The assumption that attendance at a prestige school implies greater brain power.
However, insight into how someone gets into a School of Versailles can be very telling. Take Baracky Husseina Obamacles, for example.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The Trouble With AI's Reading of the Resumes ?
The assumption that attendance at a prestige school implies greater brain power.
However, insight into how someone gets into a School of Versailles can be very telling. Take Baracky Husseina Obamacles, for example.
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Hey, guys -- since when did I become the "go to Harvard or else you're an idiot" punching bag? OK, OK, everyone likes canards, and why not invent this one -- like the AI Sheehan JJ was peddling a while ago.
Of course, one may go to Harvard, or any of the other Ivy Leagues (or, to Cambridge, Oxford, or Sorbonne) and come out a total idiot. Or, one may go to the Podunk Community College, and come out a string theorist. But, if you play the averages, chances are skewed a certain way -- just integrate x times the pdf, and you'll see.
But, so what -- it all depends on what we're talking about. Reagan when to Eureka College -- and Bill Thurston to New College in Floriduh. Yes, the tail end of the prob distribution can create huge surprises. Question is, does this apply to this particular journalism major from Moscow State U. in Idaho? I'm still waiting for JJ (or AA) to make the case. And it's got to be a proof (replete with commuting diagrams), not proof by intimidation, or hand waving.
Why should it NOT apply to the University of Idaho?
AI, you very much seemed to be saying "Look, she went to Idaho, that doesn't stack up to Obama, who went to Columbia and then Harvard". Which is what elicited JJs question on whom you'd rather have, "Columbia-Harvard" or "Bottom of his Naval Academy class".
Correct me if I'm reading what you are saying in the wrong way, but this is what I got from your previous posts:
" Palin seems amiable enough, and now she's shown she can talk a bit, but, gee, she went to Idaho, and was not a serious student. How then can I trust she is a serious person? Obama at least went to Ivies"
That sounds very much as if it is the schools attended which is strongly influencing your view of her, and even offering a kind of "soft spot" for Obama.
Let me present my position directly, and then you can mark out where, and why, you disagree.
I find it an empirical fact that Sarah Palin is intelligent, capable in many areas, a sharp observer of the real world, and one who has the integrity of her views. That she went to a school like Idaho is judged by that fact, not the other way round.
I find it an empirical fact that Barack Obama is intelligent, capable in the narrows of seeking power, indifferent to observation of the real world, and one who has a hard core of his own views but hides them under a stream of other views borrowed for the convenience of the moment. Once he has his power, or thinks he does, then he lets slip what his core is. That he went to schools like Columbia and Harvard is judged by that fact, and not the other way around.
I look forward to your response on this, but to ask for commutative diagrams, and even the notion of [mathematical] proof on this is..... well, AI, I think you know.
By the way, what about the article. The point of the post, after all, is what insight we have into Obama from HOW he got into the School for Versailles
I'm sure everything in this article came as a shock to A (Tough Call) I.
Reminds me of something I saw and didn't post. I didn't post it because not being such a credentialist as AI, I didn't think univ acceptance such a pons asinorum in these high political bullshit times.
Some guy wrote somewhere asking exactly this. How did Obama get into Harvard Law after being a transfer (from Occidental Coll) Poli Sci major at Columbia? Did he graduate with high honors? What's the story.
Well, I have my doubts about AA's source here, but maybe we have our answer: IT'S BUSH'S FAULT. (Because, of course Bush = Saudis)
And, AA, this does tie to the other conversation. If AI's only criterion for intelligence is getting into an Ivy, then let's have a look at how our boy got into an Ivy.
Hard call, indeed.
Look, guys, I'm not trying to sound elitist, though I must confess there may be a shade of that in my postings -- you see how a nuanced, Alan Alda type I can be when I want!
I've been trying, best I could, to make a couple of points in all this, without much success. So let me give it a shot, one more time:
* One point is general, and has got nothing to do with Obama, Palin, or whoever: there is a pegging order in academia, which is grossly unfair and biased, and one can rant and rave all day about it, and find zillions of exceptions. But, when the chips are down, Harvard is Harvard, and Podunk U. is Podunk U. Sorry, boys, there is nothing I can do about that, life is a bitch, and all that jazz. All we can do is work harder than those who got into Harvard, and show them off.
* Going through Harvard is no guarantee of success -- or of superiority. It's true even in math, let alone in politics. As a piece of evidence, just consider this: how many of the Harvard profs actually went to Harvard? Or, how many Presidents or VPs went to Harvard?
* About Palin: undoubtedly she is much, much closer politically to me than Obama -- probably with a correlation factor of 90% versus -90%. So what, does it mean that, like a Pavlovian dog, I should start jumping up and down and sing her praises (the way pinkos do when it comes to politics)? As I said, and as AA recapitulates, I kind of like her on a personal level, and my opinion went up a notch when I saw she can talk (that was not at all clear beforehand). But those are only necessary conditions, yet far for sufficient for me to take her seriously as a potential heavyweight in US politics.
* What I don't see in her at all is any kind of intellectual rigor or intellectual curiosity. Her educational background just reinforces this: not only did she go to Podunk U. -- nothing a priori wrong with that -- but even there nobody remembers her. (At least, Obama got to be editor in chief of the Harvard Review -- c'mon guys, be fair.)
And nothing in her subsequent private or public career indicates any interest whatsoever besides small-town politics -- correct me if I'm wrong.
At any rate, there I am. This is not to not say that picking someone at random from the phone book is better than picking a Harvard prof for President (to paraphrase a famous dictum of Bill Buckley). So maybe we reached that point, and I may go along in the end -- but hey, you expect me to jump up and down in glee, on top of that?
Question is, does this apply to this particular journalism major from Moscow State U. in Idaho? I'm still waiting for JJ (or AA) to make the case.
I received an MA in history from the U of North Dakota, and would be happy to have a discussion with any Ivy-League-er graduate student about the history of ideas, from Socrates to Isaiah Berlin.
With that said, I'm still a little worried about Palin. But at least she's not a Biden. And a president and VP are just two components within a broader cabinet.
Also AI: state universities have done more for respective states and regions of said states than any east coast Ivy League outfit, hands-down, without question. Why? Because state universities are in touch with their states, and they realize they are there to do so. It's a system of thinking that dates back to the foundations of doctoral programs in American History, particularly in the late-19th century, when Johns Hopkins University started turning them out (this ties in with broader notions of the Professionalization of America). For example, Frederick Jackson Turner received his doctorate from said John's Hopkins (his dissertation being on the fur trade between Europeans and Natives in Wisconsin), and took a position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, when through. Before accepting a professorship at Harvard (and going on to become one of the most formidable historians of the American West), he trained a horde of graduate students, one of which was Orin G. Libby, the first professional historian of UND, and North Dakota. Libby took the appointment to UND, and immediately set out to get to know his state, bottom-to-top, and through and through (UND Professor of history Dr. Gordon Iseminger is working on the first full length bio of Libby; he receives mention here and there in Allan Bogue's biography of Turner, "Strange Roads Going Down").
Stay with me here, because Turner and Libby then relate to the political arguments of today. Turner delivered his 1893 "Frontier Thesis" at the World Fair in Chicago, and it turned into an argument that has belleagured the profession ever since. That argument was that the frontier environment continuously challenged individual Americans, and shaped them into democratically-voting individuals (they were obsessed with environmental determinism back in those days closer to Darwin). Today we hear that same thesis (without reference to Turner, or his predecessors -- Herbert Baxter Adams being one -- of course). Palin comes from Alaska, the last frontier. Will Turner's thesis hold up? I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. There are plenty of historians today who aptly point out the many troubles and failures on the frontier that went unnoticed, or were simply not mentioned by Turner or his disciples. Will Palin continue to rise to the occasion, this one being the White House? Like I said, we'll have to wait and see.
You need a better argument, AI, than just saying Palin went to U of Idaho = idiocy. Otherwise, you're going to alienate rather than win over.
But I'm just continuously trying to save Dakota and the American West from the world, and itself. Back to it.
All we can do is work harder than those who got into Harvard, and show them off.
That's what we do at the state universities out west. You should leave Boston and bring your mathematical professing out here for a while, AI.
Ok, AI, fair enough. Just a series of comments on your points.
[1] Your first paragraph tells us there is a pecking order of prestige, the second paragraph points out that institutional prestige is a poor foundation for judging individual merit. So, how do we disagree?
[2] Your third paragraph is the key point, I think. To me, this is deeply reminiscent of how Reagan was dismissed as just a "Bedtime for Bozo" actor in the first couple of decades or so of moving into politics. Actually, AI, as you may remember, this was still the common line in the 1980 campaign. Of course, "reminiscent of Reagan's situation" by no means implies she has the potential, never mind developed capacities, of a Reagan. It would be illogical to say so [eh, MFT].
However, I do believe she has such potential....
[3] Here I disagree with much of what you are saying.
[a] First, and keeping in mind the limitations of analogies, let's make an analogy with Reagan. AI, words such as yours were applied by the barrelful to Reagan. And not just by those ideologically opposed to him. Yet he always struck me as one who spoke as one does who has put serious thought into what to make of this world, and as to what is the good for those who live in it. He could be very funny, cutting, and so on; but he was authentic, and careful in expression, and serious also. An
What is it about Palin--other than academics-- which leads you to judge her, then, as Reagan's critics judged him?
By the way, I see no evidence of absence of intellectual curiosity. How did you surmise this?
[b] Setting aside your description of the University of Idaho as "Podunk U", remember that Sarah was a transfer undergraduate there, whereas you reference Obama getting noted while at Harvard Law. I would bet ya a billion dollars that if Sarah Palin had, in her 30s, gone to Harvard Law she would certainly be remembered.
And why? As JJ pointed out, and we've discussed much before, our "best" universities are saturated, and corrupted, by politics [and I don't mean the petty politcs of who gets the corner office]. This occurs even in departments of mathematics or physics, never mind a heart of national power like Harvard Law. Sarah Palin would have been remembered for being most politically incorrect, and would have been lucky to walk out on human feet. From every account I've read of Obama at Harvard, it was all about the politically correct appointee. The past robust decades have shown Obama's legal mind to be cabbage.
[c] AI, are you pulling our leg here? If she was just the Mayor of Wasilla, and if it was from that post that McCain had plucked her, then of course you'd be absolutely right to say we don't have evidence indicating she was interested in more than local stuff. But, she is the frickin' Governor of Alaska. And whatever you may think, Alaska is absolutely not a podunk state. It is, in fact, hugely important to this nation. If you meant this seriously, then I am correcting you. If you were pulling our legs, then I apoplogize for being too lumpheaded to perceive the joke.
[d] No, I am not expecting you to jump with glee at her choice. Even if you thought she was a grand figure, I doubt you would have felt gleeful at your man Mitt not being chosen.
For myself, "gleeful" is not the reaction. Relief is more like it. In a certain sense, your sense AI, it is probably right to say her running as VP is premature. It would be akin to Reagan being made Nixon's running mate in 1968, which would probably have made less of him than in fact what he became.
However, again for myself, this particular election, with Obama looming as President and Commander in Chief of this country, at this moment of history, I do not think we have the luxury of letting someone like Sarah "season" for a decade or so. The only one that could possibly stop Obama is McCain, I am now sure of it, but--to use your phraseology-- his candidacy is a necessary but not sufficient condition to prevent the triumph of a truly awful political movement.
John and Mitt, John and Joseph, John and just about any well known political figure, is in serious trouble. John and Sarah have a genuine fighting chance.
Hah! Ivy AI doesn't know it's "pecking order"! Hilarious! What's a "pegging order"? The decision of who gets to be pegboy?
mft, this is interesting what you've written. The idea is (I'm thick, sorry) that fighting the frontier reinforced democratic tendencies, if I got your drift. Now that the country is corrupted through and through, and most rotten in Boston, then it is natural (geometrically) that Alaska be the last bastion of decent democratic values.
Reminds me that the best Roman emperors were Spaniards. Rome was completely corrupt from a point on, full of sycophants and pegboys. These guys stayed out in tents rather than go to the senate house.
Sorry if I misconstrued everything you have said, mft.
AA, your response to AI anticipates and improves on anything I would have written. My rhetorical technique (as you know) is limited to mocking and so suffers from a point-by-point structure.
Thanks for cleaning out the Augean stables of AI's 'reasoning' here.
There is still one point I feel hasn't been hit, though. Again, AI in his first few words tips his hand: Look, guys, I'm not trying to sound elitist, though I must confess there may be a shade of that in my postings.
Here is already a grave problem.
There is nothing more wrong with being elitist when it comes to choosing a VP than there is in Oprah refusing to invite Paliin on the show. It is a choice and it may be good or bad for the chooser.
The point is that getting in to Harvard doesn't make you elite by any reasonable definition.
Harvard, too, can decide who to admit and for whatever reason they choose. Some people they admit turn out great, some just pay the bills.
AA, you remember Tulane. There where the tuition is extremely high, we had two classes of students. Those that were extremely bright, and those who paid tuition.
Elite should actually mean some kind of intellectual or character superiority that admission anywhere won't measure anymore. Navy SEALS?
It used to be that it was an ideal for academia to produce people of character, but now it produces specialists and makes no judgments as to character for fear of seeming closed-minded or racist.
In fact, I don't doubt that Geraldine Ferraro was right not only in saying that Obama wouldn't be where he was then were it not for who he is, but Obama would not have even gotten into Columbia if he were any different. Harvard is just the Ivies doubling down now that we have a Saudis paying to get him in.
Shit, he's an Ivy legacy on both sides and has that other thing Ferraro was alluding to too! Add to that the connection to Saudi and you have another trifecta for AI. Shit! He was the admissions officer's bonus that year.
He got Harvard Law Review? So? That's an appointed job and so also pure politics. They wanted a first black or something.
It's all bullshit, AI. Get it in your head: Universities are bullshit.
JJ said:
mft, this is interesting what you've written. The idea is (I'm thick, sorry) that fighting the frontier reinforced democratic tendencies, if I got your drift. Now that the country is corrupted through and through, and most rotten in Boston, then it is natural (geometrically) that Alaska be the last bastion of decent democratic values.
Reminds me that the best Roman emperors were Spaniards. Rome was completely corrupt from a point on, full of sycophants and pegboys. These guys stayed out in tents rather than go to the senate house.
Sorry if I misconstrued everything you have said, mft.
JJ, no apologies are necessary. Your paraphrase was spot on: Turner believed the frontier forced Europeans and Euro-Americans to, in contemporary MBA speak, think on their feet. They were forced to deal precisely with 1) what the environment offered them; 2) perish prematurely within that environment; or 3) return to Boston or Rome. Today, of course, we know that you don't necessarily need an Alaskan frontier to be challenged: we have redefined the cities as Urban Jungles nowadays, anyhow, certainly a variation on the frontier. The Alaskan frontier won't tolerate morons: take a look at Jon Krakower, "Into the Wild" or that Grizzly Guy, both who perished because they got a little too "in touch" with Alaskan nature.
In 1890, the U.S. Census declared the "frontier" closed, the "frontier" being defined as a 40 square mile (or acre, I forget) area having less than 2 Europeans or Euro-Americans in it. Today, believe me, there are places in the Dakotas and eastern Montana that have re-entered "frontier" status, and unlike the biggoted 1890 Federal Census, I'm taking into account all ethnicities.
In that regard, though, it takes just as stable and thoughtful of a mind to look out upon that vast type of wilderness and remain calm at the oblivion staring back at you as it does to, say, look out on the streets of New York City or Rome and remain calm while the craziness (Ramones notwithstanding) glares and screams back at you.
Though I am a bit concerned about Palin's religious mumbo-jumbo, but not as much as Obama's pastor. Mormon Mitt I find intolerable (we don't need any more weird variations of providence -- there are enough stories about guys walking on water and coming back to life after three days to already deal with).
JJ said: It's all bullshit, AI. Get it in your head: Universities are bullshit.
Let me modify that statement, JJ: 21st Century Ivy League Universities are, by and large, bullshit. I'm firm in defending the state universities, particularly those west of the Mississippi River. The other day I heard Rush Limbaugh say (paraphrasing), "Universities are worthless, and we don't need them..." Limbaugh should read his Thomas Jefferson, because Jefferson believed the state university would do what, in their better moments of research and development of knowledge, state universities do today.
Here's a bit of altruism: I'm not for dominating nature, either, only working with it. To dominate "nature" implies that Man has taken himself out of a Nature we are inextricably bound and born into. Thus, to want to dominate Nature means we are trying to dominate Man, or ourselves. It's silly. Eco-Freaks often want to take Man out of Nature, because they also belive Man isn't a part of the Natural World. Fucking stupid as shit, too. For example, if we want good ribeye (which we do), we need to treat hereford cattle good, seeing they have good lives grazing on good grass. When they are slaughtered for human consumption, make sure it's as stressfree as possible: this is for ethical reasons as well as for palatable reasons. If you talk with deer hunters, they'll tell you there's a distinguishable taste between venison that was shot and killed instantaneously vs. venison that was shot and ran in adrenaline-fueled terror before bleeding to death. The former venison tastes much better than the latter. There's a good expose on this in the opening of The River Cottage Meat Book.
I digress.
I'll get back to your other thoughts in a bit, but it's a neat coincidence that you bring up humane slaughter so soon after this post. This woman is in the ranch agriculture dept at some university. She writes out her ethics in the piece I posted, but if you go to her main page, you'll find links to precisely what you're talking about.
Guys, this is getting too deep for me -- too many points to argue in a single thread, not enough space and time to rebut all the rejoinders (though some are valid, and thus need not be rebutted). So let me pick on only one thing that AA said: the comparison between Reagan and Palin. Sorry, AA -- I knew Ronnie since the 1970s. And Sarah is no Ronnie. More specifically:
In a certain sense, your sense AI, it is probably right to say her running as VP is premature. It would be akin to Reagan being made Nixon's running mate in 1968, which would probably have made less of him than in fact what he became.
First of all, Reagan didn't wait for Nixon to offer him the VP on a silver platter in 1968 -- he ran in the primaries, and, hold your breath: wonthe popular vote, by 37.93% vs 37.54%. Tricky Dick was simply a dickhead for not putting Reagan on the ticket after that, settling instead on that nullity, Spiro T. Agnew.
And, perhaps as importantly (or even more so, in this context), Reagan really burst on the national scene in 1964, when he delivered a masterful speech at the 1964 Republican Convention,. Just please go back and read the speech -- even better, listen to it -- and tell me, in all honesty, how you compare it to Palin's speech, both in style, and in substance.
To me, this is deeply reminiscent of how Reagan was dismissed as just a "Bedtime for Bozo" actor in the first couple of decades or so of moving into politics. Actually, AI, as you may remember, this was still the common line in the 1980 campaign.
This is an invidious comparison. Of course there were idiotic pinkos saying that about Reagan in the 1980 campaign, and even later. But there was no basis in fact for making such a statement. By then -- after running a very strong primary campaign in 1976 against an incumbent President, and coming very close to defeating Ford (only to have Ford, in yet another blunder, pick Bob Dole instead off Reagan as his running mate), after all these trials, by 1980 Reagan was a very well established national figure -- and had proved his political mettle and oratorical skills beyond a shadow of a doubt.
To recap, AA -- Sarah is no Ronnie, sorry about that. The other points can wait.
I would rather peg Sarah than Ronnie if that's what you're talking about.
And, by the way, and just to drive the point home (and over the Green Monster), why do you imply that "Reagan being made Nixon's running mate in 1968" would have been premature, when, by 1968, he had been for 2 years Governor of California (same amount of time as Palin Gov of Alaska -- and, sorry again, AA, but California ain't the same thing as Alaska), and had won more popular votes than Nixon in the primaries, for Crissakes!
JJ: Non sequitur, et omnia non sequitur.
Not a hard call, AI, et omnia not a hard call.
As for pegging world universities in the proper pecking order -- look, you and I can argue about that till we go blue in the face, but, what can I do, such rankings do exist. And, for better or for worse, Harvard is #1 (that "dinky place in the Bronx" as JJ put it, is #7). And yes, there is also a whole bunch of state universities in the top 21 -- with only Cambridge and Oxford in that neighborhood (!)
I wonder if pegging Sarah you'd get a sorebone?
There's nothing rinky-dink about Columbia as a university. You were trying to say DDE had executive experience because he headed that place for a few years, as if being Supreme Allied Commander in Europe were flipping burgers in comparison. You pulling for this git next time around, AI? She's as good as Eisenhower! Let's see, he gave us the Interstate Highway System. She'll undoubtedly make one for women to use.
AI, since it is the analogy of Palin bashing with Reagan bashing that so obviously gores your goat the fastest, lets run with that awhile, yes?
To make it als klahr, let's get in precise form the analogy.
The denigration of Reagan's intellect was strongly based on elitist arrogance as to college attended and career choice prior to politics, in addition to his possessing the "wrong" frame of political thought.
The denigration of Palin's intellect is strongly based on elitist arrogance as to college attended and career choice prior to politics, in addition to her possessing the "wrong" frame of political thought.
AI can see how Reagan was sorely misjudged, even if the public evidence that he was so misjudged only came many years after these "reasons for dismissal" were first promulgated. The potential was there long before it was widely actualized, and actualized long before the madding crowd could even come close to grudgingly admit it.
On the other hand, AI refuses to admit potential for Palin until he sees a hell lot of it actualized, and he refuses to consider any of it actualized just because she has been a Governor of a major state for two years.
Which raises the question, yet again, which you have not yet begun to answer [other than Idaho is "Podunk"]:
"What is it about Palin--other than academics-- which leads you to judge her, then, as Reagan's critics judged him?"
ok\
[i] California is an even more important state than Alaska. Yup. And Alaska is more important than Massachusetts. Are you suggesting you want Arnold as VP?
[ii] Palin is 44 years old. When Reagan was 44, which would have been 1955, his political experience was limited to head of the actors union. Valuable enough, particularly in stimulating his intellectual awakening, but not quite the level of having been for two years already the governor of a major state. Ten years later, as Governor of California, is another story. But then where will Sarah Palin be in 10 years?
AI, it's fine if you want to piss on the Palin parade. This is yet a free country, and if McCain-Palin win it might so remain a while longer. But can you simply spell out why you don't think she's got the right stuff, without resort to redherrings of the "Idaho is Podunk" variety. [note, you already had admitted that in this nation you cannot tell the caliber of a person's mind by the otiose expediency of looking at where they went to school].
As for that second swing at the ball, the one where you hoped to be driving the point home, that's two strikes Mighty Casey.
Yes, I do think 1968 was premature for Reagan to be VP, and if you reread what I wrote I actually tell you why; "which would probably have made less of him than in fact what he became".
This was too laconic, it seems, so a bit more on the details.
First, AI, if Reagan had been appointed VP to Nixon I think he would have been undermined by the mess TD made of the whole shebang. Ford had the chance for being the "clean" candidate, coming in after Spiro was ousted and Nixon was already spiraling down in what would turn out to be in flames. Ronnie would have been tarred and feathered by being VP through all that. That is, the combo of the muck up of Vietnam and the stupidity of Watergate would have become his problem, and I suspect fatally so.
Second, in reading through his writings, and interviews, and speeches, on foreign policy and the practical role government may or may not take relative to citizens, it seems to me that the period from 1968 to 1975 was crucial to clarifying his thought and developing the circle of advisors who would be capable of implementing his vision. I'm doubtful that would have occurred had he been in DC.
Third, and this may be even more important than the first, the America of 1980 badly needed someone like Reagan--whereas however much the America of the late 60s or early 70s may actually have so needed one like him, not so many Americans knew it. At that time Reagan was moderately strong among Republicans, but in no natural position to be so across the electorate. Reagan was a maverick more so than McCain is, and it was a very establishmentarian time for the GOP. Without the sadness and increasing despair of the mid to late 70s, presided over by the miserable Archdeacon Carter, I do not think Reagan could have overcome the many institutional biases against him.
He was absolutely the right man for the right moment. Take away the rightness of the moment, and he is like Churchill in the 1920s.
Now, in reference to Palin, she--as I said-- is the same age when Reagan was still doing commercials and playing occasional episodes of tv shows. She is a work in progress, and has made more progress than he had then. That said, Reagan proved to be the real McCoy, and we don't know that yet about Sarah. So, as I said, if we had the luxury of "normal" politics, her choice would have been wildly premature.
That said, it is NOT a time of normal politics. This movement to elect Obama, whoever or what he really is, has been gestating for some time, and has hit this nation as "out of the blue" as Genghis crossing the Great Wall. He is a force to contend with, and it is vital for this country's well being that he be contended with.
You say Palin is untested, and has not crafted a long career upon which to make a stand? That is because McCain decided, and I agree with him, that there is no time to lose--at all-- and that he had belief not only in her capacity to survive and flourish in being suddenly cast into the testing fires, but also that it is necessary that she be so cast. John decided he needs her, and needs her now. And, AI, when I look at how the Obama camp was already preparing his coronation, and now are back in camp reformulating a plan of attack, I go with John on this one. Don't fret. If she fails this 9 week horrorshow, we get Obama' which is exactly what we'd get if she had stayed in Alaska. On the other hand, if she proves her mettle on the go, are you willing to go past her criminal neglect to spend her youth studying hard and being academically ambitious?
Reagan really burst on the national scene in 1964, when he delivered a masterful speech at the 1964 Republican Convention.
Wait, Obama gave a good speech a couple years back. Is this why this is a hard choice, AI?
AA hits it on the head. AI, when I look at how the Obama camp was already preparing his coronation, and now are back in camp reformulating a plan of attack. McCain - * loses unless * = Palin. Might still lose, but Obama is on his heels right now.
Hold our breath and hope.
Of course rankings exist, AI. We're a rank race. But beyond all the obvious points which are obviously neglected by most people who obviously like their lists of the ranked [what were the criteria? Who decided on the rankings? What statistics were used? What measures to determine the accuracy of statistics were implemented? What precisely is being ranked: prestige among experts, quality of students admitted, quality of student graduated, percentages admitted, quality of faculty, money, popular reputation, political heft, quantity of research done on campus, importance of research done on campus, number of programs available, etc....?] what does a ranking of a school have to do with the individual qualities of a man or woman?
AI, it is an empirical fact that there are a fair number of students at the University of Idaho who are smarter than large number of Harvard undergraduates. It is an empirical fact that there are a not insignificant number of Harvard undergraduates who would struggle to do well with the coursework at Idaho [As, you know, actually have to be earned there]. And, if we recall that we are comparing two distributions of students, it is not so surprising if we want to go beyond group generalities, and onto an individuals merit, just knowing the school they shat at ain't gonna do it.
By the way, to perhaps undermine your faith in how compelling are rankings, look at more than just one. For example, compare a list of universities in terms of Nobel prizes won to the one you linked to.
Well, Wisconsind-Madison and Minnesota are, technically in the case of Minnesota, east of the Mississippi. But point well taken, JJ.
Although I think MFTs point was more of a "relative to..." rather than in absolute terms
I know where the mississippi is only relative to outer mongolia, apparently. Thank you.
JJ, the nuts within institutions somehow receive the most attention. I've enrolled in courses like you discuss. But I also KNOW that U of Minnesota, and U of North Dakota, have excellent departments of R & D that, for example, develop cool shit for NASA. Or I could tell you about my Age of Augustus graduate readings course at UND, a phenomenal and rigorous exploration of primary and secondary sources relating specifically to the time around, before and after the Battle of Actium. This course was led by a professor who within the last couple years received his doctorate from Ohio State University. Another great was a graduate historiography readings course. We started with Herodotus, went up through the Ancients and into the Dark Ages — from Thucydides, St. Augustine, to the Venerable Bede, — into the fall of Constantinople, how this acted as a catalyst for the Italia Rennaissance, and into the 18th Century Enlightenment, both in Europe and Great Britain. This spilled into America, then into the 19th Century Positivist response, the early 20th century Idea-ist reaction (understandable reaction, let me add), and all the way into the hyper-relativism that post-post-moderns embrace today. We also learned not to be ABSOLUTIST about re-interpretations of history, taking David Hume or Edward Gibbon for example: they revised history in their own way (managing to piss alot of their contemporaries off, too — a job well done).
In any case, I'm merely defending good scholarship. There's a lot of it out there, and it is often ignored because of the sensationalism of cranks and crack-potists (often analogous with Pol-Pot-ists). Then I hear Rush say "Universities are all bullshit" and think about how much narrower view of history and historiography I'd have if it wasn't for these really good professors working in the otherwise "provincial" universities of the American West. I'm not talking Physics for Poets, here. I am talking about universities with a rigorous Intellectual Boot Camp, the core being the Western Canon. I'm not talking about laying naked in some park in Berkeley because the trees have feelings too, and getting an "A" in the course for jerking off on notebook paper.
JJ, I got around to reading and responding to a previous link of yours.
MFT uses AA as footnote to MFT's original hypothesis: there's a lot of hard work and good scholarship going on out here in the west.
AA said, AI, it is an empirical fact that there are a fair number of students at the University of Idaho who are smarter than large number of Harvard undergraduates. It is an empirical fact that there are a not insignificant number of Harvard undergraduates who would struggle to do well with the coursework at Idaho [As, you know, actually have to be earned there]. And, if we recall that we are comparing two distributions of students, it is not so surprising if we want to go beyond group generalities, and onto an individuals merit, just knowing the school they shat at ain't gonna do it.
Yes, when you show up with some state university degree, you need substance to back up your merit badge. When you show up with a Harvard degree, everyone (wrongly) assumes genius.
In any case, good dialog ("good" meaning interesting debate, here) going on all of this guys.
mft, I think the sciences have a natural semi-immunity to this shit because those departments don't actually study what they are supposed to be opining about.
I'm happt to hear that you didn't end up bogged down in a coourse on Women in the Roman Empire when you were supposed to be reading about the Augustan Age. I would bet you are in a minority, thoguh. Incidentally, I think OSU is on the wrong side of the mississippi, though I have no real idea. We need to ask AA or start a war with Ohio, I guess.
mft, thanks for reminding me of the ethics page. wanted to know your thoughts. We agree.
I think OSU is on the wrong side of the mississippi, though I have no real idea. We need to ask AA or start a war with Ohio, I guess.
JJ, at one point in time the "frontier" — or "American West" — was identified as anything west of the Allegheny Mountain Range. With that said, I'd be happy to go to war with Ohio, too.
Crank up the Enola Gay!
...Cleveland, here we come...
Heh, but you Cincinnatus.
AA: You make some very good points about Reagan's career -- I mostly agree with what you say about this (we probably see eye-to-eye on it >99%), but I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion that "Reagan was not cooked in 1968, he had to wait another dozen years for his turn". It sounds very unfair to me -- when people like Palin don't have to wait in line, and just jump ahead on a prayer and a wing. (Though I agree he was in much better form by 1976, no question about that -- and even more so by 1980: it's like one of those rare Chateaux Margaux that only get better with age.)
Also, if we are to debate alternate histories and what ifs, why do you assume Reagan would have gone down in flames with Nixon over Watergate? To the contrary (and I never thought of this possibility before -- we should perhaps write a book!), maybe if Reagan had been on the ticket instead of Spiro Agnew, he'd gotten a measure of sanity to the WH, and prevented Nixon from letting loose his dark side. We'll never know for sure -- but a man of integrity like Ronnie would have been infinitely superior to a crooked yes-man like Spiro. And, if somehow Nixon could have finished his term honorably in 1976, and pass the baton to Reagan, there would not have been a Jimmah in the WH, no Ayatollah coming to power, etc -- and thus, no need for Reagan to come back in 1980 as our last chance before going down the tubes.
AI, it would be interesting to write up an alternative history on "If Reagan was VP in'68"....
On a sober note about Nixon. If he was the sort of man who had the character to take on a strong rival and persona, such as Reagan was, as his VP; well, he probably wouldn't have been the sort of man to sit petulantly in the WH concocting stupid schemes on how to hide wiretapping , make "enemies lists", and wallow in self pity. That alone would have led to a whole different game
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