Method versus message

I'm concerned that the occupy movement has clouded its message by sparking a debate over whether it is legal, or even morally acceptable, to take up residence in a public park.

I think there is a very clear difference between this protest method and thoughtfully carried out civil disobedience. When staging a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter, protestors didn't think they had the right to remain there indefinitely. They expected to be arrested. Getting arrested was one way to draw attention to the protest.

The occupy protestors, on the other hand, seem to believe they have a right to take over a public park. When they are forcibly removed, they feel that a terrible injustice has occurred. Even worse, they take this as an attack on their message and they fight for their claim to public parkland as tenaciously as they protest for equality.

This is where their method clouds their message. Their concerns about inequality resonate widely. But it is hard to see their claim to parkland as some kind of fundamental right. I'm obviously no lawyer, but if a public park is a public resource, it makes sense that access is unlimited as long as a group doesn't limit access to others. (I can't even begin to wrap my small mind around how to figure out who has what right to that one park overtaken in Manhattan that is "Privately Owned Public Space".)

Now having said this, that the occupy movement's method clouds is message, I am not impressed with the way public officials have responded to the movement. I think the protesters should in most cases be permitted to remain, simply because it is just against the spirit of a robust democracy to forcefully end a generally peaceful protest. It is especially troubling that the US has dropped down to 47th in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, partly because of all the members of the press who have been scooped up in mass arrests at occupy protests.

Hitchens memoir

It was cruel irony for Christopher Hitchens to be diagnosed with what would ultimately be terminal cancer while on tour promoting his memoir. Or maybe it was dumb luck that he happened to pen his autobiography just barely before his premature and unforeseeable death. I am taking it as the latter, a random and wonderful gift.

Most of the biographies or autobiographies I've read are by or about modern politicians--usually presidents or wannabe presidents. And these aren't all that good. The plot is already well known, and any surprises are discussed right away in the media. My fascination with the subject personalities only happened to far outweighed the shortcomings of the genre.

Hitchens' memoir, on the other hand, is a treat. I didn't know much about his life, so his story is fresh to me. If this were the memoir of a high profile politician, these spoilers might be covered pre-release on the evening news:

• Hitchens was bisexual, even if he never identified as such. His first romance, involving exchange of poetry and almost sex, was with a classmate at his all-male boarding school. He went on to sleep with a number of men up through at least young adulthood. He notes that later on, his looks declined so much that only women would sleep with him.
• His mother's early death was part of a bizarre double suicide. After Hitchens and his brother grew up and moved out, his mother left his father and took a lover. Eventually mother and lover killed themselves together. Hitchens never knew precisely why they did this.
• He didn't discover he was Jewish until his late 30s. His mother kept it secret from the family, in part so that she could raise her firstborn to be a proper Englishman.

But these are barely a page of tidbits from a lengthy autobiography. The theme I experience is the recollections and self-reflection of a great mind. He looks at the complex world of paradoxical people, himself included (hence the title), and makes some sense of it. Quite telling is his explanation of his first visit to America as a young man. He was a radical socialist at the time and the Vietnam war was raging. Yet he fell in love with America, with all its vastness and diversity. He appreciated the philosophy stated in the founding documents and was later impressed that the free press and the rule of law brought Nixon down.

Hitchens' positions on a couple big issues seemed to define him in his final years. One, through which I was introduced to him, is his very public atheism. However, he writes only briefly about this in his bio. He instead dedicates a lengthy chapter to Iraq and his unfashionable support for the American invasion. Perhaps his atheism doesn't need much of an explanation. Serious people tend to be familiar with the case for it and are often sympathetic to it. But the Iraq stance may have caught people by surprise. A British-born intellectual with a lifelong history as a radical socialist wasn't expected to support the invasion. Heck, he had even opposed the first Iraq war. It only makes sense then that his final chapter address how one changes their mind. He ultimately became an advocate of democracy and pluralism with less, if any, remaining concern for socialism.

His tales of lifelong friendships are moving. He writes of deep and enduring intellectual and emotional intimacy with a small circle of writers. His children and two wives, oddly, get barely a mention. Perhaps this is not the part of his life he thinks will interest people. On the other hand, he reports over many pages the results of his deep search through his newfound Jewish ancestry.

I have some lingering questions: I'd like to know more about his immediate family life. I don't feel that he ever adequately explains why he had to become a radical socialist. And I don't think his explanation of his position on Iraq is adequate. But I am damn thankful he wrote his memoir just in the nick of time.

College Websites

I don't really appreciate college websites that are professionally crafted advertisements for undergraduate enrollment, especially for low quality schools with low graduation rates. Too many students are enrolling already in these colleges already. I'm not a prospective student. I'm either looking at a college website as an alumnus, neighbor, or just with random curiosity about an institution. Perhaps these schools don't depend much on alumni donations, expect good town-gown relations, or care to expand their profile among just anyone who happens to be interested. But these all seem like important thing so me, someone who sees colleges as something much more than their freshman class.

These lower tier schools also seem packed with fiction. And not merely in slight exaggeration of their qualities, but rather in something closer to claiming the opposite of reality. Schools with open admissions and low graduation rates claim a quality academic experience and highlight student achievement. Lifeless commuter colleges tout a rich campus life. The worst offenders of course are the for-profits. They present themselves as something other than a scam to collect financial aid cash. (The oddest misrepresentation is the very existence of a private, for-profit called "American Public University".)

But the lower tier schools with dubious website content are much more serious institutions than the for-profit schools. Despite their open enrollment and low graduation rates, they usually graduate a plurality of their students and enrich their communities. And although they are not elite research machines, they typically do produce some research and even have noteworthy institutions on campus, such as small business services, arts programs, and policy institutes. But I would like to see their websites provide honest information about the schools, rather than try to convey their amazingness to potential undergraduates.