Shots in the Dark

Writing in the Globe, James Carroll considers the connections between Harvard alum Richard Blumenthal (Vietnam liar) and Harvard ex Adam Wheeler.

For most of the column it’s hard to tell what Carroll is trying to say, but I do like this paragraph:

In America, elite culture is now defined less by social class than the resume, with great rewards going to academic super-achievers and, as always, military heroes. Celebrity and wealth have themselves become commodities, with the price tag often being inauthenticity. Yet most ordinary people aren’t buying. Honesty remains normal. People understand the difference between appearance and substance, and won’t sacrifice the latter for the former. There is coherence between who they are, who they think they are, and who they say they are. Such coherence also goes by the name integrity, and ordinary people take it for granted as the precondition of happiness.

Actually, I’d say that it’s been some time since America was defined by social class, probably since the mid- to late 1700s, and even then class was never as powerful as it was in the Old World. I’m not sure I’d say that “America,” once it became known as America, was ever defined by social class. (The great barrier has always been race.)

What Adam Wheeler suggests is that, while many people associate a Harvard degree with standing at the top of the American pyramid, they don’t value the work it takes to get there.

If they’re not all preoccupied with graduating, that is…

On the Huffington Post, Karen Stabiner asks:

Let others debate issues of ethics, stress and expectations. The pressing question raised by l’affaire Wheeler is, How do you fake your SAT scores?

This is the kind of revelation that could help keep journalism alive, folks. You can alter your SAT scores. I like to think that right now a handful of intrepid young reporters are scrambling to beat each other to the scoop. A message to the one who figures it out: My email’s at the end of the post. Deliver the clip proving you’re the one who got the story, and dinner’s on me.

It’s [email protected].

The significant other and I were obsessed this weekend with the story of the Spanish bullfighter gored by the bull he was trying to slaughter. (Front page of the New York Post, of course.)

Watch the video if you dare. (Not for the soft of palate.)

What an unpleasant—and untrustworthy—person Mark Zuckerberg seems to be.

“Marriage is like water—you have to drink it. Swinging is like wine. Some people feel it’s delicious the first time they try it, so they keep drinking. Some people try it and think it tastes bad, so they never drink it again.”

—Fifty-three year old Ma Yaohai of China, who was just sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for organizing orgies. Mr. Yohai says his sex life is none of his government’s business.

* Standard disclaimer: This is not an endorsement, just put out there for your consideration.

The Crimson has a solid piece considering how the Harvard admissions office could have been so badly fooled by Adam Wheeler.

(Note to Crimson: Don’t bury the fact that the admissions office won’t talk to you in the last line of the piece. This scandal cost Harvard tens of thousands of dollars and has deeply embarrassed the university—the admissions office owes the community an explanation, and you Crimsonians should keep the heat on, highlighting the fact that the office is acting like the Pentagon. Consider this lede: “While the Harvard Admissions office refused to comment for the third straight day since Adam Wheeler was arrested, admissions officers around the country raised questions about how Wheeler could have fooled the university with forged documents and a bogus application.” Toughen up, Crimson.)

(Meanwhile, you should be doing everything you can to get your hands on that application—and posting it online. I have a feeling that’s going to raise some serious questions about admissions processes.)

Anyway, here’s the gist of the Crimson piece:

Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said that Harvard could not be wholly blamed for Wheeler’s ability to slip through the admission process.

“There is not any institution in this country that can afford to or does verify everything people submit. It’s just not a practical possibility,” Nassirian said. “You can’t really fault Harvard for not calling every high school and obtaining a duplicate copy of every transcript and every recommendation people submit.”

I’m not really buying this, for a couple of reasons. First, Wheeler was a transfer student, and as I understand it there are relatively few transfer applications and the standards are higher. And second, as I say, once we see the application I have a feeling everyone’s going to think, How on earth did they not check that? And third, Harvard is not just any institution. Okay, maybe Rocky Mountain College doesn’t check such applications. Harvard can’t say it’s the best at everything except when it screws up and then pleads, “Hey, everyone does it.”

Of course, I’m just raising questions, and there might be a perfectly good explanation from the admissions office. But while that office is acting with all the candor and transparency of British Petroleum, how can anyone know? Until they say otherwise—and maybe even when they do—you have to assume they’re hiding something.

As some of you may remember, I’ve suggested a few times on this blog that, given that Harvard was firing dozens of low-paid staff and pressuring many others into early retirement, while the upper administration got off entirely scot free, it might be a nice gesture for Drew Faust to take a voluntary pay cut.

Boy, am I naive sometimes.

Rather than setting an example of executive leadership, Faust, during the country’s worst recession since the Great Depression, at the exact time when Harvard’s endowment was dropping in value by a 10-digit increment,even as faculty and staff were compelled to take a pay freeze, has accepted a raise with open arms and stuffed pockets.

After making $775, 043 in compensation and benefits for the 2007-2008 school year, Faust received $822, 011 for the 2008-2009 school year—a raise of about $50k, or six percent.

To date Faust has been a competent if undistinguished president, surely one of the softest voices in American higher education. On what basis is she getting this raise?

Forget taking a pay cut in order to lead by example. What about merely not accepting a raise in order to lead by example? Can she really need the money?

It’s a classic example of how progressive principles are so lightly jettisoned the second that greed kicks in.

(By the way, has the Crimson even covered this? I can’t find a story on it.)

Has there been a worse environmental disaster than the spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Hard to think of one offhand. And yet, British Petroleum is compounding its nightmare by trying to steamroll the press. Check out this CBS News video, in which a news crew trying to film a public beach is ordered to stop by Coast Guard agents acting on behalf of BP. WTF?

(Incidentally, what a bunch of wimps this news crew is-probably a testament to cuts in TV news that have purged old-school vets from the biz. Someone says, “You can’t cover this on orders of British Petroleum,” the proper response is a raised middle finger-and a silent prayer that they’re stupid enough to arrest you.)

The Crimson has more details on Harvard fraudster Adam Wheeler:

Wheeler’s penchant for words is made apparent in an e-mail laden with thesaurus-worthy words that he sent to his fellow incoming transfer students at Harvard in September 2007.

“My own, brief, assessment of my character is that I am sententious, crypto-tendentious, slightly pedantic with a streak of contrarianism, a fascination with any pedagogical approach to Shakespeare, and a decent sense of humor,” Wheeler wrote in the e-mail, which The Crimson obtained from a recipient of the message.

Really, the only appropriate response to this email is to beat its author until he begs for mercy and promises never to be pretentious again.

All right, I don’t really mean that. But still…shouldn’t the absurdity of this email have raised flags?

The email continues:

“[At MIT], I was, to put it poorly, suckled upon the teat of disdain. That being said (fortified by a reflexive snort), I was inspired therby [sic] to apply to Harvard, where the humanities, in short, are not, simpliciter, a source of opprobrium,” Wheeler wrote.

Simpliciter? Suckled upon the teat of disdain? Well, we’ve all been there, and it’s not a pleasant teat. Not at all.

As Mr. Wheeler might have written, “Forsooth, I am of jest.” But here’s a question: If Wheeler wrote this badly on his application to Harvard, how on earth did he get in? His prose sounds like a computer translation from a foreign language of someone not very smart trying to suck up to someone by using big words. How could you read this and not have your bullshit meter shoot up as if smacked by a carnival sledgehammer?

We have heard nothing from the Harvard admissions office, and the Crimson says nothing on the subject, not even a “declined to answer a reporter’s questions” kind of thing. Crimson?

It took all their strength, but the Red Sox hang on to eke out a victory.

On the other hand, the Yankees are in space and the Red Sox aren’t.

Yankee fans not only rule the world, they look out upon it. (Photo by NASA)