According to the WTO, Slavery.

At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.

Now hang on a minute, they can't actually mean slavery, can they? Let's not jump the gun here. "Full private stewardry of labor," that sounds different, at least, right?

The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright.

Wait a tick, that actually does sound like slavery.

Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.

Reprivatize humans?

Oh. My. God. I cannot believe I am reading this. But it doesn't stop--it just doesn't stop:

"This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything—even people."

I'm in London (I'm not even on an FSP, I'm just fabulously wealthy and blowing off mid-November stress) and otherwise can't be bothered to care that much about Dartmouth's freshest inane controversy, but this teddy bear character in Lerman's recent comics reminded me of a suspiciously similar looking and far more offensive cartoon. Wiggles.

Introducing the Hug Shirt, one of Time's best inventions of 2006. Here's the deal:

[T]he Hug Shirt [is] a high-tech garment that simulates the experience of being embraced by a loved one. When a friend sends you a virtual hug, your cell phone notifies the shirt wirelessly, via Bluetooth. The shirt then re-creates that person's distinctive cuddle, replicating his or her warmth, pressure, duration and even heartbeat. And, yes, the Hug Shirt is fully washable.

My question is, does it come with a Scarlett Johansson setting?

I didn't talk about this last week when it happened, and I was not planning on talking about it this week either, but Zach Nicolazzo's guest column today is, I think, an important must-read. Zach works in ORL and therefore has, as the column's called, a different perspective on the issue.

The other thing I want to say is that I've heard Drew Lerman is in a freshman seminar called Nietzsche, Freud, Kafka, and that it was his frustration about his professor's treatment of Nietzsche that led to the comic. Apparently, Drew believes he has the correct view of Nietzsche's will to power as a will to dominate. I know he thinks it's liberal academic revisionism, but that's just not the case. The concept of the will to power is not about domination; it's about self-mastery in a non-ascetic, non-subservient sense. That's a tricky distinction perhaps, but it's the difference between being a spontaneous, active and vital human actor who recognizes the presence of other human actors, and being a megalomaniac driven only by the control of others. Lerman's disregard for "liberal academic" scholarship is troublesome to me because it denies the rather obvious fact that many scholars, over many years, have worked very diligently to do justice to the actuality of Nietzsche's thought, and not the Fascist appropriation of that thought. Lerman rejects the very idea that scholars really can transcend any desires they have to warp something to their own ends, and instead just to do a good job of interpreting a very difficult and historically fraught text. It bothers me a great deal that, as a freshman, Lerman is already arrogant enough just to dismiss the function and results of good scholarship simply because he disagrees with them (uninformedly). It bothers me more that his arrogance has resulted in such a flip comic that has been placed before our community.

So everyone knows this, but









Dick Cheney shot a man in the face a few months ago.

Just thought you should know.

Chief Wana Dubie



According to Metafilter, this guy is about as insane as he looks. For one thing, he "has a marijuana leaf tattooed on his forehead and once painted bullseye on his roof so the 'government could find him.' After a 5-year sentence for growing marijuana, he's running for office and with hopes for a 2008 bid for governor," a race which would pair him up with a fellow named Blunt.

In case you couldn't tell, this man is a Libertarian.

Shorter Kakutani: I don't like old or aging men.

Seriously, she'd probably roast Herzog if she got the chance.

So three fellows decided to come up with a list of the 101 most influential people who never lived [related article here].

It's a very eclectic list: the top ten are The Marlboro Man, Big Brother, King Arthur, Santa Claus (St. Nick), Hamlet, Dr. Frankenstein's Monster, Siegfried, Sherlock Holmes, Romeo and Juliet, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Advertising, literature, folklore—further down you get television characters, toys, cartoons, gods and goddesses, and a Muppet.

In my mind (be warned—I tend to take lists somewhat seriously), it's a little too eclectic. There is no discernible system as to why or where individuals are ranked. I cannot conceive of a reason, for example, why Lady Chatterly resides at number 15 while Superman languishes at the 64th spot, which is right behind J.R. Ewing. Or why Faust is all the way down at #36, or why Hans Beckert (even though he is featured in one of the greatest films of all time—"M") is even on the list.

Whatever, the point of the list is to spur indignation. I just wish it weren't so slap-dashedly induced.

Alain Badiou is one of the most, if not the most, important French philosopher living today. He is just starting to get his due here in America as a philosopher whose work could open up incredibly novel positions on ontology, ethics, and the role of philosophers in today's world. It's difficult to forecast these things, but his magnum opus Being and Event could (and I think should) be considered in the same neighborhood of the philosophical pantheon as two other "Being" books of the past century (i.e. Sartre's and Heidegger's).

And he's coming to Dartmouth Thursday, the 9th, at 4:30.

Seriously, go to this. While he'll probably never reach the celebrity, cultic status of Derrida or Foucault (for one thing, most humanities scholars are probably turned off by his insistence on grounding being in Cantorean set theory), he is (and will become more so, I think) undoubtedly a seriously heavy hitter in French thought of the past thirty years.

If you're curious (and I hope you are), here is an article on Badiou from the excellent N+1 magazine. (A side note, though--the bits about Brian Leiter are both inaccurate and unfair. He's a fantastic Nietzsche scholar, for one thing, which belies the author's charge of a Leiterian vendetta against the Continentals.)

Slate writer evaluates Borat's characterization of Kazakhstan.

Much funnier than the Dartmouth Independent article.

So I'm not that big of a drinker, and I was googling "handle alcohol" to figure out how many fluid ounces that was, and the first hit was a Dartmouth page.

Perhaps we can put that in Jake Baron's PR brochure.

I didn't have much time last morning to blog about Jacob Baron's letter against promoting diversity in Dartmouth's PR campaigns, and so my remarks were fairly abbreviated, and someone called me out on it. Anonymously, s/he said:

Oh, come on. Take a breath before you write this stuff. Baron's column isn't all that well-written, but he has a point. Dartmouth spends a lot of effort advertising its "diversity" to get students to choose it over other schools, and his argument is that Dartmouth should match its PR campaign to its actual strengths, because it's not actually that diverse, and it undersells its other strengths in the process. Maybe he should work for Buzzflood if he's into second-guessing Dartmouth's PR strategy, but I suspect you've encountered many more idiotic Dartmouth students.

Also, where do you get the idea that diversity is "part of our mission, part of our reason for continued existence"? It's a good idea, and I suppose Dartmouth's mission of education and turning out future leaders is fairly broad in scope (i.e. not limited to educating rich white kids and turning out rich white leaders), but I don't think it's "part of our reason for continued existence."

I'm having trouble understanding the logic behind this.

Basically, he's saying that Dartmouth has low diversity relative to our peer institutions, so improving that through a targeted PR strategy foregrounding the diversity we do have and our commitment to improving it should be a lesser concern than identifying things we really do have our peer institutions beat on, like athletics, a vibrant non-Greek social scene for underclassmen, an intellectually engaged student body, fall foliage and other elements of natural beauty, school spirit (i.e. liquor + institutional inferiority complex + personal arrogance/general douchebaggery), and an undergraduate focus. This will improve our standing in the eyes of our targeted audience of applicants, for whom diversity is apparently less important than pretty leaves. (Of course, that means everybody, right? Who could possibly be more worried about diversity than the natural beauty of Dartmouth?)

See, PR for the College isn't just a real estate brochure. It is a statement promoting the type of College we hope our new applicants will, in part, create. It is as much a normative vision more as it is a description of our current state.

The natural beauty of the campus doesn't do much on the normative end of things. It is definitely not why we're here or part of our mission.

But that brings up anonymous commenter's second point—that diversity isn't a reason for Dartmouth's continued existence. I think it is. I think a commitment to ensuring, and not just laissez-faire hoping, that the student body comprises a real and not token diversity of socio-economic, racial, geographical, and cultural backgrounds, bringing together students of many talents and opinions—that is a reason for continuing to operate.

Dartmouth should be a diverse institution of higher learning. I can have a long discussion with you about the merits and virtues of diversity, or can point you to some books, but for the moment, I will just state axiomatically that Dartmouth should consider itself measured by how well it makes itself diverse year after year. This is not a separate struggle from the pursuit of academic excellence; it is not even merely correlated. True academic excellence for a college is dependent on diversity in our world of today. Without it, the broad enterprise of scholarship is hollow and half-formed, solipsistic, dull.

Jacob Baron asks,

"Is Dartmouth's public relations emphasis on diversity too great? ... And why should it try to convince outsiders [that it is diverse]?"

Because Dartmouth is better known for The Review than for the fact that it ranked 10th in Hispanic Magazine's Top 25 colleges for Latinos. (Dartmouth also ranked 47th on Black Enterprise's Top 50)

Because a lot of students at Dartmouth don't care where Dartmouth ranks on lists like those, and that is not a secret—to applicants or to students.

Because diversity is not just another column to compare against other Ivies; it is part of our mission, part of our reason for continued existence. If it's a commitment, it's a commitment, and we should goddamn well say so.

Why I am glad I did not go to Brown

To be fair, though, Brown students could read anything by Max Bryer, John Wisniewski, or Zak Moore and say the same thing about Dartmouth.

I have very little to say about the Kerry brouhaha ("You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.") other than that I find it pretty absurd for the President to lambaste Kerry for supposedly insulting the men and women he has needlessly sent to war.

But more importantly, I want to direct you to Vox Baby, where Professor Samwick has applied his typically trenchant insight to the matter:

Most of the fallout has been criticism of the Senator for saying that members of the armed forces services in Iraq are not smart, despite the clarification [that Kerry was referring to the folks who got us stuck in the war, not to the soldiers].

This fallout is misguided, even focusing on what he said initially. His critics are insisting that the members of the armed forces serving in Iraq are smart. I agree with their assessment, but their examples are not relevant here. These examples falsify the statement:

"If you are serving in Iraq, then you are not smart."

He didn't say this. He said:

"If you are not smart, then you get stuck in Iraq."

To falsify this statement, you need to find people who are not smart who are not stuck in Iraq. It's very easy to do that as well. You could start with people who don't understand the structure of if-then statements who are stuck in the Senate, if you wanted to.

I almost never read advice columns, but I felt this one from Salon too good a title not to read.

Someone writes in:

I prefer spending time alone to light dating -- it's less tiring. That said, I enjoy being in serious or steady relationships. Right now, I'm single, but am very interested in a friend of a friend. He's very intelligent, thoughtful, funny and unique in all the right ways. He likes me too -- he has made it obvious to our friends and, in his way, to me, too.

The problem is that we have pretty similar levels of introversion. We're both more comfortable talking about highly complex theoretical issues (he's a Ph.D. student, and I'm a theory nerd) than we are doing the verbal waltz promoting typical flirtation. As a result, we are painfully awkward around each other. We've both tried to have get-to-know-you conversations, but the interactions end up being painfully stilted -- even when we're both inebriated... Is there a solution? Like a library date where we both read books and occasionally throw each other shy glances? Do I just need to swallow my fear, step out and express myself even though it's about as comfortable as walking naked through glass wool insulation? Or is it really true that an introvert needs to date an extrovert, a serious person needs to date a lighthearted one, etc.? Am I whispering up the wrong tree?

I'm really digging this idea of a library date, but the advice columnist replies:

Apparently what we have here is an area of human interaction -- courtship -- so completely colonized by extroverts that even an intelligent and thoughtful person such as yourself is only dimly aware that there might be alternatives.

And yet there must be alternatives. Otherwise, introverts would never reproduce. And I refuse to countenance the notion that these alternatives just take the form of painfully awkward reenactments of extroverted styles... Now, it's true that introversion is not the same thing as silence at all. It's not that introverts don't like to talk. What I'm suggesting, though, is that introverts must find ways to insulate themselves from the effects of a crowded, draining world, and one of those ways is to consciously resist the felt pressure to chatter. I would encourage you to explore the boundaries of what is permitted to two people who simply like each other and want to be together. Why should you have to pretend to be extroverted?

The column goes on to make a (possibly ironic?) comparison between the way dating rituals are entirely dominated by extroverts to the way society has been constructed under gender and racial norms of male whiteness, but I think the point is interesting—why should introverts feel they need to, when dating each other, conform to a pattern or mode of behavior which both find discomfiting and dull?

I don't know, honestly, but this all reminds me of a joke I once heard: how can you tell if an engineer is an extrovert?
If he looks at your shoes.

The Washington Post has a piece summing up negative ads, mostly by Republicans, leading up to the midterm elections. Some of them are hilarious, if you can abstract these statements from the fact that they are being made by members of the legislature and are an indication that political discourse has hit rock fucking bottom.

The Democrats, the Post points out, are guilty as well. One example is this ad by Dartmouth Alum Kirsten Gillibrand '88, who is running as a Democratic in NY's 22nd (? I'm too lazy to check).

And House candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has an ad online ridiculing Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) for attending a late-night fraternity party. "What's a 50-year-old man doing at a frat party anyway?" one young woman asks, as a faux Sweeney boogies behind her to the Beastie Boys. "Totally creeping me out!" another responds.

Other gems include accusations of child molestation, relation to serial killers, phone-sex addiction, support for illegal alien child molesters, support for illegal alien child molesting flag burners, black-baby abortion advocacy ("If you make a little mistake with one of your hos, you'll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked"), school-children abortion advocacy, and of course, loving America too much.

"Norris, the star of "Walker: Texas Ranger" and some of the biggest action pictures ever, is talking to a new generation these days as part of an Internet craze for one-liners usually labeled not as jokes but as 'facts.'"

I'm trying to watch the first season of The Wire, HBO's crime series set in Baltimore. Some critics have been outright calling it the best series in the history of television, but I can't get into it.

I realize it's only the first season, so maybe it lights up in season two (anybody out there know?), but I've never really liked any HBO series that I've seen, so I'm not sure it's just a matter of development.

Opinions?

Dartmouth Football Team WINS!

I just want to say, I was with you all along, Karl Furstenberg. Sack the football team.

I hadn't heard about this—does anyone know anything more about it?

But this one's actually interesting.

From Slate:

One of the deep questions in economics is why some countries are rich and others are poor. It is widely believed that institutions such as clear and enforceable property rights are important to economic growth. Still, debates rage: Do culture, history, government, education, temperature, natural resources, cosmic rays make the difference? The reason it's hard to resolve this question is that we have no controlled experiments comparing otherwise similar places with different sets of legal and economic institutions. In new research, James Feyrer and Bruce Sacerdote, both of Dartmouth College, consider the effect of a particular aspect of history—the length of European colonization—on the current standard of living of a group of 80 tiny, isolated islands that have not previously been used in cross-country comparisons. Their question: Are the islands that experienced European colonization for a longer period of time richer today?

The short answer's yes.

I'd like to hear Jared Diamond's take on it, but it sounds like an interesting study. I haven't read it, but if I have some time, maybe I will.

More: I've learned that Little Green Blogger Ariel Stern was the head research assistant on this paper. Congrats, Ariel!

Read about it here.

The shorter version is this:

Man #1: "If you make a little mistake with one of your ‘hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked."

Man #2: "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed."

Man #1: "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."

Just received a blitz from Palaeop advertising an open house. Very nice, no doubt, but then the blitz listed the 2006-2007 delegation in the following order:

The 2006-2007 Delegation
Timothy A. Andreadis, Jacob Crumbine, Kevin M. Garland, Adam L. Shpeen, Kevin C. Hudak, Michael J. Amico, Rehman A. Sheikh, Samuel L. Routhier, Shane K. Foster, William F. Stork, Wilson B. Handler, Alexandra V. Garrison, Elisa M. Donnelly, Kirsten N. Murray, Lorraine E. Buhannic, Marissa L. Spang, Michelle A. Davis, Soralee Ayvar, Yuki Kondo-Shah

Just one question:

Why are all the women listed last?

I'd like to encourage you all to go--6-7 pm Collis 101.

But I'd also like to say something about Michael Herman's op-ed today about the Task Force's recommendations.

My concerns and objections to the content of some of the measures introduced by the Task Force and to a lot of the general feeling about COS I have noted before, but I want to say something particularly addressing the way in which a few of the arguments are couched and about the origin of this Task Force in general.

The Task Force was initiated because of the results of a poll of students who expressed their discontent with COS. It was not convened because evidence was brought forth proving that students were being unfairly convicted or even on evidence that too many students were getting away with plagiarism or sexual abuse or anything else.

In other words, while the Task Force stands firmly behind the idea that proper lines of inquiry and proper standards of evidence are crucial to finding out the truth, the committee's origin is divorced from any kind of real evidence. The Task Force itself is a product of opinion and not fact—the opinion that COS needs to be reformed. I do not think we should be basing recommendations that, if accepted by the College, will change lives on opinion, no matter how widespread, or even the inductive reasoning that if our process does not somewhat mirror the American justice system, then it is unjust and incapable of establishing the truth in all cases.

At the risk of being misunderstood, my point is not that we should not be looking into changing COS, but that we need some more public information about it first, and that an SA poll stating that COS is unfair should not be the sole basis for the creation of a taskforce designed specifically to make recommendations about changing it. The Task Force's document has really nothing to say about the evidentiary truth or falsity of the idea that COS adjudicates unfairly—this is its starting point, a presupposition. I know that they talked to people on both sides of various COS cases and while I realize that revealing too much of those cases could be devastating to the parties involved, I feel that some actual evidence made available, and not just a structural analysis, is necessary before we decide whether or how COS is unfair.

I am not saying that COS is perfect; I am not disputing the possibility that students do get 'Hursted unfairly. I am certainly not asserting that COS catches all the plagiarists and sexual abusers on this campus. I am stating that I would like for the Task Force not to have jumped to recommendations, but to have used its power first to present some clear and convincing evidence to the Dartmouth community that the apparently widespread belief that students are being unfairly disciplined is objectively true.

My other point is that there is an excess of concern in this op-ed with Dartmouth's image—the closing line is "By providing its students with the fairest possible disciplinary system, Dartmouth would take a crucial step toward cementing its place as a leader in higher education."

Let me be blunt and say that, in this case, I don't give a damn whether Dartmouth is a leader in higher education. I want to make sure it's safe. If that means we're a leader, great. If that means we're a most unoriginal follower, fantastic. Being a leader in higher education isn't an argument. It's rhetoric. And I know that Michael Herman shares my overriding concern with safety here, and I do not mean to construe his words in a way that suggests differently. I'm just saying, let's drop this line of argument. It's unnecessary, irrelevant, and immaterial.

Similarly, I find the arguments comparing Dartmouth's system to other systems to be inherently self-selective and to overlook inevitably Dartmouth's differences from the environments of those systems. But they are also based on this concern with Dartmouth's image—the rhetoric says that the important thing is not whether COS works (an evaluation which would depend on evidence) but how well it compares with other systems.

It really doesn't matter if Stanford allows cross-examination; that is not the question. The question is whether it would work well for us. That's a conversation we can have internally, without resorting to comparisons to the American judicial system or to Stanford or Harvard or "our peers," but in communication with the experts on campus and with each other.

Unfortunately, the DFP website is not able to be updated at this time, so here [pdf] is the latest issue.

I urge you all to read our position on the Alumni Constitution and the developments that I believe could follow from this debacle.

Also please check out the Dartmouth Documents article on page 9, where you will find a letter from TJ Rodgers vehemently opposing coeducation in 1968 and a letter from Peter Robinson arguing against the Equal Rights Amendment in 1976. Nice guys, both of them.

Edit: The D has drawn my attention to a possible lack of clarity regarding our layout in the article Alumni Perspectives. We do not mean to imply that all proponents are tied to or support the Dartmouth Alumni for Common Sense (or all opponents tied to AlumniConstitution.org). The DFP is particularly sensitive to this type of thing as we have continuously been used without our permission or consent in advertising material opposing the constitution.

I've started reading this year's Nobel Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk's Snow. It is a highly engrossing, enormously provocative novel of real beauty. The set-up is audacious: a moderately well-known Turkish poet returns from a self-imposed exile in Germany to a desolate corner of Turkey, where he hopes both to marry his college crush and to investigate a rash of suicides of young women, many of whom have ties to political Islam. He is marooned there by a huge snowstorm, and then it sort of turns into a collaborative project between Bahman Ghobadi and David Lynch. It's fantastic.

I also ran across a really interesting article in Salon about the moral histories of some of the past recipients of the Nobel Prize for literature. While we all now know about Gunter Grass and the Waffen-SS, I was surprised to find out that so many other winners had very checkered pasts, including, I was shocked to find out, Pablo Neruda.

The most shameful (and least known) episode, however, concerns Neruda, a lifelong, unrepentant Stalinist. During his stint at the Chilean Embassy in Paris dealing with asylum applications from Spanish Civil War refugees, Neruda is said to have heavily favored those who shared his hard-line beliefs when it came to issuing visas. One wonders how many of the rejected perished in concentration camps or wound up as slave laborers under Nazi and Vichy rule. There's also the little matter of Neruda's aiding and abetting under diplomatic cover an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, an action he defended his entire life.

Knut Hamsun gave his Nobel medal to Goebbels, Luigi Pirandello joined the Fascists early on, Wole Soyinka refused to stage a play of Animal Farm as it was anti-Stalinist, Jacinto Benevente and novelist Camilo José Cela collaborated with Franco, and Mikhail Sholokov was a plagiarist and a Stalinist shill.

Of course, the committee does keep some people from receiving the prize for certain reasons—Celine and Pound's anti-Semitism was far too well-known to honor them, and Bertolt Brecht cuckolded one of the prize committee members, so you don't see any of their names on the list.

Steven Pinker recently reviewed George Lakoff's new book, What Freedom? a sort of follow-up to Don't Think of an Elephant. He torched it.

I'm not a big fan of Lakoff. I think he's often sloppy and slapdash. He's condescending and is closed to any ideas that he does not believe are both new and his own. Here is an example, from Pinker's review:

[Lakoff] claim[s] that conservatives think in terms of direct rather than systemic causation. Lakoff seems unaware that conservatives have been making exactly this accusation against progressives for centuries.

Laissez-faire economics, from Adam Smith to contemporary libertarians, is explicitly motivated by the systemic benefits of the market (remember the metaphor of "the hidden hand"?). Lakoff strikingly misunderstands his enemies here, repeatedly attributing to them the belief that capitalism is a system of moral reckoning, designed to reward the industrious with prosperity and to punish the indolent with poverty. In fact the theory behind free markets is that prices are a form of information about supply and demand that can be rapidly propagated through a huge decentralized network of buyers and sellers, giving rise to a distributed intelligence that allocates resources more efficiently than any central planner could hope to do. Whatever distribution of wealth results is an unplanned by-product, and in some conceptions, not appropriate for moralization one way or another. It is emphatically not, as Lakoff supposes (in a direct-causation mindset) a moral system for doling out just deserts.

Likewise, cultural conservatives, from Edward Burke to David Brooks, play up the systemic benefits of cultural traditions in bestowing unspoken standards of stability and decency on our social life. The "broken windows" theory of crime reduction is an obvious contemporary example. And both kinds of conservatives gleefully point to the direct remedies for social problems favored by progressives ("war on poverty" programs, strict emission limits to fix pollution, busing to negate educational inequality), and call attention to their unanticipated systemic consequences, such as perverse incentives and self-perpetuating bureaucratic fiefdoms.

None of this means that the conservative positions are unassailable. But it takes considerable ignorance, indeed chutzpa, for Lakoff to boast that only a progressive such as him can even understand the difference between systemic and direct causation.

Lakoff's line of thought here is, I have to admit, very similar to an article I wrote for the DFP on why conservatives self-select away from academia—they prefer the direct influence of management to the indirect influence of ideation. I probably should have done more thinking on that one, although my argument was more about personal preference than psychological or mental limitations on the Right. Anyway, I guess Lakoff is a good example of how not to write/think.

I want to make a few things much more clear about the arguments being presented in favor of the COS Task Force-'girls should have the balls to be grilled by the men they accuse' recommendations.

First of all, the argument that criminal trial-level standards of evidence and due process is unsound for the following, very simple reason:

COS hearings are not criminal trials and do not mete out criminal penalties.

The United States itself recognizes the need for different standards of evidence in the distinction between criminal and civil trials—if you can remember, OJ was acquitted in his criminal trial but was found guilty in the civil trial because the standard for proof was lower. COS hearings aren't equivalent to criminal trials; they aren't even equivalent to civil trials. They are part of the administration of a private institution, and both the standards for evidence and the available forms of discipline reflect that vast difference.

Secondly, while I believe an argument can be made (though I would not myself make it) that COS hearings do not provide enough rights and protection to the accused, that is not a sufficient condition, even if true, for the system to be replaced by state or local agents. The alcohol policy, intending as it does to at least limit underage drinking, is clearly magnitudes more ineffective than COS's handling of sexual assault cases, yet I don't hear anyone crying out that we should replace our alcohol abuse procedures with local or state intervention. While the Task Force did not make the recommendation to bring in state or local agents, some of the commenters in support of their recommendations did.

Thirdly, it is absurd and disgusting to me to talk only about how a sexual assault accusation affects only the life of the male student who is accused, as if sexual assault does not have the capacity to gravely and permanently damage the life of the actual victim. The panic any talk of sexual assault and especially the discipline thereof raises among many men on this campus and the inevitable wave of self-righteous tirades about their infringed rights tells a lot, I think.

A lot of these arguments proceed from the position that frivolous or malicious sexual assault accusations are a much more likely and much greater danger to the campus than the actual fact of sexual assault itself. That is incredible to me—these arguments ask us to believe that the number of cases of false accusations significantly outweighs the number of actual sexual assaults. Actually to be more precise, they ask us to believe that

(# of false accusations)*(damage of single false accusation) >> (# of actual sexual assaults)*(damage of single sexual assault)

I don't believe that, not even for a moment.

Edit: I realize that it may appear that the second and third points of this post refer to the actual recommendations of the Task Force. They do not. They refer to the whole discourse (on this blog and elsewhere) concerning the appropriateness of COS's policies regarding sexual assault. While the Task Force did not recommend the use of local or state law enforcement to investigate or discipline sexual abuse on campus, others have and I was responding to them. Additionally, my third point was not meant to refer to the Task Force's specific recommendations, but to the type of rhetoric that is often used (by others) to support changes in the way COS adjudicates sexual assault cases.

On Green Party write-in candidate for Pennsylvania Senate Carl Romanelli:
"Romanelli may want to rim my ass like three times a week, that doesn't make him better for me and it doesn't make his presence on the ballot better for me than a Casey victory."

Great interview.

Via IvyGate Blog

From Ivy Gate Blog

And to back up the characterization of Psi U—"extr[a]odinary douchebaggery. Psi U... embod[ies] every abhorrent stereotype you can conjure up about an Ivy League fraternity: elitist, WASPY, rich and preppy"—a poster purporting to be from Psi U complains about the guide:

"Well since every guy who's posted here is probably more dumb, lame, poor, and stupid to go to dartmouth and be in a respectable frat, and every girl who's posted here is a skanky dumb bitch, i'm going to say these evaluations AREN'T "right on" and tell you all to lick my balls."

So said Rill Wollins, a member of Student Assembly's Committee on Standards Task Force, yesterday, according to The D.

Let me put that in language that is a little bit clearer:

"So you women, who were raped or otherwise physically violated, traumatized, maybe threatened or coerced into keeping silent, you just better get some big ass balls if you want to do anything about it. That's right. You should grow some men's balls before you can think about defending your delicate woman's right not to be groped or fucked or stuff without your consent."

Therefore, a provision like the one introduced yesterday by this COS Task Force, that defendants of a sexual assault charge can directly question—without an intermediary—the plaintiff, well, that's no problem. After all, accusing a man of rape or sexual assault should be a test of your testicular fortitude, and so if you don't have that manly courage, I'm sorry, you can't even have your case heard. As the alleged victim, you're really the one on trial, aren't you.

From what I've heard, leaders of SA task forces can hand-pick the task force's members. Anybody see a problem with that?

Excellent reporting by The D, btw.

Study of divorce rates by religious affiliation turns out unexpectedly:

"Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significently higher than for other faith groups, and for Atheists and Agnostics."

Not only that, but "90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been 'saved.'"

Not stopping there, the "godless" Northeast is also the region of the country with the lowest divorce rate—19%, compared to the South and Midwest's 27% and the West's 26%.

So much for the "if Jesus loves you, your spouse will too" argument.

A-Rod trying to poop on a player doesn't help anything.

More: ESPN's 10 Greatest Moments for Yankee-Haters

E-confession: MySecret.tv

Online absolution for the soul on the go.

I think I prefer PostSecret which pretty much skips the Christian Guilt stuff and features some pretty awesome (if occasionally pruriently interesting) art.

Edit: Actually, I've been reading some of these and, without irony or snark, they are quite moving and deeply saddening. The concept somewhat offended me at first, but I have to say, maybe this helps people. I don't know.

"We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving."

More here

O my goodness. Zak Moore's op-ed today (Elitism, Not Intellectualism).

Mr. Moore, try this on for some ultraliberal elitism:

You really have no idea what you're talking about.

I mean, dude, you're not even working with stereotypes here. It goes beyond stereotypes; it's abstracted from reality in a way that even bad fiction can't muster.

I would say more, but my eyes are actually hurting from looking at your sentences.

Update: The divine Miss Hackney takes Mr. Moore to the woodshed more fully. And Mr. Moore's compatriot Jon Wisniewski outdoes his titanic efforts today. My favorite line from Wisniewski's piece: "And now we come full circle, to the copy of John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" that just jumped off my bookshelf and exploded in my face." God, I wish I hadn't wasted my snark yesterday on Moore—this one is so much better!

More: Quite differently, and you have no idea how much it pains me to say this, Nick Desai's article on the Alumni Constitution is pretty good. Others, of course, I'm not so keen on: 1, 2, and especially 3.

Intercepted this important memo and, in the spirit of friendliness, thought I'd help The Dartmouth Beacon out with their recruiting. If you'd like to write any of these articles, blitz James Throckmorton.

Pre-Cooked Brainstorming for Articles:

Culture

Animal Rights Vegetarians: Animals rights activists at Dartmouth recently set up a booth in Novack from which to proselytize their Gaian religion. “I used to be a human rights activist until I realized how many more animals in the world are suffering and how much more severely they are suffering than humans” explained to me one of the girls manning the booth. More than anything, this activism demonstrates a loss of moral bearing. The Extreme Left is too far entrenched in moral relativism to have a clear justification for its moral verdicts. Indeed, people are fundamentally moral in that they need to believe in right and wrong, and if this necessity is suppressed in its most natural places, it will manifest itself in absurd—even destructive—ways. [e.g. veganism--very destructive]

Depression: The general incidence of unipolar depressive episodes in the US for those born in 1910 is approximately 1.5% of the population. For those born in 1970, the figure is roughly 60%. The general incidence of bipolar disorder, on the other hand, has not changed significantly. This and controls on the experiment suggest that the increase in unipolar depression is not due to over-reporting. And as bipolar is much more tightly linked to genetics than unipolar depression, the increase in depression incidence suggests some changing aspect of American society is to blame.
Is there a conservative position on depression? Can one be made? Does the incredible increase in depression rates stem from changes in technology or family structure or societal values or something else?
Considering the large number of Dartmouth students who have experienced depression, this subject would be of particular interest to the student body.

Dartmouth Hook-Ups: What is hooking-up? [Only The Beacon could seriously ask this question.] Is it healthy? [ditto] What do we really want from the other sex and does hooking-up give it? [ditto] Who wins in this game? Is using the word “slut” outdated or bigoted, as our friends at the DFP would argue? [Answer: Yes.]

Temporarily Authentic- “authentic” stems from “authenticable,” and originally suggested something was genuine only if it could be measured against some objective standard. However, the commonplace definition has changed, reflecting America’s changing values; something is authentic precisely when there is no measure of it. “Be Yourself,” one might say. Don’t conform to anything, especially not an objective standard. And so someone is trustworthy when he eschews morals, etiquette, and other standards (this idea comes from an issue of Mars Hill Audio and should be used as a springboard for an article—not plagiarized).
A more Dartmouth pertinent article could not be written. [Really? I personally feel an article revealing The Beacon's discovery of "hooking-up" would indeed be more Dartmouth pertinent.]

Jack Kerouac- Who was he and how has current thinking been shaped by his ideas? Have even conservatives unwittingly adopted some of his propositions as their own? [Kerouac didn't have ideas. He had sentences. Plain ones.]

Culture Qua Culture- derived from the same root for “agriculture,” “culture” originally implied an understanding of the good. A well-cultured man was one who had mastered all those subjects society considered most valuable. His thinking had been carefully cultivated. But culture has since evolved to mean the norms of a group. And because there is no good towards which one can aspire save an ambiguous assimilation [there isn't? Damn!], culture has been stripped of any power to benefit society. An extreme multiculturalism develops from this. [Obvi]

Live and Let Die- Moral relativism produces in its adherents a callousness to the interests of others. “He can do what he wants and I will do what I want,” but do I care if he ultimately suffers or thrives? Am I my brother’s keeper? [Everyone take an Ingmar Bergman Moment to look at the sky dolefully.]

Domestic Politics

School Vouchers- Efficacious? Constitutional? Moral? Long-term or Short-term? Currently, parents of the lowest classes have very little choice but to send their children to what are usually failing public schools. Pushing for vouchers highlights conservative empathy while embossing the limousine liberal. [Embossing?]

Sarbanes Oxley- can subject matter as arcane as this be made Dartmouth palatable? [Not if you're writing it.]

Marijuana Legalization- can it be justified under conservative principles?
This subject could earn kudos for open-mindedness. [Or "brownie points." LOL]

The Republican Party- is it conservative? If so, to what extent and in what way? -this article could easily be completed in under 700 words. [WOW. 700 words? You just blew my mind.]


Foreign Policy

United Nations- Seriously? [Better article: The Beacon- Seriously?]


College

The Fall of Bradley- the shower towers were built under the assumption that human tastes had changed, and man could be socialized to love post-modern architecture. After some 30 ugly years, the towers will be falling, leaving in their place new, neo-classical buildings. These buildings stand as a monument to the staying-power of human nature. Aesthetics, the least of all things bourn of human nature, will not change. Human nature is real. [Natch.]


II) B-B-Cue

We will be having a social BBQ sometime in the next week so that new members of the Beacon can grow acquainted with the entrenched. [entrenched in what is my question] James Throckmorton will be planning this.

All emphases are mine. All ideas are theirs. Seriously.

OMG the accents:

Blood Diamond film trailer

Seriously, it's too bad; I can't watch the whole thing.

"Credit D-GALA":

Timothy Dreisbach '71's recent letter asserts, without any factual basis, that the recent upward trend in donor participation is somehow related to the election of petition trustees ("Petition Candidates and Alumni Participation," Sept. 28). This is mere speculation (if not wishful thinking).

In fact, a significant increase in alumni participation can be directly attributed to the hard work of the college's affiliated groups. D-GALA (Dartmouth's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Alumni/ae Association), for instance, has increased its participation rate from 26.7 percent in 2002 to 43.7 percent in 2006 -- 17 full percentage points --- through greater communication with alumni, regional events, and fundraising initiatives. (This year alone, contributions from D-GALA members funded scholarships for four students.) Likewise, the other affiliated groups have also increased their participation rates over the past few years through similar outreach. Petition candidates and trustees do not deserve credit for these achievements.

The affiliated groups are a valuable financial resource for the College, as these increased participation rates demonstrate. A "yes" vote on the proposed constitution will provide the affiliated groups with the representation they warrant and ensure that this upward trend continues into the future.

Having voting positions on the Alumni Council for affiliated groups is not 'being nice' or compensatory—they are a necessary part of a vigorously active alumni body. To take their votes away (they do have votes now under the current system, something most critics won't tell you) would be hamstringing the effort to increase alumni participation. That would simply be silly.

But it's okay because he means the actual monkey (this is exactly how the post appears—with the link):

I never had an especially high opinion of Santorum, who in his countenance and his speech always appeared to me to be Central Casting’s interpretation of Republican Politician from Pennsylvania. And this direct mail, which in its argumentation reads as though it were composed by a macaca, piece has sundered my thougts to new lows. Just read David’s tit-for-tat on some of the letter’s most ridiculous points.

Actually, and totally seriously, it's not okay. It's not in the least okay. The point is that the word is being used with the acknowledgment that it is a slur, even if it is based on another thing.

Here's an equivalent:

[Name of a person] writes like a fag.

See! I linked to a picture of a cigarette! I'm being cute! The explicit semantic meaning of my sentence is that so-and-so writes like a cigarette! (Even if the implicit meaning is, "Joe Malchow likes to use racial slurs and pretend they are innocent.")

Nope. Sorry, that doesn't work. Joe should apologize immediately. This is disgusting.

More: I am reminded of this even more disgusting post by Malchow:

John Derbyshire is exactly correct. If you are from an English-speaking nation, you speak English. If you speak English, you pronounce foreign words as standard English pronunciation would dictate. Therefore, the correct pronunciation of ‘latino’ is LAT-in-oh, not La-TEEN-oh. This issue was particularly irritating for me when I was in high school, and I would listen to WNYC (NPR in New York) every morning. The regional news, anchored by good speaker Soterios Johnson (who is from Jersey), features New York beat reporter Cindy Rodriguez. This girl, who grew up in Texas, should not be on the radio. She signed off every report saying, “For WNYC, I’m Cindy Rrrrod-RRRRigeZZ.” I instinctively stopped short whenever I heard that sign-off; thinking that a rabid raccoon- possibly possessed- had somehow entered my truck’s otherwise mild mannered Bose sound system. But no. It is Cindy Rodriguez, Texan. An English-speaker. Doing a report in English. In New York. About New York.

Except for that last clink of unfettered idiotry. Stop it, Cindy Rodriguez, or you shall be forced to change your last name to Smith.

UPDATE: Another bad one is ‘croissant’. I have five years of French training under my belt and can affect a very good French accent. But in America, one orders a cro-SANT.

[My emphases.]

Michael Belinsky:

The Pope's own speech contains perhaps the greatest insight into comparative politics: the intolerable quote he cites comes from a dialogue between a Byzantine and a Persian. The Byzantine made his argument in a reasoned, reasonable and scholarly dialogue. The Persian listened and rebutted. Notice the lack of violence and the tolerance of speech: and this, in the 14th century! How can dialogue about Holy War take place 800 years ago, but mere mention of it in today's enlightened, liberalized society ushers forth death and destruction? The answer, perhaps, is globalization.

And the scales fall from my eyes.

By the way, from now on, the answer to everything will always be "globalization."

Google's stock price? Globalization.

Global warming? Globalization.

Why did Ashlee Simpson get her nose fixed? Globalization.

Why am I writing this? Globalization.

Ran across this while reading some Philip Larkin last night. It may or may not have reminded me of current Dartmouth politics. I do not mean for this to be an explicit commentary, and I surely dissent from at least one interpretation of the last stanza, but well, hear you go.

'Since the majority of me'

Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forthwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do

We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways.
But silence too is eloquent:

A silence of minorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.

From The View from the Seven-and-a-Halfth Floor, run by a Dartmouth alum, a video about getting out the vote:

Evan Meyerson, today's D:

The one term utilized ad nauseam more than any other throughout freshman orientation at Dartmouth is "diversity." The College preaches "diversity" almost to a point of overcompensation while trying its darndest to use this diluted word as a grand sales pitch for prospective students. Lectures throughout orientation and beyond carry almost identical themes of growth and maturity through an acceptance and appreciation of differences. While the sheer quantity of activities centered on "diversity" may, in the long run, cheapen the term, it is difficult not to respect this attempt at encouraging a fully-tolerant student body. Yet as my third Yom Kippur in Hanover approaches, Dartmouth's heavily loaded emphasis on "diversity" seems nothing more than empty rhetoric...
According to Hillel, there are about 450 undergraduates at Dartmouth who identify as Jewish. This essentially means that approximately one out of nine freshmen who sat through endless sermons on Dartmouth's unequivocal embrace of "diversity" will experience no recognition of their own identity. Endorsement of programs like Project Preservation or even organizations like Hillel which support Jewish students on campus only carries so much weight once it is made clear that the most important annual event in the Jewish religion does not merit a day off.

Meyerson is in part correct when he says that the efforts to evangelize diversity to students cheapen the term, but unfortunately, he appears to be as much a victim of the cheapening of the term as he thinks he is of its inapplication.

The diversity taught here is diversity with a condom—diversity without consequences and without contact, covered, in fact, by a layer of "difference" that insulates us and obscures the reality of difference. We are led to think of diversity, ironically, as a uniform condition of mutual appreciation and tolerance. Diversity is not uniform—difference does not come in just one size or shape. Faithful religious observance is a difference that is fundamentally (no pun intended) distinct from, say, sex or nationality or income. Faithfully observing one's religion is a matter under one's control, which one can make choices about, and because of this, it should be administrated very differently from those elements of difference which are not controllable. However, I only want to address this diversity that is based on choice and affiliation. Diversity based on personally uncontrollable factors is very different and what I have to say next has no bearing on them.

The elective type of diversity is unfortunately often understood as a condition where all choices are equally appreciated and equally important and good and no one has to make a choice between two of those good and important things, where one is in fact prevented from making this type of choice because that might disrupt the uniformity and equality of their goodness. This ideal is in fact inimical to the actual nature of diversity, which depends on choice—the choices one has to make in the context of difference—one's own and that of others.

Meyerson complains directly that he will have to make such a choice—"Dartmouth is forcing Jewish students to choose between faith and scholastic success." My understanding of faith may be different from Meyerson's, but I am under the impression that living your faith actually consists in making these tough decisions, and that avoiding them is, in a sense, a dereliction of duty. But even more, Meyerson is asking very directly that the actual fact of diversity—the difference of fasting while in school—be obliterated, and done so in the name of diversity.

Religious observance is a choice, and sometimes a tough choice. That is exactly why religion contributes to diversity in a society. But homogenizing society's activities in order to make that choice less onerous does not in any way increase diversity. It continues its cheapening into a condition that avoids the consequences of its reality.

That said, I'm sure there is something the College can do to be more supportive of students who wish to fast, but without cancelling classes.

TJ Rodgers:

Maybe it's because we both come from working-class homes in Wisconsin, but I consider Jim Wright a friend.

Nice.

God damn, I'm sick of all this, but I do want to say how much this particular type of statement pisses me off.

Andrew Eastman writes in the D today: "Much has been written lately about a 'small cabal' of alumni and undergraduates creating the 'illusion' of discontent with the proposed alumni constitution... [but] It seems more likely that the undergraduate disapproval isn't an illusion, but a fact; the true illusion is that we all support this project."

That's ridiculous. Disapproval of the College is in no way, shape or form a necessary or sufficient condition for a belief that the constitution has some flaws, the force and weight of which are, I believe, an open question. These two elements—dissatisfaction with the College and disagreement with the Constitution—have no causal relationship whatsoever.

If you're an alumnus/a, you may by all means use your vote on this constitution as a referendum on Wright and the College's current trajectory, but it would be about the dumbest thing you could do with it. Vote on the damn document, not your beer-sodden memories. Those, Mr. Eastman, those hazy, halcyon recollections are your "true illusions," not widespread student dissatisfaction with the College.

A hilarious graphic novel "review" [pdf] of Michael Berube's book, What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts.

Basically, you're getting panels of a story about Maoist shepherdesses in a snowstorm, only with the narration replaced by a tale of hard-leftist TAs trying to maintain order in a class that appears to like Bush more than it should. Enjoy.

Slate gets it exactly right:

Zach Braff has said that his hit movie Garden State (2004) was "a big, life-affirming, state-of-the-union address for twentysomethings." I'm a twentysomething. His new feature, The Last Kiss, documents the mental anguish of a 29-year-old commitment-phobe. I'm at the age when commitment looms. If Braff maintains this pace, he'll be making facile observations about our voyage through life's milestones until he films an indie-rock-infused On Golden Pond. My only comfort is that one day, we'll both be dead. If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can't someone please crush his larynx?[...]

What has Braff's keen ear picked up about the nation's young people? If Garden State is to be believed, they spend their days squinting and staring wistfully while slowly learning that it's OK to feel and, like, live. When they do speak, yearbook quotes come out. For example: "Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place." In The Last Kiss, Braff furrows his brow solemnly and ponders a question that's paralyzed millions: Should I replace my incredibly hot girlfriend with an incredibly hot college student? This time, OC starlet Rachel Bilson gets the Ferris Bueller-esque pearl of wisdom: "The world is moving so fast now that we start freaking out way before our parents did because we don't ever stop to breathe anymore." Never has the voice of a generation had so little of substance to say[...]

Braff is, essentially, an aggregator. His soundtracks are lists of his favorite songs. Garden State was a list of funny anecdotes and off-kilter objects rather than a cohesive story. He might not have anything original to say, but Braff does offer this insight on our generation: We are inclined to mistake stuff for substance.

Full disclosure: I own a copy of Garden State. I am a devoted fan of Miss Portman's. Nothing more.

Also, this trailer mash-up of Garden State is extremely good.

Via the Leiter group blog, out of the WaPo archives, the best commentary on the use of torture I have yet seen. Excerpts follow:

This is a new debate for Americans, but there is no need for you to reinvent the wheel. Most nations can provide you with volumes on the subject. Indeed, with the exception of the Black Death, torture is the oldest scourge on our planet (hence there are so many conventions against it). Every Russian czar after Peter the Great solemnly abolished torture upon being enthroned, and every time his successor had to abolish it all over again. These czars were hardly bleeding-heart liberals, but long experience in the use of these "interrogation" practices in Russia had taught them that once condoned, torture will destroy their security apparatus. They understood that torture is the professional disease of any investigative machinery.

Apart from sheer frustration and other adrenaline-related emotions, investigators and detectives in hot pursuit have enormous temptation to use force to break the will of their prey because they believe that, metaphorically speaking, they have a "ticking bomb" case on their hands. But, much as a good hunter trains his hounds to bring the game to him rather than eating it, a good ruler has to restrain his henchmen from devouring the prey lest he be left empty-handed. Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph Stalin's notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of solving the simplest of crimes. And once the NKVD went into high gear, not even Stalin could stop it at will. He finally succeeded only by turning the fury of the NKVD against itself; he ordered his chief NKVD henchman, Nikolai Yezhov (Beria's predecessor), to be arrested together with his closest aides. [...]

Even talking about the possibility of using CID treatment sends wrong signals and encourages base instincts in those who should be consistently delivered from temptation by their superiors. As someone who has been on the receiving end of the "treatment" under discussion, let me tell you that trying to make a distinction between torture and CID techniques is ridiculous. Long gone are the days when a torturer needed the nasty-looking tools displayed in the Tower of London. A simple prison bed is deadly if you remove the mattress and force a prisoner to sleep on the iron frame night after night after night. Or how about the "Chekist's handshake" so widely practiced under Stalin -- a firm squeeze of the victim's palm with a simple pencil inserted between his fingers? Very convenient, very simple. And how would you define leaving 2,000 inmates of a labor camp without dental service for months on end? Is it CID not to treat an excruciatingly painful toothache, or is it torture?

Now it appears that sleep deprivation is "only" CID and used on Guantanamo Bay captives. Well, congratulations, comrades! It was exactly this method that the NKVD used to produce those spectacular confessions in Stalin's "show trials" of the 1930s. The henchmen called it "conveyer," when a prisoner was interrogated nonstop for a week or 10 days without a wink of sleep. At the end, the victim would sign any confession without even understanding what he had signed.

I know from my own experience that interrogation is an intensely personal confrontation, a duel of wills. It is not about revealing some secrets or making confessions, it is about self-respect and human dignity. If I break, I will not be able to look into a mirror. But if I don't, my interrogator will suffer equally. Just try to control your emotions in the heat of that battle. This is precisely why torture occurs even when it is explicitly forbidden. Now, who is going to guarantee that even the most exact definition of CID is observed under such circumstances? [...]

If America's leaders want to hunt terrorists while transforming dictatorships into democracies, they must recognize that torture, which includes CID, has historically been an instrument of oppression -- not an instrument of investigation or of intelligence gathering. No country needs to invent how to "legalize" torture; the problem is rather how to stop it from happening. If it isn't stopped, torture will destroy your nation's important strategy to develop democracy in the Middle East. And if you cynically outsource torture to contractors and foreign agents, how can you possibly be surprised if an 18-year-old in the Middle East casts a jaundiced eye toward your reform efforts there?

This was written by "Vladimir Bukovsky, who spent nearly 12 years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals for nonviolent human rights activities, is the author of several books, including "To Build a Castle" and "Judgment in Moscow." Now 63, he has lived primarily in Cambridge, England, since 1976."

Riffing off Tim Dreisbach's letter "A Battle for the Soul of Dartmouth," I wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in the D today.

My basic point is that I still believe that there are ways in which the constitution could be improved to energize alumni (individually, and not collectively) and to create a trustee election process that does not produce a framework for discussions of Dartmouth's present and future that is relentlessly antagonistic, in the sense that one side must be defeated and its suggestions and criticisms rejected in order for Dartmouth to move forward in a coherent direction.

However, the draft is legitimately an improvement on the current system; alumni will have many more opportunities to join in alumni governance and to elect many more people to significant positions. The choice before alumni is if this progress is enough, or whether it is important to hold out for something more.

What that "more" should be is, therefore, an incredibly important question, and one I'm not prepared to answer at this time, but hopefully will have some suggestions soon.

An excellent solution toward defusing the papal brouhaha surrounding his comments on Islam, offered by a son of Gaddafi:

The pope should convert to Islam.

First of all, try to go to the Alumni Constitution Panel tomorrow @ 7pm in Rocky 2. Four members of the AGTF will be there answering questions. Okay, plugging event—check. Fantastic.

I keep saving the posts I run across about the Constitution and then try to read them all at once, so I'll just go reverse-chronologically. Important things I'm putting in bold.

Sept. 18: An apparently "humanoid" (?) blogger from the New England area weighs in on the controversy:

In an era in which the tenured radicals and anti-traditionalists use their colleges and universities as laboratories for social engineering and experimentation [Just a second, I have this mental image of Professor Brenda Silver in a white lab coat, moving people around in her classroom, and it's hilarious. Okay, back to the screed], many alumni tend to feel dismayed, but helpless... It's not just about setting an example for other higher education institutions - it's about setting examples for all levels of education. The teacher's colleges take their cues from the Ivies. The entire anti-traditionalist, political-correctness dhimmitude, dumbing-down, feel-good, social-engineering movement in primary school has been inspired by what the big guys do and say, and not just by their own socio-political agendas. One sobering example from a teacher patient of mine (a fellow who uses the subjunctive properly), who told me on Friday that the public schools in MA no longer teach grammar. It's too difficult for the kids, and it's elitist!

Yes, were the constitution voted down, the subjunctive will have been saved (and the future perfect no doubt too!). This person clearly doesn't deserve a keyboard. Dhimmitude? C'mon! If there's a reson to vote against the constitution, it certainly isn't a far right blogger buzzword.

Also, Roger Simon is a Dartmouth alum too? God help us.

Sept. 12: Malchow blogs about the efforts of the Alumni Council to encourage alums to vote for the constitution. Unfortunately, I don't feel that either of Joe's two complaints—that "representatives" shouldn't also advise their constituents how to vote, and that mass messaging of alums by the Alumni Council is somehow wrong—hold much water. Representatives do make statements about how to vote—just check out our petition trustees actions over the past few months. And what's wrong with mass messaging? That's not only standard, but necessary in large campaigns. Dartmouth has a huge alum base. This is a large campaign, on both sides.

In fact, as I was saying, emailing a lot of people the same basic information is so standard, Joe himself advocates it. I got a blitz from him that ran like this:

This e-mail is going out to just a few dozen folks who have the
ability to reach alumni. Attached, a number of documents and arguments
against this proposed constitution. We need to play the ground game,
now. Use all of the attached information however you'd like, but
please do use it, spread it, and get the word out there to VOTE NO on
the proposed constitution.

People trust e-mails and phone calls from their friends the most --
not messages from anonymous groups or robotic autodailers. So anything
you can do would be excellent!

Maybe Joe feels that sending a single email to a dozen or so people who are supposed to blitz/call all their friends, rather than to a whole bunch of alumni councilors who are supposed to contact their constituents, is somehow more ethical. Beats me how he figures that one, though. Oh, and I think it's relevant to mention that this missive contained no fewer than 9 attachments that are supposed to help convince my friends.

An open note to Joe and whoever else is out there: I may oppose the Constitution, but I'm not in your camp. I won't work for you, and I don't want to. Thanks.

Sept. 8: "Who are 'Dartmouth Alumni for Common Sense'?" Joe presents this letter. This actually gets close to the core of some of the things I don't like about the attitude and handling of alumni by those who are organizing and defending the constitution.

A) It is wrong, I think, to ask people to support the chosen (as opposed to petitioner) Trustee candidates just because they are chosen by the Nominating Committee, which is essentially what the AfCS are asking ("to support Dartmouth Trustee nominees selected by the proposed new Alumni Assembly – in opposition to likely petition candidates -- in forthcoming Alumni Trustee elections in 2007 and beyond.") I cannot say that I am certain that in every case, I will feel that the chosen candidate is superior to the petitioner(s). I hope that one day, someone will decide to run who is, perhaps, too radical for the nominating committee—someone who wants to shake things up, but to the left. I may well vote for such a person.

B) The issue is not whether or not this constitution improves the ease and, more importantly, the breadth of alumni involvement in governance. I think it will. The issue is whether it could do more. I think it can; I think it has a long way to go toward truly making alumni involvement rewarding to the College in ways other than writing checks. I don't see the point of voting for an imperfect constitution—one that we'll have to—or should have to—alter in the future, and go through the gauntlet of cranky old men again.

C) This sentence: "[O]pponents of the new Constitution are making false claims and sowing dissension where there should be none." I believe in dissension, or at least dissent, very strongly. On something so important as this Constitution, I am afraid of the attitude that there should be no dissension among our collegiate community. There should be dissension, as long as it is not trivial or manufactured. I think Malchow and PowerLine especially have verged on the manufactured end all too often, but the dissension is not trivial.

D) "They claim the new Constitution is anti-democratic – and then demand that affiliated groups should not have a role in electing members of the Alumni Assembly. They claim that new rules that ease petition candidates’ access to the Alumni Trustee Ballot will somehow, perversely, produce anti-democratic results." First sentence: my opinion on affiliated groups is very different from that of the constitution foes, but I do have the opinion that certain measures in the constitution (the leadership arc for one) pull us away or distance us from the directness that I believe democracy is supposed to entail.

Second sentence: I've wanted to talk about this for some time. Someone pointed out to me that the argument that petitioners run as a reaction to the specific candidate or slate of candidates chosen is a non-starter. The petitioners normally run more in opposition to the status quo, and not against anyone in particular. The person I spoke with believed that this meant it was not as important that petitioners be able to file after the slate has been selected, but I don't believe that's true. What is important here, what is at stake here, is whether trustee races should be about finding candidates with careers and accomplishments we admire or about finding trustees whose ideas and issues we can get behind. As long as trustee races are about the person, in other words, and not the issues, petitioners have no need to file after the slate is set. They are running as people primarily, and not as a standard-bearer, and do not need to know how the chosen candidates address the same issues they want to address. However, if the point is to find trustees who have a similar vision for Dartmouth, it is important to know what the chosen candidates' visions are. If an option is needed, it can be provided, if not, then no one petitions.

Okay, that's it for tonight. Classes tomorrow.

Malchow observes a table in Baker/Berry featuring "Banned Books" and makes a ridiculously snide comment that "[t]he kind of books faught [sic] for when they are attack [sic], and the lessons of that attack remembered long after" were absent from the display, an opinion he arrived at apparently from the singular omission of The Satanic Verses from the display.

Now, he doesn't stop at just flinging mud on our librarians' taste in censored literature. He also, in his title—"Chill, Observerd"—refers back to some accusations that he has made in regards to the voxinclamantis.org/Spalding clash, mostly to the effect that there is a chilling effect on any opinions that differ from the panoply of liberal orthodoxies to which we are apparently being subjected.

I would say something witty and piquant here, but "what the fuck" will probably suffice.

Wonder what they'll all say about Tim's speech and the thunderous standing ovation he received?

Also of note: I love how Juan Carlos Navarro quoted Jesus Christ (Luke 12:48 'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required' or however Mr. Navarro phrased it), and attributed it to JFK.

Jesus H. Christ, John F. Kennedy—pretty much the same person.

Update: Hey, if you weren't there to see/hear it, here is Tim's speech.

Malchow also highlighted this, but be sure to check out the Manye Foundation, organized by recent Dartmouth alum Ben Schwartz. It's a really good cause (Ghanaian education), and he could use some help for the building of a schoolhouse in Kpone Barrier.

The website is here, and voting started yesterday, but I would ask that if you are not completely sure which way you will vote, that you take your time and not vote right now. Voting lasts until the end of October, and I'm guessing that, as tense as things are right now, there will probably be some events during this block of time which could make you wish you voted differently.

Additionally, I'm working on, but am waiting to publish, my argument about the Constitution. While I do not expect it to do very much, I think it may offer a very different perspective on the whole thing which is missing from the discourse.

Ultimately, I'd like to ask anyone who has a vote not to use it in a knee-jerk manner, but at least to familiarize yourself carefully with the arguments that have been presented and the history of alumni involvement at Dartmouth. Unfortunately, this constitution business, which should be a pretty simple matter, does potentially have rather large ramifications, and it is important to get this right.

Kazakhstan pissed about new Sasha Baron-Cohen film, plans PR blitz to counter.

The reviews from the Toronto Film Festival say that Borat is one of the best comedies in recent years. 'Genius' was a word I've read a few times.

How do you poison something noxious to begin with? I don't know, but Jeffrey Hart does.

My only question is, how do the other Reviewers feel about this? Especially those working for the current administration? Oh, the betrayal!

Anyway, here's some fun bits from Hart's piece:

Never before has a United States president consistently adhered to beliefs so disconnected from actuality. [...]

If this amounts to a worldview, it’s certainly not that of Burke. Indeed, Bush would probably be more at home among the revolutionary French, provided his taxes remained low, than among Burke’s Rockingham Whigs. (Burke would of course deny Bush admission to the Whigs in the first place, as Bush would be seen as an ideological comrade of the philosophes —if a singularly unreflective one. [Sure, like Voltaire would have had any more patience with him])[...]

The United States has seen political swings and produced its share of extremists, but its political character, whether liberals or conservatives have been in charge, has always remained fundamentally Burkean [I distinctly disagree. A nation so conceived and so dedicated as ours to the principle of its own superiority is going to be fundamentally radical]... At this dangerous point in history, we must depend on the decisions of an astonishingly feckless chief executive: an empty vessel filled with equal parts Rove and Rousseau. [In the latter's defense, I would like to say that No Child Left Behind is a singularly un-Rousseauvian program.]

Successful government by either Democrats or Republicans has always been, above all, realistic. FDR, Eisenhower, and Reagan were all reelected by landslides and rank as great presidents who responded to the world as it is, not the world as they would have it [Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua--those were responses to the world as it was, and not as we would have it, eh? Not to mention the fact that FDR and Reagan's popularity depended much more on the idealism they instilled in the country than the logic of their decisions. But I demur to the power of Professor Hart's rhetoric]. But ideological government deserves rejection, whatever its party affiliation. This November, the Republicans stand to face a tsunami of rejection. They’ve earned it.

Oooooo.

I recall some speech Hart gave lauding Michael Ellis for working with Rove. Oh yeah, here.

Try 3:17-~4:00 in. Where's all that vitriol then, Professor?

Slavoj Zizek writes for The Guardian about the two 9/11 films, United 93 and World Trade Center.

All we see are the disastrous effects, with their cause so abstract that, in the case of WTC, one can easily imagine exactly the same film in which the twin towers would have collapsed as the result of an earthquake. What if the same film took place in a bombed high-rise building in Beirut? That's the point: it cannot take place there. Such a film would have been dismissed as "subtle pro-Hizbullah terrorist propaganda". The result is that the political message of the two films resides in their abstention from delivering a direct political message. It is the message of an implicit trust in one's government: when under attack, one just has to do one's duty.

And, totally off-topic, but does anyone know where I can park this term?

Chuck Klosterman offers an intriguing suggestion for how to finally win (or at least not feel bad about not winning) international tournaments:

Use those players who are now forced into college for a year (you can't jump straight to the NBA from high school now) to assemble a cohesive, disciplined team whose only worry is to succeed in international tournaments so they can get the recognition they would otherwise be getting in college while they're busy not being students.

I do kind of like this idea, especially Klosterman's idea that these kids could just go around the country—or the world—barnstorming. I would hope that it would encourage people to see how little basketball (or other sports) actually has to do with college or the academy—it's a public relations machine, grafted onto the student body.

This morning I found an open letter from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the front page of Facebook when I opened the site. It addressed the news feed feature, which debuted a few days ago. The feature seemed to be massively unpopular—I know because its architecture allowed me to see that many of my friends immediately joined anti-news feed groups. My sister, who has a high school facebook, was sort of terrified by it. But why?

I think it's a little hypocritical to complain about Facebook getting creepy all of a sudden. It's only doing for us what we try to do on our own—check to see who's commenting on who's wall, who has mutual friends with you, etc. Some people use it more innocently (which simply means less), and others use it almost exclusively to spy on the social game. We stalk and we stalk, and then Facebook adapts to our desires/habits, and we freak out.

But there are four things that make it threatening, I suppose.
1) Inescapability. This fear is also hypocritical, though because all information on Facebook is, by nature something you wish to be known. If you change your "Looking For" section, you want people to know about it—maybe not everyone, but you do mean for others to find out.
2) Centrality. What does it mean not to have to work so hard to spy on your friends, but to have it right there for you complete and entire? I think that part of the outcry against the "new" facebook is a bit of disappointment that the chase is now pointless. You no longer can "discover" that your crush is now looking to date, or whatever. It's just reported to you, and that's not fun.
3) Immediacy. I suppose it is a little worrying to know that as soon as you change something on your profile, people will know. But I'm not sure why. Again, the possibility of this happening has merely turned into a quasi-certainty. Not sure if that's worth fretting about.
4) Third party knowledge--the idea that Facebook is intercepting what are essentially communications between you and your friends. Again, this is pretty silly. Of course Facebook knows what you're doing. It always has. And of course, it really doesn't care. It is extremely unlikely that the site maintainers spend much time spying on you. It feels like this information is being taken from you by force, but of course it isn't. If you break up with someone and do it on Facebook, you're volunteering the information to any interested party. Now you're just volunteering it to non-interested parties as well. Facebook's knowledge has nothing to do with it.

Zuckerberg and the other Facebook staff have now created a way to set which "stories" get picked up by the news feed. I suppose this is all well and good—I'll probably make use of it, but like the rest of Facebook, it's more of an act than actual substance. People's habits were changed by the new Facebook, not their privacy, and I think that's what upset them.

The new Dylan album is beyond words. I like Dylan, occasionally I really like Dylan, but I haven't really bothered with any of his recent records. Modern Times is worth the bother. It's fucking fantastic.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is, besides a great band name, one of the best blog-hyped bands I've run into so far. If you've been burned by Tapes 'N Tapes and other bands that get blown out of proportion by Stereogum and the like, well, join the club, but SSLYBY is the real deal.

Snowden and Slowlands are also very good, though they've been blogged about less. The new Roots album is also very good. I heard a story that Jay-Z came into a recording session and demanded some of that "artsy shit" that The Roots are so good at and not any "ClearChannel songs." The Roots delivered.

I'm From Barcelona got a really good review from Pitchfork, which can sometimes be a death sentence in the indie community, but the praise is well-deserved. Barcelona writes incredible pop songs that capture the same "I'm so precocious" spirit also found in Boy Least Likely To, but combines it with a kitchen-sink, gang-sing type aesthetic that's sort of reminiscent of Architecture in Helsinki.

Aloha's Some Echoes, however, is probably my favorite album of the year so far. It came out a few months ago, perhaps, but I'm still listening to it regularly.

Finally, the upcoming Decemberists' album, The Crane Wife, is a masterpiece. It is musically so smooth, so rich (without being lush), that it overwhelms the lyrics. That's hard to do if your lyricist is Colin Meloy. I listened to this album in awe.

I'm reading a book by intellectual historian Martin Jay, Songs of Experience, and am very impressed by the breadth of his knowledge and the graceful way he synthesizes an enormous amount of material into a coherent and compelling narrative. So I started browsing around the internet for some other things he might have written.

I stumbled across this review he wrote awhile back for the London Review of Books. The review is of David Simpson's 2002 book Situatedness: Or, Why We Keep Saying Where We're Coming From. Simpson's subject is the intellectual trend of insisting on "speaking azza"—speaking as a white Midwestern male, or as a black lesbian poet (I was reading Audre Lorde today—great stuff). This is a subject I'm really interested in and, honestly, one of the most perplexing problems in liberal intellectual circles today. I believe there are many who, like me, find something not quite right in focusing quite so much on situatedness and who worry that in all this speaking azza, we might be talking right past one another. Yet there is a certain necessary logic—as much moral as epistemological—to always prefacing one's remarks with an invocation to the muse of situatedness. I suppose one could think of it as humility, but then one could also see it as a perfunctory procedure to forestall too much criticism or debate. I tend to think it's the latter.

Anyway, it's a good review, and gives a little etude in the history of the problem, which I think is both helpful and interesting.

And here's another review of a book I'm meaning to read. If you're into Zizek, you'll probably find this very interesting. If not, well, you'll probably be better off reading something else.

From the report "Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Practices Restrict College Opportunities":

From 1999 to 2003, private colleges increased the average aid to students from families making less than $20,000 per year from $4,027 to $5,240, an increase of $1,213, or 30%.

During the same time period, private colleges increased the average aid to students from families making more than $100,000 per year from $3,321 to $4,806, an increase of $1,485, or 45%.

This is on top of even larger disparities in earlier years. Over the last decade, both public and private institutions have devoted a hugely disproportionate share of new scholarships to the most privileged students. The whole principle of awarding financial aid according to financial need appears to be rapidly disappearing from our colleges and universities.

(Via)

Metafilter really is one of the greatest sites on the Internets, but in case you don't read it (or don't have it plugged into a blog aggregator), you may have missed this.

You shouldn't have.

It's a post about "an insanely funny BBC parody of 1970's educational programs filled with pure nonsensical lies clothed as facts & pitch perfect mimicry of the style of governmental approved childrens education television."

The opening 8-10 minutes of many episodes can be found here.

The trailer for a new documentary, I give you:

Jesus Camp