Shots in the Dark

He was 0-3 with two Ks last night in a 2-1 Sox victory over Toronto.

David Ortiz is only 33 years old, but he looks like he is finished, and if he remains in the No. 3 spot in Sox batting order, he could take the team down.

Your lips to God’s ears, Mr. Shaughnessy.

Meanwhile, the Yanks won their seventh straight, beating Baltimore 9-1. Things have really begun to click for this team; the pitching is starting to do what it’s supposed to do, and the hitting has picked up a level with the return of A-Rod (four homers in his last four games), the revival of Mark Texeira, and the unexpected vitality of Johnny Damon…..

I’ll be at the new Stadium for the first time on Thursday….

The Crimson editorializes today about how budget cuts threaten student safety.

In other news, someone was shot in Kirkland House.

If my posting has been somewhat erratic the past few weeks, it’s because I’ve been working on two big, time-consuming projects.

Here’s news about one.

The other, I can’t talk about just yet.

Every morning when I go to work, I navigate through unproductive drug addicts, who get their fix, then throw their works on the ground for other people to clean up. Sometimes you see their refuse in an otherwise pristine place; it’s like that moment in Catcher in the Rye, when Holden is sitting tranquilly on the school steps until he notices that someone has carved an obscenity into the otherwise decent wall.

Now San Francisco wants to add a 33 cent-a-pack tax to cigarettes to pay for the cost of cleaning up the butts that smokers litter the streets with. It’s a wonderful idea.

I was very, very sorry to see the news about David Donald, a great historian and an elegant man.

Want a free Coldplay live album? Click here.

Yesterday I took my six-year-old godson, William, and his four-year-old brother, Teddy, to the Barnes and Noble on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn. Because his parents read to him, William has become a huge Harry Potter fan. Teddy just likes to pick up books and flip through them. I think he’s practicing for the day he knows how to read.

I read to William a little bit—not too much, because it’s kind of scary—from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Barnes and Noble has an area where adults can read to kids.) He was rapt, and his face lit up at every mention of Albus Dumbledore.

“I want to be a wizard when I grow up, but I don’t think I can be,” he said; I think he meant that wizards don’t really exist. Carefully begging the question, I suggested that he consider becoming a magician, and he looked at me like I was crazy. “That’s a kind of wizard,” he declared. As if to say: Everyone knows that!

So imagine my surprise on seeing that today’s most e-mailed piece in the Times is called Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud. (Articles that reflect a wistful past, something lost to progress, always get e-mailed a lot. I love the paradox of that.)

I read aloud to my writing students, and when students read aloud to me I notice something odd. They are smart and literate, and most of them had parents who read to them as children. But when students read aloud at first, I notice that they are trying to read the meaning of the words. If the work is their own, they are usually trying to read the intention of the writer.

It’s as though they’re reading what the words represent rather than the words themselves. What gets lost is the inner voice of the prose, the life of the language. This is reflected in their writing, too, at first.

Here’s a confession: I have no idea what that means. Do you? What the heck is the inner voice of the prose?

But what I would suggest is that our idea of reading is incomplete, impoverished, unless we are also taking the time to read aloud.

With that I would agree, and add one proposition: Reading aloud is usually a good test of the merit of prose, particularly one’s own. If it sounds dull or plodding or verbose when you read it, it’s probably because you wrote it that way.

Teddy and William wanted to bring books home, but I demurred, partly because the process of choosing books would have prompted a meltdown—they were tiring—and partly because it was time for lunch. My insistence that no, we weren’t going to buy something today provoked heartfelt resistance, which—and yes, I’m proud of myself for this improvisation—I defused by assuring the boys that we could come back soon, the books would still be here.

I hope that’s true, he wrote. Wistfully.

They’ve considered the possible list of Obama Supreme Court appointees….and devised ways to oppose them all.

Wouldn’t it be possible simply to consider a judicial nominee on his or her merits?

American conservatives are still in a reflexive opposition mode. Whatever Obama may propose, they automatically oppose. It’s bad for them, and bad for the country.

As the Globe reported yesterday, Drew Faust was paid $775, 043 in salary and benefits for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The amount reflects $640,000 in cash compensation, $81,304 in moving and other expenses, and $53,739 in benefits. Harvard provides its president with a home on campus in addition to her compensation.

The Globe immediately reports that this amount is far smaller than some presidents of other universities, referencing David Sargent, the president of Suffolk University, who received $2.8 million last year.

(One wonders if this and other numbers were fed the Globe by the Harvard press office; it feels that way.)

This is something of a bogus example, as no one else was even close to Sargent. What I think would be a fairer question: How much would Faust have done the job for? Are you telling me that if you only paid her $500k, she’d say no? $400k?

The point is not whether Harvard has inflated university president salaries just as other schools have. It’s whether Harvard sets an example of disciplined spending. Clearly, that’s not the case.

Example #2: Larry Summers. The Globe reports…

I think it’s the case that Summers didn’t teach a class at Harvard last year. What exactly was he being paid for? Why is Harvard paying him $120,000 in expenses? We can assume that Summers’ travel was paid for by the banks who lavished millions upon him to buy influence with the Obama administration. How exactly did Summers rack up $120k in expenses?

Here’s a story for a Crimson reporter to do: Investigate the institution of the University Professor. Look at the combined salaries of those professors, and then see how productive those professors are—in any given year, how many courses do they teach? How many books do they publish?

I’ll guarantee you, it’s a big story. And in a time of “reshaping,” nothing should be sacred.

I understand that Drew Faust meets regularly with the Crimson. (Maybe not now, that it’s almost Commencement time.)

How about asking Faust these questions:

1) Did you receive a raise from your 2007-2008 salary? Will you instead volunteer to accept a pay cut for the 2008-2009 fiscal year? Will your pay cut be at least 25%, the amount funds for Harvard houses are being cut?

2) Why is Larry Summers being paid more than you? Is he continuing to receive salary from Harvard, even in the form of deferred compensation, even though he no longer works at the university?

And for the members of SLAM, here’s a piece of rhetoric for you: While Harvard cuts hot breakfast for students, Drew Faust is making millions and living in a mansion.

What do you bet they’re still serving hot breakfasts at the president’s house?