Do the Dishes
Dan Drezner ‘90 is bullish on Treasury Secretary designate Tim Geithner.
If Tim Geithner weren’t so nice, he would probably be insufferable right now. For a few weeks, Geithner was my boss when I worked at Treasury. Even after he left, I never heard a single Treasury employee say a bad thing about him. This befits his reputation as someone who was exceptionally smart (like Larry Summers) and someone who was surprisingly affable (not like Larry Summers at all).
This is a good thing too, because one could forgive Geithner right now if his head swelled just a little bit. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up five hundred points on Friday as word of his appointment leaked. The Dow jumped close to another four hundred points yesterday after Obama officially introduced him. One has to wonder if, sometime this week, when Geithner’s wife asks him to do the dishes, he will be tempted to respond, “Have you caused the Dow to jump by more than ten percent? I didn’t think so!”
Have any Ephs been nominated by Obama? Are any likely to be?
Video of Congressional Black Caucus at Williams
Source link (a tip o’ the hat to commenter Parent ‘12 for the link)
Williams hosts Lewis, Clyburn, Patrick and others
This is a pretty unbelievable get for a college like Williams:
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) will join in a discussion of “Race and the New Congress” on Monday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. in Chapin Hall on the Williams College campus. The event, to be moderated by 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl, is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come basis.
“What an enormous honor it is for Williams to host the largest number of Congress members ever to gather on our campus,” Williams President Morton Owen Schapiro said, “and what a great privilege for students, faculty, staff, and local residents to hear first-hand from caucus members so soon after the historic presidential election.”
The gathering will be the first of CBC members since Congress recessed for the election.
“I’m excited to take part in such an important discussion at a particularly auspicious time for Congress and the country to advance issues of race,” Stahl said. “It’s especially newsworthy to assemble so many of the CBC members who hold leadership positions.”
The caucus members so far expected to take part are:
James E. Clyburn (S.C.), Democratic Leadership Majority Whip;
Robert. C. Scott (Va.), Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security;
Bennie G. Thompson (Miss.), Chairman, House Committee on Homeland Security;
Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Chairwoman, House Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure Protection;
Danny K. Davis (Ill.), Chairman, House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia;
John Lewis (Ga.), Member of the House Committee on Ways and Means;
Diane E. Watson (Calif.), Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs;
Hank Johnson (Ga.), Member of the House Committee on Armed Services;
Donna M. Christensen (V.I.), Member of the House Homeland Security;
Yvette Clarke (N.Y.), Member of the House Committee on Education and Labor.The event was initiated by Visiting Lecturer in Political Science Bernard Moore. Executive Director of the non-profit think tank Second Chance for Social Justice, Moore is a policy advisor to caucus member Danny Davis.
In January 1969, newly elected African American representatives of the 77th Congress joined six incumbents to form the Democratic Select Committee to address legislative concerns of black and minority citizens. The Committee was renamed the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in 1971.
The vision of the founding members of the CBC, to “promote the public welfare through legislation designed to meet the needs of millions of neglected citizens,” continues today. Its members have been at the forefront of legislative campaigns for human and civil rights for all citizens.
A reception in the Paresky Student Center will follow the discussion.
The event is sponsored by The W. Ford Schumann ‘50 Program in Democratic Studies. the Office of the President, Africana Studies, the Multicultural Center, and the Claiming Williams initiative.
Congratulations to Bernard Moore and everyone else who helped to pull this together.
Will any of our readers be attending? Please report back with your thoughts and impressions in the comments thread below (keep discussions on-topic, please).
Will video be available, maybe from C-SPAN? I don’t know. It’s a shame there isn’t a prominent link to a live stream included with the press release.
Recommended Reading
Some recommended reading for President-elect Obama.
Jenny Attiyeh ['87]is host and producer of Thoughtcast, an interview program devoted to writers and academics, and available via podcast.
We don’t have to agree with everything we read in this country. Reading is not unpatriotic. So may I suggest that the future commander-in-chief actually read the speeches by Osama bin Laden? At a minimum, he can read between the lines. As Sun Tzu said, “know thine enemy”. But we know so little about bin Laden. We don’t even know where he lives. Supposedly, he “hates our freedoms” – but he would argue that what he hates is the freedom we take with our power.
After these videos were released, it usually took some effort to dig out a transcription. In the end, I had to go to Al Jazeera for a translation. What I remember most clearly is grainy video of the guy, holding his index finger aloft, but with the volume silenced, so our talking TV heads could impart their wisdom in peace. Let’s hope the next president is willing to turn off the mute button on our enemy. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.
[Verso Press made this much easier three years ago with the collection Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, which provides as much OBL as anyone should have to read.-SM]
Daniel Drezner ['90] is a professor of international relations at Tufts University. He also blogs.
I’d probably advise the president to read the uber-source for international relations, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Too many people only read portions like the Melian Dialogue, which leads to a badly distorted view of world politics (the dialogue represents the high-water mark of Athenian power — it all goes downhill after that). The entire text demonstrates the complex and tragic features of international politics, the folly of populism, the occasional necessity of forceful action, the temptations and dangers of empire, and, most importantly, the ways in which external wars can transform domestic politics in unhealthy ways.
Who really thinks that Obama has the time and inclination to read the History of the Peloponnesian War? It’s 600+ pages! Why not just recommend that Obama learn Greek along the way?
To make this exercise interesting, the suggestion should be something that a) the candidate might plausibly read and b) if read, might lead the candidate to move in your direction. I’ll go with The Future and Its Enemies by Virginia Postrel. What would you recommend?
Open Election Thread
Feel compelled to howl your political opinions out into the intervoid? This is the thread for you! The Eph-related campaigns to keep an eye on include Chris Murphy ‘96 for Congress in Connecticut and Mark Udall ‘72 for Senate in Colorado. Are there any others?
Also, who are the Ephs most likely to be named to powerful positions in an Obama administration? Perhaps Obama will remember his high school classmate Bennett Yort ‘83.
When Bennett A. Yort graduated from Hawaii’s Punahou School in 1979, he says, he had little inkling the quiet, skinny classmate friends called Barry could one day make history.
“Barry was just one of the boys,” Mr. Yort, a financial planner at Merrill Lynch of Augusta, said about Barack Obama.. “A very regular guy.”
Earlier this week, sitting in his living room and thumbing through his 1979 yearbook, Mr. Yort recalled 30 years ago when the two were schoolmates.
Mr. Yort, 47, said he couldn’t describe his and Mr. Obama’s friendship as close, but they did share classes and were “cordial.”
I am not sure that “cordial” will get Yort a spot in the Executive Office Building.
Ballot Initiatives
There are three ballot initiatives in Massachusetts this year. Has there been much discussion of these around Williamstown? Not that I have seen. Question 1 ends the state income tax. Question 2 ends criminal penalty for small amount of marijuana possession. Question 3 ends dog racing. The libertarian/small government votes on these are obvious: Yes, Yes, No.
Jane Swift
Morty’s favorite Republican spoke tonight in Brooks-Rogers.
It was a well written speech detailing the nature of the sexism that’s often thrown around as a talking point. Swift spoke on her own personal experience, as well as the different nature of media coverage, both in terms of being a woman and in terms of being a mother. One of the best anecdotes involved a major speech she gave on education, which was covered with stories about if she had worn the same suit two days in a row.
She also spoke on Sarah Palin, and the unfortunate decisions woman face in politics, such as hiring a wardrobe consultant, and buying Gubernatorial suits for use while pregnant. She proved her point fairly conclusively, that women face special challenges, especially in some older voters. It was a very good talk, though I may be biased from taking her Winter Study last year.
She does not plan on challenging Deval Patrick. In addition, she will be teaching a Winter Study course on the Presidential Transition and a Spring Semester course on leadership.
Incredulously
Anyone found video of this?
Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate prompted a small wave of warnings about Biden’s propensity for gaffes. But no one imagined even in a worse-case scenario such a spectacular bomb as telling donors Sunday to “gird your loins” because a young president Obama will be tested by an international crisis just like young President John Kennedy was.
Scary? You betcha! But somehow, not front-page news.
Again the media showed their incredible bias by giving scattered coverage of Biden’s statements.
There were a few exceptions. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski ['89] flipped incredulously through the papers, expressing shock at the lack of coverage of Biden’s remarks. Guest Dan Rather admitted that if Palin had said it, the media would be going nuts.
Mika Brzezinski ‘89 as a secret player in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Eph Division? I like it!
Race and the Criminal Justice System
Please comment in this brainstorming thread if you have not done so.
I went to the Roundtable today that David wrote about earlier today. (Satire of said post here)
Follow the jump for my opinions regarding tonight. What do commenters think about setting Ephblog policy such that opinion generally stays below the fold, like this? Read more
State of the Union: Mexico, Sept. 16th, 2008
(Independence Day)
Soph Mom,
You ask a question that is far beyond my limited capacity to answer– something like, what might be the effect of the Mexican population living in the US, on the 2008 US Elections?
Skipping the literal part for now– how this factor might change, or might be used to change, the vote count and result– I’ll begin with something of my current mantra on Mexico.
Mexico’s economy– Mexico’s actual production minus oil and payments from abroad– has declined by well over 50% since 1990. The figures are easy to find. That this itself has not prompted an international response– given that its consequences have caused 20 million or more to flee Mexico– is beyond me.
Though the official statistics– the Calderon’s regime’s economic reports, and the counts of jobs and murders– paint a somewhat different and more rosy picture, oil production and payments from abroad hardly make up the difference– or “right the ship of State.”
Imagine the United States if basic production were to halve in the next eight years. That’s roughly what happened between 1992 and 2000 in Mexico.
In 2008 to date, about 3,500 official civilian deaths have been reported in the “drug war” in the northern states. This is a figure which cannot be correct — and as the North becomes “ungovernable,” no one has a grip on the Southern states, which have long been indeed “ungovernable.”
The evens are also not simply a “drug war.” In mid-2007, reporting of the bombings and the military techniques made that abundantly clear– as did the later chatter from the “revolutionary factions–” before all such news became “unreportable.” A year ago one could get a reasonable view “reading between the lines” by watching El Universal and Reforma– in the first few hours there would be an initial report, likely as accurate as one would get– then revised report, with the spin of various agencies – finally an “official” report, tailored to present the purged reality.
Today there is simply no report.
Blatt ‘85 on Shipley ‘85
Dan Blatt recalls his classmate David Shipley.
When I first read that my Williams classmate David Shipley had taken over as Op-Ed editor of the New York Times, I saw it as a sign of improvement on the editorial page of the Old Gray Lady. Even though David had worked in the Clinton Administration, I had always known him as an even-handed, level-headed kind of guy. At college, he never showed any particular disdain for conservative ideas — and this in the heyday of the Reagan Revolution.
Indeed, I assumed it was David’s doing when the Times tapped such thoughtful conservatives as David Brooks and William Kristol to write regular columns for its Op-Ed page. He is the kind of guy who would welcome diverse viewpoints, including conservative ideas intelligently expressed.
At Williams, David was well-liked among his classmates, at least those of us who knew him. He kept a pretty low profile on campus. I recall he was soft-spoken. We rowed together freshman year.
But, David wasn’t one of those angry left-wingers (yes, we even had them on college campi even in my day), railing against the latest action by the Gipper. He may have had left-of-center political views, but he kept them pretty much to himself, at least in his conversations with me. And I was a pretty outspoken undergraduate, particularly during my sophomore and junior years.
…
Thus, I was surprised to learn that he had personally rejected (or at least written the e-mail rejecting) presumptive Republican nominee John McCain’s column for the New York Times.
The David Shipley who so readily listened to his Williams peers was now dictating how one party’s candidate should write about our nation’s Iraq policy. I want to believe David’s distinction between accepting Obama’s piece and rejecting that of his Republican rival, that the Obama essay “offered new information.” Given the increasingly biased record of the Times, I am skeptical, even of a man whose even-handedness I have long respected.
…
I hope David still shows the same respect for conservatives he did at Williams and in our 1993 lunch. His failure to publish this editorial shows the decline of the paper whose Op-Eds he now edits.
Read the whole thing. Previous discussion here. I was surprised at how dismissive some of our commentators were of McCain’s argument. It is reasonable to believe that McCain was (and is) wrong about the best policy for Iraq. But, if you assume for a moment that McCain’s policies are correct (as at least 20% of US citizens believe), then his op-ed piece seems to make a perfectly reasonable argument for them. If you disagree, what specific lines would you change?
Shipley also gets a mention in the American Thinker.
Newsflash to David Shipley: McCain’s editorial was a rebuttal, not a Time Life Books® companion piece. And as the New York Times’ readership is reputed to be intellectually savvy, I don’t think there would be much danger of them confusing McCain’s views with those of the left-leaning Times editorial board.
By the way, the New York Post snapped up what the Times rejected and published McCain’s op-ed. The decision by the Times to reject McCain has turned into a major publicity nightmare. Better tell Pinch that’s not exactly good news for stockholders.
Of course, every news outlet has the right to reject content based on editorial standards - our right to free speech does not translate to an obligation for a newspaper or other media outlet to publish us. But in this instance, the Times risks being labeled as lopsided.
Indeed.
This should be fun
Markos Moulitsas, author and creator of the political commentary weblog “The Daily Kos” will speak at Williams on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 8 p.m. in the ‘62 Center for Theatre and Dance. The title of his talk is “The State of the Nation.”
Moulitsas is famous for his weblog “The Daily Kos” which publishes news and opinions from a progressive point of view for a wide audience.
The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Call the ‘62 Center box office at (413) 597-2425, Tues. - Sat., 1 -5 p.m. for reservations.
If you’re attending, let us know how it goes.
Kirby on Ideological Diversity
For years I have claimed that the lack of ideological diversity among the Williams faculty (all left, no right) is a problem and that something ought to be done about it. My favorite concrete example is the lack of faculty members who agree with, say, Republican policies and are willing to defend those policies in campus debate. (Vaguely related discussions here and here.) Note James McAllister’s comment that “it goes without saying that there should be more political diversity among the faculty at Williams.”
Recall this discussion and Lowell’s claim that
He [Professor Kris Kirby] related that he had to keep his views entirely to himself, and was told to read and subscribe to certain newspapers and magazines and not even hint at his political affiliations.
I checked this story with Professor Kirby. He clarifies as follows.
The gist of Lowell’s recollection is mostly correct, but he has mixed together two different points. I did keep my views entirely to myself, but not because I was advised to do so. I had seen (on separate occasions) a senior faculty member make positive comments about a leftist job candidate and disparaging comments about a Republican student in department meetings, and these comments yielded assent from other faculty members. As a non-tenured libertarian these and other subtle signals scared me. I thought it prudent to keep quiet.
The point about the magazines was related but different. There is a presumption here that all faculty share the same political beliefs. It rarely occurs to us to wonder whether a Republican joke, for example, might not be appreciated by everyone in the audience. When I first arrived on campus a kindly old professor gave me advice on which local newspapers were worth subscribing to. He noted disapprovingly that some people up here “take the New York Times,” but recommended against it because it is “too conservative.” My point was that it never even occurred to this professor that I might be conservative (I’m not) or even to the right of the New York Times.
I have seen little in the way of outright political discrimination at Williams. Most faculty are fair-minded people. But the near-unanimity of left-liberal belief allows for a presumption of agreement that inhibits the expression of diverse political views more than the faculty realize. This was the real point of my anecdotes.
If McAllister thinks that the College needs greater ideological diversity among the faculty and Kirby notes that the “near-unanimity of left-liberal belief” is a problem, can we all agree that there is something wrong at Williams? Whether anything could be done about this, and at what cost, is a separate question. But the first step in any recovery is admitting that you have a problem . . .
Local Politics
Last month Eph Vermont Rep Steven B. Maier and others in the Green Mountain State’s General Assembly voted for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. This month, Vermonters are raising the bar; a joint resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment continues to grow. 37 towns have now voted for impeachment, including Maier’s hometown of Middlebury. Joint House Resolution J.R.H. 15 calling for the Impeachment of the President, is scheduled for a vote early next month.
“Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principles that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.” Ethan Allen
Political Parties at Williams?
What would it mean to have a political party within the student body at Williams? And do we already?
Aroop Mukharji and Richard McDowell note in their record op-ed last week, that campus politics would be more competitive and meaningful if there were political parties within the student body. This got me thinking that maybe we already have one.
Environmentalists at Williams, broadly defined, have a strong presence outside of environment specific groups. We are a special interest which lobbies for our goals within building projects, college operations, student life and academics. We even successfully lobbied for a major change to college policy, the sustainability initiative. But what does our loose organization look like within campus politics?
Williamstown Against a Troop Surge
About 30 Williamstown residents and 10 students held a candle light vigil against President Bush’s proposed troop surge. The vigil was organized at the last minute with the moveon.org action by a community member, Ruth, and history professor Shanti Singham. Signs told motorists slogans such as “no more needless war” and “70% of Americans oppose a surge” and were met with honks and waves.
Ephs Running for Office
The Public Affairs office is looking for a list of all the Ephs running for public office. Let’s make one! I’ll start with:
Bill Harsch ‘60 for Rhode Island Attorney General.
Martha Coakley ‘75 for Massachusetts Attorney General.
Chris Murphy ‘96 for Congress (CT-5).
And don’t forget Ephs like Ed Case ‘75 (D-Hawaii) and Peter Monroe ‘65 (R-Florida) who lost in their party primaries.
But surely there are others . . .
An Arab Summer at Middlebury
Following up on a piece from the Middle East Quarterly, Boston College professor Franck Salemeh writes at RealClearPolitics on some notable trends at Middlebury’s summer Arabic language program.
In maps, textbooks, lectures, and other teaching materials used in the instruction of Arabic, Israel didn’t exist, and the overarching watan ‘Arabi (Arab fatherland) was substituted for the otherwise diverse and multi-faceted “Middle East.” Curious and misleading geographical appellations, such as the “Arabian Gulf” in lieu of the time-honored “Persian Gulf,” abounded. Syria’s borders with its neighbors were marked “provisional,” and Lebanon was referred to as a qutr (or “province”) of an imagined Arab supra-state.
Full text here.
The organizers had more on their plate, too. According to Salameh, the program enforced halal dietary restrictions during meals, banned alcohol from events and parties, and were the sole program to opt out of observing July 4th festivities.
As Salameh notes up top in the first piece, Middlebury’s immersive summer language programs are considered to be among the best in the nation, and I’ve always envied this excellent feature of our NESCAC neighbor. Pretty much the only part of Middlebury I feel that way about, actually. Well, maybe the hockey rink. That’s about it.
Now, unlike the author, I’m not so concerned about Middle Eastern studies professors being “depressingly consistent in their condemnation of American policy in the region, including its support for the democracies in Israel and Turkey.” But I also don’t think a language program has much business mandating its participants’ gustatory, libationary or cartographic choices. Although the “provisional” borders thing is actually kind of funny.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Prelude to Marxism, Revisited
In thinking through Marx, I recently came up with the following formulation, based on my days of high school debate:
“RESOLVED: That the establishment of a [advanced critical languages program at Williams], is a more valuable goal than the expansion of economic diversity within the Student Body.”
The Lincoln-Douglas format, of course, requires individuals to argue each side of the proposition in quick succession. Wonderful training.
The phrase in brackets is, of course, shorthand for one of my own personal hopes and visions. Feel free to substitute some other seemingly ’socially worthwhile’ project– more resources for the study of Economics, for instance, or some kind of co-ordinate program in Diplomatic History, an open electronic college, renewed athletics facilities, a College “devoted to the enrichment and well-being of our region” through practical projects, … and so forth. I’m using my store of ideas; surely you have more, and surely each of our visions is as potentially questionable as it is potentially laudable.
We need not agree with all of the projects in specific, and indeed will not. All of you, could and would do a better job than I just did, of suggesting particular projects for the College. Perhaps an integrated program of tutelage in the sciences and mathematics (or English); perhaps an expanded tutorial program (yes, each has been done). Where should our focus and efforts lie?
Public Forum on Racial Incident
The public forum today started at 8:30 PM in Griffin Hall. Nancy Roseman, Dean of the College, began with remarks about how flesh-and-blood contact is far superior to the electronic kind, and joked that “blog” had become for her a four-letter word. She pointed out that we are a small community with an accessible administration, and asked what the administration needs to do to help minority students.
In a statement that may disappoint the most hot-tempered, Dean Roseman emphasized that we are primarily an educational institution, and that punishing someone is the least effective and interesting thing she could do. She repeated this point later, which leads me to believe that the administration will not take drastic measures against the offending student, if he is found.
