Shots in the Dark

Melanie Thernstrom, class of ’86, just got married to fellow Harvard alum Michael Callahan.

Ms. Thernstrom… is the author of two books, “The Dead Girl” (Simon & Schuster, 1990) and “Halfway Heaven” (Doubleday, 1997). She graduated with highest honors from Harvard and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Cornell.

Both “The Dead Girl” and “Halfway Heaven” involve Harvard—one the murder of a Harvard student, the other a terrible murder-suicide at Harvard. “Halfway Heaven,” which I’ve read, is a terrific book, beautifully written and thoroughly researched. Its themes include the pressure under which Harvard students live and work, and the university’s hostility to outsiders, especially the media, whenever anything happens that might damage its image….

I had a drink with Melanie, whom I know slightly, at the Harvard Club just as I began reporting “Harvard Rules.” She warned me that official Harvard would be incredibly unhelpful and even hostile to the project. She was right….one of the reasons why I now feel so strongly that Harvard should become more transparent. The university administration does itself no favors with its insular and tribal culture….

Thernstrom is the daughter of Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom of Lexington, Mass. Her father is the Winthrop professor of history at Harvard and a council member of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her mother is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the vice chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Her husband is no slouch either… Congratulations to them both!

Some random observations on the money culture in Manhattan…

I shared the debate about Wall Street and its social value with a friend who works at Goldman, Sachs. That firm, she assured me, emphasized to its employees that they should do something useful with their money; there was a genuine focus on civic involvement, donations of money and time. One example: One of her co-workers sent out dozens of Christmas cards, all of which contained the information that she had a made a contribution to a homeless shelter in their names.

But here are two other less positive developments.

My friend was also looking for an apartment to buy downtown, something to buy as an investment. Nothing huge, but there are lots of new buildings popping up in New York. They are all “luxury” apartments, she said, catering to the sensual desires of the Wall Street rich. One had a bowling alley; another had a fantasy golf room, in which hackers took their swings while surrounded by video projections of famous golf courses. The downside? $800,000 for a studio apartment…..

Meanwhile, another friend recently overheard a conversation in an East Side playground between two young men, both about 30, who worked for hedge funds. One of the men expects to be worth $100 million in the next couple of years.

The conversation? The two of them were mocking a third friend, not there, because he was making only $500,000 a year….

In Slate, Daniel Gross writes about the influx of former Washingtonians into the world of hedge funds….

Now there’s a new business for the over-the-hill Washington player: hedge funds.

Richard Breeden, former SEC chair, and Madeleine Albright are both starting hedge funds. And, of course, former Treasury secretaries John Snow and Lawrence Summers joined hedge funds on the same day. Why would Albright and Summers want to get in on hedge funds? Well, greed, obviously.

K Street can make you comfortable. Hedge funds can make you filthy rich.

After all, they’re not going to be involved in intellectual work of the funds. They’re going to be knocking on doors, soliciting investors. Selling their access.

Madeleine Albright and Larry Summers have no record of generating above-market returns. Why would a hedge fund want them?

Because, Gross writes, they open doors, especially overseas. (He misses an obvious point with Summers, which is that his Treasury and political connections could come in very handy if the Treasury department is considering new regulations of the largely unregulated hedge fund world.)

Who better to take along on forays into new markets than former treasury secretary, Harvard University president, and current Financial Times columnist Larry Summers?

Gross misses another point, which I think is important: In the past, such brazen flogging of political connections in the world of international business was largely—not entirely, but largely—the domain of Republicans such as James Baker and Henry Kissinger. In making the Democratic party friendly for business, Bill Clinton also made it possible for himself and his former underlings to cash in…even if it means selling out.

Meanwhile, what Democrats are left who can speak for the poor and middle class?
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Since my occasional observations on the world of finance have prompted terrific responses—and frequently vociferous disagreement—I’m going to keep writing them under the rubric, “The Money Culture….”

The Crimson reports that members of Harvard’s presidential search committee met at Loeb House yesterday, suggesting that the presidential search is nearing its end point.

In their usual obstructionist way, the committee members would tell the Crimson nothing. There are plenty of things they could say without compromising the process—”the search is going well, and we feel we’re well on the way to choosing Harvard’s next president, and we appreciate the widespread interest in Harvard’s future”—but of course they act like commanders at Guantanamo Bay. “You can’t handle the truth!”

There’s Jamie Houghton looking like James Jesus Angleton saying, “I don’t talk about meetings. Meetings are private.” When, in fact, he could say, “We had a meeting to talk about normal Harvard business, including the search for the next president, but we’re not ready to say anything about that yet, and we’ll let you know just as soon as we are.”

Same lack of content, but a totally different tone.

Silly Corporation. When will you ever get it?

The Crimson does get this, however:

But in recent days, search committee members have expressed enthusiasm about the candidacies of biochemist and Nobel laureate Thomas R. Cech and Radcliffe Institute Dean Drew Gilpin Faust, according to two individuals familiar with the group’s activities. Both sources added that other candidates likely remain in the running and may be included in final-round interviews.

Meantime, Steve Hyman looks like he’s out…

The individuals also said they expect Provost Steven E. Hyman to remain on the search committee’s list of candidates until the end, even though they both said that Hyman’s placement on the list is a courtesy extended in recognition of his half-decade as the University’s number-two administrator—not necessarily an indication of serious consideration.

…while Elena Kagan is still dogged by her Summers’ connection.

Law School Dean Elena Kagan’s candidacy may hinge upon her ability to convince search committee members that her leadership style is dramatically different from that of Lawrence H. Summers. Kagan has been praised for her consensus-building successes at the Law School, most notably the unanimous approval of the school’s curricular overhaul this past fall. But she was appointed to her present post by Summers, who appeared to retain the support of many Law School faculty members through the final days of his presidency.

That first sentence isn’t entirely fair—Kagan’s leadership style is clearly very different from Summers’. I don’t think there’s anyone who would say she hasn’t been a fine dean at the law school. What Kagan has to prove is that she wouldn’t grant Summers’ back-door access to Mass Hall—and she has to prove that not just to the search committee, but also—and this is probably harder—to the faculty.

A final point: Cech, Faust, Hyman as a courtesy, and Kagan with baggage. Other than the inclusion of Cech, we knew all this six months ago….

(No knock on the Crimson, just a point about the limits of the search process.)

I’m sorry to see David Oxtoby not in the final running—he struck me as an intriguing dark horse. And he had the Harvard credentials, the lack of which may cost Cech the presidency.

One of these men worked for a public
institution. The other is the head of
the Harvard Corporation.

Baja California

Recently I went to the Post Office to mail a package. As I always do, I wrote the recipient’s name and address in the middle and my address on the top left.

“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t accept that,” the postal clerk said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You have to write your name on the top,” he said. “Can’t accept packages without a name.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Security measure. Can’t accept packages without a name.”

I thought about this for a moment.

“You think that someone who’s sending a bomb through the mail is going to write his real name on the top?”

The clerk glowered. “Sir, that’s not appropriate language to use in this facility.”

I shrugged and asked him for a pen. After much fumbling, one was produced.

I wrote “John Smith” at the top left corner of my package.

The clerk took his pen back, and my package along with it.

And thus America rests safer.

…on the way to the New Haven Coliseum.

About 20 minutes ago, they blew it up.

Yale students, smart kids that they are, held a contest to see how much of an earthquake the implosion would cause.

You will all remember the Coliseum, of course. Once upon a time it was an active attraction for New Haven and the Connecticut suburbs. Even before going to college, I saw the Police play there, the “Ghost in the Machine” tour, in 1981. The Go-Gos (the Go-Gos!) warmed up for them, and the crowd liked them so much, they were called back for an encore. I saw the J. Geils Band there in, I think, 1980. I saw U2 there, with opening act Marshall Crenshaw—they were playing “October” at that point. And I’m pretty sure I saw the Grateful Dead there, but my memory of Dead shows is hazy. Could have been New Haven….

In any event, the Coliseum couldn’t really make a go of it, and truth to tell, it was a classic example of bad urban planning. Designed to draw people in from the suburbs, it worked—about once every two weeks. The rest of the time, it sat there, an empty, ominous hulk of a building not far from the New Haven Green. You wouldn’t want to walk around it at night. It squashed the neighborhood like a massive brick that plunged from the sky.

And then it started falling apart—the upper level garages rusting out so badly that, rather than repair them, the city just gave up and closed them off.

Soon, the Coliseum was playing host to minor-league hockey and monster trucks.

Now they’ve blown it up. (I would have gotten up early to watch that.) The area will be redeveloped with new housing and retail, part of New Haven’s ongoing renaissance. There will even be cobblestones. Drivers exiting off I-95 and I-91 won’t have to pass by a building that looks like a really big mausoleum any more.

Still, there’s a part of me that will miss the Coliseum. Just like there’s a part of me that misses the Police, and Jerry Garcia, and being 17 years old, driving up to New Haven and hearing a rock concert, jumping up and down in my seat and cheering without a care in the world except having enough money to get some food and gas after the show….

I’m not sure how long this discussion needs to be continued—it’s Friday night, people—although I could keep these puns coming almost indefinitely—but I thought that some of you might be interested in this excerpt from Wikipedia’s definition of geek….

Geek has always had negative connotations within society at large, where being described as a geek tends to be an insult. The term has recently become less condescending, or even a badge of honor, within particular fields and subcultures; this is particularly evident in the technical disciplines, where the term is now more of a compliment denoting extraordinary skill. There is an increasing number of people who self-identify with the term, even when they are nontechnical or do not fit the classic geek archetype.

Exactly.

So you see, my diction is not as unflattering as some of you have interpreted it to be. After all, I’m the guy who admits to downloading original Star Trek episodes from iTunes….

The Varsity, Cambridge’s student paper, has another statement from Alison Richard regarding the Harvard job….

In a statement issued by her office in the wake of recent speculation, Richard affirmed “her deep and unequivocal commitment to the University of Cambridge and to completing the full term of her appointment, which ends in 2010”, a moderated version of last month’s statement which claimed that Richard “does not consider herself a candidate for the presidency of Harvard”.

[Blogger: Punctuation, British.]

Sounds like a stronger version of her earlier statement, no?

Is it unfair or judgmental to call Thomas Cech a geek, as a poster below suggests?

I don’t think so. In many realms, such as Star Trek conventions and Linux chat rooms, geekiness is a point of pride. Look at Bill Gates. Huge geek. Massive geek. But obviously a brilliant man and a very, very skilled leader. Not to mention a really laudable humanitarian.

Now, is it an accurate (albeit reductive and extremely crude) description of Thomas Cech? Here are some photos of the Nobel Prize-winning scientist over the years. You decide—and ask yourself, would the Harvard community care?

Because, after all, not all cultures, whether corporate or academic, are equally geek-friendly. What works at Microsoft wouldn’t work at Apple; what works at MIT wouldn’t work at Harvard…