Shots in the Dark

The Crimson reports that a new version of Microsoft Word is frustrating students.

Some users complain that Word 2007, which is installed in Harvard’s computer labs, has created incompatibility problems and is difficult to navigate.

Documents are now saved as “.docx” files instead of the traditional “.doc” format, making it difficult to open newer files on older versions of the software.

This is the kind of thing that makes a Mac user chuckle. Why on earth would anyone want to save a document with the ending “.doc” or “.docx”?

I mean, really—.docx?

Thankfully, such nuttiness isn’t to be found on Office for Mac…..

In the Washington Post, Walter Pincus notes that Arthur Schlesinger’s reflections on Vietnam, published in his posthumous Journals, show unnerving parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.

How many times has President Bush used such phrases as “precipitous withdrawal” and remarked that only Americans can defeat the U.S. military effort in Iraq? Last April, for example, Bush said: “Precipitous withdrawal from Iraq is not a plan to bring peace to the region or to make our people safer at home. Instead, it would embolden our enemies and confirm their belief that America is weak.“

What a shame that the shallow, catty Maureen Dowd was the person the Times chose to have review Journals, which are full of more nuggets than Dowd could ever know.

It was a great long weekend for playing catch-up. On my days off, I wrote captions for the photos in my book, paid bills, responded to/deleted over 2,000 e-mails, exercised, and wrote several overdue thank-you notes. I also watched American Gangster (flawed, but very good) and The Mist (better than you think—and the darkest ending you’ll see in an American movie for a long time).

I also Tivoed the Giants game, then learned that it had been a hideous defeat, and so deleted the recording. I love Tivo.

And I did not blog, as a little recharging of the batteries was necessary. But suitably rested, I’m back….for most of the week. I head to Mexico for a little underwater R & R on Thursday…..

That’s always been my impression, dating back to when I was an undergrad in New Haven and Harvard people who came to visit were always talking about how much more fun Yale was.

Now the Crimson seems to agree, editorializing that the tailgates at Yale were vastly better than in Cambridge—traditionally the case (it’s also true of the parties), but apparently this year the reason was due to a mellow police presence at Yale.

In Cambridge last year, the Boston Police Department and Harvard administrators organized the strictest Harvard-Yale tailgate in recent memory. Regulations and checkpoints were everywhere. Every last detail was proactively enforced. Students were not allowed to bring any liquids into the event area, and students over 21 were required to receive a wrist band in order to be able to purchase beer and spiked hot chocolate (a policy repeated at Yale’s “student village” but not at the entire tailgate).

Harvard and Boston need to take a good look at the philosophy of tailgating in New Haven and realize that a more pragmatic approach can be more effective for all parties involved.

Hmmm. True enough, but the Crimson misses an important point: Undergraduate fun is not high on Harvard’s list of priorities. What is important to the Harvard administration is staying on good terms with politicians and residents in Boston and, more specifically, Allston.

Why did Harvard crack down so much on fun at last year’s Game?

So as to avoid irritating any constituency which might slow down its Allston plans…..

Kevin Jones, the Berkeley graduate student who made an illegal left turn at a red light and got David Halberstam killed, has pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. He’ll get a sentence of 30 days, probably reduced to 5-10 and community service.

On the one hand, I think this guy should be locked up because his idiotic driving got a great writer killed.

On the other hand, this is something that he’s going to have to live with the rest of his life, and that is a pretty serious punishment. To be an aspiring journalist, and then be indirectly responsible for the death of one of the great journalists of the 20th century—that will not be easy for Mr. Jones.

It reminds me of that scene in “Saving Private Ryan,” in which Tom Hanks is dying at the end after sacrificing himself to save Private Ryan, and as he’s dying, he says to Ryan, “James, earn this. Earn it.”

In other words, do something with your life that justifies this loss.

One hopes that Mr. Jones will rise to this challenge.

Though it’s too late for me to do much more than acknowledge this issue, I did want to mention the new study showing that Americans are reading less and that their test scores are in decline as a result.

Harry Potter, James Patterson and Oprah Winfrey’s book club aside, Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.

It’s not a surprise, of course. If I were a kid today, I’d be watching more movies, playing more video games, and so on than when I actually was a kid. How could one not? They are ubiquitous, and tempting. And of course the amount of time in kids’ lives is finite.

The thing that is frustrating about the study is that it’s limited. Yes, fine (well, not fine), test scores are declining, and to the extent that test scores reflect deeper things, that is alarming. But what else do kids lose when they read less that can not be so easily measured? How is their development affected without the lessons and instruction and challenge of reading stories?

I’ll be hanging out in the Manhattan courthouse today, so posting will be slow until later…..

Japan has decided to extend its “scientific” whaling program to the hunting of humpback whales.

The new hunt is certain to renew Japan’s angry standoff with antiwhaling forces. Greenpeace and the animal rights activist group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have said they will track Japan’s hunt in the South Pacific.

(Did anyone read the New Yorker profile of Sea Shepherd head Paul Watson?

Watson believes in coercive conservation, and for several decades he has been using his private navy to ram whaling and fishing vessels on the high seas. Ramming is his signature tactic, and it is what he and his crew intended to do to the Japanese fleet, if they could find it.

Watson’s clearly a little nutty, but after reading the piece, I decided I’m glad that he does what he does.)

In addition to being a creature of enormous beauty and intelligence, as research into whale songs is showing, the humpback is a particularly popular spotting for whale-watchers. (Did you know that whale songs, which can last hours, have been found to contain elements of grammar and that whales have been found to sing in dialects?)

Japan has also decimated the world’s supply of tuna (though all those Americans who have hopped on to the sushi bandwagon aren’t helping).

It’s appalling that Japan hunts any whales at all. But slaughtering humpbacks? This is not something a great nation should lower itself to.

Apparently there was a football game in New Haven yesterday. Good thing I decided not to pay the slightest bit of attention…

By the way, speaking of salaries, as some of you have been, the YDN reports that Yale’s Rick Levin is the highest paid president in the Ivy League, with a total salary of $869, 026.

His salary has increased at twice the rate of the salaries of Yale professors, who average $151, 152 …..

Also interesting is the fact that David Swensen, Yale’s investment manager, who has made the university billions of dollars, gets paid a relatively paltry $1.64 million, or a rough 20-25% of what Mohamed El-Erian made in his first year, by my calculations…..

“Girls confuse me.”