Meine DDR

A brilliant, revealing history of the "DDR," the "German Democratic Republic."  All in German, takes about an hour and a half to watch.  Go for it (if you know German)

On the Delusion of Worldly Honor

Dr. Bernard L. Madoff

(honoris causa, Yeshiva University, 2011)

Honorary doctorates, award dinners, lists of "best colleges" and "best rabbis,"  even Nobel and Pulitzer prizes:  to what extent does all that glitter indicate real gold ?

Here are my answers:

IF IT GLITTERS IT IS GOLD

But see also

Titles and other ornamental self-descriptions

The Peacock Factor

Partners in Hate. Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers

Here is a link to my essay:

Partners in Hate.  Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers

And here are links to related writings:

 Noam Chomsky's writings on Israel and Jews   

 Chomsky's Links to the neo-Nazis: Some documents  

 Chomsky Update: 2001-02

 Israel Shahak's writings on the Jews  

 What Edward Said Knows  

 Mr. Ralph Schoenman and the Art of Footnoting

The Matrix of Professor Jeff Halper  

"Liar...Coward...Little Fascist" -- Letters from Professor Chomsky

How Smart is Noam Chomsky ?

Why am I providing these links ?

The Google search engine, for reasons that are not clear, yields only Chinese characters as a link to my Chomsky pamphlet.  

Ms. Alice Walker and the Jews

It appears that Ms. Alice Walker, holder of a Pulitzer and many other honors,  has a problem with, well, what shall we call it ?  Zionists, the Hebrew language, Jews as a group ?  Let's just say it's complicated.

But here are some things that we do know.

1)  It is "humanitarian views that permeate her work."  How do we know this ?  Why, she herself has  told us so. Yes indeed, her views are absolutely humanitarian, we can definitely take her word for that one.   What a friend we have in Alice !

2)  Ms. Walker is in the news lately because she has refused to allow a Hebrew translation of her book The Color Purple.  She has given her reasons to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel:  in brief, she does not want the people of Israel to read her work.  Someday perhaps, but "now is not the time."  Put otherwise, she does not want to be on speaking terms with the Jews. Not now, but perhaps some day.  Well, OK, fine, we can wait.

3) But, as it happens, Ms. Walker once had a Jewish husband, with whom she had a daughter, Rebecca, who is now forty-three.  Now Ms. Walker has not been on speaking terms with Rebecca for at least a decade.  Look, you can't be on speaking terms with just anybody, can you.  Here is Rebecca's account of her relations with her mother.

4) Ms. Walker's negative views of Israel, she says, are based on what she heard as a juror (which she calls a "jurist') on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine:

As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.  The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating.  I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse.

Of course Ms. Walker has been an anti-Israel activist for many years before she was appointed to this so-called RToP. In fact, according to the NGO Monitor, all the jurors and all the judges on this "tribunal" were long identified as anti-Israel activists. What sort of justice can you expect from a court all of whose members have declared against you long before the trial ? This RTofP, like the other Russell tribunals, is notorious as a kangaroo court pure and simple.

I do know that Ms. Walker does not want me to read what she writes, that if she knew of me, she would no doubt consider herself as not on speaking terms with me. Nevertheless, I now make this attempt, through this blog, to send her a little something that she might wish to consider.  Since she is a "jurist," she will no doubt be interested the US Supreme Court's position on tribunals.  The following is an excerpt from an opinion by Mr. Justice Black (who was not Jewish, so, dear Ms. Walker, no danger of contamination here) speaking for the Court,  In Re. Murchison, et al. 349 US 133 (1955):

A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness of course requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases. But our system of law has always endeavored to prevent even the probability of unfairness. To this end no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome. That interest cannot be defined with precision. Circumstances and relationships must be considered. This Court has said, however, that "every procedure which would offer a possible temptation to the average man as a judge . . . not to hold the balance nice, clear and true between the State and the accused, denies the latter due process of law." Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510, 532. Such a stringent rule may sometimes bar trial by judges who have no actual bias and who would do their very best to weigh the scales of justice equally between contending parties. But to perform its high function in the best way "justice must satisfy the appearance of justice." Offutt v. United States, 348 U. S. 11, 14.

UPDATE, June 2013:


Ms. Walker has just published a book of essays, The Cushion in the Road, many of which are devoted to her hatred of Israel, of the Jewish people, and of her Jewish ex-husband. From a review of the book by the Anti-Defamation League:

On several occasions Walker seems to indicate that the purported evils of modern-day Israel are a direct result of Jewish values, alleging that Jews behave the way they do because they believe in their “supremacy.” She suggests that Israeli settlements are motivated by the concept that “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” which she claims is a lesson she “learned from my Jewish lawyer former husband. This belief might even be enshrined in the Torah.”

To read the whole review, CLICK HERE.

The Colossal Insensitivity of the New York Times

Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers University student who revealed to the world that his roommate was gay, has now been sentenced to thirty days of jail and was also subjected to world-wide publicity for his bad behavior. "I do not believe that he hated Tyler Clementi," said the sentencing judge, "but I do believe he acted out of colossal insensitivity."

Colossal insensitivity deserves punishment, everyone seems to agree.  But what happens when the New York Times -- is there a more prestigious paper in the whole world ? -- what happens when this paragon of journalistic virtue engages in a spot of colossal insensitivity of its own ?

On page A15 of last Saturday's paper, the Times published a story (nonsensically labelled a "crime scene" column) entitled "With Dementia, Stepping Outside for Fresh Air Can Mean Going Astray."  It is an account of three elderly men who, the story says, experienced episodes of getting lost in the subway or street due to their alleged "dementia."  Two of these men are identified both by name and photograph.  But in the case of the third, the paper quotes the wife anonymously:  "She asked that their [sic] names [sic] be withheld -- 'There's a stigma with these situations,' she said."

The first person is described as an 82-year-old sociology professor with a Jewish name, the second an 80-year old person with an Hispanic name but apparently without an occupational background  worth mentioning.  The third of these alleged wayward demented, the one whose name is not mentioned because of the stigma problem, is also said to be or to have been a professor.

And, oh yes, the 82-year-old sociologist is said to be the husband of a woman sixteen years his junior.  It is on the authority of this woman, as we shall see, that the NYT felt justified in outing the sociologist as "demented."

Well, I must say that I identified with these old men, especially the sociologist.  At first I thought that I recognized his name, but this turned out to be in error.  (Was I demented here ?).  In any case, I felt moved to somehow get involved.  After consulting with a journalist friend on the matter of journalistic ethics, I wrote to the Times.  Here is the ensuing correspondence:

1)  My message to the "public editor" of the paper, whose job, I understand, is that of an independent ombudsman to handle complaints from the public:

Sir:   

The paper today carries a story on dementia:It starts with "... an 83-year-old retired sociology professor ...." As it happens, I am an 86-year-old retired sociology professor, and I must say that if I were lost in the subway I would not want to be labelled as suffering from dementia in the pages of the NYT. 

Here are some questions that arise: 

1) who made the diagnosis of dementia ?
2) who gave informed consent for the diagnosis to appear in the paper ?
3)  whose business is the diagnosis of an individual who in no way can be called a public figure ?

2) To which the PE replied as follows:

Professor Cohn, I suggest contacting Mr. Wilson directly...
I hope this helps.
Best,
Joseph Burgess
Joseph Burgess | Office of the Public Editor | NYT
Note:  The public editor's opinions are his own and do not represent those
of The New York Times.

3) And here is the reply I received from Mr. Michael Wilson, author of the column:

Professor Cohn,
Thanks for your note and your thoughtful questions. Mr. .... was diagnosed by his doctor, I believe; his wife allowed me to interview her and told me everything that you read about him, with her consent that it appear in the paper. True, he is not a public figure, but the story was about people who suffer from this condition in this city, and what the police do when someone disappears. To the extent that such an article might help someone in the future, Mr. ...'s wife must have believed her husband would not mind her sharing with me. I hope I've answered your concerns, and I thank you again.
Best,
Michael Wilson 

4)  To which I replied, with perhaps somewhat less courtesy than I should have mustered:

I do not believe that the wife here has the moral right to consent to a violation of Professor X's privacy.  Who gave her this right ?  Did a judge declare her husband incompetent ?  Did she act in his best interests when she agreed to have his identity revealed, as would be required if authority had been granted to her to speak on his behalf ?  Have you considered the harm and embarrassment that your actions may cause Professor X ?  How is the potential good of your story -- helping others in the future -- enhanced by divulging his name to the world at large ?  If you had written "One victim of dementia --  whom I shall call professor X --"  how would that have interfered with any legitimate public interest in the matter ?
As I will argue on a blog that I am planning ("I Beg to Disagree"), your article has all the characteristics of malicious gossip: 1. you cannot be sure of the accuracy of the diagnosis, because ethical physicians may not disclose details to you, and, at any rate, "dementia" is a matter of degree, at best.  2. It is harmful to an elderly person -- who may  or may not have had some "senior moments" -- to be labelled as "demented" to his circle of friends and colleagues.  For example, this professor may still be active in formal and informal scholarly networks, and to be labelled "demented" may result in both financial and emotional harm.
And, oh yes, I sincerely hope that you will live long enough to have senior moments of your own, and I also hope that, when that time comes, some young reporter on the NYT, even if encouraged to do so by your wife at the time, will not write a juicy little piece on how that old Wilson guy, a retired journalist no less, lost his way in the subway due his deplorable dementia.

Looking over this correspondence now, I think that it is telling that Mr. Wilson has the courtesy of addressing me as "professor," presumably because I do not appear to be "demented."  But there is no such courtesy in talking about "Mr." X, the allegedly demented retired professor.

There is a sizable sociological literature on the process of stigmatizing individuals.  By absolutely sheer coincidence, one of the pioneers of this work was a sociologist who was a close namesake  of the sociologist mentioned in this NYT column. (I had at first confused the two.)   Journalists do write about sociologists, retired and otherwise, but they do not seem to read their work.

And also, just wondering:  all that sensitivity that we are to show to racial, religious, and sexual minorities   ... should any of this apply to the elderly ?  To some extent, perhaps ?

How to Achieve Fame and True Recognition

Do you feel that perhaps you have not accomplished as much in life as you might have ?  Or do you perhaps feel a little under-appreciated ?  Fear not, help is on the way.

Today's mail brings a proposition from a  religious organization that offers to list me in its forthcoming journal as a man of high accomplishment,  one deserving great honor and recognition.  Just how much of these, however, depends on how much I am willing to pay.  Here are the choices:

"Patron"              $6,000
"Benefactor"       $3,500
"Supporter"        $4,500
"Angle"               $2,000
"Champion"        $1,500
"Guardian"          $1,000
"Hero"                  $  500
"Shepherd"          $  300

Can there be anyone who values the important things in life who would resist such an offer ?  Hint:  "Hero" seems the best buy, giving a lot for very little.

Concerning the pomposity of calling yourself "doctor" and other such foolishness

Just a few months before I arrived at the University of British Columbia, Queen Elizabeth visited there and signed the guest book.  She was of course known as "Her Majesty" to one and all.  But what title did she use in the guest book ?  Perhaps "My Majesty," thus imitating the pomposity of certain "Doctors" of our day ?  No.  She signed the book simply "Elizabeth R."  True, the "R" alludes to her royal status, but, overall, I think that her signature can serve as a model of modesty for us all.

Elizabeth R. at UBC, 1959

Similarly, some ten years before this royal visit, I had occasion to write to Albert Einstein to comment on a political statement he had made.  A few days later I received a courteous reply that assured me that he and I agreed on the matter after all.  And he signed his note "A. Einstein."  He did not find it necessary to remind me of his doctorate, or of his Nobel prize.

Others are less modest.  A certain Freiherr zu Guttenberg, German defense minister until he was forced to resign in disgrace last year, felt constrained to call himself "Doctor" despite the fact that his dissertation turned out to be fraudulent.  And, similarly, there is the very sad case of Martin Luther King, Jr., who is still often referred to as "Dr. King," despite the fact that his dissertation, too, has been shown to be largely fraudulent.

Outright fraud aside, there is something unseemly in calling yourself "Doctor" in contexts that have nothing to do with the subject matter of your studies.

I have just written a longish piece that explores the folly of such pomposities.  You will find it here, on my website.