Ford ‘09 on the Americas
Ryan Ford ‘09 has “A Prescription for Cooperation in the Americas“. One easy way to tell that this column began life as a paper for a Williams Political Science class (perhaps PSCI 202 with Professor Darel Paul) is that it uses the phrase “U.S. hegemony in the region” in the first sentence. Ford writes:
[President] Chavez has clearly demonstrated that the nations of Latin America are no longer willing to accept a subordinate role in the decision-making processes of the hemisphere, and he has fervently declared his dislike of “U.S. imperialism.” They have accepted democracy internally as promulgated by the United States, and they likewise want to be treated to democratic interactions between nations on the transnational level. If President Bush ever wants to see his Free Trade Area for Americas accepted and realized, he will have to learn to listen to and accept the input of Latin American states.
The essay is passable, but as with Kenny Yim’s, it lacks any sort of clear thesis. What point is Ford trying to make? One problem with not having a thesis is that it makes it much more difficult for the reader to contextualize the seemingly random assertions that Ford sprinkles throughout the piece. For example, why is it that Bush (or any American President) “will have to learn to listen to and accept the input” of folks like Chavez? Are they going to make nasty faces at him of he doesn’t? The whole beauty of being a hegemon is that, for the most part, you don’t really “have to” do anything. If you did, then your hegemony would be of a poor and pathetic kind.
Free trade is a perfect example. Although the US would like to include all the countries in the Americas, no one is going to worry too much if a thug like Chavez doesn’t want to play. For the most part, the US can just present each of the countries in the region with the same sort of choice that it gave to Mexico and then to Chile and then to countries like El Salvador. They can either trade more with us and grow rich or stay isolated and poor. Sure, they have a choice, but it is always within the frameword of the “neo-liberal rhetoric and program” that Ford seems to decry. (Again, it is hard from the essay to know if he is for or against more trade.)
The best summary of Ford’s view comes at the end:
[I]n order to gain acceptance for agreements like the FTAA, Bush must carefully design it in a way that incorporates Latin American feelings and keeps the interests of all nations in the hemisphere at heart. Not acting like a regional hegemony but supporting increased democratic consultation and consensus building is the best way for the United States to preserve the “democratic peace” of the Western hemisphere and continue to realize its interests, both political and economic, in Latin America.
The only problem with the first claim is that it just isn’t true. Although any trade negotiation involves some give-and-take, there is no doubt that the US does very little giving. In particular, increased free trade is all about shoving the Washington Consensus and Globalization down the throat of every poor country in the region.
Again, I don’t want to be too critical of Ford. Goodness knows that I could use a thesis statement every now and again. But too few writers, even Eph writers, take the time to make clear to their readers the point that they are trying to make and how all the supplied arguments support that point.
Certainty
Stephen O’Grady ‘97 has an insightful essay on certainty.
Many of you are probably less than shocked by this, given that our understanding of training regimens has made more than a few advances in the last 30 years, but for me it triggered a minor epiphany: much of what we know, is in fact wrong. From biology to gym to history, a substantial portion of what we are taught in our formative years is just plain incorrect. Some of the errors are intentional, some are not, but it’s impossible to argue that pretty much all of us are force fed large quantities of faulty data. Nor are the inconsistencies limited to education; how many times, for example, have health professionals changed their minds on whether or not eggs are healthy or unhealthy? First they’re good, then they’re bad, now, well, now I don’t even know if they’re good or bad, I eat them anyway. I’m sure each of you could come up with your own examples; when discussing this topic with a friend recently, they were immediately reminded of the very checkered history of medicine. Actively bleeding patients, after all, was a recommended and ardently believed in treatment for a variety of ailments well into the last century.
Read the whole thing.
The underestimation of uncertainty is a topic near and dear to my heart. My claim is that you should not be confident that the predictions of a reasonable expert won’t come to pass. In other words, if some experts think X and other argue Y, then a wise Eph has 95% confidence intervals that include both X and Y. But that is a rant for another day. Read O’Grady. You’ll learn something.
Work To Be Done
Ethan Zuckerman ‘93 provides an update on the One Laptop per Child project to be provide $100 laptop computers for all the poor children in the world.
In my earlier talk with Negroponte about the device, he suggested that one way to teach educators to use the laptop in the classroom was to send Kay around the world to teach small groups of teachers, who could go on to teach their peers. After this talk, I’m not buying it. It’s clear that there are amazing ways to use a laptop on every desktop as a teaching tool, and that a teacher like Alan could find countless ways to use such a device. But I also got the sense that it’s a subtle art to teach in this way and that it’s going to be far from obvious for most teachers how to approach this new device as anything other than a book.
I agree with Kay that the easiest challenges of the laptop are the hardware ones – indeed, I think these are the challenges Nicholas and team have done the best job of figuring out. I suspect the software – a version of Redhat Linux optimized for a diskless environment – is also well thought out. But the questions of UI, content and mentoring – as well as the challenges of distributing, servicing and financing these machines – strike me as tough challenges where there’s lots of work still to be done.
I wonder if there are any Ephs involved in this project? Zuckerman has provided some excellent coverage. I hope that he continues to do so.
Puzzles
I want to get Eric Smith ‘99 (and other Ephs) interested in my cool open source quantitative finance software project. But all he wants to work on is his stinkin’ puzzles! So it goes.
Unrestricted Access
If you’re reading EphBlog over Christmas break, then you really must love our material. Great! We love it to. Here is the letter to the editor that I wrote for the Record in the fall.
The Record reported on Oct. 26 that “The results of the [alcohol] survey will be posted on the College Web site later this week. Access will be restricted to computers on the Williams network.” Although the College tried to restrict access, it has failed to do so as the contents are available on a blog.
Two questions: First, why does the College try to restrict access to documents that are of such broad interest to the community of past, current and prospective Ephs? (Another example is the College’s refusal to post its “Report on Varsity Athletics.”) The central value of a scholarly community is intellectual honesty and openness. Moreover, attempts to restrict access to any document which is simultaneously provided to many students and/or alumni are doomed to failure, as this example indicates. Better to make a virtue of the inevitability of public disclosure
Second, why does the Record act as lapdog to the administration in its attempts to hide the truth? The College sloppily made the report available to all in the first few hours of its release. Given this mistake, why doesn’t the Record provide an online copy to its many interested readers? If the New York Times came across a Pentagon report in a similar circumstance, you can be sure that the Times would make the document available to its readers. Back in the day, the Record took its journalist responsibilities much more seriously.
The Record edited out the link to the blog that I originally provided. I am not sure why.
No answers yet from either the Administration or the Record. None are expected.
Rubin on Jeopardy?
So, I was watching Jeopardy tonight, and the winner was Peter Rubin –who looks to be Williams College class of 1997 Peter Rubin. Can anyone confirm or deny? A little quick research shows that Peter Rubin from Williams is a journalist in Brooklyn, as is the contestant Peter Rubin, so the odds seem pretty good.
I note that one poster on the Jeopardy message board — yes, I discovered there is such a thing, and yes, it is as scary as it sounds — opined:
“is it me or was peter the HOTTTest contestant ever?
my sorority is agreed.”
Yet another example of 97′er with both brains and brawn. If it is indeed the Eph Peter Rubin, be sure to watch tomorrow night to see if he can continue his two-game win streak!
EphCOI Williams C
My EphCOI idea continues to go nowhere fast. Perhaps we might start off with an EphCOI about Williams C. David Kane ‘58 reported a few months ago
Returning from North Carolina I found myself sitting next to a young lady on her way to her Junior Year in Seville, Spain. She turned out to be Lindsey Wu, Williams Class of 2007, daughter of Larry Wu, Williams Class of 1978. I told her of DHTK ‘58, Brendon ‘90, David ‘88 and Ephblog. Turns out she also spent Freshman Year in Williams C.
Not too sure that she knew about Ephblog before our conversation, but I’m sure she’ll be checking it from an internet café in Seville next week. So it looks like we have another COI group for you to identify, namely, students studying abroad. Could be there’s another COI beyond that, namely Williams C alums and, come to think of it, I was returning from a North Carolina visit to T.B. Jones, another Williams C alum of 50 years ago.
As Frank Uible would say, it’s time for the surface to air missles!
Other famous alums of Williams C include Fay Vincent ‘60, Professor Layla Ali ‘90, Bredon Kane ‘90 and your humble blogger. (Hmmm. I guess that some of these alums are more “famous” than others.) Not-so-famous alumni include EphBlog author Lowell D. Jacobson ‘03.
Turning 40
One of the Unknowns in our Eph Blogroll is turning 40.
In the middle of our laughter about the “thirtysomething” reference, both Steve and I stopped middle snort and began to babble profusely about the show by that name that was on television in the late 80’s or early 90’s. Does anybody else remember that show about the two married couples and the two single people who were great friends in suburban Philly?
…
We couldn’t imagine being so old, so mature, so engulfed in home ownership, advising friends with marital problems, and single friends who wanted to be married. We never thought we would ever be like them. I find it quite interesting that an entire decade of my life has passed and I don’t recall thinking about that show once during our “thirtysomething” years. But I know exactly why I never thought about the show during the past ten years: We were living it out.
As have all the Ephs of our generation. Most of the class on 1988 is turning 40 about now. Happy Birthdays to us all.
But who is “GailNHB”?
Spencer ‘77 Trustee Status
JoAnn Muir kindly corrected some mistakes that I made in this overview of the board of trustees at Williams. She notes that:
Clayton Spencer was elected “Trustee” effective July 1, 2003, with a 5-year appointment. Please note that we no longer use the designation “Permanent Trustee.” The Trustees elect one “Term Trustee” and one “Alumni Trustee” each year (each serves a five-year term). All other Trustees elected in a given year are deemed “Trustees.” Term lengths for “Trustees” vary, with a maximum term of fifteen years. “Trustees” can be re-appointed at the end of their terms as long as they have not served for fifteen years.
This also answers some questions that I raised here. I am still a little confused, but have already spend enough time on this topic. It would be handy if the College made public the terms for each of the trustees. More transparency please. Thanks again to Muir for the clarification.
Shout Out
Planning is moving forward with for our CGCL seminar (see above). Although I have enough discussants for the scheduled classes right now (and thanks to all the volunteers!), there are a couple of regulars — I am thinking especially of some of the participants in recent threads — who I haven’t signed up. So, consider this a shout out. EphBlog wants you!
Conspiracy Theory
In an earlier thread, Daniel wrote:
After graduation I spent two years working as an admission officer at an elite small liberal arts college (not Williams, not in the NESCAC), and all I really have to add to your discussion is that nearly every conversation you have in this blog about admissions is infuriating; any demographic trend leads immediately to a largely baseless conspiracy theory (the leaps of logic astound me). As you continue, keep this in mind: the manifold goals and priorities of a given admission office are a lot to juggle and keep track of as you read and evaluate hundreds of individual applications and large scale patterns are difficult to see, especially given the uncertainty of yield.
Comments:
1) There would be a lot fewer conspiracy theories if the College were more transparent.
2) I count the quota for international students as a (real) conspiracy that we helped to uncover. Surely I was not the only reader of EphBlog who was surprised to know that Williams treats applicants from outside the US the way that Harvard/Yale/Princeton treated Jews 75 years ago.
3) Thanks to Daniel for taking the time to educate us. We need more informed commentary from people with actual admissions experience. One fine day, I will have some sources within the admissions department at Williams, in addition to Dick Nesbitt, of course. But that fine day is not quite here.
Recipe
Surprising (to me), but the College is now advertising on its home page an easy link to the recent Alumni Review article on the admissions process. This has been on my to-blog list for a long time. There is much here that is interesting, much that is surprising and a little that is depressing. But more fun with all of this in the New Year.
Berkshire Breeze
Laura Lim Prescott ‘92 designed and knitted a sweater using a patter of her own creation, Berkshire Breeze.
The scarlet leaves reminds me of the autumns that I spent in the Berkshire Mountains while attending Williams College. The “Breeze” part refers to the lightness of the sweater and the fact that the lace makes wearing the sweater a little breezy.
Laura’s blog is beautifully done with many fine pictures. Eph knitters, from across the political spectrum, should be sure to visit regularly.
Corley ‘86 Weds
Richard Corley ‘86 got married in Las Vegas in September. Corley is a captain with Pinnacle Airlines.
Congratulations to all.
Memooshka
A great advantage of our more inclusive Eph Planet is that we now get Jenn Mattern, everyone’s favorite non-Eph Eph, mainlined, as it were.
If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, don’t feel bad. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.
Here’s a paragraph about memes for us new kids, plucked just for you from the cyberspace community garden: Yes. Right here. Click and learn. I could have linked to Wikipedia, but their meme entry reads like a philosophical dissertation, and as I always say, who needs that sort of thing when there are dirty diapers fermenting under the couch and dogs who need their phenobarbital.
But still, I’ve got memes on the brain. In Bloggerville, everybody’s tagging each other and meme-ing it up like gangbusters and making lists about the last ten potato-based foodstuffs they’ve consumed, or lists of where they were and what they were doing on each Groundhog’s Day since 1975.
Examples of such tagging among the Eph can be found in Dan Drezner ‘90 and Sarah Hart ‘02.
Tenure News
One of the reasons that you read EphBlog is that we bring you the news before anyone else. Want to know who got (and didn’t get) tenure a few weeks ago?
Tenured
Laylah Ali ‘90 (Studio Art)
Joe Cruz ‘91 (Philosophy)
Liza Johnson ‘92 (Art History)
Ileana Velazquez (Music)
Denied
Bojana Mladenovic (Philosophy)
James Teresco (Computer Science)
Annemarie Bean (Theater)
Not sure when the College will post a news release on this (and there is, as always, some chance that our sources are misinformed). Corrections and comments are welcome. I would be most interested to hear if any of the denied were excellent teachers (or any of the accepted were not). Williams has many great teachers. It still needs more.
UPDATES: Johnson’s class year added.
Egalitarian Eph
What is the most complimentary article about an Eph to appear in the New York Times in 2005? I think this one.
Blizzards swept through Wall Street last week — bonus blizzards, that is. Henry M. Paulson Jr., chief executive of Goldman Sachs, received $37 million in shares and options. Richard S. Fuld Jr. of Lehman Brothers got $15 million in restricted stock, while John Mack, Morgan Stanley’s new chief executive, pocketed an $11.5 million stock grant for six months’ work.
But one Wall Street executive atop a fast-growing firm is saying no to the piles of pay that make corporate America’s world spin so splendidly. In a remarkable two-page letter to the chairman of his company’s compensation committee, this executive requested that he receive no increase in salary, zero stock options, a smaller bonus than last year and a piece of the company’s profit-sharing pie equal to that received by all employees. This, in a year when his company’s revenue grew by more than 40 percent.
Who is this magnanimous executive? Ethan Berman, founder and chief executive of RiskMetrics, a private company that was formed at J. P. Morgan Chase and spun out to private investors in 1998. RiskMetrics, based in Manhattan, helps institutions and corporations assess risk in their investments; it is owned by its employees and three private equity firms. It will generate revenue of $100 million this year.
Haven’t heard of Mr. Berman? That is not surprising: his company is small and he is no self-promoter. Unlike other executives uttering the bromide about how the team contributes to a company’s success, Mr. Berman not only says it, he also acts on it.
While Mr. Berman’s may not be a household name, his egalitarian executive pay philosophy is worthy of the spotlight. His letter to the board, outlining this philosophy, should be read by anyone who serves on a compensation committee. It should also be memorized by institutional investors, who too often let managers siphon wealth from their pockets.
Ethan Berman is Williams College, class of 1983. There is a lot of interesting material in the article (more excerpts below) as well as in Berman’s letter. Arthur Levitt ‘53 also makes an appearence. Yet, I can’t resist using this hook an another excuse to mention my simple solution to the problems of excessive executive pay. More on that some other time.
Diplomacy Training
The New York Times series on athletic recruiting at elite schools is excellent. (Guy Creese first blogged about it here.) Consider:
It is all about the coach’s list.
…
Haverford, a small, selective liberal arts college outside Philadelphia, competes in Division III, which prohibits athletic scholarships. But at many Division III institutions, including most of the nation’s small-college academic elite, athletes can measurably enhance their chances of acceptance by being included on a coach’s list for the admissions office.
…
The anxiety was laced with another dynamic: [lacrosse coach] Murphy was trying to figure out where Haverford ranked on each prospect’s list of colleges. He does not want to place a player near the top of his admissions list of about 15 if he believes a player’s top choices are Ivy League universities or Division III rivals like Swarthmore or Williams.
It would be great if the Record wrote some similar articles about Williams.
“It hurts my credibility with admissions if I push and scream for a kid to be admitted who ends up rejecting us,” Murphy said. “You want someone who wants you. Of course, the kids are saying the same thing about the coaches.”
This problem is solved to a big extent at Williams by funnelling tips through the early decision process. (Letters were mailed last week.) I think that many (most? almost all?) of the 66 tips are expected to apply early decision.
“My cellphone has 14 coaches’ numbers in the directory,” Bartlett said. “It’s fun, but it can be overwhelming. At times, I felt I could drown in it. The conversations with the coaches have been like something out of diplomacy training.”
Read the whole thing.
Motherhood
Classmate and one of the original Eph Bloggers Kim Daboo ‘88 has much to say on the wonders of having Three Dogs and a Baby.
To sib or not to sib. I’ve been thinking about the whole second baby thing for a while now. With my 40th birthday less than two months away, time’s a-wastin’.
…
One of my first thoughts after surviving Oliver’s delivery was utter amazement that some women go through it more than once. I was thrilled to have my son but my body felt like it had been through hell. My mother had five kids. The mind boggles. When I got over the initial trauma, and the area of my body known to my nurses as “the war zone” finally surrendered, I started to go back and forth in my head, many many many times a day, over whether Oliver should have a sibling.
Read the whole thing. Indeed, there is no more honest and heartfelt description of the trials and tribulations of motherhood in all of Eph Planet.
Northern ‘89 Christmas Card
Happy Holidays from the family of Sue Northern Lacy ‘89!
Better yet is the text inside the card.
With four boys I would wager that Christmas morning in Sue’s house is quite the event . . .
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