“In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face.”
—French culture minister Frederic Mitterand, commenting on the arrest of director Roman Polanski.
My friend Tony sent me this photo, so I don’t know its origin, and I have mixed-to-negative feelings about shark feeding, which is apparently what’s going on, and also about swimming in the water with a large tiger shark.
That said…pretty amazing.
Forgive me for plugging a few of my favorite people.
My friend Liesl Schillinger reviews the novel Spooner, by Pete Dexter, who is not a friend of mine but I wish were because I admire him a lot.
And it’s almost as if she read my weeks-ago blog post on Spooner, because her lede is pretty much my post! (Full disclosure: She didn’t. And she does a lot more with it.)
In a note to readers in the advance edition of “Spooner,” Dexter explains that he turned in his novel more than three years late not because he was stymied about what to write but because he was bedeviled by the question of what to leave out. He simply couldn’t stem the flood of story that poured forth as he chronicled the misadventures of Warren Spooner….
Spooner is a really interesting book and a change of pace for Dexter, whose milieu is usually much darker, more violent, less comic. Check it out. (Liesl liked it a lot too.)
And my friend Peter Maass’ book, Crude World, about oil, is reviewed in the NYTBR today.
Maass is less interested in crunching oil-supply numbers….than in exposing the cruelty and soullessness of human kind’s lust for this “violence- inducing intoxicant,” as he calls it. His book teaches us an old lesson anew: that the true wealth of nations is not discovered in the ground, but created by the ingenuity and sweat of citizens. It’s the same lesson the Spanish learned centuries ago when they discovered gold, the oil of their time, in the New World. They piled up bullion but squandered it on imperial fantasies and failed to build enduring prosperity, while destroying the civilizations from which they seized it.
Peter is not only a lovely guy, he’s one of our finest journalists, and he is an amazing reporter—he goes to places and exposes himself to dangers I wouldn’t dream of, and as a result, he fills topics that might otherwise seem not your cup of tea with vivid life. His first book, Love Thy Neighbor, about the war in Bosnia, broke my heart.
Crude World sounds terrific.
This time in the Arts section, with a review of Michael Sandel’s “Justice” course, filmed for television.
….what is new about Harvard’s venture, more than five years in the making, is that it is the first time that public broadcasters can remember a regular college course’s being presented on television. What’s more, it is also a highly produced multimedia event, with high-definition video, interactive Webcasts, podcasts, a new book and a speaking tour.
“We looked at what other universities had done and realized that they didn’t have the full classroom experience,” said Mr. Sandel…
I wonder what impact filming has on the nature of a course in terms of the way students and professor change their behavior due to their awareness of being filmed. Does it make everyone a ham? Or does it put everyone on their best behavior?
Meanwhile, Harvard’s PR people have had a terrific week, with pieces in the Times about Bill Fitzsimmons and Harvard admissions, about Drew Faust and Harvard’s organic grass, about Sandel. (I’m sure there’s more.)
This is terrific press for Harvard, in that it has nothing to do with Larry Summers, budget deficits, Allston, murder, drugs, etc.
The Times, on the other hand, ought to be a little embarrassed.
…and the Yankees crushed the Red Sox again. (Just writing this almost ensures a Boston victory today.)
But Dan Shaughnessy thinks it’s because Terry Francona is wisely resting his players, while Joe Girardi unwisely is not.
I don’t know—I think it’s important to beat the Red Sox heading into the playoffs. Plus, it’s just plain fun.
On the other hand, I think Francona is a great manager and knows his team well….
Can’t wait for October baseball!
Palau bans shark-fishing.
“These creatures are being slaughtered and are perhaps at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them,” said President Toribiong. “Their physical beauty and strength, in my opinion, reflects the health of the oceans; they stand out,” he told BBC News from UN headquarters in New York.
It’s a small country, but one with a strong reputation in environmental matters, and its decision may have some influence.
They’ve arrested Roman Polanski?
Not to excuse what he did, but…the guy is 76, has been a refugee for 31 years, and got a raw deal from the legal system.
Polanski pleaded guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse”; probation was the recommendation. But the judge began to maneuver behind the scenes: he wanted to look tough for the press, though not necessarily send Polanski to prison. He asked a reporter for advice on what sentence he should give; he gave regular interviews to a Hollywood gossip columnist. The day before the sentencing—despite an agreement with Dalton and Gunson—Ritterband was overheard bragging at his country club that he was going to lock up Polanski for the rest of his life. The next day Polanski was gone, his Mercedes abandoned at the Los Angeles airport. Even the prosecutor now says, “I’m not surprised he left under those circumstances.
Surely there’s a better solution to this than arresting a 76-year-old?
It’s hard not to think that Polanski, a Holocaust survivor whose wife was stabbed to death while pregnant—the killer just died in prison—has been through enough.
I loved my trip to Iceland. It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people. (Really beautiful people.)
And I understand that the country has a long fishing tradition of which it is understandably proud. Iceland isn’t the easiest country in the world in which to make a living, and fishing is brutal.
That said, Iceland has an unfortunate tradition of whaling, and in recent years the country has embraced that tradition with increasing ardor.
On my trip to Iceland, which was work-related, several restaurants served whale meat to the group of foreigners I was reporting on; I declined, but it definitely felt like they were trying to sneak us whale meat in situations where people either wouldn’t know what it was or would feel uncomfortable saying no.
Now the BBC reports that Iceland is planning a massive sale of whale meat to Japan, which is just wrong for all sorts of reasons.
This summer, [Icelandic whaling company] Hvalur hf caught 125 fins [fin whales] - a huge expansion on previous years.
The company’s owner says he will export as much as 1,500 tonnes to Japan. This would substantially increase the amount of whalemeat in the Japanese market.
The bizarre thing about this is that whalewatches are a big business in Reykjavik…so on the one hand, they take people out to see whales, and then, when the tourists aren’t looking, they kill them. It’s a very odd cognitive dissonance.
Whaling has become a hot-button political issue in Iceland, which is in dire economic straits and under economic pressure to join the EU—a move which would mean some loss of sovereignty (goodbye kroner!) for Iceland and is deeply unpopular among Icelanders, who are proud of their independence and talk about Vikings a lot.
The [Icelandic] government has formally applied to join the EU, and it is entirely possible that the EU would demand an end to whaling as a condition of Iceland’s entry.
Here’s the real problem: The more whale meat is traded, the more likely it is that a global marketplace will develop, and that will only lead to the slaughter of more whales…..
…to see the Yankees kick some Red Sox tail in late September. Let’s hope it continues.
Also: I’m glad Jon Lester doesn’t seem to be seriously hurt…but I hope his pitching form is slightly thrown off for the rest of the season!
Meanwhile, the NYT reports that David Ortiz, who leads the AL in homers since June 6 with 26, got his groove back by acting like he was a Little Leaguer.
I’ll admit to being baffled by Ortiz’s renaissance. How could you go from being literally the worst hitter in major league baseball to being its most powerful?
Charming as the Little League story is, I ain’t buying it…
According to today’s Globe,
[Massachusetts] Secretary of Administration and Finance Leslie A. Kirwan is submitting her resignation to become dean of administration and finance for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
She sounds impressive.
Kirwan, the state’s first female administration and finance secretary, played a key role in implementing Massachusetts’ landmark health care reform initiative through its formative stages. She cochaired the Payment Reform Commission, which made important cost containment recommendations to ensure health care reform’s sustainability. She fought for the funding needed for the health care law to succeed, even in face of one of the state’s worst financial crisis, her colleagues claimed.
The Crimson adds this tidbit:
The appointment follows news in July that then-FAS dean for administration and finance Brett C. Sweet would leave for Vanderbilt after less than a year at Harvard.
And Harvard Mag’s story is here.