Shots In The Dark
Tuesday, October 31, 2024
Actually, I Might Read That
From the list of self-published books printed in the New York Times Book Review:
What!! You're Pregnant Again!! Bite Me!!
An inspiring and humorous story in coping with the frustration of miscarriages and infertility. This book takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. It’s a truly comedic approach to how one woman copes through her own struggles and fears; however it will make you laugh out loud.
What!! You're Pregnant Again!! Bite Me!!
An inspiring and humorous story in coping with the frustration of miscarriages and infertility. This book takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. It’s a truly comedic approach to how one woman copes through her own struggles and fears; however it will make you laugh out loud.
Chatting with Al Franken
If you're interested in hearing me talk with Al Franken about the 2006 election, here's the audio from my Air America interview.....
Al%20Franken%20Oct%2027%202006.mp3
Al%20Franken%20Oct%2027%202006.mp3
The Politics of Dancing
I've always thought that the '80s were an underrated decade, particularly musically. The outrageous, electronic music of the decade can really be appreciated in retrospect as a reaction against the conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. And, somehow, it has become relevant again. Consider, for example, this video of the '80s classic, "The Politics of Dancing," in which dancing is presented as a form of protest against authoritarian government. (Not such a crazy idea; yesterday's Times had a piece about the dangers of dancing in Iraq.) Not the best video, but it shows that the more things change....
Anyway, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy this video other than its politics. The electronic drums! That keyboard player! Those sideburns!
Those were the days...
I've always thought that the '80s were an underrated decade, particularly musically. The outrageous, electronic music of the decade can really be appreciated in retrospect as a reaction against the conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. And, somehow, it has become relevant again. Consider, for example, this video of the '80s classic, "The Politics of Dancing," in which dancing is presented as a form of protest against authoritarian government. (Not such a crazy idea; yesterday's Times had a piece about the dangers of dancing in Iraq.) Not the best video, but it shows that the more things change....
Anyway, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy this video other than its politics. The electronic drums! That keyboard player! Those sideburns!
Those were the days...
Monday, October 30, 2024
The Department of Small Worlds
As readers of this blog know, I paid some attention to the story of Andrei Shleifer, who was recently stripped of his endowed chair, the Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics.
When Shleifer gave a quote to the press that said "I was a Professor of Economics last week, and I am a Professor of Economics this week," I noted that this was something of a diss to Whipple V.N. Jones, whoever that was.
Turns out that Whipple VanNess Jones is—wait for it—my step-grandfather.
I discovered this yesterday, while having lunch with my father and stepmother, whose maiden name is Jones. At some point during lunch, she turned to me and said, "Richard, I have a Harvard question to ask you...."
She had heard something about a scandal involving the chair her father had endowed at Harvard.
And suddenly, it clicked: I'd only met her father, whom I knew as Whip Jones, once. But of course—he was Harvard class of '32, and had made a fortune investing in Aspen real estate. He founded and owned the Aspen Highlands ski resort, which in 1992 he donated to Harvard, which later sold it for some huge amount of money. Whip Jones had also endowed the Whipple V.N. Jones chair in economics.
He passed away a few years ago, at the ripe old age of 92—a remarkable man, maker of an honest fortune who gave much of it away.
I asked my stepmother what her father would think of the current scandal.
"He would probably be amused," she said. "He had a good sense of humor."
When Shleifer gave a quote to the press that said "I was a Professor of Economics last week, and I am a Professor of Economics this week," I noted that this was something of a diss to Whipple V.N. Jones, whoever that was.
Turns out that Whipple VanNess Jones is—wait for it—my step-grandfather.
I discovered this yesterday, while having lunch with my father and stepmother, whose maiden name is Jones. At some point during lunch, she turned to me and said, "Richard, I have a Harvard question to ask you...."
She had heard something about a scandal involving the chair her father had endowed at Harvard.
And suddenly, it clicked: I'd only met her father, whom I knew as Whip Jones, once. But of course—he was Harvard class of '32, and had made a fortune investing in Aspen real estate. He founded and owned the Aspen Highlands ski resort, which in 1992 he donated to Harvard, which later sold it for some huge amount of money. Whip Jones had also endowed the Whipple V.N. Jones chair in economics.
He passed away a few years ago, at the ripe old age of 92—a remarkable man, maker of an honest fortune who gave much of it away.
I asked my stepmother what her father would think of the current scandal.
"He would probably be amused," she said. "He had a good sense of humor."
Larry Summers in the FT
Larry Summers' first column for the Financial Times appears today. It's an interesting piece of work. I wouldn't say that Summers is a natural writer. This article feels more like a speech than a column, which is to be expected given that Summers has done far more speechifying than he has column-writing. It's a little stentorian, a little Olympian.
The subject is the fate of the global middle class under globalization, and why that middle class is feeling economic anxiety. An interesting and worthy topic.
Summers writes:
From the failure to complete the Doha trade round to pervasive Wal-Mart-bashing, from massive renationalisation in Russia to the success of populists in Latin America and eastern Europe, we see a degree of anxiety about the market system that is unmatched since the fall of the Berlin Wall and probably well before.
Summers attributes this anxiety to the growing recognition that the vast global middle is not sharing the benefits of the current period of economic growth.
Instead, two groups are benefitting from globalization: the very poor, who are finding new work as a result of international outsourcing and the demand for cheap labor, and those businesspeople and financiers in a position to take advantage of globalization.
I find one line particularly noteworthy:
Certainly those in the financial sector in a position to benefit from the asset revaluations associated with globalisation have prospered.
Let me extrapolate what I think Summers may be getting at here. Part of the middle class anxiety people feel, at least in this country, stems from the awareness that some Americans are getting immensely rich, richer than anyone has ever been in the scope of human history, and that this wealth is not generating opportunities for economic advancement for the middle class.
For example: David Shaw, Summers' new employer, made $340,000,000 last year. One could say that he has "prospered." This money is not going to build factories or create jobs. It is going into the bank of David Shaw.
While Americans may not know this specific example, they are aware that financiers such as Shaw are making obscene amounts of money, and they worry that these profits are coming at their expense. While old businesses such as Ford are closing plants and laying off thousands of workers, new ones such as the D.E. Shaw Group are making huge fortunes for a very small number of employees, with no apparent economic trickle-down whatsoever. Dollars are being sucked out of the hands of the middle glass by a great vacuum wielded by those fortunate enough to play the hedge fund game—who, by and large, don't appear to have any particular sense of social responsibility. (Anyone heard much about foundations started by hedge fund billionaires? Me neither.) And they are hiring former Treasury secretaries to help them fend off federal regulation, so that their vast accumulation of wealth can continue unabated.
At least, that's my impression. I'm not an economist, and so I would be curious to hear someone who thinks about these things on a more rigorous basis than I do analyze the issue.
Once upon a time—perhaps when he was giving economic advice to presidential candidate Michael Dukakis—this is exactly the sort of economic problem that liberal economist Lawrence Summers would have tackled. Would he do so now that he is nursing at the hedge fund teat? Or has his intellectual integrity been compromised by his desire to make millions?
The answer, as a Summers FT column might say, remains to be seen. Consider again that sentence. On the one hand, it's pretty tepid, and softpedals the issue. On the other hand, at least it's there.
Summers is always an intriguing man, and it will be interesting to watch the development of his future writings.
The subject is the fate of the global middle class under globalization, and why that middle class is feeling economic anxiety. An interesting and worthy topic.
Summers writes:
From the failure to complete the Doha trade round to pervasive Wal-Mart-bashing, from massive renationalisation in Russia to the success of populists in Latin America and eastern Europe, we see a degree of anxiety about the market system that is unmatched since the fall of the Berlin Wall and probably well before.
Summers attributes this anxiety to the growing recognition that the vast global middle is not sharing the benefits of the current period of economic growth.
Instead, two groups are benefitting from globalization: the very poor, who are finding new work as a result of international outsourcing and the demand for cheap labor, and those businesspeople and financiers in a position to take advantage of globalization.
I find one line particularly noteworthy:
Certainly those in the financial sector in a position to benefit from the asset revaluations associated with globalisation have prospered.
Let me extrapolate what I think Summers may be getting at here. Part of the middle class anxiety people feel, at least in this country, stems from the awareness that some Americans are getting immensely rich, richer than anyone has ever been in the scope of human history, and that this wealth is not generating opportunities for economic advancement for the middle class.
For example: David Shaw, Summers' new employer, made $340,000,000 last year. One could say that he has "prospered." This money is not going to build factories or create jobs. It is going into the bank of David Shaw.
While Americans may not know this specific example, they are aware that financiers such as Shaw are making obscene amounts of money, and they worry that these profits are coming at their expense. While old businesses such as Ford are closing plants and laying off thousands of workers, new ones such as the D.E. Shaw Group are making huge fortunes for a very small number of employees, with no apparent economic trickle-down whatsoever. Dollars are being sucked out of the hands of the middle glass by a great vacuum wielded by those fortunate enough to play the hedge fund game—who, by and large, don't appear to have any particular sense of social responsibility. (Anyone heard much about foundations started by hedge fund billionaires? Me neither.) And they are hiring former Treasury secretaries to help them fend off federal regulation, so that their vast accumulation of wealth can continue unabated.
At least, that's my impression. I'm not an economist, and so I would be curious to hear someone who thinks about these things on a more rigorous basis than I do analyze the issue.
Once upon a time—perhaps when he was giving economic advice to presidential candidate Michael Dukakis—this is exactly the sort of economic problem that liberal economist Lawrence Summers would have tackled. Would he do so now that he is nursing at the hedge fund teat? Or has his intellectual integrity been compromised by his desire to make millions?
The answer, as a Summers FT column might say, remains to be seen. Consider again that sentence. On the one hand, it's pretty tepid, and softpedals the issue. On the other hand, at least it's there.
Summers is always an intriguing man, and it will be interesting to watch the development of his future writings.
Plagiarism: Everybody's Doing It!
A Crimson cartoonist has been ripping off, well, almost everyone.
Perhaps it's time for a multi-part Crimson series into plagiarism on campus? If there have been two recent examples at the paper, and Charles Ogletree committed plagiarism twice in his book, then there must be more of it going around....
Perhaps it's time for a multi-part Crimson series into plagiarism on campus? If there have been two recent examples at the paper, and Charles Ogletree committed plagiarism twice in his book, then there must be more of it going around....
Friday, October 27, 2024
Radio Daze
If anyone cares, I'll be on the Al Franken Show on Air America at 1:30 EST ...talking about the environment in my role as political editor of Plenty magazine.
White Not?
Have you read about all the hubbub over the racist ad Republicans are airing against Tennessee senatorial candidate Harold Ford?
From the Times:
The spot, which was first broadcast last week and was disappearing from the air on Wednesday, featured a series of people in mock man-on-the street interviews talking sarcastically about Mr. Ford and his stands on issues including the estate tax and national security.
How do I know this? A female friend of mine, who is white, dated Ford...and it was her strong impression that white women were Ford's girlfriends of preference.
From the Times:
The spot, which was first broadcast last week and was disappearing from the air on Wednesday, featured a series of people in mock man-on-the street interviews talking sarcastically about Mr. Ford and his stands on issues including the estate tax and national security.
The controversy erupted over one of the people featured: an attractive white woman, bare-shouldered, who declares that she met Mr. Ford at a “Playboy party,” and closes the commercial by looking into the camera and saying, with a wink, “Harold, call me.”
I've read a lot about this ad, and none of the reporting points out one of the subtexts the ad manipulates so grossly: Harold Ford does like white women.How do I know this? A female friend of mine, who is white, dated Ford...and it was her strong impression that white women were Ford's girlfriends of preference.
Let's be clear: There's absolutely nothing wrong with this.
The Book on Aleksey Vayner
Two Yalies have submitted a book proposal about con artist Aleksey Vayner to Suzanne Gluck, at ICM, according to IvyGate.
(In a weird coincidence, Suzanne Gluck happens to be my agent.)
The story of Aleksey Vayner is both sensational and seemingly apocryphal. On the one hand, Aleksey and his family, penniless, emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States; at eighteen, he gained admission to Yale University as a tennis recruit. On the other hand, Aleksey Vayner sexed up his accomplishments one time too many: recently, he single handedly became the laughing stock on Wall Street after sending an eleven page résumé and promotional video to UBS AG, the world's largest asset wealth manager.
Ah, yes—not only sensational, but seemingly apocryphal.
Well, I literally can't believe it. I have this weird hunch that the whole Aleksey Vayner thing is a big meta-joke—an ironic commentary on modern ambition, snark, higher education, Wall Street, the media, and indeed irony itself. A performance art piece, like in The Shape of Things. Or Borat.
More from the proposal:
But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped. Aleksey is being bombarded with requests for interviews. The calls have not stopped. Wall Street circulated Aleksey's video and résumé because, Aleksey, whether we like it or not, is simply entertaining.
"But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped."
Now, that's good stuff. Just imagine it with an exclamation point: "And they have not stopped!"
It's a fine line, reality. What with the plagiarism epidemic, Aleksey Vayner, and staying the course, I think I may have crossed/lost it.
(In a weird coincidence, Suzanne Gluck happens to be my agent.)
The story of Aleksey Vayner is both sensational and seemingly apocryphal. On the one hand, Aleksey and his family, penniless, emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States; at eighteen, he gained admission to Yale University as a tennis recruit. On the other hand, Aleksey Vayner sexed up his accomplishments one time too many: recently, he single handedly became the laughing stock on Wall Street after sending an eleven page résumé and promotional video to UBS AG, the world's largest asset wealth manager.
Ah, yes—not only sensational, but seemingly apocryphal.
Well, I literally can't believe it. I have this weird hunch that the whole Aleksey Vayner thing is a big meta-joke—an ironic commentary on modern ambition, snark, higher education, Wall Street, the media, and indeed irony itself. A performance art piece, like in The Shape of Things. Or Borat.
More from the proposal:
But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped. Aleksey is being bombarded with requests for interviews. The calls have not stopped. Wall Street circulated Aleksey's video and résumé because, Aleksey, whether we like it or not, is simply entertaining.
"But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped."
Now, that's good stuff. Just imagine it with an exclamation point: "And they have not stopped!"
It's a fine line, reality. What with the plagiarism epidemic, Aleksey Vayner, and staying the course, I think I may have crossed/lost it.
Plagiarism: That's Hot!
Wait! There's more. Now the Crimson admits that one of its own writers has also committed plagiarism.
Columnist Victoria Ilyinsky apparently ripped off Slate when she wrote about the hideous abuse of the word "literally." As in, "I was so uninspired and lazy that I, like, literally plagiarized someone else's work, okay?"
To its credit, the Crimson cancelled Ilyinsky's column.
Sara Schweitzer reports on the matter in today's Globe. She does not appear to have ripped anyone off in her story. But, hey, you never know!
Columnist Victoria Ilyinsky apparently ripped off Slate when she wrote about the hideous abuse of the word "literally." As in, "I was so uninspired and lazy that I, like, literally plagiarized someone else's work, okay?"
To its credit, the Crimson cancelled Ilyinsky's column.
Sara Schweitzer reports on the matter in today's Globe. She does not appear to have ripped anyone off in her story. But, hey, you never know!
Adventures in Crimson-Land
I was up in Cambridge the past couple of days, doing some reporting for a piece on Derek Bok. (If you have thoughts on President Bok that you'd like to share, feel free to contact me.) The campus looked terrific, and Harvard Square is always fun. (But can't you get a liquor store there?)
Some impressions:
1) My God, you people must be sick of Kerry Healey and Duval Patrick—what a dreary race.
2) Did you know that the Charles Hotel costs $500 a night? What does Cambridge think it is, Manhattan?
3) I'm all for the idea of Jack Welch and Joe O'Donnell buying the Globe. Because, right now, it sucks. USA Today has more content than the Globe. And the Arts/Living section—argh. The writing is just so, so wrong.
4) Boston.com is a terrible website. I saw an ad urging people to make it their home page. Why on earth would anyone do that?
Some impressions:
1) My God, you people must be sick of Kerry Healey and Duval Patrick—what a dreary race.
2) Did you know that the Charles Hotel costs $500 a night? What does Cambridge think it is, Manhattan?
3) I'm all for the idea of Jack Welch and Joe O'Donnell buying the Globe. Because, right now, it sucks. USA Today has more content than the Globe. And the Arts/Living section—argh. The writing is just so, so wrong.
4) Boston.com is a terrible website. I saw an ad urging people to make it their home page. Why on earth would anyone do that?
Charles Ogletree: Say What?
Charles Ogletree has been busted for plagiarism again, as the Crimson reports that...
...more than two years after Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. acknowledged that his book had lifted two pages from a Yale scholar, The Crimson has found new evidence that Ogletree’s book also contains an additional paragraph that is very similar to a 1996 work by a University of California-San Diego civil rights expert.
The Crimson then cites several examples.
What is striking about the examples is how banal they are—there's nothing distinctive or compelling about the language, it's almost entirely expository.
For example: Roy, on page 130, and Ogletree, on page 103, use the same 12 words to compare Du Bois and black educator Booker T. Washington: “both men were deeply committed to making life better for African Americans.” (Ogletree hyphenates “African-Americans.”)
I think the Crimson is giving Ogletree too much credit there: the hyphen was probably added by a copy editor.
The first time around, as I recall, Ogletree suggested that the plagiarism had been introduced by various researchers.
I have a picture in my head: a lonely, overworked law student, poring over reference books, probably tired, cynical about the fact that he or she is writing a book for a famous professor to put his name on and earn large speaking fees as a result...
...who, one night around midnight, just decides, Fuck it, no one'll notice....and I want to go to sleep.
Or, even more delicious, decides: So what if they do? Not my book, not my problem....
What's really going on here, in my opinion? The standard operating practice among celebrity academics of having graduate students substantially write their books for them...
You folks know of anyone else who does this?
...more than two years after Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. acknowledged that his book had lifted two pages from a Yale scholar, The Crimson has found new evidence that Ogletree’s book also contains an additional paragraph that is very similar to a 1996 work by a University of California-San Diego civil rights expert.
The Crimson then cites several examples.
What is striking about the examples is how banal they are—there's nothing distinctive or compelling about the language, it's almost entirely expository.
For example: Roy, on page 130, and Ogletree, on page 103, use the same 12 words to compare Du Bois and black educator Booker T. Washington: “both men were deeply committed to making life better for African Americans.” (Ogletree hyphenates “African-Americans.”)
I think the Crimson is giving Ogletree too much credit there: the hyphen was probably added by a copy editor.
The first time around, as I recall, Ogletree suggested that the plagiarism had been introduced by various researchers.
I have a picture in my head: a lonely, overworked law student, poring over reference books, probably tired, cynical about the fact that he or she is writing a book for a famous professor to put his name on and earn large speaking fees as a result...
...who, one night around midnight, just decides, Fuck it, no one'll notice....and I want to go to sleep.
Or, even more delicious, decides: So what if they do? Not my book, not my problem....
What's really going on here, in my opinion? The standard operating practice among celebrity academics of having graduate students substantially write their books for them...
You folks know of anyone else who does this?
Wednesday, October 25, 2024
Tuesday, October 24, 2024
Yale's Kaavya
I've refrained from commenting on the pathetic story of Aleksey Vayner till now because, I suppose, it's just so dispiriting; I want to throw up my hands and say, well, one more con man in the Stephen Glass mode.
But this Times article about Vayner does raise some interesting issues, particularly with regard to whether the Yale undergraduate should be disciplined by the college for setting up what appears to be a fraudulent charity.
A Yale spokeswoman declines to comment, which is unfortunate.
Here's why: Our nation's finest universities are supposed to be role models. They hold themselves out as places of virtue, if only because they suggest that their graduates are fit to lead the nation and the world.
So when an undergraduate commits fraud, as Kaavya Viswanathan did at Harvard—whether legally a crime or not—this is not just an internal matter for Yale or Harvard. It affects the university's reputation and the legitimacy of higher education in American society generally.
That's why it's important for Harvard to make public statements about Viswanathan or Andrei Shleifer, and why Yale shouldn't just offer a "no comment" about this student, who is obviously a fraud through and through.
Instead, there's a "cover your ass" mentality that feels like spin, public relations, and just basically bullshit.
But this Times article about Vayner does raise some interesting issues, particularly with regard to whether the Yale undergraduate should be disciplined by the college for setting up what appears to be a fraudulent charity.
A Yale spokeswoman declines to comment, which is unfortunate.
Here's why: Our nation's finest universities are supposed to be role models. They hold themselves out as places of virtue, if only because they suggest that their graduates are fit to lead the nation and the world.
So when an undergraduate commits fraud, as Kaavya Viswanathan did at Harvard—whether legally a crime or not—this is not just an internal matter for Yale or Harvard. It affects the university's reputation and the legitimacy of higher education in American society generally.
That's why it's important for Harvard to make public statements about Viswanathan or Andrei Shleifer, and why Yale shouldn't just offer a "no comment" about this student, who is obviously a fraud through and through.
Instead, there's a "cover your ass" mentality that feels like spin, public relations, and just basically bullshit.
Here's that "Stay the Course" video
Note the "ministry of truth" chyron added to Mehlman's appearance.....
We laugh, we cry....
Note the "ministry of truth" chyron added to Mehlman's appearance.....
We laugh, we cry....
Old Media Playing Catch-Up
The New York Times runs a piece today on how the Bush administration has abandoned the phrase "stay the course" when it comes to speaking about Iraq.
Interesting.
But then, I already knew that. Because yesterday I watched a YouTube video of Jon Stewart on Andrew Sullivan's blog, in which Stewart showed Bush using the phrase "stay the course" again and again, and then showed footage of RNC chair Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press saying something like, "It's not 'stay the course,' it's 'win by adapting.'"
The nature of propaganda, Stewart pointed out, is that it has no internal logic; nothing that came before matters.
Also interesting.
But the real point is, Jon Stewart had it before the Times did, and Andrew Sullivan had it before the Times did, and hundreds of thousands of people who watched the show or the YouTube video had it before the Times did.
Kinda makes you feel sorry for newspapers, doesn't it?
Interesting.
But then, I already knew that. Because yesterday I watched a YouTube video of Jon Stewart on Andrew Sullivan's blog, in which Stewart showed Bush using the phrase "stay the course" again and again, and then showed footage of RNC chair Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press saying something like, "It's not 'stay the course,' it's 'win by adapting.'"
The nature of propaganda, Stewart pointed out, is that it has no internal logic; nothing that came before matters.
Also interesting.
But the real point is, Jon Stewart had it before the Times did, and Andrew Sullivan had it before the Times did, and hundreds of thousands of people who watched the show or the YouTube video had it before the Times did.
Kinda makes you feel sorry for newspapers, doesn't it?
Monday, October 23, 2024
Yale Rakes It In
Yale just announced a gift of $60 million from Edward Bass to go to the sciences....
Kinsley on Foley
Once in a while, Michael Kinsley reminds you of what a great columnist can do: Puncture all the words of propaganda and hyperbole and partisanship generated by folks in Washington, and create insight.
Here he is on why we all secretly love the Foley scandal—no matter how much we insist otherwise:
Perhaps it would be a better world if everybody were as disgusted by the Foley episode as almost everybody claims to be. But the truth is that most people are enjoying this story and can't get enough of it. If you gave them the secret power to wish the whole thing away, they'd say, "Are you nuts? This is terrific!" Poor Dennis Hastert is suspected, probably falsely, of being willing to sacrifice a child for the good of his party, and now the other party reaps the benefit. Do you think that if the devil told Nancy Pelosi she could undo the scandal, save these 17-year-olds from the trauma of e-mail from a sicko congressman, and give up her hopes of being speaker, that she would find such an offer tempting? I don't. And I don't think Nancy Pelosi is callous or cruel. If she thought it through, she might conclude that the good that can come from a Democratic Congress exceeds the evil that a few randy e-mails may have done to a few teenage pages. Meanwhile, most Americans, I strongly suspect, would happily sacrifice a few more pages just to keep the story going for entertainment purposes.
Here he is on why we all secretly love the Foley scandal—no matter how much we insist otherwise:
Perhaps it would be a better world if everybody were as disgusted by the Foley episode as almost everybody claims to be. But the truth is that most people are enjoying this story and can't get enough of it. If you gave them the secret power to wish the whole thing away, they'd say, "Are you nuts? This is terrific!" Poor Dennis Hastert is suspected, probably falsely, of being willing to sacrifice a child for the good of his party, and now the other party reaps the benefit. Do you think that if the devil told Nancy Pelosi she could undo the scandal, save these 17-year-olds from the trauma of e-mail from a sicko congressman, and give up her hopes of being speaker, that she would find such an offer tempting? I don't. And I don't think Nancy Pelosi is callous or cruel. If she thought it through, she might conclude that the good that can come from a Democratic Congress exceeds the evil that a few randy e-mails may have done to a few teenage pages. Meanwhile, most Americans, I strongly suspect, would happily sacrifice a few more pages just to keep the story going for entertainment purposes.
Quote of the Day
"I think the regulatory process, regulatory issues, are very complicated. The markets are changing very rapidly. What we used to say we needed at the Treasury was a regulatory system as modern as the markets."
—Larry Summers, the D.E. Shaw Group, on CNBC Friday
—Larry Summers, the D.E. Shaw Group, on CNBC Friday
Saturday, October 21, 2024
Ka-Ching, Continued
The Washington Post reports on Larry Summers and John Snow joining hedge funds on the same day.
Lori Montgomery writes:
Two former U.S. Treasury secretaries -- John W. Snow and Lawrence H. Summers -- have accepted positions with two of the nation's largest hedge funds at a time when federal officials are growing increasingly concerned about the impact of the private investment pools on U.S. financial markets.
She adds, Summers said he has made it clear to the fund that he will do no lobbying.
Michael Feiner, a management professor and ethics fellow at Columbia Graduate School of Business, said: "There's lobbying and then there's lobbying."
While influencing Washington may not be the chief reason Snow and Summers were hired, Feiner said, "it is inconceivable that either of these guys wouldn't pick up a call and try to head off the slowly burgeoning movement to get a better handle on these folks."
So...as far as Harvard goes, is this good, bad or irrelevant?
Lori Montgomery writes:
Two former U.S. Treasury secretaries -- John W. Snow and Lawrence H. Summers -- have accepted positions with two of the nation's largest hedge funds at a time when federal officials are growing increasingly concerned about the impact of the private investment pools on U.S. financial markets.
She adds, Summers said he has made it clear to the fund that he will do no lobbying.
Michael Feiner, a management professor and ethics fellow at Columbia Graduate School of Business, said: "There's lobbying and then there's lobbying."
While influencing Washington may not be the chief reason Snow and Summers were hired, Feiner said, "it is inconceivable that either of these guys wouldn't pick up a call and try to head off the slowly burgeoning movement to get a better handle on these folks."
So...as far as Harvard goes, is this good, bad or irrelevant?
Friday, October 20, 2024
Summers and the Hedge Fund: The Plot Thickens
Writing for the Bloomberg news service, Brett Cole and Katherine Burton suggest a new reason for D.E. Shaw & Co. to hire Larry Summers: influence-buying.
As this introduction to the article notes,
The Treasury Department is currently conducting an inquiry into hedge funds, in order to determine if further regulation of the $1.3 trillion industry is needed.
Under those circumstances, then, it can't hurt to have a former Treasury secretary on your payroll, helping make contacts with current officials, doing his best to argue that further regulation really isn't required.
Is it a coincidence, then, that Summers and former Treasury secretary John Snow were hired by different hedge funds on the same day?
Before some of you rush to criticize me for this, please note that this isn't my suggestion—it's clearly the article's implication.
The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington has been spinning this year, with Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman, taking over for Snow at Treasury. Those who've traded government for finance include Paul O'Neill, Snow's predecessor at Treasury; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; and John Edwards, former vice presidential candidate and senator from North Carolina.
And by the way, the stakes are high indeed: David Shaw, Summers' new employer, made $340 million last year. That's 340, 000, 000.
As this introduction to the article notes,
The Treasury Department is currently conducting an inquiry into hedge funds, in order to determine if further regulation of the $1.3 trillion industry is needed.
Under those circumstances, then, it can't hurt to have a former Treasury secretary on your payroll, helping make contacts with current officials, doing his best to argue that further regulation really isn't required.
Is it a coincidence, then, that Summers and former Treasury secretary John Snow were hired by different hedge funds on the same day?
Before some of you rush to criticize me for this, please note that this isn't my suggestion—it's clearly the article's implication.
The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington has been spinning this year, with Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman, taking over for Snow at Treasury. Those who've traded government for finance include Paul O'Neill, Snow's predecessor at Treasury; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; and John Edwards, former vice presidential candidate and senator from North Carolina.
And by the way, the stakes are high indeed: David Shaw, Summers' new employer, made $340 million last year. That's 340, 000, 000.
The Really Important News
Let us not forget the vital news of the day: The Mets lost! The Mets lost!
As a Yankee fan, I am sorry for Willie Randolph, who has done a great job. But I just couldn't hack much more non-stop Mets coverage...and in a completely immature and indefensible way, I take great pleasure in seeing Mets fans have their hopes savagely crushed.
To lose a game by looking at strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, two outs, down by two.... That's gotta hurt.
Anyway, it was a terrific game for baseball fans: A pitching duel, some great defense, timely hitting, drama right down to the last pitch.
And next: Go Detroit!
As a Yankee fan, I am sorry for Willie Randolph, who has done a great job. But I just couldn't hack much more non-stop Mets coverage...and in a completely immature and indefensible way, I take great pleasure in seeing Mets fans have their hopes savagely crushed.
To lose a game by looking at strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, two outs, down by two.... That's gotta hurt.
Anyway, it was a terrific game for baseball fans: A pitching duel, some great defense, timely hitting, drama right down to the last pitch.
And next: Go Detroit!
Checking Out, Cashing In
The news that Larry Summers is joining the hedge fund, the D.E. Shaw Group, as a part-time managing partner has provoked a vigorous debate in the comments section below. Among the questions asked: Is this an appropriate role for a former Harvard president? Why shouldn't Larry go for the big bucks? Is this blogger personally obsessed with Summers, or just fascinated by the issues the man seems to raise by the choices he makes, the trends he represents, and the example he sets?
In any case, the hedge fund news has gotten quite a bit of pick-up in papers around the country, but most of them don't say much beyond the bare facts. Marcella Bombardieri in the Globe goes a bit further, getting economist Edward Glaeser to talk a bit about Summers' intentions.
``He's so devoted to his teaching, I would be very surprised if he did anything more than dabble" in the financial markets, said economics professor Edward Glaeser, who added that Summers spent 15 minutes last week brainstorming with him about an undergraduate's thesis.
Here's the thing: Though I have faulted Larry Summers for many things, all the evidence seems to suggest that he does indeed care about teaching and he does enjoy teaching; Larry likes a good argument, and to the extent that leading a seminar can provide that, I have no doubt he thinks this is a good thing. I'd bet he's a much more engaging seminar leader than he is a lecturer.
But does Edward Glaeser really think it is so remarkable that a fellow economist would spend 15 minutes talking about an undergraduate thesis?
Also, I wonder if the good folks at the D.E. Shaw Group are excited to know that Summers will do no more than "dabble" in the markets?
And a final point: Bombardieri, unlike most of the reporters who covered this news, actually goes to the trouble of trying to get a comment from Summers, who declines to say anything.
We have gotten so used to Summers not speaking to the press that it is easy to take this for granted and not ponder it. But it does raise the question, Why not? Why not say something to the Globe on the occasion of a new adventure in life?
After all, surely part of the reason to announce Summers' hiring is to attract interest in the firm and develop new clients. I'm sure D.E. Shaw wouldn't object to Larry giving a nice quote to the Globe in which he says something complimentary about the company and why he chose them over other opportunities.
Did his new employer want Summers to give a comment, and he refused? Or would they just as soon he not speak to the press, to avoid saying something that might get him/them in trouble?
Here's an issue that some reporter ought to take a look at: People in the academic world were upset when the president of Harvard said that women were less genetically equipped at math than men are. How do men and women in the financial world feel about that issue? The Summers' hiring would make an interesting jumping-off point for such a piece....
The larger point is that there's an attempt to control this news, whether by the Shaw Group or Summers himself...as was consistent with Summers' media style at Harvard.
In any case, the hedge fund news has gotten quite a bit of pick-up in papers around the country, but most of them don't say much beyond the bare facts. Marcella Bombardieri in the Globe goes a bit further, getting economist Edward Glaeser to talk a bit about Summers' intentions.
``He's so devoted to his teaching, I would be very surprised if he did anything more than dabble" in the financial markets, said economics professor Edward Glaeser, who added that Summers spent 15 minutes last week brainstorming with him about an undergraduate's thesis.
Here's the thing: Though I have faulted Larry Summers for many things, all the evidence seems to suggest that he does indeed care about teaching and he does enjoy teaching; Larry likes a good argument, and to the extent that leading a seminar can provide that, I have no doubt he thinks this is a good thing. I'd bet he's a much more engaging seminar leader than he is a lecturer.
But does Edward Glaeser really think it is so remarkable that a fellow economist would spend 15 minutes talking about an undergraduate thesis?
Also, I wonder if the good folks at the D.E. Shaw Group are excited to know that Summers will do no more than "dabble" in the markets?
And a final point: Bombardieri, unlike most of the reporters who covered this news, actually goes to the trouble of trying to get a comment from Summers, who declines to say anything.
We have gotten so used to Summers not speaking to the press that it is easy to take this for granted and not ponder it. But it does raise the question, Why not? Why not say something to the Globe on the occasion of a new adventure in life?
After all, surely part of the reason to announce Summers' hiring is to attract interest in the firm and develop new clients. I'm sure D.E. Shaw wouldn't object to Larry giving a nice quote to the Globe in which he says something complimentary about the company and why he chose them over other opportunities.
Did his new employer want Summers to give a comment, and he refused? Or would they just as soon he not speak to the press, to avoid saying something that might get him/them in trouble?
Here's an issue that some reporter ought to take a look at: People in the academic world were upset when the president of Harvard said that women were less genetically equipped at math than men are. How do men and women in the financial world feel about that issue? The Summers' hiring would make an interesting jumping-off point for such a piece....
The larger point is that there's an attempt to control this news, whether by the Shaw Group or Summers himself...as was consistent with Summers' media style at Harvard.
Why Conservatives Love Larry
The travails of Larry Summers continue to provide conservatives with proof that liberals are running out of control.
(It's a big day for Larry Summers news, for some reason.)
In the Chicago Tribune, Victor Davis Hansen, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, proclaims that "liberal Democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera."
On college campuses, the old leftist intolerance of unwelcome free speech is back with a fury. A guest spokesman for the Minutemen immigration reform group was shouted down at a recent Columbia University lecture. Earlier, Harvard's liberal president Lawrence Summers was forced out after timidly questioning academic orthodoxy about the role of women in science and engineering.
Back with a fury, eh? One isolated incident of shouting down a speaker, another incident involving prolonged discontent with a university president and his managing style.
That'd be like me reading one op-ed by a Stanford academic and concluding that all conservative Republicans are blathering idiots....
Mr. Hansen goes on to ask,
What sends liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria?
Is it that George W. Bush is a polarizing figure, not just in terms of his Iraq policy, but also because of his Christian Texan demeanor?
His Christian Texan demeanor?
Here's the point: Mr. Hansen may not be particularly thoughtful. But his interpretation of the Summers' ouster has quickly become accepted gospel among conservatives. Thus is history made.
(It's a big day for Larry Summers news, for some reason.)
In the Chicago Tribune, Victor Davis Hansen, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, proclaims that "liberal Democrats are beginning to sound like rowdy students on spring break, shrieking and exhibiting themselves on camera."
On college campuses, the old leftist intolerance of unwelcome free speech is back with a fury. A guest spokesman for the Minutemen immigration reform group was shouted down at a recent Columbia University lecture. Earlier, Harvard's liberal president Lawrence Summers was forced out after timidly questioning academic orthodoxy about the role of women in science and engineering.
Back with a fury, eh? One isolated incident of shouting down a speaker, another incident involving prolonged discontent with a university president and his managing style.
That'd be like me reading one op-ed by a Stanford academic and concluding that all conservative Republicans are blathering idiots....
Mr. Hansen goes on to ask,
What sends liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria?
Is it that George W. Bush is a polarizing figure, not just in terms of his Iraq policy, but also because of his Christian Texan demeanor?
His Christian Texan demeanor?
Here's the point: Mr. Hansen may not be particularly thoughtful. But his interpretation of the Summers' ouster has quickly become accepted gospel among conservatives. Thus is history made.
Women in Math: More Consequences
A study in Science reports that "simply overhearing that men have genes that make them better at math is enough to make women stumble on math tests," according to the Vancouver Sun.
The study, published today in the journal Science, says scientists need to be cognizant of the "stereotype threat" posed by research linking genes to obesity, sexual orientation or intelligence. It also suggests former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers' comments last year about female intelligence -- or the lack of it -- may have been even more damaging than his critics suggested.
Two Canadian scientists conducted a study in which they asked women to take math tests. Some of the women took the test after overhearing a faked (though they didn't know it) conversation to the effect that men have genes that make them better at math than women are.
The results?
The women scored, on average, 50-per-cent worse on the test than women who had not heard the comments about men's genetic advantage.
Hardly conclusive, but interesting.
The study is also reported on in the Globe and Mail.
The study, published today in the journal Science, says scientists need to be cognizant of the "stereotype threat" posed by research linking genes to obesity, sexual orientation or intelligence. It also suggests former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers' comments last year about female intelligence -- or the lack of it -- may have been even more damaging than his critics suggested.
Two Canadian scientists conducted a study in which they asked women to take math tests. Some of the women took the test after overhearing a faked (though they didn't know it) conversation to the effect that men have genes that make them better at math than women are.
The results?
The women scored, on average, 50-per-cent worse on the test than women who had not heard the comments about men's genetic advantage.
Hardly conclusive, but interesting.
The study is also reported on in the Globe and Mail.
Joshua Aronson, a professor of applied psychology at New York University who specializes in stereotypes and self-esteem, said in an interview yesterday that Dr. Summer's comments were based on incorrect assumptions held by many people.
"When people think about biology, they tend to confuse it with things that are fixed and immutable. That's incorrect," Prof. Aronson said.
Thursday, October 19, 2024
Larry Summers: Kaaa-Ching!
The former president has signed up with an investment firm, the D.E. Shaw Group.
It's fascinating, the different choices presidents make after they leave office...you could become president of Common Cause or work at a foundation. Or you could cash in on being the former president of Harvard and make some serious money.
Okay, okay, that's not really fair. The guy's an economist, a former Treasury secretary, it's what those people do. And Summers certainly could have taken such a job without having served his time at Harvard.
Still...Larry Summers was, for better and worse a very modern university president. He is now—ostensible blogger, ostensible FT columnist, ostensible professor, and for-sure investment banker—the very model of a modern ex-president.
It's fascinating, the different choices presidents make after they leave office...you could become president of Common Cause or work at a foundation. Or you could cash in on being the former president of Harvard and make some serious money.
Okay, okay, that's not really fair. The guy's an economist, a former Treasury secretary, it's what those people do. And Summers certainly could have taken such a job without having served his time at Harvard.
Still...Larry Summers was, for better and worse a very modern university president. He is now—ostensible blogger, ostensible FT columnist, ostensible professor, and for-sure investment banker—the very model of a modern ex-president.
Another Stingray "Attack"
In Florida, an 81-year-old man is in critical condition after a stingray jumped into his boat and stabbed him in the chest, according to a wire service report.
Here's the ray:
This is actually what's known as a spotted eagle ray, for obvious reasons. They're really beautiful animals and extremely shy; they don't like divers and they don't like divers' bubbles. My dive instructors taught me that, if you're near the bottom and you see an eagle ray, drop to the sand and flatten yourself as much as possible, or you'll scare them away. Underwater, they are really dramatic.
Here's one I saw in Cozumel....
And here's a school of them in the Galapagos, in about 20 feet of water....
When they're in schools, eagle rays often swim in formation, like a squad of fighter planes, only peaceful; it's one of the most beautiful things you can see underwater.
It's a little hard to imagine how this incident could have happened, since it would seem to require the ray jumping out of the water—which rays don't do—backwards and stabbing the man in the chest.
Perhaps the man was doing a little illicit hunting or harassing of a beautiful animal? Because a ray can't just jump out of the water and, in mid-air, stab someone in the chest....
Here's the ray:
This is actually what's known as a spotted eagle ray, for obvious reasons. They're really beautiful animals and extremely shy; they don't like divers and they don't like divers' bubbles. My dive instructors taught me that, if you're near the bottom and you see an eagle ray, drop to the sand and flatten yourself as much as possible, or you'll scare them away. Underwater, they are really dramatic.
Here's one I saw in Cozumel....
And here's a school of them in the Galapagos, in about 20 feet of water....
When they're in schools, eagle rays often swim in formation, like a squad of fighter planes, only peaceful; it's one of the most beautiful things you can see underwater.
It's a little hard to imagine how this incident could have happened, since it would seem to require the ray jumping out of the water—which rays don't do—backwards and stabbing the man in the chest.
Perhaps the man was doing a little illicit hunting or harassing of a beautiful animal? Because a ray can't just jump out of the water and, in mid-air, stab someone in the chest....
Bob Woodward in the Crimson
The Crimson's magazine, FM, puts its "15 Questions" to Bob Woodward, who was in Cambridge flacking his new book, "State of Denial."
Since the interviewer, Francesca Gilberti, is apparently a freshman, I don't want to be too tough on her. But, Francesca...it is a good idea to do at least a little background reading on the subject of your interview. So that you know, say, that Deep Throat's identity was disclosed about a year and a half ago, and that therefore there's no need to make your first question of Woodward, "Who is Deep Throat?"
Alas, Gilberti gives no indication that she has read even one of Woodward's books. Instead, she asks him about blogs and whether he writes on a computer.
Woodward, for his part, shows a total lack of a sense of humor—not a huge surprise—and a real touchiness about criticism. Like when he responds to this question about his recent NY Times/Michiko review by saying,
I’m going to answer that very directly by saying I think she forgot the reviews that she wrote of the earlier book, "Plan of Attack". She said the following: "In his engrossing new book, ‘Plan of Attack’, Bob Woodward uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration’s march to war against Iraq. His often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful interplay of personality and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon timetables, and aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy had in creating momentum for war."
About which one must say two things: One, he doesn't answer the question. And two—it's kind of weird that Woodward can quote an entire paragraph of a review from memory.
Woodward is also a little patronizing, as when he tells Gilberti that "you ask tough questions," when she obviously doesn't. But then, I suppose it's slightly understandable when being interviewed by someone who doesn't appear to have much idea what she's talking about. You can understand it when Woodward answers one question by tellng Gilberti, "Read State of Denial..." It's pretty obvious that she hasn't.
One other thing that's a bit odd. Woodward emphasizes the importance of "digging" in journalism—certainly true—and says that during Watergate, Katherine Graham would tell him, "Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving."
Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving.
What were they smoking there at the Washington Post?
Since the interviewer, Francesca Gilberti, is apparently a freshman, I don't want to be too tough on her. But, Francesca...it is a good idea to do at least a little background reading on the subject of your interview. So that you know, say, that Deep Throat's identity was disclosed about a year and a half ago, and that therefore there's no need to make your first question of Woodward, "Who is Deep Throat?"
Alas, Gilberti gives no indication that she has read even one of Woodward's books. Instead, she asks him about blogs and whether he writes on a computer.
Woodward, for his part, shows a total lack of a sense of humor—not a huge surprise—and a real touchiness about criticism. Like when he responds to this question about his recent NY Times/Michiko review by saying,
I’m going to answer that very directly by saying I think she forgot the reviews that she wrote of the earlier book, "Plan of Attack". She said the following: "In his engrossing new book, ‘Plan of Attack’, Bob Woodward uses myriad details to chart the Bush administration’s march to war against Iraq. His often harrowing narrative not only illuminates the fateful interplay of personality and policy among administration hawks and doves, but it also underscores the role that fuzzy intelligence, Pentagon timetables, and aggressive ideas about military and foreign policy had in creating momentum for war."
About which one must say two things: One, he doesn't answer the question. And two—it's kind of weird that Woodward can quote an entire paragraph of a review from memory.
Woodward is also a little patronizing, as when he tells Gilberti that "you ask tough questions," when she obviously doesn't. But then, I suppose it's slightly understandable when being interviewed by someone who doesn't appear to have much idea what she's talking about. You can understand it when Woodward answers one question by tellng Gilberti, "Read State of Denial..." It's pretty obvious that she hasn't.
One other thing that's a bit odd. Woodward emphasizes the importance of "digging" in journalism—certainly true—and says that during Watergate, Katherine Graham would tell him, "Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving."
Keep laughing, keep digging, keep loving.
What were they smoking there at the Washington Post?
At Brown, It's Time to Atone
At Brown, the prescriptively named "Committee on Slavery and Justice" has issued a report suggesting that the university make amends for its ties to slavery.
(You can find the report here; coverage in the Brown Daily Herald is here.)
Established by Brown president Ruth Simmons, the committee recommends that Brown make amends for slavery by building a memorial, creating a center for the study of "slavery and injustice," and recruiting students from Africa and the West Indies.
None of these, in and of themselves, are bad things. By all means, recruit students from Africa. (Although isn't that Brown's version of the Madonna baby adoption?) A memorial? Can't be a bad thing, I suppose.
But the implications of this are interesting. By far Brown's greatest connection with slavery is accepting money from slaveholders or slave traders. So Brown needs to make amends, the argument goes, for accepting money from people who did bad things.
Now, universities everywhere have and continue to accept money from people who do bad things, on the grounds that better they should give their money to universities than that they should use it for nefarious purposes.
Why is slavery any different?
After all, it's not like the slave traders were practicing their heinous business in order to raise money for Brown. The gifts to the university were incidental to what these people did for a living.
Of course, you could reject the premise of the argument, and say that universities should never take dirty money. That's opening a can of worms.
Or you could say that slavery was a unique evil which mandates special measures. But since the committee is proposing a center for "slavery and injustice," it clearly doesn't think that slavery is a unique evil, but one out of various kinds of injustice.
(And of course these days slavery is defined in all sorts of ways: wage slavery, sexual slavery, and so on.)
So my question is, Will Brown be consistent here? Two hundred years from now, who knows what donors of today we may consider sinful. Will Brown hold its current donors to the standards to which it is now holding its donors of centuries ago?
(You can find the report here; coverage in the Brown Daily Herald is here.)
Established by Brown president Ruth Simmons, the committee recommends that Brown make amends for slavery by building a memorial, creating a center for the study of "slavery and injustice," and recruiting students from Africa and the West Indies.
None of these, in and of themselves, are bad things. By all means, recruit students from Africa. (Although isn't that Brown's version of the Madonna baby adoption?) A memorial? Can't be a bad thing, I suppose.
But the implications of this are interesting. By far Brown's greatest connection with slavery is accepting money from slaveholders or slave traders. So Brown needs to make amends, the argument goes, for accepting money from people who did bad things.
Now, universities everywhere have and continue to accept money from people who do bad things, on the grounds that better they should give their money to universities than that they should use it for nefarious purposes.
Why is slavery any different?
After all, it's not like the slave traders were practicing their heinous business in order to raise money for Brown. The gifts to the university were incidental to what these people did for a living.
Of course, you could reject the premise of the argument, and say that universities should never take dirty money. That's opening a can of worms.
Or you could say that slavery was a unique evil which mandates special measures. But since the committee is proposing a center for "slavery and injustice," it clearly doesn't think that slavery is a unique evil, but one out of various kinds of injustice.
(And of course these days slavery is defined in all sorts of ways: wage slavery, sexual slavery, and so on.)
So my question is, Will Brown be consistent here? Two hundred years from now, who knows what donors of today we may consider sinful. Will Brown hold its current donors to the standards to which it is now holding its donors of centuries ago?
Wednesday, October 18, 2024
Curricular Reform—Everyone's Doing It!
Lee Bollinger just sent out this memo:
-----Original Message-----
From: Columbia Community [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Lee C. Bollinger
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2024 10:48 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: President's Task Force on Undergraduate Education
Dear fellow member of the Columbia community,
Columbia has some of the finest undergraduate programs in the world.
The educational experience we provide students is properly noted for
many things, most especially the Core Curriculum and the dedication
of our faculty to teaching undergraduates. Every decade or so, we
must reflect on what we are doing well and consider opportunities
for improvement of this essential part of our intellectual
community. It is for this reason that I write to inform you of the
Task Force for Undergraduate Education that will be convening
throughout this academic year.
The task force will review a number of broad aspects of our
undergraduate education, including how well our curriculum serves
the rapidly changing needs of an increasingly globalized world -- a
world that will require precisely the combination of highly
specialized knowledge and broad general learning to which Columbia
has long been committed. We will also explore the balance of
general education and disciplinary specialization,
interdisciplinary learning, and ways we can continue to take
advantage of our location in New York City.
Task force members are representative of our undergraduate
community. In our early meetings, we will identify ways in which
students, alumni, and other members of the Columbia community can
be involved. I am eager for all of us to learn from the collective
expertise and experience that this task force brings to our work
together. I look forward to sharing with you our progress and ways
we can continue to excel in undergraduate education.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Members
Alfred V. Aho
The Lawrence Gussman Professor of Computer Science
Paul J. Anderer
Vice Provost for International Relations and the Theodore and Fanny
de Bary and Class of 1941 Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities
Peter Awn
Dean of the School of General Studies and Professor of Religion
Elizabeth Boylan
Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Barnard College
Alan Brinkley
Provost of Columbia University and the Allan Nevins Professor of
American History
Andrew Delbanco
The Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities
George Deodatis
Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Nicholas B. Dirks
Vice President for Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty and the
Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and History
Geraldine Downey
Chair and Professor of Psychology
Stuart J. Firestein
Professor of Biological Sciences
Morton B. Friedman
Vice Dean of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied
Science and Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering
Mechanics
Robert D. Friedman
Professor of Mathematics
Zvi Galil
Dean of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
and the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor and the Julian
Clarence Levi Professor of Mathematical Methods and Computer
Science
Steven Gregory
Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies
and Professor of Anthropology
Patricia E. Grieve
The Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor of the Humanities and Chair
of Literature Humanities
Robert E. Harrist
The Jane and Leopold Swergold Professor of Chinese Art History
Jean E. Howard
Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives and the William B. Ransford
Professor of English
Martha C. Howell
The Miriam Champion Professor of History
Ira Katznelson
The Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History
Andrew F. Laine
Vice Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of
Radiology
George E. Lewis
The Edwin H. Case Professor of Music
Claudio W. Lomnitz
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and
Professor of Anthropology
Ann E. McDermott
Associate Vice President for Science Initiatives and Professor of
Chemistry
Christia Mercer
The Gustave M. Berne Professor in the Core Curriculum at Columbia
College
Andrew J. Millis
Chair and Professor of the Department of Physics
Vijay Modi
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Shahid Naeem
Chair and Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Susan G. Pedersen
Professor of History
Sheldon Pollock
The William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and
Chair of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and
Cultures
Austin E. Quigley
Dean of Columbia College and the Lucy G. Moses Professor and the
Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature
-----Original Message-----
From: Columbia Community [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Lee C. Bollinger
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2024 10:48 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: President's Task Force on Undergraduate Education
Dear fellow member of the Columbia community,
Columbia has some of the finest undergraduate programs in the world.
The educational experience we provide students is properly noted for
many things, most especially the Core Curriculum and the dedication
of our faculty to teaching undergraduates. Every decade or so, we
must reflect on what we are doing well and consider opportunities
for improvement of this essential part of our intellectual
community. It is for this reason that I write to inform you of the
Task Force for Undergraduate Education that will be convening
throughout this academic year.
The task force will review a number of broad aspects of our
undergraduate education, including how well our curriculum serves
the rapidly changing needs of an increasingly globalized world -- a
world that will require precisely the combination of highly
specialized knowledge and broad general learning to which Columbia
has long been committed. We will also explore the balance of
general education and disciplinary specialization,
interdisciplinary learning, and ways we can continue to take
advantage of our location in New York City.
Task force members are representative of our undergraduate
community. In our early meetings, we will identify ways in which
students, alumni, and other members of the Columbia community can
be involved. I am eager for all of us to learn from the collective
expertise and experience that this task force brings to our work
together. I look forward to sharing with you our progress and ways
we can continue to excel in undergraduate education.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Members
Alfred V. Aho
The Lawrence Gussman Professor of Computer Science
Paul J. Anderer
Vice Provost for International Relations and the Theodore and Fanny
de Bary and Class of 1941 Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities
Peter Awn
Dean of the School of General Studies and Professor of Religion
Elizabeth Boylan
Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Barnard College
Alan Brinkley
Provost of Columbia University and the Allan Nevins Professor of
American History
Andrew Delbanco
The Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities
George Deodatis
Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Nicholas B. Dirks
Vice President for Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty and the
Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and History
Geraldine Downey
Chair and Professor of Psychology
Stuart J. Firestein
Professor of Biological Sciences
Morton B. Friedman
Vice Dean of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied
Science and Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering
Mechanics
Robert D. Friedman
Professor of Mathematics
Zvi Galil
Dean of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
and the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor and the Julian
Clarence Levi Professor of Mathematical Methods and Computer
Science
Steven Gregory
Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies
and Professor of Anthropology
Patricia E. Grieve
The Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor of the Humanities and Chair
of Literature Humanities
Robert E. Harrist
The Jane and Leopold Swergold Professor of Chinese Art History
Jean E. Howard
Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives and the William B. Ransford
Professor of English
Martha C. Howell
The Miriam Champion Professor of History
Ira Katznelson
The Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History
Andrew F. Laine
Vice Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of
Radiology
George E. Lewis
The Edwin H. Case Professor of Music
Claudio W. Lomnitz
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and
Professor of Anthropology
Ann E. McDermott
Associate Vice President for Science Initiatives and Professor of
Chemistry
Christia Mercer
The Gustave M. Berne Professor in the Core Curriculum at Columbia
College
Andrew J. Millis
Chair and Professor of the Department of Physics
Vijay Modi
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Shahid Naeem
Chair and Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
Susan G. Pedersen
Professor of History
Sheldon Pollock
The William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies and
Chair of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and
Cultures
Austin E. Quigley
Dean of Columbia College and the Lucy G. Moses Professor and the
Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature
It's Professor Shleifer Now
Since this morning's post, Andrei Shleifer's webpage has been changed to reflect his new title, "Professor of Economics," and not his old one, "Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics."
Maybe Columbia Really Is Nuts
In the past, I've expressed my frustration at the way outsiders such as Mayor Bloomberg have jumped into commenting on events at Columbia. But this article on InsideHigherEd.com makes me think that the students there really do have a lot to learn about the 1st Amendment. The author points out that President Lee Bollinger has outlined a pretty clear and, I would have thought, incontestable statement regarding free speech.
“This is not complicated,” Bollinger said in an October 6 statement, released two days after student protestors disrupted a talk by the founder of the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist. “Students and faculty have rights to invite speakers to the campus. Others have rights to hear them. Those who wish to protest have rights to do so. No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers. This is a sacrosanct and inviolable principle.”
But statements from a number of student groups suggest that not everyone agrees, and that storming the stage is acceptable form of protest, particularly if the sponsoring group did not take every measure to create a "balanced" conversation.
A statement from the Student Governing Board of Earl Hall, a group that oversees all political, religious and activist groups at Columbia, is more vague, both asserting the right of any speaker, regardless of the “repugnance” of his or her views, to freedom of expression, along with the right of students to “express their dissent vigorously through various forms of protest” – in effect not taking a stand regarding whether this particular form of protest, that is, storming the stage, is something to be supported.
“This is not complicated,” Bollinger said in an October 6 statement, released two days after student protestors disrupted a talk by the founder of the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist. “Students and faculty have rights to invite speakers to the campus. Others have rights to hear them. Those who wish to protest have rights to do so. No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers. This is a sacrosanct and inviolable principle.”
But statements from a number of student groups suggest that not everyone agrees, and that storming the stage is acceptable form of protest, particularly if the sponsoring group did not take every measure to create a "balanced" conversation.
A statement from the Student Governing Board of Earl Hall, a group that oversees all political, religious and activist groups at Columbia, is more vague, both asserting the right of any speaker, regardless of the “repugnance” of his or her views, to freedom of expression, along with the right of students to “express their dissent vigorously through various forms of protest” – in effect not taking a stand regarding whether this particular form of protest, that is, storming the stage, is something to be supported.
Meanwhile, a statement from the Black Student Organization, while stating its members’ position that “the right to free speech is an important question to ask about this event and our university community,” also raises a question of its own about the incendiary nature of the talk.
“We are upset with the manner in which the Columbia College Republicans organized their speaker event. This event did not use the right to free speech responsibly to create a space for dialogue. Instead this event intended to foster prejudice against Mexican migrants and Muslims,” the statement reads in part.
Shleifer's Lingering Title
It's right there on his home page: Andrei Shleifer is the Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics.
Even if Harvard says he isn't....
Even if Harvard says he isn't....
Tuesday, October 17, 2024
An Interview with Steve Jobs
On the iPod's fifth anniversary, Newsweek has this interview with the always intriguing Steve Jobs, who talks about how he got the record companies on board with the iPod and why Microsoft's new player, Zune, doesn't impress him.
What kind of a name is Zune, anyway? It's the kind of name that someone who isn't that cool would come up with in an attempt to be cool...
What kind of a name is Zune, anyway? It's the kind of name that someone who isn't that cool would come up with in an attempt to be cool...
Monday, October 16, 2024
Derek Bok and the Corporation
Two posts below caught my eye.
They read:
Anonymous said...
Several members of the Corporation met yesterday to discuss two recent reports which suggest that the damage caused by LHS may be much more severe than previously anticipated.
One a report of satisfaction of junior faculty at several research universities. Harvard junior faculty are significantly more discontent than their peers, particularly regarding issues of diversity.
The second report was based on a survey of staff satisfaction conducted last spring. Discontent around diversity issues is deep among staff, particularly in several professional schools where LHS was heavily involved in micromanagement.
Corporation members are considering asking DB to stay in office another three years as this is an area where he has clear expertise. DB may address this issue at a talk today on the role of University Presidents at the Law School.
7:25 AM
The second post disagrees.
Anonymous said...
anon 7:25
Don't post things you just made up. There is absolutely no chance that corp memebers are considering asking DB to stay on for another three years. If you want to knock LHS that's fine, but don't talk about diversity and DB... and DB staying on because "this is an area where he has clear expertise" , when you really have no idea about what you're talking about.
They read:
Anonymous said...
Several members of the Corporation met yesterday to discuss two recent reports which suggest that the damage caused by LHS may be much more severe than previously anticipated.
One a report of satisfaction of junior faculty at several research universities. Harvard junior faculty are significantly more discontent than their peers, particularly regarding issues of diversity.
The second report was based on a survey of staff satisfaction conducted last spring. Discontent around diversity issues is deep among staff, particularly in several professional schools where LHS was heavily involved in micromanagement.
Corporation members are considering asking DB to stay in office another three years as this is an area where he has clear expertise. DB may address this issue at a talk today on the role of University Presidents at the Law School.
7:25 AM
The second post disagrees.
Anonymous said...
anon 7:25
Don't post things you just made up. There is absolutely no chance that corp memebers are considering asking DB to stay on for another three years. If you want to knock LHS that's fine, but don't talk about diversity and DB... and DB staying on because "this is an area where he has clear expertise" , when you really have no idea about what you're talking about.
Saturday, October 14, 2024
Quote of the Day
"I couldn't believe other people's closets. How can you live on Fifth Avenue and have wire hangers?"
—New York socialite Carolyne Roehm, in Sunday's NYT (not yet online)
—New York socialite Carolyne Roehm, in Sunday's NYT (not yet online)
Shleifer's Words
Marcella Bombardieri got a statement from Andrei Shleifer regarding his loss of title:
"I was a Professor of Economics last week, and I am a Professor of Economics this week," Shleifer said in a written statement. "My students, my colleagues and my work are what matter to me."
We can assume this is spin. After all, Shleifer didn't worry too much about his students when he was spending all that time in Russia. And if he was so concerned about his colleagues, he might not have put them in the position of having to stand up for a profiteer (or not).
That statement is also a diss to Whipple V.N. Jones, whoever that may have been. Sorry, Mr. Jones! Your endowed chair didn't mean that much to me anyway.
One wishes that Shleifer would have the grace to say something like, "You know, I made some serious mistakes, and I understand why Harvard needs to take action as a result. I don't like to lose my title, which has been an honor to hold, but I take responsibility for my actions that led to the change, and I hope to do better in the future."
Wouldn't that be a good lesson for Shleifer's students? After all, he really, really cares about them....
"I was a Professor of Economics last week, and I am a Professor of Economics this week," Shleifer said in a written statement. "My students, my colleagues and my work are what matter to me."
We can assume this is spin. After all, Shleifer didn't worry too much about his students when he was spending all that time in Russia. And if he was so concerned about his colleagues, he might not have put them in the position of having to stand up for a profiteer (or not).
That statement is also a diss to Whipple V.N. Jones, whoever that may have been. Sorry, Mr. Jones! Your endowed chair didn't mean that much to me anyway.
One wishes that Shleifer would have the grace to say something like, "You know, I made some serious mistakes, and I understand why Harvard needs to take action as a result. I don't like to lose my title, which has been an honor to hold, but I take responsibility for my actions that led to the change, and I hope to do better in the future."
Wouldn't that be a good lesson for Shleifer's students? After all, he really, really cares about them....
Shleifer Stripped
The Crimson reports that fallen economist Andrei Shleifer appears to have been stripped of his endowed title, the Jones Professor of Economics, and is now just a "Professor of Economics."
Whoops...reading further down, I see that the Globe broke the story.
Writes Marcella Bombardieri, This morning, the entry for Shleifer in the on-line campus directory changed from "Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics," to simply "Professor of Economics." A Harvard spokesman confirmed that the new title was accurate.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Marcella Bombardieri didn't just happen to be reading the online campus directory and notice that Shleifer's entry was changed. This was leaked... Even the fact that a campus spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of the new title is telling. I can tell you from experience that when Harvard spokespeople don't want to confirm something, they don't answer the phone.
I'll go so far as to say that the information was deliberately changed online at the instruction of someone high up so that it could subsequently be leaked. (Because let's face it, it'd probably be months before anyone got around to making that directory change, unless they were instructed to do it promptly.)
If I'm right, this would suggest that Jeremy Knowles wanted the news of Shleifer's loss of title made public, but for some reason felt he couldn't simply come out and say so himself. Anyone know why that might be?
Bombardieri gets some competing opinions about the change.
The issue is character, something that economists seeem not to like to discuss....
Here's a question for you folks: Does losing the title mean anything other than, well, losing a title? Does it, for example, have financial implications?
Whoops...reading further down, I see that the Globe broke the story.
Writes Marcella Bombardieri, This morning, the entry for Shleifer in the on-line campus directory changed from "Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics," to simply "Professor of Economics." A Harvard spokesman confirmed that the new title was accurate.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Marcella Bombardieri didn't just happen to be reading the online campus directory and notice that Shleifer's entry was changed. This was leaked... Even the fact that a campus spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of the new title is telling. I can tell you from experience that when Harvard spokespeople don't want to confirm something, they don't answer the phone.
I'll go so far as to say that the information was deliberately changed online at the instruction of someone high up so that it could subsequently be leaked. (Because let's face it, it'd probably be months before anyone got around to making that directory change, unless they were instructed to do it promptly.)
If I'm right, this would suggest that Jeremy Knowles wanted the news of Shleifer's loss of title made public, but for some reason felt he couldn't simply come out and say so himself. Anyone know why that might be?
Bombardieri gets some competing opinions about the change.
Neither his critics nor his supporters were pleased by the change in Schleifer's title.
"Does that place him in an extraordinarily embarrassing position? I don't think so," said mechanical engineering professor Frederick H. Abernathy, who has denounced Harvard's handling of the case. "If students put two or three lines in a paper without a proper quote, they are hauled before a [disciplinary] board and they are often given six month off."
Economics professor Lawrence F. Katz called the disciplinary action gratuitous.
"Andrei Shleifer is one of the finest social scientists on the planet, a huge magnet for students and a wonderful colleague," he said. "I don't think we should be playing games with names of chairs."
No surprise, but I'm going to side with Abernathy on this one; his argument is simply more viable than Katz's. The issue is not how good an economist Shleifer is; everyone seems to agree that Shleifer is, in some ways, very very smart. (Not so in others, methinks.)The issue is character, something that economists seeem not to like to discuss....
Here's a question for you folks: Does losing the title mean anything other than, well, losing a title? Does it, for example, have financial implications?
Friday, October 13, 2024
Some Thoughts on Cory Lidle
Yesterday I spoke with an old friend who's a pilot about Cory Lidle. He explained to me what he thought must have happened. (His explanation pretty much matches today's Times account.)
Lidle and his instructor, Tyler Stanger, were flying north up the East River, with its view of Manhattan to the west and Brooklyn and Queens to the east.
It's not an easy route, my friend said. He's never flown it, and he knows only one recreational pilot who has. In contrast to flying up the Hudson, there's a lot to watch out for—bridges, jets, etc. And to comply with FAA regulations, you have to fly at a low altitude; I think he said it was below 1100 feet.
You can fly this route without being cleared by an air traffic controller until you get to Hell's Gate, the intersection of the East River and the Harlem River. Then you have to touch base with LaGuardia and either get permission to proceed or make a U-turn, which is exactly what Lidle was doing when he crashed into a building.
If you are flying along the east side of the river and you make this turn west towards Manhattan, you are generally helped by the fact that, most often, the wind is coming from the west. So you're turning into the wind, which slows you down and gives you more room to maneuver.
But on the day of the crash, the wind was coming from north-northeast, and it was strong, between 12-22 knots. That means that as Lidle was turning towards Manhattan, the wind was vigorously pushing him in that direction. As a result, the buildings may have come up on Lidle and the instructor much faster than they had expected. (At some point, the instructor probably declared, "My plane," and took control.)
The two men could have flown up the west side of the river and made their U-turn towards the east, my friend suggested. But once they turned west and realized that they were in trouble, they could have tried to zoom across 72nd Street at a low altitude. That would have landed them in the papers, my friend said, but they'd have survived.
Instead, they tried to make the turn and failed.
Here's a question I have: Given what happened to Thurman Munson, why do the Yankees allow any of their players to fly private planes?
Lidle and his instructor, Tyler Stanger, were flying north up the East River, with its view of Manhattan to the west and Brooklyn and Queens to the east.
It's not an easy route, my friend said. He's never flown it, and he knows only one recreational pilot who has. In contrast to flying up the Hudson, there's a lot to watch out for—bridges, jets, etc. And to comply with FAA regulations, you have to fly at a low altitude; I think he said it was below 1100 feet.
You can fly this route without being cleared by an air traffic controller until you get to Hell's Gate, the intersection of the East River and the Harlem River. Then you have to touch base with LaGuardia and either get permission to proceed or make a U-turn, which is exactly what Lidle was doing when he crashed into a building.
If you are flying along the east side of the river and you make this turn west towards Manhattan, you are generally helped by the fact that, most often, the wind is coming from the west. So you're turning into the wind, which slows you down and gives you more room to maneuver.
But on the day of the crash, the wind was coming from north-northeast, and it was strong, between 12-22 knots. That means that as Lidle was turning towards Manhattan, the wind was vigorously pushing him in that direction. As a result, the buildings may have come up on Lidle and the instructor much faster than they had expected. (At some point, the instructor probably declared, "My plane," and took control.)
The two men could have flown up the west side of the river and made their U-turn towards the east, my friend suggested. But once they turned west and realized that they were in trouble, they could have tried to zoom across 72nd Street at a low altitude. That would have landed them in the papers, my friend said, but they'd have survived.
Instead, they tried to make the turn and failed.
Here's a question I have: Given what happened to Thurman Munson, why do the Yankees allow any of their players to fly private planes?
Four Questions About Sex
I have a journalist friend who writes about sex professionally, and once in a while she calls me to get a male perspective on things.
Not, I hasten to assure you, because I am any expert on these matters, but because I'm about the only single (heterosexual) 41-year-old guy in New York, so that's a different take. I'm old enough to have some perspective, and single enough to be able to share it.
My friend called last night because she's been asked to write a story for a woman's magazine about, surprise, women and sex.
The article she's writing is about four sexual questions, she explained, from a woman's perspective. They are:
1) When a new position isn't going quite right, is there a tactful way to move into the old faithful me-on-top without ruining the mood?
2) Physically, being on top during sex is most satisfying, but I’m really shy about my body being on display. How can I learn to let go and enjoy it?
3) Is there a mental exercise I can use to get in the mood s.t.a.t. when I’m not and he is?
4) How can I make sex with a new partner less awkward? I ended a long-term relationship last year and haven’t had sex since because I’m so nervous.
Women's magazines make me laugh, they really do.
My answer to question #1 was, "Get drunk and turn off the lights." That was also my answer to #'s 2-4.
This may help explain my unmarried status. On the other hand, if you have better answers, feel free to post them. This is pretty earth-shaking stuff.
In all seriousness, as I thought about these silly questions, I really did think of only one answer: Why not just sleep with people you know well, care about, and trust?
Yikes. Somewhere along the way, I became old-fashioned....
Not, I hasten to assure you, because I am any expert on these matters, but because I'm about the only single (heterosexual) 41-year-old guy in New York, so that's a different take. I'm old enough to have some perspective, and single enough to be able to share it.
My friend called last night because she's been asked to write a story for a woman's magazine about, surprise, women and sex.
The article she's writing is about four sexual questions, she explained, from a woman's perspective. They are:
1) When a new position isn't going quite right, is there a tactful way to move into the old faithful me-on-top without ruining the mood?
2) Physically, being on top during sex is most satisfying, but I’m really shy about my body being on display. How can I learn to let go and enjoy it?
3) Is there a mental exercise I can use to get in the mood s.t.a.t. when I’m not and he is?
4) How can I make sex with a new partner less awkward? I ended a long-term relationship last year and haven’t had sex since because I’m so nervous.
Women's magazines make me laugh, they really do.
My answer to question #1 was, "Get drunk and turn off the lights." That was also my answer to #'s 2-4.
This may help explain my unmarried status. On the other hand, if you have better answers, feel free to post them. This is pretty earth-shaking stuff.
In all seriousness, as I thought about these silly questions, I really did think of only one answer: Why not just sleep with people you know well, care about, and trust?
Yikes. Somewhere along the way, I became old-fashioned....
Post of the Day
It's early yet, but this is sort of remarkable. (Thanks to the person who posted it several items below.)
"I suspect that many faculty colleagues, many of our alumni/ae and friends, and many staff and students, want to understand our situation better. Full, shared, information should help us."
—Dean Jeremy Knowles, Letter on Faculty Finances, page 2. Knowles distributed this letter on October 12, the same day he announced that he would not comment publicly on the Shleifer matter.
"I suspect that many faculty colleagues, many of our alumni/ae and friends, and many staff and students, want to understand our situation better. Full, shared, information should help us."
—Dean Jeremy Knowles, Letter on Faculty Finances, page 2. Knowles distributed this letter on October 12, the same day he announced that he would not comment publicly on the Shleifer matter.
At Dartmouth, Girls Just Wanna Get Drunk
Local cops arrested eleven Dartmouth women, members of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority who got drunk and went roller-skating.
Or, possibly, the other way around.
Kappa President Whitney Dickerson '07 initially refused to answer questions regarding the incident because she was "working on gathering the facts," according to the college paper, The Dartmouth.
(How quickly young people pick up the obfuscatory habits of their elders!)
(Plus: What a shocker that the sorority president is named Whitney Dickerson.)
Three of the women had to be taken to the hospital, they were so drunk.
This is a situation which produces deep ambivalence in the irresponsible observer (i.e., me).
Obviously, people should not get so drunk that they have to be hospitalized. They should get less drunk.
On the other hand, there's a lot to like about sorority women getting loaded and going roller-skating....
I mean, it's kind of sweet...
Thankfully, the incident doesn't appear to have put a damper on Dartmouth's partying spirit: It's Homecoming Weekend!
Or, possibly, the other way around.
Kappa President Whitney Dickerson '07 initially refused to answer questions regarding the incident because she was "working on gathering the facts," according to the college paper, The Dartmouth.
(How quickly young people pick up the obfuscatory habits of their elders!)
(Plus: What a shocker that the sorority president is named Whitney Dickerson.)
Three of the women had to be taken to the hospital, they were so drunk.
This is a situation which produces deep ambivalence in the irresponsible observer (i.e., me).
Obviously, people should not get so drunk that they have to be hospitalized. They should get less drunk.
On the other hand, there's a lot to like about sorority women getting loaded and going roller-skating....
I mean, it's kind of sweet...
Thankfully, the incident doesn't appear to have put a damper on Dartmouth's partying spirit: It's Homecoming Weekend!
Duped By Borat
Here's the story of Linda Stein, a New York artist fooled by Ali G, a.k.a. Borat, who came to interview her.
Stein, who appears to have been born without a sense of humor, makes "female 'Knights,' larger-than-life sculptures of warrior women that I created post-9/11 to evoke peace and protection, and to counter the vulnerability I felt running from the burning towers."
Whatever it takes. But here's the part that kinda made me laugh: She got really mad when Borat declared that women have smaller brains than men. "For the sake of a cheap laugh, he chooses to reinforce the stereotype of women as the inferior sex, at the expense of women."
That, Klein concludes, is a conversation more suited to Larry Summers....
Stein, who appears to have been born without a sense of humor, makes "female 'Knights,' larger-than-life sculptures of warrior women that I created post-9/11 to evoke peace and protection, and to counter the vulnerability I felt running from the burning towers."
Whatever it takes. But here's the part that kinda made me laugh: She got really mad when Borat declared that women have smaller brains than men. "For the sake of a cheap laugh, he chooses to reinforce the stereotype of women as the inferior sex, at the expense of women."
That, Klein concludes, is a conversation more suited to Larry Summers....
The Shleifer Cover-Up
InsideHigherEd.com looks at the Shleifer scandal and its sudden termination, getting several faculty members to go on the record with their frustration over Jeremy Knowles' decision to keep secret its resolution.
Harry Lewis points out that in cases with much less at stake, such as instances of minor plagiarism, the university has made public statements regarding the outcome of the cases.
(In a Globe piece by Marcella Bombardieri, Lewis says this: ``It seems to me that Harvard has some moral responsibility to acknowledge that what happened on its watch, by people it put in charge of this project, was wrong.")
I think that's right: This decision does contradict Derek Bok's stated principles and much of what the president has eloquently written about universities in recent years. Harvard had a moment here where it could have showed what it stands for. It's not Harvard's fault that Shleifer acted as he did, but the university ought to now act in a way that sets itself apart from Shleifer's immorality, that establishes that such conduct is not permissible at a university which aspires to lead not just the nation, but the world.
This is a missed opportunity, and it adds to the damage that Shleifer has already inflicted to the university's reputation.
I suspect that Jeremy Knowles is as displeased about Shleifer's conduct as anyone else is. I also suspect that he genuinely believes that this is an internal faculty matter and that faculty discipline should be kept confidential.
Would he say the same about a plagiarist? A faculty member who had committed sexual harassment? What about a faculty member who had committed sexual harassment and pled out in a civil suit that required him to pay a multi-million dollar fine?
Dean Knowles has forgotten the cardinal rule of Washington politics: It's not the crime that really gets you in trouble, it's the cover-up.
Back when the university was still fighting the federal lawsuit, I and others wondered if Shleifer wasn't in possession of some damning information against Larry Summers or Harvard generally that he was using to blackmail the university. Why else would Harvard defend the indefensible in court?
This decision revives those concerns.
InsideHigherEd.com looks at the Shleifer scandal and its sudden termination, getting several faculty members to go on the record with their frustration over Jeremy Knowles' decision to keep secret its resolution.
Harry Lewis points out that in cases with much less at stake, such as instances of minor plagiarism, the university has made public statements regarding the outcome of the cases.
(In a Globe piece by Marcella Bombardieri, Lewis says this: ``It seems to me that Harvard has some moral responsibility to acknowledge that what happened on its watch, by people it put in charge of this project, was wrong.")
“The case has received so much outside attention that that it would probably be in Harvard’s interest to make public what action has been taken,” adds Gary Feldman, a physicist who also sits on Harvard's Committee on Professional Conduct.
And engineering prof Frederick Abernathy says, "Our president has published a statement saying that Harvard should be transparent, and have high moral standards and blah, blah, blah…. And it just seems that we haven’t done that."I think that's right: This decision does contradict Derek Bok's stated principles and much of what the president has eloquently written about universities in recent years. Harvard had a moment here where it could have showed what it stands for. It's not Harvard's fault that Shleifer acted as he did, but the university ought to now act in a way that sets itself apart from Shleifer's immorality, that establishes that such conduct is not permissible at a university which aspires to lead not just the nation, but the world.
This is a missed opportunity, and it adds to the damage that Shleifer has already inflicted to the university's reputation.
I suspect that Jeremy Knowles is as displeased about Shleifer's conduct as anyone else is. I also suspect that he genuinely believes that this is an internal faculty matter and that faculty discipline should be kept confidential.
Would he say the same about a plagiarist? A faculty member who had committed sexual harassment? What about a faculty member who had committed sexual harassment and pled out in a civil suit that required him to pay a multi-million dollar fine?
Dean Knowles has forgotten the cardinal rule of Washington politics: It's not the crime that really gets you in trouble, it's the cover-up.
Back when the university was still fighting the federal lawsuit, I and others wondered if Shleifer wasn't in possession of some damning information against Larry Summers or Harvard generally that he was using to blackmail the university. Why else would Harvard defend the indefensible in court?
This decision revives those concerns.
Thursday, October 12, 2024
A Baseball Story
The A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Library at the Baseball Hall of Fame is a cozy place, just behind the HOF bookstore. Yesterday, as I sat at a long table going through files of old newspaper clippings, visitors to the Hall of Fame would drop into the library every so often. They wanted to know the value of a set of baseball cards they've had since they were kids, or to learn more information about a relative who once played minor league ball.
In the middle of the afternoon, two elderly men came in with a request and a story. I heard it, I talked to them about it, and I thought I'd pass it along.
Their names were Maxin Appell and Albert Washburn; Maxin, known as Max, was 89, and Albert was 88 and 11 months.
They asked the research librarian about a player they once knew named George Gore. Could she tell them anything about him? A long time ago, they said, Gore had taught them how to play baseball. "Hit the ball," he would say. "Hit the ball."
The librarian, a very helpful woman named Claudette Burke, pulled a file for Albert and Max, and they sat down to read it.
George Gore, it turns out, died on September 16, 1933, at the Masonic Home in Utica, New York. He was 81 years old. According to the Times obituary, Gore "showed baseball ability at an early age" and eventually signed with the "Chicago National League team." He was the first baseball player to hold out for more money; he was offered $1200 for a season, asked $2500, and settled for $1900. Pretty good money in those days, I'll bet. Playing centerfield at a time when centerfielders didn't use gloves, he also set baseball records with five assists in one game
and seven stolen bases in one game.
"Holy Christ," Albert kept saying as he and his friend leafed through the folder. "Holy smokes. I never knew..."
I asked the men how they knew him. They explained that the two of them had grown up together in the Masonic Home. They were orphans, and they lived in the same dormitory when they were nine years old.
George Gore, an old man at that point, had been their baseball instructor. They knew that he had once played pro ball, but they had no idea how good he had been.
"Holy Christ," Albert said again. "I had no idea." Looking at some old photos, he exclaimed, "Look how handsome he was! He must have done well with the ladies."
Albert told me that he lived in the home—now called the Masonic Care Community—once again.
It took a moment to do the math. I was talking to two men, born in 1917, who had known each other from their time in an orphanage 80 years ago, in 1926. Which meant that I was talking to two men who had learned to play baseball from a man who played in the 1870s. Two men who had stayed friends over the better part of the 20th century, and now had come to the Hall of Fame to learn a little bit more about George Gore, whom they remembered from their days in the orphanage.
I asked if they wanted me to Xerox any of the material they were looking at, so that they could take their knowledge with them.
"Oh, that's all right," Albert said. "It's nice just to read it."
Max patted me on the back as the two walked out of the library. "Thank you for your help," he said, though I really hadn't done anything other than express interest in their memories.
I thanked him back and told him that it was good to talk to him. It took a few minutes before I was able to return to work, leafing through old newspaper clippings.
In the middle of the afternoon, two elderly men came in with a request and a story. I heard it, I talked to them about it, and I thought I'd pass it along.
Their names were Maxin Appell and Albert Washburn; Maxin, known as Max, was 89, and Albert was 88 and 11 months.
They asked the research librarian about a player they once knew named George Gore. Could she tell them anything about him? A long time ago, they said, Gore had taught them how to play baseball. "Hit the ball," he would say. "Hit the ball."
The librarian, a very helpful woman named Claudette Burke, pulled a file for Albert and Max, and they sat down to read it.
George Gore, it turns out, died on September 16, 1933, at the Masonic Home in Utica, New York. He was 81 years old. According to the Times obituary, Gore "showed baseball ability at an early age" and eventually signed with the "Chicago National League team." He was the first baseball player to hold out for more money; he was offered $1200 for a season, asked $2500, and settled for $1900. Pretty good money in those days, I'll bet. Playing centerfield at a time when centerfielders didn't use gloves, he also set baseball records with five assists in one game
and seven stolen bases in one game.
"Holy Christ," Albert kept saying as he and his friend leafed through the folder. "Holy smokes. I never knew..."
I asked the men how they knew him. They explained that the two of them had grown up together in the Masonic Home. They were orphans, and they lived in the same dormitory when they were nine years old.
George Gore, an old man at that point, had been their baseball instructor. They knew that he had once played pro ball, but they had no idea how good he had been.
"Holy Christ," Albert said again. "I had no idea." Looking at some old photos, he exclaimed, "Look how handsome he was! He must have done well with the ladies."
Albert told me that he lived in the home—now called the Masonic Care Community—once again.
It took a moment to do the math. I was talking to two men, born in 1917, who had known each other from their time in an orphanage 80 years ago, in 1926. Which meant that I was talking to two men who had learned to play baseball from a man who played in the 1870s. Two men who had stayed friends over the better part of the 20th century, and now had come to the Hall of Fame to learn a little bit more about George Gore, whom they remembered from their days in the orphanage.
I asked if they wanted me to Xerox any of the material they were looking at, so that they could take their knowledge with them.
"Oh, that's all right," Albert said. "It's nice just to read it."
Max patted me on the back as the two walked out of the library. "Thank you for your help," he said, though I really hadn't done anything other than express interest in their memories.
I thanked him back and told him that it was good to talk to him. It took a few minutes before I was able to return to work, leafing through old newspaper clippings.
What Happened to Shleifer?
The Crimson reports that interim FAS dean Jeremy Knowles has concluded the ethics inquiry into the misbehavior of economist Andrei Shleifer. It was Shleifer who, while on contract with the U.S. government to provide economic advice to Russia, abused the opportunity to engage in insider trading.
According to the Crimson,
Interim Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said yesterday that “appropriate action” had been taken in the investigation, brushing aside charges that he mismanaged the Shleifer case by acting without consulting the committees that had investigated the matter.
The seven-member Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC), along with a three-member investigating subcommittee, scrutinized Shleifer’s purported role in conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by making private investments in the Russian economy while he helped advise a federally sponsored and Harvard-run aid program there.
In recent weeks, however, Knowles’ silence on the matter has disturbed members of the CPC and the investigating subcommittee. Several committee members are upset with the dean’s management of the issue and some have questioned whether the case was handled fairly, according to two individuals who have spoken with professors on the committee.
Shleifer, who was in Amsterdam to deliver a lecture, declined to say whether he had been punished by Knowles.
“I am delighted that this matter is fully behind me,” he wrote in an e-mail message sent from his BlackBerry. “I look forward to following [Knowles’] advice and focusing my energies fully on scholarship, teaching, and on service to economics and to [H]arvard.”
I don't understand this outcome at all. I'm sure Jeremy Knowles had his reasons for doing what he's done. But he should explain them.
The Shleifer scandal is a matter of profound importance and public relevance. It involves government fraud, Russia's transition to democracy, and the reputation of Harvard. The university itself paid some $30 million in fines and legal fees to settle the case with the federal government.
And now...it has been decided in secret, and the outcome is secret.
This is neither a healthy process nor a healthy outcome.
Like many of you, I read David McClintick's Institutional Investor article on what happened. It boggles the mind that a tenured professor who acts as Shleifer did in McClintick's description can remain at Harvard.
Knowles is known a stalwart defender of the faculty, and I'm sure that in many cases such defenses are warranted.
But the Shleifer scandal is much larger than an internal FAS matter; it's larger than Harvard itself. No matter what Knowles intends here—and I have no doubt that his intentions were honorable—resolving the matter in this way feels like a cover-up. This is not how it should end, and I hope that this is not how it does.
According to the Crimson,
Interim Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said yesterday that “appropriate action” had been taken in the investigation, brushing aside charges that he mismanaged the Shleifer case by acting without consulting the committees that had investigated the matter.
The seven-member Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC), along with a three-member investigating subcommittee, scrutinized Shleifer’s purported role in conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by making private investments in the Russian economy while he helped advise a federally sponsored and Harvard-run aid program there.
In recent weeks, however, Knowles’ silence on the matter has disturbed members of the CPC and the investigating subcommittee. Several committee members are upset with the dean’s management of the issue and some have questioned whether the case was handled fairly, according to two individuals who have spoken with professors on the committee.
Shleifer, who was in Amsterdam to deliver a lecture, declined to say whether he had been punished by Knowles.
“I am delighted that this matter is fully behind me,” he wrote in an e-mail message sent from his BlackBerry. “I look forward to following [Knowles’] advice and focusing my energies fully on scholarship, teaching, and on service to economics and to [H]arvard.”
I don't understand this outcome at all. I'm sure Jeremy Knowles had his reasons for doing what he's done. But he should explain them.
The Shleifer scandal is a matter of profound importance and public relevance. It involves government fraud, Russia's transition to democracy, and the reputation of Harvard. The university itself paid some $30 million in fines and legal fees to settle the case with the federal government.
And now...it has been decided in secret, and the outcome is secret.
This is neither a healthy process nor a healthy outcome.
Like many of you, I read David McClintick's Institutional Investor article on what happened. It boggles the mind that a tenured professor who acts as Shleifer did in McClintick's description can remain at Harvard.
Knowles is known a stalwart defender of the faculty, and I'm sure that in many cases such defenses are warranted.
But the Shleifer scandal is much larger than an internal FAS matter; it's larger than Harvard itself. No matter what Knowles intends here—and I have no doubt that his intentions were honorable—resolving the matter in this way feels like a cover-up. This is not how it should end, and I hope that this is not how it does.
Quote of the Day
"Universities are in danger of a kind of fiscal arrogance, in which many of them are becoming as much banks and investment companies as institutions of education, research and culture.”
Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, on InsideHigherEd.com.
Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, on InsideHigherEd.com.
Wednesday, October 11, 2024
Death of a Baseball Player
This morning I sat in the A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Library at the Baseball Hall of Fame, looking at files of the players from the 1978 Red Sox and Yankees teams. I spent the most time with that of Thurman Munson, the great Yankee catcher who died tragically in a plane crash in the summer of 1979. Munson was my childhood hero, and his death devastated me, so the time I spent poring over the articles and clips about him wasn't just professional. And indeed, it was a little emotional to re-read the details of Munson's plane crash, to look at the photos of his burned-out plane.
This afternoon, it happened again.
Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle crashed his plane into the side of an apartment building in Manhattan, killing himself and his instructor, and possibly people who were in the apartment at the time.
Just about a month ago, the Times ran a piece on Lidle and his newfound love of flying.
This afternoon, it happened again.
Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle crashed his plane into the side of an apartment building in Manhattan, killing himself and his instructor, and possibly people who were in the apartment at the time.
Just about a month ago, the Times ran a piece on Lidle and his newfound love of flying.
A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.
“The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.”
Sadly for Cory Lidle, his instructor, his family, and anyone else who may have been hurt, the parachute didn't work.
Mayor Bloomberg, Shut Up
Not too long ago, Michael Bloomberg weighed in in defense of Larry Summers, as if he had any idea of what was actually happening at Harvard.
Now he's done the same with Columbia, where Bloomberg has warned President Lee Bollinger that "he's got to get his hands around this," referring to the incident at a recent speech there by an anti-immigration advocate. Bloomberg added that the incident was an "outrage."
“Freedom of speech is freedom of speech and I think it’s an outrage that somebody that was invited didn’t get a chance to speak,” the mayor said on his weekly radio show. “I don’t care whether you’re from the hard left, the hard right... if you get invited, whoever invites you should have the courtesy to let you speak and provide the protection so that you can do it.”
Two things. Lee Bollinger does not need Michael Bloomberg to instruct him on the First Amendment, and Michael Bloomberg should stop injecting himself in collegiate affairs for political gain.
More important, Bloomberg is the mayor who once called protest a "privilege" that could be taken away...and who in fact did take away people's right to protest, during the 2004 GOP convention in New York, when people who tried to demonstrate were arrested en masse and held unconstitutionally without charges being filed against them.
Interestingly, the group that conducted the protest now says that they were the ones who were attacked....
Now he's done the same with Columbia, where Bloomberg has warned President Lee Bollinger that "he's got to get his hands around this," referring to the incident at a recent speech there by an anti-immigration advocate. Bloomberg added that the incident was an "outrage."
“Freedom of speech is freedom of speech and I think it’s an outrage that somebody that was invited didn’t get a chance to speak,” the mayor said on his weekly radio show. “I don’t care whether you’re from the hard left, the hard right... if you get invited, whoever invites you should have the courtesy to let you speak and provide the protection so that you can do it.”
Two things. Lee Bollinger does not need Michael Bloomberg to instruct him on the First Amendment, and Michael Bloomberg should stop injecting himself in collegiate affairs for political gain.
More important, Bloomberg is the mayor who once called protest a "privilege" that could be taken away...and who in fact did take away people's right to protest, during the 2004 GOP convention in New York, when people who tried to demonstrate were arrested en masse and held unconstitutionally without charges being filed against them.
Interestingly, the group that conducted the protest now says that they were the ones who were attacked....
Joe Torre Survives
But when you get right down to it, you wonder why he would want the job....
Meanwhile, in all this hubbub, there's no discussion of a crucial factor: George Steinbrenner's mental condition. Earlier in the season, I got the impression that Steinbrenner was bording on senile. The Yankee beat reporters all but said as much.
Now, he's back, he's active, he's issuing lengthy (for him) statements. What happened?
Is Steinbrenner PR guy Howard Rubenstein the most powerful man in the Yankee organization at the moment?
Meanwhile, in all this hubbub, there's no discussion of a crucial factor: George Steinbrenner's mental condition. Earlier in the season, I got the impression that Steinbrenner was bording on senile. The Yankee beat reporters all but said as much.
Now, he's back, he's active, he's issuing lengthy (for him) statements. What happened?
Is Steinbrenner PR guy Howard Rubenstein the most powerful man in the Yankee organization at the moment?
Self-Importance Watch
How about this for a Crimson lede?
North Korea’s alleged nuclear test this week occurred deep underground in a mountain tunnel in the North Hamgyong Province, but in its aftermath, the world’s eyes are on Harvard Square.
Um...no. They really aren't.
North Korea’s alleged nuclear test this week occurred deep underground in a mountain tunnel in the North Hamgyong Province, but in its aftermath, the world’s eyes are on Harvard Square.
Um...no. They really aren't.
Tuesday, October 10, 2024
Iraq: It's All Over but the Dying
In Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria announces that we've lost the war in Iraq. To many of us, this has been obvious for some time, but Zakaria puts it eloquently and, since he is a creator of conventional opinion, his verdict matters, no matter how late it comes.
Writes Zakaria, When Iraq's current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period. That was a fair expectation. It has now been almost six months, and what we have seen are bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis. Meanwhile, the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan, only power vacuums that have been filled by factions, militias and strongmen. It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.
We will leave this country to bloody itself for years in civil war. Yes, we're all glad that Saddam Hussein is gone. But is Iraq now better off?
I've been saying for some time that Iraqis will really start to turn on us when the death toll of Iraqi civilians starts to approximate the number of people who were regularly killed by Hussein—or surpasses that number.
Here's a question that we regularly ask American voters that it's about time to start asking Iraqis: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
And if the answer is no, that is not an endorsement of a dictator, but an indictment of what George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have done to Iraq.
Writes Zakaria, When Iraq's current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period. That was a fair expectation. It has now been almost six months, and what we have seen are bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis. Meanwhile, the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan, only power vacuums that have been filled by factions, militias and strongmen. It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.
We will leave this country to bloody itself for years in civil war. Yes, we're all glad that Saddam Hussein is gone. But is Iraq now better off?
I've been saying for some time that Iraqis will really start to turn on us when the death toll of Iraqi civilians starts to approximate the number of people who were regularly killed by Hussein—or surpasses that number.
Here's a question that we regularly ask American voters that it's about time to start asking Iraqis: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
And if the answer is no, that is not an endorsement of a dictator, but an indictment of what George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have done to Iraq.
The Review Gets Reviewed
The Crimson reports that Harvard professors generally like the proposed curricular review, despite some reservations about the lack of emphasis on the study of literature and the possibility that the review is too presentist. (Is that a word? Let's say it is.) It certainly does seem to me a little too obsessed with preparing students for a post-9/11 world. Fifteen years from now, when people start to criticize this review, will they say that it is too pragmatic? And that it prepares students for a world that no longer exists?
Still, there's no question that this train has left the station; there may be some modifications, but this review will happen, and it will certainly be a feather in the cap of Derek Bok, who has a gift for making things look easy....
Still, there's no question that this train has left the station; there may be some modifications, but this review will happen, and it will certainly be a feather in the cap of Derek Bok, who has a gift for making things look easy....
Gloating from Up North
In the Globe, Bob Ryan makes a point about the Yankees that I wish more Red Sox fans realized, particularly every time they start lamenting how much money the Yankees spend on payroll: Beyond a certain point, money doesn't help build a team. Quite the contrary.
Having the wherewithal to overspend for players is not necessarily a good thing. That's how you wind up with injury-prone mercenaries such as Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield, as opposed to younger, healthier, and hungrier players. A key older free agent signee who really is the right man in the right place at the right time (i.e. Curt Schilling), well, that's what everyone wants to find. There just aren't many of them. This is hardly an original thought, but the Yankees were better off when they had players such as Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez, guys just below the star level who came to play without personal agendas and bloated self-images.
This isn't exactly the case for Moneyball; despite the A's current success, I'm sure they'd love to have twenty or thirty million dollars more to spend on salaries.
It is to suggest that a combination of moneyball and the occasional free agent may be the best way to build a championship team.
Ryan adds, The Boss has always believed that if you just pile star after star on top of each other, good things will happen. It doesn't work that way.
I think he's right. A team still needs chemistry, a sense of urgency, desire. A team still needs to have fun. And on George Steinbrenner's Yankees, those things are hard to come by.
Having the wherewithal to overspend for players is not necessarily a good thing. That's how you wind up with injury-prone mercenaries such as Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield, as opposed to younger, healthier, and hungrier players. A key older free agent signee who really is the right man in the right place at the right time (i.e. Curt Schilling), well, that's what everyone wants to find. There just aren't many of them. This is hardly an original thought, but the Yankees were better off when they had players such as Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez, guys just below the star level who came to play without personal agendas and bloated self-images.
This isn't exactly the case for Moneyball; despite the A's current success, I'm sure they'd love to have twenty or thirty million dollars more to spend on salaries.
It is to suggest that a combination of moneyball and the occasional free agent may be the best way to build a championship team.
Ryan adds, The Boss has always believed that if you just pile star after star on top of each other, good things will happen. It doesn't work that way.
I think he's right. A team still needs chemistry, a sense of urgency, desire. A team still needs to have fun. And on George Steinbrenner's Yankees, those things are hard to come by.
Monday, October 09, 2024
Why Joe Torre Must Go
According to Tim Marchman in the New York Sun, it's because the Yankees were "humiliated" over the weekend.
According to Marchman,
Torre has never been much of a strategist or tactician — his main strength has always been his ability to manage the egos of players and put them in position to succeed. He not only hasn't done that with Rodriguez, he's brutally humiliated him, first by participating in the shameful and repulsive team hit job on the embattled third baseman that ran in Sports Illustrated last month, and then by batting him eighth in a playoff elimination game.No matter how badly Rodriguez was hitting, he wasn't hitting any worse than anyone else on the team. Singling him out that way made him the story, rather than the collective failure. It was a crass move, and it didn't work.
Meanwhile, Marchman, like Mike Lupica in the Daily News, believes both that Torre should be fired and A-Rod should be traded.
I'm not sensing a huge groundswell of support for Torre...which may have been the reason for Steinbrenner to float the trial balloon about firing Torre that he did in the first place. To gauge what the fan reaction would be if he dumps Torre...
After all, 28 years ago, in 1978, when Steinbrenner fired Billy Martin, the New York fans were so upset that he promptly rehired Martin for the 1980 season.....
According to Marchman,
Torre has never been much of a strategist or tactician — his main strength has always been his ability to manage the egos of players and put them in position to succeed. He not only hasn't done that with Rodriguez, he's brutally humiliated him, first by participating in the shameful and repulsive team hit job on the embattled third baseman that ran in Sports Illustrated last month, and then by batting him eighth in a playoff elimination game.No matter how badly Rodriguez was hitting, he wasn't hitting any worse than anyone else on the team. Singling him out that way made him the story, rather than the collective failure. It was a crass move, and it didn't work.
Meanwhile, Marchman, like Mike Lupica in the Daily News, believes both that Torre should be fired and A-Rod should be traded.
I'm not sensing a huge groundswell of support for Torre...which may have been the reason for Steinbrenner to float the trial balloon about firing Torre that he did in the first place. To gauge what the fan reaction would be if he dumps Torre...
After all, 28 years ago, in 1978, when Steinbrenner fired Billy Martin, the New York fans were so upset that he promptly rehired Martin for the 1980 season.....
Of Architecture and Process
In the Globe, architecture critic Robert Campbell trashes Harvard's renovation of the Woodberry Poetry Room in Lamont Library, previously a "miniature masterpiece" designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
Architect David Fixler did the renovation, but doesn't seem particularly proud of it, and contrasts Harvard's way of doing business with how MIT renovated MIT's Baker House, also an Aalto creation.
At Baker, we spent two years talking about the building. We convened a small committee of historians and architects and even someone from the National Park Service to evaluate it. Harvard has never had that process. That's not how things happen at Harvard.
Campbell argues that this is because of the university's ETOB territoriality. I'd argue that it's also because of Harvard's pervasive culture of secrecy, a tone set at the top by the Corporation.
Campbell writes, with understandable incredulity...
Projects like the Woodberry can go forward in virtual secrecy at Harvard. Emilie Norris , the university's Curator of Cultural Properties, says: ``Nobody heard about the renovation until it was well under way, and the area was off limits all summer."
Campbell blasts Nancy Cline, the librarian of Harvard College, as the one responsible for apparently botching this important renovation. Anyone know anything about that?
Of course, Harvard libraries are their own little tubs, and they've done other things in secret. The decision to play along with Google and digitize everything in Widener was done in complete secrecy, abetted by Larry Summers after he had a secret meeting with Sheryl Sandberg, his former chief of staff at Treasury who is now a V-P at Google. Thus are policy decisions with huge public implications made in Harvard's culture of secrecy....
Sandberg has subsequently asked Summers to speak at Google, probably for a handsome fee. Will a position on the Google board come next?
This is what's known as a quid pro quo...and when decisions are made in secret, you can get away with it.
Architect David Fixler did the renovation, but doesn't seem particularly proud of it, and contrasts Harvard's way of doing business with how MIT renovated MIT's Baker House, also an Aalto creation.
At Baker, we spent two years talking about the building. We convened a small committee of historians and architects and even someone from the National Park Service to evaluate it. Harvard has never had that process. That's not how things happen at Harvard.
Campbell argues that this is because of the university's ETOB territoriality. I'd argue that it's also because of Harvard's pervasive culture of secrecy, a tone set at the top by the Corporation.
Campbell writes, with understandable incredulity...
Projects like the Woodberry can go forward in virtual secrecy at Harvard. Emilie Norris , the university's Curator of Cultural Properties, says: ``Nobody heard about the renovation until it was well under way, and the area was off limits all summer."
In fact, if it had not been for a letter in early June, sent to a number of people, including this writer, by a member of the Cambridge community who wishes to remain anonymous, it is likely the whole renovation would have been complete before anyone knew about it. And Harvard's intention, at that early stage, was to auction much of the original Aalto-designed furniture on
Campbell blasts Nancy Cline, the librarian of Harvard College, as the one responsible for apparently botching this important renovation. Anyone know anything about that?
Of course, Harvard libraries are their own little tubs, and they've done other things in secret. The decision to play along with Google and digitize everything in Widener was done in complete secrecy, abetted by Larry Summers after he had a secret meeting with Sheryl Sandberg, his former chief of staff at Treasury who is now a V-P at Google. Thus are policy decisions with huge public implications made in Harvard's culture of secrecy....
Sandberg has subsequently asked Summers to speak at Google, probably for a handsome fee. Will a position on the Google board come next?
This is what's known as a quid pro quo...and when decisions are made in secret, you can get away with it.
Are Men Better Than Women at Math?
A new book aspires to answer the question.
There is no doubt in my mind that this issue will be in—well, maybe not the first paragraph—but the first three paragraphs of Larry Summers' obituary.
It's amazing how often this comes up on Google.....
There is no doubt in my mind that this issue will be in—well, maybe not the first paragraph—but the first three paragraphs of Larry Summers' obituary.
It's amazing how often this comes up on Google.....
Baseball in Autumn
I'm on my way to Cooperstown today, for a few days of research at the Baseball Hall of Fame. But I'll be bringing my new MacBook, so the blog should continue relatively unabated. And so much to say about the Yankees, too. Should Joe Torre be fired? Lou Piniella hired? A-Rod traded? How can a team with so much talent lose year after year in the playoffs?
I have some thoughts, but would love to hear yours. Meantime, I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend. Ain't fall grand?
I have some thoughts, but would love to hear yours. Meantime, I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend. Ain't fall grand?
Friday, October 06, 2024
Down With the SAT
InsideHigherEd.com reports on a growing movement by colleges to eliminate the SAT as a requirement for application, with positive results.
Dan Golden must be freaking out.
Now, that would be something Harvard ought to consider... Of all the elements that make up a college's application process, the SAT has always struck me as the least revealing and the most potentially misleading.
Dan Golden must be freaking out.
Now, that would be something Harvard ought to consider... Of all the elements that make up a college's application process, the SAT has always struck me as the least revealing and the most potentially misleading.
Meanwhile, in Baseball
The Yankees lost to the Tigers yesterday, 4-3, and there's just one conclusion to be drawn from the game: A-Rod sucks.*
The Yankee third baseman went 0-4, striking out three times, and stranded three runners. Sadly, that pathetic performance is typical of A-Rod in pressure situations. It defines his season this year; even though he has terrific stats, they always seem to come when the Yanks are winning comfortably.
The problem is even worse in the playoffs. A-Rod is 4 for his last 35 playoff at-bats, without a single RBI, for a batting average of .114.
Argh.
Of the Yankees' nine regulars, A-Rod is the one fans least want to see stride to the plate with the game on the line. I've followed the Yankees for 30 years, and sometimes you see this in New York: a great player who just can't cut it under the pressure of playing for the Yankees.
It's time to trade A-Rod....
Alex Rodriguez: A picture of futility.
*Opinion subject to change if he suddenly comes through in the clutch. But—trust me—he won't.
The Yankee third baseman went 0-4, striking out three times, and stranded three runners. Sadly, that pathetic performance is typical of A-Rod in pressure situations. It defines his season this year; even though he has terrific stats, they always seem to come when the Yanks are winning comfortably.
The problem is even worse in the playoffs. A-Rod is 4 for his last 35 playoff at-bats, without a single RBI, for a batting average of .114.
Argh.
Of the Yankees' nine regulars, A-Rod is the one fans least want to see stride to the plate with the game on the line. I've followed the Yankees for 30 years, and sometimes you see this in New York: a great player who just can't cut it under the pressure of playing for the Yankees.
It's time to trade A-Rod....
Alex Rodriguez: A picture of futility.
*Opinion subject to change if he suddenly comes through in the clutch. But—trust me—he won't.
Rah-Rah Review
The Crimson really likes the curricular review, calling it "bold, visionary, and innovative." Meanwhile, another Crimson editorial considers whether the next president really needs to have a Harvard degree, and pretty much says yes.
Beating Up on the Harvard Club
The New York Post reports that the Harvard Club of New York is being sued by a man who claims he was beaten up there by drunk patrons. Lawrence Doherty claims that he has suffered permanent injuries as a result.
A spokesman for the club calls the suit "kind of absurd," which is a very Harvard Club thing to say. But in fact, it does sound kind of absurd.....
Meanwhile, you have to chuckle a little at the photo the Post got; did a photographer sneak in just long enough to snap this shot?
A spokesman for the club calls the suit "kind of absurd," which is a very Harvard Club thing to say. But in fact, it does sound kind of absurd.....
Meanwhile, you have to chuckle a little at the photo the Post got; did a photographer sneak in just long enough to snap this shot?
Thursday, October 05, 2024
At Harvard, A New Curriculum Advances
Derek Bok wasn't kidding when he said that he had no intention of being a placeholder for a year; yesterday, Harvard's Fask Force on General Education unveiled a proposal for a revised curriculum that already seems to have impressed Harvard faculty, as well as some outsiders—though many have yet to have read it.
In two articles, the Crimson emphasizes that the most distinctive element of the new plan is its requirement that all Harvard students study religion and U.S. history. The requirement regarding the study of religion, a Crimson news analysis argues, is "the most vulnerable" element of the plan. In the Wall Street Journal, Zach Seward also seems to think that the "Reason and Faith" requirement is the new plan's most distinctive element.
Beyond that, the clear emphasis of the new proposal, from what I can tell, seems to be to link what students study to the world of today.
To quote the Crimson: Under the new recommendations, students would be required to complete one half-course in each of seven areas—“Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change,” “The Ethical Life,” “The United States,” “Societies of the World,” “Reason and Faith,” “Life Sciences,” and “Physical Sciences.”
...These fields conform to the four goals of general education set out by the report: teaching global citizenship, the ability to adapt to change, and an understanding of the ethical dimensions of life, as well as making students aware that they are both products and participants of cultural traditions.
Interestingly, the new required courses are explicitly intended to be survey courses, rather than in-depth looks at a particular event or phenomenon or work of art. (Somehow I think that one of the courses I used to teach in, on the social history of tuberculosis, would no longer satisfy a core requirement. And that's probably as it should be.)
The Crimson also points out that the new plan is an implicit concession to the fact that the vast majority of students have no intention of entering academia, and therefore care less about "modes of inquiry," a central emphasis of the current Core curriculum. Instead, this new plan wants to teach students a body of knowledge that they can use in the outside world.
A few thoughts.
Boy, does this plan represent the spirit of the age. The Core reflected the '60s and '70s sense that, with academia opening up so much to new inquiry and new disciplines, and the old disciplines under attack, it was virtually impossible to define a body of knowledge to be transmitted that could achieve any kind of viable consensus—and that just the attempt to do so would be divisive and counter-productive.
But students today don't want to sit around and think deep thoughts; they want knowledge to be a practical tool, a roadmap for life (and jobs in consulting) beyond Harvard.
The ethical reasoning requirement, if I recall correctly, would not have been part of a new curriculum under Larry Summers. It is, however, important to Derek Bok, who pushed for its inclusion in the Core thirty years ago. Nice to see its return.
This plan is also a huge victory for Harry Lewis, who has pushed for a coherent vision of general education for years now. His book is footnoted in the new proposal. Even preceding that, back in 2002, he gave a Morning Prayers talk on Harvard in a post-9/11 world in which he asked, "How will the Harvard faculty balance the reality that the U.S. is one nation among many in an ever smaller and more inerconnected world, with a recognition that the particular 'free society' in which Harvard exists is founded on ideals which Americans continue to be proud to defend and preserve?"
The new proposal seems practically intended to answer that question.
I haven't read the report, but I have one concern: To me, elements of it seem almost too practical. The "Cultural Traditions" requirement, for example, would mandate that "students would study how art throughout history impacts society today." (I will admit that I'm automatically skeptical of something that uses "impact" as a verb.) Meanwhile, "Reason and Faith" doesn't just study religion, it "explores the interaction between religious and secular institutions." (I'm quoting the Crimson here.)
In other words, we need to study religion not because it's important in its own right, but because it affects the world we secular Harvardians live in.
As Alison Simmons, committee co-chair, tells AP education reporter Justin Pope, "As academics in a university we don't have to confront religion if we're not religious, but in the world, they will have to."
Confront?
I'm generally supportive of the idea that the study of any field should be connected to the present, because it's obviously true: everything that happened in the past has helped shape the present. But I can imagine this emphasis on the urgent becoming tortured and a bit silly....
Still, this is to be discussed. The big picture here is more important. This task force began meeting in June 2006 with essentially a clean slate. Four months later, it has produced a report that is worthy of serious consideration, something that didn't happen under five years of Larry Summers.
Meantime, I haven't seen a single mention of Derek Bok's name in any of the writing about the report...and yet, there's no question that he and interim FAS dean Jeremy Knowles can take credit here. Was there ever an article about the previous reviews which did not mention Summers?
(One wonders what Summers' supporters such as Marty Peretz, who would probably approve of this plan, will have to say about it, and whether they will acknowledge that Bok shepherded it into life?)
I could say something snarky here, but I won't; instead, I'd suggest only that this contrast would be an interesting thing for someone at the Kennedy School to study. How could one leader accomplish in four months what another could not in five years?
In two articles, the Crimson emphasizes that the most distinctive element of the new plan is its requirement that all Harvard students study religion and U.S. history. The requirement regarding the study of religion, a Crimson news analysis argues, is "the most vulnerable" element of the plan. In the Wall Street Journal, Zach Seward also seems to think that the "Reason and Faith" requirement is the new plan's most distinctive element.
Beyond that, the clear emphasis of the new proposal, from what I can tell, seems to be to link what students study to the world of today.
To quote the Crimson: Under the new recommendations, students would be required to complete one half-course in each of seven areas—“Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change,” “The Ethical Life,” “The United States,” “Societies of the World,” “Reason and Faith,” “Life Sciences,” and “Physical Sciences.”
...These fields conform to the four goals of general education set out by the report: teaching global citizenship, the ability to adapt to change, and an understanding of the ethical dimensions of life, as well as making students aware that they are both products and participants of cultural traditions.
Interestingly, the new required courses are explicitly intended to be survey courses, rather than in-depth looks at a particular event or phenomenon or work of art. (Somehow I think that one of the courses I used to teach in, on the social history of tuberculosis, would no longer satisfy a core requirement. And that's probably as it should be.)
The Crimson also points out that the new plan is an implicit concession to the fact that the vast majority of students have no intention of entering academia, and therefore care less about "modes of inquiry," a central emphasis of the current Core curriculum. Instead, this new plan wants to teach students a body of knowledge that they can use in the outside world.
A few thoughts.
Boy, does this plan represent the spirit of the age. The Core reflected the '60s and '70s sense that, with academia opening up so much to new inquiry and new disciplines, and the old disciplines under attack, it was virtually impossible to define a body of knowledge to be transmitted that could achieve any kind of viable consensus—and that just the attempt to do so would be divisive and counter-productive.
But students today don't want to sit around and think deep thoughts; they want knowledge to be a practical tool, a roadmap for life (and jobs in consulting) beyond Harvard.
The ethical reasoning requirement, if I recall correctly, would not have been part of a new curriculum under Larry Summers. It is, however, important to Derek Bok, who pushed for its inclusion in the Core thirty years ago. Nice to see its return.
This plan is also a huge victory for Harry Lewis, who has pushed for a coherent vision of general education for years now. His book is footnoted in the new proposal. Even preceding that, back in 2002, he gave a Morning Prayers talk on Harvard in a post-9/11 world in which he asked, "How will the Harvard faculty balance the reality that the U.S. is one nation among many in an ever smaller and more inerconnected world, with a recognition that the particular 'free society' in which Harvard exists is founded on ideals which Americans continue to be proud to defend and preserve?"
The new proposal seems practically intended to answer that question.
I haven't read the report, but I have one concern: To me, elements of it seem almost too practical. The "Cultural Traditions" requirement, for example, would mandate that "students would study how art throughout history impacts society today." (I will admit that I'm automatically skeptical of something that uses "impact" as a verb.) Meanwhile, "Reason and Faith" doesn't just study religion, it "explores the interaction between religious and secular institutions." (I'm quoting the Crimson here.)
In other words, we need to study religion not because it's important in its own right, but because it affects the world we secular Harvardians live in.
As Alison Simmons, committee co-chair, tells AP education reporter Justin Pope, "As academics in a university we don't have to confront religion if we're not religious, but in the world, they will have to."
Confront?
I'm generally supportive of the idea that the study of any field should be connected to the present, because it's obviously true: everything that happened in the past has helped shape the present. But I can imagine this emphasis on the urgent becoming tortured and a bit silly....
Still, this is to be discussed. The big picture here is more important. This task force began meeting in June 2006 with essentially a clean slate. Four months later, it has produced a report that is worthy of serious consideration, something that didn't happen under five years of Larry Summers.
Meantime, I haven't seen a single mention of Derek Bok's name in any of the writing about the report...and yet, there's no question that he and interim FAS dean Jeremy Knowles can take credit here. Was there ever an article about the previous reviews which did not mention Summers?
(One wonders what Summers' supporters such as Marty Peretz, who would probably approve of this plan, will have to say about it, and whether they will acknowledge that Bok shepherded it into life?)
I could say something snarky here, but I won't; instead, I'd suggest only that this contrast would be an interesting thing for someone at the Kennedy School to study. How could one leader accomplish in four months what another could not in five years?
Tuesday, October 03, 2024
A Harvard Man Just Wants to Go Home
Here's one Harvard man who doesn't want to become Treasury secretary, win a MacArthur, or sell a TV pilot.
The poor guy just wants to get married and be taken care of.
"Top-notch trophy husband available," he says in this personal ad. " Interested in a big wedding and raising a family (2-4 kids) while you work and support the family..."
Doesn't sound so bad, actually.....
The poor guy just wants to get married and be taken care of.
"Top-notch trophy husband available," he says in this personal ad. " Interested in a big wedding and raising a family (2-4 kids) while you work and support the family..."
Doesn't sound so bad, actually.....
Lawrence Summers in a Book
The literary journal McSweeney's is publishing a book of lists.
Included among them: "The Collected Apologies of Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard."
Included among them: "The Collected Apologies of Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard."
Monday, October 02, 2024
In Which I Am Ripped Off
Longtime readers will remember that I used to write a little parody of Randy Cohen's dreadful New York Times column, The Ethicist. I called it The Re-Ethicist, and I began writing it in June 2005. Eventually, I gave it up because I found better things to do with my Sunday mornings.
Well, Gawker is ripping me off!
They've just started the exact same parody...only they're calling it "The Unethicist."
Oh, what the hell. They can have it. The point is, Randy Cohen's column is lame.
Well, Gawker is ripping me off!
They've just started the exact same parody...only they're calling it "The Unethicist."
Oh, what the hell. They can have it. The point is, Randy Cohen's column is lame.
Music, Music Everywhere
It was quite the musical weekend for me here in the Big Apple. Walking down Madison Avenue on Saturday, I almost bumped into Larry Mullen, Jr., the drummer from U2, which is a pretty cool celebrity sighting.
Then last night, I went to see Sufjan Stevens at Town Hall, the wonderful old lecture hall. (I love their old photos of Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Bob Dylan, Hubert Humphrey, Eleanor Roosevelt and the like. What a bunch of pinkos! And I mean that in a good way.)
Stevens, in case you don't know, is a young singer-songwriter who has embarked on a project of making theme records devoted to all 50 states. So far, the 31-year-old has done two, "Greetings from Michigan—The Great Lake State," and "Come On Feel the Illinoize," which is a little rock pun for those of you who will remember your Quiet Riot. They are eccentric, thoughtful, spiritual, ambitious, complicated, challenging, and beautiful; they are brilliant. His music is impossible to classify. Sometimes he sounds like Gershwin or Aaron Copland, other times like an African-American church choir, sometimes like Pete Seeger, sometimes Nirvana—his music is a tapestry of American history, both sonically and lyrically. And his history ain't so bad, either.
Stevens is also a devout Christian, which is one reason he's working on a five-CD set of Christmas songs, some classic, some original. He played a new one last night, "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever," whose title belies its beauty. Meanwhile, fans tossed around inflatable Santa Clauses. A truly weird moment.
Onstage last night, Stevens made it all gell. He was surrounded by as many as 14 others on stage—violinists, a cellist, a horn section, drummer, guitarist, bass player, etc. He played guitar, banjo and piano. Everyone wore wings—to symbolize, Stevens said, "flight and transcendence," which were indeed themes of several songs played. One song used Superman as an allegory; another revolved around a mysterious winged beast Stevens claimed he and a friend had seen one night when they were kids; another involved a heavenly vision in which, after a fire caused by a bolt of lightning burned down his childhood house, Stevens looked to the sky and saw seven swans, with seven horns, "playing a John Philip Sousa march." They played for hours, Stevens said, and it was so beautiful that he and his family could do nothing but stand and watch and listen.
His music was kind of like that. There were times I felt like I was hearing the overture to a musical; other times, a symphony. (I wonder what David Byrne of Talking Heads, who was in the crowd, thought.) I've never heard anything quite like it. My favorite was "Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!"
Can someone please nominate this guy for a MacArthur Award? He really is a genius.
Sufjan Stevens: If you look closely, you can see the wings.
Then last night, I went to see Sufjan Stevens at Town Hall, the wonderful old lecture hall. (I love their old photos of Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Bob Dylan, Hubert Humphrey, Eleanor Roosevelt and the like. What a bunch of pinkos! And I mean that in a good way.)
Stevens, in case you don't know, is a young singer-songwriter who has embarked on a project of making theme records devoted to all 50 states. So far, the 31-year-old has done two, "Greetings from Michigan—The Great Lake State," and "Come On Feel the Illinoize," which is a little rock pun for those of you who will remember your Quiet Riot. They are eccentric, thoughtful, spiritual, ambitious, complicated, challenging, and beautiful; they are brilliant. His music is impossible to classify. Sometimes he sounds like Gershwin or Aaron Copland, other times like an African-American church choir, sometimes like Pete Seeger, sometimes Nirvana—his music is a tapestry of American history, both sonically and lyrically. And his history ain't so bad, either.
Stevens is also a devout Christian, which is one reason he's working on a five-CD set of Christmas songs, some classic, some original. He played a new one last night, "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever," whose title belies its beauty. Meanwhile, fans tossed around inflatable Santa Clauses. A truly weird moment.
Onstage last night, Stevens made it all gell. He was surrounded by as many as 14 others on stage—violinists, a cellist, a horn section, drummer, guitarist, bass player, etc. He played guitar, banjo and piano. Everyone wore wings—to symbolize, Stevens said, "flight and transcendence," which were indeed themes of several songs played. One song used Superman as an allegory; another revolved around a mysterious winged beast Stevens claimed he and a friend had seen one night when they were kids; another involved a heavenly vision in which, after a fire caused by a bolt of lightning burned down his childhood house, Stevens looked to the sky and saw seven swans, with seven horns, "playing a John Philip Sousa march." They played for hours, Stevens said, and it was so beautiful that he and his family could do nothing but stand and watch and listen.
His music was kind of like that. There were times I felt like I was hearing the overture to a musical; other times, a symphony. (I wonder what David Byrne of Talking Heads, who was in the crowd, thought.) I've never heard anything quite like it. My favorite was "Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!"
Can someone please nominate this guy for a MacArthur Award? He really is a genius.
Sufjan Stevens: If you look closely, you can see the wings.
Meanwhile, in New Haven
Yale announced the end of the "quiet phase" of its fundraising campaign, which aspires to raise $3 billion for the university. Thus far, Yale has raised $1.3 billion of that sum; it has five years to make up the rest. Sounds to me like they've understated their target so they can surprise with their results...
(Oh, and look—there's Sam Waterston again, speaking at Yale not long after speaking at Groton...)
Meanwhile, here's a statement from the Yale Daily News that you'll never see at Harvard:
During the meeting [of the Yale Corporation], the University's highest decision-making body approved a much-debated amendment to Yale's official nondiscrimination policy, deliberated on the question of early admissions, and discussed the state of several ongoing and future campus construction projects.
Why won't you see it at Harvard? Because Harvard's Corporation is unhealthily obsessed with secrecy—not as a means of promoting better policy-making, but as a way of covering its own ass and avoiding accountability.
As a result, the Harvard Corporation refuses to issue statements about its deliberations, even ones that are as innocuous as the one above.
By the way, the change in nondiscrimination policy? It's adding the phrase "gender identity or expression" to the list of groups (women, gays, minorities, veterans etc.) that Yale won't discriminate against. I'm assuming this means cross-dressers and transgendered people—the move was promoted by a Yale group called the Queer Political Action Committee—but honestly, I'm not really sure.
(Oh, and look—there's Sam Waterston again, speaking at Yale not long after speaking at Groton...)
Meanwhile, here's a statement from the Yale Daily News that you'll never see at Harvard:
During the meeting [of the Yale Corporation], the University's highest decision-making body approved a much-debated amendment to Yale's official nondiscrimination policy, deliberated on the question of early admissions, and discussed the state of several ongoing and future campus construction projects.
Why won't you see it at Harvard? Because Harvard's Corporation is unhealthily obsessed with secrecy—not as a means of promoting better policy-making, but as a way of covering its own ass and avoiding accountability.
As a result, the Harvard Corporation refuses to issue statements about its deliberations, even ones that are as innocuous as the one above.
By the way, the change in nondiscrimination policy? It's adding the phrase "gender identity or expression" to the list of groups (women, gays, minorities, veterans etc.) that Yale won't discriminate against. I'm assuming this means cross-dressers and transgendered people—the move was promoted by a Yale group called the Queer Political Action Committee—but honestly, I'm not really sure.
Are Men Smarter? The Debate Continues
In the Globe, libertarian Cathy Young looks askance at the NAS report on women in science. Her arguments sound very much like those of Larry Summers....
However you feel about this debate, there is no question that Summers' involvement in it has elevated the level of attention paid to the issue. I still think Summers was wrong, both on the substance of the question and in the way in which he presented his argument. But no question, his Jimmy the Greek moment has been a boon to discussion about gender disparities in science.
However you feel about this debate, there is no question that Summers' involvement in it has elevated the level of attention paid to the issue. I still think Summers was wrong, both on the substance of the question and in the way in which he presented his argument. But no question, his Jimmy the Greek moment has been a boon to discussion about gender disparities in science.
Hooked by His Own Petard
Here's what I'd like to do to the British artist Damien Hirst. I'd like to lure him into a room with a scrumptious meal. Then, the second he takes a bite, I'd like to yank him into the ocean with the big hook now embedded in his mouth and drown him. Then I'd like to inject him full of gallons of formaldehyde. And then I'd like to throw his body into a tank, give the whole thing a pretentious name, and sell him to some philistine hedge fund billionaire, at which point I would call his slaughter "art."
And then I'd like to do it to him again.
Don't worry—I'm not really homicidal. But I am somewhat provoked by this New York Times piece on Hirst and his attempt to recreate his piece of "art," titled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living." Which is a profit-making way of saying that Hirst paid a fisherman to kill a tiger shark and then put it in a big tank and sold it for millions of dollars.
As some of you may remember, I vented frustration months ago when a Florida fisherman caught and killed a record-length hammerhead, just for the thrill of it. I see no difference between that pointless act and Damien Hirst killing a tiger shark and calling it art. Even worse, Hirst's original shark decomposed, as corpses will do. So, as detailed in the Times, Hirst paid a fisherman to go out and kill him a second shark.
Tiger sharks are astonishingly beautiful animals. I wouldn't want to swim with one—along with white sharks and bull sharks, they are dangerous—but I'm glad they're around. Like all sharks, they're an important part of the ocean's ecosystem, and they enrich our lives by adding to the diversity of the planet. Trouble is, they're just barely around. Like all of the ocean's big fish, tiger sharks have been decimated by massive overfishing and the slaughter of sharks for their fins, so Asians can eat a status symbol that they stupidly believe is an aphrodisiac.
The Times piece doesn't mention any of this, of course. The write-up by Carol Vogel is in the "Arts & Leisure" section, which is, in my opinion, a curious, though perhaps inadvertently telling place for an article on the pointless slaughter of a remarkable animal.
Here's what a tiger shark looks like underwater, alive.
And here's what Damien Hirst did to the second of the two tiger sharks he had killed.
I prefer the former, and I fail to see how what Mr. Hirst has done improves upon the natural beauty of a living animal. He hasn't created art, but obscenity. And he's taking his porn all the way to the bank.
And then I'd like to do it to him again.
Don't worry—I'm not really homicidal. But I am somewhat provoked by this New York Times piece on Hirst and his attempt to recreate his piece of "art," titled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living." Which is a profit-making way of saying that Hirst paid a fisherman to kill a tiger shark and then put it in a big tank and sold it for millions of dollars.
As some of you may remember, I vented frustration months ago when a Florida fisherman caught and killed a record-length hammerhead, just for the thrill of it. I see no difference between that pointless act and Damien Hirst killing a tiger shark and calling it art. Even worse, Hirst's original shark decomposed, as corpses will do. So, as detailed in the Times, Hirst paid a fisherman to go out and kill him a second shark.
Tiger sharks are astonishingly beautiful animals. I wouldn't want to swim with one—along with white sharks and bull sharks, they are dangerous—but I'm glad they're around. Like all sharks, they're an important part of the ocean's ecosystem, and they enrich our lives by adding to the diversity of the planet. Trouble is, they're just barely around. Like all of the ocean's big fish, tiger sharks have been decimated by massive overfishing and the slaughter of sharks for their fins, so Asians can eat a status symbol that they stupidly believe is an aphrodisiac.
The Times piece doesn't mention any of this, of course. The write-up by Carol Vogel is in the "Arts & Leisure" section, which is, in my opinion, a curious, though perhaps inadvertently telling place for an article on the pointless slaughter of a remarkable animal.
Here's what a tiger shark looks like underwater, alive.
And here's what Damien Hirst did to the second of the two tiger sharks he had killed.
I prefer the former, and I fail to see how what Mr. Hirst has done improves upon the natural beauty of a living animal. He hasn't created art, but obscenity. And he's taking his porn all the way to the bank.
