Last night I participated in Max Davison's quiz session in the lounge of Claremont Hall. Our group came in second, despite having at least two fewer people on our team that of Jack Evert's. (For shame, Jack, for shame!)
As luck would have it, the final round was O. J. Simpson, which was particularly fortuitous as I have worked for a member of that "Dream Team," Professor Alan M. Dershowitz and knew a thing or two about the case from having opened some of the professor's hate mail.
Would you believe my luck that it counted for double and that we got nearly all ten correct? (I say nearly because there's some disagreement as to whether or not our answer about O. J.'s eligibility for parole was the correct one. Was it nine years as reported by FOX News? Or six, as reported by The Guardian?)
In any event, I don't much care to see Mr. Simpson out on the streets anytime soon, though I thought I might point out that the last time O. J. Simpson graced the news, Claremont-McKenna was a very different place. I recently came across a speech by William F. Buckley Jr., entitled, "O. J. Simpson and Other Ills: An Address at a Dinner Honoring Henry Salvatori," which was hosted by Claremont-McKenna College at the Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles, May 7, 1995. (The speech in its entirety is taken from p. 397 - 403 of Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches by William F. Buckley Jr.)
Here is what Mr. Buckley had to say about Mr. Simpson to members of the Claremont community.
p. 398, "Have we finally learned, from the ongoing O. J. Simpson trial, that we have edged towards travesty in the execution of justice, one of the three mandates of government acknowledged by Adam Smith?"
p. 401, "And -- my third point -- are we not provoked by the spectacle here in Los Angeles to raise other questions than that of whether O. J. Simpson killed his wife?
I recently heard the president of the American Civil Liberties Union tell an audience that her greatest regret was that not everyone accused of a crime has the same resources as O. J. Simpson.
But what we confront in that trial is evidence that the processes of justice are, if not universally stalled, significantly enough arrested to warrant asking whether justice is dying; and if so, whether it is perishing from the creeping immobilizations brought on in the name of civil liberties.
p. 402,
Another way to put it is this: that the only obstacle to the establishment of the guilt of O. J. Simpson is legal. The whole epistemological apparatus of the modern world -- psychology, science, logic, reason -- established that he is guilty. Only the law, paradoxically, stands in the way of the application of justice.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
William F. Buckley, Honoring Salvatori, Talking about O. J. Simpson in 1995
The Fourth and Final CI of the Semester
The Claremont Independent, which shares many of this blog’s writers, has just released its fourth and final issue of the semester. You can check it out here.
Of particular note are the lead articles. Eric Yingling, who recently served in Iraq, wrote about his experiences there. He writes how a timetable for withdrawal would be harmful to both our interests and the Iraqis’. Another lead story is about the Proposition 8 activists on campus and how they wrongfully demonize the Right and Mormons, written by none other than Ilan Wurman. Finally, the third lead story is about Pomona’s administration ignoring the evidence regarding their alma mater, about which this blog has also extensively written. The issue was beautiful explored by Aanchal Kapoor PO '11. These articles, as well as the others in the issue, are all worth a read.
O. J. Simpson, William F. Buckley Jr., and Henry Salvatori
O. J. Simpson and Other Ills: An Address at a Dinner Honoring Henry Salvatori, Hosted by Claremont-McKenna College; the Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles, May 7, 1995. Taken from p. 397 - 403 of Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches by William F. Buckley Jr.
On Henry Salvatori,
...even as we face problems that do not come at us with easy solutions standing by, we take some satisfaction from problems no longer acute. When I first met Henry Salvatori we were only a few years into the Cold War. It seemed that we were on a collision course with dystopia. It would be thirty-five more years before the Berlin Wall came down, signaling the end of the most highly organized threat to liberty in the history of the world.
During that period we relied on such inanimate objects as a nuclear repository. But we relied above all on sane thought and clear and liberating determination. I know nobody who more strikingly incarnates the ideals of reason and liberty than Henry Salvatori. He did everything he could do as an individual to inspire the confidence and the devotion of the men and women who worked with him all those years. And then he took the fruits of his labors and put it at the disposal of men and women of a younger generation, charging only that they pursue the ideals he has so eloquently served since the day when at age six he got off the boat from Italy and began a lifetime of productive labor, leaving signs of his personal grace everywhere he lived and worked. I join you in honoring Henry Salvatori.
Why I'm Happy There's No Life On Mars
This past week biologist Andrew Knoll of Harvard came to Harvey Mudd to speak about alien life on Mars as part of the Nelson speaker series.
Knoll argued that although there is water on Mars, it's not sufficient for alien life, given that the water tends to be acidic and highly salty.
This is actually good news, as argues Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds.
. . .life on Mars would make life on Earth a lot more complicated. First, imagine that there’s no life on Mars. That means we can go there, as we did on lunar missions, with no serious worries about bringing back deadly germs. (We initially quarantined Apollo astronauts upon their return to Earth. But by Apollo 15 NASA had concluded that the moon was as lifeless as, well, the moon.) No concerns about bringing deadly bacteria home, and none about contaminating the moon with earthly bacteria that might mess up its biospheric ecology.Of course, things could be much worse. Finding life on Mars could foretell our doom, as suggested by Nick Bostrom.
If Mars is equally lifeless, that will make exploring—and later settling—the planet much easier. We can go there and return without this particular worry, and we can introduce Earth life without concerns that we’ll damage indigenous creatures. Astronauts won’t have to be quarantined, and the environmental impact statement, or its interplanetary equivalent, will be easier to determine. On the other hand, if there is life on Mars, things get a lot tougher.
What do you think? Would finding life on Mars be good or bad?
h/t: Pleiotropy
Pitney on the Growing Influence of Vietnamese Americans
Congrats to Anh "Joseph" Cao, now the first Vietnamese-American congressman in U.S. history. It just so happens that Cao is a Republican. (GOPers take note! Vietnamese and Asian Americans can help move the G.O.P. into a non-white party.)
In a Los Angeles Times article related to the political influence of Vietnamese-Americans, let me cite Professor Pitney.
"It wasn't that long ago that . . . members of the Vietnamese community were coming to the United States in dire straits after the fall of Saigon," said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. "When it comes to the political rise of ethnic groups, [Vietnamese Americans] have actually risen very rapidly."
