Things I wish I'd said in my campus Truman interview

1. I think athletes at Williams get short shifted. Many don't realize how much time is required to be a varsity athlete, and I doubt that all of the time I spend dealing with school governance equals the practice time for a second-string player.
2. I think I am capable of A+ level work, but that grades are not so much a priority as learning the material.
3. I love being of service.
4. I got one of my lowest grades at Williams by being so interested in an issue raised by the prompt that I forgot to answer the question.
5. Polarization is harmful, and the stakes are too great to sit by while it festers.
   

On Moore

In response to this post. I will be quoting then replying.

This is the first official confirmation we have had that Moore’s second appointment was for three years. And that is the scandal! The College knew, or should have known, by that point that Moore was a shoddy scholar and horrible teacher.

What credible information I have suggests that the college was not aware of the depth of Professor Moore's ineptitude at the time he was offered a reappointment. It was aware that he had low scores on the feedback forms, but the scores were not as bad as his methods. I strongly doubt that Moore would have been reappointed if a quarter of what students have said was known then. It should also be noted that Prof. Moore very much wanted to be tenure-tracked, and the college didn't go anywhere near that direction.

It is one thing to take a one-year flier on some visitor because you think he has important Washington connection.

Moore wasn't hired for his connections; he was hired as a run-of-the-mill visitor, with the added component of a policy position in DC. Williams was pleasantly surprised by the event he put together.

It is another thing altogether to offer someone with zero scholarly credentials/ability and a demonstrated record of sub-standard teaching a three year position.

At that point, Moore had credentials and had demonstrated ability. Many students loved him (leading to the feelings of betrayal), and while the school knew he wasn't strong as a teacher, the three-year Schumann position (and I'm assuming that the Schumann role requires as such) only required on class/semester, which Williams felt satisfied cost/benefit needs, espeically with teaching improvement. Knowing what they knew, I can't say it's a decision I disagree with, but I think the school is guilty of not practicing proper diligence. I've also heard rumors that Moore leveraged people into writing scholarly work for him, so Williams might have been judging Moore on fake writing samples.

But there is no good excuse for the College’s current policy of stonewalling.

There is an ongoing lawsuit/legal complaint. There is every reason to stonewall.

Still unknown is the precise date when the college offered Moore the three year position. (I assume that it was well before July 1, 2009.) Does anyone have further information on that? The time line, as best I understand it, was that Moore first applied for a tenure track position, in the fall of 2008, and was turned down. Kudos to the Political Science Department. After that, he applied for (or was offered?) the visiting position. But we don’t, yet, know when that offer was made or who made it. Any ideas?

I thought he applied in the spring of '09, but might be wrong. I'd love to hear a good reason why we should publicly humiliate the person who accidentally hired a con artist and got the college into legal trouble, besides being cruel.

Going forward, the central policy question for Williams is: What should the standards/procedures be for visiting appointments? The system clearly failed in Moore’s case. Is anything being done to fix it?

I think David can rest assured that the college is not very interested in hiring more ex-cons who bring lawsuits.

Feel Good Story

Sometimes life is like the movies:

Angel leapt a full 1.5 metres above the ground, sailed over a lawn mower and intercepted a cougar mid-air, just as it was about to pounce on 11-year-old Austin Forman.
The cougar got Angel, a golden retriever, around the neck and the two animals fell to the ground, the cougar’s jaws clamped tight around the dog’s neck.
Austin ran inside, frantic and screaming.
“I was terrified,” said Austin. “My dog saved my life, but now the cougar had him.”

h/t: Dish (I think)

Brooks on the American People

From his NYT column:

But there was a realistic sense that human institutions are necessarily flawed. History is not knowable or controllable. People should be grateful for whatever assistance that government can provide and had better do what they can to be responsible for their own fates.

That mature attitude seems to have largely vanished. Now we seem to expect perfection from government and then throw temper tantrums when it is not achieved. We seem to be in the position of young adolescents — who believe mommy and daddy can take care of everything, and then grow angry and cynical when it becomes clear they can’t.

I really hope he's not right about the American people, but the statistics on torture and willingness to be scanned as if naked seem to backup his point. Sad.

Lou Gehrig's Disease - a Reflection from Tony Judt

I found this very moving:

By now, however, I have learned to forgo this most nights, finding solace and recourse in my own thoughts.

The latter, though I say it myself, is no small undertaking. Ask yourself how often you move in the night. I don't mean change location altogether (e.g., to go to the bathroom, though that too): merely how often you shift a hand, a foot; how frequently you scratch assorted body parts before dropping off; how unselfconsciously you alter position very slightly to find the most comfortable one. Imagine for a moment that you had been obliged instead to lie absolutely motionless on your back—by no means the best sleeping position, but the only one I can tolerate—for seven unbroken hours and constrained to come up with ways to render this Calvary tolerable not just for one night but for the rest of your life.

The Decade in Jobs

Here's the link:

I don't know how to quote without stealing content, so you'll just have to click through.

How Low We Sunk

Sullivan's e-mail of the year:

That said, I am surprised you did not highlight what me and my colleagues agreed was the single most horrifying passage from the Court’s decision.  It was the Court’s quotation of something an interrogator said to al-Rabiah during his interrogation.  The interrogator told al-Rabiah:

“There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.”

Court Memorandum and Order, p. 41 (emphasis mine).

This was an agent of the United States saying this.

Sorry to have posts on such a downer topic, but the discomfort is marginal compared to the danger of legitimate torture.

Weather

Dear Students:

Some of you who planned on driving back to campus today have let us know that you’re worried about driving conditions, but that you’re also worried about not being able to attend the first meeting of your Winter Study class. You should certainly exercise caution in deciding whether to drive this afternoon or evening, based on the current weather and the forecast. We’ll let faculty and WSP instructors know that some of you may have to postpone your return to campus and should not be penalized for missing the first class meeting; you, in turn, should e-mail or call your instructors and let them know if you will not be in class tomorrow.

Best wishes for the new year,

Dean Merrill

Sullivan on Torture

I find that my beliefs have much in common with Andrew Sullivan, at least in this area. Some quotes:

Those of us who warned that torture, once admitted into the mainstream, will metastasize beyond anyone's control now have the example of Charles Krauthammer's arguments to back us up. Stephen Hayes, Cheney's stenographer along with Mike Allen, even argued on Fox News that Cheney's assault on the president as an alien threat to the American people was too soft and wanted to "squeeze" the pantie-bomber for more info. These are neo-fascist sentiments, empowering lawless violence by the government, justified solely by fear of terror incidents. Whatever else junking the entire history of Western jurisprudence and the laws of war is, it is not in any way conservative. It is a radical assault on one of the central pillars of our civilization.

The truly naive are the Krauthammers and Thiessens and McCarthys who seem to believe - against all history and human nature - that torture can be controlled, that it can be sealed within a very tight box, used only by good people, never abused, never allowed to spread. But this has never happened. We know very well from brutal historical experience that the power to torture even one person always metastasizes. And we have seen it with our naked eyes in America. What was Abu Ghraib if it wasn't proof that orders to torture from the very top instantly spread through the system so that a handful of torture victims becomes hundreds in a matter of weeks; when torture is allowed the CIA and the military, it instantly spreads, as we have seen, to every theater of war, to every branch of the armed services, from Navy SEALS to special ops guys openly torturing mere suspects under the watch of Stanley McChrystal.

Why do I worry? Because of posts like this one:

A Bipartisan Proposal [Cliff May]

Step (1): Return all Gitmo detainees to Yemen.

Step (2): Use Predator missiles to strike the baggage-claim area 20 minutes after they arrive.

Just an idea.

Iran, Iran, Iran

Also a worrying article lede:

Iran warned on Saturday the West has until the end of the month to accept Teheran's counterproposal to a UN-drafted plan on a nuclear exchange, or the country will start producing nuclear fuel on its own.

This regime has so much legitimate egg on its face that there's nothing left but fear and power, which the country is now seeking at full speed. Why can't the Arab League step in and do something without US involvement?

Fireballs from the Faucet

Winning this week's prize for alarming news article lede:

Candor, NY -- Fred Mayer holds a lighter to his faucet, lets the water run, and — pow — the flow ignites into a small fireball. “I can wash my dishes and poach an egg at the same time,” he joked.

While this story is worrying, it's also important to know that tap water is some of the safest stuff you can drink - it's tested more than daily. I've never understood people who buy bottled water, but some companies have discovered that you can bottle tap water, and that people will still buy it. Amazing.

Winter Study

Today is the beginning of Winter Study, that grand month of Williams festivities and oddball learning. My theory for Winter Study is that you either stay on campus and do something interesting/easy or go off campus and do something immersive/useful. I'm attempting both by going to Vermont for a study trip and politically blogging, which is technically a double load. I figure it will be a good chance to learn something about how to write better blog posts with a prof's help, and I will enjoy the freezing cold SO MUCH that I will probably never have to venture out again.

Last year, I was in DC for the month, living truly alone and working on Capitol Hill. While I'm glad to have had that experience, it's not one I want to repeat, though I hope to intern at a think-tank this summer.

Also hoping to go to the gym more, but that might not be in the cards. :D