantive discussion about the past annus horribilis.

And now....the grades.

Larry Summers Report Card, 2001-2005:

Allston: B-. The project is moving forward, and that's not nothing, especially for a development of this magnitude. But the secrecy surrounding it has made it hard to evaluate Summers' plans and left the Allston development without a core constituency. Even some of the scientists who are supposed to benefit have misgivings. Meanwhile, Summers' troubles have probably hurt efforts to raise money for the Allston development.

The Curricular Review: D. In the end, it probably won't be a complete disaster, and that's about the best you can say for the review, which Summers used to talk about as one of his grand projects but now conspicuously omits. Again, the problem is secrecy. Well, that and contempt for the faculty, who have felt ignored and/or slighted throughout the entire process. Ultimately, the review is going to be a matter of tinkering around the edges. There's a total lack of vision and coherence to the project that is unbecoming to our greatest university.

Globalization: B. Students will be going abroad more in the Harvard future, and very likely more students from abroad will be coming to Harvard. Summers himself has also traveled extensively to promote Harvard (and himself) overseas—to Europe, Asia, and South America. It's a shame that the biggest question about globalization has gone largely undiscussed: How will it change the identity and purpose of what is historically an American university, in every sense of that adjective.

Boosting the Sciences: B. The Stem Cell Institute is probably a good idea, as is Summers' constant promotion of biotech. And he's right, of course, that knowing more about science is i mportant to the average student, and important for the competitiveness of American students in a shrinking world. But he loses points because of the AIDS grant scandal.

Improving the college experience: B. Give Summers credit: He's tried to make himself accessible to the students, and he has talked up the goal of improving teaching at Harvard College. (Some easy steps have gone un-taken, though.) Jarred by a poll among peer universities that showed Harvard near last in student satisfaction, Summers has almost manically pressured administrators to do whatever it takes to get the numbers up. If that means students will drink more pub beer, so be it. At the same time, though, Summers clearly doesn't think much of athletics or extracurriculars, which raises that nagging question: Shouldn't he really be president of MIT?

Leadership/Management: F. Look at this in context: No president had ever faced a faculty vote of no confidence in Harvard's almost-400 year history. It took just three years of manifest contempt for and bullying of the faculty for Larry Summers to provoke one—and lose it.

Alumni Relations/Fundraising: C. Alumnae can't stand him, codgers and right-wingers support him, and everyone else has mixed feelings. Despite what the fundraising types say, this polarization of the alums has surely had an impact on fundraising, at the very least causing delays in the implementation of the university's capital campaign. How much longer will the alums put up with a president who, a majority of them believe, is damaging the reputation of their university?

Public Relations/Media: C. On the one hand, some media types (Tom Friedman, James Traub) like Summers. But all too often, he's become a figure of satire, shorthand for sexist thinking. True, he's made the Harvard president a national figure again, a public intellectual. Only problem is, half the people who know of Summers think he's a Neanderthal. Moreover, Summers' hostility to, manipulation of, and disdain for the press has caught up to him; he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, or the lazy puff piece, any more.

Overall Grade: C. This has been a painful four years for Harvard. Rarely has any leader entered an institution with so many natural advantages (both the leader and the institution) and so much goodwill and squandered both so quickly. And for no good reason, other than ego. Everything that Summers has done could have been achieved just as quickly and probably better by a man with a more diplomatic leadership style. And with none of the attendant controversy, division, and setbacks.

After four years, the questions are more urgent than ever: Can he change? Should he stay or should he go? Are Larry Summers' best interests and those of Harvard the same, or have they diverged?

And an extra, bonus grade goes to:

The Harvard Corporation: F. For its complete lack of leadership and bizarre detachment during a time of crisis. The Corporation, stacked but for two with Summers appointees, has never been more discredited; at the moment, it borders on the illegitimate. Is there an independent bone in this body? Or is Harvard suffering from a profound crisis of governance that can only be addressed by the very same people who embody that crisis?  ¶ 8:48 AM 2 comments   

  Pretentious Music Critic Alert* "Daniel Lanois's songs don't sound composed so much as hewn: roughly carved out of some sturdy primordial material like hardwood or, perhaps, rock**. ...[Lanois] makes each hovering chord appear and vanish like an ectoplasm. ...The pieces developed through texture: the way Mr. Lanois teased out a note or gave it a distorted edge, the way Mr. Balde's cymbals filled out a sustained phrase like wind in a sail....

"One piece, 'Oaxaca,' was just a melody repeated in unison, each time starting out almost tentative and then turning richly inevitable. The music was pensive but never glum: more awestruck by its own imaginary landscapes...."

—Jon Pareles, writing about Daniel Lanois in the New York Times

* You will remember Mr. Pareles as the self-proclaimed only person in the world who doesn't like Coldplay.

** "Or, perhaps, rock"?  ¶ 8:32 AM 2 comments   

  More Bad News! Zachary M. Seward reports in the Crimson that the University has delayed the launch of its capital campaign by six months to two years in order to put distance between the campaign and the Larry Summers controversy.

Donella M. Rapier, vice-president for alumni affairs and development, adamantly denies the charge, saying that everything's right on track.

But—and here's my favorite part of the story—she's almost certainly lying!

According to Seward: "But while Rapier has always described the launch date as flexible, her public statements appear to indicate a delay in the campaign’s schedule.

"In February 2004, Rapier said she expected to publicly launch the campaign in two to three years. In an e-mail this weekend, 16 months later, Rapier wrote, 'We continue to be on track for an expected public launch within the next two to three years.'"

Two to three years—give or take 16 months.

This is today's second example of doublespeak coming from the Harvard administration. Don't they know how patently duplicitous they sound?

Here—I'll show you how to say something honestly.

"It's true," Rapier [should have] said. "We were all distracted by the controversy, and we think given how high the emotions were a few months ago, it's appropriate to slow things down a little. Donors like to see the University moving forward, and that's what we will show them. I'm confident that our donors will rally around Harvard as they always have."

There. That wasn't so painful, was it? In fact, you might even find you sleep better at night after...well, heck, after telling the truth!

Really, you guys should pay me for this. Or maybe an honorary degree?  ¶ 8:18 AM 0 comments   

  It's Graduation Day! Congratulations, graduates! And to celebrate, I've got lots of news about your alma mater—most of it relating to controversy!

First, the Harvard Admissions Office photoshopped a headline embarrassing to Larry Summers out of a picture of the Harvard Crimson in an admissions brochure. (Sorry, that's a hideous sentence; I didn't sleep well last night.) The headline in question: "Summers to Face No-Confidence Vote."

Whoops! Dean of Admissions Bill Fitzsimmons says deleting the awkward headline from a pamphlet that goes out to prospective students was a "joint decision" between Byerly Hall and the Boston publisher which produces the pamphlet. The publisher says: "We were asked to make that change...."

Of course they were. Here's how the conversation went:

Publisher: "Hey, that's pretty funny that you're printing that picture of the Crimson. Look at the headline!"

Byerly Hall: "What headline?" (Unintelligible noises)

Publisher: "You okay? You don't look so good."

Byerly Hall: (Gurgling, considering leaving the country) "Larry's going to wring my ***** like a bolo for this. What can we do?"

Publisher: "We can take it out on the computer....no one will ever know." Pause. "You want some water?"

Byerly Hall: "Do it! Do it, I tell you!"*

(Copyright 2005 by Richard Bradley, film rights available.)

In all seriousness, why couldn't Bill Fitzsimmons have just said, "Sure, we asked them to take it out. We made a mistake choosing that photo, because it's not the message we want to send to prospective students"? No harm, no foul.

The contorted explanation is what happens to language, to veritas, at a university where everyone is terrified of losing his or her job for making Larry Summers look bad..... Bill Fitzsimmons is fantastic at what he does—is there anyone better?—and even he has succumbed to doublespeak.  ¶ 7:59 AM 0 comments   

  Another White House Energy Scandal

Today's Times reports more proof of how the Bush Administration has rejected any moderate course on the environment in favor of promoting the interests of big oil companies: a little-known aide who, in dozens of instances, rewrote internal documents to raise doubts about the legitimacy of global warming science.

Phillip A. Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, rewrote or deleted passages in scientific reports even after they'd been approved by White House higher-ups. His revisions all suggested that global warming is not a serious problem and that scientific research on the issue is unpersuasive.

Creating policy through creative rewriting isn't normally the job of a chief of staff. But even if it were, Cooney isn't qualified to do it. He's not a scientist. He's a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. (Only in the Bush-Cheney White House would this make him a natural candidate to head the Council on Environmental Quality.)

Michele St. Martin, a White House spokeswoman, wouldn't allow Clooney to comment. "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record," Ms. St. Martin told the Times. "He's not a cleared spokesman."

If he's not a cleared spokesman, then why is Clooney writing environmental policy in public documents?

Clooney's rewriting of policy documents after they'd already been approved by White House staff raises the question of where his loyalty lies: to George W. Bush or to the oil industry. (Let us assume there is a difference.)

President Bush should resolve the ambiguity and fire Phillip Clooney.

  ¶ 9:19 AM 2 comments   

  Well, That's a Bump in the Road The Boston Herald says that Harvard's early work in Allston is responsible for a rat armada taking to the streets and terrifying locals. Worth checking out for the picture alone.  ¶ 8:16 AM 0 comments   

  It Takes A Student Want to know why the Harvard faculty can't stand and don't trust Larry Summers? Crimson columnist J. Hale Russell has written the best explanation—well, other than a certain book—of the Kafka-esque nature of Harvard life these days.

Allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs:

"A parable has it that an old man was attacked by a group of bandits. He burst into tears, and they mocked him as a childish cry-baby. But the man cut them off. 'I am crying,' he said, 'not from fear. I'm crying because I pity what you and the world are losing from your behavior. The bandits, as the story goes, were so struck by his words that they immediately reformed their ways.

"Harvard has bandits. They're bundled between the pages of cryptic, bland reports about the curricular review; they lurk behind the provost's wresting away faculty control of grants; they laugh as departments defend themselves after falling out of favor with Mass Hall. The secretive, non-participatory, top-down processes brought to Harvard by the current administration threaten a key principle of university governance: those who lead the University's intellectual life, the tenured men and women of Harvard, are best suited to make decisions affecting that intellectual life."

I know that some of you Harvard alums and others outside 02138 find this hard to believe, because—well, because who wants to believe that such a state of affairs could exist at such an important university?

Read the rest of the column and make up your own mind.  ¶ 7:52 AM 0 comments   

  More Bad News for the Republicans

Yesterday's Washington Post reported that House Republicans are worried that Tom DeLay will hurt their chances for reelection. Now the Post suggests they should ask the same question of President Bush. A new Washington Post—ABC News poll finds that "a clear majority of Americans say President Bush is ignoring the public's concerns and instead has become distracted by issues that most people say they care little about."

It's easy to understand why the public might feel this way. The president has devoted an enormous amount of time to his ideologically-driven crusade to privatize Social Security (big problem, wrong answer). In fact, crusades—whether they involve Terri Schiavo, judicial nominations, the war against Darwin, or the war in Iraq—are the hallmark of Bush's second term.

Here are a few issues that Bush could quickly address:
1) The alternative minimum tax. Every married couple I know has been hammered by it.
2) Medical marijuana. It's time for a little humanity in drug policy.
3) Pensions. Out there in the real world, people are shaken up by United Airlines' default on its pension obligations, and wondering where the next shoe will drop.
4) The environment. The Bushies' abuse of the environment is out of control, and Americans don't support it.
5) John Bolton. Only in Dick Cheney's bizarro world is this man worth fighting for. (The judicial nominations battle already damaged the GOP.) Dump him, and let's move on.

One thing these issues have in common: they require Bush to formulate public policy based on reason, rather than religion or ideology. That's all too rare in this White House, and it's going to cost the Republicans in 2006.

  ¶ 9:43 AM 0 comments   

  The West Side Stadium, Dead Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to build a football stadium on the west side of Manhattan appear to be dead, slain by the New York state assembly. Good.

Bloomberg's case for the stadium was never convincing. He wanted to redevelop a part of Manhattan that sorely needs improvement. And he thought that the stadium would help New York obtain the 2012 Olympics, which he believed would help "heal the wounds" of 9/11.

But the case against the stadium was far stronger. Football stadiums don't generally rejuvenate neighborhoods; they create a massive dead zone around which urban life withers. This stadium would have been used eight Sundays a year, with perhaps a few concerts thrown in. The rest of the time...?

Moreover, Jets fans didn't want the stadium. There were, bizarrely, no plans to build parking ; nor were there plans to develop new public transportation from outside Manhattan to help fans get to the stadium. Invariably, this would have meant massive traffic jams in the area on game days, but nowhere to tailgate—and only a mayor who probably never went to a football game in his life before running for office would propose a stadium where you couldn't tailgate.

As for the Olympics—people I respect tell me the plan to host them was smart and even inspiring, making reference to New York's multi-national quality. But the emotional connection to 9/11 was always tenuous. New Yorkers feel that 9/11 tributes belong downtown. Problem is, the mayor has overlooked the redevelopment of lower Manhattan, and the plan for a 9/11 memorial and development is in complete chaos.

Michael Bloomberg has, in many ways, been a fine mayor for New York. But his desire to leave behind a massive tribute to himself overwhelmed his better judgment here. He should forget about the stadium idea; devise better ways to develop the west side than dropping a massive stadium down in it; refocus his energy on lower Manhattan; and remind New Yorkers that he's a much, much better mayor than Freddy Ferrer could ever be.  ¶ 8:40 AM 5 comments   

  A Note of Thanks The Harvard senior who helped me research Harvard Rules is graduating on Thursday, and I want to take a moment to wish her well.

Emily—she asked me not to use her real name, because she feared that working on a book that portrayed Larry Summers critically might prompt retribution from the university—was invaluable to me as I reported HR. She did much more than track down documents; she helped me understand how things really work at Harvard, connected me with sources, showed me the lay of the land. Whenever I didn't quite have a feel for something, I'd run it by Emily, and invariably she'd set me straight.

(She also wrote a hell of a thesis on—well, I better not say—but trust me, it was impressive.)

If she wanted to, Emily would have made a great journalist; she has natural instincts for reporting and storytelling. Fortunately for her, she's decided to go into a saner career. I know she's going to be great at whatever she does. And even though I can't physically be there at Commencement, I'll be there in spirit, cheering her on. Her parents should be very proud; they raised a fantastic daughter.  ¶ 8:16 AM 2 comments   

  The Plot Thickens Even More According to the Boston Globe, Kim Clark was contacted for the first time about becoming the president of BYU-Idaho last month.

There's more to this story than is currently being told....  ¶ 3:42 PM 0 comments   

  News flash! The Plot Thickens Kim Clark, dean of the Harvard Business School, has just announced his resignation. He's stepping down from the deanship to become the president of Brigham Young University—Idaho.

Brigham Young University—Idaho? Clark is a Mormon, but still....

This is big news. Clark has been one of the last holdouts against the erosion of Harvard's famous every-tub-on-its-own-bottom (ETOB) system. A hugely respected figure, he's been able to maintain the autonomy of the business school despite Larry Summers' attempts to diminish the autonomy of Harvard deans and increase his own power.

Once Summers appoints a new dean, he will have appointed the deans of the business school, the law school, the faculty of arts and sciences, the Kennedy school, the education school, the design school, the graduate school, and the divinity school.

He has also appointed four of the six members of the Harvard Corporation, excluding himself: Robert Rubin, Robert Reischauer, James Rothenberg, and Nan Keohane.

I think it won't be long before members of the Harvard community are looking back on ETOB with fondness and a sense of loss....

Here is Kim Clark's statement:

From: Office of the Dean
Date: June 6, 2024 12:44:36 PM EDT
To:
Subject: Stepping down as Dean of Harvard Business School


Dear Colleagues and Members of the Harvard Business School Community,

I am writing to let you know that I will be stepping down as Dean of Harvard Business School on 31 July 2005, in order to accept the role of President at Brigham Young University-Idaho shortly thereafter.

This is a bittersweet moment for me. I arrived at Harvard University as an undergraduate, and it has been my home for more than 35 years. My tenure at HBS -- as a faculty member and, for the past decade, as Dean -- has been an extraordinary experience, one both professionally and personally rewarding. And I have been fortunate to serve as Dean during a period of remarkable renewal at the School.

We have launched innovative and important new initiatives, in entrepreneurship, in information technology, and in globalization, to name a few. Each of these, and many others underway at the School, enriches the classroom experience for our students and helps the faculty develop new insights with power in practice. The Leadership and Values Initiative, building on the work of our predecessors, has resulted in a full-length course in the required curriculum and a commitment to the highest standards of integrity in our community. New efforts, in health care and the sciences, will help ensure we are focused on issues of deep importance and relevance in the global arena, and will create opportunities for increased collaboration with our colleagues in the University.

At the same time, we have made certain that our core values remain strong. Our commitment to the classroom and to a transformational experience still lies at the heart of everything we do. We strive for excellence in achieving our mission.

It has been an honor and a privilege, as well as a great pleasure, to work with you. Harvard Business School is a special place. It is you -- the community of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends -- who make it so and who, through your dedication and commitment to our mission, move the School forward. I am deeply grateful for your support and friendship these past ten years.

Best regards,
Kim B. Clark  ¶ 1:28 PM 0 comments   

  2006: 1994 All Over Again

So House Republicans are worried about the impact of ethics controversies on their reelection chances in 2006? They should be. This midterm election shows every sign of becoming the most lethal to incumbents since the Republicans seized control of the House in 1994. Only this time, most of the incumbents are Republican.

Remember what was happening in the House twelve years ago? A flurry of ethics controversies had convinced the public that the reigning Democrats had grown decadent and corrupt. There was the House bank scandal, in which 325 members bounced 8, 331 checks at the House bank, without penalty. After that came stories about free medical care, free parking at National Airport, discounted gym membership, free flowers. (Seems almost quaint now, doesn't it?) Tom Foley, the speaker of the House, reacted to these problems in a way that made it seem he was trying to protect his Capitol Hill constituents, rather than reform Congress.

Sure enough, November 1994 came along, and with Newt Gingrich running on a reform campaign, the Democrats lost control of the House for the first time in half a century.

After a decade of dominance, the House Republicans have two problems. One is Tom DeLay, of course. The other is that they really are more conservative and more ideological than most Americans; the Terri Schiavo fiasco was proof of that.

How much will the GOP pay a price for public dissatisfaction? That depends on whether the Democrats can find their Newt Gingrich....  ¶ 9:24 AM 0 comments   

  X + Y = Backlash The backlash against Coldplay, whose new album, X & Y, is out Tuesday, is so predictable, we should just skip it and move on to the next phase of the band's critical life. No such luck: The backlash has officially arrived. Its equally predictable messenger is Jon Pareles of the New York Times. Pareles is perhaps the most consistently pretentious of all the Times' pop music writers, and that's saying something. Coldplay are really good and wildly popular. There's nothing bad to say about them. So naturally Pareles thinks of something.

Coldplay, writes Pareles, is "the most insufferable band of the decade," due to their male sensitivity, "self-pity," and aspirations to musical grandeur. "Coldplay is admired by everyone," Pareles says—"everyone except me."

That would be my nomination for the most self-congratulatory sentence in the history of pop music criticism. You can almost see Pareles puffing up his chest as he boldly goes where no one has gone before. Isn't he just so...contrarian! Because the sentence ostensibly suggests that Pareles is some crank...but what Pareles really means is that his taste is better, more discerning, than everyone else's. Literally, everyone else's.

Thankfully, the New York Post's Isaac Guzman has anticipated Pareles' "look at me! look at me!" positioning. In his article "A Hipster's Dilemma," Guzman writes, "For folks who love to burnish lovable, mid-list losers - like Wilco, PJ Harvey and Modest Mouse - into underdog idols, [Coldplay's success] is a problem. But it shouldn't be."

"There was a time when we didn't lose our passion for bands just because they were successful" Guzman concludes. "Sinatra, Elvis, Hank Williams, The Beatles - they were all massive, but worthy of respect. And nobody would hiss if they popped up on the jukebox in your local watering hole."

Not unless they're a New York Times' music critic trying to prove how above the mainstream he is....  ¶ 7:30 PM 0 comments   

  Hot, Hot, Hot! Continued Under the headline, "Poll of Harvard Alumni Gives President Support," news of 02138's alumni poll has been picked up in France....

It's fascinating to see how the headlines relating to this poll are so positive for Summers. I think the picture is more mixed. Okay, people don't think he should get fired or quit. (And remember: Harvard alums are conservative; they distrust rebellion against authority, because most of the time, they are authority. If Howell Raines were president of Harvard, he'd never have lost his job.)

At the same time, 2/3 of respondents think Summers' management style needs work, and a mere 25% of women like him.

If the New York Times ran a story about a poll saying that 66% of the Amerian people don't think George Bush should resign, would that be the news? Or would it be that 33% do think he should resign, that 75% of women don't like him, and only one-third think he's doing a good job?  ¶ 11:32 AM 0 comments   

  The Re—Ethicist, Part II Regular readers will remember that last week I initiated a new weekly feature, "The Re-Ethicist," in which I answer the questions sent to "The Ethicist" column in the New York Times Magazine. This is in an effort to actually make the column realistic. Plus, interesting.

So, without further ado, on to week two of the Re-Ethicist.

The first question sent to Times columnist Randy Cohen this week deals with a case of ethics on vacation.

On a recent vacation, our rental-car reservation was not honored because the location had no cars available. I wrote to the company demanding reimbursement for the cost of the occasional car and driver we hired instead. The company agreed to reimburse us upon submission of receipts, which, unfortunately, I neglected to obtain. May I submit ''receipts'' that accurately reflect my expenses but that I have simply forged? M.E., New York

Cohen's answer: No. "Rather than engage in counterfeiting, you should obtain honest documents." Get receipts from the car company, or write a letter to the rental company explaining your predicament. And why is the writer even asking for reimbursement except for whatever extra cost the correspondent incurred beyond what a rental car would have cost?

Wrong.

As long as M.E. doesn't cook the books, he should feel free to create receipts. The point is not that there's some inherent moral value in the original documents; the point is to seek reimbursement honestly, and the only reason the rental company wants originals is to prevent fraud. If the customer isn't gouging the company, there's no problem.

More important, Cohen suggests that M.E. should only ask for reimbursement less what the rental car would have cost. Wrong. As millions of people can testify, there are few things in life more annoying than showing up at a rental car desk only to be told that the car you reserved is unavailable. The car company has unilaterally reneged on a contract, thus wasting your valuable time and inflicting stress upon you as you scramble to find some other means of transportation.

In our capitalist system, companies which break legal contracts should have to pay a price for that action. (That's why, when airlines overbook and you're out a seat, they make it up to you with more than a seat on another flight.) Otherwise the sanctity of the contract is meaningless and our economy slides into chaos. Think about that, Mr. Cohen.

In this case, the car rental company is doing the right thing by offering to pay the entire cost of M.E.'s car rental. Moreover, having to pay the customer's car rental is an incentive for this company to function more efficiently, thus making capitalism work better. Seen in that light, M.E. actually has a moral responsibility to make the car rental company pay up.
  ¶ 10:41 AM 2 comments   

  Questions about The $115 Million Larry Ellison's rumored $115 million gift to Harvard is getting lots of attention.

(The Crimson did actually break this story; reporter May Habib seems to be one Crimson reporter who isn't afraid of making waves.)

But with all the excitement over what would possibly be the largest gift in Harvard's history, some significant questions remain unanswered and of deep concern to people at Harvard.

The $115 million is slated to go to the the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (love that acronym) to create a worldwide health monitoring organization.

The exact nature of this organization is vague, of course, as the gift hasn't even been confirmed.

But—question #1—what would it do that the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization do not? Should Harvard really be in the business of duplicating work that's already done by government-funded organizations with massive funding?

The apparent purpose of the gift seems a rather significant expansion of the university's mission. When referring to the infamous PEPFAR (President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) grant, provost Steven Hyman suggested that the university was not equipped to be in the business of delivering AIDS drugs. Moreover, the idea was spread that HSPH couldn't handle a grant of that magnitude ($100 million).

Question #2: Is this new initiative so different? And if not, why aren't there similar objections to it emanating from Mass Hall? Or is it just different because it's Larry Summers landing the grant, rather than the Harvard School of Public Health?

Which brings us to question #3: What relationship will HIGH have to HSPH? Will there be "synergy"? Or is the "parallel" structure of HIGH merely a way to give Summers control over the program, and actually cut out the school of public health? Will the new entity report to HSPH dean Barry Bloom, or to Larry Summers?

Because the purpose of the grant is altruistic, it's easy to stop thinking critically about it. That would be a mistake. A gift of this much money from one individual (Larry Ellison) to, essentially, another individual (Larry Summers), isn't just about altruism. It's about power.  ¶ 10:17 AM 0 comments   

  More on the 02138 Poll The Globe's story about 02138 magazine's poll of Harvard alumni adds nuance to the Times' piece.

As the Times emphasized, 63% of respondents said Summers should keep his job (the Globe makes specific that the question asked whether Summers should resign).

But 67% said that Summers' management style needed improvement.

And not surprisingly, how you feel about the matter varied according to your gender. Seventy-one percent of men think that Summers should stay on; just 41% of women agree. Just 25% of women have a favorable impression of Summers, while 65% of men like him.

Here are two questions I wish 02138 would have asked:

1) If you don't think Summers should resign, why not? If you do, why?

2) Do you think Harvard is better off now than it was four years ago?

A footnote: The Crimson, which tiptoes around the idea of actually breaking news, should consider itself scooped on this poll. It's kind of an obvious thing to do—but it took a new alumni magazine to do it. Congratulations to 02138.  ¶ 9:40 AM 0 comments   

  Readers, I've Got Readers With thanks to webmaster extraordinaire Dan Von Behren, I've finally figured out how to check the number of visitors to this site—and it's looking good. After starting slowly in February, RichardBradley.net is now getting about 10,000 hits a day, and readership has been going up every week. Since I started "Shots in the Dark" primarily to follow the saga of Larry Summers' presidency after the publication of Harvard Rules, I'm delighted by this statistic. (Now, if you'd all just buy the book....)

I do hope that you'll bear with me as the blog veers from the completely serious to the wildly playful. I like to mix things up, to keep "Shots in the Dark" from getting predictable or stale. I'm fascinated by the goings-on at Harvard, of course. But I also like to roam elsewhere—to politics, to pop culture—even, from time to time, to the personal.

Whatever the subject, I try to write with some humor, insight, and craft. And equally, I try to stay away from cynicism and negativity. There's enough of that in the online world as is. Frankly, there's enough of that in the world, period. No need to add to it.

A long time ago, I decided upon a principle of journalism that isn't always easy to follow, but has served me pretty well: Don't write anything about someone that you wouldn't say to the person's face. Having been written about myself, sometimes harshly—don't think you're getting a hyperlink here—I know what it's like to be attacked in print. Anyone who tells you it doesn't sting is lying. Once you've been through that experience, you try extra hard to be fair.

So I find that if I stick to that rule, even when my comments are critical, they do tend to be fair, and within the bounds of civil discourse. Which is not to say that I've always been perfect. But I try, and I'll keep trying.

Meantime, thank you for reading. There's lots more to come. And thanks too for all your e-mails and comments. Keep them coming! It's [email protected].  ¶ 3:59 PM 0 comments   

  Wow! That's Pretty Bitter The American Thinker blog cites Heather MacDonald's article and refers to the $50 million diversity plan as "the bitter fruit of capitulation to idiocy."

I quote this paragraph because it nicely sums up the way many conservatives are reacting to Summers' endorsement of the diversity scheme.

"This is a personal tragedy for Summers. He must have been told to genuflect or else lose his job. He dared speak the truth, and then flinched. Far better for him to have earned a noble place in history than to hold onto the trappings of glory at the cost of his intellectual integrity."

Yes, possibly. But that's what ambition will do to a man—make him compromise himself. Is that so wrong? Discuss.  ¶ 1:13 PM 0 comments   

  Hot! Hot! Hot! As the Cure would say.

The New York Times reports on a new poll of Harvard alums commissioned by a new alumni magazine called 02138.
Of 402 alums surveyed, 63% said that Summers "should keep his job"—the Times headline suggests that this means they don't think he should resign, though it might mean that they don't think he should be fired, an important distinction. Just over 50% think that he's doing a good job as Harvard president and that he's a "victim of political correctness."

Not surprisingly, the older the alum, the more likely he was to fall into this group. (And I think it's safe to use the masculine pronoun here.)

Anyway, that's the good news for Summers. That, and the headline: "Alumni in Poll Say Harvard President Should not Resign."

A more accurate headline would read: "Poll Shows Mixed Support for Harvard President."

Because, as the article goes on to note, 42 percent of those surveyed think that Summers has damaged the reputation of the university. Fascinatingly, only 28% said no, while a huge 30% said they didn't know or refused to answer the question.

I know a little bit about polls from my work in politics, and I think you can safely conclude from this that a majority of Harvard alums think that Summers has damaged their university's reputation.

Given the natural tendency of Harvard alums to rally around their president, these numbers are not all that encouraging for Summers. By Washington standards, they're not so bad. By Harvard standards, they're unprecedentedly so.

And a final point: It's remarkable that a poll by an alumni magazine on the fate of Larry Summers makes the pages of the New York Times.

As Nelly would say, it's getting hot in here.
  ¶ 10:53 AM 0 comments   

  Next Up: The Cabal Finally Declares Itself How's this for a cultural perfect storm: a story in the New York Times about Jews having genes for intelligence.

I'll quote the lede: "A team of scientists at the University of Utah has proposed that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases seen among Jews of central or northern European origin, or Ashkenazim, is the result of natural selection for enhanced intellectual ability."

Since I'm not Jewish, I'm always reluctant to comment on such matters, both because it's so easy to be misunderstood and because, apparently, I'm not smart enough.

(Joke! Joke!)

(And by the way, the title of this item is also a joke.)

(And furthermore, you're welcome to make WASP jokes if you want. Everyone else does.)

But this is certainly a very interesting article and a very provocative thesis. Would someone please, please, at the next public forum with Larry Summers, ask the Harvard president what he thinks of this paper?  ¶ 10:40 AM 0 comments   

  The $50 Million, Attacked City Journal, a magazine of urban policy, doesn't think much of the $50 million diversity plan. How do I know? Well, for one thing they've entitled their article on it "Harvard's Diversity Grovel."

Agree with it or not—and it has its over-the-top moments—this is a pretty lively article. Here's how it begins:

"Harvard University has just pledged $50 million for faculty 'diversity' efforts, penance for President Lawrence Summers' public mention of sex differences in cognition. The university would have been better off hiring a top-notch conjuror, since only magic could produce a trove of previously undiscovered female and minority academic stars suitable for tenuring."

In a strange way, I agree with Heather MacDonald, who wrote this story, particularly when she writes this:

"What does $50 million buy you? This astounding sum, offered by Lawrence Summers as a down payment on his absolution for mentioning the science of sex differences, comes without any explanation as to how he arrived at it or what it will purchase."

Readers of this blog will know that I support wholeheartedly the hiring of more female and minority faculty members, and their promotion to senior posts in the largely all-white, all-male Summers administration.

But from a public policy viewpoint, this $50 million plan seems vague, poorly constructed, and ultimately unnecessary. You don't need a diversity dean or sensitivity training; you just need a president who thinks about this issue seriously and sends the message that everyone else at Harvard must do the same. I, too, have wondered if Summers just pulled that $50 million out of a hat because it sounds good—not too big, not too small—just right!

MacDonald's conclusion:

"The aristocratic ease with which Harvard has just dumped $50 million down a bureaucratic sinkhole tells you all you need to know about why attending Harvard for eight months costs more than most families earn in a year. Eventually, students and parents may start asking why anyone would want to."

Hyperbolic, yes. But MacDonald's article raises a number of awkward issues that the Harvard community shouldn't ignore.  ¶ 9:58 AM 0 comments   

  A Note to Mr. Martin Levine Dear Mr. Levine (Supervising Investigator, New York State Liquor Authority, 212-961-8377),
Several readers of this "web—log," or "blog," as early adoptors have taken to calling it, have contacted me to express concern about my apparent hostility towards you.

Not so.

Though I was understandably miffed at your gross abuse of power in denying patrons of Pam's Real Thai the right to bring in a lovely six pack of beer, I was not that angry. Disappointed, yes. Hurt—sure. Traumatized, a little.

But those correspondents who implied that I was being "cranky" are off-base.

Want to know what cranky is? Cranky is the friend of my mother's who recently decided to fire off a shotgun in his suburban backyard, which resulted in him being led off in handcuffs by the local constabulary, a measure which my mother and I agree was appropriate.

Th point is, even after they took the handcuffs off, he was cranky.

Anyway, Mr. Levine, what I'm saying is that surely we can work together to ensure that the patrons of Pam's Real Thai don't have to wash their Kad Pra Kow down with water. I'm confident that's something we both want.

With the utmost sincerity,

RB

P.S. To those of you who wondered, the fact that I was toting three bottles of beer in my shoulder bag did not mean that I had surreptitiously swigged the other three.

It meant that my friends R-b, P-t-r, and T-wns-nd consumed them across the street from the aforementioned public school—an act of lawbreaking which is the direct consequence of the heavyhanded authority of a Mr. Martin Levine (Supervising Investigator, New York State Liquor Authority, 212-961-8377). But don't get me started.
  ¶ 9:24 AM 0 comments   

  What It Means The Skocpol appointment is a good sign for glasnost at Harvard. She's an impressive scholar—I read her excellent States and Social Revolutions in a political science course at Yale—but more relevant here, she's tough and unafraid to speak her mind. At the same time, she's reasonable; even as she criticized Summers, Skocpol was looking for ways to break the impasse. Like the most constructive figures in the pro- and anti-Summers debate, she cares about the institution of Harvard. So, some thoughts.

1) Obviously, the fact that Skocpol is a woman was a factor in her choice.

2) Let us hope that she is not coopted by her new power. (Although, truth be told, the dean of the GSAS is low on the decanal totem pole, in terms of power if not prestige.)

3) FAS dean Bill Kirby made the appointment, but what does Larry Summers think about it? In the past, he would never have allowed the promotion of even a moderate critic of his rule. Is he now conceding that he can't block the appointment? Did he endorse the elevation of a moderate as a bridge-building gesture? Or did Bill Kirby show unexpected independence from Mass Hall and appoint Skocpol regardless of Summers' feelings?

4) It's interesting to see how this story is being covered. (And that it's being covered at all, given that this is a fairly arcane appointment, in terms of the non-academic world.) Here's the AP story and hed, as run in Alabama's Tuscaloosa News: "Critic of Summers Appointed to Key Harvard Graduate Post."

Fascinating to think that the editor of the Tuscaloosa News really thinks his readers care about who gets named dean of the graduate school at Harvard. More evidence that Larry Summers remains hot, hot, hot!  ¶ 9:11 AM 0 comments   

  A Summers Foe Moves Up Political scientist Theda Skocpol, one of Larry Summers' more outspoken critics during the recent troubles, has been appointed dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences by FAS dean Bill Kirby.

The text of Kirby's letter announcing Skocpol's appointment follows:

<
I am very pleased to announce that Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, has agreed to serve as the next Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, beginning July 1, 2005.

Professor Skocpol is a national leader in multiple fields of study, a noted teacher and devoted mentor of graduate students, and a dedicated citizen of this Faculty. I know she will be an especially effective leader of the Graduate School at a moment of great strength and challenge.

Please join me in welcoming Theda to her new role and in thanking, once again, Peter Ellison for his superb service as dean.
Sincerely,
[Bill Kirby]>>

  ¶ 9:06 AM 0 comments   

  Feeling Safe at The Pillowman So last night my three completely sober friends and I went to see The Pillowman, which is terrific, of course, just as everyone says. (Though parents of small children might prefer Spamalot.)

But that's not the point of this little story. On the way in, my friend Rob and I were searched by a plainclothed security guard because, metrosexuals that we are, we were carrying shoulder bags.

Rob, who is an excellent writer and music critic, and a natural blogger if ever I met one, had nothing of interest in his bag.

I happened to be carrying three delicious, ice-cold Coronas, thanks to a Mr. Martin Levine, Supervising Investigator, New York State Liquor Authority, 212-961-8377. (Feel free to call, he gets lonely sometimes.)

But the security guard didn't care about the glass bottles of beer I was carrying, which, truth be told, could do some damage if held firmly by the neck and applied with force to the upside of the head of a tourist in the row in front of you who forgot to turn off his cell phone.

"Corona!" he said. "Mmm." Then: "Enjoy the show!"

So let's review.

1) Apparently Broadway producers are worried that someone's going to carry a bomb into their theaters in relatively fashionable shoulder bags. (Rob's more than mine.)

2) Carrying delicious, ice-cold beer into a Broadway show, on the other hand, is completely acceptable.

3) Why would anyone want to blow up The Pillowman? It's kind of dark as is. (Can you say, Little Jesus"?) Much better to blow up, say, "Good Vibrations." If it hasn't closed already.

In all seriousness, sometimes the post-9/11 security is pretty silly. I don't mind it where truly appropriate. But it's become an act of cultural self-importance to think that you might be a terrorist target: Blowing us up would devastate the city!

I wish someone would have the humility to admit that if they got blown up, it wouldn't really be a big deal.

Other times security is really a guise for making more money—like at Yankee Stadium, where they force men to check their bags in seedy bars across the street. Since terrorists probably can think of other ways to carry a bomb besides backpacks (or they could just rent a helicopter and fly it into the stands—or they could spray some airborne lethal disease over Cap Day—or they could...well, you get the point), it's hard not to believe that the intention is simply to make it harder for people to bring their own food to the stadium.

Women, meanwhile, can simply walk in with their purses....some of which are large enough to carry a bomb.

I suspect that, on a much larger scale, similar inanities are occurring within the Department of Homeland Security. Everyone wants to get in on the danger watch! And as a result, not enough attention is paid to the really vulnerable places....  ¶ 8:41 AM 9 comments   

  10 Questions for Marvin Levine... ...Supervising Investigator, New York State Liquor Authority
212-961-8377

1) How exactly did it "come to your attention" that Pam's Real Thai was allowing diners to bring in their own alcohol, despite not having a liquor license?

2) So what if we did?

3) Have you ever had spicy green chicken curry without a nice Thai beer to wash it down with? No, I didn't think so.

4) Did you force Pam's Real Thai to include your legalistic notices in its menu as some sort of public humiliation?

5) Just who made you the judge of Pam's Real Thai? That's kind of like playing God, don't you think?

6) I'll bet you don't even like beer, do you? Or puppies. Or little kids.

7) The fact that it was my friend Peter's 50th birthday doesn't mean anything to you, does it? Heartless bastard.

8) Do you feel that Rudy Giuliani a) went too far in cracking down on New York nightlife, or b) lacked the nerve to show those lunatics that they can't get away with their desperate little schemes for drinking beer and having fun?

9) Do you know what a blog is, Mr. Levine? Do you?

10) By the way...is it a federal crime to drink beer on a stoop across the street from a public high school? Just wondering.  ¶ 8:28 AM 1 comments   

  A Headline You Never Thought You'd See "Bush S.E.C. Pick is Seen as Friend to Corporations"

—the New York Times, 6/3/05  ¶ 8:26 AM 0 comments   

  Cultural Freedom, Indeed Readers of today's New York Times will note a full-page ad on page A19 that announces the winner of the 2005 "Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom."

It is none other than Princeton professor Cornel West, who, of course, departed Harvard after Lawrence Summers questioned his scholarship, his commitment to teaching, and his political affiliations.

The Lannan Foundation describes cultural freedom as "the right of individuals and communities to define and protect valued and diverse ways of life currently threatened by globalization." West has written extensively about what he considers the downside of globalization.

Readers of Harvard Rules will know where I stand on this matter: I thought that West, though not without imperfections, was a very impressive guy, and that none of what Summers charged him with was accurate. Moreover, I thought that Summers' handling of the situation was bizarre.

This award serves as a rebuke to Summers, who has never told the truth about the incident.  ¶ 10:18 AM 0 comments   

  A Big Day for Larry Summers Oodles of Summers news and references in today's wrap-up. So let's get down to it, shall we?

1) Here's a piece called "I Am Woman, Hear Me Discourse Quietly," from the New Haven Advocate (for you Cambridge folks, that's the Phoenix of New Haven).

Key quote: "The media love a war, gendered or otherwise. But what interests me most about such discussions is not whether Larry Summers or [New York Times columnist] John Tierney is a sexist; I doubt that either man is, and I enjoy their provocative musings, which none of us should be afraid of. No, what gets my testosterone boiling—macho man that I am—is that no amount of writing about female physicists or Indy drivers ever leads to meaningful family leave reform."

2) The Denver Post cites Summers and the $50 million diversity package in a story titled, "Lack of Female Profs a Stubborn Statistic."

Key quote: "Women, even after years of training, continue to leave universities for reasons ranging from personal choices to institutional bias. The result is that men continue to dominate faculties, with the numbers most striking in science and engineering departments."

3) Meanwhile, the Crimson has news of a potential $115 million gift to the Harvard School of Public Health from the Ellison Foundation, started by Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The money would go to establish a research center for global health.

If the gift goes through, Summers will certainly associate himself with it—deservedly, for all I know—and it would help to vindicate Summers' emphasis upon pursuing eight- and nine-figure grants from, in today's parlance, "high net-worth individuals." Perhaps Summers is waiting until Commencement to unveil it? That would certainly change the topic from women in science.  ¶ 8:22 AM 2 comments   

  Mark Felt's Missing Marbles

The circumstantial evidence mounts that Mark Felt was not lucid enough to decide on his own to out himself as Deep Throat.

1) Bob Woodward clearly doesn't think so. Family members "have said he just doesn't have any memory now," Woodward says in today's Washington Post. Woodward wondered whether Felt was "competent" to make such a decision.

2) Here's former Post editor Ben Bradlee, in the same article, on Felt: "The guy has not got all his marbles. The question was whether he could have given us permission."

3) And today's Times reports that the Felt family shoppped their story to People magazine and Judith Regan, of Reganbooks, a division of HarperCollins (which, full disclosure, is my publisher). "This was always about the money, and they were very upfront with me," explained the People contributor contacted by the Felts. Judith Regan, who publishes a lot of edgy stuff, turned the proposal down "because of serious concerns that Mr. Felt was no longer of sound mind."

4) The same article also includes this telling line: "For years, Mr. Felt himself emphatically denied helping Mr. Woodward, but in recent years, after he shared his story with his family, and began to suffer signs of dementia, they apparently grew eager to share it with the world."

Which raises the question: Was Felt already suffering from dementia when he told his family of his secret identity?

So here's question number two. Knowing that the main character in this drama—who didn't want to be identified as Deep Throat until after his death—may have changed his mind while suffering from dementia...but also knowing that the revelation would generate a massive amount of publicity and, very probably, ad sales for your magazine...would you have published this story?

  ¶ 8:19 AM 0 comments   

  Hilarious Celebrity News ...from today's New York Daily News:

<<The Australian film site Moviehole.com reports that actress Scarlett Johannson, star of the sci-fi cloning thriller "The Island," is a big fan of stem-cell research - even, apparently, for curing an illness that vaccines have already pretty much eradicated. "I mean, if they could eliminate diseases like Alzheimer's and polio," Johannson opines, "that would be incredible.">>

Like, for sure.
  ¶ 10:53 AM 0 comments   

  Vanity Fair and Deep Throat: The Story Behind the Story I'm fascinated by the news that Mark Felt is Deep Throat, but disturbed by the way this revelation was engineered. My thoughts on the subject here, at the Huffington Post.  ¶ 10:37 AM 0 comments