Shots in the Dark

It was predicted here and elsewhere that Harvard would wait until after Commencement to announce firings, so as not to risk disruption of the fundraisers’ graduates’ big day.

Well, the university didn’t wait very long.

Scooping the Crimson, Harvard Mag reports that Drew Faust this morning announced that 275 employees have been sacked. Many others will lose hours or work an academic schedule.

The layoffs will be announced in most of the professional schools first; they will be followed by reductions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Harvard Medical School, the central administration, and several allied institutions next week. Affected employees are being offered 60 days of pay from the time of notification; lump-sum severance payments of one to two weeks per year of service; an additional four weeks of pay; and the opportunity to purchase health benefits for 18 months (including the first year at subsidized rates).

This does sound like a generous severance package—although it’s slightly hard to tell from the description if employees get all of those things, or just some—but still….painful.

The real question is, Will it be enough? Or will the ax continue to fall?

…these staff-workforce reductions will make an impact on the looming budget pressures in several of the schools and allied institutions. But they do not nearly close the biggest gaps, such as the $220-million deficit looming over FAS.

That sounds like your answer, right there.

Update: The Crimson has the story now.

The magazine business is always tough, but now is a particularly challenging time. Yesterday, two friends of mine, James Burnett and Pat Mitchell, got the ax as editor-in-chief and design director of Boston magazine.

(Actually, the Herald’s piece gets the story more right than does the Globe’s, above.)

James was an intern at George when I was an editor there, and Pat was the designer of 02138 (which, some of you may remember, was a terrific-looking magazine).

They’re both extremely talented guys, and I wish them (and the other people who got canned yesterday) the best of luck. It isn’t easy being a journalist these days.

There was a pretty healthy discussion going on in the “No Bagels for Breakfast” post which just got pushed offscreen. Here it is.

The Journal reports that Harvard’s head of fixed income and a “top fixed-income portfolio manager” are out at the Harvard Management Company.

The unexpected departures of the fixed-income officials could hamper the endowment’s ability to sift through the ruins of the credit crisis for opportunities. It comes as the credit markets are showing signs of life, with prices for high-yield bonds, leveraged loans and some mortgage-backed securities returning to levels not seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September….

It’s unclear whether the two men jumped or were pushed.

A Harvard biz school professor attacked a guy with a thermos of hot coffee because the guy was blocking his driveway.

(Perhaps Professor Fleming should try decaf?)

Which certainly begs the question: Who uses thermoses anymore?

…ever do to Frank Rich?

Because boy does the NYT columnist not like Summers.

Writing about the Obama plan to kinda-sorta overhaul tinker with financial regulations, Rich makes the connection between Summers, Geithner, and their mentor Bob Rubin.

A tip-off to what was coming appeared in a Washington Post op-ed article that the administration’s two financial gurus, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, wrote to preview their plan. “Some people will say that this is not the time to debate the future of financial regulation, that this debate should wait until the crisis is fully behind us,” they wrote by way of congratulating themselves on taking charge.

Who exactly are these “some people” who want to delay debate on the future of regulation? Not anyone you or I know. Most Americans were desperate for action and wondered why it was taking so long. The only people who Summers and Geithner could possibly be talking about are the bankers in their cohort who helped usher us into this disaster in the first place. Both men are protégés of one of them, Robert Rubin, the former wise man of Citigroup.

It’s also worth pointing out that this is where it really matters that Larry Summers was paid $8 million by hedge funds and banks last year. As always, in Washington, even relatively small bribes investments can produce dividends worth far more….

On the Fishers Island ferry 20 years ago. I still have the knapsack and the sweater.

Happy Father’s Day.

David Ortiz doubled last night, bringing his average to .208.

Ortiz actually has a pretty fair amount of doubles (16), which is one of the things that makes me think he’s a former juicer. How many of those doubles would have been home runs with just a little more ooomph? How many of Ortiz’s home runs in the past should really have been doubles?

Meanwhile, Bob Ryan writes in the Globe that Red Sox fans still get all worked up about steroids.

Of course, Ryan, who admits to having missed the steroids story in the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa era, bravely writes now about…Sammy Sosa.

Not a word about Ortiz. Those Globe sportswriters, no one can say they lack cojones!

The wife of a friend of a mine bought a Kindle and really loved it. She’s a big reader and has a long morning commute, so she likes having the Kindle on the subway.

Then my friend dropped the Kindle, it broke, and they were out $450 or so. Dagnabbit.

I haven’t tried the Kindle myself, mostly because I really enjoy the tactile experience of printed books, and because I don’t flatter myself that I’m such a voracious reader that I need a device which will carry ten kajillion books. And I’m pretty much a one book at a time kind of guy.

Plus, $500 feels like a lot for something that allows me to do something I already do pretty well for free—read.

That said, I can see that there are some things about the Kindle that are pretty cool. I love how people get such a kick out of the wireless buying experience; as I’ve long said about iTunes, there’s something almost erotic about clicking and downloading that probably encourages the buying impulse.

And I’m curious to see what the experience of reading a newspaper on Kindle is like.

That said, here’s one reason why I think printed books, unlike the CD, won’t go away; while music stores never made the experience of shopping for CDs very pleasant, people love bookstore-browsing. Moreover, you couldn’t sample the music at CD stores—not in any meaningful way—and bookstore sampling is as easy as picking up a book. Also, can you take a Kindle to the beach? Or toss it onto your bed? And speaking of bed, it’s not exactly hot to bring your Kindle to bed, is it? Bad feng shui, I’d think.

So what do you think? Buy now—or wait until a Kindle costs a third of its current price? Or never?

In northern Virginia, an old man got so angry at Verizon’s customer service, he died.

A 79-year-old Vienna man who was fed up with his Verizon service died after trying to stop a technician’s van from pulling out of his driveway.

The tragedy of the death prompted eloquent expressions of disbelief.

“Holy cow,” said Adam Strawn, 28. “That’s ridiculous.”

Then again, anyone who’s ever dealt with Verizon can relate to the man’s frustration. It does have pretty crummy customer service.