Friday afternoon stroll on the boardwalk. The sun just beginning to slowly set in the Western sky and we start from the north, just south of the bridge after the electric company, with the exercise machines – a little playground for adults. Then we watch with great pleasure the birds attacking some kids trying to play soccer in the field. By the time we finish playing it is already six and we get some ice cream, while watching the entry of the sabbath being celebrated with a little missionary klesmer band, and then we step into Castro for a t-shirt on sale. By then we’re tired and head back but hunger overwhelms us and we are drawn into the air conditioning of comme-il-faut restaurant. On our way out the crowds begin a major invasion. Now I’m ready for bed and the neighbors upstairs are just beginning their big party.
Archive for July 4th, 2009
What will become of the universities here? When did we stop respecting study, research, intellectual inquiry? I’ll bet that if we started a school for fame our registration would shoot up and we’d started getting some of the money the government owes us back again. Not talent but fame.
Or maybe a school for how to make money. But of course the example of the university doesn’t really allow it to draw crowds in that area.
I heard one suggestion for raising money for the university today that beats all of the others for its metaphoric truth – turn part of it into a cemetery and sell plots. Professors can get buried for free.
All this kvetching is connected of course to the sudden ‘resignation’ of the only president I ever encountered in the university who was a mensch, a gentleman and a scholar. For years the power of the faculty has been eroding and the interests of the university have been becoming purely financial – a very dangerous thing when it comes to education. And Zvi Galil put the old-fashioned academic goals first.
