Silence of the Professors

We are one week from a potentially pivotal election. The sleeze is dripping from this campaign in a way I have never seen before. The media have become tamed, made obsolete, or fauxized. And where are the much feared academic liberals in all this?

The attack on SCHOLARLY writings in Virginia is going without protest from academics!

Webb vs. Allen, the Senate race in Virginia, is what caught my attention this morning. I am pretty agnostic in politics. The fuss over Allen's use of terms like Macaca and claims that he is a secret Jew were reasons for me to doubt Webb .. as were the claims that Mr. Webb has actually, horror of horros, used the N word at some time. PFEHHGH ... of both sides, as my grandmother said in Yiddish.

So, when I read the cites from Webb's novels I put it down to more of the same. OK, so this guy made a buck writing cheapo porn. Tsk Tsk. Next week, I expected to read, that Allen rented the "Story of O" or donated sperm and asked for a copy of Hustler to help his efforts.

Was I wrong! The Washington Post today finally got around to reporting on Webb's books. Read it! The "porn" cited is part of novels published by such sleeze houses as the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent organization that produces books about the military. " "Fields of Fire," a novel about the Vietnam War, has been on the Marine Corps reading list for 20 years and is the "most-taught piece of literature regarding the Vietnam War on college campuses."

In other words, these are serious works by a serious guy who actually served in Vietnam. The sort of material that is essential to our primary challenge .. educating people about reality. What happens if the keepers of intelelctual integrity, the faculty of Universities, allow this sort of distortion of the truth?

I do not know how to find out if Webb's book is required at the UW, but here are some comments from Amazon:
“In my opinion, the finest of the Vietnam novels.”
— Tom Wolfe

“Few writers since Stephen Crane have portrayed men at war with such a ring of steely truth.”
— The Houston Post

“A novel of such fullness and impact, one is tempted to compare it to Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.”
— The Oregonian

And more of the same. Clearly this is a classic book.

If Webb can be smeared, who is next? Darwin?

Imagine what would happen if some UW professor were to run for office after writing a novel about the complex life of Lenin ? Something is very wrong when WE are silent when this sort of anti-intellectual activity is NOT discussed on campus.

Summers vs. The National Academy

Recently the National Academy of Sciences published a report on women in science that seemingly was a retort to the comments of Larry Summers as the then President of Harvard. In brief, Summers raise the issue that the lack of women in high level academe was due to complex issues and perhaps not largely doe to old boyism. The NAS report focussed on the issue of old boy prejudice and dismissed claims of any innate differences relevant to achievement at the high level needed to become a chair or prominent scientist.

The claim that the NAS Committee was impartial and did not see itself as contrapunctal to Summers seems to implausible. If the intent was NOT to respond to Summers or at least to promote an agenda that he somehow also addressed why was the Committee overwhelmingly female and feminist?

The tragic thing, in all this, is the lack of attention to issues he raised that should ring a bell with ANYONE.

It is foolish to argue about something as hard to test as the effects of X chromosomes on extreme mathematical ability while utterly neglecting the real fact that the lifestyles expected of most female careerists in America, as addressed well by Summers, are served very badly by our current rules. Sure, there are some women who will want to pursue male patterned, traditional career paths but doing so does mean losing real perogatives women have had.

Is it biological for women to have children outside of ones' teens and age 30? It seem unlikely, but even if women can have children later or if some women choose not to have children or even if we throw families into the lake .. the effect of our current system robs women of a right they have had and is destructive of families for the mifddle and upper classes.

So, to me, a report devoted to women's issues should have had issues of career path and day care as central.

Back at the "man"power issue, I think Summers point about women's choices has merit. At least the public media report that a much higher portion of female MDs than males choose alternative ife styles to full time careers. So, in one area, if we want enough docs and want to serve women's wishes, we simply need to turn out more docs. Is that such a bad thing?

Finally, the issue of finding people to fill the extreme jobs at a Nobelist level is a fascinating subject. While I did not read the original research in the NAS report, I find it very hard to believe anyone can provide an objective answer to the questions Summers asks about this ... nor do I think Summerca can though I admire his asking an interesting question. However, I do not think it makes sense to address the need for such folks simply by affirmative action efforts .. directed at women or at minority groups. Such an effort may be good civil rights but it is horriby inefficient. The most efficient means is immigration. The Bush laws are idiotic and need to be dumped.

Here too, however, I suspect the lifestyle issues are more relevant than biology. The debt load alone is enough to deter all but the children of the reach to pursue the extreme academic goals both the NAS and Summers describe. How few people WITH ability can affairs a debt of 100,000 while pursuing a Math PhD? If we want to compete we need to make huge changes in how we support graduate study and in providing jobs for junior faculty that do not depend on so much risk.

A Movie in a Minute .. Forrest Tucker as idi Amin

We went to see this movie out of curiousity. Forest Tucker is an actor of immense talent, ,imitted one assumes by the smallish literature for actors with black faces. Sure, one can do MacBeth with a black actor but I dubt that we have yet gotten to the place where no one would notice the casting.

So maybe that is why Tucker chose to do this movie. The movie is abuot one thing. idi Amin is awful, dreadful, disgusting and evil. His evil is secutive, charming, overwhelming, and maketh Richard III seem like a nicer guy than George W Bush. This sort of evil is not the evil of unintended outcomes or corrupted goodness. This is the evil of biblical proportions, an evil that ight just explain Stalin and Hitler.

It is an evil portrayal that will make Tucker a "Sir" if England ever decides we Americans need that sort of recognition if only to put greta acotr in a class with Gielgud and Olivier. We NEED a vehicle for Tucker's talents?

He needs to play Richard III, maybe the hump will hide his skin? MacBeth might be an easier do, but is that King of Scotland as evil as the self stuyled Scpts King of Ugandha?

Drinking LIberally .. an essay.

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DL is a weekly affair at the Montlake Tavern. Formally hosted by a liberal organization, yclept Drinking Liberally, in reality this one is sorta like a 1700s French salon, with an assortment of Woody Alan/Seinfeld/Neil Simon characters orbiting around David Goldstein.
David is a political junkie-liberal-activist and likely eventual force in local Demo politics.
Actually, as I understand the salons, DL is very different in one way. The hostess at the salons
was the nominal attraction. The guests were her court, she gave favors and credibility. Maybe the beer serves this purpose at Montlake. But the Madame at a Paris salon of 1767 did did not lead. Instead she got her merit badges from attracting luminaries. The room was like a collection of small suns, each with tis own planets. Mostly, this salon is about one luminary. The rest of the crowd is interesting but they are in orbit around the star.

As "Goldie" David hosts a very informative local website, HorsesAss.org, with a political professional's insights and fascination with campaign detail. He gained fame for launching a state instigative to rename our local right wing instigative monger form Tim Eynman to "horse's ass." The initiative, unlike too many of Eynman's horrors, failed but it made Goldy something of a local celeb.

The website is a heavily visited local website and, as part of DL, Goldie launched a podcast.