Dear Senator Brown, The Harvard Crimson today reported that you have begun a petition asking Harvard to allow ROTC, The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, back on campus. Your petition is misguided, Senator. The only person who can bring ROTC back to Harvard is you. Harvard University has a standing non-discrimination policy. No group that discriminates on the basis of race, ... Read More
This afternoon, I came across George Orwell’s “Revenge is Sour” in a collection of his essays. Originally published in the Tribune in November 1945, it speaks to the emptiness of revenge and — more topically for today — to the disconnect between civilians and soldiers in war. Below is the final paragraph: The Belgian averted his face as we went ... Read More
At Harvard’s Reserve Officer Training Corps commissioning ceremony this Wednesday, Drew Faust urged Harvard’s class of 2010 future officers to: Help reinforce the long tradition of ties between Harvard and the military, as we share hopes that changing circumstances will soon enable us to further strengthen those bonds. What does the vague latter half of her sentence mean? By “changing ... Read More
The New York Times Magazine has a fantastic article about the puzzle of the paucity of valor awards–those medals given for high acts of courage. Only six Medals of Honor have been awarded in Iraq or Afghanistan: a fraction of previous wars either absolute or percentage terms. In the Pentagon’s defense, the article quotes one spokeswoman: Addressing the drastic drop ... Read More
Like Scott Lemieux and Nate Silver, I foolishly trusted the New York Times bombshell about CT attorney general Richard Blumenthal. I jumped immediately to the question of what should be done about Blumenthal assuming he lied about his military service. It’s very easy to assume the worst about politicians, but sometimes (probably not too often) their denials and explanations can ... Read More
It’s scandal day in the world of politics. First, Sue Lowden, the front-runner in the Nevada Republican primary, looking to replace Harry Reid, seems to have broken campaign finance laws by accepting a luxury campaign bus from a donor. This could be good news for Reid because Lowden has been performing better in polling match-ups against Reid than have either ... Read More
Well, not completely. But Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, did boast yesterday that the wine produced in Georgia is simply so good (thanks to his free market reforms) that he hopes the Russians continue their embargo, because to sell it on the Russian market would be a waste – the Russians, he explained, will drink just about anything. If ... Read More
Peyton has posted a rejoinder to Max, trying to buttress his initial claim that it is “inappropriate for 73 percent of federal income taxes to be paid by 10 percent of the American population.” I am struck by a few things from Peyton’s post, and I want to pull them out and talk about them directly. First, Peyton argues that ... Read More
In his April 11 post, “Weighing In: The Great Tax Debate,” Max Novendstern rebuts my most recent argument that it is inappropriate for 73 percent of federal income taxes to be paid by 10 percent of the American population. Since our disagreement is to at least some extent based on our differing conceptions of fairness, I will offer only a ... Read More
