Take a Year Off
Tyler Bridges's article ("What I Learned from Joel," November/December) reminded me of my own undergraduate experience.
Like Tyler, I grew up in a university town (Princeton, N.J.) and matriculated at the local school. Like Joel, by my second year of college, I was bored. Unlike Joel, who joined the Stanford Band to rebel, I spent a lot of time carousing at the eating (and drinking) clubs to which most Princeton upperclassmen belong.
Dissatisfied with how I was utilizing the resources at my disposal, I took a year off -- hitchhiking in Europe, doing odd jobs in Princeton and working for the American Youth Hostels in New York City. Fifteen years later, , as did a wiser high school classmate of mine who spent a very enjoyable year in Grenoble. It is 20/20 hindsight, of course, but II look back on my time off as my most rewarding year of college. I only wish that I had taken my year off before I attended college try to suggest a year off to almost every high school senior that I meet.
John Gutman
Princeton, New Jersey
Public vs. Private
Both Monty Phister, '49, MS '50, and Graham L. Sterling III, '51, JD '57 (Letters, November/December) fault President Casper for his September/October column on the overreach of law enforcement.
They might better understand Casper's position were they to review Justice Scalia's dissent in the opinion of the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the independent counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government Act: "If Congress is controlled by the party other than the one to which the President belongs, it has little incentive to repeal it; if it is controlled by the same party, it dare not. By its shortsighted action today, I fear the Court has permanently encumbered the Republic with an institution that will do it great harm."
And this it has. There is indeed a "distinction between public and private." Not recognizing this distinction has given comfort to our enemies.
Sylvan Eisenberg, PhD '43
San Francisco, California
Singular Kudos
What a wonderful and many-sided man Carl Djerassi is and was ("What's Next?" November/December). He richly deserved to have his story told, and it was well done.
However, his use of the word "kudos" was not right. Kudos is a singular noun, and there is no such thing as a "kudo."
My guess is that my complained-of usage will become acceptable in 25 years or so. But for now I must raise a cautionary finger. Aside from this small solecism it was a very good article, and I enjoyed it.
Frank Millsap, '34
Fresno, California
Don't Knock Houston
While Stanford provides us with many wonderful memories, I don't believe the campus has ever been accused of representing great or even good architecture. Therefore, it's too bad that "not great" architecture is a frame for future architecture.
In First Impressions (November/December), Bob Cohn quotes University Architect David Neumann: "We want buildings to be of Stanford, not at Stanford." It's too bad Stanford doesn't have a glorious Piano-designed museum such as the Menil Collection in Houston, and I guess it never will have this caliber architecture, since the future must conform to "of Stanford."
You took some cheap shots at Houston, and I resent it.
I.H. Kempner III, '55, MBA '59
Houston, Texas
Cat Compassion
I was heartened to read "After 10 Years, They're Feline Fine" (November/December), about the Stanford Cat Network. It makes me very proud that so many people are so compassionate and have taken the right steps to curb this feral population. I'm sending a copy to my veterinarian, to the cat club in the retirement community where I live and to other ailurophiles. It's also great that Carole Hyde's group has spawned programs at other universities across the country.
Charlotte Fournier, '45
Laguna Hills, California
Entomologist's Eureka
Other types of control include microinjection and deep root injection with a systemic product. Both methods will affect only those organisms that feed on the host plant.
Another idea is modeled after an old salesman's trick called bait-and-switch. Researchers in Utah and Colorado are experimenting with spraying sugar water on alfalfa fields to attract more parasitic wasps, which will then infect and destroy alfalfa weevils. Try this as a nonpoisonous way to control the psyllid. It just might work.
David T. Harvey, '63
California Licensed Forester
Reno, Nevada
Classics Revisited
Your September/October issue is a curious mixture: three Nobel scientists on the cover peering through a mystical aura with a spooky look in their eyes; and inside, an article ("Who Killed Homer?") that resurrects the argument over Western Civ. I was brought up on the classics, but I'm all for globalization of learning. I also recall with a shudder that horrible freshman requirement "An Introduction to Western Civilization" -- rangy, loose, hit-and-miss, and based upon the "Great European Male" theory of history.
Yes, I regret the loss of contact with ancient Greece and Rome. But I also regret such theories as the one expressed in the article on Homer's demise that the Greeks -- "and the Greeks alone" -- have bequeathed us the benefits of constitutional government. Have those very amicable-looking authors overlooked the fact that the rulers of Athens obliged Socrates to drink the hemlock for corrupting the youth of the nation by asking too many questions? Or that 35 percent of the population of Athens was made up of slaves, and Plato himself was once a slave? Or that Aristotle declared, "Some are born to be masters and some to be slaves"? Or that an argument can be made that our tripartite government derives from the Chinese? Or that perhaps our idea of representative government comes from the Iroquois League?
I'm also disturbed by the stereotypical digs at "multiculturalists" -- especially at Native American concepts of property. I've lived many years on Indian reservations and seen the havoc caused by foisting American ideas of capitalism on people who have a tradition of tribal or communal property.
Jack (Rudy) Holterman, '37
West Glacier, Montana
An emphasis on teaching rather than research is an idea useful not only in classics, the particular target of Professors Heath and Hanson, but in many other college departments as well. However, one hopes that the teaching of classics will grow beyond the simplistic notion that the Greeks are responsible for every good idea in sight, including academic freedom. Socrates found precious little of that in ancient Athens.
The Greeks wanted to see a man able to face his destiny with confidence in his ability to control it. But a stumbling block appeared to them insurmountable: the tyranny of the primitive gods, expressed in old stories of divine vengeance that pursued families through one generation after another. The encounter always ended in tragic defeat; that was considered inevitable.
While the Greeks wallowed in tragedy, the writers of the Hebrew Bible discovered how to tame their own irascible old Yahweh. Refusing to accept him at his own evaluation as a god like all the others, a jealous god who called to account the iniquities of the fathers on their sons to the third and fourth generation, they drew imagery from Babylon to transform him into a shepherd watching his flocks, a loving friend, a guide and consoler who required no more from a man than that he should do justice, love goodness and walk modestly with Him in order to achieve wisdom.
The vision of a benevolent God was welcomed by Greek scholars in Alexandria when the Bible was translated into their own language. They eagerly incorporated it into a Judeo-Greek tradition that served as a seedbed for Western civilization, where it flickers intermittently even in this age of doubt and anxiety.
It was a seedbed for Islam as well. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are prominent among Islamic saints, one is told, and Arabic scholars treasured many important Greek manuscripts altogether unknown to Western scholars for more than a millennium before they were shared in the schools of Cordoba.
If the values of Islam today appear as diametrically opposed to our own as Heath and Hanson find them to be, then their common origin with ours presents a question about the application of classic ideals to modern life, which must be addressed.
Brobury P. Ellis, '37, MA '46
Lehigh Acres, Florida
As this century closes, we are faced with overpopulation and diminishing resources. The human angst is less an individual and rational problem than one of biology and the place of species, including the human species, in a degraded world.
The Greeks had no conception of the impact of vast accumulations of wealth and the huge mass populations of the world needing habitat and food and awaiting the gratifications enjoyed by the developed world. The perception of the Greeks was that the natural world and the human being could be in harmony and that human beings could be in harmony with each other.
In the demise of Western religion as a strong influence on the behavior of individuals, businesses and nations, we can see a parallel indicator for the classics. Religion, like the classics, focuses on the individual as the linchpin of its teachings and beliefs. Sin and virtue, guilt and redemption are individual concerns. But our need is to rein in the destructive energy of vast wealth and to stop overpopulation from converting the natural world for survival needs. We need a powerful new philosophy or religion that will give us the will to destroy these monsters.
The classics are wonderful, but they have made us too comfortable with ourselves. We need to build from the classics and create, very quickly, a much higher level of consciousness of our place in the natural world if we, and it, are to be saved.
Michael Nurre, '61
San Francisco, California
Business Myths
People are quick to paint pictures of businesses as money-grubbing and irresponsible. This is in contrast to the patina given to nonprofits as saintly and "socially responsible." That the Graduate School of Business would perpetuate this distinction is galling to me ("Meaning Behind Money," Stanford Today, September/October).
Being socially responsible is not a function of nonprofits' special charitable status with the IRS or their lack of shareholders. Each of us should pass judgment based on the mission of the organization and its means of pursuing those ends.
I lead a small nonprofit that I believe is socially responsible by virtue of our work with students to advance liberty and the noncoercive means we employ. I could name other nonprofits that I believe are irresponsible to society.
Many for-profit businesses deserve my label of socially responsible for the ways that they have improved human well-being. I am grateful to Merck for lifesaving medicines, Fresh Fields for organic produce, 3M for Post-it Notes and McDonald's for low-cost cheeseburgers.
David Nott, '86
Fairfax, Virginia
Some Have Faith, Some Don't
If my qualifications are deemed adequate, I should be pleased to receive consideration for the post of Stanford's first "Chaplain to the Irreligious" and assist in the great tasks of setting forth program goals and recruiting nine additional colleagues.
A.W. Baxter, '47
Piedmont, California
Robert Gregg writes, "Memorial Church, with its Christian iconography, is not well suited… [for all faiths] and the chaplaincy staff is therefore actively involved in finding other places of worship."
We understand Stanford's desire to be sensitive to the diversity of faiths gathered on campus. However, we also strongly believe in the words inscribed on the east transept of the church: "True Life is the Principles of Christ Lived. There is no other life that is true." This is revolutionary stuff, written on the walls of one of the nation's most politically correct institutions.
We urge you, Dean Gregg, not to apologize for it but to help teach that biblical lessons acted out in a culture can create the highest level of diversity yet known to humankind.
Albert Keck, '89, MA '90
Michael Landes, '81
John Powell, '87
Palm Desert, California
Be Fair to Kidnap Victims
I am appalled at the insensitivity of two negative letters (September/October) in response to the article on the Gombe kidnapping ("Out of Africa," July/August). Jonathon Marley derides three Stanford alums for waiting 22 years before speaking out against atrocities in Zaire. Call it a personal vendetta if you want, but these alums underwent terrifying personal experiences at the hands of Laurent Kabila. They deserve our praise, not criticism, for their courage in coming out publicly against Congo's new leader.
Almost as astonishing was Roland Atkinson's suggestion that Jane Goodall might have acted inappropriately during the kidnapping. I was relieved to see author Brian Aronstam's reply in defense of Goodall, who never received the recognition she deserved from the Stanford community for her brief but stellar association with the University and for giving dozens of Stanford students the privilege of working with her in Africa. Several of these students, including kidnapping victim Barbara Smuts, have gone on to become leading scientists in the field of primate behavior.
Curt Busse, '74
San Juan, Puerto Rico
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