May 31, 2005

A challenge

I could not but notice the indignation on Dartlog over Dartmouth's apparent failure to lower the American flag to half-staff for Memorial Day. This gave me an idea.

In recognition of The Dartmouth Review's steadfast passion for patriotism and free speech, I challenge a Review staff member to burn an American flag.

"Stations of the Cross"

This article from the Columbia Journalism Review will tell you more than you ever wanted to know (or confront) about evangelical Christian media in America. Some highlights:
Over the last decade, Christian TV networks have added tens of millions of homes to their distribution lists by leaping onto satellite and cable systems. The number of religious radio stations — the vast majority of which are evangelical — has grown by about 85 percent since 1998 alone. They now outnumber rock, classical, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and jazz stations combined.
...
“News provides the crossover between religious and secular, and it bridges the age gap,” [Pat Robertson] explains. Robertson continues to see news and current affairs as a means to an end. “If you buy a diamond from Tiffany’s the setting is very important,” he says. “To us, the jewel is the message of Jesus Christ. We see news as a setting for what’s most important.”
...
Many Christian broadcasters attribute the success of their news operations to the biblical perspective that underpins their reporting in a world made wobbly by terrorist threats and moral relativism. “We don’t just tell them what the news is,” explains Wright of the NRB. “We tell them what it means. And that’s appealing to people, especially in moments of cultural instability.”
...
The turmoil gripping the Middle East has proven to be a particularly appealing topic for shows like the International Intelligence Briefing and Prophecy in the News, which interpret world events — be it the rise of the European Union or the Asian tsunami — in light of biblical prophecy. This approach tends to cast events that flow from controversial human choices as the natural and inevitable march of destiny. Prophecy-focused shows suggest that the war in Iraq was foretold in the Bible, for instance.
...
In the months that followed the Roosevelt Room gathering, the NRB [National Religious Broadcasters] executive committee continued to meet periodically with senior White House staff members. On occasion, Bush himself attended. And monthly NRB-White House conference calls were established to give rank-and-file NRB members a direct line to the Oval Office.

George W. Bush also attended NRB’s 2003 convention and gave a speech, much of it dedicated to promoting the looming war in Iraq. At the event, the NRB passed a resolution to “honor” the president. Though the NRB is a tax-exempt organization, and thus banned from backing a particular candidate, the document resembled an endorsement. The final line read, “We recognize in all of the above that God has appointed President George W. Bush to leadership at this critical period in our nation’s history, and give Him thanks.”

I'm assuming most of the cons who read this blog are not the Jesus-con type. This is a question I've wondered about before: how does it feel to be an "enlightened" Ivy League conservative aligned with this kind of extremism, helping advance its agenda? Especially if you're a Republican of some faith other than Christianity. Are the "benefits" of the alliance worth it, or do you worry these wackos might just exterminate all you infidels once they can? To put it less hyperbolically, don't you think their power, which you're both facilitating and increasingly beholden to, is getting out of control? And don't just ascribe their ascendence to market forces and simple demand -- the Right has disproportionately yielded to lobbying by Christian fundamentalists, creating a frightening snowball effect. In short, what in Christ's fucking name are you thinking?

May 28, 2005

The Robinson-Zywicki Agenda

Cons, no need to read this one; most of you are already well aware of what, behind all the distorted rhetoric, you were fighting for in the last Dartmouth Trustee election. Whom I hope this post reaches are a few fairly moderate Dartmouth students and alumni out there who might not understand that there is indeed a battle being waged for American universities, that the only thing preventing it from being an all-out war is a strategic quietness by the aggressor in this war, the intellectual Right. For example, I once had a conversation with Colin Barry, president of The Dartmouth, about the petition candidates while the contest was still in its early stages. Though the D's editorials made it clear that Colin and the other editors at the D did not support Zywicki and Robinson, Colin was very skeptical when I explained how Dartmouth was target # 1 in the crosshairs of the cons' War on Liberal Thought. I could tell he thought I was being a little tooo conspiratorial.

What will it take for people to realize just how subtly ruthless the Right is in its quest for domination of this nation at all levels and in all forms, and how a movement like the Robinson-Zywicki petition campaign -- cloaked in empty language of "Intellectual Diversity," "Liberal Bias," and " of "Free Speech" -- is in reality the culminating action of a massive operation focused on gaining power and wiping out most of the progressive gains this country has made in the 20th century?

Don't believe me? Go read this NYT article about the Olin Foundation (Notice the eerily uninformative website), perhaps the driving force behind the intellectual operations branch of the neo-conservative army. They are the "philanthropists" behind the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the New Criterion, the Federalist Society, the economics departments at Harvard, Yale, and Chicago, The Closing of the American Mind, The End of History, the Dartmouth Review, and, essentially, the Robinson-Zywicki Trustee victory:

As for ideas, Mr. Piereson has a new one. He is hoping to start an initiative to counter liberal influence in academia. Liberal academics "don't like American capitalism, American culture, and they don't like American history - they see it as a history of oppression," he said. "There are some people who are prepared to spend large sums of money to address this problem."

The Olin Foundation, about to close down and make way for newer foundations of its kind, has provided $380 million dollars to fund the grass-roots Con Revolution of our time. And now we at Dartmouth can say we're reaping the benefits.

Wesley Clark in 2008?

Via the new Dartmouth Young Dems blog and Kos, here's a story from Carpetbagger about someone I had almost forgotten about as a potential 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. My thoughts on Clark? I railed on him pretty hard during the 2004 primary, being skeptical of his commitment to Democratic values, and finding him a deficient public speaker. Nor was I terribly impressed by the supporters he had at Dartmouth, to be honest, as many of them struck me as fairweather Democrats who would never discuss beliefs or positions but only "electability." I did have one good conversation at 5 Olde with an older, impassioned supporter of his here in Hanover (I think this gentleman was one of his campaign organizers around here, anyone know who I'm talking about?) who kept saying Howard Dean would take Democrats "straight to the fucking grave." I could see his point but respectfully disagreed with his opinion in terms of both good policy and good politics.

Though I remain unconvinced of his political ability and I'm pretty sure he holds fundamentally different ideas than I do on a lot of important issues, I'd have nothing against a Clark run in 2008 and would expect a better, more developed, more substantive candidacy from him. On the one hand the guy is a former Republican, but on the other it's pretty nice seeing a con-vert to all that is just and liberal in this world.

May 26, 2005

ACIR Public Forum Today

The ACIR will hold a public forum today, from 4:00-6:00pm in the Faculty Lounge of the Hop, to discuss, among other things, divestment from Sudan.
The ACIR must render a decision by the end of the term regarding divestment, in order for the Investment Committee and Board of Trustees to review and approve the decision as soon as possible. (Genocide is one of those timely matters where expediency is appreciated.)
The more students come to the meeting, the better the discussion and debate will be, and the more likely something conclusive comes out of today's event.
More importantly, if enough of you show up, this could be the last you have to hear from me about divestment.

May 25, 2005

In search of kindred blogs

So I am vaguely trying to find some good liberal blogs at other Ivy League colleges and colleges in general. Blogs that are active, i.e. have been posted on in the past few weeks. Here's what I got so far, basically by Googling "[school name] democrats blog" or "[school name] liberal blog", an admittedly primitive method:

Princeton Progressive Review
Dem Apples: Harvard College Democrats
Lion and the Donkey: Columbia Democrats
Get More Ass: Brown Democrats

That's about it. There are some that looked cool but seem to be defunct (Bulldog Blue). As you can see, the above blogs are all tied to organizations, which is fine, but I'm hoping to find some independent blogs, too, like ours. Does anyone know of any? Is blogging just bigger at Dartmouth?

May 24, 2005

Malchow Chortles at Genocide

Yesterday, Joe Malchow decided to jump on the conservative bandwagon of criticizing divestment (and activism in general). Malchow does an excellent job of proving his complete and utter ignorance, and even manages to throw in a bit of condescension. Congratulations. You, sir, are an asshole.

I have a terrible habit of smirking to myself at the flavor-of-the-month liberal causes.
Joe, you moron, this isn't a liberal cause. Stopping a genocide isn't a liberal cause. The members of the DAG are not exclusively liberal. Sen. Brownback (R-KS) has been a louder voice than Sen. Corzine (D-NJ), his democratic co-sponsor of the Darfur Accountability Act. What in god's name are you talking about? Tibet is a flavor of the month cause? Oh yes, I forgot about last December, when Dartmouth Tibetans got all up in arms about that occupation, mass murder, and cultural extinction thing thats been raging since 1959. The Save Tibet movement is as strong as it has ever been, seeking govermental pressure and relief for refugees. Hybrid cars? Who the fuck is wearing armbands (I presume you mean wristbands) about hybrid cars?

Like hybrid cars and Tibet, I can't help but presume in the back of my mind that the latest armband-birthing craze is going to disappear when the WB comes up with the next teenage drama.

Aside from the fact that the above sentence is shit, gramatically speaking, do you seriously believe that? That is incredibly insulting to the thousands of students and activists everywhere who work tirelessly and effectively towards causes. Participation in the DAG only wanes during exam periods, not during episodes of the OC. You're like an old man warning kids about the dangers of "the MTV." You don't know what activism is, you don't know what activists do.

But lets get to the point.
1) The UN should be doing something. Why won't it? Not because it hasn't officially declared genocide - that act is a legal term that would force the UN to take action, but will most likely be decided afterwards. The UN has put resolutions forth (1556 and 1564). They won't actually intervene because China would veto it (75% of Sudan's oil is exported to China), and because Khartoum refuses any non-African peacekeepers. The UN has proved vital in providing food aid, although if levels aren't increased, another 3-4 million will die by the end of the year.
Because the UN can not take action yet, the onus falls on individual nations. The US imposed sanctions on Sudan in 1997, and has provided food aid. The US has pitched in with the EU, which is funding the majority of the African Union peacekeeping effort. This effort has so far been ineffectual because of low numbers of troops, insufficient equipment, and a restricted mandate. We can only hope more states will take action, providing aid and perhaps even military resources for the AU or the creation of a no-fly zone.
Activism regarding Darfur is intended to help provide increasing levels of aid through NGOs, and to compel the government as well as the UN to take action.

2. The DAG wore armbands for a while, hoping to raise awareness (and yes you cynical jackass, people did take time to ask me what it was about), but primarily to raise money. The money we have raised, along with various other campuses, is a pretty significant amount, and it will be sent to the African Union. More importantly, when an NGO raises that much money, governments take notice. Bush pledged $50 million to the AU recently.

3. The DAG did not move on from awareness to divestment, and we never held one useless candlelight vigil as far as I know. The group (if you've read any of the articles or posts on us) is comprised of several sub-groups. One of these was the Responsible Investment group, which became the Divestment group.

Lets move on to Divestment, because although there are valid arguments against it, you only have misconceptions.
1. The decision to divest has absolutely no financial impact on the endowment. If it did, we wouldn't advocate divestment, and the school wouldn't choose to do it. While these are "fiscally sound" investments, conditions in Sudan could change that very quickly. They are such a minute portion of the endowment that they could easily be shifted to other, equally if not more lucrative stocks. Furthermore, we don't what the hell we're invested in at any given moment. Eight investors individually manage a certain amount of money, constantly altering our holdings. At the end of every quarter, the investment office publishes a snapshot of current holdings, for public view. One moment we may have stock in PetroChina, and then we don't the next day. There is no negative consequence for Dartmouth. The endowment is not affected. These small holdings are sold, another stock is bought. Simple.
2. There are 93 corporations operating in Sudan. Dartmouth holds stock in Siemens, Bayer, Alcatel, and Volkswagen. Dartmouth has no holdings in what we have labeled Category One companies (oil and military suppliers). What we are actually asking is that Dartmouth restrict future investment in any of these other firms. We are recognizing that Bayer provides vital and life-sustaining services (as do another 14 companies), and we have no desire for Dartmouth to divest from this company. A letter from the Dartmouth Investment Office stating that the school is blocking investment in this corporation until they can be assured the corporation is not complicit forces the firm to make a statement on their operations and publicly acknowledge the situation, and creates negative press for the corporation. When Talisman divested from Sudan, its share price had been driven down significantly by this negative attention.
3. Also, its idiotic to think that every minute fluctuation in the endowment translates to a decision regarding financial aid or hiring practices. The market goes up, the market goes down, the endowment changes every day. Financial decisions are based on long-term goals and projections of the endowment. The day we wait for some mutual fund to accrue an extra dollar before we decide to restock the paper in a Greenprint center is the day I get the fuck out of Hanover.
4. That is a ding for the College and- even a blip on the international political radar?
Wrong. I disproved the first part of this. And besides, I think investment in corporations that enable genocide is a moral blight on the college's record that outweighs the unlikely event of a minor (one-tenth of one percent) financial consequence. The second? Dartmouth played a large role in the expansion of the South African divestment movement. In the year or two following our decision to divest, a slew of college campuses, and more importantly, state pension funds chose to divest. It's all about precedent for these things. Harvard decided PetroChina was a morally untenable investment. This makes it easier for the ACIR to "divest." Illinois made the decision just this week. Thats $1.2 billion in corporations active in Sudan. When NJ does it, that's nearly $5 billion. Calpers? $7.5 billion. That's more than a blip.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I welcome valid criticism, but if you don't know what you're talking about, and can't offer a better solution, then shut the fuck up.

May 23, 2005

The Darfur Action Group: Where it's at

So I couldn't help notice Nick Desai's incessant equivocating (some here, more here) over at Dartlog and in TDR about whether the Darfur Action Group is a worthwhile endeavor or not. I quote some of his stances:

This leads me to my opinion of 'activism.' Yes, I do basically oppose it, as it manifests itself on college campuses. I suppose activism came about because people for centuries thought there was nothing they could do to change their government. And certainly rights of assembly and petition are among the most powerful tools of a free society. But 'activism' I consider a different bird from political action. It's largely symbolic. Linking arms, making signs, jumping up and down, chanting, making your voice heard.

Why do I say it wouldn't effect change, specifically in Darfur? I see it as something of a prisoner's dilemma. That is, if all the 'players' (investors) participate, that is the best outcome. There's some leverage. However, if only Dartmouth divests and no one else (or just a few other colleges), then companies will not care, nor will Khartoum or the janjaweed, and Dartmouth will have participated in a futile yet expensive gesture. (I always thought Thoreau looked ridiculous sitting in that jail-- it seemed more like self-indulgence than true protest to me.) You could argue that your divestment will inspire others. People make this argument aboutvoting. One person says, 'I'm not gonna vote. My vote won't count-- it's one of millions.' The second says, 'What if everyone said what you say? Where would we be then??? It's, like, democracy would be shackled.' And he's right. But the decisions in divestment are not simultaneous. If we had 'divestment day,' it just might, especially if others received word that companies would divest. To be effective, it must be a group effort.

So we're to conclude from this line of reasoning that...trying to accomplish divestment is just not worth it--? I would hate to see how effective Nick Desai would be at spearheading action against genocide.

Maybe in another two or three years, when all the rape and murder is complete, he'll have finished expounding his subtle position on the subject.

So here's my reaction to seeing anyone associated with TDR play the voice of moral clarity at such dire moments:

Have you read about that little example of actvism at Dartmouth a few years ago, the one that spoke out again South African Apartheid? Wow, those Revewiers were certainly on the right side with their actions there.

The Review is the institution that once literally led the demolition of the efforts of a large and passionate group of Dartmouth students who were actively trying to contribute to helping end Apartheid through divestment by Dartmouth. The effort of the anti-Apartheid students eventually succeeded and had a big impact in getting going a movement, of awareness and action, across college campuses nationwide, and then beyond colleges. No thanks to The Review. (But go check out this 2004 gem of a post in which R. Bennett Samuel revels in a grammatical ambiguity that makes Reviewers seem like they were the ones fighting the good cause. Right-o!)

Or was that shantytown destruction in the middle of the Green actually a brilliant and meaningful artistic happening by those reticent creative spirits at TDR? They did, after all, destroy it in the name of aesthetics, citing it as an eyesore. And now they, of all people, actually complain in their op-eds of "moral relativism," with their history behind them?

There's a word for this: hypocritical. And despicable. Reviewers who even care: Get off your intellectual high-horse, which is more or less paralyzed when it comes to doing anything productive to end this genocide, and join the movement that's actually getting things done.

A Massive Shift

I'm slowly putting together in my mind some arguments about changing political alignment and labels in America. The number of articles and essays that have been written lately about the Republicans (as abandoning their traditional platform, or as not actually being conservative) and the Democrats (as being reactionary, or hijacked by special interests), and the role of Progressives (whatever they are) in all of this point towards some dilemma or contention in American politics. As I put all this together, I'm kind of stuck on a question that a Professor recently asked me.

Margaret Thatcher could slam down a copy of some Hayek book and say "this is what we stand for." For conservatives, Friedman and Hayek define much of their philosophy.
Is there a leftist/liberal/progressive equivalent?
I'm inclined to say that the nature of the left is antithetical to adopting a doctrine. I'm also going to admit I'm not that well-read.

May 21, 2005

What I have learned from our polls

What I have learned from our polls so far is this: you're mostly a bunch of Review-reading, Ramuntos-eating cons who are barely redeemed by your marginal preferences for this blog over Joe's Dartblog and for Gerhard Schroeder over Tony Blair. Glad I know that now. Go lock yourselves inside Zete, which you guys also like, or something.

May 20, 2005

Food for thought



The senior class having enjoyed a festive night of lobster and drink tonight, I thought it apposite to link to this David Foster Wallace article on mass lobster consumption, "Consider the Lobster" (PDF), which was published in Gourmet magazine. Among other things, DFW informs us how lobsters were considered disgusting fare, unfit even for prisoners, until the 19th century, and he poses the great moral question, "Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?"

Enjoy.

May 19, 2005

Considering Discussing further Consideration

After months of exhausting and mind-numbing research, the Darfur Action Group has put together a comprehensive argument for divestment. It is briefly outlined on my Free Dartmouth post.

Divestment is being pursued through the bureaucratic framework for these things. Unfortunately, that means things are a bit slow. After repeated discussions and presentations to the ACIR (Adivsory Committee on Investor Responsibility), some members are prepared to reccomend divesting from highly complicit oil companies (i.e. PetroChina) and military suppliers. Unfortunately, other members are insistent on gathering additional information (that could not possibly change the reality of the situation enough to make these specific investments ethical), and so all I got today was a pledge to discuss considering the possibilities of considering further discussion on the matter.

However, the committee is likely to make some decision by the end of the term. Decisions made by the ACIR are only reccomendations, however, and so they will then have to be approved by the Investment Committee and then the Board of Trustees. The problem? The Trustees meet in June and then over the summer. The Investment Committee meets in September.

Still, there is hope. Dartmouth could quite possibly lead the way, pushing other colleges and institutions on the brink of divestment to make that final leap. Already, Harvard has divested from PetroChina, and yesterday Illinois officially began the process of divesting its $1.2 billion in public pension funds invested in these companies.

There will be a public forum with the ACIR next Thursday, at 4pm, in the Faculty Lounge in the Hop.

May 18, 2005

Lecture on Adorno tomorrow

Tomorrow the Jewsish Studies program is holding a lecture by renowned scholar Martin Jay on Theodor Adorno:

Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley:
"Taking on the Stigma of Inauthenticity: Adorno's Critique of Genuineness"
Underwritten by the Mary and William Barnet II 1934 Family Fund
4:00 p.m., Rockefeller 2

Regardless of your views on Marxist, neo-Marxist, or post-Marxist thought -- and Adorno does not fit neatly into any of these categories, perhaps being better described also in relation to Hegel -- this should be a fascinating event. Riding the line between dialectical thought and its poststructrualist critiques, Adorno is one of the most complex and profound thinkers of the 20th century, especially when it comes to aesthetics. I use him in my thesis on Beckett, for whom he expressed a deep intellectual admiration.

See you there.

Norman Mailer's got a hunch

Rathergate and now the Newsweek affair. Two disastrous cases of misinformation from sources assumed to be credible.

Misinformation, or counter-intelligence? Norman Mailer probes the question on the Huffington Post:
At the age of eighty-two I do not wish to revive old paranoia, but Lenin did leave us one valuable notion, one, at any rate. It was "Whom?" When you cannot understand a curious matter, ask yourself, "Whom? Whom does this benefit?" Dare I suggest that our Right has just gained a good deal by way of this matter?

May 17, 2005

Con Rock

In keeping with the recent spirit of this blog, I thought I'd do some investigative work into the evils being done by Cons in my particular area of expertise: music.

It didn't take long to dig up some disgusting abuses of the arts in this country by the current administration. Thats right, awful Con rock FINANCED and SUPPORTED BY our Federal Government. And despite all of the dollars being poured into these musical acts I have never heard a single god damn one of them. Its a pretty disturbing realization of the inadequacies of our beaucracy when record label payola outstrips our own mighty iron-fisted federal institution, and we get, say, "The Killers," on every fucking radio dial in the nation, while the labors of "Sixteen Beat" go completely unrecognized. But at least "The Killers" aren't Cons. And if they are they're too busy banging chicks and mainlining horse to bother me much (and at least doing it on their own dime.) Whatever.

Fuck you cons! And your paltry overfunded attempts at rock and roll! I'll stick with the MC5.

Niral



Welcome to Niral Shah, our newest poster. Niral's an established and excellent DFP writer at the ripe year of '08. He's even got a bio with his complete articles you can check out.

The corrupt world of poetry contests

In honor of the Dartmouth English department's recent creative writing awards ceremonies, here is an altogether strange tale, from The Chronicle of Higher Education, of a man on a crusade to expose all the fraud in academia's poetry contests, and of the subsequent backlash against him. (Be forewarned, the last line of the article reads, "Everyone it seems is looking for justice -- and not the poetic kind.") Our own Bennat Berger just won an award for his short stories from Dartmouth. Bennat, what do you have to say for yourself?

May 16, 2005

Lancet Study considerations

Silly hypothetical question: Is a person responsible for the death of someone he starves to death?

I have a few more things to say about the Lancet Study in light of Joe Malchow's offhand dismissal of it. Malchow seems to have concluded that the study is somehow worthless because, "While the Lancet Study does take the difference in pre- and post-war deaths, it is still wrong in terms of magnitude. It still counts deaths not related to war violence."

This is a) a misleading characterization of the study, and b) making what is in principle a completely absurd, inhumane argument about how a nation that beings a war and invades a country should be held responsible for the civilian deaths it causes.

(a) What the Lancet Study demonstrates through its well-established scientific methodology is an estimate of the deaths due to the US invasion of Iraq, whatever form those deaths took. That means deaths related to war violence but not necessairly directly related. Just thinking through the study's methodology, explained in an earlier post, for a second will make this clear. It does not just measure the number of Iraqi civilians who die from being shot, bombed, or otherwise destroyed immediately by US forces. It measures all kinds of deaths from disease, malnutrition, etc., that are the inevitable side-effects of war. It's a logistical reality that many cons like Rumsfeld would not even care to include under "collateral damage," since those who die under collateral damage are those who die only directly from being accidentally bombed or shot, presumably.

Just image if any region in the US were devastated as parts of Iraq have been. As is, without such a devastation, there are large numbers of people who are in need of healthcare, food, shelter, etc, and most of whom manage to scrape by thanks to many services that are provided to such people. Now take the logistical damage that would happen: cut off some water, power, overcrowd the hospitals and soup kitchens and shelters, and think about what would happen. Now imagine this scenario in a nation like Iraq, with a fraction of the resources the US has.

The Lancet Study has a few problems with it, mainly problems of scale or sample size. It happened to include Fallujah in its sample, where the damage wreaked by a prolonged and heavy assault probably skewed the results slightly. But this study still deserves to be taken seriously, and provides a good estimate of the real magnitude of civilian death in Iraq. Having looked critically at the major studies of the death toll, I believe a good estimate of the total deaths caused by the invasion is in the range of 50,000 to 100,000, with 75,000 as the most likely, and, I think, conservative number.

(b) I just don't get it: people seem to be criticizing the Lancet Study for its very fundamental, and fundamentally humane, purpose: to figure out how many people the war has actually killed. Do these critics believe that if one person starves another, no one is responsible because no shots dealt the deathblow? Would they also argue that the embargo on Iraq was not resonsible for any deaths? (Try on the order of hundreds of thousands after looking at some evidence here and here.)

Dartblog responds, still wrong

Joe Malchow has an update addressing an email he recveived which pointed him to my post below. Malchow gets the link to this post wrong, and also seems oblivious to his initial error, or at least cursorily dismissive of the error, as he remarks,

John Tepperman e-mails in, directing my attention to this post- "Dartblog Distorts Lancet Study"- and adds, "Ouch." Not quite.
While the Lancet Study does take the difference in pre- and post-war deaths, it is still wrong in terms of magnitude. It still counts deaths not related to war violence.


Yes, quite. You can't just shift the terms of your criticism away from the obviously false characterization you made originally, to a fact about the Lancet Study that is well known. Furtermore, the Lancet Study is excellent and interesting precisely because of the latter fact: its methodology is a scientific attempt to track the total civilian deaths caused by the US invasion, not just the number of civilians killed directly by US bombs and bullets. This straightforward numerical analysis is used universally by economists, statisticians, etc. to identify the ceteris paribus effect of an event on a population.

I can't begin to describe how disturbing this kind of quick and uninformed dismissal of the possibility -- statistical likelihood, really -- of about 75,000 more dead Iraqis is. This is the extent of how so many of the people who "support the War in Iraq" actually care about Iraqi people.

Again, I hope Mr. Malchow will respond to this post and re-evaluate the facts.

May 15, 2005

Dartblog distorts Lancet Study

This is probably the most offensive example of an indisputable distortion of truth I have found yet on Joe's Dartblog. It needs to be set straight.

Joe Malchow asks, "How Many Iraqi War Deaths?" He mentions the Lancet Study, which estimated that the US invasion of Iraq caused 100,000 deaths (actually, between around 5000 and 200,000 was their estimate, with the likeliest number thus being 100,000 -- the Lancet Study is an admittedly imprecise study but could well still be accurate). Joe completely misconstrues the Lancet Study by misconstruing another person's (accurate) construal of the Lancet Study on Volokh. Jim Lindgren, the poster on Volokh, rightly points out that "The 98,000 figure covers deaths from all sources (including accidents and disease), while the new ILCS study's 24,000 estimate excludes deaths from non-War related sources of death, such as accidents or disease." He also is correct that "For example, the Lancet study distinguishes between the 14.6 month period before the War and the 17.8 months after the War."

Malchow then writes that

The number comes from the Lancet Study, which reported that 98,000 Iraqi non-militants had been killed. That is incorrect, as Jim Lindgren reminds us. What Lancet actually found was that 98,000 Iraqis had died since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. In a country of 25 million, that isn't hard to believe. The 98,000 includes asthma, cancer, accidents, car crashes, heart attacks, old age, suicide... The 98,000 includes everything.

Not at all. The Lancet study, as the Volokh post recognized, took the number of deaths in Iraq from a 14.6-month period before the war, and the number of deaths from the 17.8-month period after the war, and subtracted the former from the latter to estimate the number of deaths due to the Iraq war. The change in death rate, essentially, NOT just the total number of deaths after the Iraq war. No one in their right mind would ever propose or lie about the latter as a method for for estimating the death toll in Iraq. Only Malchow seems to be under this illusion about the Lancet Study.

Go check it out for yourself. Here is the Lancet Study in PDF, and a summary of it from The Washington Post.

I sincerely hope Mr. Malchow will issue a correction on his blog and remove the offending post.

DarTV

So I was just trying out DarTV, the new TV broadcasting over the campus network, for my first time. (Try it out here.) Pretty cool. I was using it on a PC plugged into the wired Ethernet, as it was not working on a Mac laptop I was using in the bottom floor of Silsby. According to Dartmouth, 'A limited selection of channels will also appear, in certain areas of campus, on the "Kiewit Video" wireless network.' So either this area is not one of them or I was doing something wrong.

On the plugged-in PC it was working pretty nicely, though a lot of channels -- Fox News, CNN, Headline News, TV5US (French), and DTV!, for example -- were not working, giving the message "Reception: (No broadcast available)". But the ones that worked were really smooth and fairly clear, like watching on a grainy TV from the 80s, maybe. The interface is probably the most immediately appealing thing: it's really easy to navigate, switch channels (while a small window of the broadcast keeps playing), and get info on the channels, schedules, and programs. Much easier and faster than a normal digital cable or satellite TV.

Has anyone else tried this yet? I am curious if people are having the same problems I am.

Too bad I'm graduating just in time to miss this pretty much. Though I don't really care for TV other than Fox News.

May 14, 2005

Anti-Wal Mart? You're a...Nazi?

Ha -- this is too good. From Editor and Publisher:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is apologizing for a newspaper ad featuring a photo of a book-burning in Nazi-era Germany. The ad was published in a northern Arizona newspaper by a political action committee the company helped fund.

The company was writing an apology letter Friday to the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona and will run an apology ad this weekend in Flagstaff's Arizona Daily Sun, which carried the original ad, said Daphne Moore, director of community affairs for Wal-Mart...

The ad ran as part of a campaign opposing an ordinance that would effectively prevent Wal-Mart from opening a supercenter in Flagstaff. The ordinance was passed by the Flagstaff City Council but voters are being asked to ratify it.

The ad showed a historic photo of people throwing books into a large fire. A swastika is clearly visible near the center of the photo.

The text below it reads: "Should we let government tell us what we can read?"
Yes. I'd rather have government tell me what I can read, watch, or listen to than Wal-Mart tell me.

Filibuster constitutional, GOP should break rules

That from the National Review. Analysis on Kos.

Looks like the thinking cons are out of sync with the party line here. When the dust settles perhaps words like these from the Nat'l Review will remind people of the radical illegitimacy of the Nuclear Option, like next time they're in the voting booth.

Snark Smith

I would just like to direct you to Snark Smith, a web site by Michael Weiss '02 and Nic Duquette '04. Both were Jack-O editors/writers at Dartmouth in addition to being other things. Weiss was also the author of Zooperville, probably the greatest comic strip of all time, certainly ever to grace the Daily D as far as I know. I've never met either man but Snark Smith is an impressive web site, a storehouse of all kinds of treasures. These guys are real smart, they read books and whatnot.

May 13, 2005

Cool it.

Calls for President Wright's resignation are now in the air, how many hours after the Trustee election results were announced? The heretofore quiet blog Voices in the Wilderness has dropped all pretense of quietude, and one impudent young Dartmouth alum says it on Dartlog, to be echoed by other Dartloggers. When will the guillotine be wheeled in?

I'll just briefly dissect the charges:
Jim Wright, the author of the seminal work for the destruction of the fraternities, now says he supports them.
Maybe because the fraternities have become much more responsible, commendable institutions in the face of the Adminstration's challenge to them? Fraternities should die, anyway. (I'm in one.)

His administration has driven the athletic program to its worst record in memory, and his admissions director has badly embarrassed the college, our athletes and crippled our recruiting capability, but he now says he supports a strong athletic program.
Athletics really shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence as "Ivy League," at least not in the post-1950 world. Women's sports look like they're doing just fine to me. How about revoking Title IX, cons?

His administration has spent millions trying to develop graduate Ph.D. programs in the arts and sciences towards developing a research university, which he now entirely repudiates.
It takes research opportunities in the sciences to bring the kind of professors you want to teach at Dartmouth. This is quite a simple point to grasp.

His administration has driven legacy admissions to half the rate of our sister institutions (for example Princeton's most recent class has 12% alumni children, whereas Dartmouth had 6%), but now says he now "welcomes these applicants" (a nice evasion: but does he admit them?).
Good. Legacies are the dumbest of the lot. Wright's still gotta provide lip service to nepotism, though, 'cause as of now it brings in the dough (a very mutable status quo, in my opinion).

After adopting policies regulating unwanted speech, he recently had his minions withdraw these policies (see [FIRE link]) In short, can an administration that had veered one way and now veers back in the opposite direction possibly have any further credibility? And can it possibly lead effectively?
Did you see the news? FIRE now gave us the green light. Should Wright never have let his thoughts on the issue evolve? Flip-flops are for weak-kneed liberals, right?

And to make the point most clear, look at the record of fundraising of this administration. Dartmouth is now lagging badly behind its peers in both its undergraduate program and facilities as a result of poor fundraising. All one need do is look at the facilities of our peers to see the evidence of this. The point would be proved if Alumni Relations would only get the college to publish the information it most surely has, comparing the rate of growth of both annual giving and capital giving from alumni sources at Dartmouth, as compared with our peers over the last ten years. I have no doubt that if this were published, the evidence would be clear. Will the college do so? Under Wright, we sincerely doubt it.
Last I heard, that capital campaign was doing pretty damn well, and our fundraising was not at all lagging behind that of our peer institutions when you factor in that Dartmouth is just a wee bit smaller than, say, Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Brown or Penn or Cornell or Columbia. In fact per-capita we at the top of the list, I believe. Can you show me a causal relationship between Wright's leadership and a decline in alumni giving? Maybe that 9/11 dip in the economy is to blame?? Or, better yet, the Clinton adminstration?
I hope you can see how weak these claims are. The statement made by the election of RoboZywick is significant already, though neither got a majority; can we hold off on the purge? Go start your own college with David Horowitz or something.

Happy Green Key

Happy Green Key. Even you, cons.

Dartmouth Observer advises new Trustees

I disagree with Chien Wen Kung over at the Observer sometimes, but I agree with this message he has:
James Panero, following up on an essay by Roger Kimball in the latest New Criterion, is hailing Robinson and Zywicki's victory as "one more battle won in the effort to retake the universities." I'm a little skeptical of the military metaphor. As I've said previously, I don't think Dartmouth is in dire straits; and I certainly don't think it needs to be "retaken." We aren't Crusaders and Dartmouth isn't Jerusalem. In fact, I think conflict and open hostility between the new trustees and the administration or faculty is a bad thing. Conservative stalwarts may recollect with fondness the battles the Review waged against official Dartmouth in the 1980s, and may look forward to such skirmishes in the years to come, but I don't. I don't want my professors protesting on the Green; I want them in the classroom, teaching students. This is not to say that I'm against the trustees criticizing the faculty or administration. Some degree of criticism is necessary, because some things -- like tuition fees for instance -- need to be looked at. The question is how.

Panero's rhetoric betrays exactly what I fear a lotta cons are actually thinking now. I hope and feel pretty sure that the new Trustees won't get carried away in the glory and glamor of their victory.

LGB Poll

Don't ask me why I didn't think of this earlier, but I have put a permanent poll feature on the blog, like right over here as of now

<--------------------------

I am pretty psyched about this permanent poll feature. We'll have a new poll every few days, maybe even every day.

The first poll might seem a little vain or puerile, but this is a pressing question of our time I believe. I hope you'll put in your two cents.

More serious polls will follow, such as about Iraq or "Steph's So Dartmouth," and it would be cool if they actually generated a little discussion -- anyone can comment on the poll results after clicking to see them or after voting.

CLARIFICATION: The current poll asks, "Which blog sucks LESS?" This poll is turning out to be way too close. Maybe it will be some indicator of the composition of our readership...

May 12, 2005

Kinda unintelligent speech on intelligent design

Along with Ariel, Mike, and some other friends, I saw a good portion of Christian scientist (like, Christian and scientist, not Christian Scientist) Michael Behe's lecture on the concept of intelligent design. This was a pretty disappointing event. Maybe partly because I was already familiar with the main themes -- essentially, a bunch of metaphors about clocks in fields, projected upon reality -- and figures (e.g. William Paley) of intelligent design, but still, a disappointment.

Behe's argument consisted of five parts, the first two being devoted basically to all the metaphors put forth for intelligent design, with the central, and rather weak, point being that if things appear to be designed, isn't it likely they were? Behe showed slides with unenlightening comparisons of Mount Rushmore to regular ole' mountains and the like. The crux of Behe's overall argument rested in the third part, where he attempted to show that Darwinian evolution has failed to explain the most basic biomolecular systems -- punctuated brilliantly by an unforgettable PowerPoint slide featuring a "fancy" phrase he "coined": Irreducible Complexity -- and thence draw the conclusion that intelligent design is the most viable alternative explanation. His point here about the current inadequacy of evolutionary science, which many prominent evolutionists readily admit and see as a welcome intellectual challenge, is well taken, and he illustrated it with an interesting example of bacterial flagella (snicker), but he did not develop this core part of his thesis sufficiently. Nor, of course, does his conclusion that some force of intelligent design is at work follow. In fact, intelligent design remains what it always has been: a big projected metaphor that can't ever be "proven" false, because positing paranormal forces outside the bounds of the physical universe. Scientist Kenneth Miller sums it up pretty well: "Michael J. Behe fails to provide biochemical evidence for intelligent design."

The theory of evolution still has considerable work to do, but it has so far proven to be a wonderful, powerful explanation of our world, and I can only guess it will continue to explain much, much more as more work is done. Assuming teachers don't get lynched for teaching it. And, who knows, maybe some serious modifications to the theory or some other theories might help to explain the basic mysteries of life -- intelligent design just isn't one of them.

Behe's presentation also had the feeling of being dumbed-down; I know he has some provocative, well thought-out ideas, but he didn't get them across too thoroughly here. Plus the event had a suspicious aura of religious agenda on account of all the Jesus freaks around and the table set up to raise funds for the C.S. Lewis Society, whose mission is "Helping skeptics doubt their doubt."

I don't need the help, thanks.

Another conservative Dartmouth blog

God knows we need more. I just discovered this blog but I won't link to it because that would give it unnecessary, and undeserved, attention.

The author of this blog pertly describes her mission thus: "A conservative college woman takes on liberals, radical feminists, the anti-war crowd, and pseudo-intellectuals of all kinds."

Curiously, "pseudo-intellectual" is a word used only by pseudo-intellectuals.

Ken Wells '08 responds

The Review pointlessly singled him and his blogging friends out and only made themselves look like assholes. The man deserves to have his rebuttal read:
When the aliased was drafting this story, the first thing that should have clued him in on the context of theRandomness was the blog's URL (whip that shit out) and the title (the Randomness). Think about it syllable by syllable. The Randomness.....The. Ran. dom. ness. Basically, it implies a collage of useless, insignificant crap; kind of like your article and kind of like most all other TDR articles for that matter. I mean, it may be unfair to point out only one specific article of TDR and draw conclusions about the integrity of the entire organization, but then again, that's what the author in question has done to me and my friends.

Republicans win again

Rumor has it the petition candidates have won positions on the Board of Trustees.

UPDATE: Dartlog says it's confirmed.

UPDATE 2: God bless Dartmouth, whatever that means. Official College press release.

May 10, 2005

"We wish him well"

Funny observation by David Folkenflik at NPR.org on a Fox News public relations custom: wishing the enemy well, right after kicking him in the gut:

Former Fox Sports anchor Keith Olbermann can now be found on MSNBC, where he often torches such Fox News figures as Bill O'Reilly.

Here's how Fox News' [Brian] Lewis responded to one such attack by Olbermann last May:

"Since he stopped reading sports scores, Keith has attracted fewer viewers than a test pattern, and his career has been nothing short of a train wreck. We pity his tortured soul and wish him all the best."

Fartlog lives

Man, I was getting worried for a while. Go read the newest posts. John Elizabeth Dexterhouse beats me to an important observation on the Review's new leadership, namely about Editor-in-Chief Michael Ellis' bad-ass avatar. (What are they all compensating for?)

Larry David, blogger



Say what you want about the new Huffington Post -- a lot's been said already -- at least we can now get Larry David's thoughts on the world outside his own perverted, solipsistic one, which is pretty much what "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is confined to. This will be one blog column I check out often. David's first post comes out in support of John Bolton, Bush's hotheaded, xenophobic nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Because sometimes you just gotta treat the people around you and below you like shit to get what you want:

Let's face it, the people who are screaming the loudest at Bolton have never been a boss and have no idea what it’s like to deal with nitwits as dumb as themselves all day long. Why, even this morning my moronic assistant handed me a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it. I was incensed...

So get to work, Bolton. Show these other countries who’s the boss."


In typical Larry David style, you might not know he's kidding till you click the links.

May 7, 2005

Patrick Gibbs, Totally Sweet DJ

So my friend Patrick Gibbs at UNC Chapel Hill has been doing a radio show on Saturdays during his time there. He's graduating in like a week, and this I think is his last show. Go to http://wxyc.com/ and you can listen to his show via live streaming audio. Why would you bother to do this? Because he plays pretty much a huge variety of really awesome music, everything from post-punk to contemp. indie rock to some instrumental "world" music, all of which rocks and will make you want to party. From 6 to 9 tonight. Check it out.

The Little Pinko Blog

It was bound to happen:

http://thelittlepinkoblog.blogspot.com/

May 4, 2005

What Dartmouth does he attend?

Was anyone else a little baffled by '08 Michael Belinsky's op-ed in The Dartmouth today about the need for more competition in the classroom at Dartmouth, called "Competing at the Top"? Belinsky (also author of last week's "Liberal Hypocrisy," where he as a "moderate liberal" puts forth several generalizations about free speech, compromise, (L?)liberalism and (C?)conservativism, only to leave you wondering what the point of it all was) opines,

Now, if the College wished to promote the pursuit of knowledge alongside moral and spiritual growth, surely it would prefer to do so in the most effective way possible. I hold that a competitive environment is best suited towards such an endeavor. Before you mark me crazy or, worse yet, cast me away to Harvard, please hear me out!

The problem with competition is that our mostly liberal community attaches negative connotations to the very word "competition," equating it, in the good spirit of neo-Marxism, with exploitation, alienation, and a generally shabby way of doing things. The burden therefore lies with the writer to prove that competition in a given arena, in this case, learning, would generate desirable results. Let us begin. I will approach by arguing for two claims. First, moderated competition does not harm student relations because cooperation is possible within the competitive arena. Second, competition drives students to learn better.


Does anyone really dispute this argument? I think most professors and students at Dartmouth realize that fostering (or simply allowing to let develop) competition is a useful and important strategy in encouraging learning, in addition to strategies such as getting students to collaborate sometimes. Who exactly are these neo-Marxists Belinsky talks about? How many members of the Dartmouth community voted for the Communist Party USA or Socialist Party USA in the 2004 elections?

Belinsky continues,

Decide for yourself: how will material be best absorbed: by assigning readings and problem sets only to say that first, they won't be graded and second, grades are the least important thing in college, anyway? Or will students learn better if you assign graded homework and encourage high performance while using grades to benchmark that performance?

Again, I don't know what classes Belinsky has been taking, but I get plenty of grades in all my classes here. This isn't Brown. Maybe some readers of this post know what he is talking about?

My point is, I don't think any lack of competition ranks among Dartmouth's significant problems, or can even be said to exist at Dartmouth. A waste of op-ed space?

May 3, 2005

Fanning the flames of the Culture War


More rhetoric antagonizing, and perhaps endangering, U.S. federal judges, this time from Pat Robertson (via Kos):

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."


Well I guess if some are entitled to compare Bush to Hitler, others are entitled to compare "activist" judges to Nazis and Al Qaeda. The difference might be that some guy drawing up plans to bomb an abortion clinic could change plans and take out a courtroom.

EDIT: Some wonderful research at Kos:
Reverend Flip-Flop...

But C&J caught Robertson with his pants on fire over a comment that didn't get much attention at all.  When asked why God allows bad things to happen to huge numbers of people---specifically, the tsunami that hit Asia in December---Robertson batted it aside, saying, "The reason for that tsunami was the shifting of tectonic plates in the Indian Ocean. I don't think [God] changes the magma in volcanoes and I don't think he changes the wind currents to bring about hurricanes. So, I don't attribute that to God..."

Which got us to thinking about this little comment he made about God's wrath on June 6, 1998:  "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those [rainbow] flags in God's face if I were you... But a condition like [Gay Day at Disney World] will bring about the destruction of your nation.  It'll bring about...earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor."

But never a tsunami.  That would be silly.

Newspapers in decline, blogs not

This news doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone.

New York Times:
The industry reported yesterday a 1.9 percent drop in daily circulation, and a 2.5 percent decline on Sundays, over the last six months, compared with the period a year ago. The weak numbers for 814 daily newspapers, reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, represent the largest circulation losses for the industry in more than a decade, and indicate an acceleration of the decline. The rate of decline has been 0.5 percent to 1 percent since newspaper circulation peaked in the mid-1980's, analysts said.

Editor and Publisher:
USA Today maintained its crown as #1 in circulation, with a .05% gain taking it to 2,281,831 copies daily. The Wall Street, in second place at 2,070,498, was down .8%.

Compared to the same period a year ago, The Sun in Baltimore dropped a staggering 11.5% in daily circulation and 8.4% in Sunday circulation. On Friday alone, the paper lost roughly 14% of its circulation.

Meanwhile, blogs are not in decline:


That's not to say most of these blogs are not crap or actually contain legitimate news, but still, you get the point.

EDIT: Nice post and graph from the same source -- David Sifry, founder of Technorati -- that does show blogs catching up to "big media" in terms of legitimate stories, as measured by links to stories. The data are from October 2004, though; it'd be interersting to see new data like these and how much more ground blogs have gained.

May 2, 2005

ROTC in the Ivy League



Interesting discussion going on at Daily Kos about the pros and cons of ROTC, with the focus on Ivy League schools, spurred by the possibility of ROTC's return to Columbia. Dartmouth's ROTC (the official site, worth exploring, go "meet the cadets" and read the history) is mentioned a few times in the comments, with one commenter who claims to be a Dartmouth student offering the following comforting words:

Here's a problem with ROTC...

Technically, it turns college campuses into military bases...and thus military targets.

By the US's definition of acceptable targets during the Iraq war (C&C structure integrated with intelligence or military), college campuses become legitimate targets under US-defined rules of engagement. Which doesn't thrill me.


Is this true? Either way, I'm not too worried about being attacked here at Dartmouth, but I will say that I support demilitarization in general so I'm not the biggest fan of the Army's recruiting presence here. Though their practice of preying on high school students in poor areas, as facilitated by the No Child Left Behind Act, Subpart 2, is much more troubling.

SEC. 9528. ARMED FORCES RECRUITER ACCESS TO STUDENTS AND STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION.

(a) POLICY-(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.

Tolerance, Catholic-style

The Daily Dartmouth reports on a lecture given at Dartmouth's Aquinas House on Friday by John Grabowski, professor at the Catholic University of America who wrote the forward to Pope John Paul II's book "Theology of the Body":

Grabowski said homosexuality is not a sin because a person does not choose to be homosexual. A person is not culpable for something that is discovered, he said.

"One is not responsible for being homosexual, one is responsible for what they choose to do with it," Grabowski said. "If a homosexual person is in a stable relationship, that's the best they can hope for."

Grabowski reminded the audience that although the Catholic Church condemns homosexuality, it condemns hatred as well.


Huh? Man, you gotta admire the consistency of Catholic theology, from that whole Trinity deal to its views on homosexuality.