Political Dirt
There’s no doubt about it. I’m a Democrat. I give money to the Democratic Party and its candidates. I volunteer during campaigns. I don’t agree with everything the Democratic Party or its candidates do, but perfect agreement is a silly ideal. As for the argument that there is little difference between the parties, I strongly disagree. Ralph Nader ran for president using that argument in 2000. His presence in the election took away vital votes from Gore. The end result is that we are mired in Iraq and have rolled back environmental laws. I could go on and on. The bottom line is that the world and the US would be a different place had Gore been elected.
I look forward to the end of the Bush’s reign of incompetence and I’m started to get excited about 2008. I like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as potential candidates. Both are very smart, capable politicians. They both have their assets.
Hillary is seasoned and tough as nails. Think about what she has gone through, the humiliation of the whole world knowing that her husband was screwing around with some young thing. She bounced right back. Forty million dollars of taxpayers money was used to dredge up dirt on her and her husband; weaker people would have just walked away from the nasty world of politics and made a nice living giving speeches. Not her. That girl has guts.
Obama does not have the experience of Hillary, and who knows just how tough he is? But he is a very charismatic figure, an excellent public speaker who can appeal to the public’s sense of hope and optimism. Like Kennedy and Reagan, he approaches politics in an almost romantic way. It’s a style that is well suited to the ethos of this country. Very few people have the personality to carry it off. Obama can.
Ignoring policy and personality, there is one critical reason why I think that both are excellent candidates. They are dirt-proof.
The Republicans despise the Clintons. I don’t quite understand why, but they have this visceral hatred of both Hillary and Bill. If someone could explain this to me, I would be much obliged. I just don’t get it. Hillary and Bill aren’t paragons of integrity and honesty it’s true. Find me a politician who is. So that can’t be it. Maybe they are hated because they are successful. It could be the hatred that comes from knowing your competitor is better than you. Maybe that’s it. It’s just not in my psyche to understand jealousy that much. I have many, many faults and quirks. Jealousy isn’t one of them.
For eight years the Republicans threw dirt at Hillary and Clinton. They did there best. Fox News provided a steady drumbeat day after day. The Clintons were evil. First they went after Bill’s appetite for other women. It didn’t do much of anything. Then they went after a land deal, Whitewater. That didn’t work either. Finally, they got Bill for getting blowjobs in the White House. They were relentless.
At the time, the Lewinsky affair was horrible news. I could have cared less. Sure, it was bad judgment. He should have gone to the other side of town if he needed some sex on the side. But infidelity does not disqualify someone from the presidency. It’s distasteful, yes. But if monogamy were a requirement for someone’s stay in the White House, we’d likely have thrown out most of our past presidents.
Time has a way of showing what’s important and what isn’t. Eight years after the Lewinsky affair, Hillary is firmly entrenched as a senator and is a formidable candidate for president. Bill is a darling of the Democratic Party who makes millions from speeches. All that dirt has washed off. I’m sure the Republicans are seething. The best revenge is living well. And the Clintons are living very well, indeed.
What’s partly attractive about Hillary as a candidate is that the Republicans are going to be hard pressed to find any new dirt on her. What more can they possibly find? They could, of course, try to recycle the old dirt. But that doesn’t work. The Democrats tried to do that in 2004 with W.’s less than exemplary military record. It was old news. People were tired of it. The effort backfired.
For mudslinging to work, you need fresh mud. And even if the Republicans manage to find it, I doubt if it would do much. The public is so used to Hillary being slimed by Fox News and the Republicans that it just doesn’t have much impact anymore. It’s like a television series that’s been on too long; they just change the channel.
Unlike Hillary, Obama is a fresh face. And while I’m sure the Republican machine is busy digging dirt up on him, it’s going to be hard to use it. Many people have argued that Obama is unelectable because he’s black. But the other side of the coin is that it’s going to be hard for the Republicans to slime him without appearing racist. They are going to have to be very careful how they use their dirt.
Just this week, we saw an example of how the Republicans plan to apply their slime. The media arm of the Republican Party, Fox News, brought forth the “news” that while Obama was living in Indonesia, he went to a fundamentalist Muslim school. Oh my! Obama went to school with future terrorists! And get this, the “source” of this information was Hillary Clinton’s campaign!
It was a two-fer kind of slander. The Republicans don’t want to appear racist so they attack Obama on the “Muslim connection.” Then they attack Clinton for sliming her opponent by providing them this “news.” Of course, none of this is true. Obama is a Christian and he did not attend a fundamentalist Muslim school. Fox News fabricated everything. I’m sure we’ll see much more slime coming out of Republican/Fox News machine in the next two years, but if they continue to be this amateurish, who cares?
Dirt is endemic to politics. But it just might be that in the coming presidential election the Republicans won’t be able to sling mud with reckless abandon. They might have to simply run on the strength of their candidate and the issues. As a Democrat, I like the sound of that very much. Given the possible candidates the Republicans have come up with so far and their track record over the last six years they are going to have an uphill battle.
And with that I'm off for about a week. It takes me about an hour to write these things and I've just got too much to do.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
State of the Union
Yes, Bush gave a State of the Union Address yesterday. If you can’t say something nice…well that’s not my thing. There was no realistic energy policy. No realistic health policy. No realistic plan about Iraq. And to top it off there was a call for 92,000 more soldiers in the nation’s armed forces, which means more debt.
Where are those 92,000 people supposed to come from? Certainly not a draft. Because if Bush were to implement a draft – something I think is a good idea actually – then everyone would be feeling the pain of this war and that’s not on his agenda. This is supposed to be a war without suffering or sacrifice by the American public. That way no one complains. No one demonstrates. The only American people who suffer are those whose children, brothers and sisters die in an ill-conceived war.
Over 3000 US citizens and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and we still have no realistic plan for ending our military presence in a nation engaged in a civil war that we cannot stop. Maybe it’s all very abstract until you find out, like me, that someone you know is devastated that her brother was murdered in November. Then it hits you right in the gut.
I’ve never been involved directly in a war. The closest I’ve come is when I was living in Israel during the Yom Kippur war of 1973. I remember visiting a friend of mine near the Galilee and hearing the bombs explode in the farm fields a few hundred meters away. We were lucky they didn’t hit us.
When the war ended, the Israeli government chose not to state the exact number of dead. Instead it dribbled out the numbers slowly. At first they said 1000. Then they said no it was 2000. Every week there would be a new and higher number. I didn’t understand the logic of this because it became a kind of psychological torture for the country. Every time they updated the totals I would literally see women wailing in the streets. I remember thinking that this is what governments do: they lie. I remembered Vietnam and thought of all the lies the American public had to endure so that our government could pursue an immoral war. In just and unjust wars alike, governments lie.
With regard to Iraq, there is no doubt that we are being lied to by our government. What is perhaps worse is that the press has chosen to greatly reduce coverage of the war because it’s a story that isn’t captivating the public. People die every day and we hardly know of their existence. Lies are being told every day and few truths are uncovered. If the press had been as irresponsible in Vietnam, even more would have died needlessly.
A couple of years ago I sat next to a vp from a major newspaper chain on a plane and talked to him about how the press was treating Iraq. I was very critical. In particular, I noted to him that I had attended anti-war rallies prior to our invasion of Iraq and the press hardly covered them. He didn’t disagree. He said that prior to the war, the White House held a meeting with key leaders in the national press and asked for their help. In response his chain and most other major papers promised they would support the war effort. The end result was that events like anti-war rallies received minimal coverage. For them, it was an act of patriotism to support the war. When people tell me about the “liberal media” I have to laugh. Even the New York Times was a war hawk at the start.
Apparently, promoting the war was a temporary thing. Sometime along the way, the public became disenchanted with the war, and the press, knowing that preaching to the choir sells news, began to cover negative aspects, but not too thoroughly. In this age where the press sees itself more and more as an arm of the entertainment industry, it’s not clear to me that it is capable of finding the truth hidden in any story including the Iraq war.
Eventually when Bush is long gone, we will pull out of Iraq. The country will rapidly separate into three messy pieces and there will be a lot of bloodshed along the way. Instead of trying to “win the war,” we need to find a strategy that will minimize the inevitable sectarian bloodshed when we leave. Bush is incapable of thinking in these terms. He has even ignored a report that he commissioned that offered just such a strategy. The end result is more blood on his hands and more tragedy for both Iraq and the US.
Yes, Bush gave a State of the Union Address yesterday. If you can’t say something nice…well that’s not my thing. There was no realistic energy policy. No realistic health policy. No realistic plan about Iraq. And to top it off there was a call for 92,000 more soldiers in the nation’s armed forces, which means more debt.
Where are those 92,000 people supposed to come from? Certainly not a draft. Because if Bush were to implement a draft – something I think is a good idea actually – then everyone would be feeling the pain of this war and that’s not on his agenda. This is supposed to be a war without suffering or sacrifice by the American public. That way no one complains. No one demonstrates. The only American people who suffer are those whose children, brothers and sisters die in an ill-conceived war.
Over 3000 US citizens and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and we still have no realistic plan for ending our military presence in a nation engaged in a civil war that we cannot stop. Maybe it’s all very abstract until you find out, like me, that someone you know is devastated that her brother was murdered in November. Then it hits you right in the gut.
I’ve never been involved directly in a war. The closest I’ve come is when I was living in Israel during the Yom Kippur war of 1973. I remember visiting a friend of mine near the Galilee and hearing the bombs explode in the farm fields a few hundred meters away. We were lucky they didn’t hit us.
When the war ended, the Israeli government chose not to state the exact number of dead. Instead it dribbled out the numbers slowly. At first they said 1000. Then they said no it was 2000. Every week there would be a new and higher number. I didn’t understand the logic of this because it became a kind of psychological torture for the country. Every time they updated the totals I would literally see women wailing in the streets. I remember thinking that this is what governments do: they lie. I remembered Vietnam and thought of all the lies the American public had to endure so that our government could pursue an immoral war. In just and unjust wars alike, governments lie.
With regard to Iraq, there is no doubt that we are being lied to by our government. What is perhaps worse is that the press has chosen to greatly reduce coverage of the war because it’s a story that isn’t captivating the public. People die every day and we hardly know of their existence. Lies are being told every day and few truths are uncovered. If the press had been as irresponsible in Vietnam, even more would have died needlessly.
A couple of years ago I sat next to a vp from a major newspaper chain on a plane and talked to him about how the press was treating Iraq. I was very critical. In particular, I noted to him that I had attended anti-war rallies prior to our invasion of Iraq and the press hardly covered them. He didn’t disagree. He said that prior to the war, the White House held a meeting with key leaders in the national press and asked for their help. In response his chain and most other major papers promised they would support the war effort. The end result was that events like anti-war rallies received minimal coverage. For them, it was an act of patriotism to support the war. When people tell me about the “liberal media” I have to laugh. Even the New York Times was a war hawk at the start.
Apparently, promoting the war was a temporary thing. Sometime along the way, the public became disenchanted with the war, and the press, knowing that preaching to the choir sells news, began to cover negative aspects, but not too thoroughly. In this age where the press sees itself more and more as an arm of the entertainment industry, it’s not clear to me that it is capable of finding the truth hidden in any story including the Iraq war.
Eventually when Bush is long gone, we will pull out of Iraq. The country will rapidly separate into three messy pieces and there will be a lot of bloodshed along the way. Instead of trying to “win the war,” we need to find a strategy that will minimize the inevitable sectarian bloodshed when we leave. Bush is incapable of thinking in these terms. He has even ignored a report that he commissioned that offered just such a strategy. The end result is more blood on his hands and more tragedy for both Iraq and the US.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Hillary and W.
Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the presidential ring the other day. The race is starting ridiculously early. My guess is that this will mean that most of the dirt on a candidate will fall out well before the public takes any notice. But that’s just a guess.
I have no idea who will win the Democratic nomination. It could be Hillary. Why not? On the minus side, she has no warmth. Warmth counts for a lot these days. On the plus side, she is very, very smart. After these six years of having someone in the White House clearly lacking something upstairs, brains would be a welcome change. And as I’ll talk about later, she comes with the “tremendous asset” (her quotes not mine) of Bill Clinton.
Republicans hate Hillary Clinton and that’s fine by me. They hated her husband too. In one of the more shameless and dirty acts of recent politics, they abused the Office of the Independent Counsel – an office now disbanded because it was so badly abused – to engage in a witch hunt of Bill Clinton that lasted almost his entire presidency. The only dirt they managed to find was that Bill was receiving consensual blowjobs from an intern. Like I care. Like anyone but Hillary should care.
Bill was screwing around with a girl. In contrast, W. has screwed up this whole country. He is easily the most incompetent president we have had in my lifetime. Just when you think he can’t be any dumber, it gets worse. This week he proposed a program for health insurance that is so ridiculous and out of touch with everyday Americans that you wonder if they are smoking that funny weed in the White House. Yes, I know, Bill and Hillary didn’t exactly win over anyone with their health care proposal. I would say that history has shown that they were simply too far ahead of the curve. Give me Hillary and Bill anytime.
Can she win if she gets the nomination? That’s for pundits to talk about for the next 22 months while they make money trying to predict the impossible. There are people who won’t vote for a woman. In a tight race, that just might make a difference. But given that the Republicans don’t seem to have a strong candidate this year and that Americans are very, very angry over Iraq, it might not be that tight a race come November 2008. Who knows?
I won’t go out there and help her campaign for the nomination, but I think she would make an excellent president. She knows politics. She knows how to get things done. And unlike W., she won’t squander the valuable asset of a smart relative.
When W. was elected, I wasn’t too worried. Sure he’s as dumb as a stump and lazy, but he had the asset of a father who knew the ropes. I never voted for George H.W. Bush, but I respected him. He was smart. He was tempered. He probably was a closet anti-Semite, but a lot of people are; I’m used to that. It’s so common that it doesn’t even bother me much. I don’t say this because of H.W.’s anti-Israeli policy by the way. Bush’s staff and the key people around the cabinet were virtually Jew free. That doesn’t happen by chance. Regardless, I thought he wasn’t a bad president.
My thinking at the time W. was elected was that he would frequently consult his father and as a result, do a reasonable job. But I was way off. He ignored his father. Instead, he decided to use as a mentor an ideologue who sometimes looks unhinged, Dick Cheney. Earth to W.: long distance calls are cheap nowadays, and I’m sure your father isn’t too busy to receive your calls. You have two years left; I’ll even send you a calling card for 2000 minutes if you’re too cheap to call your dad. It would be the best money I’d spent in quite some time if you started to listen to some reasonable advice.
If Hillary is elected, I won’t have to send her a calling card. She isn’t going to snub her hubby. As she says, "I’ll count on his advice and his experience, not only here at home with the great progress that was made on so many important issues when he was president, but also what he knows about the world in which we find ourselves today." OK, I know that sentence is too long and she’s not a great speaker. I can sympathize. When I look at transcripts of interviews with me, they look a lot like that. Still, it shows that the woman can think. And the sentiment expressed is key. If elected, she’ll use Bill for advice. Bill Clinton was a damn good president. If you get advice, you might as well get it from the best.
Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the presidential ring the other day. The race is starting ridiculously early. My guess is that this will mean that most of the dirt on a candidate will fall out well before the public takes any notice. But that’s just a guess.
I have no idea who will win the Democratic nomination. It could be Hillary. Why not? On the minus side, she has no warmth. Warmth counts for a lot these days. On the plus side, she is very, very smart. After these six years of having someone in the White House clearly lacking something upstairs, brains would be a welcome change. And as I’ll talk about later, she comes with the “tremendous asset” (her quotes not mine) of Bill Clinton.
Republicans hate Hillary Clinton and that’s fine by me. They hated her husband too. In one of the more shameless and dirty acts of recent politics, they abused the Office of the Independent Counsel – an office now disbanded because it was so badly abused – to engage in a witch hunt of Bill Clinton that lasted almost his entire presidency. The only dirt they managed to find was that Bill was receiving consensual blowjobs from an intern. Like I care. Like anyone but Hillary should care.
Bill was screwing around with a girl. In contrast, W. has screwed up this whole country. He is easily the most incompetent president we have had in my lifetime. Just when you think he can’t be any dumber, it gets worse. This week he proposed a program for health insurance that is so ridiculous and out of touch with everyday Americans that you wonder if they are smoking that funny weed in the White House. Yes, I know, Bill and Hillary didn’t exactly win over anyone with their health care proposal. I would say that history has shown that they were simply too far ahead of the curve. Give me Hillary and Bill anytime.
Can she win if she gets the nomination? That’s for pundits to talk about for the next 22 months while they make money trying to predict the impossible. There are people who won’t vote for a woman. In a tight race, that just might make a difference. But given that the Republicans don’t seem to have a strong candidate this year and that Americans are very, very angry over Iraq, it might not be that tight a race come November 2008. Who knows?
I won’t go out there and help her campaign for the nomination, but I think she would make an excellent president. She knows politics. She knows how to get things done. And unlike W., she won’t squander the valuable asset of a smart relative.
When W. was elected, I wasn’t too worried. Sure he’s as dumb as a stump and lazy, but he had the asset of a father who knew the ropes. I never voted for George H.W. Bush, but I respected him. He was smart. He was tempered. He probably was a closet anti-Semite, but a lot of people are; I’m used to that. It’s so common that it doesn’t even bother me much. I don’t say this because of H.W.’s anti-Israeli policy by the way. Bush’s staff and the key people around the cabinet were virtually Jew free. That doesn’t happen by chance. Regardless, I thought he wasn’t a bad president.
My thinking at the time W. was elected was that he would frequently consult his father and as a result, do a reasonable job. But I was way off. He ignored his father. Instead, he decided to use as a mentor an ideologue who sometimes looks unhinged, Dick Cheney. Earth to W.: long distance calls are cheap nowadays, and I’m sure your father isn’t too busy to receive your calls. You have two years left; I’ll even send you a calling card for 2000 minutes if you’re too cheap to call your dad. It would be the best money I’d spent in quite some time if you started to listen to some reasonable advice.
If Hillary is elected, I won’t have to send her a calling card. She isn’t going to snub her hubby. As she says, "I’ll count on his advice and his experience, not only here at home with the great progress that was made on so many important issues when he was president, but also what he knows about the world in which we find ourselves today." OK, I know that sentence is too long and she’s not a great speaker. I can sympathize. When I look at transcripts of interviews with me, they look a lot like that. Still, it shows that the woman can think. And the sentiment expressed is key. If elected, she’ll use Bill for advice. Bill Clinton was a damn good president. If you get advice, you might as well get it from the best.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Brodhead Q&A
I do note that there is a very strange interview with Richard Brodhead in today's Duke Chronicle. The student interviewer asks a lot of straightforward questions. Richard Brodhead avoids answering just about every one of them, maybe all of them. He maintains he would have done nothing differently. It's all very odd and unflattering.
Up until his last public statement and this interview, Brodhead followed the standard PR playbook to a T. And one rule of PR is to limit the words coming from someone on top; it diminishes their authority if they start to appear like a chatterbox. There was no reason for Brodhead to agree to this interview. It just made him look like a phony in love with his own Orwellian doublespeak. Before, he was letting PR trump doing the right thing. I didn't agree with it, but I understood the motivation. Now he's just being dumb.
OK, back to work!
I do note that there is a very strange interview with Richard Brodhead in today's Duke Chronicle. The student interviewer asks a lot of straightforward questions. Richard Brodhead avoids answering just about every one of them, maybe all of them. He maintains he would have done nothing differently. It's all very odd and unflattering.
Up until his last public statement and this interview, Brodhead followed the standard PR playbook to a T. And one rule of PR is to limit the words coming from someone on top; it diminishes their authority if they start to appear like a chatterbox. There was no reason for Brodhead to agree to this interview. It just made him look like a phony in love with his own Orwellian doublespeak. Before, he was letting PR trump doing the right thing. I didn't agree with it, but I understood the motivation. Now he's just being dumb.
OK, back to work!
My Pothole
We tend to take a lot of our government for granted. When we walk into a park and have a picnic we don't think about the fact that people are working to maintain the grass and pick up the trash. When we buy a house, we don't think that without inspectors during construction the house may not be safe. And when we drive down the road, we just assume that it should be smooth for driving; we don't think about the maintenance involved.
The end result of these kinds of assumptions is that we rail against taxes. But when governmental services fall apart due to lack of revenue, we start to see the world of government in a different light. You don't miss what you take for granted until it's gone, at least for awhile at any rate. A few years transpire, and then we forget and start to rail against taxes again.
In my lifetime, this country has seen at least one major reality check about the value of government. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to show the American public that much of government was a waste. Gingrich was a curious figure in American politics, someone who had been a professor and still maintained professor's ways. Like most trained academics, he was in love with ideas more than he was in interested in their practical use. Like most trained academics, he was self-absorbed. Like most trained academics, he was uncivil. One could say his one major "contribution" to this country was to bring the bratty politics of academia - the nastiness and backbiting - to Congress.
Newt Gingrich was so in love with the idea that much of government was unnecessary that he succeed in shutting the federal government down in a budget battle with President Clinton. For some reason, Gingrich was convinced that shutting down basic services in government for a few weeks would show the American public what a waste their taxes were. His experiment failed. When offices were closed due to lack of money, the public was angry. They needed those services. His failed experiment eventually led to his resignation from Congress.
The citizens of Washington, DC could have predicted this would have happened. Before the shutdown of the federal government, Gingrich succeeded in choking the revenue stream of our nation's capitol. The city, as a result, was an awful mess. If you were visiting Washington, DC during that time for work like I was, you know that one very visible outcome of this political gambit was that huge potholes began to appear on the city's streets. I remember hitting a pothole about the width of my rental car on Connecticut Avenue with a thud and thinking, the rental car company is not going to like this. It was the only time that I understood why anyone would drive an SUV. Back then, a Land Rover was almost a Washington, DC necessity.
Nowadays, Washington DC has some money. And not surprisingly, potholes the size of Texas are a thing of the past.
When government works, even the little things get done. And those little things make our life better. For example, I drive a motorcycle to work many days. It's a convenient thing to do because traffic can be awful on the main drag around here, El Camino Avenue. Plus it's fun to drive. And while I was driving home one day, I nearly crashed as I swerved to avoid a pothole about 10 inches deep, four feet long and a foot wide. A car wouldn't have any problem with a pothole like that. But had I hit that pothole in my little 180 cc 1983 Yamaha scooter I would have been toast.
El Camino is a designated state highway, CA82. And as such, maintenance is provided by the state. I wanted that pothole fixed. I'm a space cadet of a guy; I knew that there was the strong possibility that my mind would be wandering one day on El Camino and I just might hit that pothole even though I knew it was there.
I went online and found a form to fill out. I typed in just where the pothole was and how big it was and noted that it was a hazard for any motorcycle driver. Slowly, but surely the wheels of government began to move for me.
Two weeks later, I received an email from a state office saying that my email had been received. Two months later, I received another email from the regional state maintenance crew that the pothole was on its list of projects.
I waited. Every time I'd drive by that pothole, I'd look at it. I felt a kind of ownership over the pothole and its fate. I began to joke to my wife and friends that it was "my pothole" (I'm a self-absorbed ex-academic just like Gingrich). One day my mind was wandering on my bike and I almost hit it again. I started to worry if this pothole of mine would ever get fixed.
Four months went by. I thought of becoming a pothole vigilante and going out there in the middle of the night and fixing the thing. But if you know anything about potholes, you know they aren't all that easy to fix. You can't just throw asphalt in there; it won't last. You have to have the right tools.
And then it happened. Six months after I sent my email, I drove by that pothole and noticed it had been expertly filled. Yes government was slow. But eventually it got things done. The state had fixed my pothole. I was grateful. My taxes were at work.
When people complain about taxes, I honestly don't get it. We depend on government for essential aspects of our lives every day of our lives. And usually, it provides the services we count on. Services cost money. In government, like anything else, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
We tend to take a lot of our government for granted. When we walk into a park and have a picnic we don't think about the fact that people are working to maintain the grass and pick up the trash. When we buy a house, we don't think that without inspectors during construction the house may not be safe. And when we drive down the road, we just assume that it should be smooth for driving; we don't think about the maintenance involved.
The end result of these kinds of assumptions is that we rail against taxes. But when governmental services fall apart due to lack of revenue, we start to see the world of government in a different light. You don't miss what you take for granted until it's gone, at least for awhile at any rate. A few years transpire, and then we forget and start to rail against taxes again.
In my lifetime, this country has seen at least one major reality check about the value of government. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich tried to show the American public that much of government was a waste. Gingrich was a curious figure in American politics, someone who had been a professor and still maintained professor's ways. Like most trained academics, he was in love with ideas more than he was in interested in their practical use. Like most trained academics, he was self-absorbed. Like most trained academics, he was uncivil. One could say his one major "contribution" to this country was to bring the bratty politics of academia - the nastiness and backbiting - to Congress.
Newt Gingrich was so in love with the idea that much of government was unnecessary that he succeed in shutting the federal government down in a budget battle with President Clinton. For some reason, Gingrich was convinced that shutting down basic services in government for a few weeks would show the American public what a waste their taxes were. His experiment failed. When offices were closed due to lack of money, the public was angry. They needed those services. His failed experiment eventually led to his resignation from Congress.
The citizens of Washington, DC could have predicted this would have happened. Before the shutdown of the federal government, Gingrich succeeded in choking the revenue stream of our nation's capitol. The city, as a result, was an awful mess. If you were visiting Washington, DC during that time for work like I was, you know that one very visible outcome of this political gambit was that huge potholes began to appear on the city's streets. I remember hitting a pothole about the width of my rental car on Connecticut Avenue with a thud and thinking, the rental car company is not going to like this. It was the only time that I understood why anyone would drive an SUV. Back then, a Land Rover was almost a Washington, DC necessity.
Nowadays, Washington DC has some money. And not surprisingly, potholes the size of Texas are a thing of the past.
When government works, even the little things get done. And those little things make our life better. For example, I drive a motorcycle to work many days. It's a convenient thing to do because traffic can be awful on the main drag around here, El Camino Avenue. Plus it's fun to drive. And while I was driving home one day, I nearly crashed as I swerved to avoid a pothole about 10 inches deep, four feet long and a foot wide. A car wouldn't have any problem with a pothole like that. But had I hit that pothole in my little 180 cc 1983 Yamaha scooter I would have been toast.
El Camino is a designated state highway, CA82. And as such, maintenance is provided by the state. I wanted that pothole fixed. I'm a space cadet of a guy; I knew that there was the strong possibility that my mind would be wandering one day on El Camino and I just might hit that pothole even though I knew it was there.
I went online and found a form to fill out. I typed in just where the pothole was and how big it was and noted that it was a hazard for any motorcycle driver. Slowly, but surely the wheels of government began to move for me.
Two weeks later, I received an email from a state office saying that my email had been received. Two months later, I received another email from the regional state maintenance crew that the pothole was on its list of projects.
I waited. Every time I'd drive by that pothole, I'd look at it. I felt a kind of ownership over the pothole and its fate. I began to joke to my wife and friends that it was "my pothole" (I'm a self-absorbed ex-academic just like Gingrich). One day my mind was wandering on my bike and I almost hit it again. I started to worry if this pothole of mine would ever get fixed.
Four months went by. I thought of becoming a pothole vigilante and going out there in the middle of the night and fixing the thing. But if you know anything about potholes, you know they aren't all that easy to fix. You can't just throw asphalt in there; it won't last. You have to have the right tools.
And then it happened. Six months after I sent my email, I drove by that pothole and noticed it had been expertly filled. Yes government was slow. But eventually it got things done. The state had fixed my pothole. I was grateful. My taxes were at work.
When people complain about taxes, I honestly don't get it. We depend on government for essential aspects of our lives every day of our lives. And usually, it provides the services we count on. Services cost money. In government, like anything else, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
No Duke affair for me
I note that I'm off writing about the Duke lacrosse affair until something actually transpires worth writing about. Right now, the hard left and hard right are pecking at each other like angry little chickens in the blogosphere and in the press over culture wars issues that I have no interest in. On the left, you have people using the lacrosse affair to promote an agenda of reducing sexism and racism. On the right, you have people using the lacrosse affair to promote an agenda of reducing leftist faculty on America's campuses. In the meantime, three people are still under arrest and lives have been ruined. The hard right and left who have been using this tragedy for their own political agendas possess a frightening lack of humanity. May they both choke on their own bile.
I note that I'm off writing about the Duke lacrosse affair until something actually transpires worth writing about. Right now, the hard left and hard right are pecking at each other like angry little chickens in the blogosphere and in the press over culture wars issues that I have no interest in. On the left, you have people using the lacrosse affair to promote an agenda of reducing sexism and racism. On the right, you have people using the lacrosse affair to promote an agenda of reducing leftist faculty on America's campuses. In the meantime, three people are still under arrest and lives have been ruined. The hard right and left who have been using this tragedy for their own political agendas possess a frightening lack of humanity. May they both choke on their own bile.
America’s Venice
Long before I ever spent any time there, Venice, Italy was a vibrant, working city of over 100,000 people. It’s an improbable place for a city. Hundreds of years ago, Venetians cut off the sediment supply of the Brenta River in order to maintain the reclaimed marshlands of Venice as a port town and naval-based empire. It was a devil’s bargain of a decision. Without sediment, there was no barrier to the sea. Venice became a very slowly sinking ship; most of its land is now below sea level.
Every fall, weather patterns over the Mediterranean produce a southeasterly wind that pushes water toward the Venice coastland. Combine this with a storm and a high tide and the city floods, usually in a fairly mild way that its citizens have adapted to by wearing rubber boots. But in the fall of 1966, the city flooded catastrophically; it has never been the same. The population in Venice dropped from 121,000 to 62,000 over the following decade.
The population continues to drop. In 2005, 1900 more people left than moved in. The average age of the population is now 64. By the way, it’s a great place to visit if you’re middle aged because when you see all of those old faces, you feel like a kid; the downside is that everything closes at about 10.
When you talk to its citizens, they note that their children leave because the cost of housing is ridiculous and there are no jobs. Usually a city without employment suffers housing price declines, but in Venice prices are maintained high by a long list of rich foreigners who buy Venice property for second homes. They don’t buy everything, though. Travel into the less well-known parts of the city, and you’ll find abandoned apartment building after abandoned apartment building. A once vibrant city has been transformed into a very elegant tourist trap and a part-time home to the wealthy.
In a lot of ways, New Orleans has always been similar to Venice. Like Venice, it’s a city whose international visibility is much more than you’d expect given its size. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, its population was slightly less than 500,000. Like Venice, much of the land is below sea level and port-related engineering has made the city very susceptible to floods. Like Venice, it has always received a good deal of revenue from tourists, partly fueled by an annual Mardi Gras, and it has a reputation for decadence.
Since Hurricane Katrina, the future of New Orleans looks very similar to the recent past of Venice. City population rapidly declined by one half following Katrina and shows no signs of returning. There were never many jobs in New Orleans to sustain its population; now there are less and the homes that once contained its poor have been leveled.
Much has been made of the federal government’s lack of support for New Orleans. But what exactly is the government supposed to do over the long haul? There is no economy to maintain a large population of citizens. There never was, which is why the town had so many desperately poor. Is the federal government supposed to prop up the city by subsidizing businesses to move there? Such efforts would amount to the government playing god, favoring one city over another.
Over the short term, the federal government has certainly fallen down on the job. It has failed to help in providing rapid payment to citizens rightfully deserving money for property damage. It has failed to provide a temporary effective financial boost to the city so that it can rebuild parts of New Orleans with good prospects for recovery. It has done nothing to help in reducing New Orleans horrific murder rate.
But over the long haul, New Orleans will have to survive on its own ability to prop up touristry and attract businesses. Its future will likely mimic that of Venice, a colorful tourist town in an improbable location containing many second homes owned by America’s wealthy. I note that last week America’s movie sweethearts Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt decided to move to New Orleans. Neither of them has, to my knowledge, any family ties there. Maybe Dixieland Jazz aficionado and part-time Venice resident Woody Allen will follow.
Long before I ever spent any time there, Venice, Italy was a vibrant, working city of over 100,000 people. It’s an improbable place for a city. Hundreds of years ago, Venetians cut off the sediment supply of the Brenta River in order to maintain the reclaimed marshlands of Venice as a port town and naval-based empire. It was a devil’s bargain of a decision. Without sediment, there was no barrier to the sea. Venice became a very slowly sinking ship; most of its land is now below sea level.
Every fall, weather patterns over the Mediterranean produce a southeasterly wind that pushes water toward the Venice coastland. Combine this with a storm and a high tide and the city floods, usually in a fairly mild way that its citizens have adapted to by wearing rubber boots. But in the fall of 1966, the city flooded catastrophically; it has never been the same. The population in Venice dropped from 121,000 to 62,000 over the following decade.
The population continues to drop. In 2005, 1900 more people left than moved in. The average age of the population is now 64. By the way, it’s a great place to visit if you’re middle aged because when you see all of those old faces, you feel like a kid; the downside is that everything closes at about 10.
When you talk to its citizens, they note that their children leave because the cost of housing is ridiculous and there are no jobs. Usually a city without employment suffers housing price declines, but in Venice prices are maintained high by a long list of rich foreigners who buy Venice property for second homes. They don’t buy everything, though. Travel into the less well-known parts of the city, and you’ll find abandoned apartment building after abandoned apartment building. A once vibrant city has been transformed into a very elegant tourist trap and a part-time home to the wealthy.
In a lot of ways, New Orleans has always been similar to Venice. Like Venice, it’s a city whose international visibility is much more than you’d expect given its size. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, its population was slightly less than 500,000. Like Venice, much of the land is below sea level and port-related engineering has made the city very susceptible to floods. Like Venice, it has always received a good deal of revenue from tourists, partly fueled by an annual Mardi Gras, and it has a reputation for decadence.
Since Hurricane Katrina, the future of New Orleans looks very similar to the recent past of Venice. City population rapidly declined by one half following Katrina and shows no signs of returning. There were never many jobs in New Orleans to sustain its population; now there are less and the homes that once contained its poor have been leveled.
Much has been made of the federal government’s lack of support for New Orleans. But what exactly is the government supposed to do over the long haul? There is no economy to maintain a large population of citizens. There never was, which is why the town had so many desperately poor. Is the federal government supposed to prop up the city by subsidizing businesses to move there? Such efforts would amount to the government playing god, favoring one city over another.
Over the short term, the federal government has certainly fallen down on the job. It has failed to help in providing rapid payment to citizens rightfully deserving money for property damage. It has failed to provide a temporary effective financial boost to the city so that it can rebuild parts of New Orleans with good prospects for recovery. It has done nothing to help in reducing New Orleans horrific murder rate.
But over the long haul, New Orleans will have to survive on its own ability to prop up touristry and attract businesses. Its future will likely mimic that of Venice, a colorful tourist town in an improbable location containing many second homes owned by America’s wealthy. I note that last week America’s movie sweethearts Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt decided to move to New Orleans. Neither of them has, to my knowledge, any family ties there. Maybe Dixieland Jazz aficionado and part-time Venice resident Woody Allen will follow.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
My Governator Part II
Last time, I spent a whole post making fun at my governator's expense. Sorry Arnold. I couldn't help myself. I apologize. Really. That was very immature of me. This time I’m getting serious. Well maybe.
It’s telling that there are only two portraits in Schwarzenegger’s office, one of Ronald Reagan and the other of John F. Kennedy. Both were Presidents, something Arnold cannot become. Both were extremely charismatic, something Arnold is. And since Arnold can’t be president, he is doing the next best thing. He is treating California, the eighth (he says sixth, but he's not a numbers guy) largest economy in the world, as if it were a separate country. My governator is President of California. And that isn’t a bad thing at all.
In a lot of ways, California is its own country. Far from Washington, it’s left to solve its own problems. For instance, California has a vast levee system east of San Francisco Bay that is a critical transport point for its state water system. Federal support for maintaining these critical levees has been non-existent for decades. When California was being held hostage by Bush’s buddies at Enron with a resulting hit on California citizens of tens of billions of dollars, the Federal government did absolutely nothing. Earthquakes are another critical concern for the state; yet Federal support for earthquake related hazard research has been negligible.
Given the not-so-benign neglect of the feds, California has developed a habit of standing alone. It has more stringent pollution standards than the feds. It has developed its own carbon emissions program (that Bush is fighting). Voters approved the state’s own stem cell research fund. So my governator’s presidential approach to running California is simpatico with the ethos of the state. If we are going to think like a separate country, we might as well have a leader who is able to stand on his own two feet with minimal help from Washington.
Kennedy and Reagan – Arnold’s heroes - were able to lead effectively because they gave the nation hope.* They were inherently optimistic people who knew how to take command of the public stage; both had a romantic vision of this country that they were able to communicate with ease to the American public.
It’s not surprising that the romantic approach to government of Kennedy and Reagan is exactly what Schwarzenegger is employing in California. He talks in broad terms of the California dream. “California didn’t have a vision for so long….But now people know,**” he says.
It’s easier to be romantic when you have money in the bank and my governator has benefited as of late from a major upturn in California’s economy. But a good politician takes advantage of the opportunities that are afforded to him. And my governator is taking advantage big time.
He has, it's true, made missteps along the way. He came into office with a campaign promise to repeal a car tax, something that sank this state another 3.4 billion dollars in debt. In 2005, he made a tremendous political blunder by creating a special election for a vote on four pieces of conservative legislation. This isn’t a conservative state; all four lost.
But it’s telling that he is willing to admit that with regard to the special election, “it was obviously the wrong approach.” Imagine that. A politician openly stating he made a mistake. Maybe that Texan living in the White House could learn something from my governator. Nah.
And he has shown flexibility. Faced with the defeat of his conservative legislation, he changed his playbook and acted like a Democrat, working for a higher minimum wage, landmark global warming legislation, a prescription drug bill and increased funding for education. Recently he has proposed providing health coverage for all of California’s citizens (including its illegal immigrants) on the grounds that in the end, it will save the state money. Imagine that: a Republican who wants universal health care. My governator may be the only compassionate conservative in America.
*About calling Ronald Reagan an effective leader: he was. I didn’t agree with most of his policies, but he knew (until toward the end when he probably and sadly contracted Alzheimer’s disease) what he was doing. George W. Bush has said he doesn’t want to be like his dad, but wants to be like Reagan. Fat chance. He’s neither and this country is suffering badly because of it.
**All of these quotes come from that highly regarded publication of international renown, The Hollywood Reporter. Yes, I read the thing. I need it for my business. And yes, it’s written at about a fifth grade level; those folks in Hollywood aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box. But sometimes it surprises and there was a nice interview with my governator in there on January 3rd, 2007 that inspired me to write this piece.
Last time, I spent a whole post making fun at my governator's expense. Sorry Arnold. I couldn't help myself. I apologize. Really. That was very immature of me. This time I’m getting serious. Well maybe.
It’s telling that there are only two portraits in Schwarzenegger’s office, one of Ronald Reagan and the other of John F. Kennedy. Both were Presidents, something Arnold cannot become. Both were extremely charismatic, something Arnold is. And since Arnold can’t be president, he is doing the next best thing. He is treating California, the eighth (he says sixth, but he's not a numbers guy) largest economy in the world, as if it were a separate country. My governator is President of California. And that isn’t a bad thing at all.
In a lot of ways, California is its own country. Far from Washington, it’s left to solve its own problems. For instance, California has a vast levee system east of San Francisco Bay that is a critical transport point for its state water system. Federal support for maintaining these critical levees has been non-existent for decades. When California was being held hostage by Bush’s buddies at Enron with a resulting hit on California citizens of tens of billions of dollars, the Federal government did absolutely nothing. Earthquakes are another critical concern for the state; yet Federal support for earthquake related hazard research has been negligible.
Given the not-so-benign neglect of the feds, California has developed a habit of standing alone. It has more stringent pollution standards than the feds. It has developed its own carbon emissions program (that Bush is fighting). Voters approved the state’s own stem cell research fund. So my governator’s presidential approach to running California is simpatico with the ethos of the state. If we are going to think like a separate country, we might as well have a leader who is able to stand on his own two feet with minimal help from Washington.
Kennedy and Reagan – Arnold’s heroes - were able to lead effectively because they gave the nation hope.* They were inherently optimistic people who knew how to take command of the public stage; both had a romantic vision of this country that they were able to communicate with ease to the American public.
It’s not surprising that the romantic approach to government of Kennedy and Reagan is exactly what Schwarzenegger is employing in California. He talks in broad terms of the California dream. “California didn’t have a vision for so long….But now people know,**” he says.
It’s easier to be romantic when you have money in the bank and my governator has benefited as of late from a major upturn in California’s economy. But a good politician takes advantage of the opportunities that are afforded to him. And my governator is taking advantage big time.
He has, it's true, made missteps along the way. He came into office with a campaign promise to repeal a car tax, something that sank this state another 3.4 billion dollars in debt. In 2005, he made a tremendous political blunder by creating a special election for a vote on four pieces of conservative legislation. This isn’t a conservative state; all four lost.
But it’s telling that he is willing to admit that with regard to the special election, “it was obviously the wrong approach.” Imagine that. A politician openly stating he made a mistake. Maybe that Texan living in the White House could learn something from my governator. Nah.
And he has shown flexibility. Faced with the defeat of his conservative legislation, he changed his playbook and acted like a Democrat, working for a higher minimum wage, landmark global warming legislation, a prescription drug bill and increased funding for education. Recently he has proposed providing health coverage for all of California’s citizens (including its illegal immigrants) on the grounds that in the end, it will save the state money. Imagine that: a Republican who wants universal health care. My governator may be the only compassionate conservative in America.
*About calling Ronald Reagan an effective leader: he was. I didn’t agree with most of his policies, but he knew (until toward the end when he probably and sadly contracted Alzheimer’s disease) what he was doing. George W. Bush has said he doesn’t want to be like his dad, but wants to be like Reagan. Fat chance. He’s neither and this country is suffering badly because of it.
**All of these quotes come from that highly regarded publication of international renown, The Hollywood Reporter. Yes, I read the thing. I need it for my business. And yes, it’s written at about a fifth grade level; those folks in Hollywood aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box. But sometimes it surprises and there was a nice interview with my governator in there on January 3rd, 2007 that inspired me to write this piece.
Friday, January 19, 2007
My Governator
California is my adopted home. I’ve lived in a lot places and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Even when I lived in North Carolina for almost a dozen years – a pretty place – I still kept my California drivers license. I probably was the only person with a CA license with a Duke address. Whenever I renewed it, I’d tell them I was living in NC temporarily. Everything is temporary if you look at it from the viewpoint of a long enough time span; and I’m a geologist after all.
I love this place. I love the coastline, a place where I go out at least twice a month to give tours of elephant seals. I love standing on a street corner in SF or LA and listening to a dozen languages being spoken by passers-by. I love the weather. I love the fast pace. I like the fact that we try every kooky idea before everyone else does. And sure the traffic is bad and the cost of housing ridiculous, but that’s what you get for living in such a desirable place. And as for collecting nuts, my home town of Milwaukee and my wife’s home town of Chicago were homes to two of the biggest serial killers of the 20th century, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. California doesn’t have a lock on loony tunes. As for collecting fruits, I spent enough time in the South - where gay bashing seems to be a regional pastime - to make me feel privileged to move back to a town known for its gay population.
I don’t love my governor, it’s true. But as time goes on, I’m disliking him less and less. I may even grow to love him. Stranger things have happened.
First impressions are important and the first time I saw Arnold was in a documentary movie about body builders, Pumping Iron. He was Mr. Universe at the time and he seemed like a complete jerk, totally self-absorbed. But that was a long time ago.
The second time I saw him was in one of the Terminator movies. I can’t remember which one. The movie was as boring as watching paint dry. When Arnold said, “I’ll be back,” I thought, please don’t. Please go away. You’re so dull that even a pot of coffee and some greenies couldn’t keep me awake.
But others thought differently. The world, not me, clearly thinks Arnold is charismatic. The Terminator movie series generated I don’t know how many hundred million in revenue. And on the back of a stupid action movie, he managed to become a governor with zero experience.
I was not a happy guy after the election, but it was the unhappiness you have about someone you love. I love California despite its problems. And the biggest problem of all is that it’s ungovernable. The source of that problem is simple. No money. Ever since Proposition 13, a public initiative that keeps property taxes so low that there is no revenue most years, the state has been running on fumes. That was 30 years ago. It’s nice that my taxes are ridiculously low but you get what you pay for in government just like you do with all things in life.
When Arnold first ran for governor he tapped billionaire financial guru Warren Buffet as his financial advisor. Early on, Buffet went public and said the biggest problem with California is that property taxes are too low. Truth doesn’t sell well most days. A week later, Arnold gave him the boot.
The lack of money most years – in times of financial boom, income taxes create money California can’t spend fast enough, but that’s not most times – makes Sacramento politicians turn into rats in an overcrowded cage. They fight over the crumbs with desperation. With the advertising cost of winning state legislator seats running in the millions of dollars, lobbyists like the prison worker union have undue influence. My state's government is a mess.
It was under this backdrop that my governator was elected. Only in California can a recently elected governor – yes, he was lousy – get recalled and replaced by a bad actor whose sole claim to political fame is to have married a member of the Kennedy clan.
I love my state. Because in truth, it has all worked out for the best. Other states would have trudged on with a lousy governor beholden to a line of lobbyists that stretched from Sacramento to LA, but not my state. My state dumped him and put together a ballot that included lunatics, a porn star (whose platform featured heavy taxes on breast implants), a porn magazine mogul with no platform*, and a bad actor with a heavy Austrian accent and a history of steroids abuse. The bad actor won.
Sometimes you have to get crazy to stay sane. OK, enough one-liners. Next time, I’ll talk about what a good governator he has been. I’m not joking. He’s been good.
*How do I know the porn magazine mogul Larry Flynt had no platform? I asked. In particular, I was eating lunch at a great place in SF with my in-laws right next to Larry Flynt’s strip club. After lunch, I walked up with my mother-in-law to the club. Was Larry Flynt in town perhaps I asked the well-dressed bouncer at the door. Yes, was the answer. Could I talk to him about his candidacy since I wanted to be an informed voter? No, was the answer. Was there any campaign literature available here or anywhere else delineating his platform and ideas? No again. Right then and there, Mr. Flynt lost my vote. Horror of horrors he was running a vanity campaign! The nerve!
California is my adopted home. I’ve lived in a lot places and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Even when I lived in North Carolina for almost a dozen years – a pretty place – I still kept my California drivers license. I probably was the only person with a CA license with a Duke address. Whenever I renewed it, I’d tell them I was living in NC temporarily. Everything is temporary if you look at it from the viewpoint of a long enough time span; and I’m a geologist after all.
I love this place. I love the coastline, a place where I go out at least twice a month to give tours of elephant seals. I love standing on a street corner in SF or LA and listening to a dozen languages being spoken by passers-by. I love the weather. I love the fast pace. I like the fact that we try every kooky idea before everyone else does. And sure the traffic is bad and the cost of housing ridiculous, but that’s what you get for living in such a desirable place. And as for collecting nuts, my home town of Milwaukee and my wife’s home town of Chicago were homes to two of the biggest serial killers of the 20th century, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. California doesn’t have a lock on loony tunes. As for collecting fruits, I spent enough time in the South - where gay bashing seems to be a regional pastime - to make me feel privileged to move back to a town known for its gay population.
I don’t love my governor, it’s true. But as time goes on, I’m disliking him less and less. I may even grow to love him. Stranger things have happened.
First impressions are important and the first time I saw Arnold was in a documentary movie about body builders, Pumping Iron. He was Mr. Universe at the time and he seemed like a complete jerk, totally self-absorbed. But that was a long time ago.
The second time I saw him was in one of the Terminator movies. I can’t remember which one. The movie was as boring as watching paint dry. When Arnold said, “I’ll be back,” I thought, please don’t. Please go away. You’re so dull that even a pot of coffee and some greenies couldn’t keep me awake.
But others thought differently. The world, not me, clearly thinks Arnold is charismatic. The Terminator movie series generated I don’t know how many hundred million in revenue. And on the back of a stupid action movie, he managed to become a governor with zero experience.
I was not a happy guy after the election, but it was the unhappiness you have about someone you love. I love California despite its problems. And the biggest problem of all is that it’s ungovernable. The source of that problem is simple. No money. Ever since Proposition 13, a public initiative that keeps property taxes so low that there is no revenue most years, the state has been running on fumes. That was 30 years ago. It’s nice that my taxes are ridiculously low but you get what you pay for in government just like you do with all things in life.
When Arnold first ran for governor he tapped billionaire financial guru Warren Buffet as his financial advisor. Early on, Buffet went public and said the biggest problem with California is that property taxes are too low. Truth doesn’t sell well most days. A week later, Arnold gave him the boot.
The lack of money most years – in times of financial boom, income taxes create money California can’t spend fast enough, but that’s not most times – makes Sacramento politicians turn into rats in an overcrowded cage. They fight over the crumbs with desperation. With the advertising cost of winning state legislator seats running in the millions of dollars, lobbyists like the prison worker union have undue influence. My state's government is a mess.
It was under this backdrop that my governator was elected. Only in California can a recently elected governor – yes, he was lousy – get recalled and replaced by a bad actor whose sole claim to political fame is to have married a member of the Kennedy clan.
I love my state. Because in truth, it has all worked out for the best. Other states would have trudged on with a lousy governor beholden to a line of lobbyists that stretched from Sacramento to LA, but not my state. My state dumped him and put together a ballot that included lunatics, a porn star (whose platform featured heavy taxes on breast implants), a porn magazine mogul with no platform*, and a bad actor with a heavy Austrian accent and a history of steroids abuse. The bad actor won.
Sometimes you have to get crazy to stay sane. OK, enough one-liners. Next time, I’ll talk about what a good governator he has been. I’m not joking. He’s been good.
*How do I know the porn magazine mogul Larry Flynt had no platform? I asked. In particular, I was eating lunch at a great place in SF with my in-laws right next to Larry Flynt’s strip club. After lunch, I walked up with my mother-in-law to the club. Was Larry Flynt in town perhaps I asked the well-dressed bouncer at the door. Yes, was the answer. Could I talk to him about his candidacy since I wanted to be an informed voter? No, was the answer. Was there any campaign literature available here or anywhere else delineating his platform and ideas? No again. Right then and there, Mr. Flynt lost my vote. Horror of horrors he was running a vanity campaign! The nerve!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
My Issues
I’m a scientist by training. And some may wish to think that means I’m a rational person who does not make judgments based on scanty and faulty data. But that would be naïve. I make a lot of judgments based on scanty and faulty data. What my scientific training tells me is that I am in fact being irrational by doing so.
For example, when I was four years old, I got into a fight with someone named Bruce. He was older, a big guy, all of six years old. He took my bicycle and threw it in the air, wrecking the rear fender. I chased after him with a baseball bat.
Based on that one incident, I’m inherently suspicious of people named Bruce. Sorry. Yes, I’m being irrational. But if your name is Bruce and I meet you, chances are we will never be friends. But don't worry. I haven't chased after anyone with a baseball bat in a long, long time.
On the other side of the coin, a baseball player, Warren Spahn, once drove me home from a ballgame when my mom forgot to pick me up. Warren Spahn, if you don’t know this, is in the Hall of Fame. As a result of his driving me home, I was my neighborhood hero for a week. If your name is Warren and I meet you, chances are I’ll treat you like I’ve known you since I was a kid.
I had a high school music teacher and band director who wore bow ties. He was very fastidious and high strung. He was also a jerk. A good friend of mine played trumpet, something that teacher also did. My friend was phenomenal. This year, in fact, my friend is nominated for a Grammy. He’s made the Downbeat poll for best trumpet player for many, many years. In high school, the bow-tie wearing teacher was so jealous of my friend’s talent that he refused to give him first chair in the band.
Junior year, I played in a basketball game against this teacher in a “students versus teachers” match. No he didn’t wear a bow tie on the court. But nothing was out of place. I had to guard the jerk. He couldn’t keep up with me and I’m no great shakes as an athlete. He held my jersey the whole game. Then toward the end of the game when he decided to drive toward the basket he intentionally took his elbow to my face. I fell to the ground, blood flowing from my upper lip. I was a mess.
Ever since then I’ve hated guys with bow ties. Call me a “bow-tieist.” I don’t care. It's a guiding principle for me. I could never hang with a bow-tie guy. Because of George Will, I could never be a Republican
We all have our issues. Sometimes they are based on single events. Sometimes who knows where they come from? But they are there. Issues. Things. It's not just an American thing. In Yiddish (and probably Polish), they are called “bzhikhs.” I probably have more than my fair share.
Which leads me to another “bzhikh” of mine. Last week, Senator Joseph Biden announced his candidacy for president. That’s not surprising. Has there been a Democratic Senator who hasn’t announced he or she is running? But I digress. In talking about his candidacy Joseph Biden said, “This is about being the best Biden I can be.” Sorry Joe. Right there you lost me. I don’t care how good a candidate you are. I cannot and will not vote for anyone who talks about himself in the third person. Stuart does not vote for those kind of people. Oops! I did it myself. I can’t vote for myself either.
Oh I know what’s on your mind, dear reader. What about a bow-tie wearing person named Bruce who talks about himself in the third person? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who fits that description. But even the thought of it is making my lip twitch uncontrollably
I’m a scientist by training. And some may wish to think that means I’m a rational person who does not make judgments based on scanty and faulty data. But that would be naïve. I make a lot of judgments based on scanty and faulty data. What my scientific training tells me is that I am in fact being irrational by doing so.
For example, when I was four years old, I got into a fight with someone named Bruce. He was older, a big guy, all of six years old. He took my bicycle and threw it in the air, wrecking the rear fender. I chased after him with a baseball bat.
Based on that one incident, I’m inherently suspicious of people named Bruce. Sorry. Yes, I’m being irrational. But if your name is Bruce and I meet you, chances are we will never be friends. But don't worry. I haven't chased after anyone with a baseball bat in a long, long time.
On the other side of the coin, a baseball player, Warren Spahn, once drove me home from a ballgame when my mom forgot to pick me up. Warren Spahn, if you don’t know this, is in the Hall of Fame. As a result of his driving me home, I was my neighborhood hero for a week. If your name is Warren and I meet you, chances are I’ll treat you like I’ve known you since I was a kid.
I had a high school music teacher and band director who wore bow ties. He was very fastidious and high strung. He was also a jerk. A good friend of mine played trumpet, something that teacher also did. My friend was phenomenal. This year, in fact, my friend is nominated for a Grammy. He’s made the Downbeat poll for best trumpet player for many, many years. In high school, the bow-tie wearing teacher was so jealous of my friend’s talent that he refused to give him first chair in the band.
Junior year, I played in a basketball game against this teacher in a “students versus teachers” match. No he didn’t wear a bow tie on the court. But nothing was out of place. I had to guard the jerk. He couldn’t keep up with me and I’m no great shakes as an athlete. He held my jersey the whole game. Then toward the end of the game when he decided to drive toward the basket he intentionally took his elbow to my face. I fell to the ground, blood flowing from my upper lip. I was a mess.
Ever since then I’ve hated guys with bow ties. Call me a “bow-tieist.” I don’t care. It's a guiding principle for me. I could never hang with a bow-tie guy. Because of George Will, I could never be a Republican
We all have our issues. Sometimes they are based on single events. Sometimes who knows where they come from? But they are there. Issues. Things. It's not just an American thing. In Yiddish (and probably Polish), they are called “bzhikhs.” I probably have more than my fair share.
Which leads me to another “bzhikh” of mine. Last week, Senator Joseph Biden announced his candidacy for president. That’s not surprising. Has there been a Democratic Senator who hasn’t announced he or she is running? But I digress. In talking about his candidacy Joseph Biden said, “This is about being the best Biden I can be.” Sorry Joe. Right there you lost me. I don’t care how good a candidate you are. I cannot and will not vote for anyone who talks about himself in the third person. Stuart does not vote for those kind of people. Oops! I did it myself. I can’t vote for myself either.
Oh I know what’s on your mind, dear reader. What about a bow-tie wearing person named Bruce who talks about himself in the third person? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who fits that description. But even the thought of it is making my lip twitch uncontrollably
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
A Brief History of My Duke
The other day I was reading over some old op-eds I had written for the student newspaper, The Chronicle, about Duke and I could barely read them. They were so consistently joyless. It was like reading something from another person entirely.
I was one miserable s.o.b. back then.
When you’re doing something you’d rather not be doing day after day, it can completely suck the joy out of you. And being a professor at Duke was making me miserable.
People ask me why I left. What does "in the balance it was negative" mean? Here goes. For those interested in such things, here is a brief history of my Duke.
I came to Duke in 1990. It was a rough beginning, but by about 1993, I was finding my way. Duke started to grow on me. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. What job is? In the balance – work, family, friends – it was positive. In 1994, I looked around elsewhere and interviewed for a job, the best place in the country in my field; I came back home and the next day told them I wasn’t interested. I was going to stay put. I received tenure in 1996 and thought maybe I’m going to stay here for a long time. And then the balance started to change.
My department was disbanded. I was moved into Duke’s environmental school. Sure I’m an environmentalist, but a mild one; there were people there who were rabid. It was like shoving a politically moderate literature professor into Duke’s infamous left-wing English department. I was not happy about this move.
Disbanding my department made maintaining our graduate program difficult and it rapidly started to degrade. As a result, I stopped teaching graduate students and (because we had so few undergraduate majors) focused almost entirely on teaching non-science majors.
Undergraduate students tend to hate science. Books have been written about why this is so. If there wouldn’t be distribution requirements, many would take no science courses whatsoever. So when you teach science in most colleges – aside from premed kind of courses – you are teaching people who don’t want to be there. They are taking the class because they have to, not because they like the material. If you give them a lot of work, they are resentful and avoid your classes. So you end up teaching light as air classes, telling jokes and stories instead of teaching just to maintain decent enrollments. But teaching this way was (at least for me) humiliating and demeaning.
There were still good things about Duke. It had first rate resources. Some of the kids were wonderful. Some were just plain admirable. But the balance was in the negative. I started to apply elsewhere for jobs. It’s tough to get academic jobs once you have tenure, but I received an offer from a decent place. For family reasons, I couldn’t go.
Then I had an event that made me snap. I was on a field trip in a national park with undergraduate students. Sometimes you get a class and it’s right as rain. Everything clicks and it’s a pleasure to teach. Other times, you get a class and it’s hell. Usually it's somewhere between the extremes. This field trip class wasn't somewhere between. It was definitely a class from hell; the students were mostly spoiled brats from one fraternity. Talking to them one on one was fine. But put two of them together and both of their IQs dropped 100 points.
I won’t forget the day that I knew I had to quit. We were hiking in the park to see some petrified trees. I had a nasty cold; I had tried to get another faculty member to sub for me, but no one would. The snow was falling hard. I trudged up the hill well behind the students, wheezing, coughing and sneezing. Halfway to the petrified trees, the class mutinied. I swore at them and finally they continued on. We reached the petrified trees, the weather got better and I thought all was right with the world.
On the way back down I told the students to take a look at some petrified wood boulders that they missed on the way up. I was about 100 yards behind them when I saw them stop near the boulders. I thought, hey, great, they’re getting into this. But then a roar went up. And then another roar. I didn’t know what the roars were about. But as I got closer, I understood. They were rolling these three foot round petrified wood boulders down the hill and cheering as they crashed into trees below.
My mother used to say when she saw people behaving badly, “si vie kinder,” which in Yiddish means “like little children.” And I found myself involuntarily saying, “si vie kinder, si vie kinder” under my breath as I approached. I was livid.
I came up to them. I told them they were committing a felony according to National Park regulations. I told them that someone below or an animal could be hiking up the trail and get hit by one of the boulders that they were rolling down the hill. They looked at me like I was nuts. I was spoiling their fun.
As I walked down the hill, I kept thinking how does someone 21 years old not grow up? How do they stay in such a prolonged state of infancy? How come their parents didn’t teach them to be responsible adults? Why do we perpetuate such infantile behavior in college students?
I started thinking about myself. I was married when I was 22. I had a mortgage when I was 28. These kids were like I was when I was 12, which wasn’t surprising because we were teaching them as if they were in junior high. They weren’t maturing; they were regressing. Forty thousand dollars a year for an education and the most animated, intellectual conversation I’d heard that week was, “Dude, Terminator II was way better than Terminator III.” “No way, Dude! Terminator III was way better!” I can remember my train of thought back then clear as day; I had snapped big time. I knew I had to leave as soon as I could.
I went back home and talked things over with my wife. For family reasons, I'd wait two years and then we’d take off. I looked at the glowing reviews of my teaching from the class from hell and was dumbfounded.
Two years later, I applied to a couple of other universities. I was very picky. Wherever I applied, the graduate program had to be top notch. The undergraduates had to be serious. If I couldn’t find a top-notch place, I’d leave this career of mine behind and find something else to do.
I got a call from a great university; unfortunately, it was in Europe. I’m good with languages and like new things, but I do have a family. And Europe is still an uncomfortable place for a Jew to live. It was a no go. I cancelled my plane ticket for a visit.
Then out of the blue I got an invite from Caltech to give a couple of talks over a four-week period. Caltech brings in lots of people to look at but hires only now and then. I gave my two talks. It was fun. They gave me a chauffeur to drive me about town and put me up in their Einstein Suite. I remember joking with my wife on my cell phone from the bathroom and saying, “I’m going to take a bath in the same bathtub as Albert Einstein. I hope they’ve cleaned it since then.”
On the chauffeur ride back to the airport after my second visit, I thought about my little courtship. It was a good way to finish up things, regardless of the outcome. If I got a job offer, I’d end up at a top-notch school with students interested in science. And if not, so be it. I could at least say that on my last trip as a professor, I’d been pampered for a couple of days and talked to some incredibly smart people.
I came home with a smile. The job offer never came. I never applied for another academic job and happily kissed Duke and academia good-bye.
When some people hear that I walked away from a tenured job, they think I’m nuts. And I probably am. But I also know that walking away from that job was the best thing I had done in a decade. It changed my outlook on life. It removed a dark cloud over my head that I’m convinced would have eventually caused me to have a mental breakdown.
I moved back to my home in California – we never sold our house out there – and I had no idea what I’d do next. But after a year I had my bounce back in my step.
Every day is a good day nowadays. I wake up with a smile. I had a good run as a scientist/professor but it wasn’t meant to last a lifetime. My only regret is that I couldn’t have left sooner. But that's no biggie.
The other day I was reading over some old op-eds I had written for the student newspaper, The Chronicle, about Duke and I could barely read them. They were so consistently joyless. It was like reading something from another person entirely.
I was one miserable s.o.b. back then.
When you’re doing something you’d rather not be doing day after day, it can completely suck the joy out of you. And being a professor at Duke was making me miserable.
People ask me why I left. What does "in the balance it was negative" mean? Here goes. For those interested in such things, here is a brief history of my Duke.
I came to Duke in 1990. It was a rough beginning, but by about 1993, I was finding my way. Duke started to grow on me. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. What job is? In the balance – work, family, friends – it was positive. In 1994, I looked around elsewhere and interviewed for a job, the best place in the country in my field; I came back home and the next day told them I wasn’t interested. I was going to stay put. I received tenure in 1996 and thought maybe I’m going to stay here for a long time. And then the balance started to change.
My department was disbanded. I was moved into Duke’s environmental school. Sure I’m an environmentalist, but a mild one; there were people there who were rabid. It was like shoving a politically moderate literature professor into Duke’s infamous left-wing English department. I was not happy about this move.
Disbanding my department made maintaining our graduate program difficult and it rapidly started to degrade. As a result, I stopped teaching graduate students and (because we had so few undergraduate majors) focused almost entirely on teaching non-science majors.
Undergraduate students tend to hate science. Books have been written about why this is so. If there wouldn’t be distribution requirements, many would take no science courses whatsoever. So when you teach science in most colleges – aside from premed kind of courses – you are teaching people who don’t want to be there. They are taking the class because they have to, not because they like the material. If you give them a lot of work, they are resentful and avoid your classes. So you end up teaching light as air classes, telling jokes and stories instead of teaching just to maintain decent enrollments. But teaching this way was (at least for me) humiliating and demeaning.
There were still good things about Duke. It had first rate resources. Some of the kids were wonderful. Some were just plain admirable. But the balance was in the negative. I started to apply elsewhere for jobs. It’s tough to get academic jobs once you have tenure, but I received an offer from a decent place. For family reasons, I couldn’t go.
Then I had an event that made me snap. I was on a field trip in a national park with undergraduate students. Sometimes you get a class and it’s right as rain. Everything clicks and it’s a pleasure to teach. Other times, you get a class and it’s hell. Usually it's somewhere between the extremes. This field trip class wasn't somewhere between. It was definitely a class from hell; the students were mostly spoiled brats from one fraternity. Talking to them one on one was fine. But put two of them together and both of their IQs dropped 100 points.
I won’t forget the day that I knew I had to quit. We were hiking in the park to see some petrified trees. I had a nasty cold; I had tried to get another faculty member to sub for me, but no one would. The snow was falling hard. I trudged up the hill well behind the students, wheezing, coughing and sneezing. Halfway to the petrified trees, the class mutinied. I swore at them and finally they continued on. We reached the petrified trees, the weather got better and I thought all was right with the world.
On the way back down I told the students to take a look at some petrified wood boulders that they missed on the way up. I was about 100 yards behind them when I saw them stop near the boulders. I thought, hey, great, they’re getting into this. But then a roar went up. And then another roar. I didn’t know what the roars were about. But as I got closer, I understood. They were rolling these three foot round petrified wood boulders down the hill and cheering as they crashed into trees below.
My mother used to say when she saw people behaving badly, “si vie kinder,” which in Yiddish means “like little children.” And I found myself involuntarily saying, “si vie kinder, si vie kinder” under my breath as I approached. I was livid.
I came up to them. I told them they were committing a felony according to National Park regulations. I told them that someone below or an animal could be hiking up the trail and get hit by one of the boulders that they were rolling down the hill. They looked at me like I was nuts. I was spoiling their fun.
As I walked down the hill, I kept thinking how does someone 21 years old not grow up? How do they stay in such a prolonged state of infancy? How come their parents didn’t teach them to be responsible adults? Why do we perpetuate such infantile behavior in college students?
I started thinking about myself. I was married when I was 22. I had a mortgage when I was 28. These kids were like I was when I was 12, which wasn’t surprising because we were teaching them as if they were in junior high. They weren’t maturing; they were regressing. Forty thousand dollars a year for an education and the most animated, intellectual conversation I’d heard that week was, “Dude, Terminator II was way better than Terminator III.” “No way, Dude! Terminator III was way better!” I can remember my train of thought back then clear as day; I had snapped big time. I knew I had to leave as soon as I could.
I went back home and talked things over with my wife. For family reasons, I'd wait two years and then we’d take off. I looked at the glowing reviews of my teaching from the class from hell and was dumbfounded.
Two years later, I applied to a couple of other universities. I was very picky. Wherever I applied, the graduate program had to be top notch. The undergraduates had to be serious. If I couldn’t find a top-notch place, I’d leave this career of mine behind and find something else to do.
I got a call from a great university; unfortunately, it was in Europe. I’m good with languages and like new things, but I do have a family. And Europe is still an uncomfortable place for a Jew to live. It was a no go. I cancelled my plane ticket for a visit.
Then out of the blue I got an invite from Caltech to give a couple of talks over a four-week period. Caltech brings in lots of people to look at but hires only now and then. I gave my two talks. It was fun. They gave me a chauffeur to drive me about town and put me up in their Einstein Suite. I remember joking with my wife on my cell phone from the bathroom and saying, “I’m going to take a bath in the same bathtub as Albert Einstein. I hope they’ve cleaned it since then.”
On the chauffeur ride back to the airport after my second visit, I thought about my little courtship. It was a good way to finish up things, regardless of the outcome. If I got a job offer, I’d end up at a top-notch school with students interested in science. And if not, so be it. I could at least say that on my last trip as a professor, I’d been pampered for a couple of days and talked to some incredibly smart people.
I came home with a smile. The job offer never came. I never applied for another academic job and happily kissed Duke and academia good-bye.
When some people hear that I walked away from a tenured job, they think I’m nuts. And I probably am. But I also know that walking away from that job was the best thing I had done in a decade. It changed my outlook on life. It removed a dark cloud over my head that I’m convinced would have eventually caused me to have a mental breakdown.
I moved back to my home in California – we never sold our house out there – and I had no idea what I’d do next. But after a year I had my bounce back in my step.
Every day is a good day nowadays. I wake up with a smile. I had a good run as a scientist/professor but it wasn’t meant to last a lifetime. My only regret is that I couldn’t have left sooner. But that's no biggie.
Monday, January 15, 2007
MLK Day
I hardly ever see black people. Yesterday, I was out and about. I went to a couple of stores, a museum, the beach, and a nice restaurant. And as I recollect over that day, I remember seeing one black face. In the museum, there was a tall distinguished looking middle age black man. Sure he stood out in the crowd because he was well over six feet; but I remember looking at him and thinking, he’s black. I remember thinking, that’s unusual. How many black people come to this museum? Hardly any.
I could extend that analysis over my entire day. How many black people shop at the stores I shop at? Hardly any. How many black people go to the beach or the restaurant where we ate? Ditto.
It’s true that the black population of the Bay Area is very small, but we live in parallel universes. We don’t shop at the same places. We don’t in general go to the same movies (although a couple of days ago, there was an exception, Dream Girls). About the only consistent exception I can think of is in music; if I show up at some clubs, I’ll likely see a black face or two, but they better have the cash to sit and drink in an upscale jazz club.
What has changed from my childhood is that blacks can freely and easily go to the same places I do without encountering hard stares or worse having racial insults hurled their way. But they hardly ever do.
What has also changed is that many have an economic pathway. They can now be hired in Fortune 500 companies. They can get loans to start businesses. They can get accepted to the nation’s finest law schools and medical schools. They can through hard work and smarts get very rich; but they still by and large won’t travel in the same social spheres.
Racial lines are very sharp in this country. I can remember one day when I was at Duke several years ago, the basketball player Grant Hill was wearing a shirt that said, “No white lady, I don’t want to steal your purse.” Grant Hill is now a millionaire many tens of times over; his face is sometimes splashed across commercials. But put him in a pair of jeans and tennis shoes on a street in a middle class white neighborhood, and my guess is that some little old white lady is going to purposely move to the other side of the street to avoid him.
I can also remember going to Durham last spring to visit family and talking to people about the Lacrosse affair. The DNA results were in and they were negative. If I talked to a white person, the DNA said it all; the lacrosse players were innocent. If I talked to a black person, the DNA meant nothing; those players were guilty. The level of tension was so high, that I honestly thought that the town had the high potential to explode into a race riot.
Why have we made so little progress on race over the last 40 years? I would argue that separation along some arbitrary boundary is an innate part of human behavior. We define ourselves by who we include in our lives; by definition, inclusion creates exclusion. Race becomes a convenient, if lazy, way for us to define our social boundaries. I don’t see racism – not necessarily discrimination, but separation along social lines - going away anytime soon.
Twenty years from now, I can’t imagine that socially much will change. The world I live in will still be predominately white and Asian. The world blacks live in will still be predominately black and Hispanic.
What may change in these parallel universes is that blacks will have expanded economic opportunities. I wish I could be more optimistic than this. But attitudes in this country about race are so firmly engrained that I don’t see much change socially.
I hardly ever see black people. Yesterday, I was out and about. I went to a couple of stores, a museum, the beach, and a nice restaurant. And as I recollect over that day, I remember seeing one black face. In the museum, there was a tall distinguished looking middle age black man. Sure he stood out in the crowd because he was well over six feet; but I remember looking at him and thinking, he’s black. I remember thinking, that’s unusual. How many black people come to this museum? Hardly any.
I could extend that analysis over my entire day. How many black people shop at the stores I shop at? Hardly any. How many black people go to the beach or the restaurant where we ate? Ditto.
It’s true that the black population of the Bay Area is very small, but we live in parallel universes. We don’t shop at the same places. We don’t in general go to the same movies (although a couple of days ago, there was an exception, Dream Girls). About the only consistent exception I can think of is in music; if I show up at some clubs, I’ll likely see a black face or two, but they better have the cash to sit and drink in an upscale jazz club.
What has changed from my childhood is that blacks can freely and easily go to the same places I do without encountering hard stares or worse having racial insults hurled their way. But they hardly ever do.
What has also changed is that many have an economic pathway. They can now be hired in Fortune 500 companies. They can get loans to start businesses. They can get accepted to the nation’s finest law schools and medical schools. They can through hard work and smarts get very rich; but they still by and large won’t travel in the same social spheres.
Racial lines are very sharp in this country. I can remember one day when I was at Duke several years ago, the basketball player Grant Hill was wearing a shirt that said, “No white lady, I don’t want to steal your purse.” Grant Hill is now a millionaire many tens of times over; his face is sometimes splashed across commercials. But put him in a pair of jeans and tennis shoes on a street in a middle class white neighborhood, and my guess is that some little old white lady is going to purposely move to the other side of the street to avoid him.
I can also remember going to Durham last spring to visit family and talking to people about the Lacrosse affair. The DNA results were in and they were negative. If I talked to a white person, the DNA said it all; the lacrosse players were innocent. If I talked to a black person, the DNA meant nothing; those players were guilty. The level of tension was so high, that I honestly thought that the town had the high potential to explode into a race riot.
Why have we made so little progress on race over the last 40 years? I would argue that separation along some arbitrary boundary is an innate part of human behavior. We define ourselves by who we include in our lives; by definition, inclusion creates exclusion. Race becomes a convenient, if lazy, way for us to define our social boundaries. I don’t see racism – not necessarily discrimination, but separation along social lines - going away anytime soon.
Twenty years from now, I can’t imagine that socially much will change. The world I live in will still be predominately white and Asian. The world blacks live in will still be predominately black and Hispanic.
What may change in these parallel universes is that blacks will have expanded economic opportunities. I wish I could be more optimistic than this. But attitudes in this country about race are so firmly engrained that I don’t see much change socially.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Happy Anniversary
Today is my anniversary. I'm a happy cliche. I married my college sweetheart and we've had more wonderful years together than I care to mention in public. I think there's a rule in California that outlaws marriages older than 20 years. We're outlaws.
Yesterday, I went to a coffee shop and ordered my standard faire, a macchiato and a little plain roll. The girl asked, "Anything else?"
I said, "No, I'm happy with what I have."
She smiled and said, "I'm happy with what I have too."
She was maybe 18. I told her, "You learn fast. It took me 40 years to figure that one out."
Today is my anniversary. I'm a happy cliche. I married my college sweetheart and we've had more wonderful years together than I care to mention in public. I think there's a rule in California that outlaws marriages older than 20 years. We're outlaws.
Yesterday, I went to a coffee shop and ordered my standard faire, a macchiato and a little plain roll. The girl asked, "Anything else?"
I said, "No, I'm happy with what I have."
She smiled and said, "I'm happy with what I have too."
She was maybe 18. I told her, "You learn fast. It took me 40 years to figure that one out."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Bright Side
The Duke lacrosse affair (I’m not going to call it a scandal anymore) has brought out the worst in just about everyone. The press, Duke leadership, the Duke community of students and faculty, the office of the DA, all have been horrible. Part of the tragedy of this affair is just how ugly everyone has behaved.
There have been so many people and institutions that have behaved dreadfully in the Duke lacrosse affair that it’s hard to find any bright lights. And I could dwell in detail about how the communities involved were awful. I don’t see the purpose of that. It’s not like they are going to change as a result of anything I or anyone else writes.
Instead, last night I tried to think of people – anyone – who behaved commendably during this affair. Strangely, the only people I can think of are the lawyers. The lacrosse player’s lawyers certainly have done their job well.
I’m not a fan of lawyers. I use them all of the time and I personally like the ones I use. But the lawyers I hire are contracts kind of people; they aren’t litigators. I look at them as very smart word accountants. Criminal lawyers aren’t my cup of tea. But in this case, they are doing the job they need to do. My hat is off to them.
There is one lawyer in particular that has been a bright light in this affair that I’d like to mention, Professor James Coleman. Throughout this case he has behaved with civility and grace. I can’t think of a single person in the Duke community who behaved as well and has been as positive a force.
To be honest, early on I wasn’t expecting much. Coleman was given leadership of the Duke committee assigned to examine the behavior of the lacrosse team prior to the arrest. That committee, like the others Brodhead convened, was designed not to provide any new knowledge, but to deflect criticism from Duke leadership. It’s standard operating procedure for a leader in a time of crisis to form committees like this as a defensive move. I’ve been on other types of politically motivated committees at Duke and have felt used. I know I would have said no to an invitation to join this committee.
In particular, the behavior of the lacrosse team and the institutional response was already known. What was the committee going to do that provided anything more?
In this case, what Coleman and his committee did was quantify the rumors. It wasn’t a great job – they didn’t have much time and Coleman is probably not a numbers kind of guy – but it was useful. It put out the numbers for anyone to interpret. As he said at the time, we’ve made our own interpretations, but you can look at the data and come up with your own. I thought that was fair.
Overall, I thought the document was fair and honest. It didn’t soft sell the lack of oversight by Duke leadership. It painted a picture of a lacrosse team that drank way too much, was clannish, but did its schoolwork. It wasn’t particularly insightful, but it was a useful and honest piece of work. If you are going to lead a committee like that, the end result was about as good as you can expect to do.
Subsequent to that report, Coleman was very public about the need to have Nifong hand over this case to someone else. He was very careful in his language to the press. He stayed away from hyperbole. He was a voice of reason. His message was simple and he was not shy about saying it. But he didn’t come off as a ham trying to grab the media spotlight. He had an agenda, but that agenda was the one best for the community. I can’t think of anyone who behaved so well during this affair. My hat is off to him.*
One interesting aspect of this affair is the role that message boards and blogs have played. This is something new under the sun. I’d like to talk about that next time, but probably not for a couple of days.
*Oh there is another element I thought that did well by just plain staying away. The Christian right and a number of arch-conservative groups decided that given the seedy circumstances under which the lacrosse players were arrested, this was not going to be an issue they were going to dip their toes in. The Pope Center, for instance, a NC conservative group based in Raleigh, looks like it said thanks but no thanks. I don't agree with the politics of the far and moral right, but I admire that they were consistent with their core values by staying wide and clear of this affair. I should mention a small conflict of interest; I think I received a small amount of money for a speech I gave at the Pope Center awhile back.
The Duke lacrosse affair (I’m not going to call it a scandal anymore) has brought out the worst in just about everyone. The press, Duke leadership, the Duke community of students and faculty, the office of the DA, all have been horrible. Part of the tragedy of this affair is just how ugly everyone has behaved.
There have been so many people and institutions that have behaved dreadfully in the Duke lacrosse affair that it’s hard to find any bright lights. And I could dwell in detail about how the communities involved were awful. I don’t see the purpose of that. It’s not like they are going to change as a result of anything I or anyone else writes.
Instead, last night I tried to think of people – anyone – who behaved commendably during this affair. Strangely, the only people I can think of are the lawyers. The lacrosse player’s lawyers certainly have done their job well.
I’m not a fan of lawyers. I use them all of the time and I personally like the ones I use. But the lawyers I hire are contracts kind of people; they aren’t litigators. I look at them as very smart word accountants. Criminal lawyers aren’t my cup of tea. But in this case, they are doing the job they need to do. My hat is off to them.
There is one lawyer in particular that has been a bright light in this affair that I’d like to mention, Professor James Coleman. Throughout this case he has behaved with civility and grace. I can’t think of a single person in the Duke community who behaved as well and has been as positive a force.
To be honest, early on I wasn’t expecting much. Coleman was given leadership of the Duke committee assigned to examine the behavior of the lacrosse team prior to the arrest. That committee, like the others Brodhead convened, was designed not to provide any new knowledge, but to deflect criticism from Duke leadership. It’s standard operating procedure for a leader in a time of crisis to form committees like this as a defensive move. I’ve been on other types of politically motivated committees at Duke and have felt used. I know I would have said no to an invitation to join this committee.
In particular, the behavior of the lacrosse team and the institutional response was already known. What was the committee going to do that provided anything more?
In this case, what Coleman and his committee did was quantify the rumors. It wasn’t a great job – they didn’t have much time and Coleman is probably not a numbers kind of guy – but it was useful. It put out the numbers for anyone to interpret. As he said at the time, we’ve made our own interpretations, but you can look at the data and come up with your own. I thought that was fair.
Overall, I thought the document was fair and honest. It didn’t soft sell the lack of oversight by Duke leadership. It painted a picture of a lacrosse team that drank way too much, was clannish, but did its schoolwork. It wasn’t particularly insightful, but it was a useful and honest piece of work. If you are going to lead a committee like that, the end result was about as good as you can expect to do.
Subsequent to that report, Coleman was very public about the need to have Nifong hand over this case to someone else. He was very careful in his language to the press. He stayed away from hyperbole. He was a voice of reason. His message was simple and he was not shy about saying it. But he didn’t come off as a ham trying to grab the media spotlight. He had an agenda, but that agenda was the one best for the community. I can’t think of anyone who behaved so well during this affair. My hat is off to him.*
One interesting aspect of this affair is the role that message boards and blogs have played. This is something new under the sun. I’d like to talk about that next time, but probably not for a couple of days.
*Oh there is another element I thought that did well by just plain staying away. The Christian right and a number of arch-conservative groups decided that given the seedy circumstances under which the lacrosse players were arrested, this was not going to be an issue they were going to dip their toes in. The Pope Center, for instance, a NC conservative group based in Raleigh, looks like it said thanks but no thanks. I don't agree with the politics of the far and moral right, but I admire that they were consistent with their core values by staying wide and clear of this affair. I should mention a small conflict of interest; I think I received a small amount of money for a speech I gave at the Pope Center awhile back.
Friday, January 12, 2007
In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
Durham’s DA, Nifong, has requested he be taken off the case and it’s probable that the Duke Lacrosse criminal case is over. It has been a case that has brought out the worst in just about everyone. It would be a blessing for all parties – the Lacrosse players, the alleged victim, Durham, Duke – if it would end as soon as possible.
I've written a lot about Duke and the scandal, but for the most part, I've tried to avoid talking about the legal case. Legal cases bore the hell out of me. And lawyers lie with such frequency that until a trial actually begins, what's the point of discussing a case? That's my take on it, anyhow. But now that this case is likely over, I'll say a few things.
In the beginning, Nifong went before the press like a lion. He said things about the case that were inappropriate. I’ve lived in Durham. I know a bit what it’s about. It is one strange place. For me, Nifong shouting about the guilt of the “hooligans” was just standard strange Durham stuff. I’ve never lived in a place anywhere like it.
When Nifong first took this case, I didn’t know if anyone was guilty or innocent. I said he couldn’t get a conviction, but my feeling was that he had to prosecute.
He couldn’t win this case without DNA. But he had a woman cry rape. He had a community up in arms. He had the green light from a grand jury. From the standpoint of representing his community, I believed that he had to go ahead. You shouldn’t start a case that you can’t possibly win, but there are exceptions to every rule. This incident was so politically charged that if he had some decent evidence – even without the possibility of a conviction – Nifong needed to go forward to keep the town from having a full fledged riot.
But it appears that he never had decent evidence and he hid evidence that would hurt the case.
Early on, I said somewhere that the idea that Nifong would prosecute this case just to get some votes for a crummy DA job was at face value ridiculous. I really did say that somewhere. But what’s crummy to me may be a golden opportunity for someone else. That indeed may have been his motivation. But if it was, Nifong had to be delusional to think that it wouldn’t lead to the ruination of his career.
I don’t know what exactly his motivation was. I probably never will. I do know that if you go up against someone rich and powerful, you better have evidence. And if you have evidence, you better have the professionalism, skill and talent to beat the best. Otherwise you can expect a very bad end.
With regard to Nifong, he lacked professionalism, skill and talent. And he didn’t have evidence. His career is likely over.
Usually, I have a lot of compassion for people in this situation. But he brought this upon himself. He damaged an entire community, a university, the lives of three young men and even the alleged victim. He tore apart lives. I don’t have compassion for someone like that.
Mike Nifong came out like a lion. He is going out like a lamb. I wish him no personal harm. I imagine that his life right now is a living emotional hell. I hope that he learns to understand the damage that he’s done and that he never makes such mistakes again. Regardless, he should never again be in a position to have authority over anyone’s life. He’s lost that trust forever.
Usually, someone will try to find a silver lining in a tragedy like this something along the lines of, "I lived through adversity and am better off for it." In this case, I can’t think of one. The three lacrosse players are not better off. The alleged victim is not better off. Durham is not better off. Duke is not better off. All have permanent scars that will not help them in the least. There is no silver lining here.
I’ve learned a lot from this case, though. Unfortunately, most of it, if not all of it, has been negative. I’m going to think about it overnight to try to come up with something positive. And if I can, I’ll write a bit about that.
Durham’s DA, Nifong, has requested he be taken off the case and it’s probable that the Duke Lacrosse criminal case is over. It has been a case that has brought out the worst in just about everyone. It would be a blessing for all parties – the Lacrosse players, the alleged victim, Durham, Duke – if it would end as soon as possible.
I've written a lot about Duke and the scandal, but for the most part, I've tried to avoid talking about the legal case. Legal cases bore the hell out of me. And lawyers lie with such frequency that until a trial actually begins, what's the point of discussing a case? That's my take on it, anyhow. But now that this case is likely over, I'll say a few things.
In the beginning, Nifong went before the press like a lion. He said things about the case that were inappropriate. I’ve lived in Durham. I know a bit what it’s about. It is one strange place. For me, Nifong shouting about the guilt of the “hooligans” was just standard strange Durham stuff. I’ve never lived in a place anywhere like it.
When Nifong first took this case, I didn’t know if anyone was guilty or innocent. I said he couldn’t get a conviction, but my feeling was that he had to prosecute.
He couldn’t win this case without DNA. But he had a woman cry rape. He had a community up in arms. He had the green light from a grand jury. From the standpoint of representing his community, I believed that he had to go ahead. You shouldn’t start a case that you can’t possibly win, but there are exceptions to every rule. This incident was so politically charged that if he had some decent evidence – even without the possibility of a conviction – Nifong needed to go forward to keep the town from having a full fledged riot.
But it appears that he never had decent evidence and he hid evidence that would hurt the case.
Early on, I said somewhere that the idea that Nifong would prosecute this case just to get some votes for a crummy DA job was at face value ridiculous. I really did say that somewhere. But what’s crummy to me may be a golden opportunity for someone else. That indeed may have been his motivation. But if it was, Nifong had to be delusional to think that it wouldn’t lead to the ruination of his career.
I don’t know what exactly his motivation was. I probably never will. I do know that if you go up against someone rich and powerful, you better have evidence. And if you have evidence, you better have the professionalism, skill and talent to beat the best. Otherwise you can expect a very bad end.
With regard to Nifong, he lacked professionalism, skill and talent. And he didn’t have evidence. His career is likely over.
Usually, I have a lot of compassion for people in this situation. But he brought this upon himself. He damaged an entire community, a university, the lives of three young men and even the alleged victim. He tore apart lives. I don’t have compassion for someone like that.
Mike Nifong came out like a lion. He is going out like a lamb. I wish him no personal harm. I imagine that his life right now is a living emotional hell. I hope that he learns to understand the damage that he’s done and that he never makes such mistakes again. Regardless, he should never again be in a position to have authority over anyone’s life. He’s lost that trust forever.
Usually, someone will try to find a silver lining in a tragedy like this something along the lines of, "I lived through adversity and am better off for it." In this case, I can’t think of one. The three lacrosse players are not better off. The alleged victim is not better off. Durham is not better off. Duke is not better off. All have permanent scars that will not help them in the least. There is no silver lining here.
I’ve learned a lot from this case, though. Unfortunately, most of it, if not all of it, has been negative. I’m going to think about it overnight to try to come up with something positive. And if I can, I’ll write a bit about that.
Voting When You Hate Yourself
I will never have the experience of a career being affirmed by some gathering or award ceremony. To my mind, it would be a nice thing to happen. I went to one a couple of years back, a friend of mine was retiring. People came from all over the country. It was a wonderful, sweet party. I walked home with a big smile on my face.
In baseball, the epitome of career affirmation is making it into the Hall of Fame. Sportswriters from around the country vote. If 75% or more of those voting put you on their ballot, you’re in.
Last week, Mark McGwire found out that despite being 7th on the all time list for home runs and despite breaking a record for home runs in a season that had been in existence for 37 years, he received votes from less than 25% of the sportswriters. The ostensible reasons were many, but two were mentioned frequently. He was a one-dimensional player. He avoided the question of whether he used steroids during a congressional meeting.
He didn’t have to avoid the question. Well maybe there were legal repercussions at the time. But if he had simply said yes, there wouldn’t have been any surprise. He used steroids. There is no way he didn’t.
When Mark McGuire came into the league as a rookie, he was a gangly 22-year-old kid, six foot five. By the time he set the record for most home runs in a season in 1998, he looked like an oak tree. His arms were as big as my thighs. You don’t get preposterous muscles like that from eating spinach and lifting weights.
But at that time, that’s what sportswriters were writing. Baseball players in the 1990s were hitting home runs at an unheard of pace. Their necks were thick with some visible acne on the backside. They looked like those guys on the cover of bodybuilding magazines. Everyone knew those bodybuilders were using steroids. But somehow, the sportswriters kept failing to make the connection.
Back then, the sportswriters told the world that the reason Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, et al. were hitting home runs at a record pace was their “conditioning.” Proper diet and weightlifting were doing things they had never done before.
Mark McGwire was one of the most feared hitters in baseball in a time when steroid use was rampant. He was the best of the “steroids players.” Steroid use was, at the time, not illegal in major league baseball although purchasing steroids without a prescription was a criminal offense. He was, like all the other steroids players, just following the rules.
Regardless, Mark McGwire will not be receiving that career affirmation of membership into the Hall of Fame for the foreseeable future. And while it doesn’t break my heart to know this, I do wonder why sportswriters are voting like they are.
I think I know why. It has nothing to do with Mark McGwire ducking steroids questions in Congress. It has nothing to do with him being a “one-dimensional player;" the Golden Glove award he won in 1990 pops that balloon of an excuse. I think it has everything to do with the sportswriters themselves.
No one likes to be reminded of their past failures. And when Mark McGwire’s name appears on a list, a sportswriter just might flash to those glory days of 1998 when he wrote word after glowing word about the amazing feats of Mark McGwire. In retrospect those words seem foolish. At best that sportswriter was duped. But more than likely, that sportswriter was just plain stupid for not recognizing that Mark McGwire and a whole lot of others were “on the juice.”
Those sportswriters weren’t voting against Mark McGwire. They were voting against reminding themselves of their own stupidity. I can sympathize. I remember watching that game where McGwire broke Roger Maris’s home run record and thinking (without a hint of sarcasm), isn’t that fantastic? It was, to my mind, one of the greatest games I've ever watched. I was stupid too.
I watched Mark McGwire play many games in Oakland before and after he started taking steroids. He was a streaky hitter who hit high lazy fly balls. When he was on, those balls went over the fence. When he wasn’t, they were caught at the warning track. Who wouldn’t be tempted to take some juice to turn more of those warning track balls into home runs? I try to imagine myself in his shoes. Would I? Probably yes.
I will never have the experience of a career being affirmed by some gathering or award ceremony. To my mind, it would be a nice thing to happen. I went to one a couple of years back, a friend of mine was retiring. People came from all over the country. It was a wonderful, sweet party. I walked home with a big smile on my face.
In baseball, the epitome of career affirmation is making it into the Hall of Fame. Sportswriters from around the country vote. If 75% or more of those voting put you on their ballot, you’re in.
Last week, Mark McGwire found out that despite being 7th on the all time list for home runs and despite breaking a record for home runs in a season that had been in existence for 37 years, he received votes from less than 25% of the sportswriters. The ostensible reasons were many, but two were mentioned frequently. He was a one-dimensional player. He avoided the question of whether he used steroids during a congressional meeting.
He didn’t have to avoid the question. Well maybe there were legal repercussions at the time. But if he had simply said yes, there wouldn’t have been any surprise. He used steroids. There is no way he didn’t.
When Mark McGuire came into the league as a rookie, he was a gangly 22-year-old kid, six foot five. By the time he set the record for most home runs in a season in 1998, he looked like an oak tree. His arms were as big as my thighs. You don’t get preposterous muscles like that from eating spinach and lifting weights.
But at that time, that’s what sportswriters were writing. Baseball players in the 1990s were hitting home runs at an unheard of pace. Their necks were thick with some visible acne on the backside. They looked like those guys on the cover of bodybuilding magazines. Everyone knew those bodybuilders were using steroids. But somehow, the sportswriters kept failing to make the connection.
Back then, the sportswriters told the world that the reason Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, et al. were hitting home runs at a record pace was their “conditioning.” Proper diet and weightlifting were doing things they had never done before.
Mark McGwire was one of the most feared hitters in baseball in a time when steroid use was rampant. He was the best of the “steroids players.” Steroid use was, at the time, not illegal in major league baseball although purchasing steroids without a prescription was a criminal offense. He was, like all the other steroids players, just following the rules.
Regardless, Mark McGwire will not be receiving that career affirmation of membership into the Hall of Fame for the foreseeable future. And while it doesn’t break my heart to know this, I do wonder why sportswriters are voting like they are.
I think I know why. It has nothing to do with Mark McGwire ducking steroids questions in Congress. It has nothing to do with him being a “one-dimensional player;" the Golden Glove award he won in 1990 pops that balloon of an excuse. I think it has everything to do with the sportswriters themselves.
No one likes to be reminded of their past failures. And when Mark McGwire’s name appears on a list, a sportswriter just might flash to those glory days of 1998 when he wrote word after glowing word about the amazing feats of Mark McGwire. In retrospect those words seem foolish. At best that sportswriter was duped. But more than likely, that sportswriter was just plain stupid for not recognizing that Mark McGwire and a whole lot of others were “on the juice.”
Those sportswriters weren’t voting against Mark McGwire. They were voting against reminding themselves of their own stupidity. I can sympathize. I remember watching that game where McGwire broke Roger Maris’s home run record and thinking (without a hint of sarcasm), isn’t that fantastic? It was, to my mind, one of the greatest games I've ever watched. I was stupid too.
I watched Mark McGwire play many games in Oakland before and after he started taking steroids. He was a streaky hitter who hit high lazy fly balls. When he was on, those balls went over the fence. When he wasn’t, they were caught at the warning track. Who wouldn’t be tempted to take some juice to turn more of those warning track balls into home runs? I try to imagine myself in his shoes. Would I? Probably yes.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
In the Land of Unintended Consequences, Part IV
Under the direction of Tom Butters, Duke had pumped up its athletics programs in the 1990s. Butters retired in 1998. Had Duke hired someone competent to replace him, it might have been able to keep the ball afloat and manage the expanded athletics program. It didn’t.
The search for a replacement for Butters as AD was a failure, one of those nasty tales of petty politics that happen when two powerful people go after each other. In a nutshell, Nan Keohane tried to hire someone from outside. Coach K didn’t want that to happen and sabotaged the search. Keohane gave up and hired a friend of Coach K, Joe Alleva. In essence, Coach K was able to hire his own boss. We should all be so lucky.
The athletics department started to fall apart. The programs were winning, but some of those programs started to have discipline problems, in particular men’s golf and lacrosse. For lacrosse, citations for disciplinary infractions (public drinking and urinating, etc) dramatically increased in 2003.
Lacrosse Team Disciplinary Incidents
Year # Incidents # Players
2005-2006 10 18
2004-2005 10 16
2003-2004 16 22
2002-2003 4 8
2001-2002 7 8
2000-2001 5 3
Nothing substantively was done to try to establish order. No one was minding the store. Problems continued. In 2005, the baseball team was hit with a steroids scandal.
The lacrosse scandal origins lie in the inability of Duke to manage an athletics program that had been pumped up for a decade in the quest for athletics excellence. Duke had no prior experience in managing such a large program and it hired (and rehired) an insider as an athletics director who could not handle the job.
Everyone knows the story of what ensued. A team with a history of debauchery held a drunken party. They hired some strippers. Things got out of hand. The strippers abandoned the party. Then they came back. More nastiness followed. A stripper cried rape. A town DA decided that no matter what he’d prosecute. It has been a tragedy for all involved parties.
My view is that any competent leader who saw the spike in disciplinary incidents in 2003-2004 would have put a very short leash on the lacrosse team. There would as a result have been no stupid party with strippers in 2006. There would as a result been no stripper to cry rape. There would have been nothing for a DA to use for personal political gain. In short, had the athletics department been doing its job, none of this would have transpired.
I don’t want to discuss the legal aspects of this case and Nifong. Other people have discussed those issues at length. But I’d like to briefly discuss how this all plays into the creation of a cultural divide at Duke.
How you view the events the happened at the party very much depends on your political persuasion. At Duke, political flavors have changed over time. The campus now has a decidedly leftist slant with regard to its faculty, but no more so than other elite universities and colleges.
The move to the left was facilitated by Griffiths push to hire humanities faculty, but it's worth nothing that even in the sciences political views are on the modest-left side. The academy in general has a leftist slant; for some reason, right-wingers aren't inclined to get Ph.D.s, and earn a middle-manager level salary over a lifetime of doing detailed research. It just doesn't appeal to them. There is no conspiracy out there to keep right-wingers out. They are there; but they are small in number. At best, right-wingers tend to congregate in the business school of a university.
On the other hand, student opinion is more widely varied. It too is on the left. Young people tend to be liberal, something Churchill noted with a funny line a long time ago. But in comparison to other elite universities, Duke tends to get more conservative students.
Given that political views range widely, there will be a diversity of interpretations of any event. For instance, forget the rape accusation and take the party at face value. Suppose you’re a leftist faculty member concerned with issues of race and gender who gets news that white Duke athletes have held a party where black strippers were hired. You just might be disgusted. In your view, what you’re seeing on your own campus is a nightmare: a poor black woman has to display herself like a piece of meat to rich white kids to pay her bills.
Supposing you’re a leftist student concerned with issues of race and gender. You just might feel the same way as your professors. If you’re female or black, it might hit very close to home: there but for the grace of god go I. You might feel very embarrassed to be associated with a campus where such a thing takes place.
But supposing you weren’t someone with a leftist bent. You might just say, well boys will be boys. It was all perfectly legal (aside from the underage drinking and who doesn’t do that?). What’s the big deal?
If you’re a student who is on the right, you just might think why is anyone upset about a group of guys having a good time? What is all this stuff about white males imposing their will upon black women? You're trying to make something out of nothing. That girl who is stripping doesn't have to do it; she has a choice.
If you're a faculty member outside of the humanities, you probably don't say anything. Gender and race issues aren't your main concern; you don't have a dog in this fight.
Now you add the four-letter word rape. And everything explodes. You want people on both the right and left to be rational and civil? Good luck.
And it isn't just about politics. For instance, if you’re a parent you might ask your kid, what is this about strippers and a rape? And your kid says, "Mom, students hire strippers nowadays. And those kids, I know them. They didn’t do a thing." You see the case transpire, see three kids being tried for felonies and you start thinking, there but for the grace of god goes my kid. Why isn’t Duke doing more to protect these kids?
Welcome to Duke 2006-2007.*
And with that, I'm off of writing about Duke for awhile. Sorry Duke-heads, but after seven or so straight Duke-related posts, I need to change my brand of drink.
Under the direction of Tom Butters, Duke had pumped up its athletics programs in the 1990s. Butters retired in 1998. Had Duke hired someone competent to replace him, it might have been able to keep the ball afloat and manage the expanded athletics program. It didn’t.
The search for a replacement for Butters as AD was a failure, one of those nasty tales of petty politics that happen when two powerful people go after each other. In a nutshell, Nan Keohane tried to hire someone from outside. Coach K didn’t want that to happen and sabotaged the search. Keohane gave up and hired a friend of Coach K, Joe Alleva. In essence, Coach K was able to hire his own boss. We should all be so lucky.
The athletics department started to fall apart. The programs were winning, but some of those programs started to have discipline problems, in particular men’s golf and lacrosse. For lacrosse, citations for disciplinary infractions (public drinking and urinating, etc) dramatically increased in 2003.
Lacrosse Team Disciplinary Incidents
Year # Incidents # Players
2005-2006 10 18
2004-2005 10 16
2003-2004 16 22
2002-2003 4 8
2001-2002 7 8
2000-2001 5 3
Nothing substantively was done to try to establish order. No one was minding the store. Problems continued. In 2005, the baseball team was hit with a steroids scandal.
The lacrosse scandal origins lie in the inability of Duke to manage an athletics program that had been pumped up for a decade in the quest for athletics excellence. Duke had no prior experience in managing such a large program and it hired (and rehired) an insider as an athletics director who could not handle the job.
Everyone knows the story of what ensued. A team with a history of debauchery held a drunken party. They hired some strippers. Things got out of hand. The strippers abandoned the party. Then they came back. More nastiness followed. A stripper cried rape. A town DA decided that no matter what he’d prosecute. It has been a tragedy for all involved parties.
My view is that any competent leader who saw the spike in disciplinary incidents in 2003-2004 would have put a very short leash on the lacrosse team. There would as a result have been no stupid party with strippers in 2006. There would as a result been no stripper to cry rape. There would have been nothing for a DA to use for personal political gain. In short, had the athletics department been doing its job, none of this would have transpired.
I don’t want to discuss the legal aspects of this case and Nifong. Other people have discussed those issues at length. But I’d like to briefly discuss how this all plays into the creation of a cultural divide at Duke.
How you view the events the happened at the party very much depends on your political persuasion. At Duke, political flavors have changed over time. The campus now has a decidedly leftist slant with regard to its faculty, but no more so than other elite universities and colleges.
The move to the left was facilitated by Griffiths push to hire humanities faculty, but it's worth nothing that even in the sciences political views are on the modest-left side. The academy in general has a leftist slant; for some reason, right-wingers aren't inclined to get Ph.D.s, and earn a middle-manager level salary over a lifetime of doing detailed research. It just doesn't appeal to them. There is no conspiracy out there to keep right-wingers out. They are there; but they are small in number. At best, right-wingers tend to congregate in the business school of a university.
On the other hand, student opinion is more widely varied. It too is on the left. Young people tend to be liberal, something Churchill noted with a funny line a long time ago. But in comparison to other elite universities, Duke tends to get more conservative students.
Given that political views range widely, there will be a diversity of interpretations of any event. For instance, forget the rape accusation and take the party at face value. Suppose you’re a leftist faculty member concerned with issues of race and gender who gets news that white Duke athletes have held a party where black strippers were hired. You just might be disgusted. In your view, what you’re seeing on your own campus is a nightmare: a poor black woman has to display herself like a piece of meat to rich white kids to pay her bills.
Supposing you’re a leftist student concerned with issues of race and gender. You just might feel the same way as your professors. If you’re female or black, it might hit very close to home: there but for the grace of god go I. You might feel very embarrassed to be associated with a campus where such a thing takes place.
But supposing you weren’t someone with a leftist bent. You might just say, well boys will be boys. It was all perfectly legal (aside from the underage drinking and who doesn’t do that?). What’s the big deal?
If you’re a student who is on the right, you just might think why is anyone upset about a group of guys having a good time? What is all this stuff about white males imposing their will upon black women? You're trying to make something out of nothing. That girl who is stripping doesn't have to do it; she has a choice.
If you're a faculty member outside of the humanities, you probably don't say anything. Gender and race issues aren't your main concern; you don't have a dog in this fight.
Now you add the four-letter word rape. And everything explodes. You want people on both the right and left to be rational and civil? Good luck.
And it isn't just about politics. For instance, if you’re a parent you might ask your kid, what is this about strippers and a rape? And your kid says, "Mom, students hire strippers nowadays. And those kids, I know them. They didn’t do a thing." You see the case transpire, see three kids being tried for felonies and you start thinking, there but for the grace of god goes my kid. Why isn’t Duke doing more to protect these kids?
Welcome to Duke 2006-2007.*
And with that, I'm off of writing about Duke for awhile. Sorry Duke-heads, but after seven or so straight Duke-related posts, I need to change my brand of drink.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
In The Land of Unintended Consequences, Part III
When I came to Duke in 1990, I kept hearing the word Stanford. Duke was going to be the next Stanford, developing a world-class reputation across the board despite its youth. It didn't have the money to do it (Duke may eventually get the cash to compete with the big boys. The wife of the richest man in the world is an alumna. You never know.). But there were those that thought Duke could compete with Stanford in terms of all around sports excellence.
The AD at the time, Tom Butters, was an interesting guy. I wish I had met him. He was responsible for hiring and sticking with Coach K back when Coach K wasn’t popular. He was also responsible for the “forget football” policy that is present at Duke to this day.
Butters believed that success at football would require too much of a sacrifice. You’d have to pay a lot of money for a coach. You’d have to bring in 50 kids who could run the 40 in 4.2, but who couldn’t spell cat (no he didn’t say this; it's my jokey way of stating the gist of the argument); these kids would put a tremendous burden on the tutoring aspects and resources of the athletics department.
Besides, Stanford wasn’t generally great shakes at football, but still managed to win the Sears Cup. It did it by concentrating on country club type sports like tennis and golf and white suburban rich kid sports like volleyball, swimming and water polo. That’s the route that Duke more or less followed.
Duke pumped up several scholarship athletics programs in the 1990s including golf, soccer, tennis, and lacrosse. Lacrosse until then had been at best a lackluster part of Duke athletics. But a new coach was hired with a mission to put Duke lacrosse on the map. He succeeded. Others coaches succeeded as well and Duke moved up in the Sears Cup rankings. However, the effort placed a tremendous burden on the resources of the athletics department.
In 1984, 194 students received athletics related financial aid. By 2001, 308 students received athletic financial aid, an increase of over 50%. As the athletics department reported in a policy manual from that time:
“Our facilities (locker rooms, weight rooms, practice and competition sites) are stretched to the limit by sponsoring 26 varsity teams.
We barely have adequate support personnel (trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, academic advisors) to provide services to almost 600 student-athletes.”
The policy manual also noted:
“Of the top 30 finishers in the Sears Cup standings in 2001-02, Duke’s financial aid costs ($7,998,000) were the third highest, behind Stanford and Michigan. At the same time, Duke’s total athletic department budget ($28,727,000) was the fifth lowest.”
The financial burden probably was not unexpected. But like the rise of the humanities at Duke, there were unintended consequences of the rise of athletics.
When you’re an athlete playing on a team that perennially loses or is at best lackluster, you don’t have much of a swagger. For example, I taught football players from Duke and talked to them. They had a kind of gallows humor. They were grateful to be at Duke, grateful to get an education for free, and were using football as a means to an end.
It’s hard to be a big man on campus when you’re losing. I actually remember hearing someone on the East-West campus bus (you can learn a lot from taking those bus rides and eavesdropping), a girl, talking about an athlete around 1991. “He thinks he’s hot, but look at the team.” I thought geez, that’s harsh.
But winning is a different story. Winning produces a certain swagger and Duke’s winning in a broad range of sports created an energized jock undergraduate culture. The plus side was that Duke had visibility in athletics that extended beyond basketball. The minus side was that some of these athletes were different than the athletes of old. Some of them were more arrogant. They were harder to control. And with an overburdened athletics department, the resources weren’t there to control them. They were also less academically inclined. In the words of the athletics department:
“While academic and athletic excellence are not mutually exclusive, neither are they inevitably intertwined. The ‘cost’ of winning teams is generally some decrease in the ‘academic quality’ of the class.”
I’m now at the one hour and twenty minute mark here, 20 minutes beyond my usual limit of writing for this blog. Next time I’ll finish this up. It’s easy to see where this little tale is heading in terms of athletics versus academics. But there are nuances of Duke culture that play into this tragedy and create the culture conflict that has emerged as a result of it that I’d like to discuss next time.
And as was the case with the last post, I’m sure there are Duke-heads who are reading this who know a lot and are saying, but, but, but! I’m trying to be succinct here, which means I have to throw nuance and detail out the window. I think I have the facts right, but I’m more than open to corrections. For those who want more detail about Duke’s efforts at athletics excellence vis a vis the Sears Cup, I vaguely remember some stuff by Robert Bliwise in Duke Magazine a few years back that was quite good.
By the way, Robert Bliwise didn’t contribute to this piece or look at it; I haven't seen him or talked to him in forever. Please don’t tar and feather him or send him nasty emails if you disagree with what I’ve written. He’s a nice guy and a good writer. Let him be.
When I came to Duke in 1990, I kept hearing the word Stanford. Duke was going to be the next Stanford, developing a world-class reputation across the board despite its youth. It didn't have the money to do it (Duke may eventually get the cash to compete with the big boys. The wife of the richest man in the world is an alumna. You never know.). But there were those that thought Duke could compete with Stanford in terms of all around sports excellence.
The AD at the time, Tom Butters, was an interesting guy. I wish I had met him. He was responsible for hiring and sticking with Coach K back when Coach K wasn’t popular. He was also responsible for the “forget football” policy that is present at Duke to this day.
Butters believed that success at football would require too much of a sacrifice. You’d have to pay a lot of money for a coach. You’d have to bring in 50 kids who could run the 40 in 4.2, but who couldn’t spell cat (no he didn’t say this; it's my jokey way of stating the gist of the argument); these kids would put a tremendous burden on the tutoring aspects and resources of the athletics department.
Besides, Stanford wasn’t generally great shakes at football, but still managed to win the Sears Cup. It did it by concentrating on country club type sports like tennis and golf and white suburban rich kid sports like volleyball, swimming and water polo. That’s the route that Duke more or less followed.
Duke pumped up several scholarship athletics programs in the 1990s including golf, soccer, tennis, and lacrosse. Lacrosse until then had been at best a lackluster part of Duke athletics. But a new coach was hired with a mission to put Duke lacrosse on the map. He succeeded. Others coaches succeeded as well and Duke moved up in the Sears Cup rankings. However, the effort placed a tremendous burden on the resources of the athletics department.
In 1984, 194 students received athletics related financial aid. By 2001, 308 students received athletic financial aid, an increase of over 50%. As the athletics department reported in a policy manual from that time:
“Our facilities (locker rooms, weight rooms, practice and competition sites) are stretched to the limit by sponsoring 26 varsity teams.
We barely have adequate support personnel (trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, academic advisors) to provide services to almost 600 student-athletes.”
The policy manual also noted:
“Of the top 30 finishers in the Sears Cup standings in 2001-02, Duke’s financial aid costs ($7,998,000) were the third highest, behind Stanford and Michigan. At the same time, Duke’s total athletic department budget ($28,727,000) was the fifth lowest.”
The financial burden probably was not unexpected. But like the rise of the humanities at Duke, there were unintended consequences of the rise of athletics.
When you’re an athlete playing on a team that perennially loses or is at best lackluster, you don’t have much of a swagger. For example, I taught football players from Duke and talked to them. They had a kind of gallows humor. They were grateful to be at Duke, grateful to get an education for free, and were using football as a means to an end.
It’s hard to be a big man on campus when you’re losing. I actually remember hearing someone on the East-West campus bus (you can learn a lot from taking those bus rides and eavesdropping), a girl, talking about an athlete around 1991. “He thinks he’s hot, but look at the team.” I thought geez, that’s harsh.
But winning is a different story. Winning produces a certain swagger and Duke’s winning in a broad range of sports created an energized jock undergraduate culture. The plus side was that Duke had visibility in athletics that extended beyond basketball. The minus side was that some of these athletes were different than the athletes of old. Some of them were more arrogant. They were harder to control. And with an overburdened athletics department, the resources weren’t there to control them. They were also less academically inclined. In the words of the athletics department:
“While academic and athletic excellence are not mutually exclusive, neither are they inevitably intertwined. The ‘cost’ of winning teams is generally some decrease in the ‘academic quality’ of the class.”
I’m now at the one hour and twenty minute mark here, 20 minutes beyond my usual limit of writing for this blog. Next time I’ll finish this up. It’s easy to see where this little tale is heading in terms of athletics versus academics. But there are nuances of Duke culture that play into this tragedy and create the culture conflict that has emerged as a result of it that I’d like to discuss next time.
And as was the case with the last post, I’m sure there are Duke-heads who are reading this who know a lot and are saying, but, but, but! I’m trying to be succinct here, which means I have to throw nuance and detail out the window. I think I have the facts right, but I’m more than open to corrections. For those who want more detail about Duke’s efforts at athletics excellence vis a vis the Sears Cup, I vaguely remember some stuff by Robert Bliwise in Duke Magazine a few years back that was quite good.
By the way, Robert Bliwise didn’t contribute to this piece or look at it; I haven't seen him or talked to him in forever. Please don’t tar and feather him or send him nasty emails if you disagree with what I’ve written. He’s a nice guy and a good writer. Let him be.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
In the Land of Unintended Consequences, Part II
Many have said (including me), that the Duke Lacrosse scandal could have happened on any campus in the country. The ingredients are pretty simple. You need a group of rich, white, drunk male athletes to hire black strippers. One of the strippers has to cry rape. You also need a town DA who is going to prosecute regardless as to whether he can possibly get a conviction.
What major college doesn’t potentially have all of those ingredients?
But there is an aspect to this scandal that is unique to Duke that is starting to dominate the news right now. The culture wars, like some 80s rock bands that are best forgotten, have improbably made a comeback.
You have people on the right - parents, alumni and angry white male outsiders - decrying leftist faculty for their attitude toward athletics in general and toward the lacrosse players in particular. Just like the bad old days of the 80s, leftist faculty members are being heaped with verbal abuse. 88 faculty members have been condemned as vultures, a gang and for even having ties to that punching bag of Fox News, Bill Clinton.
On the other side, you have unrepentant leftist faculty decrying “blog hooligans” and maintaining that while the lacrosse players may be innocent, they are sleazy; for them issues of racism and sexism brought out by the scandal are very real at Duke and in the world.
Can’t we all just get along? Nope.
It may be that this revival of the culture wars could have happened in a lot of places. But Duke was primed for this. Given Duke’s development and decision-making, the Lacrosse Scandal can almost be seen as an inevitable train wreck.
Duke embarked on two major initiatives over the last 25 years that were partly incompatible. In the 1980s, it decided to pump up the humanities. In the 1990s, it decided to pump up scholarship athletics. The Duke Lacrosse scandal is partly an unintended outcome of those two initiatives.
I’d like to go a couple of decades back in time. This is a train wreck involving two trains moving very slowly.
In the 1980s, Duke had as a president someone who touted the “outrageous ambitions” of the university. Duke at the time was a good regional school with a Southern focus. President Terry Sanford wanted more. He wanted Duke to be a national university. He didn’t know exactly how to do it, so he went looking for a provost that did. He hired a very unusual candidate, Phillip Griffiths, a socially inept, reserved mathematics professor from Harvard with hardly any administrative experience.
An unlikely success story, Phillip Griffiths created the national reputation of Duke University. Some considered him a magician and a genius for doing the near impossible. He did it in eight years and then went on to Princeton.
The standard model for creating a national university is to raid other universities of prominent faculty. For the last 60 years, the focus of raiding other university has been in the sciences. But Duke couldn’t follow that model; it didn’t have the money. Science faculty are expensive. They need lab space. They need fancy equipment. They need research assistants. The start up costs for senior science professors is in the realm of seven figures. When Phillip Griffiths was provost, Duke had an endowment in the low nine figures. It was simply too poor to do what places like Stanford had done.
Griffiths came up with another strategy. He would make Duke a national center for the humanities. Humanities faculty members didn’t need big start up costs. If you offered them a good salary, you could raid them fairly easily. Plus in the 1980s, some humanities faculty members at major universities felt unappreciated and beaten up by the culture wars. At Duke they could come to a place where they would be the crown jewel of the Arts and Sciences.
Griffiths successfully raided humanities faculty across the country. And in short order, he raised the profile of the university. It was no longer just a university with a good medical school. It was a university with a good medical school and nationally visible scholarship in the humanities.
The only problem with this approach is that the humanities are dominated by far left politics and many of these star faculty members were very much on the political left. Duke had never had this level of leftist slant before. These professors weren’t the hang around the water cooler types who talked about the football game they saw on TV the other night. Many could care less about college athletics and some were openly dismissive. They were different. They tended to be urban. They tended to be Eastern. They tended to fit into the culture of the South and Durham poorly. Duke was an oasis for them.
That’s one train. I’ll talk about the other train on the track tomorrow. Yes, I’m greatly simplifying here and all of you Duke-heads out there who know this stuff and more are probably saying, but, but, but; write your own damn blog if you want to be more nuanced and fill in the details. ;)
Oh I note that Brodhead made another statement yesterday. From a PR standpoint, he's making too many statements as of late. A leader only has so much verbal capital and he needs to dole it out carefully. Otherwise his authority starts to diminish and he becomes known principally as a chatterbox. But my view is that it's all over for him come renewal time so it doesn't matter anyway.
Many have said (including me), that the Duke Lacrosse scandal could have happened on any campus in the country. The ingredients are pretty simple. You need a group of rich, white, drunk male athletes to hire black strippers. One of the strippers has to cry rape. You also need a town DA who is going to prosecute regardless as to whether he can possibly get a conviction.
What major college doesn’t potentially have all of those ingredients?
But there is an aspect to this scandal that is unique to Duke that is starting to dominate the news right now. The culture wars, like some 80s rock bands that are best forgotten, have improbably made a comeback.
You have people on the right - parents, alumni and angry white male outsiders - decrying leftist faculty for their attitude toward athletics in general and toward the lacrosse players in particular. Just like the bad old days of the 80s, leftist faculty members are being heaped with verbal abuse. 88 faculty members have been condemned as vultures, a gang and for even having ties to that punching bag of Fox News, Bill Clinton.
On the other side, you have unrepentant leftist faculty decrying “blog hooligans” and maintaining that while the lacrosse players may be innocent, they are sleazy; for them issues of racism and sexism brought out by the scandal are very real at Duke and in the world.
Can’t we all just get along? Nope.
It may be that this revival of the culture wars could have happened in a lot of places. But Duke was primed for this. Given Duke’s development and decision-making, the Lacrosse Scandal can almost be seen as an inevitable train wreck.
Duke embarked on two major initiatives over the last 25 years that were partly incompatible. In the 1980s, it decided to pump up the humanities. In the 1990s, it decided to pump up scholarship athletics. The Duke Lacrosse scandal is partly an unintended outcome of those two initiatives.
I’d like to go a couple of decades back in time. This is a train wreck involving two trains moving very slowly.
In the 1980s, Duke had as a president someone who touted the “outrageous ambitions” of the university. Duke at the time was a good regional school with a Southern focus. President Terry Sanford wanted more. He wanted Duke to be a national university. He didn’t know exactly how to do it, so he went looking for a provost that did. He hired a very unusual candidate, Phillip Griffiths, a socially inept, reserved mathematics professor from Harvard with hardly any administrative experience.
An unlikely success story, Phillip Griffiths created the national reputation of Duke University. Some considered him a magician and a genius for doing the near impossible. He did it in eight years and then went on to Princeton.
The standard model for creating a national university is to raid other universities of prominent faculty. For the last 60 years, the focus of raiding other university has been in the sciences. But Duke couldn’t follow that model; it didn’t have the money. Science faculty are expensive. They need lab space. They need fancy equipment. They need research assistants. The start up costs for senior science professors is in the realm of seven figures. When Phillip Griffiths was provost, Duke had an endowment in the low nine figures. It was simply too poor to do what places like Stanford had done.
Griffiths came up with another strategy. He would make Duke a national center for the humanities. Humanities faculty members didn’t need big start up costs. If you offered them a good salary, you could raid them fairly easily. Plus in the 1980s, some humanities faculty members at major universities felt unappreciated and beaten up by the culture wars. At Duke they could come to a place where they would be the crown jewel of the Arts and Sciences.
Griffiths successfully raided humanities faculty across the country. And in short order, he raised the profile of the university. It was no longer just a university with a good medical school. It was a university with a good medical school and nationally visible scholarship in the humanities.
The only problem with this approach is that the humanities are dominated by far left politics and many of these star faculty members were very much on the political left. Duke had never had this level of leftist slant before. These professors weren’t the hang around the water cooler types who talked about the football game they saw on TV the other night. Many could care less about college athletics and some were openly dismissive. They were different. They tended to be urban. They tended to be Eastern. They tended to fit into the culture of the South and Durham poorly. Duke was an oasis for them.
That’s one train. I’ll talk about the other train on the track tomorrow. Yes, I’m greatly simplifying here and all of you Duke-heads out there who know this stuff and more are probably saying, but, but, but; write your own damn blog if you want to be more nuanced and fill in the details. ;)
Oh I note that Brodhead made another statement yesterday. From a PR standpoint, he's making too many statements as of late. A leader only has so much verbal capital and he needs to dole it out carefully. Otherwise his authority starts to diminish and he becomes known principally as a chatterbox. But my view is that it's all over for him come renewal time so it doesn't matter anyway.
Monday, January 08, 2007
In the Land of Unintended Consequences
I never thought the Duke lacrosse scandal would have such legs. My feeling in the spring was that Duke as an institution would suffer a temporary PR hit for a few months, and then rapidly go back to its former vaunted status. Applications to the school would be about the same this year as the last. Within a year or so, the lacrosse scandal would be a vague memory. How wrong I was.
At the time of the outbreak of this scandal, I thought that academic institutions like Duke were so hallowed and revered that they were immune to any substantive attack. For example, Harvard has undergone a number of very public embarrassments over the last several years and yet students keep applying to Harvard in record numbers. Stanford underwent a major scandal complete with a congressional inquiry in the late 1980s, and while that scandal still raises hackles with Stanford administrators, the undergraduate pool of students quickly forgot about it.
It’s easy to say that Duke is no Harvard or Stanford and as a result isn’t as Teflon coated. And maybe that’s right. It’s probably true that except for the SHYP (Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton) schools plus MIT and Caltech – the upper crust of higher ed – any school is vulnerable to a PR nightmare with long term consequences. But I think that wasn’t always so.
About twenty years ago, universities abandoned the idea that students were acolytes in search of knowledge. They replaced it with a new model, the consumer model. Students were consumers of a product. Customers had to be satisfied.
In replacing the old model, there was an unintended consequence: how the public views the university changed. The old model was one that expected awe and respect from parents and students. The buildings were solid and impressive. Professors tended to be authoritarian figures. Universities were not surprisingly relatively immune to criticism.
The new model threw all of that out the window. Awe and respect were replaced by “I’m paying a lot of money and I expect something in return.” The impressive buildings were still there, but the professors and administrators were no longer people on high; instead they were service employees. And as a result, universities were no longer immune to criticism. Universities lived by customer satisfaction. They could suffer from customer dissatisfaction.
At about the same time, US News started to publish rankings of colleges and universities. US News was a struggling magazine desperate for revenue. Somehow they stumbled on the idea of ranking universities. The rankings proved popular. They were bogus; every year the magazine threw integrity out the window by jiggling the numbers to generate excitement. It didn’t matter. The public snatched up the annual rankings issue of US News and they became used to the idea that a university’s reputation was in dynamic flux. There were now “hot schools,” schools whose rankings were on the rise.
Over the last twenty years, the public’s perception of universities has changed markedly. The dewy look of awe has been replaced by the look of the savvy consumer.
An unintended consequence of this transformation is that except for perhaps a very tiny number of schools, every college and university is vulnerable to substantive attacks to its reputation.
Twenty years ago, the lacrosse scandal probably would not have had nearly as much negative impact on Duke as an institution. There would have been criticism of the lacrosse players. There would have been criticism of the DA. There would have been criticism of the leadership at Duke. But one critical element of criticism would have been missing: Duke would not have to be answering the question as to why it didn’t back or protect its lacrosse players.
Duke is suffering a drop in public esteem largely because they have failed according to the new rules of academia. They failed to protect and serve its customers. In a consumer driven market, applications rise and fall in response to the word on the street. It just may be that it will take many years for Duke to recover.
Strangely, a key aspect of Duke’s recovery is out of its control. It rests in the hands of a magazine, US News, which produces bogus rankings that like the daily horoscope, the public tends to find believable. If Duke’s ranking in US News drops again and it’s out of the top 10 in 2007, expect applications in 2008 to drop. In the late 1980s because of US News, Duke became known as a “hot school.” When you live by rankings, you can die by rankings.
By the way, I don’t derive any joy from watching Duke take this public relations hit. That I don’t like many people in Duke leadership is well known. That I’m happy to see a few of them have sleepless nights because of this nightmare is probably less well known (I’m not above schadenfreude). But I’m not happy to see an institution where I worked for 15 years be the press’ punching bag. Duke is much more than its leadership. And there are many positive aspects to Duke. The resources are first rate. There are many people there –students, faculty, and administrators – that I admire.
It has been said by many (and probably including me if I looked at previous words I’ve written) that the lacrosse scandal could have occurred anywhere. But I thought a bit about it this past weekend, and decided maybe that’s not quite true. I’ll talk about that issue next time.
I never thought the Duke lacrosse scandal would have such legs. My feeling in the spring was that Duke as an institution would suffer a temporary PR hit for a few months, and then rapidly go back to its former vaunted status. Applications to the school would be about the same this year as the last. Within a year or so, the lacrosse scandal would be a vague memory. How wrong I was.
At the time of the outbreak of this scandal, I thought that academic institutions like Duke were so hallowed and revered that they were immune to any substantive attack. For example, Harvard has undergone a number of very public embarrassments over the last several years and yet students keep applying to Harvard in record numbers. Stanford underwent a major scandal complete with a congressional inquiry in the late 1980s, and while that scandal still raises hackles with Stanford administrators, the undergraduate pool of students quickly forgot about it.
It’s easy to say that Duke is no Harvard or Stanford and as a result isn’t as Teflon coated. And maybe that’s right. It’s probably true that except for the SHYP (Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton) schools plus MIT and Caltech – the upper crust of higher ed – any school is vulnerable to a PR nightmare with long term consequences. But I think that wasn’t always so.
About twenty years ago, universities abandoned the idea that students were acolytes in search of knowledge. They replaced it with a new model, the consumer model. Students were consumers of a product. Customers had to be satisfied.
In replacing the old model, there was an unintended consequence: how the public views the university changed. The old model was one that expected awe and respect from parents and students. The buildings were solid and impressive. Professors tended to be authoritarian figures. Universities were not surprisingly relatively immune to criticism.
The new model threw all of that out the window. Awe and respect were replaced by “I’m paying a lot of money and I expect something in return.” The impressive buildings were still there, but the professors and administrators were no longer people on high; instead they were service employees. And as a result, universities were no longer immune to criticism. Universities lived by customer satisfaction. They could suffer from customer dissatisfaction.
At about the same time, US News started to publish rankings of colleges and universities. US News was a struggling magazine desperate for revenue. Somehow they stumbled on the idea of ranking universities. The rankings proved popular. They were bogus; every year the magazine threw integrity out the window by jiggling the numbers to generate excitement. It didn’t matter. The public snatched up the annual rankings issue of US News and they became used to the idea that a university’s reputation was in dynamic flux. There were now “hot schools,” schools whose rankings were on the rise.
Over the last twenty years, the public’s perception of universities has changed markedly. The dewy look of awe has been replaced by the look of the savvy consumer.
An unintended consequence of this transformation is that except for perhaps a very tiny number of schools, every college and university is vulnerable to substantive attacks to its reputation.
Twenty years ago, the lacrosse scandal probably would not have had nearly as much negative impact on Duke as an institution. There would have been criticism of the lacrosse players. There would have been criticism of the DA. There would have been criticism of the leadership at Duke. But one critical element of criticism would have been missing: Duke would not have to be answering the question as to why it didn’t back or protect its lacrosse players.
Duke is suffering a drop in public esteem largely because they have failed according to the new rules of academia. They failed to protect and serve its customers. In a consumer driven market, applications rise and fall in response to the word on the street. It just may be that it will take many years for Duke to recover.
Strangely, a key aspect of Duke’s recovery is out of its control. It rests in the hands of a magazine, US News, which produces bogus rankings that like the daily horoscope, the public tends to find believable. If Duke’s ranking in US News drops again and it’s out of the top 10 in 2007, expect applications in 2008 to drop. In the late 1980s because of US News, Duke became known as a “hot school.” When you live by rankings, you can die by rankings.
By the way, I don’t derive any joy from watching Duke take this public relations hit. That I don’t like many people in Duke leadership is well known. That I’m happy to see a few of them have sleepless nights because of this nightmare is probably less well known (I’m not above schadenfreude). But I’m not happy to see an institution where I worked for 15 years be the press’ punching bag. Duke is much more than its leadership. And there are many positive aspects to Duke. The resources are first rate. There are many people there –students, faculty, and administrators – that I admire.
It has been said by many (and probably including me if I looked at previous words I’ve written) that the lacrosse scandal could have occurred anywhere. But I thought a bit about it this past weekend, and decided maybe that’s not quite true. I’ll talk about that issue next time.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Bad Grades & Lawsuits
My former employer, Duke University, has been in the news for nine months over the arrest of three lacrosse players. This week, the news took a new twist; another lacrosse player has sued the university and a professor over a bad grade, originally an F and eventually changed to a D, in a class. The news brought home memories of my experiences in grading.
I can thankfully say I was never sued over any grade I handed out. But grading can be a very touchy thing; it’s a quantitative evaluation of someone’s performance. And when someone doesn’t measure up, they just may respond in a very emotional way.
I didn’t hand out many bad grades over my academic career. Regardless, I had students cry in my office. I had them swear at me. And the most emotional people weren’t the ones who received Ds or Fs. One person’s bad grade may be another person’s reason to jump for joy.
For instance, I gave a student a B+ once. I didn’t think much of it at the time. But for a couple of years after, I’d occasionally run into her and she’d glare at me. She looked both angry and hurt. I mentioned this to someone in passing once and they said, “Oh, you’re the one!” It turned out I had given her the only non-A grade she had ever received her entire academic career. A perfect 4.0 student all of her life, and there I was giving her a badge of dishonor, a B+.
Years later I ran into her again. She was with a young man. She gave me a kind of wistful look. We talked a bit about Duke. “I need a hug from you,” she said. I was a little worried about what her boyfriend/date was thinking about this, but by giving that girl a B+ I had clearly emotionally hurt her in ways I couldn’t fathom. I gave her a hug. We both felt good about it.
There were, however, times I handed out D’s and F’s. Some students complained, but usually when a student screws up that badly, they know it and just want to forget about it. To get a D or F at a university like Duke is a rare thing. Less than three percent of all grades are below a C-. The average GPA is 3.4.
In the legal complaint filed against Duke and the professor, the lacrosse player notes that he received a C+ on one paper and a C- on another paper; those two papers constituted fifty-percent of his grade. At Duke, these are not anywhere near good grades; they indicate that he was handing in dreadful work.
The complaint notes that his average GPA was 3.4, which puts him right down the middle of his graduating class. It also notes that he all but abandoned class attendance in the final three weeks of class. Twenty five percent of the grade in the class involved class participation.
The student claims that the professor was vindictive and game him an F on his final paper (the remaining twenty five percent of his grade) and an F for the class (which was changed to a D) because he was a lacrosse player.
As a retired Duke professor, I run the numbers and assignments through my head and imagine what I would have done. I have a student who hands in two lousy papers early in the semester. I give him two lousy grades, the first one slightly better than the second. The student doesn’t show up for all but one class during the last three weeks because for some reason, he can't meet his lawyer outside of class time. He hands me another lousy paper. What grade do I give him for the class? Probably a D. What grade did he end up with? D.
Bad college grades rarely make the news. Our current president and his past-opponent, Bush and Kerry, both received quite a few lousy grades when they were college students, and they didn’t sue. They took their lumps, went on with their lives, and made names for themselves. This former student, now a graduate with a good full time job, would be wise to do the same.
My former employer, Duke University, has been in the news for nine months over the arrest of three lacrosse players. This week, the news took a new twist; another lacrosse player has sued the university and a professor over a bad grade, originally an F and eventually changed to a D, in a class. The news brought home memories of my experiences in grading.
I can thankfully say I was never sued over any grade I handed out. But grading can be a very touchy thing; it’s a quantitative evaluation of someone’s performance. And when someone doesn’t measure up, they just may respond in a very emotional way.
I didn’t hand out many bad grades over my academic career. Regardless, I had students cry in my office. I had them swear at me. And the most emotional people weren’t the ones who received Ds or Fs. One person’s bad grade may be another person’s reason to jump for joy.
For instance, I gave a student a B+ once. I didn’t think much of it at the time. But for a couple of years after, I’d occasionally run into her and she’d glare at me. She looked both angry and hurt. I mentioned this to someone in passing once and they said, “Oh, you’re the one!” It turned out I had given her the only non-A grade she had ever received her entire academic career. A perfect 4.0 student all of her life, and there I was giving her a badge of dishonor, a B+.
Years later I ran into her again. She was with a young man. She gave me a kind of wistful look. We talked a bit about Duke. “I need a hug from you,” she said. I was a little worried about what her boyfriend/date was thinking about this, but by giving that girl a B+ I had clearly emotionally hurt her in ways I couldn’t fathom. I gave her a hug. We both felt good about it.
There were, however, times I handed out D’s and F’s. Some students complained, but usually when a student screws up that badly, they know it and just want to forget about it. To get a D or F at a university like Duke is a rare thing. Less than three percent of all grades are below a C-. The average GPA is 3.4.
In the legal complaint filed against Duke and the professor, the lacrosse player notes that he received a C+ on one paper and a C- on another paper; those two papers constituted fifty-percent of his grade. At Duke, these are not anywhere near good grades; they indicate that he was handing in dreadful work.
The complaint notes that his average GPA was 3.4, which puts him right down the middle of his graduating class. It also notes that he all but abandoned class attendance in the final three weeks of class. Twenty five percent of the grade in the class involved class participation.
The student claims that the professor was vindictive and game him an F on his final paper (the remaining twenty five percent of his grade) and an F for the class (which was changed to a D) because he was a lacrosse player.
As a retired Duke professor, I run the numbers and assignments through my head and imagine what I would have done. I have a student who hands in two lousy papers early in the semester. I give him two lousy grades, the first one slightly better than the second. The student doesn’t show up for all but one class during the last three weeks because for some reason, he can't meet his lawyer outside of class time. He hands me another lousy paper. What grade do I give him for the class? Probably a D. What grade did he end up with? D.
Bad college grades rarely make the news. Our current president and his past-opponent, Bush and Kerry, both received quite a few lousy grades when they were college students, and they didn’t sue. They took their lumps, went on with their lives, and made names for themselves. This former student, now a graduate with a good full time job, would be wise to do the same.
Adaptations Part II
The truth of the previous story (not its humor) has been challenged because the Atlanta Braves were broadcast locally. That's not right. When I arrived in Durham, the Braves were not being broadcast. You can look it up somewhere I imagine. I can't make up stuff like this, really.
It is true, though, that I was pleased once Durham started to broadcast the Braves. It was a somewhat bittersweet pleasure. The Braves left my hometown of Milwaukee when I was nine years old for Coco-Cola advertising dollars in Atlanta. I'm of a certain generation of Milwaukee native who when you mention the word "Braves" the next word that comes to mind is "betrayal."
But baseball is baseball. And a funny thing happened one time during a Braves broadcast when I was in Durham. In the bottom of the ninth, the Braves were batting in a close game. The announcer did the "the pitcher winds, here comes the pitch" thing. Then he said, "It's a long fly ball to left field..." And that was the end of the broadcast of the game. Because the next words I heard were, "We interrupt this broadcast for the x (can't remember the name here) 400!" I never found out where that long fly ball ended up. In the South, NASCAR trumps baseball regardless of the circumstances.
The truth of the previous story (not its humor) has been challenged because the Atlanta Braves were broadcast locally. That's not right. When I arrived in Durham, the Braves were not being broadcast. You can look it up somewhere I imagine. I can't make up stuff like this, really.
It is true, though, that I was pleased once Durham started to broadcast the Braves. It was a somewhat bittersweet pleasure. The Braves left my hometown of Milwaukee when I was nine years old for Coco-Cola advertising dollars in Atlanta. I'm of a certain generation of Milwaukee native who when you mention the word "Braves" the next word that comes to mind is "betrayal."
But baseball is baseball. And a funny thing happened one time during a Braves broadcast when I was in Durham. In the bottom of the ninth, the Braves were batting in a close game. The announcer did the "the pitcher winds, here comes the pitch" thing. Then he said, "It's a long fly ball to left field..." And that was the end of the broadcast of the game. Because the next words I heard were, "We interrupt this broadcast for the x (can't remember the name here) 400!" I never found out where that long fly ball ended up. In the South, NASCAR trumps baseball regardless of the circumstances.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Adaptations
Reading all of this news about Duke Lacrosse has made me think about my years in Durham and Chapel Hill. There were a lot of amusing and very strange things that happened to my family and I over that time. I’d never lived in the South. At the time I’d moved, I had this untested theory that television had homogenized all of American culture. That theory failed miserably.
Living in the South was like living in a foreign country. It had its own ways, some I found wonderful and some I found dreadful. It wasn’t a place for me, that’s for sure, but I could see how it would be attractive to many. And one thing I noticed immediately about being in the South; the baseball scores were tucked away in a deep corner of the sports section. Baseball may be America’s Pastime, it’s the only sport I care about, but in the South it barely registers a blip.
When I first moved to Durham, the baseball season was in full swing. For about 25 years, that meant that at night my faithful transistor radio – a Sony model that was given to me by my father’s carpet salesman when I was eight – would be on most nights. That radio was used for one thing only, baseball. It was my version of a security blanket.
But when I turned it on the first time in Durham, I could find no baseball. Oh yes, there was the broadcast of the minor league Durham Bulls, but nothing from the major leagues. My summer security blanket had been taken away from me.
Night after night, I searched in vain. Once, by chance, I picked up a station from Cincinnati broadcasting the Reds. But it wasn’t there the next day. I had been teased.
After about two weeks, I’d had enough. It was getting close to playoff time, the pennant races were in full swing. I needed baseball! My first effort was ridiculous, an act of true desperation. I opened up my Sony radio so I could add an external antenna. I ran a small antenna up our pecan tree (the pecans were wonderful) and then ran a wire to my radio into the kitchen through the window above the sink. From the above description, you might guess that I’m an electronics geek. Guilty as charged. But the end result was one big zero. No baseball.
The season went on. I was getting grumpy. My wife doesn’t like it when I get grumpy. She told me what I already knew. I needed to ditch my old radio and get one with a high end AM tuner. She gave me my marching orders. Go to the mall and get a new radio or else.
So that’s what I did. I walked into the electronics store and said, “I need a high-end portable radio.”
The salesman looked at me and smiled. “You want the baseball games, don’t you?”
That salesman was one smart cookie. He could read my mind. Was I that obvious? “We get guys like you coming in all of the time,” he said. I was, it turned out, a cliché. But I didn’t care. I’d eat pride, I’d eat anything for baseball.
I came home 120 dollars poorer, but hopeful. That night I turned on the radio. There it was. Philadelphia. The Phillies. Ahhh. All was right with the world.
Reading all of this news about Duke Lacrosse has made me think about my years in Durham and Chapel Hill. There were a lot of amusing and very strange things that happened to my family and I over that time. I’d never lived in the South. At the time I’d moved, I had this untested theory that television had homogenized all of American culture. That theory failed miserably.
Living in the South was like living in a foreign country. It had its own ways, some I found wonderful and some I found dreadful. It wasn’t a place for me, that’s for sure, but I could see how it would be attractive to many. And one thing I noticed immediately about being in the South; the baseball scores were tucked away in a deep corner of the sports section. Baseball may be America’s Pastime, it’s the only sport I care about, but in the South it barely registers a blip.
When I first moved to Durham, the baseball season was in full swing. For about 25 years, that meant that at night my faithful transistor radio – a Sony model that was given to me by my father’s carpet salesman when I was eight – would be on most nights. That radio was used for one thing only, baseball. It was my version of a security blanket.
But when I turned it on the first time in Durham, I could find no baseball. Oh yes, there was the broadcast of the minor league Durham Bulls, but nothing from the major leagues. My summer security blanket had been taken away from me.
Night after night, I searched in vain. Once, by chance, I picked up a station from Cincinnati broadcasting the Reds. But it wasn’t there the next day. I had been teased.
After about two weeks, I’d had enough. It was getting close to playoff time, the pennant races were in full swing. I needed baseball! My first effort was ridiculous, an act of true desperation. I opened up my Sony radio so I could add an external antenna. I ran a small antenna up our pecan tree (the pecans were wonderful) and then ran a wire to my radio into the kitchen through the window above the sink. From the above description, you might guess that I’m an electronics geek. Guilty as charged. But the end result was one big zero. No baseball.
The season went on. I was getting grumpy. My wife doesn’t like it when I get grumpy. She told me what I already knew. I needed to ditch my old radio and get one with a high end AM tuner. She gave me my marching orders. Go to the mall and get a new radio or else.
So that’s what I did. I walked into the electronics store and said, “I need a high-end portable radio.”
The salesman looked at me and smiled. “You want the baseball games, don’t you?”
That salesman was one smart cookie. He could read my mind. Was I that obvious? “We get guys like you coming in all of the time,” he said. I was, it turned out, a cliché. But I didn’t care. I’d eat pride, I’d eat anything for baseball.
I came home 120 dollars poorer, but hopeful. That night I turned on the radio. There it was. Philadelphia. The Phillies. Ahhh. All was right with the world.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Don't Like Your Grade? Sue!
The Duke Lacrosse scandal goes on and on and on in the press. It makes great copy. First the story line was poor black girl gets raped by rich white boys. Now it's rich white boys get (figuratively) raped by dumb arrogant DA. For the press, it doesn't matter what the truth is. All that matters is that the story be compelling, something that will grab an audience. That great sage of Duke, Coach K, says that Duke is in the "kid business." The press is in the story business. Whatever story sells is what they print or show on TV.
And like any great TV show, it's always good to have a spinoff. So yesterday the press gleefully reported that a former lacrosse player who is not under arrest has sued the university for a bad grade he received in a social science class. And lo and behold, the professor in that class is one of those who signed the "listening ad." According to the suit, the professor gave the student a bad grade because he was a lacrosse player; it was supposedly an act of vengeance. The press is eating this up. It's another piece of juicy copy.
Since this isn't a criminal case, I'm more than happy to state my view on this lawsuit. I'd bet a lot of money it's a total crock, a frivolous piece of legal trash.
If I was this student I wouldn't be so happy to report that I was receiving C grades prior to the outbreak of the lacrosse scandal. The average grade in social science classes at Duke is a B+. That average includes classes both rigorous and cheesy. There are many cheesy classes in the social sciences at Duke. Grading is easy. Workloads tend to be very light. I’m going to make an assumption that this class is one of the cheesy ones.
I've talked to students about some of these classes. They mostly show up for class. They read a small portion of the assigned material. They write papers full of baloney. And they walk away with a grade of B+ or better.
To get a C in most science classes - where the average grade is a B - you have to really screw up. To get a C in many social science classes, you have to do more than screw up. You have to work at antagonizing the professor. You have to hand in assignments that show a level of proficiency at around a sixth grade level. Essentially you have to be a jerk or brain dead.
So prior to the lacrosse scandal this student was already on thin ice in this class. It's easy to imagine him breaking through the ice to D or F range, lacrosse scandal or no lacrosse scandal.
What is this lawsuit really about? For me, it's about someone trying to get money in the sleaziest way possible. For me, it's about a consumer-based attitude in higher education where the customer is always right. Don't like your grade? Sue!
Duke bent over backwards to help this kid out. They changed his grade (there is no way there was a clerical error). They transferred credits they normally wouldn't transfer so he could graduate. And to show his appreciation this kid sues. If I were an employer and this kid applied for a job, I'd say thanks but no thanks. We don't hire lawsuit happy brats here. Duke should play hardball and tell him to take a hike.*
*Addendum. I got around to reading the complaint. He had a 3.4 GPA, which sounds impressive unless you know that the average GPA at Duke is 3.4. As a result of his complaint he has made public that he was at the 50th percentile of his graduating class, an unimpressive student. After the lacrosse scandal broke, he missed five classes, essentially the last three weeks of a fourteen-week class. So in a nutshell, he was writing truly crappy papers before the lacrosse scandal broke, and he stopped showing up for class after. He received a D for the class and graduated on time. He wants five figures for his hardship. What hardship? Duke should go to a dime store, send this lawsuit happy brat a pacifier to suck on, and tell him to take a hike.
The Duke Lacrosse scandal goes on and on and on in the press. It makes great copy. First the story line was poor black girl gets raped by rich white boys. Now it's rich white boys get (figuratively) raped by dumb arrogant DA. For the press, it doesn't matter what the truth is. All that matters is that the story be compelling, something that will grab an audience. That great sage of Duke, Coach K, says that Duke is in the "kid business." The press is in the story business. Whatever story sells is what they print or show on TV.
And like any great TV show, it's always good to have a spinoff. So yesterday the press gleefully reported that a former lacrosse player who is not under arrest has sued the university for a bad grade he received in a social science class. And lo and behold, the professor in that class is one of those who signed the "listening ad." According to the suit, the professor gave the student a bad grade because he was a lacrosse player; it was supposedly an act of vengeance. The press is eating this up. It's another piece of juicy copy.
Since this isn't a criminal case, I'm more than happy to state my view on this lawsuit. I'd bet a lot of money it's a total crock, a frivolous piece of legal trash.
If I was this student I wouldn't be so happy to report that I was receiving C grades prior to the outbreak of the lacrosse scandal. The average grade in social science classes at Duke is a B+. That average includes classes both rigorous and cheesy. There are many cheesy classes in the social sciences at Duke. Grading is easy. Workloads tend to be very light. I’m going to make an assumption that this class is one of the cheesy ones.
I've talked to students about some of these classes. They mostly show up for class. They read a small portion of the assigned material. They write papers full of baloney. And they walk away with a grade of B+ or better.
To get a C in most science classes - where the average grade is a B - you have to really screw up. To get a C in many social science classes, you have to do more than screw up. You have to work at antagonizing the professor. You have to hand in assignments that show a level of proficiency at around a sixth grade level. Essentially you have to be a jerk or brain dead.
So prior to the lacrosse scandal this student was already on thin ice in this class. It's easy to imagine him breaking through the ice to D or F range, lacrosse scandal or no lacrosse scandal.
What is this lawsuit really about? For me, it's about someone trying to get money in the sleaziest way possible. For me, it's about a consumer-based attitude in higher education where the customer is always right. Don't like your grade? Sue!
Duke bent over backwards to help this kid out. They changed his grade (there is no way there was a clerical error). They transferred credits they normally wouldn't transfer so he could graduate. And to show his appreciation this kid sues. If I were an employer and this kid applied for a job, I'd say thanks but no thanks. We don't hire lawsuit happy brats here. Duke should play hardball and tell him to take a hike.*
*Addendum. I got around to reading the complaint. He had a 3.4 GPA, which sounds impressive unless you know that the average GPA at Duke is 3.4. As a result of his complaint he has made public that he was at the 50th percentile of his graduating class, an unimpressive student. After the lacrosse scandal broke, he missed five classes, essentially the last three weeks of a fourteen-week class. So in a nutshell, he was writing truly crappy papers before the lacrosse scandal broke, and he stopped showing up for class after. He received a D for the class and graduated on time. He wants five figures for his hardship. What hardship? Duke should go to a dime store, send this lawsuit happy brat a pacifier to suck on, and tell him to take a hike.
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