questions for the Yale Herald

Yet the visits of Chinese President Hu Jintao last April and Reverend Al Sharpton in October—both potentially divisive figures—passed more quietly than anticipated. In fact, many controversial but liberal figures seem to face little criticism, purely for their politics. “Occasionally, when a speaker like Sharpton comes, there are concerns over race riots,” said April Lawson, SY ’09, who, as the vice-president of the Yale Political Union (YPU), was responsible for bringing Sharpton to campus. “The administration was concerned. Obviously nothing happened, but there were actual contingency plans.” During Hu’s much-awaited visit, entire streets were shut off and security was at an all-time high—there were even whispers of snipers. Over a thousand protestors gathered, mostly visitors to New Haven. But despite numerous accusations of human rights violations leveled against China, Hu’s visit lacked the massive fallout that surrounded that of Baraka. “I think there was a ruckus,” Etra said. “Hu’s visit made students question the University’s alliance with China.”

But whatever political reservations some students had, student protest was overall remarkably restrained. Kirchick believes that in general, this speaks to the political bend of the Yale campus: “I’ve never seen an instance in which a left wing speaker has been met with calls, shouting, or attempts to drown him out,” he said. To him, the liberality that prevails on so much of Yale’s campus explains the lackluster protest surrounding Hu’s visit. “Here we were welcoming and celebrating a tyrant who tortures people—but since Hu’s a left-wing tyrant there was a completely different standard,” Kirchick said.

Question#1: So Al Sharpton's very presence is now an incitement to riot? For whom? Is the fear that Sharpton's presence will inflame the tempers of the hordes of angry white men pouring out of Payne-Whitney to set Dixwell aflame in reaction to the good reverend's provocations? Or is the administration afraid that Sharpton will make all those black folks who live so close to all those neighborhoods Yale's bulldozed get "uppity?" If Yale's fear was the latter, then this is deeply disturbing. Either way, Sharpton's hardly provocative enough to warrant such concern.


Question 2: Since when is PRC Technocrat Hu Jintao remotely left wing (or certainly any more so than Jamie Kirchick?) Whatever Amiri Baraka's "offensive" statementsa may have been, did he or any other "left wing" speakers Kirchick has seen ever make the kinds of racist claims about millions of people that Daniel Pipes did in 2003, when he was met with SILENT protest by students wearing black gags around their mouths, or that Shockley certainly did when he was shouted down in 1974? Did any "left wing" (and again, Hu Jintao, not "Left Wing") speakers perpetrate the forms of colonial racism and murder mobilized by the Israeli state under Peres's watch? And hasn't Kirchick himself been part and parcel of attempts by the far right (David Horowitz/Campuswatch) to police what is said in the classroom and on campus and publicly assail those who question right wing dogma in a manner that Jim Sleeper, no lefty himself, publicly called "Neo-Stalinist?"

And of course we should note that while the students involved in the action against Shockley were expelled, the university has yet to account, four years later, for its detention and intimidation of UOC leafletters during Parents' Weekend 2002.

Two good things happened today.

The first was the snow flurries that fell on me as I began my walk to campus. Not really a lot of snow, but enough to make me happy. I love snow.

The second was a meeting I went to briefly this evening at which the undergrads once again made me feel like this place just might be salvageable again. Which is good because other factors were making things feel rather hopeless.

Back to work.

Good Medicine? (Party like it's 2001)

Yale bows to student pressure on another patent (this time Ed4t instead of d4t - go figure) and agrees to permit generic manufacturing of an aids drug in "low and middle income countries." (Does that include this one?.) Now these activists are trying to pressure the drug company that jointly holds the patent to do the same.

UAEM member Shayna Strom '02 LAW '09 said Yale should take the initiative in enabling drugs based on university research to be produced more cheaply for use in low-income countries

"We're glad that the University has made the decision not to patent in low-income countries, although we think there are further steps to be taken," Strom said. "The University had more leverage before it licensed the drug, but President Levin still has a great opportunity to set the tone and set the agenda."

Strom said the move would give Yale credibility as a leader in promoting drug accessibility, similar to the way Harvard recently received credit for being a leader in early action reform.

"Yale has a brief opportunity here to decide whether to lead or to follow," Strom said.

But Robert Alpern, the dean of the medical school, cautioned that if universities excercise too many restrictions on their licensing partners, they could lose them altogether.

If the drug sells well, the University will receive financial returns on the product as compensation for its research efforts in discovering the chemical. But School of Medicine Dean Robert Alpern said the benefits of discovering Ed4T will only be realized if Yale allows the pharmaceutical company to exercise its international rights over the chemical.

"We try to work with pharmaceutical companies to give the drug away in poorer countries," Alpern said. "In general, with these drugs the pharmaceutical industry is very good. I don't think the solution is to tamper with the licensing."

The specter of corporate retreat mobilized here seems somewhat phantasmic. Clearly pharmaceutical companies wouldn't be interested in the drug if they didn't think money could be made. And the fundamental question seems to me how or if university researchers can free their work from the yoke of the logic of the boardroom.

Wal-Mart's damage control is falling flat for some workers...

Under the program, store managers are to meet each week with 10 employees who sign up to discuss concerns, suggestions and ideas for improving operations. The program also requires regional general managers to conduct monthly town-hall meetings that are open to every worker in the area.

A new management training program, called “Leaders Out in Front,” is intended to encourage hourly workers to advance their careers and help existing managers become “better ambassadors and mentors,” according to the memo.

Not all of these perks are new. During previous holiday seasons, Wal-Mart has paid health care premiums and offered an additional 10 percent discount. But they were sporadic or at store managers’ discretion, rather than offered annually across the chain, said Ms. Clark, the spokeswoman.

Other perks, like a shirt that states length of employment in five-year increments starting with 20 years of service, appear designed to build morale, but might do the opposite.

Cleo Forward, a 37-year-old support manager at a Wal-Mart in Dallas, said the new program was promising, but that it fell short in recognizing long-time workers who felt unappreciated by the changes.

“They are going to spend $15 on a Polo for you after 20 years? Give me a break,” he said. “We would rather they lift the wage caps.”

This is an anti-union strategy as well as a desparate attempt at morale-boosting in the wake of "associates'" reactions to the corpopration's attempts to "to create a cheaper, more flexible labor force by capping wages, using more part-time employees, scheduling more workers at nights and weekends, and cracking down on unexcused days off."

The policies angered many long-time employees, who complained that the changes would reduce their pay and disrupt their families’ lives. Workers even staged small rallies in Nitro, W. Va., and Hialeah Gardens, Fla., the only such protests in recent memory.

"Associates Out in Front" is predicated on the notion that what will quiet the workers is more contact with the pacificying voices of middle management and a few scraps. But Wal-Mart's massive corps of low wage workers seem - at least according to Barbaro and Greenhouse, less enthused about the attemps at mollification than the company's spokespeople.

Kory Uselton, a 35-year-old overnight floor cleaner at a Wal-Mart in Tyler, Tex., said his store manager offered “robotic” company-approved responses during a recent meeting when workers questioned the new attendance policy, which originally called for disciplinary action after three unauthorized absences (although it was later revised to four unexcused absences).

Asked if absence for a family emergency, like a sick child, would be authorized, Mr. Uselton recounted, the manager said, “No, it’s not.”

“Many of the associates were very upset,” Mr. Uselton said. “Management is just not listening anymore.” Some Wal-Mart employees said workers might be afraid to speak up because they have seen coworkers retaliated against — for instance, transferred to worse shifts when they voiced their complaints.

Ms. Clark said Wal-Mart already had several systems in place that allowed employees to criticize company practices. Among other things, she said, there was a toll-free hotline workers could call to report ethical lapses, a Web site on which chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. answered questions and a policy, known as the “open door,” that permitted anyone to bring complaints to officers at the highest level of the company.

Yeah, right.

I was going to write a long post about Happy Feet, the ways in which it's subversive, the ways in which it may or may not recapitulate a short essay I wrote this summer about the problems involved in Reverend Billy's expropriation of the black church, and about revolutions in which dance is not only permitted but the central tactic of direct action, something Emma Goldman, or at least as she is always invoked to have said something she may never have actually said, might approve. But I'm not going to write it, because I'm swamped, I'm stressed, and I need to eat something and get back to work. If I do see something somewhere and I want to blog about it, I probably will, but be forewarned that posting may be slim for a while. (Although it's been slimmer in general this year than it has in its past two years of existence, and it was only around for two thirds of 2004, so that's saying something.)

Don Butterfield, RIP

A classically trained tubist, Mr. Butterfield first made his mark in jazz on a Clark Terry album, “Top and Bottom Brass,” in 1959. He went on to play with Charles Mingus on several albums, including “The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady,” and with Dizzy Gillespie. He also toured with Frank Sinatra in the late 1980s.

The police efforts are being led by the same unit of the Internal Affairs
Bureau that spearheaded the inquiry into the police shooting of Amadou
Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, seven years ago.

And what happened in that case? Oh yeah, they moved the trial to Albany and exonerated every cop involved. And clearly everything's all better now...