Jon Keller is on a roll: he points out to the right-hand side of the aisle that Lee Bollinger's smackdown of Ahmadinejad was not only wholly appropriate, but also about time someone put the phrase "speak truth to power" into more accurate use. (Two "finger quotes" up, Jon.)
I graduated from college many moons ago, but my major was in the "hard" sciences. You could not refute, argue or dissent from anything that read "Proof," "Lemma," "Corrollary" or "Postulate." I think this is still true for the "hard" sciences today, as professors of that stripe are somewhat more apolitical than the liberal arts professors - I can't imagine a physics professor marching around campus with the sign "EMF is not the answer!" or a electrical engineering professor screaming "Stop the Illegal Occupation of the Wheatstone Bridge!"
On the other hand, I don't think my political leanings would endear the liberal arts professors of today, especially the ones who believe in the so-called dogma of "social justice." That's shorthand for "highly educated, elitist, condescending white people so guilty of their good fortunes they fake piety to make themselves feel superior." In fact, I would write in the professor's review, "Looks and acts like Marx - and I'm not talking about Chico, Harpo or Groucho."
9/22/2007
Our new shingle...
Here's as close to a press release as I'm ever going to get...
Only in Boston, Kids! (onlyinboston2.blogspot.com) is no more. It's now Cleary Squared (clearysquared.blogspot.com.) Please change your bookmarks, links, next of kin cards, etc.
Only in Boston, Kids! (onlyinboston2.blogspot.com) is no more. It's now Cleary Squared (clearysquared.blogspot.com.) Please change your bookmarks, links, next of kin cards, etc.
9/21/2007
Making crab cakes out of cancer
All I ask is that you watch the video of Randy Pausch, a computer science professor from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and once you're done, ask yourself how a man with terminal pancreatic cancer can still have the vim and vigor of a freshly-minted assistant professor. Never mind your political bent - see if you would face the end of your life either severely depressed or looking forward to it as if it were a long-term vacation.
Courtesy of Power Line.
Courtesy of Power Line.
9/04/2007
Where has the middle class gone in Boston?
Leave it to the Globe Magazine to substitute to give its view of middle class flight. Our header is what the Globe should have put to make the article more accurate.
Boston has made a paradigm shift within the past two decades. What hasn't changed is prejudice and mistrust between the classes and races. One neighborhood fears declining property values (sketchy people, groups of kids acting up); another neighborhood fears gentrification (big luxury condos, luxury stores and restaurants) and commercialization (big box stores). In the twain are people who have lived in their neighborhoods for decades, paying higher property taxes - sometimes overriden over the 2-1/2% limit - for what is purported for education and health care, but ends up elsewhere, like the general fund or for pork projects.
The middle class in Boston is existent - but it is not as obvious as it once was. In the 1960s, Blue Hill Avenue used to be a enclave for the Boston Jewry. By 1970, it became mostly Afro-American. You have to travel to the far-flung borders of Boston to see a thriving middle class. Hyde Park, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and other parts of the city are good examples where the middle class has not been shoved out and force to flee to a better middle class climate.
What really ruins the dream of the middle class living in the Athens of America is what has oiled the cogs of Boston for centuries - corruption in politics, sky-high housing prices, elitism, a transit system that constantly begs for more money from riders and spends them on vanity projects, and a smug attitude of "we are the best," even contrary to the fact (viz. The Big Dig) . People who have never been to this city or have toured the city only see the surface of what Boston really is, and if the tourist trolley companies had an all-Boston tour, it would certainly take the Athens of America moniker and turn it into the Most Dysfunctional City of America.
The middle class notices this with a gimlet eye for BS. They are taking a look around in their areas, don't like what they see, and plan to leave the area, and quite frankly, I don't blame them.
Update: Here's a different take. There's also the attitude in the suburbs that "if we were like Boston, we'd be successful too, bringing in all that revenue and taxes so we can have better things." Building multi-million dollar condos in Newton will come after they shove a camel through the eye of a needle.
Boston has made a paradigm shift within the past two decades. What hasn't changed is prejudice and mistrust between the classes and races. One neighborhood fears declining property values (sketchy people, groups of kids acting up); another neighborhood fears gentrification (big luxury condos, luxury stores and restaurants) and commercialization (big box stores). In the twain are people who have lived in their neighborhoods for decades, paying higher property taxes - sometimes overriden over the 2-1/2% limit - for what is purported for education and health care, but ends up elsewhere, like the general fund or for pork projects.
The middle class in Boston is existent - but it is not as obvious as it once was. In the 1960s, Blue Hill Avenue used to be a enclave for the Boston Jewry. By 1970, it became mostly Afro-American. You have to travel to the far-flung borders of Boston to see a thriving middle class. Hyde Park, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and other parts of the city are good examples where the middle class has not been shoved out and force to flee to a better middle class climate.
What really ruins the dream of the middle class living in the Athens of America is what has oiled the cogs of Boston for centuries - corruption in politics, sky-high housing prices, elitism, a transit system that constantly begs for more money from riders and spends them on vanity projects, and a smug attitude of "we are the best," even contrary to the fact (viz. The Big Dig) . People who have never been to this city or have toured the city only see the surface of what Boston really is, and if the tourist trolley companies had an all-Boston tour, it would certainly take the Athens of America moniker and turn it into the Most Dysfunctional City of America.
The middle class notices this with a gimlet eye for BS. They are taking a look around in their areas, don't like what they see, and plan to leave the area, and quite frankly, I don't blame them.
Update: Here's a different take. There's also the attitude in the suburbs that "if we were like Boston, we'd be successful too, bringing in all that revenue and taxes so we can have better things." Building multi-million dollar condos in Newton will come after they shove a camel through the eye of a needle.
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