Shots in the Dark

He’s buttonholed at the Aspen Ideas Festival. (Looks nice! Aspen, that is-you can see it in the window.)

Summers repeats the themes that he’s been iterating for the past decade: Innovation is good, we need more technology in the classroom, science is more important than other things, and university bureaucracies are fat and happy and therefore don’t want to change. He argues that the classroom experience at universities hasn’t particularly changed in a generation. (Is this true? Seems to me that the prevalence of students taking notes and surfing the web on computers during class is radically different, but I’m no expert on this subject.)

That, we are to assume, is automatically a bad thing.

Finally this little bit of video raises an interesting question about journalism. When he’s talking about technology and learning, Summers is clearly talking, in part, about online education, and as readers of this blog know, he has a vested interest in promoting online education.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have disclosed that when he answers this question (though perhaps he should have). But The Atlantic should have disclosed it, if the interviewer knew-after all, it affects one’s assessment of Summers’ answer when you know that he has a financial stake in online education. But on the other hand, Summers is speaking at a conference sponsored by the Atlantic. So does this make the video exchange a journalistic interview, conference marketing or just some amorphous form of web content?

That is a small but suitable example, I think, of how technological and cultural change are not always good—how the lines of truth and integrity can grow blurred in the rush to change and profit from change—and that is a theme I’d like to hear Summers elaborate on, because he instinctively assumes the opposite.

What are the real challenges of higher education? I would say a lost sense of purpose as well as corruption stemming from the increasingly worldliness and materialism of universities and their officials, like Drew Faust and Larry Summers. I can’t imagine going to Harvard now and studying classics, or English lit, or anthropology, or something other than economics or science. How could you retain your sense that these are worthwhile endeavors in such an atmosphere of money, money, and mo’ money?

Recent graduate Teresa Hsiao (and Family Guy writer) blogs about her time at Harvard on HuffPo.

Harvard alumni often talk about the best way to “drop the H-bomb,” which is telling people that you went to Harvard (and didn’t just go to school “in Boston”). The H-bomb is referred to as such because of its cataclysmic result, no matter the initial intention. When you tell people that you went to Harvard, you get one of three reactions: awe, indifference, or “fight me.”

I don’t know why I’m even posting this, frankly, as I can’t tell you how tired I am of people writing about “dropping the H-bomb.” Is it possible to nuke the H-bomb?

“An earlier version of this article used the pronoun “she” to refer to Vanidy “Van” Bailey, the newly appointed director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. In fact, Bailey prefers not to be referred to by any gendered pronoun.”

—From a Harvard Crimson article, “Harvard Picks First BGLTQ Director.”

“It”?

I appreciate the dilemma, but unless Bailey can somehow compel people only to refer to him Bailey as “Bailey,”then he Bailey has to pick something. (Or does he Bailey? I’m not sure that the Crimson or any other newspaper has an obligation to honor this linguistic desire.)

Kennedy Airport sucks.

And incredibly, LaGuardia is worse.

There is no question in my mind that if Michael Bloomberg did not fly his private jet out of New York every weekend, those airports would be better off now than they were a decade ago when Bloomberg took office. But because he doesn’t actually use those airports…nothing.

Anne-Marie Slaughter and Katie Couric discussing work and motherhood at the Aspen Ideas Festival. (Did they leave the kids at home?) Does anyone have the slightest idea what Slaughter is gassing on about here?

P.S. It’s the “ideas” festival, so Katie Couric wears her glasses, because, you know, that’s what you do to signify intelligence…

The references to Jaws, the description of a (slaughtered) shark as an “800-pound monster,”* then a few token caveats at the end—it’s all here in this abysmal piece of journalism from the Today show reporting the very big news that sharks were spotted off the east and west coasts…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

* If the shark has been killed for no reason other than “sport,” as is clearly the case, who’s really the monster in this equation—the fish, or the human beings?

“…what happens when Barclays gives up its naming rights [to the Brooklyn Nets’ new arena] and they are sold to Facebook or something?”

—Shots in the Dark, May 30, 2024

“Barclays picked an awful time to be caught in a scandal and for its chief executive to resign. In less than three months, Barclays Center in Brooklyn will open…”

—The New York Times, today.

As the Times’ Richard Sandomir points out, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park are all pretty great names for a sports stadium…and a lot safer, too.

Buddy Fletcher is bankrupt—or at least his hedge fund is.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A hedge fund managed by the investment firm of Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher Jr. has filed for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan, as the firm faces a mounting legal challenge.

…The Fletcher firm has also faced regulatory scrutiny, including by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. Steven Stockstill, executive director of the Firefighters’ Retirement System of Louisiana, one of the Fletcher investors, said in a recent interview he has been contacted by both the SEC and the FBI about their probes. A representative for the SEC didn’t comment; a representative for the FBI declined to comment.

Here’s a question: Could Buddy Fletcher go to jail? And if he does, will Harvard have to rename the Alphonse Fletcher professorship, currently held by Skip Gates?

As a source told me for my Boston magazine article on Fletcher,

“If it were determined that the Alphonse Fletcher professorship had been endowed by a fraudster,” says a university source, “and not just any fraudster, but the first major African-American donor to the college — it would be awkward.”

It is awkward! Particularly given how high profile Skip Gates is; if you Google Alphonse Fletcher, you turn up more hits for Gates than for Fletcher himself… Can Harvard have a professorship named after a crook?