Sun 7 Feb 2010
Links
Posted by David Dudley Field '25 under 1989, Links at 8:15 am
Time to clean out my e-mail box of EphBlog material
1) Todd Pelkey ‘89 pointed out (two years ago!) this article about Michael Govan at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
2) From the Purple Bull mailing list:
Skip, a purple bull alum, just emailed me to let you guys know that Lehman will be here tomorrow at the Job Fair. He said:
“It will probably be most helpful for people looking at next year (current sophomores applying for internships next year and current juniors applying for full time next year).”
So, I encourage you all to check it out. Will be a good opportunity to get to know the Lehman folks, which is important since we’re not a core school for Lehman any more.
No worries on that front!
3) John Berger ’89 founded and runs (with his wife) The Emancipation Network: Fighting Human Trafficking and Slavery with Empowerment. Read about them here. Someone should invite him to give a talk at Williams.
Amity Shlaes on Bloomberg in December.
Youth is what the climate change conference in Copenhagen is supposed to be all about.
The advertising campaign for the United Nations Climate Change Conference on global warming that opens this week is even called “Hopenhagen,” to suggest that young people need to push their governments to save the Kyoto Treaty if they are going to prevent environmental apocalypse.
One reason that Hopenhagen has caught on is that youth fashion these days is as green as it gets. Copenhagen, thrift and handbags made of recycled seatbelts all go together in the under-30 mind. At Williams College in Massachusetts, some 50 students and faculty started a hunger strike to show their support for a climate-change agreement.
7) Most bizarre article featuring an Eph.
8) (d)avid points out this article (pdf): “Why do Institutions of Higher Education Reward Research While Selling Education?”
9) A letter from John Calhoun ’62:
I just discovered “ephblog” via a North Adams Transcript article I read, for reasons I can’t remember or even imagine. A couple of comments:
1. Your site seems to me a wonderful idea, well executed. I’ve never been much interested in blogs, except when occasionally I read what I’d have called essays or columns by so-called bloggers employed by major newspapers. Good going, or some other ungrammatical outburst.
2. I was, however, somewhat concerned to learn that for a lot of alumni, “life” seems to consist of jobs and attendance at their kids’ activities. I quote from your About Ephblog page words you already know, by heart, presumably:
“Many of us who live beyond the Purple Valley have discovered that life after Williams does not provide nearly as many opportunities for honest, informed and open-minded debate as we might have hoped. A wise Eph does not argue about foreign affairs with his boss. A sensitive Eph does not debate economic policy with her staff. A sensible Eph does not argue about controversial issues of the day with the other parents on the sideline of a childrens’ soccer game.”
Is what is implied by your words really true, or just a sort of journalistic quickie? (Or even, god forbid, irony that I didn’t spot.)
Living where I do, and living a life that accommodates as much honest, informed and open-minded debate–ranging from casual conversation to knock-down diatribe–as my aging heart and mind can stand, I have very little contact with Williams folks. My small question leads to some larger ones about the College and the work it does, which is why I ask the small question.
3. Reading your FAQ page, I learned something about HTML (an otherwise foreign language to me). One really, really stupid question: Never mind special formatting, is some kind of code required to type plain and simple English? Do capitals and lower case, sentences and paragraphs, commas and periods require < > stuff? I ask because maybe at some point I’ll burden your readers with a comment, or even, gasp, an article.
John Calhoun ’62
Silver Plume, Colorado
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5 Responses to “Links”
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Jr. Mom says:
What a nice letter from Mr. Calhoun, Dave.
It gets me to thinking about why I blog. I know it initially started out of my curiosity about Williams. But, I think at this point, it also has to do with the conversation that results from such a diverse mix of people. And, I think there is something to the idea that the topics that come up here, are not typical of those which easily arise in my day to day life.
February 7th, 2010 at 11:10 amKen Thomas '93 says:
To John:
No need for special code.
I will take your other question– about the lives Ephs lead– as a prompt for further thought. I cannot represent the lives of others, on this one, yet it is an important question.
As part of a sort of project suggested by a former professor a few years ago, I undertook calling each of my former classmates– that’s ’92 and ’93, and finding out where they were and a little of what their lives are like.
And as you might guess, that task isn’t complete– stopped somewhere between 5 and 10 percent– because the conversations that resulted, immediately bloomed into more time than I can handle. (One could be more disciplined in survey methods, and cut this off).
One of the most touching parts of the exercise, was to hear the voices of the children of old friends, in the background, being driven across town, being put to bed. Having a family, is not insignificant.
Work, is another story. Ephs, as with many in that country up there, seem awfully busy busy busy. (This sort of malaise has spread to Mexico City and elsewhere, a bit). For after all– the average American looses over two hours a day, commuting from this bizarre set of activities, which the American natives bundle under this word, “work.”
I have visited the natives in these environments, and by and large, I am very skeptical of how much actual productivity, gets done by the vast majority of those labelled as workers, at this “work.” Perhaps it is like here in Mexico, where only– I’m not being excessive, except in language– literally, only about 5% of the population, outside agriculture, are doing anything that really makes anything– an the rest, is a sort of state-mandated handout, to keep the whole thing from falling apart.
Regardless in this– I suspect the Williams component is doing a lot of work, be it busy or not.
I believe, in the end, in an examined and well-thought-out life, and in seeking out contexts and places of discussion and inquiry. Perhaps I should visit Silver Plume, but I have found that such an examined, well-constructed life– or just plain good discussion of the type you describe– is not easy to find in the United States. Even in a place such as Berkeley.
One has to make adjustments, if one wants to join the pockets of discussion at the International House, or the back room at Schmidt’s Pub, and so forth. One can’t live in Marin– or there will be a time cost. And so forth.
Mill Valley? What’s Mill Valley like today? Do people talk there?
I don’t know. But maybe we also have a generational difference at play here?
February 7th, 2010 at 1:38 pmJr. Mom says:
I’m sure they do.
But I highly doubt that, of say, a dozen participants of an impromptu discussion, you might have a range from 18 yrs old to 80… black, brown, white, and green,…gay, straight…male and female… leftees and rightees… wealthy and not wealthy…and all pretty damn smart.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:28 pmKen Thomas '93 says:
Why is #7 ‘bizarre,’ perchance?
February 7th, 2010 at 9:33 pmJr. Mom says:
@Ken Thomas ’93:
Perhaps all the Z’s inspired the “biZarre” label?
February 7th, 2010 at 10:20 pm