Shots in the Dark

Remember that terrible story about how someone in New Orleans shot at a helicopter trying to airlift sick people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? And the seven-year-old girl who was raped and killed in the Superdome? The stories of rampant lawlessness and rape, of gangs of thugs running amok at the very same Superdome?

Never happened, according to this excellent article in Reason magazine. None of it. Instead, there were rampant rumormongering, lousy journalism, and irresponsible public officials, like when Mayor Ray Nagin predicted that there’d be 10,000 New Orleans citizens dead from the hurricane. (The actual toll—still awful, of course—was about 900 at the time Reason went to press.)

The article doesn’t mention a pet peeve of mine, which I’ll bet my left pinkie could fall into this category of hysteria and hype: the reports of thousands of missing children which prompted CNN, in full milk-the-hurricane-for-every-rating-point-we-can mode, to run photos of “missing” children like an on-screen slide show.

Judging from your posts, some of you think that I’m being unfair to Larry Summers and Lisa New for suggesting that the establishment of a wedding registry opens the door to, in my word, “ass-kissing,” and that President Summers would do better to ask people who wish to celebrate his marriage to contribute money to Harvard.

I will concede that I’m a stickler for ethics, and that given the possibility of impropriety, it’s best to be cautious. It’s hard to say where this came from exactly—many sources, I’m sure—but I do remember one incident that affected me deeply.

After my sophomore year in college, I volunteered for a congressman in Washington, New Haven Democrat Bruce Morrison. I did the usual routine stuff—answered letters, wrote a bill to try to get New Haven on a postage stamp (it didn’t pass), that kind of thing.

Like all congressional offices, ours would receive bundles of gifts from lobbyists and trade associations who wished to curry favor with the congressman and his staff. (The one I remember particularly well was a case of beer from Anheiser-Busch.) Every other office that I knew of was more than happy to take these gifts. The congressmen, who tended to underpay their staffs, knew that these little gifts could boost office morale, and didn’t like to think that the staffs could be influenced by them—though of course they could be, and were.

But Morrison had run as a reformer, and he was serious about that; he made us return every single gift that came to the office. On one level, I was none too happy about that policy; I wasn’t getting paid a dime to work there, and as a result, I rose at 5:00 AM on weekend mornings to work as a phone operator at the Washington Post. (Taking calls from angry subscribers who didn’t receive their papers, or their comics sections—but that’s another story.)

On another level, though, I admired Morrison for his position. I could see that these gifts did have an impact on the other congressional offices; you’d be surprised how little it takes to bribe someone, to create a feeling of indebtedness. (“Oh, come on, we should meet with these guys, they sent us that great case of beer….”) If it didn’t work, the lobbyists wouldn’t have done it.

To some, Morrison’s policy might have seemed priggish. But on balance, I think he was right. The gifts were designed to influence, and at least some of the time, they did. Better not to take the chance.

Now, of course, there are significant differences between gifts to a congressional office and gifts to newlyweds. But my point is twofold. First, that’s one example of why I think about such things. And second, every act of giving becomes more loaded when you are giving to someone in power, someone who can do things for you. If you don’t believe that, then you are living an unexamined life.

Ultimately, it’s really the responsibility of the person in power to think about the issues involved…and the responsibility of the rest of us to discuss them. I’ve never resented it when people have discussed various ethical conundrums I’ve gotten into, partly because I always thought I was right, partly because the discussions had the potential to be interesting.

Perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps I’m over-reacting. But how could the discussion be a bad thing?

I generally disagree with Andrew Sullivan’s diatribes against “the left,” mostly because I think the left is so marginal and irrelevant that it’s hardly worth getting upset about. But I do enjoy his year-end “Moore Awards,” named after Michael Moore.

(Did Jane Smiley really say that? What a dolt.)

Check ’em out…..but remember that if one were to compile a similar list making fun of right-wing excesses in 2005, it would be equally entertaining, and considerably longer. And the scary part is, when the left-wing rants, everyone gives ’em a good kick until they’re silent. When the right-wing rants, Karl Rove picks up the phone…..

P.S. Oh, wait—Andrew does compile some right-wing rants. Quite funny. (Just keep scrolling….)

The Times has this interesting story on anthropologist David Graeber, an associate professor who did not receive tenure at Yale and blames that fact on his left-wing politicking. It’s one of those stories where it’s impossible to know whom to believe: the folks at Yale, who say that Graeber frequently showed up late to class; Graeber, who says older professors didn’t appreciate his support for a grad student union (a truly dumb idea, in my opinion, but never mind); or the former Yale prof who says it’s all the result of a system by which young professors at Yale get screwed. I imagine it’s a bit of everything.

There is one little detail that makes me wonder about Graeber. Early in the article, he holds up a rubber bullet that he says was fired at him by Canadian police during an anti-globalization protest. The bullet, according to Graeber, grazed his head.

Given the difficulty of recovering a bullet that has grazed but not hit one in the head, I wonder if Graeber isn’t taking a little artistic license here….

On the other hand, Graeber does give this quote, which, based on my own experience in graduate school and reporting Harvard Rules, seems exactly right:

“So many academics lead such frightened lives,” he said. “The whole system sometimes seems designed to encourage paranoia and timidity. I wasn’t willing to live like that.”

I haven’t written about Radar, the new magazine more read about than read, because its founding editor, Maer Roshan, is an acquaintance, and I didn’t think the magazine was very good. But I also believe that new magazines take some time—and deserve some time—to find their voice. You really can’t judge a magazine on three issues, particularly one that was operating under a short financial leash and with a constantly uncertain future.

Now Radar is, well, under the radar: financier Mort Zuckerman pulled the plug on a promised $12 million investment after just three issues. The magazine’s abrupt end has prompted some unfortunate sniping, with the magazine’s young staffers making unfortunate jokes about Zuckerman (“What’s small and pulls out in a hurry?”) and Zuckerman behaving more professionally, pointing out that the magazine was losing money hand over fist. An angry Roshan has publicly taken exception to Zuckerman’s version of events, which strikes me as a mistake, because when something like this happens, you should always be thinking about your next employer, not your last one. To his credit, though, Maer was passionate about his magazine, and I’m sure this has been tough on him—you can’t blame the guy for being upset.

I think there were a couple of forces in play here that haven’t really been talked about.

The first is that Radar was the wrong magazine for the time we’re living in. Its obsession with celebrity—not in an US magazine-like way, but filtered celebrity—felt very ’90s to me, very Talk. The covers were horrible: Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, and…well, I don’t think I even saw the third issue. It all felt vaguely warmed-over and unserious, falling into a gray area between escapist rubbish and a serious magazine. And, I think, Maer made the mistake of believing that what plays well with inside-the-media media—Page Six, Gawker—mattered to anyone outside of a couple of Manhattan zip codes.

Second, the mainstream media right now is controlled by Baby Boomers, and they have been extremely reluctant to hand over the reins to the younger generation. (Is it X? Y? I can’t remember.) That is, for example, the unwritten theme of Timothy O’Brien’s interesting profile of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. By contrast, it’s very hard to think of a national magazine edited by someone under 45. The New Republic, I suppose, and maybe Men’s Health. (If that counts.) Instead, the younger people are making their inroads at new magazines or on the web—one reason why Radar’s website was the only part of the magazine that seemed to be having any impact.

Radar represented a media youth movement of sorts, but I’m not sure that Maer was the best ambassador of his generation. I suspect the rap against him—that he focuses more on public relations than on editing—is probably right, and the business side of things never seemed to interest him much. Perhaps because Maer’s search for funding was so well-publicized, there was about Radar always an air of children playing with their parents’ money. Maybe ten years ago, that would have worked; people were throwing money around more carelessly then. But now, there just seemed something pathetic about it.

On the one hand, I’ll miss Radar, because I believe in magazines and want there to be more of them. On the other hand, I wish there could be more magazines that make our culture more serious, and Radar was not one of them. Maybe, had it been given time, it would have been.

Want to curry favor with the president of Harvard and his wife? Well, here’s one way to do it: Send them a gift from their Williams-Sonoma registry. (Follow the link and type in Elisa New.)

By my count, there are 35 different items that the new couple would like—and some more than one of—ranging from a $12 set of marisol napkins to a “Provence platter” for $199. There’s also a wafflemaker ($59.95) and an ice cream maker ($149.95). Also, quite a lot of wine glasses.
Apparently the Summers-New household plans to do a lot of entertaining: Note that they’re asking for three sets of 16-piece dinnerware, at $169 a set.

I am not enough of an etiquette expert to pass judgment on whether one is supposed to do this sort of thing for a second wedding (for both), or when the combined income of the new household is in the range of $750,000 a year, not to mention the free housing and the use of a car and driver. (It’s almost enough to make one wonder if the new couple is expecting to be looking for new housing in the near future.)

But I do know that this kind of thing can lead to gifts being given for the wrong reasons. In Washington, they’d call it influence-buying, but in Cambridge, they can just call it ass-kissing.

Here’s a suggestion for President Summers: Get rid of the wedding registration—surely you can afford your own ice cream maker—and announce that anyone who would like to celebrate your marriage with a gift could do so with a contribution to Harvard’s financial aid fund. Wouldn’t a gesture of pro-Harvard generosity create some much-needed goodwill?

On the positive side, Lisa New has good taste in homewares….