Month: July 2010

Jennie Rothenberg Gritz interviews Andrew Hacker about his new book on education. His views on tenure:

Academics typically don't get tenured until the age of 40. This means that from their years as graduate students and then assistant professors, from age 25 through 38 or 39, they have to toe the line. They have to do things in the accepted way that their elders and superiors require. They can't be controversial and all the rest. So tenure is, in fact, the enemy of spontaneity, the enemy of intellectual freedom. We've seen this again and again. And even people who get tenure really don't change. They keep on following the disciplinary mode they've been trained to follow.

Thoreau argues that tenure will not go away, but shrink. Cowen wants to know what would replace it.

Friedersdorf has noticed that many "hard core progressives" and "movement conservatives" think that "their ideology would prevail more often if only their partisans were more angry, their attacks more pointed, their operatives more ruthless." He thinks this mistaken:

Lots of hard core progressives and movement conservatives are wrong: Political and ideological gains don't come from being best at smashing faces through plate glass windows or winning news cycles or employing the most extreme rhetoric. Perhaps you disagree with some of the examples I used. These are contentious issues. Overall, however, I hope you'll agree that the subset of people who treat politics as guerrilla warfare have a terrible win-loss record, and a warped, wrongheaded view of how winning in politics is done. I don't really know if one side of the political spectrum or the other engages in this kind of nonsense more often, but this isn't an argument about which side is worse, its an observation that some people on both sides are operating on a faulty premise.

Disagree? Have counterexamples? I'd like to hear them.

Steve Chapman decodes the intent of NOM's Summer for Marriage Tour:

Why would NOM hold a rally where it is sure of being badly outnumbered by motivated and well-organized critics? Maybe because that's what it wanted. The Summer for Marriage Tour could have been called the Come Shout Us Down Tour. The endeavor has managed to make opponents of gay marriage look like a brave, embattled minority, even though they constitute 53 percent of the public and have gotten their way in all but a few states.

But they also suffer embarrassments like this.

Before they get too carried away …

Building off the Dish, E.D. Kain considers sunset clauses for entire branches of government:

Too often our government is a self-serving, bloated mega-institution incapable of ever cutting off any of its outgrown limbs. Making more if it temporary – or at least writing in the possibility of temporariness when constructing it – would at the very least give these big government institutions a reason to try to remain relevant.

Of course, the downside would be an even more concerted effort to self-preserve, but at least there would be a conversation going on about whether survival was in the best interests of the nation at large.

A reader writes:

As a Jewish American, I am offended by Newt Gingrich's suggestion that use the name of Córdoba by Muslims is insulting to non-Muslims. The height of Muslim rule the Iberian Peninsula, the rule of the Caliphate of Córdoba, was also the height of Jewish culture in Spain. It was the decline of the Caliphate of Córdoba that began the end of tolerance of Jews in the Muslim-ruled parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless, it was not until Christian rule was established over the entire Iberian Peninsula in 1492 that there was a concerted effort to eliminate the existence of Jews and Judaism in every part of Spain.

Gingrich seems most offended by the fact that the Mosque of Córdoba was established on the grounds of a former church. He failed to mention that the church in question was purchased for the purpose of constructing a mosque on the site. Those who later converted the mosque into a cathedral were not so kind as to offer payment.

I agree with Gingrich that churches and synagogues should be allowed to operate from within Saudia Arabia. However, I am of the opinion that this should not be a pre-requisite for religious freedom in the United States. I was under the impression that the United States considered democracy and freedom of religion to be core principles, not privileges to be used as bargaining chips.

(Photo: The Great Mosque Of Cordoba – now the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption – from Flickr via Wiki.)

Ambinder previews it:

The Democratic strategy in a nutshell is small enough to fit in one but has the protein of a good, tasty nut. The Republicans want to be mayors of crazy-town. They've embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationist and ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixing anything and the collective intelligence of a wine flask. This IS offensive and over the top, and the more Democrats repeat it, and the more dumb things some Republican candidates do, the more generally conservative voters who might be thinking of sending a message to Democrats by voting for a Republican will be reminded that the replacement party is even more loony than the party that can't tie its shoes. This is a strategy of delegitimization, not affirmation.

A reader writes:

I feel a little embarrassed writing into a site that routinely takes on serious issues to dissent with you and your readers about the state of Doctor Who. The show started going off the rails in the mid '80s. When it finally went off the air in '89, it was nothing more than a vehicle for slagging off Margaret Thatcher (a political stance I doubt you'd agree with). After it was resurrected in 2005, it rapidly degenerated into a maudlin soap opera. 

The modern series is all running around aimlessly or moaning about personal relationships, without the complicated sci-fi ideas and oddball characters that made the old series so engaging.  I threw in the towel and stopped watching toward the end of the David Tennant era. Not only were the scripts terrible but Tennant was the first utterly terrible actor to play the part.  I can handle bad writing or a bad Doctor, but I can't handle both.

I decided to give the show a chance again when I heard Tennant was going, and after a bad start I think Matt Smith might actually make a halfway decent Doctor. But the show is definitely still on probation. Oh well, at least your favorite Doc is Tom Baker, the best ever (with Jon Pertwee a close second).

I don't disagree with its sharp decline in the 1980s – and wince at its decadent phase. But the new series, with Russell Davies in charge, has been terrific, even though the special effects lack that amateurish charm of the early days. Another writes:

I read your Doctor Who post today and thought I'd pass this along – a 2004 piece by Jesse Walker on the return of the series.  It's dated now, of course, but still really interesting for fans of the show.

Another:

If you haven't seen it, check out Mark Ayres' history of the Dr Who theme; it's fascinating reading. Delia Derbyshire's original version remains one of the most astonishing pieces of electronic music ever created.

Another:

Your reader who wrote in about how the Dr Who theme song was made, and how ahead of it's time it was reminded me of this clip from 2010 Glastonbury Festival of Matt Smith on stage with the Prodigy, rocking their remix of the theme song.

Another:

The Dr. Who stuff I came across is from the English comedy show Nevermind the Buzzcock. This past Christmas they put together a Dr. Who themed show and it's quite hilarious. Part 1 is here.

Last one:

Let it be said right up front: I am a massive geek. As a kid, I ran around the yard playing with a toy phaser; I dressed as a Jawa for the Star Wars theater release, etc. I was lucky enough to find a spouse who tolerated such things, even if she didn't enjoy them with me.

Then, Doctor Who happened.

There's something so universal about the Doctor. A warrior who abhors violence, who thinks that everyone deserves a second chance. I've noticed that he has recently earned a hard edge: both the Tennant and Smith doctors take very little bullshit before they will go ahead and end you. For my wife, it was a big door into a larger universe of sci-fi.

We were married a couple of years after she became a fan of the show. For a wedding present, she got me the pocket watch that the Doctor hides his Time Lord consciousness (Human Nature episode). She ordered that my groom's cake be a TARDIS.