14 Comments

1. Carol_Herman:

Peter Robinson is a writer with a resume. He wrote for Reagan as a speechwriter. Leaving the white house, he went to Stanford for a business degree. And, from his experiences there, he wrote SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL.

My history. In the 1960’s I read David’s Viscott’s book about Harvard’s Medical School. (And, later followed him, through his writing career. And, then out here as a talk-radio host. Before Dr. Laura. He was just a gem of a human being.)

In the 1970’s Scott Turow came to my attention with his book about Harvard Law: L-ONE. BRILLIANT!

How do brilliant students also have time to write? Dunno. But we are all the richer for it.

I read SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL just as I, myself, at age 50, decided to enter college. And, there it was. A story of a man who needed summer math remediation. Just to catch up! And, he told his business school story, pointing to those who got math concepts quickly, as the geniuses who could do a quick business study. While he just wrote from his heart. About what was right.

Good scientists usually don’t know a thing about the byways good writers can take on the same material.

And, then I never saw anything else written by Peter Robinson. Because I don’t read fiction very often. And, mystery writers? Alas, not very many. And, now that I’m older, not at all.

So Peter Robinson’s name popped up on a tape I was listening to while I drove my car. He called it something about WHAT REAGAN TAUGHT ME. And, someplace around tape 3, he mentioned he was the author, too, of SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL!

Roger, the tape Robinson did on what he learned while working at the White House is so good. Such a good study of a single guy getting frightened married life will pass him by. And, he was such a good observer of the healthy marriage Reagan had with Nancy. That to listen to this tape is to kvell. I told my own son, single and in the same shoes, to listen to it. Such good stuff. You cast your vote for a real winner for Dartmouth’s board.

Mar 7, 2005 - 10:15 am 2. Dan:

Roger–If Peter Robinson’s book (”HOW RONALD REAGAN CHANGED MY LIFE”) says anything about his character, then he will serve your alma mater well.

I was fortunate to go to law school with Todd Zywicki and know him to be a good and intelligent man. At U-VA law, he was a respected leader of the Federalist Society, admired by his philosophical confrËres and respected by his intellectual adversaries. And he was well liked by those who did not have strong political passions one way or the other.

Moreover, I recall him to be a genuine intellectual, eagerly engaging guess speakers and professors in thoughtful discourse. (He had a keen understanding of a variety of different viewpoints, even those with which he disagreed.) Those qualities make him an ideal candidate for a university trustee.

Mar 7, 2005 - 10:45 am 3. erp:

Is it cosmic convergence? Two Lebanons, one in the ME and one in NH, are in the news because of the unexpected movement towards the democratization of their governments. Each of these events will have long lasting repercussions among their sister institutions. The future looks inviting.

Mar 7, 2005 - 10:47 am 4. Carol_Herman:

Ah, and lest we forget. DARTMOUTH was home to ANIMAL HOUSE. When, in the early 70s, the inmates took over the asylum. You thought the book that became a movie was fiction?

Mar 7, 2005 - 11:02 am 5. Paul Stancil:

Echoing Dan above, Todd Zywicki is a good man. He and his wife Kim were three years ahead of me at UVa Law, but I first got to know him after law school through my wife’s friendship with Kim. We have vacationed with them and visit with them when we’re in the D.C. area. Todd is in many ways the quintessential thinking conservative. He’s very bright, with an intellect both broad and deep, and he is an absolutely tireless worker. As important, he is intellectually honest. He has also mentored me in a variety of ways. Your vote for Todd was not wasted.

Mar 7, 2005 - 11:34 am 6. Silicon valley Jim:

My time at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (I took my MBA there in 1975) were probably the two most pleasant years of my life. Of course, I was one of “those who got math concepts quickly”. I never, incidentally, encountered anything that required a knowledge of mathematics beyond the algebra that I learned as a freshman in high school.

Mar 7, 2005 - 12:37 pm 7. Carol_Herman:

Oh, Silicon Valley Jim, Pasadena City College let me fill out a form with a #2 pencil. That was it. I gained entry. And, when tested by the math department, since I had blocked out doing fractions and percentages in my life, I had only 4th grade math skills. And, I was able to graduate PCC with honors. Not so Cal State LA. They had a math requirement. It took awhile for me to reach that algebra level.

To the point, that in a physics (for dummies) class at PCC, I remember the professor writing “E, equals MC, squared, on the board. As a math formula. And, by it’s side, he put a neat paragraph of what it meant. I loved that paragraph! And, when the professor asked “which is better,” you know, my hand was one of the few that shot up in defense of words.

Later, I asked this wonderful man why he taught this class. And, not “real physics students.” He just laughed. He said, the kids who understood the work, didn’t need him as a teacher. Just as a shoulder when they wanted someone to complain to. And, sometimes, they needed a quick kick in the ass. A year before, his friend, Richard Feynman had died. But he said teaching us students was such a pleasure (because we sat enthralled, listening to our lectures), that Feynman often walked over from Caltech, to substitute in front of his class.

Live and learn. Even old gals can learn new tricks. My son, at the time I was being remediated was an ace in high school. Able to handle a physics load of chemistry, physics, calculus and statistics, coming home, and having time to play. While I burned the midnight oil trying to do algebra problems. (Bad habits? Sure. A tendency to treat a “power” as simple multiplication. And, not using my eyes to see how to distribute correctly.) I used to laugh. What did an ending paren bracket mean to me? I used the wall to stop distributing signs incorrectly.

And, I bless my college teachers. SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL is still available, too. What a terrific book that was! Don’t miss it. Even if you’re great at math. Maybe, especially if you don’t see math as a terrible chore. For me, it was a path strewn with broken glass. And, when I was young, the teachers taught it at too fast a clip for me to comprehend. Information doesn’t have to fly over heads, and be beyond reach. And, you’re never too old to stop studying the hard stuff.

Mar 7, 2005 - 12:50 pm 8. Karin:

I won’t vote if there is no choice, either, because what’s the point? I also won’t vote if both choices have the same political affiliation. The point of having the privilege to vote is so that you are participating in choosing the best candidate.

Mar 7, 2005 - 1:02 pm 9. Silicon valley Jim:

Carol,

Thank you for realizing that I wasn’t poking fun at you. I really don’t think that I need to read Snapshots From Hell, since I actually attended the school.

Mathematics is, in my opinion, fundamental; it is every bit as important as philosophy or the arts. Yet many of the same people who complain that, say, engineers aren’t very good at speaking or writing are actually proud that they (the ones complaining) are ignorant of mathematics. When Plato founded his Academy (which gave us the word “academy”) he had inscribed over the entrance “a credit in mathematics is required”. Perhaps the greatest of philosophers required a credit in mathematics as a prerequisite for studying with him. Yet Peter Robinson evidently scoffs at the “difficult” mathematics required at the Stanford GSB, where I never once had to take a derivative, calculate an integral, or do explicit matrix algebra (there was, at the time, a required course that taught, among other things, linear programming, in which George Danzig’s simplex algorithm is in fact matrix algebra, but nobody was actually taught anything beyond the simplex algorithm itself).

Exploring many fields is important. I myself am a reasonably accomplished musician and quite knowledgeable about chamber music in particular. To exclude mathematics from that exploration would be a huge mistake.

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:00 pm 10. Carol_Herman:

Oh, Silicon Valley Jim, you surprise me. Peter Robinson talks from the heart. He doesn’t scoff!

You went to Stanford? Dorm? Or rental? His had a jacuzzi. And, if memory serves me right, I do so enjoy first person stories.

Take David Horovitz. Who replaced Bret Stephens at the Jerusalem Post. He’s written non-fiction books about his life in Israel. Hit paydirt when I went to Amazon and bought them all!

We are not separate classes of people. Your eyes won’t glaze over if you read SNAPSHOTS FROM HELL. (It’s the work burden, not the school.) And, from my memory alone (I read this book in 1988), he recalls a professor’s words. How selective Stanford is, in terms of admissions. They could take all their students to golf courses, and the world will still be a better place, because these people meet each other.

Under Plato’s tree, math was an abstract language. But the PEOPLE POWER … those who met under the tree of learning … THEY MOVED HIS WORDS FORWARD so today you can go to the library and read them in translation.

Anyway, others who are reading this thread are welcome to go to Amazon. Plug in Peter Robinson’s name. Or, even just this one title. Paradise awaits.

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:09 pm 11. langtry:

As college/university boards go, this is the start of a very good thing. More power to you, Roger, for seeing the “greater good” and striking an important blow to the seemingly untouchable academic hierarchy. Hopefully the next election will yield candidates who can express the same sentiments you have and perhaps have a greater role in what goes on in our institutions of higher learning.

In looking at making academic institutions more democratic in nature, I can’t help but think that such an initiative would serve corporate boards well. Corporate Boards have forgotten their responsibility to their shareholders and employees. Rather than censure fiscally-abusive CEO’s and other spendthrift officers, these boards are made up of similarly cossetted indivduals who are unlikely to reign in their peers, lest their own positions of privilege be similarly affected. Rather than represent shareholders, nearly the entirety of whom do not hold enough of a stake in the company to be heard in the boardroom, these boards serve to isolate corporate officers from facing the consequences of their ineptitude or irresponsibility.

Far from being anti-capitalist, I believe in the competitve nature of our economy. I just think that many Boards have forgotten their fiduciary responsibilities, and to allow such boards to continue is wrong. As we have seen evinced in academia, these examples are perhaps the lone segment of our society where indivduals seem to face no consequence for their behavior, unless such behavior crosses the line from unethical actions to that of outright criminality.

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:19 pm 12. Silicon valley Jim:

And, from my memory alone (I read this book in 1988),

According to the alumni directory, he took his MBA in 1990, so 1988 seems just a bit early for the book.

he recalls a professor’s words. How selective Stanford is, in terms of admissions. They could take all their students to golf courses, and the world will still be a better place, because these people meet each other.

Yes, a professor (perhaps the same one) was saying something similar when I was there, although I wasn’t in that particular classroom.

You went to Stanford? Dorm? Or rental?

Graduate school only. Entered as a JD/MBA, entered law school a year behind Paul Mirengoff (deacon from Powerline). Hated law school. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t a lot of work. I did just fine. But I hated it, mostly because of the people – my fellow students, the professors, the deans, the people who ran registration. I lived in an apartment in Menlo Park (built, I think, as a military barracks during WWII), then an apartment in Shallow Alto (with a lovely view of the Bayshore Freeway), then a room in a very nice house in Shallow Alto.

We’re probably boring the rest of the people here. If you want to discuss further, you can e-mail me at lonesome_picker at yahoo dot com.

Mar 7, 2005 - 2:42 pm 13. richard mcenroe:

Normally elections for college and university trustees are about as interesting as… pick your clichÈ…

“Um.. A Los Angeles Congressional race?”

Mar 7, 2005 - 6:02 pm 14. Carol_Herman:

You’re right, Silicon Valley Jim. Snapshots From Hell was pubished in 1994. And, in 1988, my son was entering 3rd grade. Junior college, entry, for me, was still a year or so away. Didn’t hit the need to remediate the math until I collected all the units I needed at Cal State LA, first. And, gave what I thought would be an experience of pulling me over hot coals, an entire year (2 semesters) to endure. And, my son was a freshman in high school. He graduated high school in 1997. My old brain works like an accordion; collapsing dates as if the past lives in dimensions all its own.

I notice that you play an instrument. My son went to Harvey Mudd. And, all his clarinet playing skills, that earned him first chair. And, chances to play in Pasadena’s Honor’s Band during two Rose Parades went down the toilet.

GOOD FOR YOU! You didn’t let go of something wonderful. (Stuff that gave me, and my mom, such naches.) Why no time at Mudd? To fulfill the dreck of the humanities units, he went to Pomona, another part of the Claremont campus, and he studied Chinese. Took it for 3 years, there. And, is very decent at “it.” Mandarin. Only 4 tone sounds; instead of the Cantonese 7. Or 9. But fluent enough to later catch onto Japanese. And, a “smackerel” of Korean. (”Smackerel,” is a Winnie The Pooh word.) As my accordion, upstairs, expands and shrinks, like breathing.

GOOD FOR YOU, AGAIN, and this mother’s kisses on your head, for going and looking up when Peter Robinson got his MBA from Stanford. (You mean you couldn’t write your own book about your experiences there?) Of course, after college life tends to get tough. At least, I said that to my own son. So, “Snapshots from Hell,” indeed. But it’s a wonderful book.

GOOD FOR YOU, ROGER! Making a difference at the Board at what was once Animal Farm! Free people kick ass.

Mar 7, 2005 - 6:46 pm

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