This is my 250th blog post, in just about 6 weeks since the Ides of March. It's been an eventful period in the country, among my colleagues, and in the life of my family.
My father, who is 86 and has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for some time, appears to be in rapid decline and very near death. I think he, and we, have come to accept that reality, and are coming to be at peace with it.
I'll be going to New Mexico for what will probably be my "goodbye visit" with him. We anticipate that he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in recognition of his heroic service in WWII. He served as a combat infantry sergeant in the Battle of the Bulge and the sweep into Germany through the end of the European war, winning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and other commendations, as well as several battlefield promotions. After being initially rejected for service on medical grounds, he secretly sought medical attention and camouflaged his medical condition in order to serve. I'm not sure his mother, my grandmother Sadie, ever forgave him for that, but he was determined to take part in the fight against the Nazis.
Quite a difference from my generation (and myself) during the Vietnam War, or my children's generation during Iraq.
Dad would have loved to be a physician, or perhaps a teacher. His financial circumstances, and the needs of his family, did not allow for an extended period of expensive schooling. He got a degree in accounting at NYU after the war, then moved with my mother to Florida (where I and my two younger siblings were born), becoming a CPA and a partner in a local accounting firm in Miami. That firm eventually merged into a national firm. I don't think he liked the work very much, or found any great satisfaction in it, but it provided a living for his family, and allowed him to feel he was meeting his responsibilities. He had resources of strength, caring, and gentleness that he could not express very fully as an accountant. He was a highly responsible and dutiful man, probably to a fault. I've had to cope with that complicated inheritance in my own life, as have my siblings (and my children).
He has been a devoted husband (to my mother Ruth) and father to my brother Marshall (who has borne the primary burden of Dad's care in recent years), sister Cheryl, and myself (and wonderful, loving father-in-law to Phyllis). He enjoyed life, sports (particularly golf) and being with people. It is very sad that his final years, compromised by illness, have been so isolated, limited and lacking in interest to him.
We had some good times and some bad times over the years. He was the eldest son in his family (as am I), and had a difficult, and not very rewarding, relationship with his own father. He wanted a better relationship with his children. That was sometimes difficult to achieve in practice, probably particularly with me. He had a considerable temper and could be stubborn (as can I), and that did not always bring out the best in me. Visits could be tempestuous, particularly as leave-taking neared, and that made visits less frequent than might otherwise have been, even before our respective health problems made travel difficult. I don't think he understood my academic or intellectual aspirations all that well, or the depth of my Jewish religious commitments, or my perfectionism. He had a hard time reading my academic writing, or appreciating the issues that excited and stimulated me, and that could be hard for me at times. He was forged by depression and war, and his focus was on more basic needs and responsibilities.
He has been a good and generous and loving father, and we have come to some peace in our relationship. I have found comfort in helping to care for him on those occasions that we have been together in recent years.
During my college years and for a while after, the family lived in a house with a small dock overlooking Indian Creek in Miami Beach, a few blocks from the ocean. It was a peaceful and beautiful spot, coincidentally within eyeshot of the hospital where I was born. Dad and I would go out on the dock during the evening and talk, sometimes for hours, enjoying the gentle breeze and soothing sounds of the water lapping against the dock. Those were our happiest times together, and I'll try to hold that image as I confront his shriveled, dying body, and contemplate a future without him.
I love him and will miss him terribly.
The blog will be down during my impending travels.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Dear friends,
First Jewish group set up within a German political party
From EJP :
BERLIN (EJP)---A new Jewish group has been set up within Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the first such organisation within a major German party since the Nazi takeover in 1933.
The “Caucus of Jewish Social Democrats” was founded by Peter Feldmann, a Frankfurt city councilor and by Berlin law professor Sergey Lagodinsky, and others, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily newspaper said.
The newspaper quoted Feldmann saying after a meeting in Berlin with Social Democratic leaders, 'the SPD welcomed us with open arms.'
Since my visit to Central and Eastern Europe last year, I have had a considerable interest in the nature and quality of what remains of Jewish (particularly religiously or culturally identifying but non-Orthodox) life in Berlin and Prague in particular, and Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and the former Soviet Union more generally. I'll try to include such reports as I find in future blog posts. Maybe I'll eventually get around to writing up some of my impressions from that trip and posting some photos as well.
Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great
Exclusive excerpts From Slate Magazine
Slate is running excerpts from Hitchens' atheist manifesto.
Whatever else one can say, the guy is quite a polemicist! This stuff is not likely to put anyone to sleep.
A ‘First Spouse’ in France? Not Any Time Soon
From The New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, April 26 — No matter who wins the presidency of France on May 6, life in the grand, presidential Élysée Palace is destined to change.
Pretty fascinating commentary on the differences in political culture in the two societies.
I've mostly tended to think America's over-fascination with the personalities and family lives of our Presidents (and Presidential candidates), relative to their ideas and political competence, reflected our barely sublimated desire for a royal family. I was one of the very, very few who thought discussion of a Reagan-Ford ticket for President and Prime Minister (was that 1976?) was sort of interesting (structurally, not in terms of those particular leaders, neither of whom commanded my respect or admiration at the time). I'm still inclined to think a very large share of abiding American affection for Reagan reflects more on his royal/grandfatherly image than on his policies.
The French example complicates that simple explanation. But maybe the French are more interested in casting a cinematic bedroom farce than a government. It still beats whatever we have done the past two elections.
Paul Begala on David Broder
David Broder Is a Gasbag | From The Huffington Post:
No, none of this raises Dean [of the Washington Press Corps David] Broder's hackles.
He reserves his vitriol for Harry Reid.
Why Reid? Because Reid has been one of the few politicians with the courage to speak the plain, unvarnished truth to power, and the hallmark of Mr. Broder's career has been to suck up to power. Reid calls Bush a liar. Broder can't handle the truth.
Begala should hardly be regarded as a neutral source. And there was a time--about three decades (or more) ago--that I enjoyed Broder as a commentator on American politics. That was a long time ago, and my perceptions were less jaundiced by life experience.
Sucking up to power is, of course, a much wider phenomenon, among Washington journalists and far beyond.
Mental-Health Lawyers Caution Colleges Against Disciplining Students for Emotional Difficulties
College administrators should be careful not to discriminate against troubled students in response to Seung-Hui Cho's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, psychologists and lawyers said at a news briefing on Thursday.
Violent behavior is rare among people with mental illness, said Robert Bernstein, a psychologist and executive director of the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, which sponsored the briefing. Students should feel comfortable seeking counseling without worrying that their colleges will discipline them, said Karen A. Bower, a senior staff lawyer for the center.
Colleges' various policies on students' mental health show that the institutions are just beginning to navigate that terrain, Mr. Burnim said. The Bazelon Center plans to release soon a model policy that would encourage students to seek treatment and ensure that any disciplinary action is based on dangerousness and not discrimination, said Ms. Bower.
A ringing call for less civility, more vigorous argument?
My wife is an academic librarian, much involved in web discourse (and generally conflict-averse). Wonder what she will think of this piece?
From Inside Higher Ed:
Good at Reviewing Books But Not Each Other
By Steven J. Bell
Perhaps what the library profession needs to do, if it wants to be taken seriously as a science, is to realize that we need to be accepting of rigorous discourse. We need to learn that there’s something special about it, and that we do a disservice to ourselves and our profession when we fail to do all we can to encourage it. Despite the chill factor that has descended on the library profession there may be some hope. We need to look at how other disciplines stimulate and support discourse. At our conferences and through online communities we need to engage in discussions about how to encourage discourse and appropriate ways in which to engage. We need to hear from scholars in other disciplines with experience in discourse so that we can better understand how to inspire ourselves and our colleagues to be both constructively critical and accepting of criticism. We need to focus on the content, and resist the temptation to make it about personalities.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Fair use in scholarly publishing
Wiley-VCH, one of the increasingly few cartels left standing in the scholarly publishing business, has threatened a lawsuit against a neuroscientist blogger who reproduced a small clip of a chart from an article about fruit antioxidants, in a blog about the research. See her story:
http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/04/when_fair_use_isnt_fair_1.php
Not only are the corporate lawyers trying to suppress fair use, and thereby suppressing serious discussion of this article, but if they are successful it would suppress publicity for articles in Wiley journals -- a result that authors and editors surely don't want, and the publisher, if it had any sense, wouldn't want -- but it doesn't appear from this episode that Wiley execs have any sense. An example of the stupidity of letting corporate lawyers determine policy.
Shame on Wiley!!
Bob Michaelson
Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois 60208
rmichael@northwestern.edu
Not so clear to me that this is, in fact, an example of letting
corporate lawyers determine policy. Mostly, corporate lawyers give advice; they do not directly determine policy. The decisionmakers are the corporate executives--or should be (spoken as a lawyer, who recognizes lawyers can sometimes be asses)--and responsibility properly rests ultimately with them. (Lawyers are not excused from responsibility, but their role is different, mostly.)
My understanding is that there have been further developments on this story, and that Wiley has granted permission for reproducing the excerpts (blaming lower downs, not higher ups), without necessarily conceding the fair use issue. I'm not following closely enough for detailed comment here, but check further before taking action in response to Michaelson's posting.
Jerusalem: Vision for a place of peace
By Alice Shalvi*
JERUSALEM - Jerusalem is holy to three major monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Therein lies its unique glory. Therein lies its tragedy. For well over a millennium Jerusalem has been a battleground, the scene of wars and terrible bloodshed inspired primarily by religious fervour, to which, in more recent times, has been added the single-minded ardour of nationalist aspiration. The city's numerous shrines, erected by Jews, Christians and Muslims, have in turn been desecrated and/or destroyed by adherents to rival faiths.
To many, the situation seems hopeless. Yet it may be precisely in the sanctity of the city in the theology of the different religions that a solution to the conflict could be found. Its origin lies in the city's geography as this has developed over the centuries and particularly during the long period of Ottoman rule, from 1517 to 1917, during which both the Jewish and Muslim communities grew and were active, separate but (almost) equal. By the time the British arrived in 1917 the city was a conglomerate of districts or neighbourhoods, each with its distinctive character and most of them with a fairly, but not totally, homogeneous population. In the Old City, these included the Jewish Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, a small Moorish Quarter and so on. Outside the Old City walls were, inter alia, a German Colony built by the Templars, a Greek Colony, an Italian Colony, an American Colony. The Jews spread out to the west and south; the Arabs to the north and east of the Old City. There are at present virtually no neighbourhoods with a mixed population of Arabs and Jews. Every district has its own churches, mosques or synagogues.
When the British mandatory authorities appointed a municipal council, they (rightly) based representation on religious identity -- two Muslims, two Christians, two Jews. Later this became an elected body, to which each of twelve constituencies, six Arab and six Jewish, each elected one counsellor. The guiding principle of this mode of government was the "conscious alignment of people's nationalities with specific areas" of the city.
In November 1947, when the United Nations proposed a two-state partition of Palestine, it excluded Jerusalem from the division of the territory. Instead, it recommended that Jerusalem be a corpus separatum under UN auspices.
A combination of the UN proposal with the British model of municipal government could create a solution to the problem of Jerusalem -- a solution which, if accepted and implemented in a spirit of mutual tolerance and goodwill, with full respect for the beliefs of "the other" and a readiness to forgo exclusive sovereignty in favour of constructive collaboration, might finally put an end to the enduring conflict. But this "separate entity" should not be under UN trusteeship, any more than the Vatican is. In fact, the Vatican's autonomy, its sovereign status, could well be our model.
Jerusalem is still composed of neighbourhoods that are fairly homogeneous in terms of ethnic origin and background, countries of origin and religious practice. It would not be difficult to establish twelve or more constituencies, each of which would be autonomous and responsible for certain aspects of the lives of its residents. Each of the neighbourhoods or "boroughs" would send elected representatives to a central municipal council, which would be responsible for all matters relating to the city as a whole (transportation, town planning, sanitation, municipal parks, etc.). Separateness need not result in alienation; equality can produce fruitful cooperation and collaboration.
All this applies to Greater Jerusalem. The Old City requires a solution of its own and that could well be found in an in parvo version of the neighbourhood council, one based on equal representation of each and every one of the religious denominations that reside within its walls, who would join together to propose a just distribution of space and to determine the times of day, of the week, of the year when each of the holy places would be accessible to each of the various religions and sects that at present lay exclusive claim to the holy sites of their respective faiths. A Jerusalem Inter-Religious Council would be mandated to determine such a modus vivendi and, thereafter, with ensuring its observance by all concerned.
Some kind of external moderating mediation may be necessary to ensure fair play and equity; but that is a far cry from the internationalisation proposed in 1947. Jerusalem should be autonomous, self-regulatory, self-governing, with no outside intervention by religious authorities outside the city. Not the functionaries of the various religions, but the common folk, the practitioners, should be in charge. This would also give a voice to women, who are currently silenced in virtually all of the religions. Jerusalemites and only Jerusalemites must develop their own separate peace. They must fully internalise the truth of W. H. Auden's famous imperative "We must love one another or die."
* Alice Shalvi is a feminist and social activist who has lived in Jerusalem since 1949. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 26 April 2007 Copyright permission is granted for publication.
Obama to Israel: Status quo failing
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said Tuesday that America needs to ask Israel to help change the status quo in its conflict with the Palestinians, the only candidate at a National Jewish Democratic Council conference to suggest that there is any onus on the Jewish state when it comes to making peace with its neighbors.
'The United States government and an Obama presidency cannot ask Israel to take risks with respect to its security,' he told the crowd of Democratic activists and campaign contributors. 'But it can ask Israel to say that it is still possible for us to allow more than just this status quo of fear, terror, division. That can't be our long-term aspiration.'
Freshman senator Barack Obama's appeal to change the status quo of American politics has propelled him into the top tier of Democratic presidential contenders, and he evinced the same optimism on the intractable Israeli-Palestinian issue.
It's important to be 'hard-headed and clear-eyed about the dangers' in the Middle East, Obama said.
'We also have to recognize that the status quo is not inevitable, that we can aspire to something greater,' he continued, 'we should want to have that difficult, tough discussion...about how we're going to arrive at what I think everybody wants, which is two states living side by side in peace and security.'
The audience applauded his words...
Circuits: Is It Time for An Online Code of Conduct?
From NYTimes David Pogue Blog
...Anyway, Tim O'Reilly, the publisher of her computer books (and mine, by the way), responded with a proposal on his own blog: a voluntary, seven-step blogger code of conduct. You can read the full draft here.[O'Reilly Radar: Call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct]
There's room for argument over some of his points -- true to form, most bloggers' first reaction was to criticize it -- but one point, I think, is unassailable:
"3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments."
That's it, baby. People don't go to psychotic extremes when their names or e-mail addresses are visible.
Just look at the reviews for books and products on Amazon.com. They prove that it's perfectly possible to express dislike of something without spewing hatred. And if you've signed your name, you're a *heck* of a lot less likely to do that.
For the record, my assistant and I moderate the comments on my own blog. Criticism, snarkiness and anti-Pogue comments are all permitted. The only things we delete are off-topic political diatribes, vulgar language, and spam. Yes, spam; you have no idea how many spammers seem to think that a tech blog is the place to find customers for Cialis and Viagra.
(OK, Amazon deletes vulgar and abusive comments, too. But I'll bet that it amounts to only a small percentage of submissions, just as we delete only about 1 in 1,000 Pogue's Posts comments for offensiveness.)
The quality of the discussion at nytimes.com/pogue is very, very high, as a number of readers have noted with delight. I think the biggest reason is that on this blog, readers don't feel anonymous. Your comment is posted under a nickname, but you're nonetheless aware that we know who you are; after all, you've signed up for free nytimes.com registration. Plenty of Pogue's Post readers even use their real names as their nicknames.
And why not? If you're proud of your thoughts, why would you be afraid to be associated with them?
Yes, I know, there are exceptions; certain blog topics have good reasons for offering anonymity (spouse-abuse forums, HIV sites and so on). I'm not suggesting that *all* blogs eliminate anonymity.
Nor am I suggesting censorship. As Tim O'Reilly put it: "I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.
"There are many real-world analogies. Shock radio hosts encourage abusive callers; a mainstream talk radio show like NPR's Talk of the Nation wouldn't hesitate to cut someone off who started spewing hatred and abuse. Frat parties might encourage drunken lewdness, but a party at a tech conference would not. Setting standards for acceptable behavior in a forum you control is conducive to free speech, not damaging to it."
I'm just observing that the blogs with the best and most intelligent discussion are the ones where postings aren't anonymous -- and vice versa. Over and over again, the sites that permit anonymous pot shots are the ones that seem populated solely by [bad stuff].
A partial reading of Brooks on Barack Obama
Obama, Gospel and Verse - From The New York Times:
“I take away [from Niebuhr],” Obama answered in a rush of words, “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away ... the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”
...Finally, more than any other major candidate, he has a tendency to see the world in post-national terms. Whereas President Bush sees the war against radical Islam as the organizing conflict of our time, Obama sees radical extremism as one problem on a checklist of many others: global poverty, nuclear proliferation, global warming. When I asked him to articulate the central doctrine of his foreign policy, he said, “The single objective of keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure and feel invested.”
Remembering I.F. Stone: OSHA Leaves Worker Safety in Hands of Industry
From The New York Times: By STEPHEN LABATON
...That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.
Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.
The agency has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others. For example, OSHA has repeatedly identified silica dust, which can cause lung cancer, and construction site noise as health hazards that warrant new safeguards for nearly three million workers, but it has yet to require them.
“The people at OSHA have no interest in running a regulatory agency,” said Dr. David Michaels, an occupational health expert at George Washington University who has written extensively about workplace safety. “If they ever knew how to issue regulations, they’ve forgotten. The concern about protecting workers has gone out the window.”
Andy Borowitz on Rich Little
As part of a bold new strategy to confuse the enemy, the Pentagon announced today that it was sending comedian/impressionist Rich Little to Iraq to entertain the insurgents....
... after seeing Mr. Little perform at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night in Washington, the Pentagon decided that Mr. Little was just the man for the job, and “Operation Little Entertainment” was born.
Said one Pentagon planner, “If Rich Little can quiet down Iraq the way he silenced that room Saturday night, we’ll consider this mission a big success.”...
“I have had enough,” pleaded insurgent Hassan El-Medfaii, who attended Mr. Little’s show. “Please make the bombing stop.”
Supreme Confusion : Interesting for its source
I am no great fan of Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried, and disagree with him on virtually all controversial matters of public consequence. Fried strongly supported the nominations of Justices Roberts and Alito. Which makes his comments here interesting:
From The New York Times: By Charles Fried
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision for the court in the abortion case last week does not change my mind, because the procedure that was banned, intact dilation and extraction, is too rarely used and its importance too dubious to make much difference.
Still, this most recent decision is disturbing, because in 2000, in a similar case, the Supreme Court struck down a Kansas partial birth abortion ban. The Kansas law was unacceptably vague, but the principal reason for the court’s earlier decision was that there was responsible medical opinion that sometimes the procedure was less risky for the mother, and therefore in such cases the ban posed an undue burden. The federal ban cured the vagueness, but sought to overcome the medical testimony by a legislative proclamation of a fact that is not a fact: that the procedure was never safer for the mother.
The decision is disturbing because the court has on numerous occasions refused to allow Congress to overturn constitutional law by bogus fact finding, notably in decisions invalidating the Violence Against Women Act (which Justice Kennedy joined) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (which Justice Kennedy wrote).
It’s disturbing because Justice Kennedy fails to come to grips with his own jurisprudence, going so far as to say that because Congress was acting under its power to regulate interstate commerce, it needed only a rational basis to justify its decision. Where a fundamental right is involved, such an explanation is evidently wrong.
These Are The Final Days
The Blog | Marty Kaplan: From The Huffington Post:
It's hard to overstate the awesome discretionary power that the press has in framing a story. Deciding what to cover, and how much play to give it, and how much context to provide, and what headlines and terms to use: for reporters, producers, and editors, these are Prospero's staff. A reporter can let Matt Drudge (and thus movement conservatives) set the media agenda (as ABC News's Mark Halperin happily acknowledged), or he can let his own instincts, and shoe-leather, define what's news (as did the Boston Globe's Charlie Savage's Pulitzer-winning reporting on Bush's Congress-nullifying signing statements). A reporter can be a conduit for Republican smears (The New York Times's Adam Nagourney retailing the Edwards-as-'Breck Girl' meme), Republican lies (the Times's Judy Miller doing Scooter Libby's WMD dirtywork). and Republican Luntzism (The Politico's editor-in-chief John F. Harris alleging that Democrats themselves -- rather than the RNC -- were calling an Iraq withdrawal a 'slow bleed' strategy). Or they can do what Murray Waas and Josh Marshall do, and what Bill Moyers and David Brancaccio do, and what the reporters in Knight Ridder's (now McClatchy's) Washington bureau do, and behave like journalists, not courtiers.
Is Alberto Gonzales Stupid? : A more respectful view...
Alex Gibney: From The Huffington Post:
Gonzales is the consummate bureaucrat. With the moral direction of a cockroach, he skitters around in the footnotes of the law, avoiding fundamental principles, in an effort to survive. Let's remember: this is the man who told Arlen Specter that there was no affirmative right to habeas corpus in the Constitution, only a prohibition against its suspension. Let's admit: that's technically correct and meaningless. His brilliance comes in his extraordinary ability to remain determined, unflappable, and dilatory in the face of withering criticism. There's no smoking gun with Alberto; in fact, by intention, there's no there there. And that's how he eludes being stampeded out of the government.
This is the lawyer, formerly employed by Enron, who hid Bush's DUI conviction and prepared 57 death-penalty memoranda - all urging death and many ignoring clear evidence for clemency - for Bush's virtual assembly line of executions... This is the man who, as counsel to the President, advised his client how to commit a crime against humanity: torture. Yet, even knowing that, he managed to keep his head down in the midst of evasions and obfuscations long enough to be confirmed the leading law enforcement official of the United States. Once installed, he appears to have been far less interested in serving the Constitution - his real job - than his political bosses. In doing so, he has corrupted the rule of law and, through his belief in executive power, traded the principles of the Magna Carta for Machiavelli's The Prince, a handbook for maintaining power and justifying evil actions if they serve a just purpose.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
One small step for humankind
The Chronicle of Higher Education: "Harvard Economist Is First Woman to Win Prestigious John Bates Clark Medal
By DAVID GLENN
The John Bates Clark Medal, which is awarded every two years to a promising economist under the age of 40, has been given, for the first time, to a woman: Susan C. Athey, a professor of economics at Harvard University. The American Economic Association announced the award on Friday.
Ms. Athey -- who was described by one of her graduate advisers as 'Superwoman' in a 1995 New York Times profile -- joined Harvard last summer, after five years on the faculty at Stanford University. She has done theoretical and practical research in a variety of arenas, including monetary policy and the structure of auctions.
Can someone help me with an appropriate Larry Summers joke to insert here?
On the Living Wage front@Stanford University
From Inside Higher Ed:
Students at Stanford University ended a hunger strike — which some of them had been on for more than a week — after the institution agreed to improvements in its treatment of some employees. The Stanford Labor Action Coalition is hailing the agreement as a major advance. The university pledged to apply its “living wage” policy to employees who had previously been excluded and to try whenever possible to work with contracting agencies that meet high labor standards.
Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War
We just lost, in David Halberstam, one of the great reporters of his generation.
Another of that small company, a national treasure, is Bill Moyers.
This week Moyers takes on the failures of the mainstream American press in the leadup to the Iraq War. (Would that we had more young Halberstams on that job.)
Don't miss it.
David Halberstam, 73, Reporter and Author
From The New York Times:
By CLYDE HABERMAN
David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and tireless author of books on topics as varied as America’s military failings in Vietnam, the deaths of firefighters at the World Trade Center and the high-pressure world of professional basketball, was killed yesterday in a car crash south of San Francisco. He was 73, and lived in Manhattan....
His reporting, along with that of several colleagues, left little doubt that a corrupt South Vietnamese government supported by the United States was no match for Communist guerrillas and their North Vietnamese allies. His dispatches infuriated American military commanders and policy makers in Washington, but they accurately reflected the realities on the ground.
For that work, Mr. Halberstam shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1964. Eight years later, after leaving The Times, he chronicled what went wrong in Vietnam — how able and dedicated men propelled the United States into a war later deemed unwinnable — in a book whose title entered the language: “The Best and the Brightest.”...
President John F. Kennedy was so incensed by Mr. Halberstam’s war coverage that he strongly suggested to The Times’s publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, that the reporter be replaced. Mr. Sulzberger replied that Mr. Halberstam would stay where he was. He even had the reporter cancel a scheduled vacation so that no one would get the wrong idea.
Freedom to Discuss Virginia Tech?
Emmanuel College last week urged all professors to talk to students about the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. One adjunct who did so for about 10 minutes — but not in the way Emmanuel envisioned — was promptly fired and barred from the campus.
Nicholas Winset and his supporters see his dismissal as a violation of academic freedom and an example of the way colleges may overreact to a nationally traumatic event. Winset also says that key details about his class discussion provide context that has been lacking in some initial reports on the incident. He has posted a detailed discussion of the class that got him fired ...
From a blog posting in response (note that quotes were not made in specific response to this particular controversy):
"What in the Hell is going on Emmanuel College. Civility? ... CIVILITY??? ... on a college campus? About that Guido Calabresi, former Dean of the Yale Law School, once said, “It was tasteless, even disgusting, but that’s beside the point. Free expression is more important than civility in a university.”
And in “The Community of Scholars,” my old friend Paul Goodman said, “It is my thesis that the agent of this clinch is administration and the administrative mentality among teachers and even the students. It is the genius of administration to enforce a false harmony in situations that should be rife with conflict.
At Least the Boss Was Satisfied by Gonzales’s (non-)Answers
WASHINGTON, April 23 — President Bush said Monday that the Congressional testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last week, roundly panned by members of both parties, had “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”
Speaking during a short question-and-answer session in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Gonzales’s performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer.
Having assiduously watched both Stewart and Colbert last night, I have concluded this statement by W is simply beyond parody.
The lame, the tame, laying the blame
War Room - Salon.com: Not exactly Stephen Colbert
Rich Little, impersonating former President and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter at this weekend's sanitized-for-your-protection White House Correspondents' Association dinner: 'I had the biggest nuts in the country.'
By all reports, Little, enlisted as an offend-nobody follow-up to Colbert, failed deeply at being funny. The good news: George W. Bush didn't even try. While the president has, in the past, thought the war in Iraq to be the source of high hilarity for a dinner like this one, he said that last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech left him thinking that humor wasn't appropriate this time around.
Little apparently agreed.
Little's routine, a time capsule of social irrelevance from the 1970s, showed considerable freezer burn. So did too many of the honchos in attendance.
Lame is about the kindest term one could apply to his, uh, performance.
Less kind: it set a bar even Alberto Gonzales might be able to meet. If he could recall where it was. Or one could, perhaps, go the other way, with Little replacing Gonzales--at least Little can remember, and poses no threat of disruptive original thought.
Rabbis for Human Rights: Study Text on Israel's Declaration of Independence
:
MASECHET HA’ATZMAUT/INDEPENDENCE TRACTATE
A Talmudic style commentary on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, created by Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel.
Some Questions to Consider:
How did the founders of Israel envision the State of Israel?
What were the Jewish sources that inspired their vision?
How did they envision incorporating their goals of Jewish state and of a state that offers equal treatment to all the citizens?
The term democratic state was included in a draft of the Declaration. Why was it omitted from the final text?
Can a state be both Jewish and democratic?
How does their vision resonate with your own vision of Israel? In what way has this vision been fulfilled in Israel?
How can we help Israel to fulfill this vision?"
This study text is a small excerpt from Masechet Haatzmaut, a Talmudic style commentary on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, created by Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel. We plan to translate it into English.
To support this project and the work of Rabbis for Human Rights, you may send contributions to Rabbis for Human Rights, Box 1539, West Tisbury, MA 02575 or contribute online by visiting our website at www.rhr-na.org.
Leonard Fein on The Anniversary of Israel’s Independence
This is the 59th anniversary of Israel’s independence. May the celebration of the 60th be attended by growing recognition, not only on both sides but also by all those who have in despair given up caring or who in anger have chosen to be deaf to the Other, the Jewish Other or the Palestinian Arab other, by all those who believe in the squaring of circles and fantasize that in a one-state solution two sets of rights that have come to be seen as mutually exclusive can be accommodated, that two states for two people is the only respectful way of getting past the current sorrow, the ongoing distortion, the death and the dying of dreams and of people.
Reflections on Israeli Independence Day
Do we even need a state? - Haaretz :
In addition to the private home and the spaces of education, society, locale, time, ceremonies and culture, there also exists another public space of great value in the formation of identity: the political-government space. Here the state not only has a role, but is the sole player. This space did not exist for the Jews during 2,000 years of exile nor is it available today in the liberal Western countries.
On the 5th of the Hebrew month of Iyar in 1948, a rare window of opportunity opened in the history of the Jewish nation for realizing its unique identity in all possible contexts, including government. The challenge is great and touches upon all the organs of the state: How is a Jewish army different from other armies? Will it stand out for its morality? Can we learn something from Jewish culture that will enable us to cope with the use of force? What unique tikkun olam, 'repair of the world,' can be achieved by a legal system in a Jewish state? Will the social security that the State of Israel gives its citizens be influenced by our tradition of charity? And how will our heritage be realized in the state justice that will be shaped by the laws of an Israeli parliament? How will 'you were a stranger in the land of Egypt' influence our attitude toward the minorities in our midst? Will the Jewish discourse of obligations and communal solidarity moderate the fever of privatization that has gripped the country? These are questions that only life in a sovereign state awakens. Dealing with them will afford the state meaning and depth that will justify the sacrifice that is marked by Memorial Day and the celebration of Independence Day.
The importance of Israel, a mere pinhead on the globe, becomes clear when we allow a complex, pluralistic Jewish identity to be manifested in the public and political space. Along with strict observance of the Charter of Universal Human Rights, the state must express in its deeds, its budgets, its symbols and its laws what the Jews carry with them as distant and recent memory.
The shaping of the state through a close relationship with Jewish culture and history brings up questions, including those about citizens who are not Jews. But the complexity of the questions does not justify effacing identity altogether from the public space. Only if we face up to the challenge of identity can we celebrate independence wholeheartedly. Only then will we be transformed from the state of the Jews to the Jewish state.
Life Post-Imus
Recommendation to the Recording and Broadcast Industries:
A Statement by Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis on behalf of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network
April 23, 2007
The theme of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is "Taking Back Responsibility." We are consistent in our strong affirmation, defense, and protection of the First Amendment right of free speech and artistic expression. We have recently been involved in a process of dialogue with recording and broadcast industry executives about issues concerning corporate social responsibility.
It is important to re-emphasize that our internal discussions with industry leaders are not about censorship. Our discussions are about the corporate social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show respect to African Americans and other people of color, African American women and to all women in lyrics and images.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Jupiter in the 5th House (The Sky Within)
Astrology Software - Comparing Natal Delineations:
In your chart, the 'King of the Gods' reigns in the Fifth House – traditionally the 'House of Children.' Your nature is playful and self-expressive, and the 'inner child' is vibrant inside you. Creativity comes naturally... but, spiritually, you are learning how to use it correctly. Sincerity and risk are the keys; without them, you'll produce a Technicolor personality and lots of applause, but little else. The archetype that's trying to break through you is not simply the Bard... it's the Wise Bard.
I suspect this will be my one and only astrology posting, a result of self-indulgent auto-googling--it must be my playful, self-expressive inner child.
Very sincerely, TWB.
O'Connor, Alito, the swinging Kennedy, and the new 5-4 Court
The decision last week brought into focus the greatest hopes of conservatives and the worst fears of liberals. Is the court about to make sweeping changes in important areas of constitutional law, including in decisions expected shortly on the role of money in political campaigns and of race in the schools?
“O’Connor was the swing vote in so many cases, especially in high-profile areas like affirmative action, campaign finance and separation of church and state,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at Duke. “Sam Alito is likely to bring about a change in all of those areas.”
Depending on Kennedy.
How can the guy who was so empathetic toward gays in Lawrence be so arrogantly paternalistic toward women in Carhart?
A new law clerk?
Barack's rock -- Profile of Michelle Obama
Barack's rock | from The Chicago Tribune:
Michelle Obama, 43, has a reputation for telling it like she thinks it is... And though she's lighthearted in her critiques, she never plays the role of the deferential political wife.
'He's a gifted man,' she tells the audience, 'but, in the end, he's just a man.'
The fact that the crowd responds with laughter and a long, warm ovation is a good sign for the Obama team....
More than just a spokeswoman, she's a crucial part of the Obama package itself, complementing and shaping her husband in ways that are both politically and personally significant.
The daughter of a tight-knit nuclear family, she's an anchor for a spouse who grew up all over the world and barely knew his own father. Her background, deeply rooted in a working-class South Side neighborhood, lends credibility to her husband, who has consistently battled questions from some African-Americans about whether the son of an African father and a white American mother is authentically black....
I heard that growing up, 'You talk like a white girl,' " Obama told the Tribune on Friday in her first solo interview since her husband announced his candidacy for president in February. "There isn't one black person who doesn't understand that dynamic. That debate is about the pain that we still struggle with in this country, and Barack knows that more than anyone.
"One of the things I hope happens through our involvement in this campaign is that this country and this world sees yet another image of what it means to be black."
Her ability to speak with authority on such tough issues is one reason the campaign thinks she will be a potent weapon in its arsenal.
Obama Addresses Question of Experience
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wooing black voters while tackling questions about his experience, Democrat Barack Obama said Saturday that his years as a community organizer and accomplishments in the Illinois state Senate have prepared him well for the presidency....
He met later in the day with leaders of the Iowa Citizen Action Network, a liberal group of community organizers, and touted his own experience as a community organizer.
''I can relate,'' said Obama as he opened a two-day visit to Iowa. ''I, too, was a community organizer. Community organizers generally look at the world a little bit differently.''
Obama's first job was working for a coalition of churches on Chicago's south side, seeking to help rescue a troubled neighborhood.
''It was that education that was seared into my brain,'' Obama said. ''It was the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School.''
[Reverend Al] Sharpton, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004, has also openly questioned Obama's credentials for the job. Obama, running to be the first black president, acknowledged those concerns. He also assured the largely black audience he did not believe he was automatically entitled to their support....A spokeswoman said Sharpton was not expected to endorse a candidate soon.
So, do African-Americans really need Al Sharpton to tell them whom to support in this race?
Mending Walls in Baghdad: Poetry in Motion?
From The New York Times:
By EDWARD WONG and DAVID S. CLOUD
BAGHDAD, April 20 — American military commanders in Baghdad are trying a radical new strategy to quell the widening sectarian violence by building a 12-foot-high, three-mile-long wall separating a historic Sunni enclave from Shiite neighborhoods.
Soldiers in the Adhamiya district of northern Baghdad, a Sunni Arab stronghold, began construction of the wall last week and expect to finish it within a month. Iraqi Army soldiers would then control movement through a few checkpoints. The wall has already drawn intense criticism from residents of the neighborhood, who say that it will increase sectarian tensions and that it is part of a plan by the Shiite-led Iraqi government to box in the minority Sunnis.
A doctor in Adhamiya, Abu Hassan, said the wall would transform the residents into caged animals.
********
"SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall...
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go...
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!...
... I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'"
(Excerpted from Robert Frost)
************
But here my apple trees consume his cones,
And here there are sects, and they wear explosive vests.
Like old-stone savages armed, moving in darkness.
Walling in or walling out, Sunni, Shi'a, like to give offense...
They will not go behind their fathers' saying,
Sometimes only walls make neighbors of militias straying.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down, but needs it erect ...
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