Shots In The Dark

Finance chief Ann Berman has stepped down, according to the Crimson, "to pursue her deep-rooted interest in foreign languages."

Huh.

Let's just say I'm skeptical. After all, Berman hasn't had that job very long; she only took it in February 2003. Crimson reporters, how about a follow-up?

Honestly, I wonder when the alumni, or the board of Overseers, will notice how many people can't seem to wait to leave Harvard these days...because you certainly can't expect the Corporation to do anything.

One of my favorite organizations, War Child, which is devoted to helping young victims of war, has put out a fundraiser cd that's heating up the British charts. It contains new music from Coldplay, Radiohead, Gorillaz, Keane, Razorlight, The Coral, Bloc Party, and a bunch more. (As you will guess, War Child is an English charity.) But Americans will want to support War Child too, since, well, we've probably created a few orphans in the past couple of years. Any devoted fan of Brit pop will want to download it...and raise money for a good cause at the same time.

I'm off to New Haven—long story—today, so posting will be scarce. But as my mother said to me, didn't the president sound like Santa Claus last night? And why does Curt Schilling get so fired up to pitch against the Yankees and suck against everyone else?

1.5 games, my friends...are the Sox re-cursed? After a tough year in the rest of the world, we can only hope.

The Vatican has ordered its hatchet men to investigate every Catholic seminary for "evidence of homosexuality."

I'd be outraged about this, if I weren't so sure that they'd never, ever find any gay men in the priesthood....

In an editorial, The Crimson discusses the resignation of Corporation member Conrad Harper and warns of the Corporation's blatant homogeneity under Larry Summers. "It is always worrying when a secretive, self-perpetuating body converges on a single viewpoint," the paper points out.

Rather mildly, I would say. As is often the problem with The Crimson, it's hampered by its somewhat overblown sense of being the paper of record at Harvard. Its arguments always seem tempered by a fear of rocking the boat.

Ergo the editorial's very next sentence: "This is not to challenge the Corporation’s secrecy or self-perpetuation; rather, it is to note that such insular conditions of operation, which impede external critique, make vigorous internal critique imperative."

Why not challenge the Coroporation's secrecy or self-perpetuation? It's the only university governing body in the country which is that small, that secret, and self-selecting. And at the moment, it's clearly not working. Not only did the Corporation prove itself oblivious to the campus' complaints about Summers (remember Bob Rubin's embarrassing remarks about being unaware of any discontent?). But word is that the Corporation is meeting less frequently than ever, and that Rubin, in particular, would just as soon not be on it.

And the argument could be made that the Corporation—albeit a largely different group than today's—erred in choosing President Summers, and that its secrecy and self-perpetuation were major factors in its wrong choice.

At the very least, it's time for the Corporation to start justifying itself. Why is it secret? Why is it self-selected? What are the benefits of those undemocratic characteristics, and how do they stack up against the downsides mentioned above?

The Crimson should follow its logic to its inevitable conclusion, rather than inching up to a real threat to the powers-that-be, only to retreat in an excess of caution and timidity....

The Yanks are on the verge of sweeping their dreaded foe, the Devil Rays. They took two out of three from the suddenly nervous Red Sox. Jason Giambi is having another monster month. The pitching is finally shaping up. (It was great watching Randy Johnson shut out the Sox, and it has to be said, Boston's Tim Wakefield—and Curt Schilling the day before—weren't so bad, either.) A-Rod is having an MVP season. So, come to think of it, is Mariano Rivera.

So the Sox are still 2.5 games up, and Cleveland, which has been playing fantastic, is a game up in the wild card race.... Isn't September baseball grand?

New York congressman Anthony Weiner has declined to participate in a run-off against Democratic primary leader Freddy Ferrer, though obscure city rules might force him to. It's a bizarre situation, not least because there isn't a soul in Manhattan who actually thinks Ferrer could win. Ferrer, the Bronx borough president, might be the least inspiring candidate in the history of politics. Not New York politics. Not even American politics. Just politics, period. In the Democratic primary four years ago, he got his clock cleaned by Mark Green, who couldn't win an election if you spotted him 48%. Ferrer won this time only because of name recognition (turnout was low, low, low), money, and party machinery. Bloomberg will crush him like a tiny bug.

Weiner, a protege of Senator Chuck Schumer, is aggressive, smart, and has a future. I don't know why he thinks it's a bad move for him to participate in the run-off; he swears he hasn't cut any kind of deal. But long-shot though he may be, he's the only Democrat who might actually catch fire and beat Bloomberg.

So it looks like Mayor Mike will get four more years...and the truth is, he deserves 'em. Bloomberg's done a good job. Especially when you consider what was going on just as he became mayor....

Mark R. Rosenzwieg, the director of Harvard's Center for International Development, has resigned because of a lack of support from Larry Summers, according to Zachary M. Seward and Daniel J. Hemel in The Crimson.

What's intriguing about this story is that Summers has often spoken of his desire to promote a greater international focus at Harvard. It's a constant theme of his speeches and the always entertaining curricular review. So why refuse to fund CID?

“Some think that President Summers wants to (perhaps sub-consciously) organize the study of development around himself, and that is why little or no resources are provided to CID,” Rosenzweig wrote in an e-mail to the Crimson.

Another reason for Summers' distaste for CID: It was founded by his old rival, Jeffrey Sachs, now at Columbia and making headlines with his plans to lift the world's poor out of poverty. Sachs left Harvard...let's see...at about exactly the moment Summers arrived. Coincidence? I think not.

Rosenzweig is headed to Yale, which is probably why he's so candid about Summers' relationship with CID. But there's another possibility that could make for interesting Harvard-viewing: the events of last spring, as well as the mid-summer resignation of Corporation member Conrad Harper, have emboldened the Harvard faculty to start calling 'em like they see 'em.

In any event...it's (yet) another resignation at Harvard.

Does anyone believe this agency is actually making us safer? Or is it just a massive tangle of bureaucracy, inertia and incompetence?

Among the most vulnerable of New Orleans displaced are foreign students who planned to attend college in New Orleans (foreign students being not just a great source of income for the United States, but also a valuable cultural and intellectual presence, especially when they choose to stay here after finishing their education).

But they risk losing their visas if they're not actually enrolled somewhere, and, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, DHS has been alarmingly slow about responding to their requests for help.....

That's the question Zachary M. Seward poses in today's Crimson, and it's the right one. The events of last winter and spring almost destroyed Summers' presidency. The question is, Did they permanently cripple it? Because five years in, Summers is, in a sense, starting from scratch or worse.

As Seward points out, Summers is taking some steps to broaden his outreach to women; five of the seven vice-presidents in his administration are female. (Why a university president needs seven "vice-presidents" is another question, but that's a different post.) You can be sure that when it comes to women, Summers won't make the same mistake twice.

Still, the Harvard president has had a difficult summer. Thanks to his old protege, economist Andre Shleiffer, Harvard has to pay the federal government a $27 million fine; Summers must also decide whether to allow Shleiffer, found guilty in a civil trial of defrauding the federal government, whether to remain on the faculty. Corporation member Conrad Harper resigned, calling upon Summers to do the same—both unprecedented public acts by a member of the Harvard Corporation. And Summers still can't find a replacement for investment manager Jack Meyer.

Meanwhile, the once much-vaunted curricular review stumbles toward the finish line like a horse with a broken leg.

And what's going on with that capital campaign, which was supposed to have begun by now?

To be sure, Summers did have some good news during the summer. The Broad Institute, which he helped found to study the human genome, made news with its analysis of the genetic composition of apes. And Summers announced the creation of an institute to study evolution, a project which will help counter the bizarre spread of creationist thought in American classrooms. That's the kind of thing the Harvard president should be spearheading.

As I said before, I don't think Summers will make the same mistake twice. But there's very much the question of whether he'll make some entirely new mistake. That's part of what makes Summers-watching so compelling: the tension between the truths of his personality and his need to play nice to promote his agenda and keep his job.

No one will work harder than Summers to reaffirm his power and get his presidency back on track; he is admirably dogged in this way. It will be fascinating to see how this year progresses.

But New Orleans' losses are still ongoing, and another one, a particularly hard one, came yesterday—the death of guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown at age 81, just about a week after he fled the city.

Brown was one of the city's legends—a musician, a character, a storyteller, a piece of history. The things he could do with a guitar! I saw him play once, at a long-ago Jazzfest, at a New Orleans bar whose name I can't remember. His show began around two in the morning. I was a little tired and a little tipsy when it started, but I woke up fast. Brown walked out on stage wearing a white suit and a cowboy hat, and he sat down on a stool to play, and I just remember thinking, They don't make 'em like this any more. Certainly I'd never seen a 70-year-old man rock like that before. He might have needed a stool, but his fingers and his spirit were still young. "American music, Texas style," Brown called it, but really it was just American music, played by a master.

Brown died of natural causes, but given that he was uprooted from his home, and his age, it's hard not to think of him as another victim of that terrible hurricane.

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of 9/11, of course. It is a sad irony that such a hard day comes at a time when New York is at its most beautiful. The weather yesterday was almost as clear and crisp as it was on that horrific morning four years ago. The air was warm, but if you felt carefully, you could sense the cool of October and November implicit in the breeze of the early September morning. The sky was cloudless. Some of the leaves on the trees are starting to turn. Around the city, Andres Agassi was playing his heart out against Roger Federer, the Giants were smashing the Cardinals, and the Yankees were beating the Red Sox, 1-0, in that wonderful and rare thing, a pitchers' duel, won by a home run from my underdog hero of the year, Jason Giambi.

It is a day to remember, but if you can help it, not a day for sadness. I tried to honor the lost of 9/11 by celebrating this city. And so I traveled across the park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I walked the show of fabulous cabinetry by 18th-century Rhode Islander John Townsend, as well as an exhibit detailing how Matisse drew upon 19th-century textiles for the colorful backgrounds of his paintings. Walking along Fifth Avenue, I spotted an older couple dressed for a wedding, carrying one of the table planters from the reception. Sweet. I walked back across the park, and saw thousands of New Yorkers enjoying life—lovers and families rowing boats in the pond, friends having a beer at the boathouse, strollers walking their dogs by the 72nd Street fountain.

9/11 hasn't ruined or devastated this city, as some once feared it might. It provides a day for New Yorkers to appreciate all that we enjoy here, and to show how life can carry on, will carry on, despite the most permanent of losses.

I hope it is not too long before the people of New Orleans come to know this truth as well.

An Italian couple is trying to set a world record by "living" for a week underwater. My hat's off to them if they can pull it off...I'm usually happy enough after 70 minutes down to come to the surface and feel the sun. Being underwater for a week would be immensely difficult, especially mentally. I think you'd run a real risk of going nuts. But maybe these folks are a little nuts already, just to try it....

...In his column today, Nicholas Kristoff writes about the study on hurricanes and global warming by MIT physicist Kerry Emmanuel mentioned below. I agree with the thrust of Kristoff's column, which is that the White House has to accept the reality of global warming, now. But he should have mentioned that there's widespread debate about Kerry's thesis, and he doesn't.

...This is the second article the Times has run about how hard this hurricane has been for people named Katrina. (The first was four or five days ago, in Arts & Leisure.) It was a bad idea the first time....

One of the things I like about the NYT Book Review under new editor Sam Tanenhaus is that is has a newfound sense of timeliness, such as today's essay by Benjamin Kunkel about fiction dealing with terrorism. And Tanenhaus isn't afraid to run contrarian letters, like this one from Donald Trump, who disapproved of Mark Singer's profile of him.

Trump writes: "Most writers want to be successful. Some writers even want to be good writers. I've read John Updike, I've read Orhan Pamuk, I've read Philip Roth. When Mark Singer enters their league, maybe I'll read one of his books. But it will be a long time — he was not born with great writing ability. Until then, maybe he should concentrate on finding his own 'lonely component' and then try to develop himself into a worldclass writer, as futile as that may be, instead of having to write about remarkable people who are clearly outside of his realm."

Orhan Pamuk? Who knew that Donald Trump was into [relatively] obscure Turkish writers....

Buried in the "Storm and Crisis" section of today's Times is a fascinating tick-tock by David E. Sanger detailing the process by which Michael Brown was relieved of his hurricane-related duties (though he remains, inexplicably, the head of FEMA).

Sanger's reporting suggests that the decision was a joint one between Dick Cheney and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.

What's remarkable about the article, though, is that it barely mentions the president, except to say that the decision to oust Brown was, after it was made, brought to Bush.

There's been talk before that Bush lives and works in a cocoon, in which he's isolated and "protected" from bad news. The fact that he wasn't involved in the decision to get rid of the disastrous Michael Brown is more evidence of that alarming withdrawal from reality.