Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

italgato

re the primate post...that's just me and timber having fun (though not baboon fun, I perhaps ought to note)

I confess however, that I did have your president in mind (the whole 'competence' thing). People at the top do often become targets, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The whole notion of checks and balances within your constitution (not to mention the free speech provision or the particular rights and responsibilities which we hope the press will try to live up to, or the wealth of legislation dealing with civil liberties) exist because we know that power unchecked and uncontested is likely to end up bad for most everyone.

It is intellectually agreeable when such contesting is more sophisticated than a simple jerk of the knee in the direction of the party one doesn't belong to. As it happens, I think al Quaeda and Osama are properly considered enemies of my freedom, and that what we refer to as fundamentalist Islam (eg Taliban) is community governance gone very wrong. But I happen to think that John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act are of the same stuff, though surely not so tightly woven.

What the heck ... hobitbob took it down and he apologized to me by PM, if anybody cares. I care enough to acknowledge he did so, and enough to request Sofia edit her quote of the comment. I gotta say, that incident drives home the dictum "Think before you post". The remark was uncalled for, but at least he aimed it at me, and not a thinskinned whiner who prolly woulda come cryin' to me about it.

goodness...a comment on the canadian medical system...and another uneducated cliche.

one thing you can expect in political discussion, blatham, is cliche. Different baboons pull different things, I guess

Dear Lola:

Please allow me to point out that you are egregiously mistaken.

If you think a person can get into a University like Harvard just because, as you say, they had a brother, or sister, or a family person there before them, they will not be GIVEN PREFERENCE.

Source-

"The University" by Henry Rosovsky

p. 64

"Such a group consists of legacies, and their close relative, faculty children. Both are treated on "an all other things being equal" basis...Some 16 to 20 percent of Harvard's freshman class probably belong to one of these two categories. By "All things being equal" I mean that legacies and their faculty children will be given preference provided that their other qualifications are as strong as those with whom they have to compete"

"In other words, if there are two candidates with identical qualifications- a most unrealistic supposition in practice-the legacy or faculty offspring wil be given preference"

end of quote.

And, dear Lola, I must tell you that "Natural Selection" has absolutely nothing to do with one being selected or not selected for University.

Natural Selection meansThe preservation of those who have characteristics that help them to survive.

It takes tens of thousands of years.

Actually, I have a feeling the benefits of being a legacy were far greater in the early to mid 1960s than they are now.

Professor Hobitbob- You may indeed be correct, but you must pardon me if I lean toward the explanation given by Professor Henry Rosovsky, the writer of "The University- An Owner's Manual".

Since he was the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, I really am compelled to believe his interpretation of the legacy situation at Harvard.

Professor Rosovsky wrote his book in 1990 so it is likely that his comments cover the seventies and eighties.

It is my OPINION that those who know absolutely nothing about Harvard, Yale,Princeton, NYU,etc. are the first ones to charge those august institutions with favoritism.

As a matter of fact, those institutions can be fairly described as having admission procedures which make them best named as Meritocracies.

timber

Your last few posts appear to have the aim of suggesting that that which I criticize is precisely that which I am guilty of. It would be happily harmonious if the universe always demonstrated such balance, but it doesn't in this case.

Italgato's remark about our medical system here in Canada simply demonstrates that he knows little about the subject of which he's speaking. And once again, he falls to the use of an oft repeated cliche forwarded by other people who didn't know what they were talking about, or who had personal benefit to be gained from the fomenting of that idea.

I could, of course, take the time to find for him the appropriate studies and information which speaks to his claim (or perhaps even give him the phone number of my sister, who is the head administrator at a local hospital, and have her talk to him about the history of American citizen use of our medical and drug programs) but I don't have that sort of time available. And I don't have a lot of confidence that my time would be well spent if I were to do so.

Political discourse in the US is increasingly partisan and uncareful, and marked by exactly that sort of curious satisfaction with cliche and easy answer. That's not news, nor is it news that it happens here as well. And obviously, it was going on in Britain when Orwell wrote that essay.

But I'm getting old and cranky, and I'm not happy suffering foolishness these days. If someone is going to open their mouth, they ought to shoulder some burden of care in what comes out. Or at least, decorate their sentences so that the reading itself delivers some joy.

Tip of the hat to Dudley DoRight.

If I were to imagine this marvelous forum as a group of people sitting around a large table enjoying the free-flow of ideas and lively social intercourse, there's one person, over there in the corner, insults and sarcasm flowing like a river from his keyboard, that I would politely ignore.

I encourage all who feel likewise to do the same.

The problem is, PDiddie, not everyone will ignore. Why? Because those who feel sidelined themselves will often jump in and encourage the sarcastic whiner -- actually, I commited a typo there and typed "swiner," which may be more apt. I still see it as a tug-of-war between a satirical, eclectic, iconoclastic, self-assured bunch of educated liberals and a resentful, self-righteous and surprisingly un-self-confident bunch of brought-up conservatives who are finding money and the power it confers don't buy them luv 'n' respect.

Or far better, and less personal, a quote from Gramsci (YIKES, A COMMUNIST... FLEE THE ROOM!) which I just heard:

""The old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum, there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms."

I believe many put America in the dying category for some damn good reasons, while many in power in this country believe no less strongly that we are the new, the strong, the saviors.

You both hit the nail on the head, there, blatham and Tartarin, IMO ... the universe ain't harmoniously in balance, something which occasions a great deal of sarcastic whining and partisan insult, though in that aspect, at least, there is demonstrated a fair amount of balance. Different assessments of what is correct and acceptable perforce entail different assessments of what is neither. That, I believe, is the foundation of debate.

Italgato,

I regret to see that I failed to be a clear as I should have been about what I wrote in reference to legacies and college admission. I meant to write exactly what you have said. Which is that all qualifications being equal the legacy gets the opportunity. And of course we all know that qualifications include more than mere test scores and grades. Such things as a well rounded personality, demonstration of commitment and diversity in interest, etc. are all part of the qualifications for admission to any college. I think that is what Mr. Rosovsky meant when he wrote:



If this were not so, your nephew would have been admitted to Harvard, obviously because all qualifications being equal a legacy receives preferential opportunity. I think we agree on this.

And about my reference to natural selection....... it was really about something Timber and I have been discussing (I was teasing him), so you may not have gotten the point, even though I assumed you had mastered the skill of the use of metaphor. However, I see I was mistaken. So I apologize.

OK, PDiddie and Tartarin, now I'll take your advice and not engage this person you're referring to anymore.

I don't mind a little teasin' ... it keeps things interestin', the way I figure it. Its kinda tricky, though; some folks tend to look at anything other than the wholehearted endorsement of their own position as meanspirited, ignorant, baseless contentiousness. All a matter of perspective, I guess. It seems often it is easier for some to dismissively ignore opposition than to engage it constructively. Personally, I prefer debate and discussion to disparagement and denial.

Teasing is fun.......always happy to oblige, Timber. I was trying to follow Mr. Blatham's advise about at least delivering some joy. I'm always hopeful I have done so a little bit.

One summer awaiting my junior year at Boston University I worked for a mover. The Harvard admissions office was moving and they hired us to move one managers office (he was apparently special). Anyway, I remember what a big deal they made out of us (and me in particular since I was college age) being in that office. I think I asked for a drink of water and they were like "...you don't know how fortunate you are to even be in here...", or something like that.

I have ever since waved my superior engineering degree with raised finger at the boobs across the Charles.

timber

How many times are you willing to sit and listen respectively while a painfully unending series of National Enquirer readers tells you Elvis is still alive and all the jews who worked in the WTC were phoned the night before? Constructive engagement with such a majority or minority viewpoint seems a bit like wrapping turds in grandma's doilies. An internal parameter is met where the urge becomes overwhelming to line folks like this up and give them all a stooge-slap.

There are conservatives who despise Coulter and Limbaugh, conservatives who think education ought to be tough and thorough and that those who get such an education are likely to be better citizens - better humans - than if they hadn't had it, and conservatives who think Bush is a dangerous under-achiever.

They have no more use than I for uninvestigated ideas, mouthed with the pretence that they aren't mere carbon copies.

Please tell me you are joking! I thought only the evil Johns Hopkins acted like that! I took Koine Greek at the evil JHU summer before last,and some little administrative twerp in trendy glasses in the cashiers office made sure to point out that "Just because you are taking a class here doens't mean you'll get into our PhD program."I wanted to flatten him, but instead I just smiled and told him I hadn't planned on applying to any "little Ivies" anyway.
P.S: Don't know about Harvard, but JHU has a lousy record for its students actually completing their PhDs in the humanities. Strangely enough, some of the other Ivies and little Ivies, like UPenn, Tulane and Duke actually have academic programs that way outpace schools like Hah-vahd. they are also much much more friendly. Just my two cents.

Well, I have had some of the best times of my life at very friendly Harvard. A ball. I tend to think it's fashionable to put it down...

Ivy Leaguers.

When's the last time they won a national champeenship in anything but field hockey?

Don't got much use for no place ya can't get a full-figured--ah, well-rounded, edumacation.

But Tart, is there the sort of snobbishness that cj mentioned? I know I was shocked to discover it at JHU. When I first moved to Bawl'emer, I didn't underdtand why the city's residents hated the place so. Then, after taking a job in the ED at the University Med center (pretty much to have access to the Hopkins library) I began to realise that if I gave people as much attitude as the average Hopkins employee gave everyone, they would likely hate me too! My favourite was the year the Dept. of Emergency Meidcine came out with t-shirts for everyone (for Nurse's week) that said: "Hopkins Emergency Medicine: We Know We're The Best." Combine things like this with licence plate holders that say things like "Johns Hopkins University: The Best of the Best," and faculty who take pride in not taking more than one student a decade,and who boast of driving their students away (The current chair of the History Department, who hasn't produced a PhD student in fifteen years, and is hostile to everyone she encounters at conferences, but is sure to remind them that she is "Tenured Faculty at Hopkins...perhaps you've heard of us?") They recently hired David Nirenberg, who does Muslim/Christian/Jewish interaction in Medieval Spain, and many people are waiting to see how long he will stay before he gets disgusted at the rest of the department and leaves. The same is true for Jeff Hamburger, at Hah-vahd, who does 14th century monastic prayer books,and recently made the transition from Toronto to Hah-vahd. The bets predict five years tops.