March 5, 2020--The Youth Vote

Interviewed last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Bernie Sanders spoke with pride about how his political "movement" was attracting increasing numbers of young voters.

When Rachel pointed out that this is untrue, he blanched and insisted that it is. She pressed him, noting the evidence does not support that conclusion.

He disagreed, saying he "believes" it to be true. 

It was as if he said, if the facts aren't corroboratable, turn to believes to make your case.

Here, from USA Today are the facts. They support Rachel Maddow:

Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.

• In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
• In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
• In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.

• n Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
• In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
• In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.

Anecdotally, it does appear that many college-age students turn out for Sanders' rallies, but this is never quantified. How many register to vote and then actually do is. And as one can see from the actual Super Tuesday vote, Rachel Maddow had it right.

I am reminded of 19-year-old James Kunen's Strawberry Statement: Notes of A College Revolutionary, a 1970 book about the student protests that roiled Columbia University's campus in 1968.

It was serious business but had another side to it that Kunen also wrote about--the "revolution" was a great place to meet girls.

Is it too cynical of me to point this out?

April 12, 2019--Go For It, Charlie!

I did not know what to expect about college life when my parents dropped me off for orientation week at Columbia. 

My father's final words were not about being careful to choose an appropriate major or how to think about the future. Rather, his advice was, "But be sure to go out for crew." The rowing team, which was best known for going season after season without winning a race.

Most of my classmates and I were more brainy than athletic and I knew less about port and starboard than differential equations. 

As a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who grew up in an immigrant family where Yiddish was the first language, when it came to participatory sports I knew only about street games such as ringolevio and stick ball. Crew? That was for the goyim. They were headed for board rooms and European vacations, my friends and I, if the quotas weren't filled, for medical or dental school.

Orientation was designed to inculcate in us Columbia and Ivy League lore. Like our fight song (assuming our forlorn football team knew anything about fighting), Roar, Lion, Roar. And, more alluringly, in a sex education workshop, how to prevent girlfriends we might get to know from becoming pregnant, and how, as much as possible, to avoid excessive masturbation. I made notes about the former but not the latter. In regard to that I came pre-oriented. 

During the first year all my courses were required--Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, Art and Music History, Quantitative Reasoning, foreign language (for me French), science (for me chemistry), and Freshman Comp.

The one I knew least about was Comp, but when classes commenced I came to quickly learn that it would be my most challenging subject. I had gone to a technical high school where reading literature and writing about it was not emphasized and so I was not surprised (though deeply anxious about my tottering status) 
when my first paper was returned to me emblazoned with red ink corrections, criticisms, and a boldly circled F.

But two months into the semester everyone in the class became obsessed with something other than declarative writing--without a preamble of notification one night our Comp instructor appeared on TV as the star contestant on 21, America's most popular quiz show.

It was on once a week and contestants were asked to decide each time if they wanted to continue to compete for more money or stop and pocket what they had won during previous weeks.

So every Wednesday, the day before the show aired, we would arrive at the classroom early and fill the blackboard with our advice, and, projected into the situation, our longings for distinction--

GO FOR IT CHARLIE!!! GO FOR IT!!!

Our instructor was the son of America's leading literary family, Charles Van Doren who died at 93 earlier this week.

He would smile when he erased the board, but during the months he was on the show he never mentioned it and in that hierarchical era there was no likelihood that any of us would feel it appropriate to mention it or his soaring good fortune. Even when he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, nothing was said or shared. Just fantasies about rising in the world by using one's wits.

For us it was enough to bask in his success and growing fame. Things that on a different scale I craved but was incapable of allowing myself even to openly imagine.

But then when 21 and other quiz shows were exposed as frauds, including Charlie, who was briefed in advance about the evening's questions, what remained of my innocence was shattered.

His rise and then his precipitous fall became fully part of how I begin to understand and experience the world.

But I was taking my own advice and going for it.

November 24, 2015--The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge

There is a move afoot on the campus of Princeton University to take Woodrow Wilson's name off campus facilities  and academic programs such as the residential complex, Wilson College and the prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

This because Wilson, who served as Princeton's president from 1902 to 1910 before becoming Governor of New Jersey and than the 28th president of the United States, was an unrepentant racist.

Among other things, he said--

To an African-American leader that "segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you."

And, he wrote about "a great Ku Klux Klan," that came into being to rid whites of "the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant Negroes."

Regarding Princeton itself, during Wilson's tenure as president, no blacks were admitted. But this is only part of the Princeton story--this Ivy institution did not enroll African Americans until 1940, fully 30 years after Wilson stepped down as president. So there is a lot to criticize and atone for.

As a footnote, Jews were not welcomed until about the same time and even in my day, under pressure from my father who was prestige- and assimilation-oriented, I applied and was somehow admitted. I was subsequently told by a prominent alum that there were no eating clubs on campus that welcomed Jews and so, if he had advice to offer, I should . . .

Which I did and went to Columbia instead, which by then, having shed its Jewish quota, begrudgingly admitted and made sort of welcome my kind.

So I can understand the pressure minority Princeton students are putting on the administration to take down Wilson's name. In a throwback to the 1960s, to get their way, a group last week occupied the president's office.

The faculty now has promised to consider these demands and, knowing faculty as I so well do, I feel certain the outcome is inevitable.

The Princeton situation may turn out to be just prologue.

Looking at the history of American presidents who proceeded Wilson, fully 12 of them were more than racist--they owned slaves.

George Washington owned 250-350, Jefferson 200 (including Sally Hemmings), Madison more than 100, Monroe 75, Jackson about 200, Van Buren "just" one, Tyler 70, Polk 25, Taylor 150, Johnson (Lincoln's vice president) 8, and Grant (Lincoln's favorite general) enslaved 5.

If Wilson's name is to come off one of Princeton's student residence halls, shouldn't we also change the name of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge that crosses the Potomac outside Washington, DC? And what about the 13 American cities named for Jefferson? Or the names of James Madison University and Madison, Wisconsin?

What about those 21 counties in as many states named for Andrew Jackson, who, recall, owned about 200 slaves?

And then there is our nation's Capitol itself. It is named for our first president who owned at least 250 human beings. Is this acceptable with today's racial consciousness?

What then might be a politically correct new name for Washington? There is also a movement there to change the name of their football team--from the Redskins to . . .?

I welcome suggestions.

December 12, 2013--Meow Lion, Meow

What's happening up at Columbia University, my old college? The Lions, instead of roaring, as our fight song says, are meowing. At the Law School.

It is rare that I agree with anything in Rupert Murdoch's tabloid rag, the New York Post. Actually, I never agree with him or the editorial positions of his newspapers or Fox news outlets. But this one time I do wholeheartedly concur with Tuesday's front page that bellowed--"Poor Babies! Cop Rulings 'Traumatize' Columbia Kids."

The story that followed claimed that the acting dean of the Law School announced that any students so upset by the grand jury rulings in Ferguson, MO and on Staten Island could arrange to delay taking their end-of-semester exams.

Of course skeptical that this could possibly be true (the Post relishes having or creating opportunities to bash liberal elites), I turned to the New York Times where, to my dismay, I found, buried on page A-26, virtually the same report with the more temperate headline--"Columbia Law Lets Students Delay Exams After Garner and Brown Decisions."

Between you and me, I prefer the Post's "Poor Babies!" That does a better job of getting to the essence of the matter.

The acting dean, Robert E. Scott, in an email to students actually did use the T-word: he wrote that following existing policies for "trauma during exam period" students who felt their performance on final exams would suffer because of the grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers who killed alleged African-American perpetrators, could defer taking the exams.

Refusing to say how many sought delays, a Law School spokesperson said a "small number" had.

To me, even one student seeking such a deferment is one too many.

Yes, the decisions not to indicate are upsetting, deeply upsetting, but unless the "small number" of students who are delaying their finals are members of Eric Garner's or Michael Brown's immediate families (I doubt it), it is hard to imagine being so traumatized that they can't study or concentrate.

This is particularly pathetic behavior for law students who presumably are being prepared to deal with just these kinds of circumstances. Actually, even worse circumstances. Say, like what happened exactly two years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 five- and six-year-olds were slaughtered.

I could sputter on about this--how we are over-pampering our young people, even those in top-ten law schools; how no one these days wants to take responsibility for anything; how we have lost moral fiber and what my father used to call "intestinal fortitude"; how for too many it's all about getting and spending; how the world has become Oprah-ized; how . . .

But I will resist and allow the Post front page to have the final word.

October 22, 2014--Roar Lion, Roar

In case you've been living off the grid and haven't noticed, it's football season.

The NFL is about halfway through its schedule and as far as I know no one has been arrested for spousal abuse for at least a month.

Florida State is Number 1 again and its Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback, Jameis Winston, hasn't been caught selling autographs, arrested for DUI, or accused of sexual harassment. Also for the last few weeks.

And the footballers at Sayerville High School in New Jersey are maybe back in class and not at the moment abusing and sexually harassing their freshmen teammates.

Then, closer, to home, my college's football team, the Columbia Lions (not the disgraced Nittany ones) continue to lose almost every game they play. In fact, on Saturday they set an Ivy League record for the most loses in a row against a single team when they were beaten for the 18th consecutive time in 18 years by Penn by a score of 31 to 7.

Well, at least they scored.

Also, over the past two years they have lost 16 games in a row, which is dwarfed by what they perversely achieved back in the 1980s when they lost 44 straight. That is not a typo, they actually lost 44 games in a  row. About five years' worth of games.

This is even worse than when I was enrolled during the late 50s. As I recall (and I am by now not that good at recalling), while I huddled in the rickety wooden stands against the wind blowing off the Hudson River, the Lions won one or two games. Not per season, but during my entire four undergraduate years.

Why am I not ashamed of the Lion's dismal record? Why, in fact, am I feeling a little good about this pathetic history?

For one thing the team used to be a football force. One year, 1934, they beat otherwise all-powerful Army and went on to the Rose Bowl (you can look it up) and shut out Stanford, 7-0.

So we know about winning, though almost everyone who was a student at that time is dead or in deep decline.

Our quarterback back then was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn (just like me--the Jewish part), Sid Luckman, who, after graduating, joined the Chicago Bears and there had a Hall of Fame career.

And of course, of a very different sort, Jack Kerouac went to Columba on a football scholarship; but after one year, 1940, dropped out and, well, went on the road. Not with the team but with his pal Neil Cassady.

We used to chant, when getting our annual trouncing by Rutgers, about how though they might be better jocks we had Lionel Trilling. Not the coach but the literature savant. This made us feel superior in realms on a higher plane than football.

And so maybe last Saturday, while getting whipped for the 18th year in a row by Penn, the otherwise forlorn Columbia students who made the trek to Philadelphia reminded the opposition that, since 2000, we have had six Nobel Prize winners on our faculty while Penn, on the other hand, has had . . . well, twelve.

Clearly you can't win 'em all.

November 26, 2013--Roar Lion, Roar

When decades ago I arrived at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus for freshman orientation, upper classmen devoted themselves to two things--first, to find unique ways to haze and humiliate us (a favorite was making us at all times carry a roll of toilet paper) and, second, to teach us the three essential college songs--

The alma mater, Sans Souci ("What if tomorrow brings sorrow or anything other than joy?"); and the fight songs, Who Owns New York? ( "Who beat West Point the people say") and Roar Lion, Roar (" . . . and wake the echoes in the Hudson Valley").

Though we had two fight songs, my classmates and I quickly learned that the college had forgotten one thing--to get the football team to fight. My freshman year the team went 0 and 10, losing all its games by lopsided scores.

I was reminded of this last weekend when the Lions lost to Brown 48 to 7 and ended another winless season. Again they went 0 and 10. We couldn't even beat Brown where I always assumed no one played football since all the students were busy writing poetry or organizing food banks for the homeless.

Sure, half of Columbia students were premeds who slept in the zoology labs; but the other half came from normal high schools where sports were as important as SAT scores. Maybe more important. And yet, year after year, decade after decade, we were fortunate if we managed to win two games against godforsaken teams from downscale places such as Fordham in the Bronx and Monmouth College in West Long Branch, New Jersey. This year we lost to Monmouth 37-14 and to Fordham 52-7.

In the past 50 years the Lions managed just three winning seasons and in the last 100 years, only 23. Back in the day the team somehow managed to beat Army and that improbable victory was instantly memorialized in the lyrics to Who Owns New York--"Who beat West Point?"; and in 1934 we shocked Stanford and won the Rose Bowl 7-0. The Rose Bowl. Well before it hit the big time and well before my time. But still . . .

The best thing about Columbia football was the marching band, a ragtag group of about 19 sort-of musicians. In addition to the inevitable Roar Lion, Roar, where we sang about waking the echoes of the Hudson Valley (whatever that means), each week they came up with special material. Witty stuff about politics and college life.

My favorite was when one year we made the mistake of playing Rutgers University, a big-time team and like Monmouth (and Princeton!) in New Jersey.

At halftime, as usual, we were behind by about 30 points and to have pity on us Rutgers had already taken out its starters and deployed the junior varsity. Thankfully, it was time for the marching bands.

The Rutgers band, in resplendent uniforms and numbering at least 100, engaged in well-rehearsed and intricate routines and formations. They played a medley of other colleges' fight songs--Michigan's legendary--

Hail to the victors valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, hail to Michigan
The leaders and best.

And Notre Dame's even more famous--

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky.

What is it, I thought, about waking up all these echoes?

While having these thoughts, out sauntered the Columbia band in uniforms so rumpled that it looked as if they had been worn by their predecessors in Pasadena in 1934.

If you can believe it, the special material that day was about Columbia professors. About I. I. Rabi, a father of the atomic bomb who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1944; about Moses Hadas, the world's leading authority on Greek literature; and my favorite, world-class literary critic, Lionel Trilling.

They taunted Rutgers and the team's fans, singing about how while we listened to Trilling lecture about Kafka, Rutgers students were studying such grimy subjects as mechanical engineering and cattle raising.

Mean spirited as it was, it helped make us feel better about ourselves while our pathetic Lions were getting their asses whipped.

Looking back on this, it seems so puerile. All of it. The hazing, the toilet paper, the school songs, fraternity life, and the obsession with football. (Columbia, however, did have a strong chess team!)

Rutgers, it turns out, had an excellent English department and Columbia had quite a good engineering school. Things were more complicated than they seemed. Even our alma mater was something to think about--San Souci, to be "carefree." Yet, "what if tomorrow brings sorrow or anything other than joy?" By now we know how true that is.