Andrew Golis

ummm… will be going into hibernation until February 2nd. I have one more final and than I’m off to the Dominican Republic for 5 nights of much needed relaxation. I may post a thing or two today or tomorrow if I’m overwhelmingly bored with studies, but make sure you check back in February.

To begin the semester I will be writing a new series on what I think the major problems and challenges are to some “institutions” on campus. This will include:

- the iop: how it can be relevant to people other than rich whities

- hsf (and the radical community): self-absorbed, self-righteous, totally irrelevant to the rest of the school: how the radical community can start to change minds

- the uc: “what the hell have you done for me lately?” how the uc can stop appearing (and being) disconnected from students

I’m sure there will be other things as well, that was just a few things off the top of my head.

See you in Feb!

An interesting article from Slate goes through some of the facts of the case and argues that Larry, while impolitic, might not be that wrong. A pretty provocative last ‘graph:

Already Summers is being forced to apologize, in the style of a Communist show trial, for sending “an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women.” But the best signal to send to talented girls and boys is that science isn’t about respecting sensitivities. It’s about respecting facts. The only people who don’t belong in science, male or female, are those who would rather close their eyes—and yours—than see what’s there.

An interesting thing to read in a liberal webzine. Didn’t exactly pull that punch did you Saletan?



UPDATE: Two interesting articles about this whole debate in the New York Times OpEd section today. Read them here and here.

is not very exciting. But for anyone who’s trying to keep up, the candidates for Chairman of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) went to the “western regional” meeting to pitch themselves for the job. CNN has a good, simple, completely useless article about what “happened.” As usual, MyDD has an extremely partisan (to Dean) and shockingly thorough account of the events.

The candidates are competing for the votes of 400some votes of voting “DNC members” who are usually state party officials and DC insider types. The vote is held on Feb. 11th and consists of a series of elimination rounds (whoever has the fewest votes is done) to narrow the field to two at which point whoever has more votes wins. So it’s not just about getting votes, but second place, third place votes etc.

Dean still seems to be on a good path. Last week’s series of endorsements from party officials in many states (including the south) got some people who are anti-Dean a little worried and talkative, but no opposition seems to have really united to challenge his front-runner status.

UPDATE: A good, if uneventful, article from Fineman in Newsweek about the lackluster second-coming of the stop-Dean forces in the Dem Party.

It the Democrats cannot stop this, they should not only be ashamed of themselves but they should let someone else be the minority party. From YahooNews:

President Bush is readying a new budget that would carve savings from Medicaid and other benefit programs, congressional aides and lobbyists say, but it is unclear if he will be able to push the plan through the Republican-run Congress. [....]

But lobbyists and lawmakers’ aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, say he will focus on Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income and disabled people. Medicaid costs are split between Washington and the states.

Too much money being spent in Iraq? Whatever, poor and disabled people don’t need health-care… This makes me want to tear my hair out.

And to all of those people who wouldn’t help Al Gore or John Kerry win because they supported Ralph Nader or believe that “the system is corrupt”: congratulations, this is what you helped get us with your moral purity.

Alright, so since I’ve fully given into my self-indulgent desire to be introspective (it’s the liberal way), I’m going to join a conversation that in ongoing. The American Prospect is calling it “the elevator pitch.” It’s what they have and we don’t. The GOP’s elevator pitch:

“We believe in freedom and liberty, and we’re for low taxes, less government, traditional values, and a strong national defense.”

Twenty words; broad strokes but specific to ideology. One sentence. So clean and crisp you could pitch in an elevator trip. I want one. We need one! Anyone have an ideas? I’m going to think about it and get back to you…

PS: For me, this is what the DNC race is about. It is not about ideology as so many in the news media as well as the wussy Dems have made it out to be. I don’t want Dean because he’s a liberal (he’s actually not). I want Dean because I think he can/will articulate a crisp umbrella message that is inclusive of all wings of the party while articulating the basic premises of our ideology.

I have a final tomorrow, so the posts today will be light (if at all). Comment away and have a discussion of you’re own, you probably have just as interesting things to say as I do (if not more so). A few open questions to discuss:

- What do you think about Harvard’s undergraduate leadership for the next year? This includes: various umbrella political groups (iop, republicans, dems, hpag, hsf), various racial and ethnic groups (fuerza, bmf, bsa, aaa, etc.), religious groups, yes, the UC, and everything else.

- What do you think about how the Larry Controversy ended up?

- What did you think of Bush’s speech yesterday?

HIT THE COMMENT BUTTON AND SHARE THE LOVE!

is the Glazer/Capp series still interesting to people? I had a request to answer these two questions and thought I might do that tonight. Any other questions?

For an explanation of what this series is all about, read here. For part 1 of the series, read here. For part 2 of the series, read here. For part 3 of the series, read here.

Steven Pinker, or as I like to call him, The Hair, has an interesting Q&A w/ the Crimson in today’s paper. Worth reading, especially considering the fact that Pinker may be one of the most important scholars in the world when it comes to the issue of studying the brain and the connection between behavior, socialization and biology.

A reader has pointed me to a great blog entry from a conservative, pro-war blog praising Senator Obama’s questions of Dr. Rice.

Something that immediately strikes me immediately about the praise: the writer does not agree w/ Obama’s ideology, but respects his intellect. How often does that happen in politics nowadays? Clearly this isn’t some reactionary blogger, but could it be possible for someone to be smart enough to step above partisan rancor?

CNN wins this week’s “Best Headline Award”:

POLL: Nation Split on Bush as Uniter or Divider

That is quality.

UPDATE: Dude, Andrew Sullivan totally stole this post from me. Makes me realize that blogging really is just reading things on the internet and writing about them, big whoop .