"He felt he was preparing them for the future; they might need such verses later in life. His own biography provided a stirring example of the virtues of mental husbandry. He’d been grateful for every scrap of poetry he had in his head during his enforced exile in the Arctic, banished there by a Soviet government that did not know what to do with his genius and that, in a symbolic embrace of a national policy of brain drain, expelled him from the country in 1972."
From "Why We Should Memorize," by Brad Leithauser.
(In 1972, Brodsky became the poet in residence at the University of Michigan. I was a student there at the time and remember a grand assembly with Brodsky received as a great hero.)
Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
The new Gender Inclusive Living Experience at the University of Michigan.
Gender-neutral rooms for transgender and gender non-conforming students.
The University wasn't prepared to go as far as some advocates of gender neutrality wanted, which would be to allow "men and women of any sexual orientation to chose roommates of the opposite gender."
The University wasn't prepared to go as far as some advocates of gender neutrality wanted, which would be to allow "men and women of any sexual orientation to chose roommates of the opposite gender."
"We weren't prepared to go that far, yet," said [Peter Logan, communications director for housing], explaining that the GILE program "felt like a comfortable step in that right direction of at least making some accommodation" for students with non-traditional gender identity.But if you're a traditional gender identity person and you want to live with an opposite sex traditional gender identity person, you'll have to sneak around, which is what we did back in 1969, when I went to the University of Michigan, and lived in East Quad, which is where they're installing the innovative GILE program. East Quad was the hotbed of innovation in my day too. It was fully infested with hippies, descended upon Ann Arbor to partake of alternative education at the Residential College.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
"The passage of right-to-work legislation in the state House and Senate may have Lansing in turmoil..."
"... but residents of Ann Arbor learned yesterday of a more immediate concern."
Here's TV's Guy Fieri visiting Krazy Jim's in 2009:
Check out the part where they grind up the meat and then make it into meatballs with an ice cream scoop. That's exactly the way it was done back in 1972. The customers say what they want in terms of the number of meatballs — e.g., a "quad" — and then the meatballs are thrown on the grill, and when they start to soften, they are slapped flat with a spatula, making a patty. I think we slapped them flatter back in 1972, and we didn't make such a messy pile of things then. You used your hands to pick up onions and pickles and so forth to top the meat, but not quite so messily. I remember a girl who didn't care enough getting fired. It was funky, but it held together.
Good luck to all. I'm glad Patricia got her money. And I'm sorry Jim is gone. I understand the "Save Blimpy Burger" ethos: "nearly 60 years on South Division Street."
My mother grew up on South Division Street — about a block south of Blimpy's. My grandparents still lived there when Blimpy's opened in the 1950s. I don't know if they ever ate there, but I like to think they did.
Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger, a staple for U of M students and townies alike, is looking for a new home...I was a University of Michigan student from fall 1969 to spring 1973, and in my last summer as a student, I worked at Krazy Jim's — with the original Jim. (I worked with Ruby. Remember Ruby?)Owner Rich Magner said a deal between the University of Michigan and the property’s owner, Patricia Shafer, means he will have to close Blimpy Burger in summer 2013. He wants to find a new location for the restaurant.Magner said the University made Shafer an offer "she couldn't refuse."
Shafer is the widow of Blimpy Burger's original founder, Jim Shafer....
Here's TV's Guy Fieri visiting Krazy Jim's in 2009:
Check out the part where they grind up the meat and then make it into meatballs with an ice cream scoop. That's exactly the way it was done back in 1972. The customers say what they want in terms of the number of meatballs — e.g., a "quad" — and then the meatballs are thrown on the grill, and when they start to soften, they are slapped flat with a spatula, making a patty. I think we slapped them flatter back in 1972, and we didn't make such a messy pile of things then. You used your hands to pick up onions and pickles and so forth to top the meat, but not quite so messily. I remember a girl who didn't care enough getting fired. It was funky, but it held together.
Good luck to all. I'm glad Patricia got her money. And I'm sorry Jim is gone. I understand the "Save Blimpy Burger" ethos: "nearly 60 years on South Division Street."
My mother grew up on South Division Street — about a block south of Blimpy's. My grandparents still lived there when Blimpy's opened in the 1950s. I don't know if they ever ate there, but I like to think they did.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
"Michigan’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions was declared unconstitutional Thursday..."
"... by a deeply divided federal appeals court, six years after state voters said race could not be an issue in choosing students."
In an 8-7 decision, the court said the 2006 amendment to the Michigan Constitution is illegal because it presents an extraordinary burden to opponents who would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign through the ballot box to protect affirmative action....
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
"Depression-era green was the enduring color scheme."
Remembering Drake's Sandwich Shops.
Through the Great Depression, World War II, the Baby Boom, the Beatles, Vietnam, Watergate, disco, and Reagan, Drake's sold chocolate cordials, orange marmalade sandwiches, pecan rolls, and limeade (fresh-squeezed, with the rind in the glass) to three generations of University of Michigan students....I know I did. I'm no longer married to my old Michigan classmate, but we loved the limeade, and now I'm with l.meade.
When the Michigan Alumnus solicited memories of Drake's from readers, a surprising number said they had dated their future spouses there.
Monday, March 12, 2012
"I don't think anything can prepare you to hear your own name referenced by a Supreme Court justice as if you are just a policy on paper."
"If I remember correctly, 'Gratz' was referenced in the very first question asked that day. Each time they mentioned my name, I wanted to jump out of my seat and say, 'I'm sitting right here. I'm a real person.'"
Writes Jennifer Gratz, who was the plaintiff in the 2003 Supreme Court case challenging the affirmative action admissions policy at the University of Michigan. (She won. There was a second case, dealing with a more subtle/nuanced approach to affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School. The plaintiff in that case, Barbara Grutter, lost.)
Gratz is writing now because the Supreme Court just granted certiorari in a case challenging the affirmative action policy at the University of Texas. She (or her ghostwriter) writes:
It seems to me that the additional information Gratz presents is a reason to leave the constitutional law the way it is. The issue is being worked out in the political arena, the place where Gratz herself has been an effective participant. You can still say, as Gratz has always said, that the Supreme Court ought to perceive a right to be free of racial discrimination in admissions, that classroom diversity isn't the kind of compelling interest that can justify taking race into account as a university assembles a student body.
But right now, we have states free to use affirmative action (if they do it in a sufficiently subtle manner) and free to reject it. That many states have chosen to reject it exhibits our system of federalism at work. It doesn't bolster the argument that there is a right to be free of it! To say that, you'd have to assert that the political popularity of a policy somehow grows or hardens into constitutional requirement. But constitutional rights are what we need to protect us from the depredations of political majorities.
By the way, it's interesting that Gratz used the phrase "critical mass": "A critical mass, 27% of the population, now resides in states where race preferences have been banned by voters." "Critical mass" was a key phrase in Grutter. The law school explained its interest in classroom diversity in terms of the need to gain a "critical mass" of students who were members of "underrepresented" minority groups. The term was "understood to mean a number that encourages underrepresented minority students to participate in the classroom and not feel isolated... or like spokespersons for their race." One expert had testified that "when a critical mass of underrepresented minority students is present, racial stereotypes lose their force because nonminority students learn there is no '"minority viewpoint"' but rather a variety of viewpoints among minority students."
Interestingly, the "critical mass" that the law school sought had to do with the value of different viewpoints, not the idea that if enough people thinkone thing then a point will be reached when everyone will tip into thinking the same thing. With the law school's notion of critical mass in mind, let's look again at the new information Gratz offers: "A critical mass, 27% of the population, now resides in states where race preferences have been banned by voters." That's good diversity. Good federalism. If the Supreme Court were to identify a constitutional right, it would require 100% of the states to adopt the same policy. It would be anti-diversity, anti-federalism, a choice for uniformity.
We're back to the question of what rights are, not what majorities want. If there really is a right here, then uniformity is the answer. The arguments about whether there is a right, however, remain the same. They are not bolstered by the waning political popularity of affirmative action.
Writes Jennifer Gratz, who was the plaintiff in the 2003 Supreme Court case challenging the affirmative action admissions policy at the University of Michigan. (She won. There was a second case, dealing with a more subtle/nuanced approach to affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School. The plaintiff in that case, Barbara Grutter, lost.)
Gratz is writing now because the Supreme Court just granted certiorari in a case challenging the affirmative action policy at the University of Texas. She (or her ghostwriter) writes:
Before the court hears arguments in [Abigail] Fisher’s case, I hope the justices notice that a lot has happened since Gratz and Grutter were decided.Which way does that cut? The Supreme Court only said that affirmative action, done subtly, is constitutionally permissible. It doesn't say that it is required! If the people of a state don't like the policy, they are free to outlaw it as a matter of state law, as many states have done. Why would information about states opting out of a permissible policy provide the Supreme Court with additional reason why the policy should be seen as violating the U.S. Constitution? By permitting it but not requiring it, the Supreme Court leaves the policymaking to the states.
Immediately following the Michigan decisions, I uprooted my life, resigned from a great job in the software industry and started the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a statewide ballot initiative that asked Michigan voters to decide if race preferences should continue at the University of Michigan. Overwhelmingly, Michiganders voted to neuter O’Connor’s ruling in the Grutter case, making state-sponsored discrimination unconstitutional in the Wolverine state.
Arizona, Nebraska and New Hampshire followed Michigan’s lead and Oklahoma is poised to ban race preferences this November. A critical mass, 27% of the population, now resides in states where race preferences have been banned by voters. California, Washington and Florida banned race preferences prior to the Michigan decisions.
It seems to me that the additional information Gratz presents is a reason to leave the constitutional law the way it is. The issue is being worked out in the political arena, the place where Gratz herself has been an effective participant. You can still say, as Gratz has always said, that the Supreme Court ought to perceive a right to be free of racial discrimination in admissions, that classroom diversity isn't the kind of compelling interest that can justify taking race into account as a university assembles a student body.
But right now, we have states free to use affirmative action (if they do it in a sufficiently subtle manner) and free to reject it. That many states have chosen to reject it exhibits our system of federalism at work. It doesn't bolster the argument that there is a right to be free of it! To say that, you'd have to assert that the political popularity of a policy somehow grows or hardens into constitutional requirement. But constitutional rights are what we need to protect us from the depredations of political majorities.
By the way, it's interesting that Gratz used the phrase "critical mass": "A critical mass, 27% of the population, now resides in states where race preferences have been banned by voters." "Critical mass" was a key phrase in Grutter. The law school explained its interest in classroom diversity in terms of the need to gain a "critical mass" of students who were members of "underrepresented" minority groups. The term was "understood to mean a number that encourages underrepresented minority students to participate in the classroom and not feel isolated... or like spokespersons for their race." One expert had testified that "when a critical mass of underrepresented minority students is present, racial stereotypes lose their force because nonminority students learn there is no '"minority viewpoint"' but rather a variety of viewpoints among minority students."
Interestingly, the "critical mass" that the law school sought had to do with the value of different viewpoints, not the idea that if enough people thinkone thing then a point will be reached when everyone will tip into thinking the same thing. With the law school's notion of critical mass in mind, let's look again at the new information Gratz offers: "A critical mass, 27% of the population, now resides in states where race preferences have been banned by voters." That's good diversity. Good federalism. If the Supreme Court were to identify a constitutional right, it would require 100% of the states to adopt the same policy. It would be anti-diversity, anti-federalism, a choice for uniformity.
We're back to the question of what rights are, not what majorities want. If there really is a right here, then uniformity is the answer. The arguments about whether there is a right, however, remain the same. They are not bolstered by the waning political popularity of affirmative action.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
"Every time we were struggling in kicking, coach tells me to think about girls on a beach or brunette girls."
"So that's what we did. Made the kick."
Said University of Michigan's Brendan Gibbons, hero of the Sugar Bowl.
Said University of Michigan's Brendan Gibbons, hero of the Sugar Bowl.
Friday, December 9, 2011
"New York University will offer a class next semester on Occupy Wall Street (possibly two)."
The Department of Social and Cultural Analysis lists a course called "Cultures and Economies: Occupy Wall Street."
Reminds me of my old college days at the University of Michigan, circa 1970. Everything needed "relevant." The teachers, out of fear or their own ideology, put the word "revolution" into the titles of things.
Reminds me of my old college days at the University of Michigan, circa 1970. Everything needed "relevant." The teachers, out of fear or their own ideology, put the word "revolution" into the titles of things.
Friday, October 21, 2011
"National Merit has never been transparent about, for example, the ethnic diversity of the people who receive National Merit scholarships."
Said William Fitzsimmons, the admissions dean at Harvard, quoted in an article that reports that NYU — like at least 8 other schools — has withdrawn from the National Merit scholarship program, which distributes money based on PSAT scores.
In the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, which approved of the University of Michigan Law School's use of race as a "plus factor" in admissions, Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, blamed the law school for creating the disparity itself by relying on the standardized test:
“National Merit has developed a kind of grandeur that is misguided,” said Lawrence Momo, director of college counseling at the private Trinity School... “The mythology that has been created about it in the public imagination is overblown.”Dropping out of this test-based merit system because of racial/ethic disparities — assuming that's what's going on here — is distinctly different from adopting an affirmative action program to correct for disparities caused by the use of test scores in admissions.
In the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, which approved of the University of Michigan Law School's use of race as a "plus factor" in admissions, Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, blamed the law school for creating the disparity itself by relying on the standardized test:
[N]o modern law school can claim ignorance of the poor performance of blacks, relatively speaking, on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Nevertheless, law schools continue to use the test and then attempt to “correct” for black underperformance by using racial discrimination in admissions so as to obtain their aesthetic student body... The Law School itself admits that the test is imperfect, as it must, given that it regularly admits students who score at or below 150 (the national median) on the test....Ending reliance on a standardized test is exactly the solution Clarence Thomas suggested. It does not classify individuals by race or ethnicity.
Having decided to use the LSAT, the Law School must accept the constitutional burdens that come with this decision. The Law School may freely continue to employ the LSAT and other allegedly merit-based standards in whatever fashion it likes. What the Equal Protection Clause forbids, but the Court today allows, is the use of these standards hand-in-hand with racial discrimination....
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
It's protest time again.
"Sit-in at Doubletree Hotel in Madison to protest lawsuit being filed by the Center for Equal Opportunity against the University of Wisconsin, alleging that current admissions policies discriminate against white and Asian students."
ADDED: I'm not the protest type, but I do remember once participating in a protest — marching around in a circle and chanting. The subject was affirmative action. The year was 1970 and the place was the University of Michigan. The chant was "Open it up... or shut it down," and we did shut it down. There was a student strike. (I still have the letters I wrote to my parents explaining why we were striking.) In 1973, the University of Michigan began its affirmative action program. These days, I'm a law professor, and I teach the case in which the Supreme Court found that the program violated the Constitution. Speaking of circles.
And I'm a blogger observing the protests. One observation I have about student protests is that the applicants who don't get in are not around to march and chant. They went somewhere else — perhaps Eau Claire or Whitewater. The university officials last night stressed that every student who is here should feel good about being here, that he or she deserves to be here. Of course, we want everyone who is here to feel great about it. The officials don't see much need to speak to the individuals who were rejected. They're not part of the campus climate. Back in 1970 when we protested at Michigan, we were protesting against our own interest, being altruistic, saying, essentially, maybe we don't deserve to be here. It is important to visualize the effect of a policy on persons who are not present to assert their interests.
If the question is whether the current admission policy is constitutional under the existing Supreme Court case law, we need to examine the details. In its 2003 cases involving the University of Michigan programs, the undergraduate program was found unconstitutional, but the law school's approach was upheld. So, under the current law, it depends on how you do it, and of course, Wisconsin's policy today was shaped with knowledge of that case law.
It should be noted, however, that the Michigan law school program was upheld in a 5-4 decision in which Justice O'Connor provided the decisive vote. I think today's Supreme Court — with Alito replacing O'Connor — would have gone the other way in that case. It remains to be seen what will happen to the lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin. We have yet to see the reports that will be released today and how the university will respond.
Not every controversy is resolved through a lawsuit, of course. For example, California, via proposition, banned the use of race as a factor in admissions. Obviously, Wisconsin has a conservative legislature and governor, but I tend to doubt that they want the mass of trouble that would ensue if they were to propose to end affirmative action by statute. So, I assume there will be a lawsuit, and we shall see what happens.
ADDED: Here is the UW-Madison Chancellor's response, asserting that admissions at UW-Madison are done through "a holistic, competitive and selective process."
ADDED: I'm not the protest type, but I do remember once participating in a protest — marching around in a circle and chanting. The subject was affirmative action. The year was 1970 and the place was the University of Michigan. The chant was "Open it up... or shut it down," and we did shut it down. There was a student strike. (I still have the letters I wrote to my parents explaining why we were striking.) In 1973, the University of Michigan began its affirmative action program. These days, I'm a law professor, and I teach the case in which the Supreme Court found that the program violated the Constitution. Speaking of circles.
And I'm a blogger observing the protests. One observation I have about student protests is that the applicants who don't get in are not around to march and chant. They went somewhere else — perhaps Eau Claire or Whitewater. The university officials last night stressed that every student who is here should feel good about being here, that he or she deserves to be here. Of course, we want everyone who is here to feel great about it. The officials don't see much need to speak to the individuals who were rejected. They're not part of the campus climate. Back in 1970 when we protested at Michigan, we were protesting against our own interest, being altruistic, saying, essentially, maybe we don't deserve to be here. It is important to visualize the effect of a policy on persons who are not present to assert their interests.
If the question is whether the current admission policy is constitutional under the existing Supreme Court case law, we need to examine the details. In its 2003 cases involving the University of Michigan programs, the undergraduate program was found unconstitutional, but the law school's approach was upheld. So, under the current law, it depends on how you do it, and of course, Wisconsin's policy today was shaped with knowledge of that case law.
It should be noted, however, that the Michigan law school program was upheld in a 5-4 decision in which Justice O'Connor provided the decisive vote. I think today's Supreme Court — with Alito replacing O'Connor — would have gone the other way in that case. It remains to be seen what will happen to the lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin. We have yet to see the reports that will be released today and how the university will respond.
Not every controversy is resolved through a lawsuit, of course. For example, California, via proposition, banned the use of race as a factor in admissions. Obviously, Wisconsin has a conservative legislature and governor, but I tend to doubt that they want the mass of trouble that would ensue if they were to propose to end affirmative action by statute. So, I assume there will be a lawsuit, and we shall see what happens.
ADDED: Here is the UW-Madison Chancellor's response, asserting that admissions at UW-Madison are done through "a holistic, competitive and selective process."
Friday, July 1, 2011
6th Circuit says Michigan's ban on affirmative action violates Equal Protection.
"The court’s 2-to-1 ruling, which is likely to be appealed, said the voter-approved ban 'unconstitutionally alters Michigan’s political structure by impermissibly burdening racial minorities.'"
Here's the opinion (PDF). Excerpt:
Here's the opinion (PDF). Excerpt:
[Washington v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 458 U.S. 457 (1982), and Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (1969),] expounded the rule that an enactment deprives minority groups of equal protection of the laws when it: (1) has a racial focus, targeting a goal or program that “inures primarily to the benefit of the minority”; and (2) works a reallocation of political power or reordering of the decisionmaking process that places “special burdens” on a minority group’s ability to achieve its goals through that process...I thought the "diversity" interest counted as compelling in Grutter was for the educational benefit of all of the students in the classroom. Under Grutter and Gratz, an interest in benefiting the minority would not support the state's choice to have affirmative action, so how can it work as the basis for saying that the state can't choose not to have it? The Seattle and Hunter cases are a bit strange, and I would not be surprised if the Supreme Court took this case and not only reversed but reframed the doctrine.
Proposal 2, like Initiative 350, has a “racial focus,” because the Michigan universities’ affirmative-action programs “inure[] primarily to the benefit of the minority, and [are] designed for that purpose,” for the reasons articulated by the Court in Seattle. Just as the desegregative busing programs at issue in Seattle were designed to improve racial minorities’ representation at many public schools, race-conscious admissions policies increase racial minorities’ representation at institutions of higher education, see, e.g., Grutter, 539 U.S. at 316, 328-33 (describing the University of Michigan Law School’s minority-student-enrollment aims); Gratz, 539 U.S. at 253-56 (describing admissions policies at the University of Michigan regarding underrepresented minority groups).
Monday, August 30, 2010
"I just updated my will and trust and, with heavy heart, cut out what was a significant bequest to my alma mater, Brooklyn College."
Says Bruce Kesler. The reason: The school chose one book to give to all incoming freshman to read to give a sense of a "common experience," and the book is "How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America," written by "a radical pro-Palestinian professor" who happens to teach at Brooklyn College.
So now I'm picturing the Brooklyn College freshman, hurling "How Does It Feel" against the wall. In the movie I'm inventing in my head, the soundtrack is Bob Dylan — how does it feel — as The Freshman stomps out of Brooklyn and into a life without highereducation indoctrination...
Maybe you don't need death staring you in the face to ask whether you have the courage to be true to yourself and not just to do what others expect you to do. And how much courage does it take when those who expect you to do what they want are so crude about it? But if you don't do what they want, what will you do? Where else is there to go?
What would I do if I were there where you are, dear Freshman? Because I'm old, and I've already made a lot of choices, I don't want to tell you what to do. This post began with the old man's point of view: Bruce Kesler saying he's got lots of money and he's cutting Brooklyn College out of his will to express himself. But what should a young person do? I'm still an old person answering that question, but I was driving through the bohemian section of an American city the other day and thinking... oh, just about what I was thinking in the early 1970s: I want to live the artist's life. That doesn't mean you need to be an artist, but there is an art to living, and you are more a work of art than a thing you invest in. Yet even if the main thing you want — in this awful economy — is to be something you invest in, a radical left-wing indoctrination is a godawful investment decision.
And I still haven't said that I got to Kesler via D.G. Meyers via Instapundit. Meyers says:
* I've corrected that line in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" after cutting and pasting the lyrics from the official Bob Dylan site. I was surprised to see the line "cultivate their flowers to be." It didn't have the right number of syllables, and it didn't lead properly into the next line, and I didn't remember ever hearing it. Meade questioned it too and played the original recording to get to the very familiar line (which also makes a lot more sense). It was weird seeing "cultivate their flowers" — which I took as an allusion to Voltaire's "we must cultivate our garden" — because Meade, with whom I share a love of Dylan, has made a life out of cultivating flowers, and cultivating flowers is something you're more likely to do if you've chosen to defy disrespected authority and see yourself as much more than something you invest in. Not that you can't build up great wealth by starting a gardening business.
[The book contains] interviews with seven Arab-Americans in their 20s about their experiences and difficulties in the US. There’s appreciation of freedoms in the US, and deep resentment at feeling or being discriminated against post-9/11....
The title of the book is drawn from communist WEB DuBois’ same question in 1903 in his treatise The Souls of Black Folk. The current book consciously draws a parallel, ridiculous on its face, between the horrible and pervasive discrimination and injustices that Blacks were subjected to a century ago and Arab-Americans today.I can't imagine wanting freshman to get the message that they are about to be indoctrinated. On the up side, for freshman: If the school makes it clear right in the first week, you may still be in a position to quit and get your tuition back. If they're subtle about it — and it's so easy to be subtle about it — you're drawn into it. Clear efforts at indoctrination are repugnant. One recoils. It's like evil-tasting poison. The evil taste is a great benefit. You reflexively spit it out.
The author asserts “The core issue [of Middle East turbulence] remains the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” that the post-1967 history of the entire area is essentially that of “imperialism American-style,” and that the US government “limits the speech of Arab Americans in order to cement United States policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Again, preposterous....
Online I found two professors who protested to the college president. One, retired from Brooklyn College, said: "This is wholly inappropriate. It smacks of indoctrination. It will intimidate incoming students who have a different point of view (or have formed no point of view), sending the message that only one side will be approved on this College campus. It can certainly intimidate untenured faculty as well."
So now I'm picturing the Brooklyn College freshman, hurling "How Does It Feel" against the wall. In the movie I'm inventing in my head, the soundtrack is Bob Dylan — how does it feel — as The Freshman stomps out of Brooklyn and into a life without higher
Teachers teach that knowledge waits...Ah, but where does The Freshman go?
For them that must obey authorityWe were talking last night: Why are you doing what you are doing? Do you need death staring you in the face to take that question seriously?
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are freeCultivate their flowers to beDo what they do just to be*
Nothing more than something they invest in
Maybe you don't need death staring you in the face to ask whether you have the courage to be true to yourself and not just to do what others expect you to do. And how much courage does it take when those who expect you to do what they want are so crude about it? But if you don't do what they want, what will you do? Where else is there to go?
What would I do if I were there where you are, dear Freshman? Because I'm old, and I've already made a lot of choices, I don't want to tell you what to do. This post began with the old man's point of view: Bruce Kesler saying he's got lots of money and he's cutting Brooklyn College out of his will to express himself. But what should a young person do? I'm still an old person answering that question, but I was driving through the bohemian section of an American city the other day and thinking... oh, just about what I was thinking in the early 1970s: I want to live the artist's life. That doesn't mean you need to be an artist, but there is an art to living, and you are more a work of art than a thing you invest in. Yet even if the main thing you want — in this awful economy — is to be something you invest in, a radical left-wing indoctrination is a godawful investment decision.
***
And I still haven't said that I got to Kesler via D.G. Meyers via Instapundit. Meyers says:
In my experience, few if any of the Brooklyn Collge freshmen will even bother to open the book. I can remember the title of the book that was assigned to all incoming freshmen at U.C. Santa Cruz the year I went up there (it was Arthur Koestler’s Act of Creation), but that’s the sum of what I remember about the book. I bought a copy, but never heard it discussed anywhere on campus. Same for the various books that were assigned to incoming freshmen at Texas A&M University over the years. After the English department made a fuss over choosing them, they were never mentioned again.Yes, but it's not that easy: Brooklyn College also assigns its book in a required English course. I remember the book that was assigned for orientation week to freshmen at the Residential College (at the University of Michigan) in 1969: Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle." 40 years later, I can't think of a book I'd rather read. In fact, it happens I was rereading it yesterday.
All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.It's nice to be told that right at the outset so you know what you're getting into. Very nice.
***
* I've corrected that line in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" after cutting and pasting the lyrics from the official Bob Dylan site. I was surprised to see the line "cultivate their flowers to be." It didn't have the right number of syllables, and it didn't lead properly into the next line, and I didn't remember ever hearing it. Meade questioned it too and played the original recording to get to the very familiar line (which also makes a lot more sense). It was weird seeing "cultivate their flowers" — which I took as an allusion to Voltaire's "we must cultivate our garden" — because Meade, with whom I share a love of Dylan, has made a life out of cultivating flowers, and cultivating flowers is something you're more likely to do if you've chosen to defy disrespected authority and see yourself as much more than something you invest in. Not that you can't build up great wealth by starting a gardening business.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A teach-in. Are you going to this 60s flashback?
Here in Madison.
I went to a big teach-in at the University of Michigan circa 1969. What I remember most vividly is one speaker lobbing the vivid insight that it wouldn't be so bad if North Vietnam won the war. The crowd cheered. I can't picture a present-day crowd of students cheering at the idea of the Taliban winning in Afghanistan. I can't even picture much of a crowd attending a teach-in on Afghanistan. Especially, now that Obama is President.
I went to a big teach-in at the University of Michigan circa 1969. What I remember most vividly is one speaker lobbing the vivid insight that it wouldn't be so bad if North Vietnam won the war. The crowd cheered. I can't picture a present-day crowd of students cheering at the idea of the Taliban winning in Afghanistan. I can't even picture much of a crowd attending a teach-in on Afghanistan. Especially, now that Obama is President.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
"Well, remember, this was the speed diavlog. You should have heard the long version, the one that killed my computer. That was hot."
My response to the commenter at Bloggingheads who said, "I must admit, when I saw the headline, 'Ann and Emily remember their bad-girl days,' I got my hopes up."
We had to start over. The first 12 seconds of Take 2:
And in the high-speed do-over, we gave only 1 minute and 38 seconds to our bad-girl days:
As for the long version, it died along with my computer, and I'm not really sure what I divulged. It certainly was not, as one dorky commenter at Bloggingheads guessed, that I "drank a lot of alcohol in college." My response to that libel:
I disclaim responsibility for anything I'm writing here as I'm recovering from toe surgery and — legally! — high on opiates.
We had to start over. The first 12 seconds of Take 2:
And in the high-speed do-over, we gave only 1 minute and 38 seconds to our bad-girl days:
As for the long version, it died along with my computer, and I'm not really sure what I divulged. It certainly was not, as one dorky commenter at Bloggingheads guessed, that I "drank a lot of alcohol in college." My response to that libel:
Really? Drinking was not at all the practice of the day in my little corner of the University of Michigan, known as East Quad. We mocked squares elsewhere on campus who drank and went to football games and the sort of thing you kids today might think of as wild. We thought of you as "straights."
***
I disclaim responsibility for anything I'm writing here as I'm recovering from toe surgery and — legally! — high on opiates.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
"Yellow Submarine" — the remake!
By Disney. Seriously.
And "Yellow Submarine" means so much to me. It came out in 1968, when I was in my last year of high school, and if someone had given me the information on how to dedicate my life to making animated films like that, I would have gone there (and lived a completely different life).
It was so much harder back then to figure out such things. So I ended up, the following year, entering a hippie college experience at the University of Michigan called the Residential College and then tripping across the street to the art school. But life is so much easier now — with the internet. For example, I just had a major flashback brought on by Googling my way to the Facebook group " UM Residential College-East Quad ("Where East Quadies and RC students of past meet").
But perhaps life was better when it was hard to find things.... and cartoons needed to be drawn ....
Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said the new "Yellow Submarine" will be directed by Robert Zemeckis using the same motion-capture effects employed in "Polar Express."Oh, no. We will encounter the Beatles in the "uncanny valley." The original visual aspect of "Yellow Submarine" is all about clear, crisp, flat color. Now, I admit, looking at some clips on YouTube, that the old film looks sketchy and cheap by current animation standards. I'd love to see a new 2D version of the film — or a new 2D animated film using Beatles songs. I just hate 3D animation. It makes me feel bad on a deep physical, animal level.
And "Yellow Submarine" means so much to me. It came out in 1968, when I was in my last year of high school, and if someone had given me the information on how to dedicate my life to making animated films like that, I would have gone there (and lived a completely different life).
It was so much harder back then to figure out such things. So I ended up, the following year, entering a hippie college experience at the University of Michigan called the Residential College and then tripping across the street to the art school. But life is so much easier now — with the internet. For example, I just had a major flashback brought on by Googling my way to the Facebook group " UM Residential College-East Quad ("Where East Quadies and RC students of past meet").
But perhaps life was better when it was hard to find things.... and cartoons needed to be drawn ....
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
"I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy for Althouse because she hasn't done a single post on those phony teabagging parties. Thank you, Althouse."
So said Zachary Paul Sire in yesterday's Peach Blossom Café.
But why haven't I posted about the tea party protests? A longstanding issue in blogging is the interpretation of the failure to post. Too many people think the absence of posts indicates an opinion of mine that the topic isn't important, when only it means that I have nothing I want to say on the subject.
You know, despite what might look like massive evidence here on this blog, I'm not too interested in politics. And I've never been attracted to demonstrations and protests. I instinctively avert my eyes — unless I'm there in real life with a camera and I have some hope of catching a view of something quirky or weird. I've participated in exactly one demonstration in my entire life — back in 1970. I went along with chanting a chant — it happened to be "Open it up/Or shut it down" — and I felt rather embarrassed to be doing something completely out of character for me.
I'm aloof and bemused about things political, you see, and I have been for more decades than — in all likelihood — you've been alive.
But it is Tax Day. I'm not steamed about Tax Day. I've done my taxes. I minimized the stress by using Turbo Tax. I noted with a smidge of disgust that the PDF of my returns is 57 pages long, but I moved on.
Nevertheless, I see that Glenn Reynolds has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about the tea parties, so here:
But why haven't I posted about the tea party protests? A longstanding issue in blogging is the interpretation of the failure to post. Too many people think the absence of posts indicates an opinion of mine that the topic isn't important, when only it means that I have nothing I want to say on the subject.
You know, despite what might look like massive evidence here on this blog, I'm not too interested in politics. And I've never been attracted to demonstrations and protests. I instinctively avert my eyes — unless I'm there in real life with a camera and I have some hope of catching a view of something quirky or weird. I've participated in exactly one demonstration in my entire life — back in 1970. I went along with chanting a chant — it happened to be "Open it up/Or shut it down" — and I felt rather embarrassed to be doing something completely out of character for me.
I'm aloof and bemused about things political, you see, and I have been for more decades than — in all likelihood — you've been alive.
But it is Tax Day. I'm not steamed about Tax Day. I've done my taxes. I minimized the stress by using Turbo Tax. I noted with a smidge of disgust that the PDF of my returns is 57 pages long, but I moved on.
Nevertheless, I see that Glenn Reynolds has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about the tea parties, so here:
Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies -- dubbed "tea parties" -- to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending....
The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site -- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact, today's technology means you don't need an organization...
There's good news and bad news in this phenomenon for establishment politicians. The good news for Republicans is that, while the Republican Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and its programs, millions of Americans are getting organized on their own. The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama's policies, aren't especially friendly to the GOP....
This influx of new energy and new talent is likely to inject new life into small-government politics around the nation. The mainstream Republican Party still seems limp and disorganized. This grassroots effort may revitalize it. Or the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.
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