The NYT reports on internal emails that show Harvard leaders grappling with how to respond to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. … The obvious question: Why did they feel compelled to respond to events at all? They acted as if the entire world was waiting for their moral pronouncements, etc. … Mercifully, Harvard has since decided to no longer take stands on issues outside the university’s immediate interests.
Month: October 2024
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Harvard’s internal emails after Oct. 7 prove one thing: Administrators are more than capable of wasting time and energy
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‘The courage to act’
The best political email of the week, via a friend: “The Yankees can still win the World Series if the scoreboard operator has the courage to act.”
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Bernie Sanders: Identifying the problem, not necessarily the cause or solution
I’m no admirer of Bernie’s socialist pedigree. But I do agree with him about the plight of today’s working-class in America and why so many of them are turning to Donald Trump …
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Here’s a tip: Tipping isn’t so bad; vote ‘no’ on Question 5
Here’s an example of how not to help the working-class: Question 5, which would raise the pay of tipped workers to $15 an hour. Similar to the views of the Globe’s Shirley Leung, I’m a ‘no’ vote on Question 5 because I question whether A.) referendum voters can and should be determining the pay of workers in specific industries and B.) whether restaurant workers really want this. …
Re voters deciding how much to pay workers: It’s similar to the nurse staffing referendum a few years back. How the heck is the average voter supposed to know how many nurses should be on a typical hospital shift? It’s a ridiculous question to ask voters. … Re whether restaurants workers really want a change: Working in restaurants is one of the last truly egalitarian jobs in America. Whether college-educated or not, it’s almost a rite of passage for young people to work in a restaurant. And one of the reasons why this strange and distinctly American payment system works is because there’s the incentive of potentially big paydays for tipped workers.
Update — From a reader: “RE your restaurant post – Eli Feldman is GM of Shy Bird (Kendall Square, South Boston) and Branch Line (Watertown) – writes a great Substack, go-to on restaurant economics but many other related ideas. He had a great summary of Question 5 earlier this month: One Bad Idea.
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Report: Pagliuca steals the ball!
Well, not quite. But Steve Pagliuca, who owns about 20 percent of the Boston Celtics, is trying to put together a coalition of fellow minority shareholders to buy the legendary NBA franchise, perhaps at a discount, the NY Post reports. … Post story via the invaluable Contrarian Boston.
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Cancel Bezos, not the Post
According to NPR, the Washington Post has lost 200,000 subscribers since its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezo, decided to not endorse a presidential candidate this year, a move many (including yours truly) viewed as him proactively bowing to Donald Trump should the former president win the election. I find the 200K number hard to believe, but if it’s even remotely close to that figure, it’s a devastating loss. … But I think the cancel movement is off base. It’s only punishing the grunt reporters and editors at the Post, not Bezos, a billionaire who can easily afford the loss of $20 million or so in canceled subscriptions. … But here’s an idea from The Atlantic: Cancel Bezos/Prime. It’s preferable to cancelling a Post subscription. But what I’d really like to see is Bezos sell the Post. He’s done enough damage to the paper. His credibility is shot, not the credibility of the great journalists there. Bezos needs to go.
Update – From the Guardian: “Washington Post writers say don’t dump subscriptions over non-endorsement.”
Update II – 10.30.24 – NPR is now reporting that 250,000 subscriptions have been canceled.
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One of Trump’s immigration proposals – just one – might actually be good
That would be giving “green cards” to international students graduating from U.S. universities and colleges. Local employers like the idea, though not necessarily where the idea comes from. The BBJ explains.
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What the hell happened at Madison Square Garden yesterday?
I began reading this piece thinking maybe the NYT was going a little overboard with its headline: “The Misogynistic, Bigoted and Crude Rally Remarks Trump Hasn’t Disavowed.” … Wrong. The headline doesn’t do justice to the sophomoric, lewd, crude, racist and anti-Semitic “jokes” and angry rants at yesterday’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden. Read it. … With each passing day, they’re revealing themselves for who they really are. That’s all I can say.
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From dead heat to electoral blowout: Could it happen on election day?
I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, most recently from Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, to wit: The current dead heat for president could easily turn into a decisive electoral victory for either Harris or Trump, based on just a small shift in votes in seven swing states. …
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Jeff Bezos: ‘Doing his best to water down’ the Post
So the Washington Post won’t be making a presidential endorsement this year, saying the paper is returning to its long-ago tradition of not endorsing candidates. No one is buying it. Dan Kennedy says, correctly, that it’s pretty obvious billionaire owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to antagonize Donald Trump, a move aptly described as “anticipatory obedience” should Trump win in November. Even one of the Post’s own columnists, Ruth Marcus, is complaining about the Post’s non-endorsement.
Besides the political weenie-ness of the non-endorsement, I see the move as part of a post-Marty Baron strategy to transform the Post into an Anywhere USA paper, producing more milquetoast feature stories and treating them as “products that could serve users,” i.e. it’s slowly becoming more of an Amazon Prime Post, as I described it back in June. … After hearing of the Post’s non-endorsement policy, a friend and former journalism colleague wrote in an email to me: “Bezos is killing the paper. …he’s doing his best to water down the paper and make it a glorified USA Today.”
Updates – 10.26.24 — More reactions on the non-endorsements:
From the Globe: “Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.”
From Brian McGrory at the Globe: “Washington Post’s pathetic lack of endorsement shows Bezos willing to bow to Trump.”
From Jill Abramson at the Globe: “Democracy dies in broad daylight, thanks to Jeff Bezos.”
And from Harvard’s Nancy Gibbs at the NYT: “Two Billionaires, Two Newspapers, Two Acts of Self-Sabotage.”
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