Shots in the Dark

I loved this Times piece about Yale investment manager David Swensen, who’s made a fortune for Yale—over 21 years, his investments have average annual returns of about 16.3%—without making a fortune for himself. (He’s kicking Harvard’s ass, by the way.) Swensen takes home a salary of about a million bucks year, which is probably less than 1/100th of what he’d make at a hedge fund.

Why does he do it? Because he believes that a million dollars is still a lot of money, and he thinks there’s something socially valuable about the particular nature of his work.

“People think working for something other than the most money you could get is an odd concept, but it seems a perfectly natural concept to me,” says Mr. Swensen.

…A number of high-profile endowment chiefs have recently bolted academia for the more lush pay packages offered by private funds in the for-profit sector. When Jack R. Meyer, who racked up stellar returns as the head of the Harvard endowment, gave up his post in 2005, for example, he and his team easily raised $6 billion for their new hedge fund. But Mr. Swensen says he has no desire to do something similar.

“I just had an e-mail from a friend who manages money for a wealthy family,” he said in an interview in the endowment’s plain campus office. “He was troubled by it: making wealthy people wealthier. I feel privileged to be in a place where the resources that we generate are applied to the world’s problems.”

Swensen spent some time in the IB world, but ultimately found the experience spiritually unsatisfying….

“In the finance world it is very easy to measure winning and losing in dollars and cents,” he says. “That has always seemed to be an inadequate measure. The quality of life is a better way to measure winning and losing. Money is only one element of that.”

In addition to helping Yale, Swensen has trained a number of money managers who share his public service spirit and have gone on to work at other universities such as MIT and Princeton.

I’m sure there are lots of people in the hedge fund world who give back as well. Nonetheless, I doubt there are many who’ve made so much money for a non-profit while making so relatively little for oneself. Swensen reminds us of the great power that economically-minded people can wield for the public good. I wish there were more like him.

You go from sleeping over at somebody’s house five days a week and now you don’t sleep over. It’s not that big a deal.
—Alex Rodriguez, speaking of his relationship with Derek Jeter

Meanwhile, in Boston, here’s a dilemma that we should all have: What to do if you’re dating Gisele Bundchen and Bridget Moynihan says that she’s having your baby?

The Devil’s Crown, Galapagos

It’s only five months away…

In case you missed, the Times paid a lengthy visit to the band’s rehearsal space in Vancouver, and—here’s the coolest part—the band was actually there…..

Not too long ago, you will remember, there was a little problem at Yale’s Calhoun College with students becoming amorous in the shower. (We should all have such problems, right?)

Now the issue of sex in semi-public spaces has migrated to Brown, where, apparently, they are having sex in sinks.

Writes one Brown authority figure—and no, that is not an oxymoron…

…there has been some activity taking place in Perkins’ kitchens that is inappropriate for public spaces. Not only does this negatively affect the comfort of our community, but it is also a hygiene and safety concern.

A safety concern?

Well, kids will be kids. But why has there been no such news emanating from Harvard? Is no one at Harvard having sex?

Has anyone else noticed that faculty from the University of Pennsylvania have been more outspoken in their support of Drew Faust than have Harvard professors?

Case in point: Steven Hahn, U-Penn professor of history, writing in the The New Republic about why historians (Drew Faust) make better presidents than economists (one guess).

…as most academics will tell you, economists tend to think that they’re smarter than everybody else, can find the answer to any important question, and don’t need to listen carefully to other opinions. Pity the poor fellow who must present research to an economics department seminar: He can hardly get a word in edgewise.

Historians, now—that’s a different matter.

Historians can be as arrogant and tone-deaf as any people who claim intellectual authority, but the nature of their work disposes them to be otherwise. Although historians pose large questions, they are skeptical of easy answers. Although they like to bring order out of apparent chaos, they quickly recognize the complexity of human undertakings. Although they seek to recover something of the past, they soon discover how much digging that requires. They come to learn that historical writing and historical experience involve conflicting perspectives and that they need to confront viewpoints different than their own. Historians have to be prepared to follow unexpected leads and uncharted paths. And they must develop skills (and patience) to hear and understand what their subjects are trying to tell them. It is all a very humbling process.

It’s all a good omen for Harvard, Hahn concludes. And so Larry Summers takes another spear to the chest.

Any economists want to rise to the defense of your profession?

Daniel Hemel responds to the right-wing jeers—predicted on this blog the day of Faust’s choice—charging that Faust is a radical feminist with this Crimson editorial.

Forget, for a moment, that most intelligent people believe in equal rights for women and, like Faust, technically fall under the rubric of “feminist.” Faust has been branded with the F-word by writers who have clearly never read her work….

This is a fascinating issue, I must say, and a slightly tricky one for lefties, who are willing to cheer Faust for being a woman and writing history about women while at the same time saying, Don’t worry, she’s no “feminist.”

Hey, she obviously is a feminist. Her rejection of the “it’s a man’s world, sweetie,” line from her mother—and the centrality of that anecdote to her bio-narrative—establish that.

So what? What’s wrong with being a feminist?

Problem is, of course, hardly anyone knows or can agree upon what that word means these days, which is why so many women shun it. But Faust is certainly of the generation that used it; she did graduate from Bryn Mawr in 1968…..

This may be one way that the Summers legacy continues. His presidency—his identity, his Washington experience, his leadership style—politicized the university, and his departure became a tug-of-war between the political left and right, particularly outside 02138.

Now that fight is continuing in an ongoing attempt by both sides to define Faust within a political box….

Harvard prof Ruth Wisse has written a curious commentary on Drew Faust for Commentary. It’s about how her Brazilian cleaning lady is excited about Faust, and how she tries to explain to her cleaning lady why Faust is bad, bad, bad.

When the Women’s Lib movement started up in America in the 1960’s, I predicted it would do as much damage here as Bolshevism had done in Russia.

To paraphrase the shampoo people, Read. Rinse. Repeat.

When the Women’s Lib movement started up in America in the 1960’s, I predicted it would do as much damage here as Bolshevism had done in Russia.

I admire Professor Wisse’s willingness to speak her mind, but, truly, that is absurd.

Or am I wrong?

I felt almost vindicated in my fears when I watched the feminist culture of grievance at Harvard help to topple President Lawrence Summers….

But Wisse’s cleaning lady thinks that Faust could be good for Harvard and for women like her. Well, apparently, that’s why she’s a cleaning lady and Wisse is a professor.

My Portuguese is not up to E.’s English, so I cannot explain to her the difference between a woman and a Women’s Libber….But E. is keen, and she sees from my hesitation that I am not quite as inspired as she is by this appointment.

Well, my English is probably almost as good as Professor Wisse’s…and I would love to know the difference between a woman and a “Women’s Libber.”

(Who even says “women’s lib” anymore? I bet if you asked the young women on campus, half of them would have no idea what the term means.)

Almost (gulp) twenty-five years ago, I traveled to Foxboro Stadium, in the middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts, to see a concert on a Sunday evening. A glorious summer night—lovely sunset, perfect temperature. The show? (Brace yourself.) A triple bill featuring A Flock of Seagulls, the Fixx, and the Police.

What the hell, it was the ’80s, right? I liked ’em all. The hair, the synthesizers, the ridiculous costumes. That was my third Police show—in the past, I’d slept out for tickets, we used to do that back in those days—and it was brilliant.

Both the Fixx and AFOS are gone now, and that’s probably just as well. But when the Police broke up in 1984, that was truly a loss. Five records, each of them fantastic in its own right, each better than the one before it. Live, they were just tremendous—I even saw them in the now blown-up New Haven Coliseum—and though there were only three of them, they could fill an arena like few modern bands. Sting was charismatic, gifted and intense, probably the best English songwriter since Lennon and McCartney; Andy Summers played shimmering swashes of guitar in a way that no one else in rock did; and Stewart Copeland’s drumming was so original and propulsive.

But then, after the Synchronicity record, the band broke up, largely because Sting’s ego was getting out of hand. (I forgive him this; if I were Sting, I’d have a pretty big ego too.) Still, they were one band whose reunion I really longed for. They quit at the peak of their skills as a band, and no one came along to fill that vacuum. The Police had a distinctive sound, and no band since has equalled it.

Well, sometimes the good Lord provides.

This summer the Police are reuniting and playing a series of concerts. I’ll be there for at least one—and if someone out there can help me get tickets to one of the Fenway Park shows on 7/28 and 7/29, more than one. (Please…anyone?)

Who knows if, a quarter of a century later, they can recapture the old magic?

But I am an optimist. This will be the musical event of the summer, without question, and in that spirit, here are my picks of the week.

First, the music.

I love all the Police albums, but the most consistently successful has to be Synchronicity, which is one of the Top 10 rock records of the past 25 years. Ambitious, poetic, melodic, and loud. I remember being so excited about its release that I signed up in advance to purchase it at Trident Records, the local music/head shop. I must have heard “Every Breath You Take” 500 times on car radios, and I never got sick of it.

But why stop there? For a fascinating video record of the Police, check out Stewart Copeland’s documentary, Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, which uses old Super-8 footage to show what playing in the band was really like.

And what about nighttime reading, you say? Well, of course. I’d recommend Sting’s artful autobiography, Broken Music, which takes you through his life before the Police. As a songwriter, Sting turns out to be a pretty good memoirist. And after you’ve read that, check out Andy Summers’ book, One Train Later, the story of how a down-and-out guitar player became one-third of the world’s biggest band. Even though Summers was perhaps the least famous of the three, it’s an insightful, well-told story. Sometimes it’s the little guys who see the most.

I could go on, talk about Stewart Copeland’s Rumblefish soundtrack, or Andy Summers’ records with Robert Fripp, or which Sting solo album is the best. But isn’t part of the fun finding out for yourself?

Sorry, everyone—I’m either a) on deadline, or b) emotionally and/or physically exhausted from Valentine’s Day…..