12 - 28 - 44
Friday, December 28, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
In responsible hands . . .
" . . . before I wake . . ."
When I went into surgery, December 2008 as I was about to turn 64, to have half a kidney removed for cancer, I did not know if I would wake up after the event.
So I quickly gave away items I felt had historical value and needed to fall into the correct hands: Thornton Wilder's desk went to the MacDowell Colony; Douglas Clyde Macintosh's chaplain's chalice went to Yale Law School.
I had derived so much pleasure from giving away these first two items before I thought I might die, that when I found I had survived, I decided to give a third item away in 2011 which had personal not historical significance: Dorothy Dillingham's painting, Bird with a Broken Wing, went to Ithaca College's president for display in its original home, Fountain Place, the president's house, a Richardson mansion in Ithaca where I had the privilege of living in 1968. (see links, below)
I had derived so much pleasure from giving away these first two items before I thought I might die, that when I found I had survived, I decided to give a third item away in 2011 which had personal not historical significance: Dorothy Dillingham's painting, Bird with a Broken Wing, went to Ithaca College's president for display in its original home, Fountain Place, the president's house, a Richardson mansion in Ithaca where I had the privilege of living in 1968. (see links, below)
Earlier, 1973 I had given my professional papers regarding my work on the May 4, 1970 slaughter of four students at Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen, to the Kent State University Library Archives.
In 1978, I gave my personal Kent State papers to Yale University and, along with author Peter Davies, created their "Kent State Collection" in their Manuscripts and Archives Division of Sterling Memorial Library.
In a few days I will turn 68, and I have outlived the odds in good health, having just retired after 25 years of teaching.
Although I have no money to leave as a bequest, I am satisfied and pleased that I have put items with historical significance, as opposed to financial value, into responsible hands.
Paul D. Keane
Teacher (retired)
Teacher (retired)
M.A., M.Div., M.Ed
2008, Thornton Wilder Desk and Furniture
2011, Bird with a Broken Wing to Ithaca College's President
Kent State professional papers to Kent State University Library, 1969 -1973
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
* Harvard Squared
“ Harvard’s existing endowment . . . at $15 billion . . . [earns] almost $7 million
each day in investment earnings.”
Ron Unz "The Myth of American Meritocracy"
Monday, December 24, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
* A Scrooge Tranformation : For God, For Country, and For Yale ?
 |
| Paul Keane (A Yale Scrooge) Alive and Transformed DECEMBER 22, 2008 |
This photo has a date December 22, 2008, four years and one
day ago. I am coming out of anesthesia after having half of my kidney removed
for cancer by superb surgeons at Dartmouth/Hitchcock Hospital. It was the first
time since I was born that I had been in the hospital. It was the first time I took a sick day in 20 years.
I asked to have my “Yorick” fool's cap when I woke up and promised to recite Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem The Jabberwocky to prove that I had not lost my marbles during surgery. Witnesses say I succeeded, although my speech was sluggish.
I asked to have my “Yorick” fool's cap when I woke up and promised to recite Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem The Jabberwocky to prove that I had not lost my marbles during surgery. Witnesses say I succeeded, although my speech was sluggish.
I had also made another promise. To myself.
If I lived (and apparently I did since it is four years later and I will turn 68 on December 28), I would resume using my divinity degree
which I had ignored like a Scrooge ignoring humanity for the last 23 years (1985-2008).
Thus was born The Anti-Yale in September 2009.
Thus was born The Anti-Yale in September 2009.
I had resolved not to be silent about the world any more, especially as seen through the rose-colored glasses of Yale.
I had graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1980 with the
terminal degree and with three exceptions had not used my degree to the benefit
of society at all: Racial profiling at Yale (graduation, 1980); the 60 Minutes piece entitled Helen (February, 1984) on the heterosexual transmission of AIDS discovered at Yale-New Haven Hospital, the place of my birth; and The Disappearance of Sam Todd (Connecticut Magazine, 1985.)
In the 34 months The
Anti-Yale has been posting and challenging Yale assumptions, the blog has received 172,627 page views of its 782 posts.
Perhaps it is occupying a niche, answering a need.
Perhaps it is occupying a niche, answering a need.
 |
| Retirement, June, 2012 |
Saturday, December 22, 2012
* The Valley Scrooge's Succulent Obituary Page
We judge a civilization by how it treats its dead.
Unattributed
It was disheartening to find that my local newspaper, The
Valley News, had surrendered to the vulgarity of the New York Times' website, by
creating its own website with an obituary page full of advertisements, in color, some winking, popping, and scrolling for the mourners to enjoy.
We would expect this crass materialism in a newspaper representing the citadel of capitalism, New York City , but to
find it in our own little Vermont / New Hampshire Upper
Valley
When I went to read the
obituary of the grandmother of one of my students yesterday I found it next to
a bright colorful display of yummy baked goods from Lou’s Restaurant, a famous Hanover breakfast
destination.
At the obituary site for a longtime athletic director at our
high school one can find a photo of delicious pieces of chicken available in Hanover restaurants.
At another obituary I found a baby dress advertised by Zulily “Daily Deals for Moms, Babies and Kids”.
This ad appeared only eight days after the Newtown
murders of 20 first graders at Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Connecticut by a deranged gunman, murders which have thrown the nation into grief and introspection.
The sour irony of advertising delightful gifts for children on an obituary page is almost savage in its insensitivity at this moment in our national mourning.
My last shot in a volley of emails to The Valley News (including its publisher and chief financial officer) on this matter has not received the courtesy of a response (see below).
Marley's haunting answer, shouted out amidst the rattle of his clanking chains, echoes down our materialistic century : atter, has not received the courtesy of a reply. (see below)
I am reminded of Ebenezer Scrooge’s desperate rationalization to the terrifying ghost of his business partner, Jacob Marley, who was lamenting his own condemnation to walk the world in torment for his cupidity: “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob."
"Business? Mankind was my business. The general good of humanity was my business!”
The Valley News’ financial officer (and the New York Time’s obit editors for that matter) might
remember Jacob Marley's guilt ridden words as The Valley News' obituary page entreats mourners to munch on sweet confections and golden chicken pieces while they read about their departed loved ones.
Mankind --not money ---is your business.
Paul D.Keane
M.A., M.Div., M.Ed.
Email exchange:
1:44 PM (0 minutes ago)
 | Reply | |||
Dear Mr. McClory:
Thank you for interrupting your holiday today, Sunday 12/23, to reply to my email and blog post of 12/21 and 12/22
I am gratified and heartily reassured as an American to know that you entitle me to my opinion.
As a graduate of Yale Divinity School (M. Div. '80) I am also entitled to make informed judgments about both the sacred and the profane aspects of our culture.
Even if you desired to remove the color slideshow advertisements for succulent chicken and delicious confections from the obituary page of The Valley News (and, by the way, the bloodless tone of your email leads me to infer that you have no such desire), I doubt that the platform you purchased for your digital edition would permit you to do so.
You, like the rest of our culture (as Instagram users recently discovered and revolted against), are hostage to the whims of our culture's false god, Data, the idolatry of which we are busy perpetuating with fingering, not of prayer beads but of touch screens, trillions of times an hour across the globe.
I wish you the best for the holidays and hope you enjoyed the YouTube clip of Jacob Marley calling Scrooge to account on my post "The Valley Scrooge's Succulent Obituary Page" at http://theantiyale.blogspot.
Sincerely,
Paul D. Keane
M.A., M.Div., M.Ed.
On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 10:23 AM, Dan McClory <dmcclory@nnenews.com>wrote:
Mr. Keane,
I assume you have received my auto reply that I am out of the office.
We will take your comments into consideration. You are entitled to your opinion, but there will not be any changes made at this time.
Sincerely,
Dan McClory
--
Daniel D. McClory
Publisher, Valley News
Chief Financial Officer-Newspapers of New England Inc.
Lebanon Office (603)727-3203
Concord Office (603)369-3262
Best wishes for the holiday Mr. McClory
Hope you will remove advertising from the obit
page. It is disrespectful to the dead and crass materialism at its worst.
I am appalled.
Paul D. Keane
Master of Divinity
M.A., .M. Ed.
On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Dan McClory <dmcclory@nnenews.com>wrote:
Mr. Keane,
Thank you for your comments regarding our new web site. I see that Maggie Cassidy responded to some of your questions.
As you pointed out most newspapers are still working out the details on how to present their content on-line. I do feel this is a major step in the right direction. We will continue to refine the process as we learn more.
My hope is that the on-line version will meet the needs of those people who prefer to receive this information electronically. As I mentioned in the article our new system is costing us more and we still have the cost of producing the content. It is my belief that the print edition will continue to be the primary source of news and advertising in theUpper Valley
Thank you for your interest, happy holidays.
--
Daniel D. McClory
Publisher, Valley News
Chief Financial Officer-Newspapers of New England Inc.
Lebanon Office (603)727-3203
Concord Office (603)369-3262
Thank you for your comments regarding our new web site. I see that Maggie Cassidy responded to some of your questions.
As you pointed out most newspapers are still working out the details on how to present their content on-line. I do feel this is a major step in the right direction. We will continue to refine the process as we learn more.
My hope is that the on-line version will meet the needs of those people who prefer to receive this information electronically. As I mentioned in the article our new system is costing us more and we still have the cost of producing the content. It is my belief that the print edition will continue to be the primary source of news and advertising in the
Thank you for your interest, happy holidays.
--
Daniel D. McClory
Publisher, Valley News
Chief Financial Officer-Newspapers of New England Inc.
Lebanon Office (603)727-3203
Concord Office (603)369-3262
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
* My Liberal Activist Tribute to the Radical Decision of a Conservative Legal Scholar and Judge Upon His Death
Robert H. Bork:
1927-2012
1927-2012
The mysterious, principled courage of Mr. Conservative using his three DAY tenure as Acting Attorney General to make the radical decision to overturn Attorney General John Mitchell's three year refusal to convene a Federal Grand Jury investigation of the Kent State murders.
 |
| Link : Four Dead in Ohio by Bill Gordon |
bork
English
Pronunciation
Pronunciation
[edit]Etymology 1
From the 1987 United States Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork.[1]
[edit]Verb
bork (third-person singular simple present borks, present participle borking, simple past and past participle borked)
- (US, politics, often pejorative) To defeat a judicial nomination through a concerted attack on the nominee's character, background and philosophy. [quotations ▼]
[edit]Usage notes
* O Holy Nights (plural)
 |
2nd Row: Islamic Star and crescent, Buddhist Wheel of Dharma, Shinto Torii
Today Dr. Phil created a sensitive, perceptive television program on the agony of healing after the violent death of a loved
one.
Then Dr. Phil and his wife Robin read a poem which had been
left on their facebook page yesterday, a reworking of “T’was the Night before
Christmas”.
It featured the “savior” Jesus welcoming the 20 children
murdered at Sandy Hook
Elementary School
It stuns me that an
educated psychologist would be insensitive to the theological needs of non-christians.
At least one of the slain children was Jewish. The image of
Jesus as “savior” embracing the children and taking care of their parents is
---well let’s be candid --- it’s rude.
It nullifies what I am sure were the good intentions of Dr.
Phil and Robin McGraw in reading this poem
I was troubled----not for myself----but for the
non-christian parents in the group.
I learned this lesson in my own family in a very
embarrassing moment.
Thirty years ago my cousin’s son, 16, was killed by a
hit-and-run driver while walking home from school. I wrote a prayer for the funeral which
referred to a God “who also lost a son” to senseless violence.
Years later when a colleague of my father lost his daughter
in a car crash, my father gave his friend a copy of my prayer.
I said , “ Dad. He’s Jewish.
He doesn’t believe Jesus is the son of God.”
My father looked stunned and embarrassed and waved it off as
an inconsequential social blunder.
It was a social blunder alright, but it was not
inconsequential.
It was part of the ethnocentrism of American Christians who unwittingly
think the whole world believes as they believe.
I remember how foolish I felt when someone pointed out to me
that Jesus was not a Christian; he was Jewish from the day he was born to the
day he died. The Last Supper was a
Passover meal. Jesus’ name was really
Joshua ben Joseph.
It may seem trivial to bring this up in the midst of the
horrible suffering of the Newtown
parents, but I wince at the well-meaning adherents of a particular religious
belief adding even another ounce of insult of any kind to the profound injury
of the parents.
Let us be cautious in our offerings of solace.
Paul D. Keane
Master of Divinity, 1980
Yale Divinity School
c
Paul D. Keane
Master of Divinity, 1980
Yale Divinity School
c
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
* Endure
Too much happens ... Man performs, engenders, so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything ... That's what's so terrible."
William Faulkner
Light in August
* Working on Peaceful Change
After the Kent State shootings, the University set up the Center for Peaceful Change as a memorial to the four students murdered by Ohio National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970.. I was an Instructor in Peaceful Change in that program. I donated my papers to the Kent State University Library Archives.
See Paul Keane Papers at Kent State
Later I co-founded with author Peter Davies the Kent State Collection at Yale University's Manuscripts and Archives Division of Sterling Memorial Library
See Paul Keane Papers at Yale (Kent State Collection)
Monday, December 17, 2012
*Shameless, Blameless, and Nameless
Link to Yale Daily News article
“God has called them all home. For those of us who remain, let us find the strength to carry on, and make our country worthy of their memory.”
President Obama
(Link) Memorial Service at Newtown , Connecticut
Does no one read the president’s speeches? Does no one listen to the words?
This line in the second to last paragraph of his speech at the Newtown memorial for the 20 first graders and 6 staff murdered by a rapid firing weapon in the hands of a deranged 20-year-old, a weapon which pumped five to eleven bullets into the tiny bodies of each of the children; this line is a devastating indictment of America, one which is well deserved:
We are NOT worthy as a country of the 26 murdered children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School
We have allowed political cowardice to override public safety and have failed to renew the law banning assault weapons.
“We” includes Congress, the President himself, and us, a nation of sheep, lulled into submission by rampant materialism.
We have filled our airwaves and our digital devices with violent video games, violent cinema, violent music and we have allowed our children to wander aimlessly in this world.
Simultaneously, we have allowed funds to be sucked out of mental health programs for decades while our streets have been flooded by millions of handguns, as we wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on the failed War on Drugs
This faux "war" is one in which we spend $30,000 a year to incarcerate each addicted violator while not treating their addiction, three times the $11,200 spent on educating the average public school child in America.
“We” includes Congress, the President himself, and us, a nation of sheep, lulled into submission by rampant materialism.
We have filled our airwaves and our digital devices with violent video games, violent cinema, violent music and we have allowed our children to wander aimlessly in this world.
Simultaneously, we have allowed funds to be sucked out of mental health programs for decades while our streets have been flooded by millions of handguns, as we wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on the failed War on Drugs
This faux "war" is one in which we spend $30,000 a year to incarcerate each addicted violator while not treating their addiction, three times the $11,200 spent on educating the average public school child in America.
Are we mad?
Are we blind?
Apparently we are deaf.
Apparently we are deaf.
Our President has just told us we as a country are NOT yet worthy of the murdered children.
And we have no sense of shame.
Just indignation: " 'Something' must be done now," we say.
We have said this before.
We, the consumers, the taxpayers, must own up to our complicity, our quiet acquiescence, in creating the culture of violence which poisons our children's eyes and ears a thousand times a week.
Just indignation: " 'Something' must be done now," we say.
We have said this before.
We, the consumers, the taxpayers, must own up to our complicity, our quiet acquiescence, in creating the culture of violence which poisons our children's eyes and ears a thousand times a week.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
* Jeremy Spoke in Class Today on the Second Amendment
 |
| Adam Lanza, mass murderer of children. |
I remember being horrified by the final image in this Pearl Jam video, Jeremy, when it appeared on MTV eighteen or so years ago. I thought at the time "No good can come of this."
But I am a liberal, and I wouldn't suppress freedom of expression for anything. So I swept it under the rug of my mind.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, when a 20 year old, Adam Lanza, turned that final ghastly image in the video into reality at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, near where I grew up in Hamden.
It is an idyllic town as I recall. My mother used to take my brother and me swimming in the summer at a pond near there called Sandy Beach.
The water was so clear you could see your feet when you were neck deep.
Those were the innocent years of my life.
 |
| Jeffrey Miller, lying on the asphalt altar of the Kent State parking lot, May 4, 1970, his life's blood streaming under the kneeling Mary Vecchio into a pool by the curb. |
But all that changed on May 4, 1970 when I was a graduate counselor at Kent State.
Those shootings were the beginning of indiscriminate slaughter by gunshot into crowds in our country.
I recall that the Eisenhower Commission on Violence headed by the President's brother, Milton, predicted that by 1970 we would have become "a nation of armed camps."
He was wrong.
We are simply a nation armed, slaughtering our children on the sacred altar of the Second Amendment.
What have we become when the mother of a mentally brittle son collects automatic weapons as a hobby?
 |
| Nancy Lanza, shot in the face by her son, Adam |
Friday, December 14, 2012
* A Witches Brew of Twisted Masculinity
I speak as someone who went through a school shooting 42 years ago at Kent State.
We want to ignore
the Freudian insight that MALES are unconsciously
the Freudian insight that MALES are unconsciously
angry, especially angry at women, who have magical powers of
creating another
human being, leaving MALES to do society's nasty task of
destroying them in war.
We want to ignore
the fact that religion uses MALE gods to
subordinate* others, either as sinners or as un-worthies, and that
the
unconscious lesson such deities teach young MALES is that manhood
means using power to subordinate the less powerful.
We want to ignore
the fact that our culture valorizes MALES
who use physical dexterity to subordinate others---not verbal
dexterity----
whether on fields of battle or on fields of sport.
We fuel
our culture with 300 MILLION hand guns, and valorize
their use in cinema and on television.
And then we wonder
why gunMEN, not gunwomen, create mass
murders in our world, from Denmark
to Sandy Hook .
We have created
a lethal witches brew and we offer it to our MALES
daily.
* Will Yale's Pope Tweet ?
 |
| Yale's Sterling Memorial Library is designed as a cathedral, with students approaching the Altar of Knowledge as they enter the nave. |
 |
| Sterling Professor Harold Bloom is said to have "read more books than any human being alive." Here he is seen performing a sacred rite. |
The Pope has tweeted.
Was the tweet ex cathedra (from the throne of St. Peter)?
Or was it merely a chirp from Vatican City?
Recently David Axelrod, advisor to the President, agreed to shave his mustache if one million dollars was raised for the study of a cure for epilepsy by a certain date. Before that denuding, both the Democratic and Republican chairs agreed to shave their heads if money was raised for equally noble causes.
I will shave my mustache (but not my beard) if the Yale Daily News can get Yale’s scholarly pope, Harold Bloom to “tweet” on any topic he chooses.
This will be an almost impossible goal to achieve, given Bloom’s notorious commitment to books. Tweeting may seem to him the ultimate betrayal of the art of reading.
One scholar put it this way: “Harold Bloom has read more books than any human being alive.” Rumor has it that when he was young, Mr. Bloom could read and absorb a thousand pages an hour.
That ought to make his “tweet” (if it is secured) one mellifluous blast.
One Bloomian question for Twitter:
Does a citation count as part of the 140 characters?
Sunday, December 9, 2012
* Thank you !
Blogger records 170,039 page views from thirteen different countries of The Anti-Yale's 766 posts in the last three years.
Thank you, readers.
PK
Saturday, December 8, 2012
* A Strange Sending Pool for Yale
 |
| Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair |
 |
| Former President of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo |
 |
| Former U.S. Commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal |
(Link to YDN video):
QUITE A TRIPTYCH
OF
VISITING YALE FACULTY
OF
VISITING YALE FACULTY
- A former British Prime Minister spurned by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a September 1 Observer article saying he withdrew from a Johannesburg Discovery Invest Leadership Conference because “I couldn't sit with someone who justified the invasion of Iraq with a lie” (Link) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/02/desmond-tutu-tony-blair-iraq
- A former President of
- A
former Commander of
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
