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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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I enjoyed Mark Branch’s article on “The Ten Greatest Yalies Who Never Were” (Feb.). I thought Tom Hanks might deserve special mention since he played two different Yalies. Besides Sherman McCoy, he also played the role of Lawrence Bourne III in Volunteers, a 1985 movie. This last role was an especially satirical and amusing look at the wealthy, privileged Yale grad.
A Costly War on Drugs I’d like a puff of whatever Subrata K. Sen of the Yale School of Management was smoking when coming to the conclusion that the anti-drug “Brain on Drugs” TV ads were effective at reducing drug use among teenagers (“Light & Verity,” Nov.). Even the “drug czar” John Walters has admitted publicly that the whole costly series of ads was a colossal waste of money, if not actually counterproductive. To start with, the basic drug-war concept of lumping together the hard drugs (heroin, cocaine) and soft drugs (marijuana) dooms any such anti-drug education efforts to failure, because kids (at least my kids and grandkids) are not so stupid as to believe that pot is equally as dangerous as cocaine and heroin. Their peer group experience tells them they are being lied to about pot, and then it is not much of a stretch for kids to mistrust and ignore the information about the truly dangerous hard drugs. They then feel free to experiment. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), supported by (among many others) liquor and tobacco companies, plays fast and loose with exaggerations of marijuana harms, while ignoring the harms and prevalence of the more damaging drug, alcohol (which obviously doesn’t make it onto the list of drugs America should be free from). I think it is an iffy thing for Yale to be playing footsie with the PDFA. Columbia University’s espousal of former Health, Education, and Welfare secretary Joe Califano’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has prompted serious questions to be raised before the University Senate. Critics fear CASA is compromising academic integrity by releasing to the media results of “research” that has often not been peer reviewed, and is, in effect, used as drug-war propaganda. Yale would do well to be careful about getting involved with imprimaturs to policies relating to our misguided, deceitful, and ineffective drug war.
Military Threats The Yale Alumni Magazine has yet another article demonstrating the Yale administration’s hostility to the U.S. military (“Light & Verity,” Nov.). There is apparently a team of Yale lawyers fighting a law that compels Yale to permit military recruiters on campus. As usual, the issue is discrimination against homosexuals. The military’s discriminatory policy was determined by our elected representatives in government, and there is little chance the policy will change anytime soon. In the meantime, there are other problems facing the military: namely, Al Qaeda, Iraq, and North Korea. Some of us believe these other problems carry a little more weight. Unfortunately, the Yale administration seems to lack the perspective to have figured this out. Maybe if more Yale administrators had some experience with the military, they would exercise better judgment. Looking around myself here in Kosovo, though, I do not see many Ivy Leaguers, gay or straight. Sometimes, I wish we still had the draft. Then the elites would realize that the military, warts and all, is theirs as well. Maybe then they would not merely criticize the military’s faults and deplore its errors. Maybe they would actually help it perform its mission, or at least stay out of the way. Yale is altogether too timid in its submission to military recruiters' demand for access to (heterosexual) students, under threat of losing federal funding. Federal funding to research universities cannot be easily withdrawn. It is granted because many branches of government (civilian and military) could not function without the results of the research. Individually, universities are vulnerable to threats to their funding, but collectively, they are in a powerful position, holding an asset (the skills of their scientific faculty) that cannot be obtained elsewhere. If the universities joined together in united refusal, the military would soon have to back down.
A Return to Machu Picchu It would seem not only repugnant and sacrilegious to disinter my grandfather Hiram Bingham’s bones in order to try to argue with your article, “Rediscovering Machu Picchu” (Dec.), it might also be rather useless. I am very grateful that after 85 years, Yale’s Peabody Museum has overcome the taboo hanging over my grandfather’s Machu Picchu booty to bring it out of the basement and to spend the time and the money to piece together a beautiful, new exhibit. However, I am not happy with the article’s rather dull assessment of Machu Picchu itself. Machu Picchu is not just a pretty place (“picked out.simply because it was so beautiful”). In recent years, the Dalai Lama has spoken of a spiritual shift from Tibet’s Himalayas to Peru’s Andes, called “the ancestors” by the Quechuan descendants of the Incas. No laser technique can dispute such a view. Nor can scientific details override the pure and holistic experience of being in that holy temple to the sun, the moon, and the once sacred four directions. Now that the remnants have been returned to the light of day, thought should be given to the eventual return of the bones and the relics to the sacred ground of Peru. Hiram Bingham was prematurely and wrongly banished from Peru in 1915, aborting his mission to uncover other important sites—a fact that embittered him for the rest of his life. He was invited to return for the first time in 1948, at the twilight of his life. Only after this experience could he bring himself to write with the joy of an adventurer the book that continues to sell steadily to this day, The Lost City of the Incas.
What to Require? Why, in this new era of American diversity, world commerce, and global terrorism, would Professor Donald Brown propose to abolish Yale’s foreign language requirement (“AYA Fall Assembly,” Dec.)? Yale graduates, especially health workers, lawyers, and educators, must be ready to serve the 25 million Americans (and counting) who speak Spanish. Those in finance and industry will need language skills to win friends in emerging markets or to help poverty-stricken peoples. Those in diplomacy should, for example, learn Arabic if they have sincere aspirations of building peace with and within the Middle East. The 21st century is no time for monolingual complacency. Domestic demographics and geopolitical realities will require many more Yale graduates to speak Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, or Arabic. It is Yale’s responsibility to anticipate this need.
Class Action I am glad that the labor unions have protested Yale’s refusal to allow unions for its employees (“Light & Verity,” Nov.). I am also pleased that the unions delayed until activist-minded students could return to campus to join the pro-union demonstrations. I voted for a pro-union Divinity School graduate for the Yale Corporation. I thought that it was necessary to have a pro-union member on the board since the usual trustees are mostly rich and against unions. After a year in Oxford on a fellowship, I came back to Dwight Hall. I worked closely with poor people, a range of union organizers, and a variety of outside radicals. I helped organize a free working-class university that met in a Yale building and had both Yale professors and people from the wider New Haven community on its faculty. I also worked on a union-organizing campaign for Yale’s non-academic employees. In 1977, I was asked to teach a seminar at Yale. At the first class, the non-academic employees announced a strike. I told the students that they should investigate the situation and prepare to argue the pros or cons of the strike at the next class. I also asked them to come up with proposals for what we as a class should do. I decided to hold the seminar off campus as a method of supporting the strike. The students supported my decision and attended the class.
Corrections In the “Sightings” caption in December’s “Light & Verity,” we referred to John Eure as a senior. He actually graduated in 1999 and received his MS in 2002.
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