Shots in the Dark

Some of those readers who didn’t like Harvard Rules, or thought that it was too tough on President Larry Summers, faulted my emphasis on his social graces, or lack thereof. They missed my point. My opinion about Summers’ manners wasn’t the issue; Harvard’s opinion was, and Summers’ boorish manners had repeatedly handicapped his ability to lead the university. That’s why I wrote about them at length.

In today’s Globe, Marcella Bombardieri reports on a classic example: At this weekend’s reunion of Harvard’s African-American alumni, Summers repeatedly mispronounced the name of law school alumn and U.S. senator Barack Obama (Bare-Ack instead of Buh-rock).

As I wrote in the book, that fact that Summers’ mispronunciations occur primarily with ethnic-sounding names doesn’t help him when he’s trying to reach out to minority constituencies.

Obviously, enough people remarked on this for it to make the Boston Globe, and for Obama himself to make a joke about it at another speech when Summers wasn’t present…..

The heart sinks when reading the headline from today’s New York Times: “ 3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine. The soldiers told a human rights group that prisoners had been beaten and abused to help gather intelligence and for amusement.”

For amusement.

Americans aren’t supposed to commit such heinous acts; we’re supposed to be better than that. It’s the terrorists who torture for amusement. Right?

I can’t help but think that this kind of moral corruption stems from the fundamental dishonesty of this war; that it was predicated on a premise its most informed proponents knew to be very probably untrue, the existence of weapons of mass destruction. A war predicated on lies is immoral, and that immorality seeps down to every level. How can soldiers act honorably when they’re acting at the orders of a dishonest president? (It’s to their great credit that most of them, probably the vast majority, do.)

I suspect that history is going to be very tough on this war, and that it will be seen as the time when, even more than Vietnam, America really lost all its illusions about its own place in history, its self-proclaimed moral standing. I am having a hard time being proud of my country these days, and the reality of that fills me with a sadness greater than I can describe. One gets the feeling that more and more of the country would like a new leader who fills us with an honest pride, not a chest-beating, macho, “mission accomplished” false pride. That’s a start. But what happens for the next three years?

Is it a sign of President Bush’s sagging political fortunes that people are starting to make fun of his appalling speech habits again?

Take a look at this short film, a little bit of political genius…..You’ll laugh. But you’ll cry more. Oh, trust me. You’ll cry.

The Boston Globe columnist who wrote that the Red Sox would win like Secretariat going away at the Belmont in 1973 has recanted.

Too late, Dan Shaughnessy!

The Curse, it would appear, is back.

Whatever happens, it’s nice to see some gnashing and wailing in Red Sox nation. Those… those…people have gotten far too cocky for a team that won one (which is to say, one fewer than the Florida Marlins) World Series in the past 87 years.

What is it about the media that it can’t help but ask the profoundly unimportant question—over and over again—who is the real “media star” of Hurricane Katrina?

Over at DailyKos, there’s a heated debate going on about a new study downplaying genetic differences between boys and girls and its applicability to the socio-scientific theorizing of Larry Summers. Check it out.

Very quietly now, so as not to disturb the baseball gods while elevating yourself into a higher state…..

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…in today’s Times story about Texans fleeing Houston?

Well, two things, really.

One, every single visible car in the photo is an SUV…which would help explain why lots of people are running out of gas.

And two, is there such a thing as public transportation in Texas?

I don’t mean to sound like Campbell Scott in Singles, but maybe it’s time to start thinking of public transportation not just as an energy-saving measure, but as a public security issue. (Come to think of it, these days, that’s the same thing.)

Could there be a less efficient way to evacuate people from a city than by having everyone pile into their SUV and head onto the highway? Didn’t any of these people see War of the Worlds?

Since it’s the beginning of fall and school’s back in session, I feel compelled to report on my summer reading; it’s one of those back-to-school rituals that never seem to leave the bloodstream. (If only I could take to the soccer field at 3 PM, five days a week, like I used to….)

One of the most fun and clever reads I enjoyed this summer is a book called Man Camp. The author is Adrienne Brodeur, the founding editor of Zoetrope literary magazine and a friend. (That’s why I read it, but not why I’m plugging it.)

Man Camp revolves around this terrifically clever premise: two New York women get so fed up with the ineptness of the men in their lives that they start a camp where said inept men can go to learn manly skills, such as how to change a tire, fix a fence, milk a cow, and so on.

As a guy who enjoys doing all those things (all right, maybe not milking a cow) but never feels wholly confident that they’ll come out right, I connected to the underlying theme: an anxiety that we citydwellers have lost the ability to perform rudimentary survival skills. (I have a hunch that the TV show “Survivor” operates on the same anxiety.)

But Adrienne never hits you over the head with her message. Instead, she’s written a beach read (for all seasons!) with surprisingly deep and likeable characters, snappy dialogue, great comic situations, and happy endings. She has a particular gift, I think, for conveying human interactions that go wrong when one person hits an off-note, sends the wrong signal, and two people who were in sync fall out of rhythm.

Anyway, take a look at Man Camp. You’ll probably see it on the big screen in a couple of years, so now’s your chance to get in ahead of the curve.

I have to admit, this is entirely lifted from Andrew’s site…it’s just exactly the right point to make. Thanks, Andrew—we’re on the same side on this one.

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This is a picture of Father Mychal Judge, the pastor for New York City’s fire-fighters, an openly gay priest who died with those he served in the ashes of the World Trade Center. According to the new Pope, he should never have been ordained.>>