…the College’s general consensus

That’s an interesting turn of phrase. Where might one go to learn of this “general concensus”? Is there a general concensus committee? Do they publish a screed?

I’m chuckling because there is anything but a “general concensus” even among the two Ephs in my household. There is certainly no “general concensus” among the Ephs on EphBlog. Or, even any discernable pattern of which Ephs agree with each other on a consistent range of issues.

Either way, Rathke was very far removed from that particular scandal, yet it clouds any possible action with his name in the near future.

I believe, though this might be my “liberal bias” getting in the way, that Rathke and Jackson are qualitatively different. Jackson’s political actions go against the views of the College’s general consensus. Rathke’s political actions do not. It is, indeed, a slippery slope…but that should mean something, else we fall into a conundrum in which either all political leadership is to be praised regardless of the message/goal or none should be praised. Neither seems ideal nor acceptable to me. Yet I cannot find an acceptable middle ground either.

I confess to not really knowing that much about Rathke. My general disagreement with you re: bicentennial medals is that I think you CAN take into account the value of the “endeavor” in assessing worth of someone’s accomplishments. The most accomplished cancer researcher is, to me, more worthy of a bicentennial award than the most accomplished cow bell player, just as the most accomplished police officer is more worthy than the most accomplished bank robber. Despite being a liberal, I am not a moral relativist.

I apologize for assuming that you would not object to Rathke as a Bicentennial Medal winner. I confess now to total confusion over the criteria you would use in selecting BM winners.

The difference between me and you is that I can put my ideological preferences to one side and consider the achievements of Williams graduates in a non-partisan fashion. You can not.

I also think that Rathke would make a great commencement speaker and would love to see Williams invite him but I am not sure that the relevant committee wants to get nominations from alumni. As far as I know, they do not, but corrections are welcome.

The Commencement Speaker should always be a Williams graduate.

*in case it isn’t clear from context, I don’t REALLY want to see Rathke deliver a Commencement address, etc. Although it might be fun to have him to campus to debate a conservative critic of ACORN.

I look at my reply, and imagine Brandi mocking it.

Jr. Mom replies:

Yeah, that kind of stuff happens on a blog. In case you hadn’t noticed… ;-)

…and especially when you give a so-so commencement address at a place like Williams College. Can you imagine the response should Governor…Sarah Palin take on that kind of challenge?

Why is that so, and what does it mean?

I look at my reply, and imagine Brandi mocking it.

Seriously, a short (boring) answer is that:
–> labour is portable under the Treaty of Rome, so there are few reasons to work for less than EU market-rate; and IT work is highly portable regardless
–> EU countries have (mostly) equalized cost for specialized labour; there’s plenty of capital in CR; they may actually have to pay a premium
–> for this service, the Euro is worth 50% more than the dollar

I’ll attempt a shorter explanation, with plot, tomorrow (maybe). (Likely it will get longer before it gets shorter).

I’m pretty sure our investment bankers have kicked the shit out of Indian investment bankers. Especially our Indian-American investment bankers, many of which were watching their kids graduate.

This is true. About the first-gen parents watching their second-gen kids graduate, who might have been a little offended by Couric’s xenophobic comment. Not to mention the international students, like me. Our class speaker (Auyon Mukharji) is, I believe, a second-generation Indian-American, and was a helluva lot funnier and smarter than Couric. Maybe she should start worrying about foreign competition for her job.

(Tom Friedman, when he came to speak at Chapin Hall, made the exact same point with almost the exact same words – I bet Couric cribbed it from one of his columns – and he wasn’t funny either.)

Um, just to be clear, that (@32) was from the other “she”. To which the “funny she” (Brandy), had a pretty clever response, IMO.

But really, Ken? A programmer can make more from the Czechs? Why is that so, and what does it mean?

(cross-posted! Established then, that Brandy is the clever one, nay?)

Yeah, we tend to get rich without being famous, lest we show up on Ephblog.

Where do we nominate?

The challenge is to beat the investment banker from Bangalore, the software programmer from Prague, the manufacturer in Manila.

Wow. She is not funny. She is not kidding. And she’s unaware that the Czechs now pay programmers more than the Americans.

Wow. She’s funny. (Brandi, I mean. ;@)

I’d like to hear her commencement address. I daresay it would shake a bit of dust out of the rafters.

@JG: Too bad about Rubin being a bore. At least Williams has figured out how to deal with the rain – they now distribute thousands of purple ponchos (this happened in ’06).

By the way I saw his speech and thought he was very good.

Bush was a former President, and not really a polarizing figure in all events, so he certainly didn’t qualify.

He was annoying. When Bush spoke, Damon Vangelis and I got thrown out of the basement of Jesup by his… security. And they’d closed Morgan. You can’t get much more annoying than that.

In any case, by mentioning that GWB was not polarizing, you’ve said more about Williams’ so-called “liberal” bias than David possibly could. No other liberal arts college would possibly have had him.

How about Mayda del Valle ’00?

http://www.houseofprocrastination.org/2007/07/commencement-commentary-updated_6738.html

I hate to say this about anyone, but Couric was, quite possibly, worse than Friedman.

Besides, if Katie Couric’s speech was panned for being too fluffy / not up to snuff intellectually, why would you want someone whose own lack of erudition made Couric seem like a Rhodes Scholar by comparison?

I think, on the whole, highly partisan figures like Rachel Maddow or Sarah Palin are best avoided at commencement, especially if they haven’t held some notable high office.

“Imagine Williams had not had a green speaker for 20 years. In that case, I would push hard for a green speaker this year, no matter how much the kids love Maddow. The case of conservative speakers is analogous.”

There. That’s a little better. Can anyone help?