"Something was amiss at Harvard College"

A mystery weed wildflower (8 times actual size above, photographed against a window screen) discovered on walkies yesterday growing by the roadside off a small, decrepit bridge that crosses over an abandoned B&M Railroad spur that used to branch off from Chelsea to East Boston. A quick application of Newcomb's Wildflower Guide's locator key -- Wildflowers with 5 regular parts, opposite  leaves, leaves entire, petals grown together to form a cup, flowers under 1/2" long -- identified a native member of the Four-O'Clock family [Who knew?], Heart-leaved Umbrellawort or Wild Four-O'Clock (Mirabilis nyctaginea). More rave reviews of Newcomb's here and here. One might be fooled into thinking this innocent-looking plant is merely "A lovely intruder." But it can be invasive, and were we a farmer, we might be grousing about "Phytoterrorism in our own back yard."

"And so was born my visceral feeling that something was amiss at Harvard College," writes National Review associate editor Travis R. Kavulla in a Harvard Crimson op ed, recalling an epiphany in his freshman year when the recent high school graduate "happened upon refuse of the previous year’s Cornel West-Larry Summers feud: a poster that encouraged its onlookers to 'Get Uppity on Massa Summers’ Plantation.'” It's an old story, blogged here early and often, but we're impressed that the Crimson is giving dissident Kavulla a platform:

We all know how the Summers saga ends -- badly, following the unforgivable suggestion that biological differences arising from one’s sex might matter in human cognition . . .

Summers was punished for doing what, in the best of worlds, intellectuals would do more often: taking advantage of a university’s purported spirit of open inquiry, and freely speaking their minds . . .

In the last year, protesters deemed it necessary to interrupt a speech by the FBI director -- but not one by the former president of Iran. Never mind that one’s administration oversaw the hangings of two teenage boys convicted of sodomy, and of a 16-year-old girl for “acts incompatible with chastity. Wiretaps are just a step too far . . .

As presently conceived, "respect" and "sensitivity" are the subsidiary plattudes of this vacant multiculturalism. A real sensitivity for other cultures, however, would entail discerning differences, perhaps even more than finding common ground . . . This type of critical thinking finds rare enunciation in a place where all cultures and peoples are equal -- except the uniquely deplorable entities that are Harvard and the United States.

"Wild Four-O’Clock is common along roadsides and railroad embankments and in fence rows, prairies, meadows, pastures and waste areas. Plants seem to thrive in grazed areas of North Dakota rangeland because seedlings establish where wildlife and livestock have trampled or animals have burrowed. Its movement from the western plains eastward was tracked . . . by observing the distribution of an insect that feeds only on Wild Four-O’Clock: the coreid . . . The insect moved steadily eastward as Wild Four-O’Clock became established along railroad right-of-ways in the 1880s and early 1900s. Wild Four-O’Clock spread eastward as a result of the shipment of agricultural products to eastern cities via the newly completed rail system in the 1850s," according to the University of Wisconsin's WeedScience website. "The plants were probably trying to get away from those darned insects," quips Tuck. Not unlike the dissidents of this weary world, ever trying to get away from their totalitarian tormenters and escape into the light of freedom.

LA Times staff writer Megan Stack found out the hard way that not all cultures and peoples are equal, and -- contrary to her lifelong politically correct faith in moral equivalency -- some cultures and peoples depend upon the humiliation of women to displace the humiliation of men by forces beyond their control. Being mugged by reality hurts. In Amba's eloquent capsule, "A reporter takes off the concealing black cloak of objectivity -- which leaves free only the eyes -- and writes a personal, troubled, angry essay":

Starbucks had another, unmarked door around back that led to a smaller espresso bar, and a handful of tables smothered by curtains. That was the "family" section. As a woman, that's where I belonged. I had no right to mix with male customers [After all, why should guys have to worry about those rays emitted by women's hair that drive men insane when they're just trying to enjoy a cup of coffee, fergossake?] or sit in plain view of passing shoppers. Like the segregated South of a bygone United States, today's Saudi Arabia shunts half the population into separate, inferior and usually invisible spaces . . .

[A Saudi man who had enjoyed the taken-for-granted freedoms for both himself and his wife when they had lived in the US] thought foreign academics were too easy on Saudi Arabia, that they urged only minor changes instead of all-out democracy because they secretly regarded Saudis as "savages" incapable of handling too much freedom.

I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being. I tried to draw parallels: If I went to South Africa during apartheid, would I feel compelled to be polite?

I would find that I still saw scraps of Saudi Arabia everywhere I went. Back home in Cairo, the usual cacophony of whistles and lewd coos on the streets sent me into blind rage. I slammed doors in the faces of deliverymen; cursed at Egyptian soldiers in a language they didn't speak; kept a resentful mental tally of the Western men, especially fellow reporters, who seemed to condone, even relish, the relegation of women in the Arab world.

Reporter Stack found that her Saudi experience was "tainting the way I perceived men and women everywhere," but that should fade with time now that she's back stateside in the cradle of liberty. She's understandably enraged at "the way the U.S. government and companies opportunistically enable Saudi Arabia's gender apartheid," in Amba's words, but politics -- especially international politics -- is still "the art of the possible." The old saw applies: The Saudis may be tyrants, but they're our tyrants. At least for now. We'd love to see some Harvard feminist group, in the spirit of open inquiry, dare to sponsor a lecture by this woman. Her story could be a crack in the wall of denial erected by those protesters who, as Travis Kavulla noted, "deemed it necessary to interrupt a speech by the FBI director -- but not one by the former president of Iran."

Comments

[Goomp]

We should all admire the adaptability of Megan Stack. Students taught by the fascist orientated liberals of the elite professorship of many of our educational institutions can only be overcome by hands-on experience such as Ms Sharp exoerienced.

[Goomp]

Thanks for the botany lesson. Fascinating!

[Teresa]

Sadly people like Megan (let me guess, she has a journalism degree - right...) have to go all the way over to Saudi Arabia to figure that out. They don't appear to be bright enough to look at pictures, stories, newspaper reports, even CNN and discern this without the hands on experience. Therein lies the problem.

I've never been to Saudi Arabia and I have no wish to ever go there - but I happen to know, understand, and deplore their actions without ever experiencing the "apartheid" first hand. Amazing how people who don't subscribe to the "hate America first" method of evaluating the world, seem to understand the evils of other countries so much more clearly.