Shots in the Dark

The New York Sun is, so far as I can tell, first out of the box with its review of Harry Lewis’ Excellence Without A Soul, calling it a “scathing critique.”

But as is usually the case with book reviews, the reviewer faults Lewis for paying insufficient attention to the things that he (the reviewer) considers important. And rather oddly, he implies that Lewis flashes a hint of anti-Semitism, writing….

Mr. Lewis dwells a bit creepily on the news that a Harvard economics professor, Andrei Shleifer, “was reported to have broken the fast with Summers on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, three months after Shleifer had been found to have defrauded the government in his Harvard role.”

Despite these significant flaws…

Hmmm. Seems to me that Lewis’ point is that Summers and Shleifer were hobnobbing at a time when Summers was supposedly keeping his distance from Shleifer. But these days, the charge of anti-Semitism is being thrown around frequently (hello, Mr. Dershowitz) and irresponsibly (that would be you, Ed “Protocols of Zion” Glaeser). And anti-Semitism is something of an obsession for the Sun. I suspect all this will not help when there is genuine anti-Semitism to confront….

Incidentally, the reviewer, Ira Stoll, is a former Crimson editor. (Or, in the Crimson’s parlance, “a Crimson editor.”) Not that you’d know that from reading the review….. I wish that newspapers and magazines would do a better job of disclosing relevant information about their writers, especially when it comes to book reviewers. What’s the downside?

At New York’s New School, students are up in arms about the choice of John McCain as a commencement speaker. At Boston College, students and professors are unhappy about the decision to invite Condoleeza Rice to speak and the awarding of an honorary degree to her.

Meanwhile, Harvard has Jim Lehrer speaking at its commencement, and Yale has Anderson Cooper.

What’s wrong with this picture?

As misguided as some of these controversies are—how could you get upset about John McCain?—at least the students are doing what students ought to do: getting involved, making noise, discussing issues of the day. And the reason that’s happening is because their schools have invited topical, major public figures to come and talk.

Meanwhile, Harvard has Jim Lehrer speaking at its commencement, and Yale has Anderson Cooper.

Shouldn’t our country’s greatest universities be challenging their students a bit more on such an important day, at such an important time?

The Crimson reports that Harvard wants Boston to build a T-stop in Allston. That sounds like a fine idea. More public transportation, fewer cars.

Just one problem: the proposed name is “West Station.”

Could it be possible to think of a more generic and less helpful name for a subway stop? (No.) I know there’s obvious precedent for this—South Station, etc.—but in fact, those are singularly unhelpful names for T-stops. Wouldn’t it just be easier to give it a name that actually tells you where the darn thing is?

Like, maybe, “Allston”?

According to InsideHigherEd.com, Diane Blaine, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, is posing topless on her blog because her students “wanted more of me after class ended.”

Ms. Blaine is a professor of feminist studies who has spoken out against rape at USC, writing in an op-ed that she “hold[s] every single male on this campus responsible.” Her posing has apparently kicked up a campus controversy.

Writing about the reaction, Ms. Blaine says…

We can see the obvious puritanical dynamic that the United States has had since, well, the Puritans came over from England where their particular brand of fanatical Christianity proved too much even for the fanatical Protestants breaking away from the Catholic Church in the Reformation. The Puritans loathed the body and tried to exert strict controls on sexuality, particularly female-read The Scarlet Letter for all you’ll ever need to know about this. We continue to have their reactionary discomfort with the body, and so we too find it an object of obsessive fascination. Basically, by making nudity taboo, we’ve guaranteed its centrality. As Feminist Scholar Susan Griffin notes, the priest and the pornographer operate on the same value system-both mark human sexuality as disgusting, and then one says “turn your eyes away,” while the other says, “look here, look here!“

Don’t you like the way she capitalizes “Feminist Scholar”?

In truth, Blaine sounds like an interesting, intelligent woman, although perhaps a bit over the top.

One of her student critics, writing under the blog name Cardinal Martini, is actually sort of funny about all this…..

…because last night, my friend Lesley Dalton took me to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers play at Irving Plaza. You popular music fans out there will understand that this is a bit like seeing U2 play in your high school gym—it’s very rare to see a band that good and that popular play a place so small.

I imagine the show will be written up in the Times on Wednesday, but here are my thoughts. I am still recovering, so they may not be coherent.

1) These guys rock. Part of the power of their performance, as is the case with so many great bands, is knowing that they lived the life of rock stars—drugs, debauchery, etc.—and that they’re still alive is something of a miracle. One has the sense that they are playing on borrowed time, which does add depth to the performance. The band is clean now, and that’s a good thing. But they could tell some stories…and in their songs, they do.

2) Flea is out of control. That man scares me.

3) John Frusciante is really one of the great guitar players in rock. V. glad he didn’t die. Let’s hope he’s off heroin forever.

4) That lovely Ralph Lauren model was in the crowd…you know the one….

5) Thanks to the man behind me who offered to share his joint. I haven’t done that in a long time—a long, long time—but it was thoughtful of you to offer.

6) The new stuff from Stadium Arcadium? Really good. But you just can’t get any better than a rocking performance of “Give It Away.” (Hum it once—you won’t be able to stop.)

7) I know it’s uncool…but it is pretty great to be able to take a picture with your cellphone.

8) One quibble: Guys, that was a little loud. It’s ten hours later, and my ears are still ringing.

9) Has anyone else noticed that the drummer looks like Will Ferrell?

10) I met Lesley back when she worked for a Republican congressman who wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve and take the country back to the gold standard. Now she works at Warner Music, lives on the lower East Side, and goes to Red Hot Chili Pepper concerts. Does that say something about the direction our culture is going? Or is it just inevitable Washington burnout?

11) No, they did not play “Under the Bridge,” and yes, Lesley, I do owe you a beer for that. On the other hand, if you could get a copy of that picture with me and the Space Needle guy, I’d appreciate it.

12) For someone who’s never connected with American Idol, and always wonders how you can see a concert where the musicians don’t play and the singer isn’t really singing, it’s enormously affirming to see a live band play so well—and to see a crowd of fans who really appreciate it. I saw Madonna a few years back, and distinctly remember a moment where she was writhing on the ground, mouth closed, and the vocals continued unabated. Depressing. But the Chili Peppers—intensely physical, spontaneous, energetic, exhausting, intense, and powerful.

13) In short, pretty great.

My item on Neil Rudenstine below sparked some very interesting posts, and I want to highlight a couple to bring them to wider attention and because I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on what the posters have to say.

Here’s the first:

Anonymous said…

Larry Summers spoke to the HAA directors last Thursday and repeatedly criticized the FAS - I would say he bashed the faculty. In fact, he also criticized the Corporation, for not agreeing to a uniform academic calendar. At one point, Summers bemoaned his inability to fire or reduce the salary of those who would not do what he wanted them to. His talk and responses to questions and comments demonstrated just how ill suited he is to the Harvard presidency. I fear what he is going to say at Commencement.

And here’s the second:

Larry Summers has been actively encouraging at least one faculty member with an outside offer to leave Harvard. He should never have been left in a position where he could do further damage to the institution he was incapable of running. He cares about himself and wants Harvard to look bad after he leaves.

Strong stuff. Can anyone vouch for it? Anyone know who the faculty member referred to above is?

I’ve never quite understood the media obsession with Anderson Cooper. He’s the only person Gawker seems to like, he writes a column for Details, he got a kajillion-dollar book deal from HarperCollins, and he’s on the cover of Vanity Fair this month. Why?

Sure, he’s an intelligent, nice-looking man with an interesting family history. (Famous mom, brother committed suicide, etc.) He’s gay, so a lot of media folks like him for that. And his white hair is distinctive. But the future of the anchorperson, as CNN head honcho Jonathan Klein once called him? I don’t think so. I preferred the man who was ousted for Cooper, Aaron Brown, who was curmudgeonly and arrogant (apparently) but contrarian and serious too.

Now comes news that, a year after Cooper took Brown’s place, to much hullabaloo and media adoration, Cooper’s ratings are in freefall…not that they ever equaled Brown’s in the first place.

From Variety….

CNN sacked Brown believing Cooper could draw a bigger, younger aud at 10 p.m. But that hasn’t happened. And the VF cover hit just as April ratings showed Coop down 36% in the 25-54 demo, the younger aud he was supposed to attract.

Brown averaged 307,000 young viewers a night last year. This April, Cooper averaged 198,000. In total viewers, Cooper averaged 710,000 compared to 907,000 for Brown last year.

Ouch.

The moral of the story? The New York media really is out of touch with the rest of the country. And likes Anderson Cooper for reasons that have nothing to do with whether he’s good on TV.

It’s also possible that younger viewers just aren’t going to watch CNN, unless maybe you put Lindsay Lohan behind the anchor’s desk.

I’ll bet that Vanity Fair cover is a bomb…..

At CounterPunch.Org, Lawrence R. Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, explores past incidents of plagiarism at Harvard and their various unsatisfying resolutions.

In his conclusion, he brings up Harry Lewis and his forthcoming Excellence Without a Soul, writing that…

Harry Lewis is surely right in saying that, in searching for Summers’ successor, the Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing board, should not be “distracted by superficialities — candidates’ gender, celebrity, and manners, for example.” He surely is equally right in saying that Harvard “must find a way to honor good character in our faculty members and to penalize acts that call a professor’s character into question.“

Meanwhile, I thought this letter in today’s Harvard Crimson, on the subject of KV’s plagiarism, was a provocative contribution to a delicate area: whether there is a relationship between KV’s ethnic/cultural background and her plagiarism.

According to Sampathkumar Iyangar—who seems to be a “writer and activist based in Ahmedabad”—

It is not at all rare in India for parents to do school work of their children. When the project is found to be beyond their caliber, they resort to engaging professionals for the purpose…. The practice is particularly rampant among offspring of “chosen ones”—politicians and employees of giant state-owned corporations, high-profile government officials, and figures at prestigious public sector institutions.

Gradually, there has been a drastic decline in moral values in India to the point where no value is attached for originality or creativity. Naturally, every other movie produced in India is an unabashed rehash of a Hollywood chart buster. Complete sequences are lifted with no semblance of any acknowledgment to the original. The government routinely confers national honor on directors, actors, and editors of such “clever” creations of art. Until, hopefully soon, globalization corrects the situation, claims of “literary prodigies” of Indian origin will have to be verified and re-verified a thousand times.

Interesting. I wonder what Harold and Kumar would have to say on the subject?

The more you read about Alloy Media, the ghostwriting agency that holds co-copyright to How Opal Mehta…. , the more it sounds like a very, very bad thing.

As this Boston Globe story shows, the firm considers books valuable only insofar as they lead to movie deals and product tie-ins.

More than books for reading, Alloy titles are content packages, with potential for advertising and cross-marketing. The Alloy website says, ”Advertisers have the opportunity to get their products or services cast in these best-selling books. The value of these mentions far exceeds the hundreds of thousands of readers, creating a viral product buzz.” It is not known publicly whether Manolo Blahnik, Habitual jeans, or La Perla bras paid for their mentions in ”Opal Mehta.“

Ugh.

And as this New York Observer story shows, Alloy has a reputation for screwing the anonymous scribes who work for them.

All of which raises the question: Given that Alloy is a strong indicator that our culture is going to hell, does that make the firm a front for…Satan?

First, the former president gives a talk at the unveiling of his portrait that raises eyebrows and may or may not have caused Larry Summers to leave the room.

Then, at the funeral of former Corporation fellow Bob Stone, Rudenstine delivers what many (including me) thought was a pointed and political elegy, at least in part.

While remembering Stone, Rudenstine talked about two things that could have been interpreted as a criticism of Rudenstine’s successor, Larry Summers. He talked about how Stone was never a numbers man, never believing that numbers really said anything about a person, but instead suggesting looking to “the character.” And he said that while Stone was a great believer in debate at a university, that it was always tempered debate, never contentious. (I’m paraphrasing and condensing.)

Given that Larry Summers is renowned for his emphasis on data, and that he has been associated with contentious debate—and especially on the heels of the portrait incident—the remarks were heard by some as an implicit rebuke of Summers.

A number of people with whom I spoke after the funeral were struck by Rudenstine’s words, and thought that they were pointed and deliberate.

If Rudenstine did intend either or both of his sets of remarks as a commentary on Summers, all agreed, such public criticism was very much out of character for him.

So what would explain it?

Perhaps years of being unfavorably compared to Larry Summers, years of having the accomplishments of his own presidency slighted. (In fact, I’ve argued that Rudenstine’s presidency was successful if one defines success as fulfilling stated goals.)

I still think of Corporation fellow D. Ron Daniel telling the New York Times Magazine, “We agreed that we needed somebody more aggressive, more pushy, bolder,” than Neil Rudenstine.

So if Neil Rudenstine is venting some pent-up frustration—well, it would be admirable if he could transcend his anger, or bitterness, or whatever it may be. (For surely, these moments do feel like kicking Summers when he’s down.)

But can you really blame him if he can’t?