I was recently in Israel and the Occupied territories:

I sit down with a Palestinian Quaker. We engage in small talk. She asks where in Boston I'm from. I tell her Somerville. "Tell me about the divestment campaign," she insists.

I sit down with an Israeli activist . . . "Tell me about the divestment campaign."

I sit down with a Lutheran pastor . . . "Tell me about the divestment campaign."

And so it goes in every conversation in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

. . .

So far, I've stayed out of the discussion in Somerville. I don't support divestment, but I don't care for most of the people on whose side that seems to place me. The rhetoric of the anti-divestment people in Somerville is nasty.

I don't support my town divesting from companies doing business in Israel primarily because divestment campaigns don't work. By which I mean that divestment isn't a strategy. By themselves, divestment campaigns have no discernable impact. I don't approve of spending either time or energy to have no impact.

South Africa in the 80s is the positive example of successful divestment, but the lessons learned from that campaign have been incomplete. In as much as divestment "worked" in South Africa, it was a part - but only a part - of a coherent strategy promoted by the ANC, the legitimate voice of South African resistance. Divestment was one element in a South African strategy, not a North American one.

At this time, there is no coherent Palestinian strategy. When there is, then divestment may become a part of it.

" [H]e doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity. ''

This was certainly true and it influenced a generation to not give up on - and even to love - America.

" There's a generation of us now who've been fueled by Hunter's rhythms and sparked by the way he took shots, at power and for freedom, whether it be of ideas, of speech, or on behalf of guys getting jobbed by the man. "

That's true too.

And something else that is true: There's a generation of us - the same one referred to above, in fact - who had been taught from a very young age that drugs will fuck you up. From Hunter we learned that that was the whole point.

Today might be "Larry Summers Day" here at De Spectaculis (here, here, and because it grows more amusing with time, here).

Why? Because I haven't seen much out there that corresponds to what I'm hearing from friends and family at Harvard, faculty and staff. The recent faculty meetings have been a major topic of conversation around the town. And the folks inside Harvard talk about it in completely different fashion than people peering in at it from outside.

I've been getting a daily blow-by-blow account. And there, I've just gone and used a fighting metaphor to describe the situation.

It isn't a fight. There aren't two sides lined up to bash each other. This is not about "faculty vs Larry Summers". That is a complete misreading of the situation. But it is the way the media is presenting it. It is the way we do politics now. It is not the way Harvard's faculty is responding to Summers.

There are very few people at Harvard "against" Summers. There are a lot of people who dislike his autocratic leadership style and his power consolidating and centralizing tendencies¹.

Let me offer a little Harvard background that most people are probably unaware of. The President of Harvard has direct say over who gets appointed to faculty positions. Thumbs up or thumbs down. No appeal. Part of the significance of this is that it is nearly unique among universities in this day and age to have this power formally a part of the President's office (this dates to the beginning of Harvard and is not new to Summers).

What this means is that when the faculty experiences declining numbers of women getting appointments, the President of the University is directly responsible. Summers cannot wiggle out by saying that there aren't any qualified women. In his tenure, he has been presented, after lengthy searches, with qualified faculty candidates - who also happened to be women - scholars of solid reputation and proven ability as determined by the current department faculty and the search committees and Summers turned them down.

Within Harvard, this is about who gets to determine the appropriate directions and topics of research. Faculty members feel that those decisions should reside with them and not with the Administration. Rightly so, if academic freedom means what we usually take it to mean.

. . .

¹ Academics have disliked these tendencies in university administrations since Plato's Academy. It is the one thing on which you can get academics to agree. Put five Harvard professors in a room and get ten reasoned opinions, twenty interesting ideas worthy of further research, and a hundred questions that some enterprising graduate student should pursue. And ten shouting matches leading to pistols at dawn - or the moral equivalent thereof. I've seen it happen.

How is the sum of knowledge advanced? Through inquiry and the presentation of evidence.

Nobody at Harvard told Summers to shut up or stop speaking. They asked him for evidence. They presented their own.

That is academic inquiry. That Summers got his facts wrong and that his hypothesis could not stand up to even a moment's scrutiny is not a "witch-hunt" or "McCarthyism" or an attack on academic freedom. It just means that Summers was wrong.

What we saw was academic freedom in action. And it disturbed a lot of people.

When Summers was hired, a friend of mine, who is a longtime Harvard watcher, said the relationship would be difficult.

" Larry thinks he's the smartest person in the world. But in any room at Harvard he'll be confronted by someone who actually is. "

I've taken comments off of De Spectaculis. I will bring them back when I have enough time to install and troubleshoot a solution.

This grieves me more than I can say. Please feel free to make use of the e-mail address to the right.

Peace.

Must be something in the water . . .

For the past few weeks, we've been talking about football dynasties past and perhaps present. Of the two teams in this year's Super Bowl, the dynasty discussion has swirled about only one. Which is a little strange, if you ask me. Sure, we generally reserve dynasty status for those teams which win multiple championships. But for sustained excellence, what the Eagles have accomplished over Andy Reid's tenure is every bit the equal of the Patriots under Belichick.

The Eagles have the most victories in the league over the past five seasons, and over the past four are tied with the Patriots for most wins. The Eagles have made it to four consecutive NFC Championship games, while the Patriots actually managed to miss the playoffs in 2002. During this run the Eagles have flat out dominated their Division, despite the presence of coaching legends in Dallas and DC. Yet the Eagles are somehow still seen as lovable losers and Reid is never called a genius. (Jason Whitlock suggests, " Philly coach Andy Reid isn't getting his proper respect as a football 'genius' because he's overweight. ")

I love Andy Reid. He's fantastic. Think about it: Before this season he coached the Eagles to the NFC Championship game three straight seasons with no one at wide receiver. He helped Donovan McNabb develop into a great quarterback - without a wide receiver. He somehow manages an offense and puts points on the board with no wide receivers! It reminds me of no performance so much as that of the Patriots the past few seasons as they won and won and won without a running game. It is no surprise at all that, this season, when both teams filled their lack they dominated their Conferences.

In terms of player development, game planning, and motivation Andy Reid is one of the two best head coaches in the NFL. The one aspect of the game where the Eagles have been behind the Patriots - and this shows signs of changing - is scouting and acquiring players for depth. The Eagles won't win the Super Bowl this season, but they are close. And when they do, they will deserve to be considered among the very best teams - with no doubt at all about their coach.

. . .

Some well-deserved love for the coaching staffs.

ESPN asked New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell about his advice for the Eagles and he recommends the no huddle. In this case, I think Gladwell's thinking is muddled by his love for the Buffalo Bills, who he seems to forget rather famously lost four Super Bowls with a no huddle offense.

Gladwell's reasoning contends that the no huddle takes Bill Belichick and his coaching staff out of the equation, requiring the Patriots players to fall back on their own abilities and to react to what the Eagles offer. He thinks the Patriots might not be able to think fast enough to adjust. But he forgets the other half the equation: the no huddle also throws the Eagles players back on their abilities. Yeah, I think the Patriots still win that matchup. Nothing against the guys on the Eagles offense, but Bruschi, Johnson, McGinest, Harrison, Traylor, et al are probably smarter and are definitely better prepared than than they are. (C'mon, Freddie, the Pats don't have a number 25!)

. . .

I love the fact that the ESPN guys love and respect Malcolm Gladwell. Perhaps the public intellectual in America is not quite dead.

We're well into that period of hype where people have convinced themselves that the underdogs have a chance. " If the Eagle defense can rattle Brady and if the Patriots turn the ball over and if the Eagles get a big game from Mitchell or Pinkston and if . . . " and so on for another half dozen "keys to the game".

Hey, I'm all for rooting for the underdogs, but this is getting ridiculous. If, for the Eagles to win, everything has to break their way, then, well, it ain't gonna happen. Which is a shame because I love the Eagles. Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb are two of my favorite people in the NFL. If they were playing anyone else, I'd be rooting for them (unless they were playing the Bills; then I'd just sit off to the side and enjoy the frenzy of one set of fans finally getting what they deserve). But they're playing my Patriots.

The piece of the puzzle that everybody - even I - keeps forgetting is that this is the best Patriots offense ever. In the history of the franchise. I'm serious. The offensive line is unheralded, but they've been the unit on this team with the killer instinct for the past three years. Now that they have a running back in Dillon who can both bruise and take it outside, they've gotten even meaner. You already know about Dillon as a runner. But, if you don't know about the wide receivers, pay attention. They're the best overall squad in the league. No defense has the personnel to match up with the Patriots when they go four or five wide. The only thing this offense lacks is a security blanket tight end and even then the TEs get open at the goalline.

What are the Eagles going to do? Bring Dawkins into the box to discourage the run and the Pats will throw deep. Leave Dawkins back and the Patriots will pound the Eagles into dust. Blitz? You might see a few successful run blitzes that catch Dillon in the backfield, but they can't blitz Brady on passing downs.

I keep saying that the better defense wins. That's still true, but combine that with a really, really good offense and we're looking at a blowout. Patriots in a walk as the Super Bowl returns to it's past as a respectable affair, but lacking in excitement, watched only for the ads. Here's how it will go down: The Patriots build a seventeen point lead at the half, but there will be a brief flurry of excitement in the third quarter when the Eagles score their only TD and then recover a Corey Dillon fumble. The Patriot defense will slam the door on that drive, the offense will stage a back-breaking, clock killing touchdown drive, and that, folks, will be all.

. . .

UPDATE: What is it about the number "3"? And don't miss the fact that, even though it came with eight-and-a-half minutes to play, Vinatieri kicked his third game winning field goal in three Super Bowls.

You can't blow the other team out if you can't pick up first downs and you can't pick up first downs if you can't convert on third. Four of twelve is not good. Great job by the Eagle defense, who also played stouter against the run than I expected.

Is Bob Kraft superstitious? My friend Bob had on the same shirt tonight that he was wearing way back in August at the first pre-season game - against the Eagles.

NOAA has an animation of the tsunami wave path. You can see why Burma seems to have had less damage than Thailand and the way the tsunami wrapped around Sri Lanka to affect the west coast as well the east.

I picked it up from the tsunami page of The Center of Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance.

" Assumption is the enemy of curiosity and can cause people to misread each other, breeding prejudice -- or war. Assumption can poison a democracy with sleepy citizens who don't probe beyond slogans. Assumptions about nature can bring destruction to homes built precariously on mountainsides, or wash away lives by the thousands in a tsunami. "

Most people spend more time assuming than observing - or asking. And then things go wrong.

But what makes me froth at the mouth is the subsequent inability of those doing the assuming to see that not only were the assumptions themselves wrong, but that the very act of assuming made failure more likely.

There is a strong prejudice to declare the present inevitable. It wasn't.

Blogging is a habit. So is not blogging.

At this rate, I'll never catch up to one post per day . . .

But I did succeed at turning off comments, so I'm not swamped in spam. That's important. And considering that, I'm in the process of changing my host in order to be able to use some of MovableType's features that are not supported by my current host.