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... optimism of the will
 David Edwards Matte, painter and visual effects artist
 David Edwards Matte, painter and visual effects artist And now the farmer Ibrahim Imran tells us in Burin: “These trees are like my children.” Hands or children, the grief of those who tend their olive groves is searing and deeply moving. The inability of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and of the officers of the Israel Police to protect the groves of these farmers, to protect their property and their honor, is the inability of all of us. ― Mourning uprooted olive trees in West Bank villages - Haaretz - Israel News
The Galbraith Affair and the Business of Think Tanks
From Stephen Walt’s blog over at FP: The whole sordid business got me thinking: is there any way to clean up the marketplace of ideas here in the United States? We are drowning in information and opinion, much of it claiming to be objective and authoritative when it may in fact be inspired and funded by moneyed special interests eager to sell the public a story that advances their particular objectives. Most “think tanks” in Washington portray themselves as objective, quasi-scholarly institutions (indeed, they increasingly give researchers endowed chairs and other quasi-academic titles), but unlike most universities, most think tanks remain heavily dependent on “soft money” and are bound to be especially sensitive to what potential donors might be thinking. And some of them aren’t really scholarly at all; they are just public relations operations or “letterhead organizations” seeking to mold public opinion and push the policy process in a particular direction. But unless you know who’s paying for it, it’s hard to decide who’s giving you an honest opinion and who is just shilling for some powerful interest group.
Husband-and-wife ambassadors head to Europe
From FP’s The Cable: The Washington “power couple” is a familiar model: officials are often hitched to journalists, staffers to academics, lawmakers with lobbyists, and on and on. It’s a natural phenomenon in such a small and social town filled with so many policy professionals. But in what is much less common, a husband-and-wife team is set to represent the United States as ambassadors in adjoining European countries. Mary Bruce Warlick is set to be confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to Serbia and her husband James Warlick is on his way to represent America as ambassador to Bulgaria. “This is actually the first time ever in the history of our diplomatic corps where we’re having hearings for a husband-and-wife team at the same time,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, said at the couple’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “They can meet up at the border,” noted a congressional staffer with a smile. Mary Warlick was most recently the acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Prior to that, she was the acting deputy assistant secretary for European and NATO policy. James Warlick was principal deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Organizations, and, prior to that, director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs in State’s Bureau of Eurasian and European Affairs. The Warlicks aren’t the only husband-and-wife team to find new homes in the administration. In fact, it turns out that these sorts of “Obamarriages” are surprisingly common. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell is married to Treasury under secretary nominee Lael Brainard. His former CNAS partner Michèle Flournoy, the new under secretary of defense for policy, attended the confirmation hearing for her husband, W. Scott Gould, on his way to becoming deputy secretary for veterans affairs. The National Security Council’s Samantha Power has a short walk if she wants to have lunch with her husband, White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein. And White House Communications Director Anita Dunn shares a commute (although not for long) with her husband Robert Bauer, the next White House counsel. And there are many more: Shere Abbott and James Steinberg, Sarah Feinberg and Dan Pfeiffer, Antony Blinken and Evan Ryan, Tom Donilon and Cathy Russell, just to name a few. Meanwhile, the next generation of White House power couples is already on the way. For example, White House Deputy Press Secretary Tommy Vietor is engaged to Michelle Obama’s spokesperson Katie McCormick Lelyveld.
Presidents at the Great Wall
From Eliot Weinberger at the LRB Blog: Richard Nixon, visiting the Great Wall of China in 1972, said: ‘I think you would have to conclude that this is a great wall.’ Ronald Reagan, visiting the Wall in 1984, said: ‘What can you say except it’s awe-inspiring? It is one of the great wonders of the world.’ Asked if he would like to build his own Great Wall, Reagan drew a circle in the air and said: ‘Around the White House.’ Bill Clinton, visiting the Wall in 1998, said: ‘So if we had a couple of hours, we could walk 10 kilometres, and we’d hit the steepest incline, and we’d all be in very good shape when we finished. Or we’d be finished. It was a good workout. It was great.’ George W. Bush, visiting the Wall in 2002, signed the guest book and said: ‘Let’s go home.’ He made no other comments. Barack Obama, visiting the Wall on Wednesday, said: ‘It’s majestic. It’s magical. It reminds you of the sweep of history, and that our time here on Earth is not that long, so we better make the best of it.’ During Obama’s visit, the Starbucks and KFC at the base of the Wall were closed. Iranian reformists and liberals worldwide can be forgiven for thinking that the election and crackdown last summer strengthened the hardliners. In the short term, they’re right: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still president and his opposition has gone to ground. In the long run, though, they may have already won the battle: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is likely to be the last all-powerful Supreme Leader of the Islamic republic, even if the theocratic system manages to survive this tumult. ― Today’s analysis from Iran. (via newsweek)
 Gord Smith was at the top of the Canadian art world in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. A Montreal-born sculptor who originally learned to weld with a torch his older brother used to rebuild old cars, Smith’s rise to prominence was a rapid one. By the time he reached his early thirties, he had already built up an impressive list of public and private commissions, collaborated with architects like Arthur Erickson, and exhibited with such international heavyweights as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. More here.
All About Academe Readings...
John Hartley (QUT): Lament for a Lost Running Order? Obsolescence and Academic Journals (and a reply). From The Chronicle, here’s a manifesto for scholarly publishing. Publishing genius: A graduate student in Baltimore proves that a small press can hit the big time. There should be two more scholarly periodicals in medicine: “Duh!”, for findings that never seemed to be in doubt in the first place, and “Huh?”, for those whose usefulness remains obscure. Is there any point to “frivolous” academic research? From THES, academic styles of referencing are confusing and outdated, so why not simplify the whole thing?; and knowledge transfer is often perceived as a concept that is limited to science, but Hannah Fearn discovers it is equally relevant for the arts and humanities. The first chapter from Educating Scholars: Doctoral Education in the Humanities. From IHE, can scholarship in the humanities be done outside the ivory tower? Scott McLemee goes to Iowa to find out. How is the university, specifically the humanities and social sciences, with its rampant anti-Americanism, anti-intellectualism, muddle-brained identity politics, hostility to the unvarnished truth and all the rest to be re-conquered and restored to sanity? (and part 2) AcaWiki, a “Wikipedia for academic research”, allows scholars, students, and bloggers to easily post summaries, and discuss academic papers online. PH.Dotcom: What if professors could lecture 24-7? Blog culture invades academia. From Harvard, Louis Menand on the Ph.D. problem: On the professionalization of faculty life, doctoral training, and the academy’s self-renewal. A review of Socrates in the Boardroom: Why Research Universities Should Be Led by Top Scholars by Amanda Goodall (and the first chapter and a video). |
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