Kenyon Alumni in the News

Kenyon Grad Activist/Writer Will be Naked on Fleshbot

2010-07-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

From the Advocate, an LGBT magazine: Gay Editor Wins Scholarship, Will Strip:

Zack Rosen, editor in chief of the website The New Gay, who promised to pose nude if he won the scholarship to the activist summit NetRoots Nation, has emerged victorious and will soon be taking it all off. Rosen has been chosen as the winner from the 10 finalists for the free trip to summit to be held in Las Vegas July 22-25, courtesy of Freedom to Marry as part of its Blog4Equality contest. Rosen has promised to send a full-frontal nude photo to website Fleshbot.com as a thank-you to the people who voted for him.

The Advocate also interviewed Zack about this.

Links:

The New Gay

The 2007 Washington Post article which mentions Zack and TNG

Zack writing for the Collegian way, way back in 2003

Date a Kenyon Grad on OKCupid

2010-06-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

Date a Kenyon grad in San Francisco: I'm a late 20s kid who's got his head on straight (most of the time). I like having fun but take care of the necessities too. I enjoy the company of others the most.

Date a Kenyon grad who is headed to Cornell: My two passions right now are linguistics and atheism. I've been interested in language for many years now and have studied six (German, Spanish, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek).

Date a Kenyon grad in New York City: I majored in Spanish but currently work at one of the world's most prominent newspapers, fact-checking and editing some weekend listings.

Date a Kenyon grad in Ann Arbor: I like to think of myself as preppy-bohemian. My personality is largely defined by a sincere interest in other people coupled with my desire to seize each day.

Date a Kenyon grad in Missouri: Like my B.A., I have earned my M.A. in English, and am waiting to hear about acceptance for my PhD, specializing in Medieval Studies.

Kenyon Grad Creates DC Lit Magazine

2010-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

In this morning's Washington Blade, DC's GLBT newspaper, Kenyon grad Matthew Biedlingmaier describes his new literary magazine:

“One of the points of the magazine was to provide an outlet for other people in my position — young people who are smart, who are great writers … but, who are having trouble in D.C. and elsewhere finding outlets by which to express themselves,” said Biedlingmaier.

The debut of The New Professional includes work from several other Kenyon graduates, including writing from Gavin Broady and Marta Evans.

Kenyon Alumni Blog About Reunion 2010

2010-06-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Blogging.

They take pictures, too.

Update, more blogging: Throughout the night, we had a blast catching up with people we hadn’t seen in years and drinking more than we had since college.

Update II: now, with video.

Old Kenyon Antique Glass Sashes: On Sale on Craigslist

2010-06-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Very Rare Find. These sashes came out of one of the oldest buildings at Kenyon College. (over 100 years) I recently replaced the windows in the building these came from.

I have approx. 150 pieces. All sashes are to be sold as a group. I Will Not Seperate. Whereas some of the glass has been replaced with new, most of the glass is Antique poured style. If you are interested in any kind of glass restoration, Art projects, or maybe you would like to build a greenhouse. This is a Rare opportunity. I'll deliver within a 75 mile radius for an additional $80.00. You may leave a message on my cell phone if interested.740-501-xxxx."

See ad on CL (with the seller's actual cell phone number) before it expires.

Kenyon on Yelp!

2010-06-25T17:05:00.000-07:00

On Yelp, two different opinions about the college:

"The best years of my life. Seriously. College was awesome, and that was because I went to Kenyon. If they opened a grad school, I'd go to grad school there. It seems like it's out in the middle of nowhere, but there's always stuff going on, and the professors kick ass, and the campus is the prettiest place in the world... and you can't beat it for ghosts!"

"I spent one year here. While I found some professors to be engaging, the quality of the student body was fairly unimpressive. Lots of whack jobs and tree-huggers starved for attention and desperate to save the world. I did not fit in. Additionally the food was inedible, and when I say the food, I mean Ohio as a whole, not just the on-campus dining options. Closest "city" was Columbus, a nice 45-60 minute car ride away. But...the campus was really pretty...lots of nice gothic structures."

With a BA from Kenyon College in International Studies, you can do acupuncture in Portland (degree in acupuncture also required.)

Someone does not like the breast implants she got from this Kenyon grad doctor.

But people do love this Kenyon grad masseuse.

Various Kenyon Grads do Various Internet Things

2010-06-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah Longwell is blogging for Andrew Breitbart. Longwell works for Richard Berman, who may not actually be the model for the sleazy tobacco lobbyist in Thank You for Smoking, but it's not a bad comparison. Her recent post Puppies, Kittens and NYT Pushback: The Truth About the Humane Society Of the United States talks about the fights that Berman and his organizations have been having with the Humane Society and the unflattering story the New York Times recently wrote about the related events and Berman in general.

You can hire Kenyon grad John M. O'Hara to speak at your event.

Camille Sweeney writes lovingly about a local bar.

2005 Kenyon grad and anthropology major Russell Hunt takes over Thundering Herd.

New Kenyon grad Abigail Wardell writes about writing.

I interviewed Richard Baehr last week and have yet to do the write-up. To come at some point!

Comparative Grade Inflation

2010-06-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

From Stuart Rojstaczer, retired Duke professor, we have this graph on long-term grade inflation by institution, which includes Kenyon College. Kenyon appears to be inflating more quickly-than-average for the schools in the data set, which Stuart finds is true generally for private colleges. You can read more about Stuart's research on his website. He also publishes detailed Kenyon grade data.

Kenyon on Knoxpages

2010-06-16T15:05:00.001-07:00

I found out about Knoxpages, the news source/message board for Knox Country residents, around the time of the 2004 election. The message boards are informative regarding some of the Town/Gown issues.

Recently, here's what knoxpages is reporting about Kenyon:

Kenyon student scheduled to face a jury, about a Kenyon student who was possibly high when he jumped in front of/into the windshield of a car recently.

Newark resident is indicted for allegedly stealing bikes from Kenyon; he had a bolt cutter.

This started out about cats

Your One-Paragraph Description of Kenyon

2010-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Emily Gould's is this: When I say I went to Kenyon, people usually assume I went to Oberlin, that breeding ground of cool bands and UItimate Frisbee championships and general Williamsburg, Brooklyn training camp some miles to Kenyon's north, and even after I say I went to Kenyon I think people are still sometimes imagining Oberlin. Aside from the fact that it was in Ohio, Kenyon was nothing like Oberlin. Kenyon may be the anti-Oberlin. Its dress code was preppy and its intellectual climate was second-rate conservatism. It was a place for people who'd flunked out of several East-Coast boarding schools, who'd been denied admission at Yale despite being double legacies. It was a summer camp for the loser younger brothers of the ruling class, and its social life was entirely dependent, you learned immediately - like on your first night there, hours after your parents finished helping you move in - on frat parties."

Mine (Class of '06) is: Kenyon selects for bright students, offers them a top-notch education if they want it, and then makes it nearly impossible for them to fail out. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Jennifer Delahunty said this better than I could to the Collegian recently: "Usually, I say 85 percent of the students [who apply] can do the work here. This year it was greater than 95 percent." I can think of no better indictment of Kenyon's academics than that. That said, many students do take full advantage of the school academically, and some of the ones who don't are getting other types of experiences that may be equally valuable. The main social activity is drinking, and administration efforts to curtail this via outlawing drinking games, sponsoring sober weekend events, and heavily policing parties encounter either indifference (in the case of alternative events) or widespread student outrage. Outrage is also a major social activity. But, despite the outrage and drinking (or between bouts of it), most Kenyon students are getting a reasonable education, participating in a few of Kenyon's hundreds* of sports or clubs, and ambling toward graduation without especially preparing for a career. Some Kenyon students are doing quite a bit more than this.

* exaggeration.

Class of '08: Kenyon College is nestled in a picturesque village atop a large hill in rural Ohio. The student body is mainly comprised of white, upper class students, many of whom act as though they are owed the world. The campus has a summer camp-like atmosphere, fostered by the remoteness of the location. Students generally try as much as they need to in order to get by, but are not especially motivated. Many students believe that the quest for knowledge is of the highest importance, and getting there is only secondary.

Class of '05: First, Emily Gould didn't graduate Kenyon. Neither did William Rehnquist, John Snow, Paul Newman or Jonathan Winters. My best friend freshman and sophomore year transferred out. I applied to transfer both my freshman and sophomore years but eventually stayed. Perhaps my decision means I will be no Rehnquist or Snow but at least I finished what I started. For the many who embarked on Kenyon with great hope but sooner left with deep apathy, Kenyon was an abandoned academic institution that re-chartered itself as a country club for the weakest students of the most elite New England prep schools. My decision to stay occurred during a cycling trip in Vermont. I was leading a group of high school students to a spot to stop for lunch. I got off my bike and scoped a nice grassy and flat spot near an old house and set out a tarp for us to eat on. As I was walking back to the group to call them over, I froze: there, in the window of the house, was a sticker that said "Kenyon". It was the same sticker Kenyon sent me in the mail when I was admitted. I immediately recalled the feeling I had in the spring of my senior year of high school: "This is destiny". Only the weakest souls succumb to the assumption that Kenyon is a school full of anti-intellectual philanderers who would rather do drugs or get drunk or engage in casual sex than appreciate the ecstasy of learning and the intimacy of self-reflection. I, like Mr. T, pity these fools for their narrowness of mind and their flimsy and malleable ethical composition. Kenyon is its intellectually formative professors. Kenyon supplies moral cultivation simultaneously with the “life of the mind.” It transforms the Emily Goulds, who got rejected from the fancy east coast schools, into agents of intellectual self-confidence who, unlike the ivy-leaguers, were paid special attention as students. And Kenyon emphasizes the articulation of ideas through writing, not multiple choice exams. Soon enough, there will be a William Rehnquist School of Law or a John Snow High School, with statues to boot. But Kenyon will be buzzing with individuals emotionally connected to their ideas long after the bricks harden and the bronze cools.

More as they come, or leave a comment.

Update I: Class of '07: Academically, Kenyon is only as challenging as one wants it to be; it's far too easy to limp through without trying especially hard, partially due to the grade inflation endemic to liberal arts schools. Recreationally, the school runs on Natural Light and is dependent upon the entrenched fraternities. Politically, students either follow a rather fatuous brand of modern liberalism or a somewhat more serious conservatism with pretentions to greater intellectual rigor. Students are more likely to express impotent outrage at Walmart's existence or public cellphone usage than any substantial matter, and are exceedingly prone to political inaction. The student body mostly come from lives of tremendous privilege and it shows in their sense of entitlement and casual classism. Students graduate with deep nostalgia for the intimate social and intellectual environment that the admissions brochures promised them.

Ex-Gawker Emily Gould Went to Kenyon

2010-06-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

When I read the following line in Emily Gould's autobiographical New York Times magazine piece in 2008: " In college, I sent out an all-student e-mail message revealing that an ex-boyfriend shaved his chest hair" I thought: that had to be at Kenyon.

Sure enough, Emily spent two years at Kenyon before transferring.

Now she has a memoir out, And the Heart Says Whatever, which focuses on her post-college experiences as an Internet gossip for gawker, but also spends time on her Kenyon days.

From the text itself (via google books), we have the following description of Kenyon:

When I say I went to Kenyon, people usually assume I went to Oberlin, that breeding ground of cool bands and UItimate Frisbee championships and general Williamsburg, Brooklyn training camp some miles to Kenyon's north, and even after I say I went to Kenyon I think people are still sometimes imagining Oberlin. Aside from the fact that it was in Ohio, Kenyon was nothing like Oberlin. Kenyon may be the anti-Oberlin. Its dress code was preppy and its intellectual climate was second-rate conservatism. It was a place for people who'd flunked out of several East-Coast boarding schools, who'd been denied admission at Yale despite being double legacies. It was a summer camp for the loser younger brothers of the ruling class, and its social life was entirely dependent, you learned immediately - like on your first night there, hours after your parents finished helping you move in - on frat parties."

Also, packed into just a couple of pages about Kenyon, she mentions a lot of violence, sexual violence, and general it-sucks-to-be-female-at-Kenyon: She says "Kenyon was a strange place to be a girl," "the girl I stayed with on my visit told me that she had been raped by another student," "Status came from being a frat boy's girlfriend," as well as recounting two negative experiences with men she was involved with, one of which is clearly abusive (he attempts to slam her head into the sidewalk).

Forbes Uses 'Religiously Affiliated' Loosely

2010-06-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Forbes ranked the Best Religiously Affiliated Colleges - the top 20. Kenyon was #3:

Kenyon College, a more intimate school with Episcopal roots, is third on this year's list. "Kenyon's affiliation with the Episcopal community is a cherished link to its distinguished history as the oldest private liberal arts college in Ohio," says Mark Ellis, the college's news director. "If that religious affiliation does not permeate campus life now as it once did, it's a potent reminder of the importance of compassion, community service and moral conduct."

Two Kenyon Grads on Tea Party Panel

2010-06-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Richard Baehr, who I'll be talking to on Thursday, for sending me to this video of a panel discussion on the Tea Party Movement, which included two Kenyon grads: both Baehr and John O'Hara.

John describes the Tea Party movement as follows: "It's a broad, grassroots uprising with folks who are concerned with the radical expansion of the size and scope of government."

Richard focuses on the debt concerns of the Tea Party: "it's a movement of people who have not been particularly involved in politics who are quite fearful of what 4.5 trillion dollars in accumulated debt...means to a country."

For Kenyon Student, Immigration Debate is Personal

2010-06-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

Marco Saavedra, Kenyon sociology student, was in the news this weekend for his participation in a hunger strike outside of Senator Charles Schumer's office. The hunger strike was to call attention to the issue of undocumented students in the United States. From Marco:

"For a long time in my life it's been fear and shame, afraid of being deported, and ashamed of being undocumented," Marco Saavedra tells me, a 20-year-old student of sociology at Kenyon College who was born in Oaxaca, Mexico."

Marco has worked in the Christian movement for immigration reform.

Kenyon Grad in New York Times Wedding Section

2010-06-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

Kurt Cross, Kenyon grad and former lacrosse player, was in the New York Times wedding announcements recently. Cross works for Morgan Stanley; his wife, Rupa Magge, wrote for Lost.

In March, Kenyon grad Richard T. Rainey made the wedding announcements for his marriage to Elizabeth Ann McArdle.

Justin Roberts, kiddie rocker, was in the Times back in April in An Indie Rocker Finds His Inner Child.

Cat Pictures; Richard Baehr of American Thinker

2010-06-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

Alaina the neuroscientist grad student's blog, with adorable cat pictures

Kenyon alums are also fostering kittens.

Unrelatedly, I wrote about Richard Baehr earlier: he's now got a profile in the new Kenyon Alumni Bulletin. It begins:

In the heat of political partisanship, Richard Baehr '69 keeps cool. He expresses his conservative outlook with calm assurance backed by facts instead of rants. "My goal is to persuade people, and you don't persuade people by screaming at them," Baehr said.

And that's the tone throughout. There's some description of his beliefs, but it didn't dig as deep as I would have liked.

Now, I realize that Alumni magazines are not meant to be hard-hitting. On the other hand, Baehr and fellow American Thinker Kenyon grads criticized the Bulletin pretty heavily a few years ago for not interrogating Professor Schubel about his statements on Islam. The phrase "stunning puff piece interview" was used.

In light of this, it would have been nice to see some discussion in the Bulletin article regarding that set of incidents.

In light of that, I'd like to interview Baehr about his Kenyon experience, his perceptions of Kenyon now, the American Thinker, what he thinks are the most important issues in American politics at the moment, the Gaza blockade, and -- as I discussed earlier -- why so many Kenyon alumni are involved in the conservative movement. I'll e-mail him and see how this goes.

What Do You Do With A Kenyon Religious Studies Major?

2010-06-13T19:13:00.001-07:00

I'm writing this as a request from a religious studies major who's thinking about job/school possibilities and is looking for ideas.

A lot of religious studies majors are not working in their field: I'm focusing disproportionately on the ones who are, and people who I couldn't verify were religious studies majors, but currently do work in that field. My methodology relied heavily on searching the linkedin.com domain for "kenyon college" and "religious studies":

Kenyon College religious studies majors go to the Jewish Theological Seminary, or to grad school in other fields.

They organize for the SEIU, manage wealth at Morgan Stanley, raise money for Kenyon, and do administrative work at the World Wildlife Fund.

They study to become rabbis. They enter the Episcopal priesthood, or the Catholic priesthood.

Part II: Re-blogging

2010-06-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

The last few months have been busy with school and work, so I haven't had the time to blog. But I'd like to give this a shot again. It's been fascinating blogging. I've been an avid internet consumer since the end of the early days of it, in the mid 1990s, but creating even a tiny, niche blog like this and following very closely its traffic -- how people are finding the site, what posts they're interested in, and what geographical areas/domain names they're coming from, has given me a new perspective.

I started the blog because: a) I wanted some perspective on the internet from a content-producer perspective, b) micro-histories of institutions fascinate me, and c) there are some questions about Kenyon's history and alumni, in particular, that I've become more interested in since I graduated.

Which brings me to the specific motivation for why I'm reblogging.

Earlier today, I was googling for Mao's policy on drug addiction. I came across this article on it: the condensed answer seems to be that he managed to reduce drug addiction and drug use more generally via shooting drug sellers and users. So I clicked on the home page for The New Atlantis, a conservative periodical, and the first name I saw was that of a Kenyon College classmate of mine. (Hi, Jeremy Axelrod! Congrats on the article.)

This seems to happen a lot: pick a conservative movement or institution, find a Kenyon College grad. Tea Party Movement? Here's John M. O'Hara, '06, talking to Jon Stewart about his new tea party book: he also blogs for Andrew Breitbart. Charles Stimson is at Heritage, Stephanie Hessler at Manhattan, Hillel Ofek at National Affairs and is affiliated with the Claremont Institute. ACORN criticism? Daniel Z. Epstein contributed to this report on ACORN from the Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Like I wrote about before, Kenyon grads founded American Thinker, there's a Kenyon grad at the white nationalist site vdare, Evan McLaren is at Taki's Magazine. Sarah Longwell went from ISI to lobbyist Rick Berman's organizations. David Donadio is the managing editor of Doublethink, where David Skinner, former editor at the Weekly Standard, used to hang out. There was, of course, the Taylor Somers incident, which got my blog traffic to spike to about 10 - and he hasn't even graduated yet. Chris Brose, of course, was a speechwriter for the Bush administration and is now on the McCain staff. Kenyon went for Kerry in '04, but the Press Secretary for the Republican National Convention 2004 was a Kenyon graduate, and so was Alex Novak, the publicist for the Swift Boat book and co-founder of the Kenyon Observer: he is at Regnery. In 2008, guess who was the Deputy Director of the RNC Convention? Yes, a Kenyon grad. Advising the Romney campaign? Working on finances for the Romney campaign and now for the Boston Republican Party? Kenyon Kenyon Kenyon, etc.

Trust me when I say there is no analogue on the left. There's Zack Space the blue dog Democrat. There's Matthew Segal, who started making a name for himself fighting for the voting rights of that most disenfranchised group, college students, after the 2004 voting lines in Gambier. There's Pia Catton, who made it into Matt Taibbi's
Wimblehack!: The search for America's worst campaign journalist has begun. She's now the Life Editor of Politico. Politico is not generally describes as partisan: while it has been described as a right-wing cesspool, I think it's just hackish. Beyond that? Kenyon Bulletin profiled two recent grads, one for the Republican one for the Democratic governor's association, so we'll see how that goes. Kenyon grad Will Bower is a PUMA leader, and I don't even know how to characterize that particular ball of crazy, but it could be argued that puts him on the left. Not argued very persuasively, though: his last article for HuffPo was entitled An Open Letter to Secretary Clinton: Save Us from Obama. There's a former Democratic Senate staffer, and another former Democratic staffer who left because of pedophilia charges. There's Jeff Bridges, who left Democratic politics for Divinity School. Nida Chaudhary, who left the DNC for the DOE. The situation is not comparable: there are fewer Kenyon grads in the Democratic Party or leftist movement, particularly among writers, pundits, and the leadership. And two of the highest-profile - Space and Bower - aren't liberal to the extent that most of the folk in the last paragraph are conservatives.

Given that the Kenyon student body has a significantly higher proportion of Democrats than Republicans, and liberals than conservatives, I think it bears asking: what the hell is going on with our alumni? My ideas include:

1. Kenyon, because it's known for being conservative-friendly, attracts a core of students who are already very conservative.

2. Kenyon nurtures conservatives better than it nurtures liberals. (See, the Kenyon Observer compared to the much more marginal Kenyon Voice.)

3. Liberals at Kenyon don't make a particularly strong case for liberalism, possibly because it's the status quo; conservatives make a stronger case for conservatism.

At any rate, this continues to interest me, as do a few other bits of Kenyon microhistory. I'm planning on blogging when I get the chance. Also, I'd really like to interview some of these people, so if you found this via a google alert for your name or similar means, e-mail me at kenyonalumniinthenews@gmail.com.

Collegian Steals My Idea, Profiles Recent Alumni

2010-03-05T00:29:00.000-08:00

After Kenyon: Alumni Perspectives: These profiles/interviews are with four very recent graduates, from 2008 and 2009. On two of them:

Lexie White is working on a public health study called the Sister Study, which is a long-term study of women who have never had breast cancer, but who have sisters who have had the disease. Having close relatives with breast cancer is associated in women with a significantly increased risk of getting it, so studying women with genetic risk factors helps researchers study the interaction between environment and genes in terms of who gets sick. More on that from NPR

Ted Lawrence is an assistant editor at The National Interest, which he describes as "a wonkish foreign-policy magazine in Washington, D.C." From the most recent issue: an article on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by one of the top U.S. counterinsurgency people.

Forbes Magazine on the Beauty of the Kenyon College Campus

2010-03-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

Forbes has a piece on the best-looking college campuses; it opens with a current student's flattering description of the Kenyon campus: "What appealed to Norton about the tiny liberal arts college were the sweeping trees, the vast expanses of green and the way classic Gothic architecture blends in with the Midwestern-style houses on campus. "It's like the old part of campus has taken in its surroundings instead of alienating them," she says. "It feels like the campus is really part of Ohio."

Then we have: "Kenyon isn't just a looker compared to Midwestern neighbors. It's one of the best-looking campuses in the world, according to a panel of architects and campus designers interviewed by Forbes."

Well!

Kenyon is also on someone else's list of 20 gorgeous college campuses

On the College Confidential section on Kenyon College - Appearance of Campus, people say: "well maintained", "Hogwarts", "beautiful", and "it will take your breath away."

Kenyon Alumni Ballot: Overall Characteristics

2010-03-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

There is an election ongoing for the 2010-2011 Kenyon College Alumni Council and Alumni Trustees. Voting procedures and candidate bios are on the school website.

Who are the candidates?

There are 10, total (for the two elections).

Demographic Slicing

5 are women.

10 of 10 appear to be white and non-Hispanic.

Class Slicing

1 graduated in the 50s, 1 in the 60s, 4 in the 70s, 1 in the 80s, 2 in the 90s, 1 in the 00s.

Career Slicing

Two have MBAs -- one of them is a CFO, one of them is in banking. One works in corporate finance; another is the CEO of a mid-sized government consulting firm. One worked in marketing. (That's five, total.)

One is a doctor; one is a nurse.

One is a writer and publisher; one is a retired English professor.

One is an attorney.

At Kenyon

Two were athletes (one woman played rugby, one man played baseball.)

None of the women were in sororities; 3 of the 5 men were in fraternities and 1 was a Peep.

Four worked on the Collegian.

Other

Two have children who graduated from Kenyon

Ballots are due by April 15.

Kenyon Alumna Blogs, Has Better Abs Than You

2010-02-24T14:11:00.000-08:00

Carla Birnberg, '91, is a writer, personal trainer, and fitness blogger. She writes as MizFit. A recent post of hers, Six Steps to Workout Success, tells you that "Keeping your workouts fresh and avoiding an exercise rut is crucial. And, if you’re under any sort of time constraints, you want to be even more careful not to let your body plateau. Change your routine every 6-8 weeks so your body (& mind) doesn’t have the opportunity to grow complacent and stale."

She shared some words about her experiences as a bodybuilder with the Kenyon Alumni Bulletin in 2001.

She is active on twitter.

Push-up progressions, via you-tube.

On the freshman fifteen

Political Science Prof to Speak on Lincoln, Douglass, and the Constitution

2010-02-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Diana Shaub, '81, is a political science professor at Loyola College in Maryland. On March 4, she'll be giving a lecture at Washington and Lee comparing how Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass viewed the Constitution.

Shaub also serves on the President's Council on Bioethics, and has written on issues relating to biotechnology, human dignity, life, etc.

From an article of hers from the Public Interest from 2003 on cloning, entitled Slavery Plus Abortion: Cloning is an evil; and cloning for the purpose of research actually exacerbates the evil by countenancing the willful destruction of nascent human life. Moreover, it proposes doing this on a mass scale, as an institutionalized and routinized undertaking to extract medical benefits for those who have greater power. It is slavery plus abortion.

She is the author of Erotic liberalism: women and revolution in Montesquieu's Persian letters.

And in the 80s, she was part of the I-believe-short-lived Committee for Liberal Education at Kenyon, which wrote a letter to the conservative magazine Commentary. The backstory was that Commentary had recently published an article on the goings-on at Kenyon related to womens' studies, written by Kenyon grad Elizabeth Lilla. The gist of the article was that the campus was a mess of administrative pressure, faculty dissent, and student apathy regarding recent decisions relating to adding womens' studies - and more generally, changing Kenyon's Traditional Curriculum. Unfortunately, the original Commentary article, Who's Afraid of Women's Studies?, is only available to subscribers.

At any rate, many interested Kenyon parties responded, including this small group of alumni which Shaub was part of, which agreed with the article.

Letter excerpt (you have to scroll down a bit): "The administration has not been above retaliating against an entire department when that department has not been sufficiently supportive of its agenda. Witness the actions taken against the political-science department...Last spring, the administration refused to hire the department's choice for a tenure-track position. When the department refused to accept a candidate supported by the administration for the same position, the administration responded by refusing to hire anyone, and also refusing to rehire two visiting political-science professors."

[I didn't know about this piece of Kenyon history, although I think Alma Mater describes some of the related events. There are other interesting letters: 75 faculty members wrote in, disputing the Commentary account. Four additional professors wrote in, disputing that faculty letter. A student and a Kenyon parent also had their say.]

Other Notes:

The Committee for Liberal Education at Kenyon also included Henry P. Wickham, whom I mentioned in my post on American Thinker; Lauren Weiner, a speechwriter for the Pentagon and folk music expert who appeared in the most recent alumni bulletin; Scott Univer, General Council of an accounting and consulting firm; and Jeffrey Smith, who I can't find any information about anywhere.

Opera Singer Passes Away - Kenyon Connection?

2010-02-23T22:59:00.000-08:00

Jeannine Morand, who had a career as an opera singer in the 1940s and 1950s, passed away recently at 85. This article from the Windsor Star describes her as having been a scholarship student at Kenyon before she went to Julliard. But Kenyon wasn't coed until she was in her 40s - here's a Time article that mentions the college was planning on accepting women in the next few years; it's from 1967. Maybe she was an exception?

Here's a blog post about her, from her daughter

Singing Debussy in 1993, via youtube

Kenyon Alum Speaking at Arkansas Literary Festival

2010-02-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

Ben Farmer, Kenyon '05, teaches high school in Silver Spring, MD. His first novel comes April 1.

From its publisher: Inspired by Longfellow s eponymously titled epic poem, Evangeline is a brilliant novel by Ben Farmer. As the British drive the French out of mid-eighteenth century Acadia (present day Nova Scotia), the beautiful seventeen-year-old Evangeline Bellefontaine is torn by British soldiers from her fianc , Gabriel Lajeunesse, on the eve of their wedding. Heartbroken but determined, Evangeline along with illegal trapper Bernard Arseneau and priest Felician Abadie sets out on a ten-year journey to the French-Spanish colony of Louisiana to seek her long-lost love.

He will be speaking at the Arkansas Literary Festival in April.

Collegian Writes About Blogger Alum

2010-02-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

From the recent Alum Blogs About Father's Haiti Relief Efforts:

By day, Brandon Fitzgerald '06, a former English major, runs a Web design company called Crooked ShelfWeb Design. By night, he runs the Cleveland-Haiti Relief Blog, which has been viewed by people in over 250 cities around the world. His purpose in running the blog is to document the relief efforts of two Cleveland doctors who went to Haiti to help for a week in January in the aftermath of the recent earthquake. One of those doctors is his father, Dr. Jack Fitzgerald, who has been a practicing anesthesiologist for 25 years since completing medical school at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

Here is his website

Kenyon Alum Presents at CPAC, Mischaracterized by TPM as Not Part of the Conservative Establishment

2010-02-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

From Talking Points Memo, a politically left web publication, we have: Tea Party Crashing Establishment CPAC To Hang With 'Fellow Conservatives'. Quote: When CPAC kicks off tomorrow in Washington, members of the tea party movement will be on hand. They are sort of strange bedfellows, since tea party members insist they aren't about the Republican party and CPAC is viewed as the marquis event for the GOP and its potential presidential candidates. As we've been writing, Republicans across the country have been trying to harness the tea party energy for their own races as anti-establishment sentiment sweeps the nation in the leadup to the midterm elections.

Tea Party author (and Kenyon alum) John M. O'Hara was one of the presenters, on the subject of "Saving Freedom One Patriot at a Time." As noted in a previous post, O'Hara has worked on Republican campaigns, been a Bush political appointee, and currently is part of the conservative think tank industry: characterizing this Kenyon alum as "anti-establishment," "not about the Republican Party," or a 'conservative,' could perhaps be called silly.

He recently joined the Illinois Policy Institute, whose last publication is entitled Ready for the Snow? Gauging Illinois’s Performance on a Critical Core Service, not Why You Should Remove Your Own Snow Instead of Expecting the Socialist/Fascist Government to Do It For You. (That is, as far as I know, a fictional publication.)

More of Nick Griffin/Taylor Somers on the Web

2010-02-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Taylor Somers cancels the Nick Griffin event, writes apologetic letter

Occidental Quarterly (once could dance around how to describe OQ, but I'm going to go for "white nationalist") describes this as Weakling Rescinds Kenyon College Nick Griffin Speech Invitation

Kenyon students write in their LJs about it.

Kenyon, Griffin, and Somers get a mention due to all of this by Hatewatch, the Southern Poverty Law Center's blog

"The antifa thugs at the One People's Project are hounding me," Taylor Somers wrote on his Facebook recently, providing a link to the article in question. "Would anybody care to retaliate against them?" [this has some facebook screenshots, as well as a quote from the Kenyon College spokesperson re: the David Duke list of the best schools for whites]

Kenyon Grads Running American Thinker

2010-02-12T20:59:00.001-08:00

In 2004, two Kenyon grads - Thomas Lifson and Richard Baehr - founded American Thinker, a conservative web magazine. This is Lifson on his career in academia on an article on the first six years of AT:

"I have long called myself a "recovering academic." After I began my career as a Harvard professor, I discovered that academic life is like a drug, allowing too many practitioners to detach from critical aspects of real life. It took me only four years to decide to leave, though like many others in recovery, I had periods of relapse, serving as a visiting professor at Columbia, Harvard (again), and Japan's National Museum of Ethnology, in binges ranging from six months to two years. Despite leaving academia, I remained committed to ideas and to teaching, in one format or another."

Related Links

An AT article from another Kenyon grad, Henry P. Wickham, Jr. Last year his wife, who is in her 50s and a doctor, direct commissioned into the Air Force and deployed to Iraq with an Army unit.

Ongoing disagreements with Professor Schubel.

Lifson argues, based on an article in National Review, that Barack Obama has "lied about who he is, and he continues to lie in ways big and small", including regarding issues of citizenship.

Youtube interview with Thomas Lifson on "The Conscience of Kansas" radio show. On the beginning of AT: "I was on DOS-based groups on the web communicating with people about politics and other things. And as the web developed we saw the emergence of blogs of various sorts...I wanted a place that people from outside the mainstream of journalism, or the political elite, but smart people with a lot to say could find a forum."

Swedish Parliament Keeping Olof Palme's Murder Case Open

2010-02-12T18:26:00.001-08:00

Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, was assassinated in 1986. Last week, the Swedish parliament voted unanimously to remove the 25-year limit on prosecutions for murder and other serious crimes in order to indefinitely keep the case open.

The Department of Anthropology describes Palme: he grew up in Sweden and served in its military in WWII before coming to Kenyon and studying economics and political science. Afterwards, he returned to Sweden and was serving his third term as prime minister when he was assassinated.

The crime has never been solved: a man was convicted for it based on the identification of Palme's wife, but the conviction was later overturned.

Palme was active in the anti-apartheid movement. This is from a speech Palme made to the United Nations Security Council in 1977:

"Apartheid systematically dissolves family ties. It legalizes a cruel removal of populations. The whole black labour force is turned into migrant workers in their own country. A growing majority of both sexes is forbidden by law to live with their families outside the workless bantustans. Normal family life is increasingly a rarity. The children are, in the words of Colin Legum, becoming a neglected and starved generation, with no models of concern or caring, no loyalties, no self-esteem, no dependable relationships, no possible aspiration to responsible citizenship. They see their parents constantly humiliated. They have only known resentment, rejection and violence.

Outside South Africa we may feel that there is time to go step by step in the struggle against apartheid. But time is running out for the children of South Africa. The white minority should consider that those children are the people with whom they will have to negotiate one day. And those are the children whom we look forward to welcome in our midst as representatives of their people."

Blogging About Motherhood (and Distracted Driving)

2010-02-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann, both Kenyon grads, first started blogging together on motherhood in 2004. You can see their work at the Motherhood. They've done some other media over the years as well: here's Munroe's HuffPo page. Currently they're working on a campaign/website called Mom Sends the MSG, against distracted driving.

They discussed it recently with the Los Angeles Examiner: "The campaign started when Emily and Cooper where invited by the White House and the DOT to attend a Distracted Driving Summit. They created Mom Sends The Msg campaign the very next day, a result of what they had learned at the Summit, the impact it had on them, and the necessity to help spread the word of the dangers of texting while driving."

Other Links from the Duo:

From Rush Limbaugh is Scared of Girls [Munroe], on Limbaugh's criticism of a series of public service announcements aimed at getting women to vote in the 2006 election: "That's right, women care about the issues and Rush doesn't like women thinking about those kinds of things. He doesn't want us worrying our pretty little heads. Not only that, if 20 million additional single women did end up voting this time around, over two-thirds would likely vote democratic - because when women start looking into candidates and the issues surrounding this election season, women will vote for the person they believe is doing the right thing."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette talked to Munroe in 2007 in an article about women entering the blogosphere.

They are on twitter

Sarah Longwell On Ignition Locks and Drunk Driving

2010-02-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

Sarah Longwell recently wrote a piece for the Star Tribune on an ignition locks proposal for drunk drivers in Minnesota. Quote: "the proposed law supported by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and endorsed by the Star Tribune would force judges to order low-BAC, first-time offenders -- even those just one sip over the legal limit (and occasionally under the limit) -- to install interlocks"

Painting With Nanotechnology

2010-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Kate Nichols graduated from Kenyon in 2004 with a degree in studio art. This article on boingboing talks about the art she's doing now with nanoparticles:

[Re: a 2009 work entitled Calibrate:] "The color in this piece is due to a phenomenon called plasmon resonance. "I love thinking about plasmon resonance--likely, because I paint motion and grew up dancing," Nichols said. When light comes into contact with a metal, electrons are displaced. Because the electrons are attracted to the nuclei of the metallic atoms, the electrons fall back into their original positions only to be exiled again, over and over. This oscillatory dance is called a plasmon and we perceived it as color when the wavelength falls within the visible spectrum."

More on Nichols:

Nichols' TED page

Her home page [seems to be down as of posting]

Oil painting she did for her senior exercises (this links to all of the art senior exercises from 2004.)

The Internet Is Talking About Nick Griffin Coming to Kenyon

2010-02-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, a very small part of the Internet.

The American Renaissance mentions Kenyon in its press release regarding Griffin's activities in the United States. [Wikipedia says about the magazine: AR is a monthly racialist magazine published by the New Century foundation. The magazine's founder Jared Taylor has been called a white separatist by the Southern Poverty Law Center.]

Some folks people picked up on the press release: there are posts mentioning it here and here and here.

Here is the facebook page for the event. Edit: The event has been canceled, so this page no longer exists.

Kenyon Alumni Blog About the Alumni Bulletin: Or, Getting Meta

2010-02-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

A letter to Professor MacLeod re: the article Why Don't We See More Plays by Women?

Quote: Let me ask you a rather blunt question: in general, do you find that your female students have a more difficult time writing about conflict than the males? If so, maybe the missing factor that even women dramaturges are looking for is a clear dramatic conflict. That’s the one thing Professor Marley really shoved down our throats – that ever since Aristotle, theatre has always been rooted in the conflict between two individuals at cross-purposes, maybe as a kind of sublimation of violence. My understanding is if that’s missing, no one really knows what to do with a play.

Past Mentions of the Kenyon Alumni Bulletin in the Blogosphere

In 2006, on the issue of Senator Kerry as the commencement speaker: There was an initial letter to the bulletin in protest of this choice; this blog post protests that letter, mentioning the fact that John Snow spoke at an earlier commencement with no apparent protest from the original letter writer.

Not very polite

People discuss this article on happiness.

The Bulletin and its policy toward wedding announcements.

On the Folly of Trying Abdulmutallab in the Civilian System

2010-02-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Stephanie Hessler attended Kenyon, and then got her law degree from N.Y.U. She has served as a constitutional lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is currently an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. She recently wrote this article for Townhall.com, Obama’s Unilateral Disarmament.

Excerpt:

Only a few hours after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a self-professed al Qaeda-trained enemy, attempted to explode the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, the Department of Justice decided to bring criminal charges against him in the Eastern District of Detroit, rather than transferring him to the military for questioning. It did so without consulting counterterrorism higher-ups, such as Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, and National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter.

Despite the fact that Abdulmutallab is a Nigerian national, with no right under any statute or the Constitution to be tried as a U.S. civilian, the Obama administration immediately decided to grant him the rights of a U.S. citizen. Less than 10 hours after he was apprehended, and after only 50 minutes of questioning, he was given Miranda warnings and told he had the right to remain silent and the right to obtain a lawyer – compliments of the taxpayers he had just tried to explode. This quickly silenced the chattering Abdulmutallab, who at first disclosed not only his al Qaeda training in Yemen, but also mentioned additional terrorist plots.

Hessler shared some fashion advice with Washingtonian back in 2006: she is "drawn to bright colors and clothes that make you want to go out and have fun."

She is also affiliated with The Rosenkranz Foundation, which donates money to educational and policy organizations (her father, Robert, is the founder.)

'Certain Rights Should Be Limited When They Threaten Civil Society'

2010-02-07T00:29:00.000-08:00

Amos N. Guiora teaches at the University of Utah law school. He graduated with a history major from Kenyon in 1979 and later served in the Israel Defense Forces. Last week he served on a panel regarding civil liberties and the War on Terror. From an article about the panel:

Amos N. Guiora, U. law professor and former lieutenant colonel for Israel Defense Forces, provided a counterargument in the debate. He said that in order to best protect ourselves, we need to identify specific threats, not generalized groups of people. "The single greatest threat to civil democratic society is posed by religious extremists," he said, adding that the second governmental officials hear of any such leader calling for action in the name of God, that leader should be taken down. "As important as freedom of speech is, as important as freedom of religion is, we all have the right to live," Guiora said. He proposes government put an end to religious immunity that is granted to religious extremists, specifically in the three monotheistic faiths of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. He said certain rights should be limited when it threatens civil society in any way.

Also:

Testimony of Prof. Amos N. Guiora: The Resilient Homeland: How DHS Intelligence Should Empower America to Prepare for, Prevent, and Withstand Terrorist Attacks. He delivered this in 2008 to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment.

License to Kill, an article he wrote for Foreign Policy on killing terrorists. Excerpt:

Targeted killings are indeed legal, under certain conditions. The decision to use targeted killing of terrorists is based on an expansive articulation of the concept of pre-emptive self defense, intelligence information, and an analysis regarding policy effectiveness. According to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, a nation state can respond to an armed attack. Targeted killing, however, is somewhat different because the state acts before the attack occurs. In addition to self-defense principles, the four critical principles of international law -- alternatives, military necessity, proportionality, and collateral damage -- are critical to the decision-maker's analysis.

The David Duke College Ranking System and Kenyon

2010-02-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

Kenyon College made the "The Best Colleges for Whites" list, from David Duke's organization last November. They combined the SAT scores of students with the percentage of white students to get some out-of-100 aggregate score: Kenyon scored 87, coming in 14th.

Alternately, here are some pictures of cats.

Working for Oxfam in Alabama

2010-02-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Andrew Blejwas, '00, is Oxfam’s regional communications officer for the US. He contributed to a recent Oxfam report, Exposed: Social vulnerability and climate change in the US Southeast. In a blog post for Oxfam, he commented on the report, saying it "gives us the tools to pinpoint which communities in the Southeast are most vulnerable to disasters—and it’s not always where you might think—by looking simultaneously at climate change related hazards (like drought, sea-level rise, flooding, and hurricane winds) and social vulnerability."

Blejwas' previous job was with the Southern Poverty Law Center. He discussed the work of the SPLC with the Kenyon Alumni Bulletin.

Excerpt from the Kenyon Alumni Bulletin article: In 2005, the SPLC released "Terror from the Right," a report you helped research and write that documents sixty domestic terrorist plots in the United States between 1995 and 2005. What does this tell us about domestic terrorism? People know Timothy McVeigh and Eric Randolph, but in addition to those two individuals and the acts of terrorism they committed, there are a lot of surprising events that either happened or were awfully close to happening, most of which received no media attention. It's very important not to be an alarmist, but it's also important to understand that these threats are very real. We have to get beyond the stereotypical image people have of what a terrorist looks like.

He is also quoted in an article about the exhuming of the body of Emmett Till in order to determine cause of death.

The Bittersweets: With Tour Dates in the UK

2010-02-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

The Bittersweets, an alternative country band from Nashville, features Chris Meyers, '02, on guitar, keyboards, and vocals. They have upcoming tour dates in the UK, which you can read about on their website.

More on Chris Meyers:

A Collegian review of an early album of his.

An Alumni Bulletin article on him:

"At Kenyon, Meyers took up guitar, finding some local success with a band called Waiting for Molly. But he found his biggest influence in professor Howard Sacks, who taught a course on the sociology of art that embraced ethnomusicology and cultural politics.

"He got me totally turned on to older American music," says Meyers, who majored in sociology. "The commercialization of country music in the 1920s, the commodification of art, why that was important socially at the time." Meyers ended up writing his Senior Exercise paper on those very topics, theorizing that the period's industrialization and urban migration spawned a nostalgia for the "small town" sentiments that country music commercialized."

The band's myspace page, with some beautiful music.

On "The Game," or, Male Social Mastery

2010-02-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

Evan McLaren graduated from Kenyon in 2008. He's currently a writer for Taki's Magazine. Here's an interview he did a few months ago with a fellow blogger about "the Game," or, as fellow blogger* puts its, From Hello To Kiss In Ten Minutes. Excerpts:

Evan: At some level Game just a current name for an old thing, namely, male social mastery. At another level—notice the lingo and the attention to evolutionary psychology—it’s a recent and unique creation, an activity of a particular organized group and set of personalities (like Mystery, Ross Jeffries, and PUAs in general). Why do you think male social mastery is in such an eroded state? Why is the pursuit making such a comeback? Where do you think it’s headed?

Blogger: [...] What sets the new emphasis on Game apart is that it emerged after the sexual revolution and government mandated equality between men and women. Many of the guys who are now studying and expounding upon Game would have found a wife and settled down to some other interest if it weren’t for female promiscuity on the one hand and the prevalence of female-initiated divorce on the other. It is essentially a cultural response to both an opportunity and a threat: there is both a carrot (easy sex) and a stick (ruin through divorce) driving men to Game.

More From Evan:

Evan is on twitter.

He wrote about an incident that happened at Kenyon, and another young man who had some disagreements with the Observer (I've deleted the links, including to the Kenyon people he mentions in it):

"News came a few days ago about a muddle-headed black anti-white brute who last fall went ballistic against my old undergraduate political magazine for its alleged “racism,” after a gifted young writer published an argument that ran along the lines of what got Walter Block into trouble at his institution. By talent and capability the critic’s proper station is far below that of undergraduate, and as a member of a college community he was morally malfunctioning citizen. Everyone knew it, and no one said it openly, especially after he went off against the Kenyon Observer like a seventh-rate Malcom X. His chest-thumping attracted the shrill support of a variety of the faculty’s dimmest bulbs. That’s all in the past now, since the little punk got stung in an undercover operation selling weed, which happens to be his primary occupation. My guess is that this only slightly decreases the likelihood that he will obtain a Kenyon degree. That particular detail isn’t my business. And anyway, what does the situation prove, except that we can’t reasonably impose our Euro-centric norms on petty anti-white drug dealers, for whom it can be said we must cultivate a special understanding, a separate structure of academic programming, and perhaps even a new administrative office? Such is the spirit of the tripe broadcasted by the school’s ensconced PC brigade. Personally I’d rather smoke weed with the perp than revisit the characteristic celebrations of our multiculture."

_________________________________________________________________________________

[*Evan describes fellow blogger as "a hip blogger that a lot of young guys with right-wing attitudes read." Fellow blogger's most recent post entitled: Fat Craps Give Michelle Obama Flak For Telling Uncomfortable Truth, and it features the line, "Hey lardulous, weight stigma is a GOOD THING. In fact, many stigmas are good things when they encourage people to feel bad about their wretched conditions and do something to improve themselves. For instance, right now I’m stigmatizing you as a fat, smelly lesbian. Luckily, you can do something about the first two problems."]

Lobbying With Prime Policy Group, the Government Relations Arm of Burson-Marsteller

2010-02-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

Paul Brown is kind of in the news: He was featured in the Winter 2010 Kenyon Alumni Bulletin, along with various other Kenyon Alumni in DC (including Christian Brose).

The title of the article on Brown is Love a Lobbyist.

Excerpt: "You can't take lobbyists out of it and I don't think anyone ever will," says Brown. The question in Washington, he says, is not whether lobbyists should participate in the process but what their role should be. And that question has become more fraught, especially in the aftermath of the 2005-06 scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff* and a host of public officials and businessmen with whom he dealt.

Like the title says, Brown is a Managing Director at Prime Policy Group. Prime Policy Group is the government relations arm of the communications consultants, Burson-Marsteller. Burson-Marsteller made it into the news in 2007 because their CEO, Mark Penn, was also Hillary Clinton's chief strategist. As the Nation put it:

"Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of colluding with the Nigerian government in committing major human rights violations. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as "astroturfing," to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates."

I don't know anything else about Paul Brown. Partly because his name is really common, partly because lobbyists mostly stay out of the news). But here's his opensecrets lobbyist profile (the list of firms that organizations he's worked for have been lobbying for, while he's been there.) Long and not that interesting.

*went to Brandeis.

Bill Watterson Gives Rare Interview (With the Plain Dealer)

2010-02-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

While Bill Watterson was at Kenyon, he painted a copy of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam onto the ceiling of his dorm room. He, of course, later went on to create the much-loved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. But he doesn't give a lot of interviews, so it's a big deal that he recently e-mailed with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. From it:

"Readers became friends with your characters, so understandably, they grieved -- and are still grieving -- when the strip ended. What would you like to tell them?

This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say.

It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

I've never regretted stopping when I did."

More on Bill Watterson:

Some work he did for the Collegian, back in the day:

The Commencement speech he gave in 1990 (he tells the story of painting the ceiling.)

Calvinball!

Rep. Zack Space Not Sure About Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2010-02-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

At Kenyon, Zack Space studied political science and was a member of Beta Theta Pi. Now, he's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 18th congressional district. He's also a Democrat.

Currently, he's not sure about Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the current military policy, signed by President Bill Clinton, which ended the practice of formally asking soldiers about their sexual orientation, but kicks outs members of the military if they or someone else reveals that they're not straight. Space's spokesman just told the Columbus Dispatch the following: "there are certainly a range of opinions on this issue, and Congressman Space respects the passionate views on all sides."

More Zack Space links:

A Kenyon Alumni Bulletin article about him.

A letter to Zack, courtesy of another Kenyon grad, on redstate:

Space has said he will not vote for the Senate version of health care reform: ""It shifts the cost onto the middle class that can least afford it. I think it is a windfall for the insurance industry. I will not vote for it, and I will do everything I can to defeat it, " says Space."

Future Kenyon Grad Tries to Restore Eternal Truths in the West, Brings Nick Griffin to Campus

2010-02-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Taylor Somers, in addition to being a sophomore at Kenyon, is also "the founder and guardian angel of Occident, a movement to restore eternal truths in the West." He was recently interviewed on Amerika.org. There, he described his political orientation as "Anti-consumerism, anti-materialism, archaeofuturism, autarky, community, corporative holism, environmentalism, ethno-cultural independence, heroism, initiatic esoterism, nationalism (and pan-nationalism), non-interventionism, organicism, protectionism, Traditionalism, et cetera."

In related news, his newly minted group, The Robert A. Taft Society, is bringing their first speaker to campus in a few weeks. Nick Griffin is Chairman of the British National Party, and will be at Kenyon on February 18. (See "Nick Griffin, MEP, at Kenyon" , the facebook event page, if you're on facebook.)

There is much to be easily found on the Internet regarding Nick Griffin. I like this recent article about Griffin: "A British poll suggests one-third of adults in the country confuse the leader of the British National Party with the protagonist from TV's "Family Guy."

Less hilarious: Court Warns Britain's Far-Right Party to Scrap Whites-Only Membership

Edit: Hello, visitors from Gambier/other parts of Ohio! Try the rest of the blog.

Edit IIa: School canceled the event: Relevant allstu

This Lawyer and Anti-Immigration Advocate Is Not In the News Today

2010-02-05T11:02:00.000-08:00

Howard Ramsey Sutherland graduated from Kenyon, served in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Air Force, and went to law school. He's currently general counsel for an investment bank: C.E. Unterberg, Towbin: His bio is online.

Over the years, he's also written some anti-immigrant (and more generally, pro-a-certain-concept-of-the-United-States-as-a-white-Christian-country-that-some-among-us-might-call-racist) pieces for VDARE.com. Vdare is a website that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group.

Anyway, here are some articles he's written:

From An Open Letter to Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, from 2001. (In response to Cardinal Egan attending and speaking positively at a rally for the rights of illegal immigrants):

"The rally you shamefully dignified with your presence was, in truth, an enormous gathering of people in criminal violation of the immigration laws of the United States—and of those who, for political or business reasons, support the continued importation of these illegal aliens. By addressing this mob in Spanish (a language I speak fluently and greatly admire; nevertheless the American vernacular is English) you contribute to the multicultural balkanizing that is fracturing our country. By endorsing the claim that illegal aliens are what they are not—immigrants—you both insult legitimate immigrants and undermine the democratically enacted laws of your own country."

No War Against Christmas? Tell That To The Grinches of Gotham:

"As VDARE.com readers know only too well, every year about this time, assorted secularists, cranks, ACLU fanatics and a growing variety of Scrooges of all sorts gird their alienated loins and sally forth to renew the WAC. The grinches have enjoyed enormous successes. Now cowed employees offer each other a half-hearted Happy Holidays at their carefully ornament-free Christmas (oops, sorry, make that Holiday) Parties, instead of the more heartfelt Merry Christmas! of yore."

Advising Senator McCain on Foreign Policy

2010-02-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Christian Brose, '02, was part of a recent Congressional delegation to Pakistan in his capacity as foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain.

More on Brose:

The Washington Post wrote an article detailing how he rose to be Condoleezza Rice's chief speech writer.

Here's an excerpt from an article he wrote in Foreign Policy in early 2009 predicting that President Obama's foreign policy would bring more of the same:

"The Making of George W. Obama"

It ends: "One of my regrets about my work at the State Department is that we were unable to convince the American people that Bush's pragmatic internationalism had within it the makings of a strong, sustainable global leadership for the 21st century -- and that, as such, it had the potential to heal some of the fraught divisions over America's role in the world that have plagued the country since the end of the Cold War. My hope is that Obama will not only continue this foreign policy, but strengthen it and expand support for it among all Americans. Were he able to do that, it would truly be a change I could believe in."

The Kenyon Alumni Bulletin also did a piece on him.

On Financial Crisis (and Monetary Policy)

2010-02-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Richard Timberlake was born in Ohio, studied at Kenyon, and then served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war he received his economics PhD at the University of Chicago and then went onto a career as a professor, retiring from the University of Georgia about ten years.

Last June he gave a talk on the financial crisis at the summer Institute for the Preservation of the Study of the History of Economics Adam Smith program at the University of Richmond; they recently posted the video on youtube.

He is the second speaker, at about 31:00. He begins by speaking about the genesis of central banks. "It was an extra-large bank, and the government used it as a bank, but it was also a commercial bank...It was both a commercial bank, a government, bank - and then, occasionally something would happen, and it turned out that the Bank of England had all of the reserves...and it was called on to act as a Central Bank, without anyone having acted to give it that label."

More on Timberlake:

His author bio

A Stable Price Level Standard for Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, from the Cato Institute

Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History

John M. O'Hara and the Tea Party Movement

2010-02-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

John M. O'Hara, like many Kenyon graduates, works in the world of conservative politics. At Kenyon, he studied philosophy and IPHS and edited the Observer. Since graduating in 2006, he's been a political appointee, worked on campaigns, and been quite active in the Tea Party movement. He just wrote a book, A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes. And yesterday he was mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor in an article on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Movement:

"John O’Hara, author of “A New American Tea Party,” has cautioned fellow activists against fawning over any one leadership figure, falling prey to what he calls the “cult of personality” that led to the election of President Obama."

That article is here:

More on O'Hara:

His bio, from the Heartland Institute, where he is Manager of External Relations:

The Amazon page for his new book [with introduction by Michelle Malkin, Oberlin grad.]

He is also on the twitter.

He spoke at a Tea Party in Milwaukee in 2009. Quote: "I liked Jimmy Carter a lot better when he was hugging dictators instead of calling Americans racist...They call us radical...what's radical is the idea that they want to double energy prices in already tough economic times, what's radical is that they want to put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor."

Marketing Vodka

2010-02-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

Michael Stoner, who studied political science at Kenyon, was recently appointed Vice President of Marketing for Russian Standard Vodka USA. He says:

"I am delighted to join Russian Standard and I look forward to working with my new colleagues and leveraging my marketing experience to grow the Russian Standard portfolio of brands. As VP of Marketing, I hope to enhance Russian Standard's already strong presence in the U.S. market through innovative and consumer-driven marketing initiatives that will move consumers along and up the commitment curve from "aware" of the brand to "brand advocate."

Here's a similar press release from when he joined a different vodka company in 2004.

Peace Corps, Illinois Politics - Now, Vermont

2010-02-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

Seth Webb studied history at Kenyon in 1990s. Later he spent two years with the Peace Corps in Guatemala. Then he was special assistant to then-Gov. Blagojevich (D-IL):

http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/6253/2029524.html

His tenure in Illinois is discussed in this Village Voice article. He said to them: "Pay-to-play was not something I was responsible for. Why should we talk about it?"

http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/942006

Beginning next week, he will be leading the office of Economic Development & Tourism for a town in Vermont:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100113/NEWS01/1130344/1002/NEWS01

Getting Tenure!

2010-02-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

María Elena Cepeda just got tenure in Latina/o Studies at Williams:

http://iberkshires.com/story/33755/-Williams-Awards-Tenure-to-10-Assistant-Professors.html

She also has a book coming out this year - Musical ImagiNation: U.S-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom:

http://www.nyupress.org/books/Musical_ImagiNation-products_id-11155.html

A Mob Burned His Office

2010-02-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

"Anthony Banning Norton was an outspoken Union man in a pro-South state." (A Mob Burned His Office in 1867.) He was editing a newspaper in Austin at the time. He fled to Dallas, was appointed a district judge, ran (and lost) some political races, and spent the last fifty years of his life refusing to cut his hair or shave because Henry Clay was still not president.

http://www.news-journal.com/featr/content/features/stories/2010/01/30/01302010_craddock.html

A book of his,

The Great Revolution of 1840, is on google books.

Mixology is Cooler Than Whatever You or I Do

2010-02-03T17:57:00.000-08:00

Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli graduated in 2005, having studied archeology and political science. Now he's a mixologist in Boston. He was recently interviewed by starchefs.com. He talks about his background, Kenyon, and coming up with drinks:

http://www.starchefs.com/chefs/rising_stars/2009/boston/bio-mixologist-tom-schlesinger-guidelli.shtml

He's also on youtube, discussing ice molds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9IREkkhxM4

"An Alum's Violent Life and Death"

2010-02-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

The Collegian has this article on a Kenyon alum, by a Kenyon alum:

Andrew Partsch graduated from Kenyon in 2005. In November, he killed himself

Update: a quite moving post from the man who received one of Andrew's organs

Allen Ballard Has a New Novel

2010-02-03T17:38:00.000-08:00

Allen Ballard was one of the first two African-American students to attend Kenyon College in Ohio, where he graduated magna cum laude and was president of the student body

Now he is a professor at SUNY-Albany and has a new novel out, "Carried by Six", which is an urban thriller about drugs and violence in a black Philadelphia neighborhood

He also has a personal website

Former Economics Major Trying to Sell House

2010-02-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Kenneth J. Patsey graduated in 1980. Then he got an MBA . Now he's managing partner at Mainstreet Investment Management. And he's trying to sell a house in Cleveland:

http://cleveland.blockshopper.com/news/story/600056225-Investment_management_partner_selling_Moreland_Hills_4BD

He can also be found here:

http://www.mainstreetinvest.com/ken.html

Sarah Longwell on James O’Keefe

2010-02-03T16:40:00.000-08:00

Sarah Longwell, Class of 2002, was a political science major who, while she was a Kenyon student, wrote for the Kenyon Observer. She has a brief (and several-years-old) bio on the Kenyon website: http://www.kenyon.edu/x25148.xml

Today, she's the first result for a google news search for "kenyon college alumni." The article is "Campus Right Unbowed by O’Keefe Scandal", from the Washington Independent."

She gets the first two paragraphs:

"When James O’Keefe applied for a grant to fund a conservative newspaper at Rutgers University, he appealed to people like Sarah Longwell. As the senior program officer at the Collegiate Network, she toured campuses across America to help conservative and libertarian students start newspapers or keep their publications running. She “read basically every conservative college paper,” and got to know the sort of people attracted to the unpaid work of right-leaning campus muckraking.

“You always knew when you met a James O’Keefe,” Longwell told TWI. “When I watch the television, and watch him say things like ‘the truth will set you free,’ I think: there’s a certain type of person who’s so obsessed with being in-your-face contrarian, and being famous for it, that he does it without thinking of the consequences. I certainly met people like him in other places.”

And the last line:

“For every James O’Keefe,” said Sarah Longwell, “there are 50 serious journalists coming out of these programs.”

More Sarah Longwell links:

Sourcewatch:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Longwell

As Managing Director of the American Beverage Institute, talking about sobriety checkpoints:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA-wAu8I3ag

An editorial by her on the Employee Free Choice Act:

http://www.examiner.com/a-1439293~Sarah_Longwell__Big_Labor_s_little_secret.html

In support of payday loans:

http://augustafreepress.com/2009/10/21/letter-sarah-longwell/

In the alumni bulletin, on politicization in higher education and Kenyon's relative freedom from it:

http://bulletin.kenyon.edu/x1954.xml