* Sorrow

Ellison: We need answers
Raising Hellison
By Matthew Ellison
The Yale Daily News
Published Thursday, February 25, 2010

Andre Narcisse ’12 was one of my Branford little sibs, but beyond the initial meet-and-greet at the beginning of his freshman year, I did not have any interaction with him. To be honest, I didn’t even remember meeting him until after he died when I wondered how we were Facebook friends and found an old e-mail. Sometimes I wonder whether I could have been a better big sib and done something to prevent his death at the hands of “multiple drug toxicity.”
But that’s not the only thing I’ve wondered since I learned of Andre’s death four months ago.
I grew frustrated with the way the...

#1 By A delicate matter 5:49a.m. on February 25, 2010

This piece is filled with heart-felt survivor's guilt and feelings of social conscience, and I hesitate to comment on matters so delicate and earnest. Forgive me please for daring to comment around the fringes of, rather than on, those matters.

In my one-block walk to Patricia's restaurant at Elm and Whalley during my Div. School days, a dude tried to sell me cocaine in broad daylight at the top of his lungs "Want to buy some coke?"

Once while on the same one-block walk I observed someone snort white powder off a tiny piece of paper while seated behind a steering wheel in a parked car.

I worked to assist a prostitute who had AIDS and who continued to solicit on the streets and "boot up" (inject) her buddies with a dirty heroin needle.

And these events occurred 25 years ago. I cannot imagine the situation today now that drug cartels have made their effects known even in sleepy Vermont.

An investigation as the writer suggests would require searching an entire city.

The problem is the CULTURE not the campus or the city.

We seek exhilaration at any cost, including addiction and death.

PK

#2 By Yale 9:20a.m. on February 25, 2010

This is a profoundly irresponsible column from a profoundly uninspiring writer.
#3 By LNC 10:10a.m. on February 25, 2010

You expressed exactly what I have been thinking. I thought that the next step was going to be disclosure of those who contributed to his death. Identification of the source of the drugs is critical to ensuring campus safety. Elimination of drug dealing should be priority number one after this tragic loss of a young life. That is the real way to honor Andre...a Yale community: students, admin, public safety working towards an environment where it is very difficult to purchase or distribute illegal substances.

#4 By Yale mom 10:55a.m. on February 25, 2010

The writer has touched on a phenomenon common to many powerful and influential institutions - that of the code of silence. Damage control at the expense of the whole truth can backfire.

#5 By AMG 5:42p.m. on February 25, 2010

In the Anna Nicole death, there was an investigation...in the Michael Jackson death...there was an investigation.

Why is no one trying to investigate who sold him the drugs? Who was or were the enablers?

Why didn't any of his so called friends alert someone to his increased drug usage?

Why didn't any of his suitemates (probably knowing his drug history) try to wake him up?

Yale is very lucky I am not this young man's mother!!!! They would be in a massive legal battle with me right now.

* Campus Cribs

Hanging-out in Style



Hirst: Questions worth asking
By Adam Lior Hirst
Commentary
The Yale Daily News
Published Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Early one morning last week I stepped out of Branford entryway D and walked through the college courtyard Robert Frost purportedly described as the most beautiful in America. I saw the grass covered with a thick coating of snow; the flakes which hadn’t yet landed, rested atop the Gothic architecture and the tree limbs bare of leaves.
I was not alone. A tour of (native) Chinese men and women were stopped outside my master’s house. The guide spoke as most of them snapped pictures of archways and benches and gates. They didn’t see Linonia courtyard late on a Saturday evening, when beer...

#1 By Infiltrate and subvert 5:40a.m. on February 24, 2010

Ask questions, marinate oneself in beauty and invite debate: all liberal arts traditions.

In addition to Frost, Charles Dickens said Hillhouse Avenue (then vaulted by stately Elms) was the most beautiful street in America. Frank Lloyd Wright said of Harkness Tower, "I'd rather live IN it so I wouldn't have to look AT it."

I'm afraid Yale's interest in China has more to do with power and money than with elevating freedom of thought, artistic beauty and intellectual debate.

Infiltrate and subvert.

PK


#2 By The Contrarian 11:09a.m. on February 24, 2010


I'd much rather live in Harkness Tower than in anything Mr. Wright designed. And after him, it all got much, much worse. Rather than "marinate oneself in beauty" it's more like "wallow in hideousness".


#3 By President's sore head 12:03p.m. on February 24, 2010


The President's House at the University of Buffalo was a Frank Lloyd Wright creation until the 1970's when the man appointed president(whose name escaped me long ago)was a person 6'4" in height, and the ceilings of the Wright creation cramped his style.

As I recall, the building was transformed into the registrar's office in deference to the president's sore head.

PK

* Huffington for President

Huffs and Puffs from Oxbridge

It may be the Oxbridge background, but on every round-table discusssion and every panel I've seen her participate in over the last year, Arianna Huffington has dominated the discussion with her command of political history and the history of ideas.

My proposing her for President is a doomed idea, just as nominating Adlai Stevenson for President was doomed in the 1950's: Americans equate intellectualism with elitism, and therefore reject the intellectual as anti-egalitarian.

Ms. Huffington's accent plays into a latent xenophobia which fuels that anti-intellectualism, a kind of jingoistic populism which beats its drums to the tune of "small government", "lower taxes", "balanced budget" and other pea-pickin banjo tunes these days.

Nonetheless, one should take note of a significant intellect operating on the national scene----and listen carefully to its tune.

Huffington talks future of journalism
By BJ White
Contributing Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Though the 59-year-old Arianna Huffington carries a Blackberry and Tweets like any child of the information age would, she said she remains an avid reader of the morning newspaper.
“The need to go through the newspaper at breakfast time is part of our DNA,” Huffington told a small crowd at the Law School today. “I subscribe to seven newspapers.”
After being introduced by Yale Law School Dean Robert Post, Huffington — an author, commentator and co-founder of the popular news and blogging Web site The Huffington Post — gave a speech in the Law School auditorium Monday on the...

#1 By Hail to the Chief 10:07a.m. on February 23, 2010

In all of her public appearances on television over the last year Ms. Huffington has proven herself a thinker and speaker worthy of being President.

PK
M.Div. '80


#2 By Yale 08 1:54p.m. on February 23, 2010
Yawn.

HuffPo = web's most overrated site.

* Steerforth University? Stradlater University?

Cad College




It is one of the sad realities of life that the Ivy League attracts a certain type of male, long depicted in literature and most infamously so as James Steerforth in David Copperfield (think Ward Stradlater in The Catcher in the Rye).

This stereotype is poignantly evoked in the YDN opinion piece by Ms. Baumgartner today about delicious gossip, "A gossiper's defense".

We all know the type: the handsome, charming, user/abuser.

Need more be said?

A cad!

Baumgartner: A gossiper’s defense
By Alice Baumgartner
The Yale Daily News
Published Monday, February 22, 2010


On my 13th birthday, my mother told me that men talk about sex in locker rooms. Then she handed me a piece of cake. I ate, thinking of naked men, their bare feet against the tiled floors, their hair wet from the shower, as they snapped towels at one another and talked about breasts. I was horrified, and even though my breasts were not large enough to be the subject of locker room talk, I decided that if they could talk about me, then I could talk about them.
That day, I became a gossip, and I have never since reformed.
If I had nothing nice to say, I repeated it at every...




#1 By 07 Alum 4:50a.m. on February 22, 2010

I want to preface this by saying that I am not defending or condoning sexual assault in any way. It is an incredibly serious crime that everyone should be more aware about, especially on college campuses.

However, I think Ms. Baumgartner's climactic example, where she seeks to perhaps illustrate the good that gossip can do by notifying her friend of her prospective blind date's history, is more complicated than it seems. Executive Committee hearings are kept confidential for many reasons, but I believe the primary one is to protect the students before the committee by not having things taken out of context. Perhaps he had been accused of sexual assault but not convicted, but it was still suggested that he take a semester off. What was the assault exactly? ExComm is not a court of law, and even being "convicted" of certain things there can have very different meanings and nuances. As someone who has gone before ExComm myself, I know the crazy versions of events that become pervasive on the campus when the full facts of the situation are unknown by the general student body but rumor and gossip run rampant.

Again, things like Megan's Law exist for a reason; because of the high incidence of repeat offenses for convicted sex offenders, the government has decided that people have a right to know about registered sex offenders. However, this is an extreme case that should not be applied to any and all situations without extreme care. A former thief is not necessarily a future thief, and one's past actions should not necessarily stigmatize all of their future interactions.

We are all guilty of rumor and gossip, it is definitely a guilty pleasure. However, I think extreme caution is needed before spreading any kind of negative rumor. It is very hard to know the whole story.


#2 By Monogamy:Polygamy 5:23a.m. on February 22, 2010

Wonderful article, esp. the Kierkegaard, Heideggar quotes .

Isn't it ironic that the sincerity implicitly yearned for in citing those quotes, is advocated by the very wimps and soft-heads so many of the posters here ridicule as "divinity- school-types", and yet the overwhelming tendency is to gravitate toward the Tiger-Woods-types?

The apparent shock that the object of a woman's attention might be sleeping around with others baffles me.

The adultery commandment isn't a "suggestion" or a "recomendation" it is a COMMANDMENT. Why?

Because so many do NOT obey it. (One doesn't under penalty of damnation ORDER people to do what they are naturally inclined to do.)

It's a trifle naive to think men by nature yearn for monogamy. CERTAIN types of men do: the types up there on Holy Hill. And even then . . . Jimmy Swaggarts and Ted Haggards pop up here and there.

Nature, as Thornton Wilder observed , is concerned with one thing and one thing only (and it ain't monogamy): "covering the planet with as much protoplasm as it can as fast as it can"

PK
M.Div '80



#3 By saybrook997 4:06p.m. on February 22, 2010

Gossiping about the new double standard--against men? (But first, most guys can barely deal with one woman, not three. You're fantacizing, not gissiping. Second, if you mean rape, why do women call it sexual assault? That means groping to battery, and everything between.)

The new double standard. The men's locker room at Payne-Whitney. Two Yale women walked in one afternoon right after I had wet hair, and bare feet against Yale's always dirty floors. They were giggling, too old to be curious about what men look like, and didn't know that was a slow time for workouts. They didn't even get to see or surprise/embarrass any guys coming out of the shower. I've seen girls do this in some middle school documentaries and American Pie-type movies--the guys then are more modest about exhibitionism than girls, and there is a certain coming-of-age cuteness to it. At Yale, women in the men's locker room were just showing women do as they want. Guys never report or hurt them; guys going into the women's locker room would be expelled, if not charged with a crime.

The same double standard with public restrooms. I've had drunk girls walk through laughing to see us pee, but really to show they can do what they want, without old restraints. (Girls always see boys naked or take care of young ones, at least until the boys are old enough to want to see them too.) Again, men do nothing to the always young, drunk women. It would be almost fun if women were really just interested in physical "little" things. Men would have to say they went in the wrong door by mistake, which happens.

And women can touch guys they know almost anywhere, anytime, and it's considered affection. Girls have veryfew public touch zones. Still, a double standard.

So much for gossiping about the dangerous patriarchy and "sex object" stuff. I have not known any Saybrook guys who are monsters, even, especially athletes. You can gissip, but not needed for protection. As I have said, when was the patriarchy? It sounds nice.

#4 By Great piece 4:57p.m. on February 22, 2010

This was fun and well-written, like the column two weeks ago. Copy editors should fix things like this though: "He was serving his Executive Committee sentence for sexual assault. She wouldn’t have known if a concerned friend hadn’t told her. He was serving his Executive Committee sentence for sexual assault, and she wouldn’t have known, if a concerned friend hadn’t told her."


#5 By @1 6:39p.m. on February 22, 2010

@1: Wouldn't it make sense for ExComm to be more transparent? That would knock out the "crazy version of events," and protect other students on campus at the same time. Perhaps this information is kept quiet so as not to "ruin their lives." Those convicted of sexual assault, however, did not extend the same courtesy to their victims. It is true that "a former thief is not necessarily a future thief," but given the high incidence of repeat offenses, it seems that this information should not be kept altogether private, if the university cares about the safety of its students.

#6 By BR'10 6:48p.m. on February 22, 2010

Nice, Alice!!

#7 By Yale 08 10:02p.m. on February 22, 2010
@ #2,

Riiiight. Because the Yale Div School really steps up and defends traditional sexual morality? (Yale Div School: Where we study the gods inside us!)

Puh-lease. Those aging hippies are still groovin' on free love, man. Don't be a square.


#8 By History is a mess. 12:23a.m. on February 23, 2010

#2:
Not sure I agree. The Big Three Abrahamic religions seem like thousands of years (cumulatively) of a Monogamy Skinner Box in the making. (Ironic since Abraham took a concubine, Hagar, to make a male heir, who turned out to be Ishmael and started the whole Arab/Israeli chosen/unchosen-people feud when the legitmate heir i.e.non- bastard heir Isaac was born to Abraham's wife at 90!)

Dunno. Religion seems like a giant chastity belt thrown over Nature with the word Monogamy inscribed on the buckle to restrain promiscuity and social disease.

History is a mess.

PK

PS (BTW) Solomon of Song of Songs fame had 300 wives and 800 concubines (or vice versa) just to complicate the monogamy picture.

* Post Pup

Graciousness



Buckley reads from ‘Pup’
By Drew Henderson
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Friday, February 19, 2010


As he strolled up the aisle toward the front of the Branford College common room Thursday evening, Christopher Buckley ’75 paused at the third row and turned to face a student in the audience.
“Did you finish your homework yet?” Buckley asked John Lesnewich ’13.
“No, I haven’t done it yet,” Lesnewich replied.
“Then you should probably go back and do it,” Buckley quipped.
Buckley, who returned to Yale after being last year’s Class Day speaker, faced a full house in Branford College as he recounted stories of his relationship with his famous parents in a reading from his...

#1 By WFB Jr.'s kindness 5:12a.m. on February 19, 2010

"Thank you for the dedication and the prose. I'll pass on the ideas, but two out of three isn't bad.

Cordially,

Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. "
__________________________________________
In 1981 I sent Mr. Buckley a copy of Holy Smoke, a pamphlet of essays I published at the Divinity School which had this dedication: "To William F. Buckley, Jr. whose writings alerted me that Man is God at Yale". I enclosed a note saying that if the prose and ideas didn't please him I hoped the dedication would. His reply appears above, and is an example of the kindness and generosity to others which his son cites.

Paul Keane
M.Div. '80

PS The masthead of my blog The Anti-Yale makes the same dedication http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/
#2 By Y10 12:01p.m. on February 19, 2010

Anne put it best: Christopher Buckley is indeed nothing short of "a sterling exemplar of both lux and veritas." Bravo for a witty and entertaining reading.

#3 By Auntie PK 2:09p.m. on February 19, 2010

Backstabbing carpetbagger barely waited for his progenitor to turn cold before denying his Conservative credentials.

Bah.

(Note: Auntie is in the Southern pronunciation.)

#4 By Yale '08 6:46p.m. on February 19, 2010

Really enjoyed his speech at '09 Commencement. Was one of the most brilliant orations in some time... much better than Blair's vacuous stab at diplomacy in '08.


# 5 By Murdstonism 12:35 p.m. on February 21, 2010

Dear Auntie:
People aren't allowed to change their opinions? Sounds like Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield. The younger Buckley is an intellectual, not a zealot.
PK

* Necking / Petting / Heavy Petting : A 1950's Sextych

Baumgartner: Seriously high standards
By Alice Baumgartner
The Yale Daily News
Published Monday, February 8, 2010

Editor's Note: Post-Modern Love is a new column about relationships and sex at Yale. It will appear each Monday, with Alice Baumgartner '10 writing one week and Elisa Gonzalez '11 writing the next.

If I had composed the first epistle to the Corinthians, it would have said that love is not kind but mercenary. Or, at least it is at Yale. I have relationships for the same reason I attend classes: I expect to get something out of them. No one says it better than Marla Singer, when at the end of Fight Club she accepts a wad of cash from her schizophrenic ex-lover. “I’m not...

#1 By Shopping list 5:17a.m. on February 8, 2010

Short, bald and a smoker? Cross Henry James off your list---which unfortunately sounds like a shopping list.

Capitalism has done its work well.

Even Yale won't be able to fix that.

PK

#2 By P.S. Sex Talk 5:37a.m. on February 8, 2010

So let me ask:

Has "making out" come to mean the opposite of "making in"? In other words, does it include the safe-sex techniques of outercourse?

Here's an antique jargon from the Roman Catholic 1950's:

Necking; Petting; Heavy Petting.

Nice little triptych.

PK

#3 By awesome! 9:20a.m. on February 8, 2010

It's about time, opinion editor! You've finally stepped up your game and gotten people who can not just write, but write extremely well! Great column, keep up the good work.

#4 By Yep. 11:42a.m. on February 8, 2010

I love reading good writing.

#5 By Y09 12:09p.m. on February 8, 2010

Nice work - great column!

#6 By ehhh 12:47p.m. on February 8, 2010

i don't object to anything said in the article, but who go the idea that this was good writing?

#7 By Gabriel 1:14p.m. on February 8, 2010

"Do we take dating too seriously? After all, we take everything too seriously."

Love you, Baumgartner.

#8 By Unseen by ABG's Vision 1:56p.m. on February 8, 2010

@6 I "go" the idea that this was good writing after alternating between cracking up and nodding my head vigorously throughout the entire article. Where did you "ge" the idea that it wasn't?

#9 By Yale '10 2:23p.m. on February 8, 2010

"Do we take dating too seriously? After all, we take everything too seriously."

I've actually felt the opposite about Yalies in regard to relationships among other things. Seriousness in the essay seems to be to treat things, including humans, as commodities (this sort of instrumentality is seen as "practical" or "serious"). This sort of seriousness, much practiced by us busy Yalies who feel that really valuable activities involve those which produce something, isn't really seriousness at all. In the case of love and sex, seriousness involves, I think, caring and passion in a way which lists and notions of "productivity" can't capture.

#10 By Lynwood 2:44p.m. on February 8, 2010

I love this. Wise words oh-sage-one-Baumgartner.
#11 By FailBoat 3:16p.m. on February 8, 2010
This is my favorite thing I've read in the YDN in about a month.

#12 By Wenbo Li 3:52p.m. on February 8, 2010

This is a wonderful article, Alice!

* Sex is Religion at Yale

Reverend reconciles sex and religion
By Emily Wanger
Contributing Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Monday, February 8, 2010

Over the course of her career as a minister and sexologist, Reverend Debra Haffner said, she has received numerous laughs and blank looks of disbelief after telling people what she does. But, at a talk Sunday afternoon about “Sexuality, Religion, Faith and Morality,” Haffner, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, explained that her two professions are actually not contradictory, but instead offer a unique insight into modern sexuality.
“Both share a common vision: how to love each other and treat each other with respect and dignity,” Haffner said.
Haffner, who was raised...

#1 By le.. sigh 3:41a.m. on February 8, 2010

I object to the premise that it's some new theory that religion and sex can go together. People who talk like this are targeting their voice to, admittedly, a population of religious leaders that does exist in America, but who do not represent the mainstream majority. To say otherwise is a caricature.

Talk to many religious leaders and they will extoll the virtues of sex. What isn't supported is the trap of thinking, "ME ME ME", which is so easily fallen into with sexual acts. It's about the question, "Is God present there in the loving relationship between two people? Or is it purely about one's own pleasure without Love for the partner? That's the REAL problem at the heart of sex, not the sexual act itself.

#2 By A Connecticut Yankee 5:03a.m. on February 8, 2010

"Older religious conceptions of sex no longer apply to modern society, Haffner said."

Maybe. But how about older conceptions of privacy and dignity? I would be insulted if a minister who had been asked to perform my marriage vows inquired into whether or not I am a virgin.

It is none of his (or her) damned business. (Sexology degree or not).

Paul D. Keane
M. Div '80

born and raised
a Connecticut Yankee (now in Ruth Westheimer and Debra Haffner's Court)


#3 By Pierson90 5:09a.m. on February 8, 2010

Reverend?
LOL


#4 By Yale )8 8:55a.m. on February 8, 2010

"...an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister..."

HAHAHAHA!!!

These people still exist???

That was good for a laugh on a monday morning.

#5 By Recent Alum 9:12a.m. on February 8, 2010

"Sexuality is critically important to a marriage, Haffner said, adding that as a minister, she refuses to marry people who are virgins."

Is this a joke? She is just doing a parody of the way the Left fringe thinks, right? Right?

#6 By Hieronymus 9:32a.m. on February 8, 2010

Sharply dull.
Cold sun.
Jumbo shrimp.
Unitarian minister.

#7 By Yale 08 9:53a.m. on February 8, 2010

Unitarian Universalism- the religion for people who can't be bothered to have a religion.

#8 By Hieronymus 9:56a.m. on February 8, 2010

A serious question, seeking honest debate.

"Haffner... was raised in a secular Jewish family before she became a [Unitarian] minister."

This is not uncommon (but that is not the question).

Cf.: "Most controversial of all, [radical theologian Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, author of 'Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life' and, arguably, founder of modern reconstructionist Judaism] rejected the supernatural concept of God in favor of a naturalistic view of a transcendent power behind nature and within us that helps us aspire to the highest level of moral action and ethical behavior." (WSJ 28JAN2010)

Add: "Reconstructionist Judaism treats Judaism as a culture which constantly adapts in order to ensure its own survival. Reconstructionist Judaism doesn't even require members to be theists or, if they are, that they believe that God singled out the Jewish people in any fashion. In other ways, however, Reconstructionists can be more conservative because they observe more of Jewish law." (As an aside: exactly the opposite of what Rabbi preached...)

Questions that come to mind...

Why do so many (which is not to say many but "as many as do") cultural Jews become Unitarians?

Why are reconstructionist Jews so comfortable with atheism? Why, as functional atheists, do they bother with Jewish law? Why, as functional atheists, do as many as do "convert" to Unitarianism?

What do reconstructionist Jews think happens after death? What does Haffner, as a Unitarian minister, think happens after death?

Does anyone else see the "Sha-la La-la-La-la live for today" vibe in "reconciling" sex and religion (and all that that implies--and what *does* that imply)?

Jus' wunnerin'.

#9 By yea.. 12:33p.m. on February 8, 2010

"Sexuality is critically important to a marriage, Haffner said, adding that as a minister, she refuses to marry people who are virgins."

This quote to me suggests that Ms. Haffner doesn't understand/respect the theology of marriage nor the theology of sex. The idea behind waiting until marriage before engaging is sexual activity is not, as she seems to think, some relic of a more prudish era. It is based in the idea that committing oneself to another out of love, through sickness and health, hard times and good times, etc, is the most important thing, and that sex is a wonderful expression of that bond.

*And if two people feel like they already have that bond, sex can be a wonderful expression. Even before marriage? Probably, and speaking normatively is a mistake. But why not ask the question, why not get married first?

Marriage is the act of *publicly* proclaiming that commitment, and if one isn't ready to publicly proclaim such an oath, than is that commitment really as true as one thinks? Again, it could be.

BUT, for the above reasons, DENYING someone marriage because they have not had sex!?? Ms. Haffner, I just ask that you rethink exactly where your values come from; is it from whatever divine power you believe in, or yourself.


#10 By Unitarian/Trinitarian 1:16p.m. on February 8, 2010

#9:
Is Hieronymus kidding? Unitarians reject the trinity (hence UNITARianism)and implicitly the divinity of Jesus (Joshua ben Joseph).
PK

#11 By Hieronymus 1:48p.m. on February 8, 2010

While I generally avoid engaging "PK," I must first ask: what question are you answering?

If you are answering why a Jew might feel "comfortable" converting to Unitarianism, then your answer makes at least nominal sense; however, it begs the question of why convert (i.e., reject the temple) at all?

Minor point: While you are correct that Unitarianism (well, the UUA, anyway) may implicitly reject Jesus' divinity, even UUA does not do so doctrinally, generally choosing instead some mealy-mouthed business about that "Jesus was a man, but a man with a unique relationship to God."

So, let me be clearer:

1) Why do some reconstructionist Jews reject their religious traditions but then assume the pseudo-religious shawl of some other syncretic carp?

2) Why do many de facto atheists feel the need to don religious garb to undermine true faith?

3) Do at least some of the above do so willingly/knowingly/maliciously? Or do the *all* think they are doing what is best or right?

Bonus question:
Under the view that no one is "wrong" (i.e., all views are "equally valid" or whatever bromide you prefer), then can *anyone* be right?
#12 By Commanding My Attention 4:33p.m. on February 8, 2010
I don't want to speak about the Jewish faith. It is faith, and as such is private.

I will speak two words about Unitarianism which is more than faith---it is ACTION: Abolition and Emerson.

Unitarianism was avant garde and revolutionary (Emancipation and Civil rights; Self-Help programs from AA to the Power of Positive Thinking have beeen inspired and/or nurtured by unitarianism).

What it has bcome today I know not.

There is no religious leader in the world today who commands my attention (No, not even the Dalai Llama).

For that matter, the religions themselves seem pretty inadequate to the times: All of them.

PK

#13 By a junior 5:04p.m. on February 8, 2010

"Sexuality is critically important to a marriage, Haffner said, adding that as a minister, she refuses to marry people who are virgins."

What a joke. Why anyone would bother listening to her opinions about anything related to sex or marriage, I have no idea.

#14 By @#12 8:06p.m. on February 8, 2010

Wilberforce was a Unitarian???

And all this time I thought he was an evangelical Christian! Silly me.

#15 By @#13 9:54p.m. on February 8, 2010

So the people behind Sex Week can feel all special and inclusive with regards to religion, without taking any real Christian claims on the matter seriously.

#16 By Ralph Waldo Emancipator 12:05a.m. on February 9, 2010

Divinity School Address by Ralph Waldo Emerson at Divinity College, Harvard, Cambridge, 1838.

This piece of divine heresy makes it possible for #14 and his glib generation to ridicule religion and not fear going to hell.

How quickly we forget the chains once the Emancipator has cut them off.

Ignorance reigns.

PK

* Sloaning

“There is no smaller package in the world than that of a person all wrapped up in himself.”
William Sloane Coffin, Jr.







Gordon: Intensely naked
By Claire Gordon
The Yale Daily News
Published Friday, February 5, 2010


I saw my first naked man with my dad. It was 1992, and we were on a father-daughter excursion to the Tate Modern. In the section “Nude/Action/Body,” we stumbled upon a triple life-size projection of a naked, slender middle-aged man jumping on a trampoline in slow motion.

The other visitors watched the man’s loose bouncing chest skin, reflected on the human condition and walked away. My 12-year-old eyes, however, were fixed on the flaccid penis slapping ever so slowly and ever so repeatedly against his thigh. My father and I stood in front of that video for 180 seconds.

He found it less awkward to stare at the screen than to interact with his pre-pubescent daughter. I was also paralyzed, but by the hypnotic and slightly horrifying image of an adult male nude/action/body.

I am now desensitized to the naked male. After witnessing the Finals Fairies’ flesh parade my first reading week at Yale, I have found it difficult to avoid mass nudity on campus. Yalies love getting naked. And not in that normal collegiate way of the drunk girl at the party who takes off her shirt. Yalies love getting naked for rebellious, irreverent purposes. Mostly.

A 1975 Crimson article by James Gleick, Harvard ’76, observed this unique Yale phenomenon. “Yale has a special, feverish intensity that sets it apart from its brethren,” he writes, “and Yale’s intensity, some say, shades over into sickness and depravity.” Gleick describes the Yale practice of sloaning: “attracting public attention to ones genitals.”

Gleick is now a successful author, who studies the cultural implications of science. He coined the term “Butterfly Effect,” which is interesting because the innocent sloaning of the ’70s has spawned a culture at Yale of both spontaneous and highly organized communal undress. . .


#1 By Sloane Coffin 4:36a.m. on February 5, 2010

This is a strange and beautiful piece of writing. I just wonder what the Chaplain in 1976 (my era) would think of sloaning. (I had never heard of it until this article) I believe he had just succeeded William Sloane Coffin who had moved to Riverside Church.

PK


#2 By Yale 08 9:44a.m. on February 5, 2010

I hate the smell of Gnosticism in the morning.


#3 By James T. Madison 11:11a.m. on February 5, 2010


I have been told by many people that before women came to Yale, Payne Whitney Gymnasium was kept heated to a rather high temperature and many students walked almost everywhere naked. ("Gymnasium" means "naked house" in Greek, of course.) If students are now traisping about in the altogether whenever they can, perhaps the time has come for the University to embrace social progress, restore the old customs, bring back nudity (or is it "nakedness?") to the Gym, and prohibit most suits in the Payne Whiteny pools. I realize that this institutionalization of what has become a student custom would undermine the practice of "getting naked for rebellious, irreverent purposes," but perhaps the students could practice something rebellious and irreverent at the Gym?

There is a practical side to all this. Before women, most swimming in the Payne Whitney pools were naked, a practice that helped to keep the filters from clogging up. In fact, the third floor practice pool water was not drained from the time the Gym opened in the 1930's until a few years after women were admitted. The filter was soon clogged up by women's longer hair, the then-concurrent lenghtening of male hair (the "rebellious, irreverent" practice of the time, with swim caps imperfect protection), and more and bigger swim suits all around. The pool had to be drained for the very first time in the 1970's. Draining was delayed a bit when an engineering professor appeared at more or less the last minute and warned the Gym staff that since the pool had not been drained since the 1930's, nobody really knew if draining it might cause the third-floor Gym walls to cave in when the outpressing force of the practice pool water was removed. Faced with the prospect of an unplanned implosion of Payne Whitney, the Gym staff delayed the draining for a short period while the professor ran some calculations. Those calculations showed that the Gym would remain sound, and the draining and filter replacement continued.


#4 By unbelievable 12:17p.m. on February 5, 2010

Like #1..I too have never heard of sloaning.

This is what happens in an extreme liberal bubble, you create "frenetic" type behavior.

In little time you become desensitized from all perversion and reject that which is moral and wholesome.

All that is left is faith that one day we will return to the values and morals instilled by our families.

#5 By cod piece 1:40p.m. on February 5, 2010

4:
I'm not asserting it is any more immoral than wearing a cod piece in medieval times was immoral.

Just a fashion of the era.

I believe it is called a high-rise and a low-rise by tailors today.

However, I am asserting that I never heard of it during my 9 years on the Yale campus ('76-'85)until reading this beautifully written article this morning.

PK

#6 By Puzzled 2:05p.m. on February 5, 2010

What's the big deal about nakedness? Except for protection against the elements, covering one's body certainly is not "natural". I guess it has to do with some strange old myth about covering one's nakedness and feeling embarrassed and all that, all because of a snake and and apple.. how weird can you get? What has that to do with "morals and values"?

#7 By Birthday suits February 6, 2010

#3:

Not only Payne-Whitney, which I dimly remember as a child, but the New Haven YMCA on Howe Street (and, I believe) the sister building, the YWCA, had nude swimming, although people used a towel when walking around the building.

Such libertinism baffles me because the 1950's were so Puritannical otherwise. Maybe it has to do with those Winslow Homer "Swimming Hole" idealizations. Or maybe post-war industry was so tenuous, that no one had time for extraneous frivolities like bathing suits when nature provided birthday suits for free.

I suppose if one believes that "the only thing we have to fear is our secrets" then clothing the body--secreting it so to speak -- makes no sense.

On the other hand. we used to be covered with hair for protection from the elements --especially the sun---and for warmth.

I opt for clothes.

PK

* Land of the Sleeping Giant

Officials respond to prospect of 9/11 trial in Elm City
By Colin Ross and Esther Zuckerman
Staff Reporter, Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Wednesday, February 3, 2010



A report that alleged 9/11-mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed could be tried in New Haven has sparked a firestorm of opinions from city and state leaders.
After federal officials announced last week that Mohammed’s trial would not occur in New York, the New Haven federal courthouse has surfaced as one of the sites being considered by the U.S. Department of Justice. In response, three New Haven aldermen on Tuesday questioned whether the city would be able to handle such a high-profile case.
City Hall spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said in a statement Tuesday that the federal...

#1 By townie 4:52a.m. on February 3, 2010

It was a mistake for Mike Jones to weigh in on this issue. As an alderman he represents New Haven residents and this is a far bigger issue that should be opined about by someone who won't be here long enough to bear its effects.

#2 By NEVER seen? 5:19a.m. on February 3, 2010

"Like the city has NEVER seen?" What about the Black Panthers of the 1970's?
Where is William Sloane Coffin when we need him? Doonesbury will have a field day.

PK

#3 By PS to NEVER seen 5:24a.m. on February 3, 2010

PS
Between Westerfeld and this you might as well paint a giant bulls-eye on New Haven (my tired old birthplace).

PK
M.Div.'80

#4 By Recent Alum 5:37a.m. on February 3, 2010

Let's just hope that the jury will not be comprised of Yale Law School faculty members.

#5 By No Way 10:58a.m. on February 3, 2010

Yale is on Iran's enemy list. Now it will on al qaeda's list. Add to that the amount of murders and other brutal crimes on campus that have received world wide attention recently.

#6 By Concerned Parent 11:01a.m. on February 3, 2010

If this trial is held in New Haven, my student will transfer from Yale post haste, and prospective students will avoid applying..............

#7 By y11 1:01p.m. on February 3, 2010

We'd better hope this is nothing like the Black Panther trials, otherwise these guys are all going to walk.

#8 By Rule of Law 3:16p.m. on February 3, 2010

This whole thing is ridiculous. KSM should be tried in New York where he murdered his innocent victims. His civilian trial will be a great opportunity to hear him spout his inane babble of hatred and show the world just how brain dead al-Qaeda's ideology truly is.

#9 By Todd 3:40p.m. on February 3, 2010

Why are we so afraid of these guys? We've had trials before that went fine. I think people are basing way too much off of movies. What do you think is going to happen? Are the terrorists going to launch some kind of rescue operation? Are they going to exact their revenge on the judicial system? Is there any precedent that leads us to believe terrorists are particularly irked by trials? From what we've seen of Islamic terrorism in America, terrorists want to kill and scare Americans, but as people who don't value their own lives, they also don't seem to care much for those of their comrades. They just want to kill; they clearly don't give a damn about their fellow terrorists. Why are we being such cowards? If we can't even have this stupid trial we're just showing how much power they have over us.

#10 By frg 3:42p.m. on February 3, 2010

With the amount of extra security this will bring to the downtown area, New Haven will be safer than it has in decades. If not, maybe we can have the trial in PK's house since he apparently has an opinion on everything. Other than that, no need to run around hysterically.

#11 By Been around awhile 4:14p.m. on February 3, 2010

If we can try Black Panthers and New York mafiosi here, why not Al Qaeda?

#12 By Native 6:50p.m. on February 3, 2010

frg:
You ARE having it in my house; I was born there. My parents kept a home there until 1992. I will be buied there.
It has become a tired city housing a tired university.
As Duncan says of Scotland in Macbeth: "It is not our mother but our grave."

Even before the Wseterfeld controversy, even before this obviously money-motivated judicial opportunity, these words of Shakespeare have all too sadly described the violence in New Haven, and even more sadly, Yale---(with three student murders in the last 25 years alone).

I wouldn't live there again if you paid me.

PK
M.Div. '80


#17 By Salt those wounds February 6, 2010


Let's spread the aggravation around. Westerfeld was enough salt in wounds publicly declared as having been opened.

New Haven doesn't have to do double duty.

Send him to Obama's home: Maui. The terrorists won't have to travel so far.

It will make mainland air travel safer.

PK
M. Div'80