To Hell With Ads from Jake Roper on Vimeo.

Several things baffle me about panics like this. Firstly, people are now hoarding hundreds of packets of ‘anti nuclear-pills’ that have absolutely zero possibility of helping them, or preventing any sort of radiation poisoning. It seems as long as something can be taken in a pill form, it is pre-approved and justified for American consumption, regardless of whether it actually does anything or not. Remind me later to open up the first PlaceboTown Superstore.

But secondly, and even more stupefying, is that these very same people who are worried about trace amounts of radiation traveling halfway across the globe, are seemingly totally fine with drinking arsenic in their tap water. They are hunky-dory with eating PCBs and Bisphenol-A, and excreted hormones from hundreds of millions of ingested prophylactics. They have absolutely no objection to a multi-faceted poisoning from their daily routine, so long as these poisons are American-made. So throw me a pack of Marlboro’s and a fifth of Jack Daniels, and lets take the rest of the Jimmy Dean bacon-wrapped corndogs down into the nucular shelter to chase down our cache of potassium-iodide pills. That’ll show them Japanese particles whose boss.

Originally posted on Technorati.

Some of the notable Sheen updates/remixes of the week:

Jimmy Kimmel’s Charlie Sheen as Charlie Brown.

The inevitable Dubstep remix:

And the tour de force mashup, High Noon in Crazytown:

Picture Source.

Greg Runs the Gauntlet of the Spa Castle, Uniforms Vs. Au Natural: Fight!, To Every Horde, Turn, Turn, Turn, The Horror of Red Bumperman, The Joy of Having One’s Skin Ripped Off, and Zombie Kings.

Download Mep Report #125

Hell yeah, I want my pony!

This article at The People’s View should be required reading for all those interested in discovering what some parts of both the right and left of the blogosphere have to gain in trying to destroy (fortunately unsuccessfully, I think) President Obama–or, more accurately, what they have to gain in upping the ante on false outrage in a public forum.  (Here’s a hint: it’s the same thing anti-corporatists are always claiming (often rightly) is the end goal of every politician.)  One wonders how much time MLK or Gandhi would have had for this kind of kabuki.

For those of you keen to download The Ultimate Promo (as heard in Mep 122), you can do so here.

Download The Ultimate Promo

The Greatest American Five Fingers, The Teabag Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree for Rand Paul, We Like Ice Cream Because It’s ICE CREAM!, What if We Just Lightly Sear Them?, Lakers Fail at Immigration, Invading Arizona for Fun, Profit, and Golf Courses, Greg Roots For the Insurance Company to Win the Bet, and the BuddhaFather.

Download Mep Report #121

It is now halftime in Game 7 of the “most anticipated” NBA Finals in years. The score is 40-34. Boston is winning, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the Lakers and Celtics, the two most decorated teams in the history of the sport, have laid a stale, constipated turd on the heads of American basketball fans for the past week and a half.

Let me preface with a disclosure. I am a New York Knicks fan. This gives me an instant predilection for loathing both franchises in the finals. I would rather the series be canceled due to smallpox outbreak than watch either team celebrate another championship. That being said, I remain a huge fan of the sport, and as a Knick fan (and hence, an NBA orphan) I always look forward to good basketball, even without a strong rooting interest.

This series has provided nothing in the way of entertainment. There has not been a single noteworthy (forget memorable) finish. There has not been a single transcendent performance by a single player. Ray Allen nearly gave us something to be excited about with a record-setting 3-point performance in game 2, only to follow that up by shooting his next 25 3-pointers like a man with frozen steak fries for fingers.

I suppose it doesn’t help that Celtics point guard can’t shoot, dribble, or pass and the Lakers simply don’t have a point guard on their roster. Rajon Rondo, the newly crowned “best young point guard in the league” turns the ball over like it activates a bonus in his contract.

Kobe Bryant, the man who I’ve been told 64,785 times really really wants another championship, is roughly 2-62 shooting the basketball. The formerly great Kevin Garnett apparently used up all of his historically great passion to will the growth of a goatee.

Boston coach Doc Rivers calls timeouts every 29 seconds to remind his team to try harder. And, in fact, that has been the single superlative that any announcer can come up with to describe the action in this series. “They play with passion.” Unfortunately, the same can be said for the participants in leper colony intramurals.

I just stopped typing to watch the following series of events… Rondo falls down and turns the ball over… Kobe falls down and turns the ball over… Rasheed Wallace shoots an airball… Odom falls down and turns the ball over. The NBA, this is where AMAZING happens!

Thank God for Jeff Van Gundy. With 2:00 to go in the 3rd quarter, he realizes, “…This is one of the most poorly played games you’ll ever see.” I wonder if the NBA will order his ritual execution before the fourth quarter.

Apparently in response to Van Gundy’s criticism, Doc Rivers has inserted Brian Scalabrene into the game. I’m just spitballing here, but perhaps Rivers believes that if you increase the awkwardness factor of a game past its critical mass, an Awkward Vortex will tear a hole in the space/time continuum, allowing us to go back to a time before this abomination of a series ever was a twinkle in Phil Jackson’s eye.

While we’re talking about the past, let’s not dwell on the fact that the rise of these two franchises was caused directly by nepotistic, collusion-heavy deals that delivered these two teams their star players. Never mind the fact that Kevin Mchale a loyal Celtic alum (as GM of the Timberwolves) traded Garnett to the Celtics for peanuts, followed by Jerry West, a loyal Laker alum (as GM of the Grizzlies) traded Pao Gasol to the Lakers for peanuts. Let’s not go there.

This NBA Finals has given me nothing to cheer for. In fact, it has drained future cheers out of my body. It has been a black hole for skill, talent, and alluring play. In the words of Billy Madison, we are all dumber for having seen it. I award the NBA Finals no points, and may God have mercy on its soul. Regardless of who ultimately ends up with the most points tonight, there are no winners in this series. Boo, I say. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A 92-year old farmer and his son set themselves on fire yesterday in protest of a forced sale of their land to Chinese authorities. As reported by the Shanghai Daily, the bulldozer operators respectfully delayed their demolition for two full hours, and then proceeded to tear down the farm once the corpses had been fully extinguished.

To be fair, only the son died from the protest action. The 92-year old father was apparently more practiced at self-immolation and managed to survive. One can only imagine the full spectrum of horrors a Chinese Demolition Crew comes across in a season, given how desensitized they seemed to be to this particular form of resistance.

Why, yes, sir, I am a jackass.

From Droogie at Daily Kos comes a new and exciting competition (we here at The Mep Report take no obvious position on the content herein.  You’ll all just have to read between the lines for yourselves…):

The Out-Dick Jim Bunning Contest!

So, here’s a few of the things I’ve done over the past few days to prove my dick credentials, in my ongoing efforts to out-dick Jim Bunning.

Our personal favorites:

1. Hung around outside a soup kitchen and cock-punched the homeless.

1. Ate king-sized Butterfingers, deep-fried and wrapped in bacon outside the window of a weight loss center.

1. Designed a fully-functional Puppy Incinerator, that can engulf 55 puppies in a clutch of flame every 30 seconds.

1. Downgraded the Puppy Incinerator to make it less energy efficient and capable of producing four times as much carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, which is all sequestered in a poorly insulated vault located at a children’s playground.

1. Drove right into a puddle of water and road grime, splashing a busload of stranded single mothers carrying babies whose vehicle had broken down on the side of the road.

1. Posted videos on Youtube that claim to have new movies and music, but which really contain some techno song and footage from an anime cartoon.

1. Promised I’d give Conan O’Brien my late night talk show, then reneged years later.

1. Denied health care coverage to a toddler, claiming his broken leg was a pre-existing condition. He was born with the leg, after all.

1. Stood right next to another man at a row of urinals, even though there was plenty of room for a buffer zone unused urinal.

1. Heated up my cream of tuna with garlic sauce soup in the office microwave, then just left it there.

1. Told a gay employee that he’s free to do whatever he wants around the office, provided he gives me fashion advice and doesn’t “mince around too much.”

1. Borrowed someone’s car, then parked it across three handicapped spaces, then claimed the parking ticket and massive key-gash across the hood were both there before I borrowed the car.

1. Watched an old lady try unsuccessfully to shovel snow off her car from my heated apartment building, sipping coffee and laughing uproariously.

1. Yelled out the ending to “Shutter Island” to a line of movie patrons standing at the ticket counter — after they’d bought tickets.

1. Started the Facebook group, “If 1,000,000 people join this group, I’ll continue feeding my cat.”

1. Every time it snows, I yell, “That Al Gore is full of shit, man.”

Don’t think the moral lines are being blurred by those asked to go to war for the ideals of torturing people born in a different place?

Think again.

The girl is 4 (four) years old. Four. And you thought spanking was bad.

Not noted in the article is whether or not the man was well versed in the ways of fabled Mep target the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, whose headquarters are across town in Yelm, Washington. Perhaps he’d moved the family to Yelm after being otherwise unable to live with the things he’d spent his life doing.

I wonder if everyone supports this troop?

Other fun volleys from Conan and NBC:

- Conan’s initial response to the attempt to move his show.

- Conan puts up the Tonight Show for sale on Craigslist.

- Hitler laments NBC’s decision.

- Former NBC castaway, David Letterman chimes in.

As we’ve learned from his prolific action movie career, the Governator doesn’t take anyone’s guff. Ever.

That’s why it was hilariously reminiscent of my Ultraviolent 90s Cinema upbringing when the San Fransisco Chronicle revealed that Arnie intentionally hid an F-bomb in a letter explaining a recent veto…

For those of you who aren’t crack cryptologists, just read the first letter of every line of the letter’s body. Yup. That’s about as clear as Predator Camo Mode, ain’t it?

Apparently, the rebuke was in response to Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who implored the Governator to “…kiss [his] gay ass” at a recent California fundraiser. The bill in question was an Ammiano sponsored bill to fund San Fran Port operations.

Well, as we’ve learned time and time again, you simply do not mess with Arnie. Isn’t that right, Sully?

To review, I called out NCO Financial Systems for being a scam and leaving a recurring phony spam message about debt collection on my answering machine. In an interesting development, the calls stopped shortly after I posted about this, though I can’t imagine they would be coordinated enough for that to be anything other than coincidence.

Today, a “Jonathan Walker” offered me this rebuttal of sorts via a comment on the post:

“as you did your research correctly we would’ve known that debt collection agency will be breaking the law if they diclose any information beside the right party so how would you know that the company is a fraud,just because you got a message c’mon dude do your research correctly also the BBB has alot of complains about alot of companies why do you figure that the BBB only has complains about NCO financial system you are probably another consumer that owes a debt and the only way to get out of it is by saying bad stuff about a company,probably this is not the only company you have been writting about,SO PAY YOUR DEBTS!”

[massive sic]

I have two theories about this comment:
1. It’s a Mep Reporter having a little fun or trying to stir the pot.
2. It’s someone in the employ of NCO Financial Systems trying to cover for them.

While I’m always inclined to go with #1, especially after Russ introduced zombie flash videos into my life (not to mention the origin of the whole “Omaha” thing), I doubt it in this instance. For one thing, the post is old, already on our third page. A Mepper would press buttons on a more pressing issue. For another, a Mepper would know better than to accuse me of having outstanding debts.

For, of course, I have never accrued a debt in my life. There was technically a very small student loan that my parents took out for me that was required as part of my Brandeis financial aid package my freshman year, which was almost immediately repaid. Other than that, I have never owned a credit card (though I use debit cards frequently), never taken out a loan or a mortgage, even bought a new car with a check for the entire sum. I don’t believe in debt. So, no, Jonathan, it’s not my debt.

But I smell a rat in this comment that goes beyond the implication that I’m a deadbeat debtor. The post is old, so it could only have been found via search engine, unless this guy’s a regular reader of ours that was a month behind in his posts. So he was probably searching for NCO Financial Systems (I’ll check the search log when it’s updated for the day to see if I can find the referral search he made). And the misspellings and psedo-conversational attitude are a bit of a stretch, even for Internet comment buffoonery. Either he’s new to the language, writing way too fast, or trying to look amateurish.

More than anything, though, why would some random unaffiliated commenter come to the stirring defense of a corporation that’s obviously attempting to scam people? Who spends their free time doing this? It’s an obvious and inarticulate attempt to make NCO look possibly viable, to counteract the corporate image that is clearly tanking in an Internet capable of fact-checking.

The whole point was that I did my research, Jonathan. That was the point of my original post – look on Google before you call a dubious business back. This might be why you said “as you did your research correctly” rather than “if you did…”, because you’re subtly acknowledging that I’m right.

But you better get back to your workstation and make those robocalls. Or keep Googling and covering up for NCO. Otherwise, you won’t get paid.

OMG, he just took out the moon! That is one bad-ass, hockey-playing polar bear.

Faced with the prospect of becoming the most popular weekend pastime in the United States, the National Football League is taking drastic steps to withdraw from public view.

As reported by Time Magazine last week, the NFL has adopted a “blackout” policy, preventing local fans from viewing their team’s games if the game in question fails to sell out its tickets.

In the face of harsh criticism, NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, stood tough last week as he explained to the media that simply too many American moods hinged on a professional football result.

“It’s just too much pressure,” Goodell admitted.

Noting an unprecedented increase in NFL player-related violent crimes, Goodell blamed the American public for getting his employees all riled up.

“First Plaxico shoots himself in the leg, then Donte gets hopped up on goofballs and runs somebody over. Shawne Merriman just tried to lock himself in his basement with Tila Tequila. Can’t you see that you’re tearing us apart?”

Wiping back tears, the Commissioner continued:

“We used to have a nice little league. Football was a fun little Sunday jaunt in the park with leather helmets and a few friends. But then you had to care soooo much! You had to craft your little foam fingers and cheeseheads and spiked shoulderpads. What kind of self-respecting person wears a silver killer robot zombie costume to a local sporting match? Is that what we’re supposed to look like? Is it?!? ” Goddell whimpered.

According to Goodell, the blackout policy is intended to slowly wean the American public off of football for the time being.

“We…just need a break. We need time to work out our issues. We would really appreciate it if you stopped watching us on television if you’re not coming to the games. Don’t call us, don’t e-mail us, and please take us off of your facebook page. Look, there are other things going on in the world. I’ve heard that there’s some kind of national healthcare thing that you can go make yourself crazy over. If you really love us, you need to give us some time.”

With that quote, Commissioner Goodell retreated into his NFL executive tour bus to consult with his girlfriends. Press were advised to delete his cell phone number from their records and “grow up.”

Freddie, how could you…

In the “Countries That Shouldn’t Emulate America” category, comes the tale of six of London’s finest metro police. After apprehending a couple suspects who were carrying a large weed shipment, the officers decided to seize the property of the suspects, and give them the old Dick Cheney workover for good measure.

According to Britain’s Telegraph UK this is one of the most egregious police corruption scandals in the city department’s history. Apparently the officers, who included a detective sergeant, seized several flat-screen TVs, computers, and other electronics from the drug suspects. They then proceeded to repeatedly dunk the men’s respective heads in buckets of water, presumably to find out where they were hiding their Xbox 360.

Few of the specifics are being released due to an extensive corruption investigation. Obviously the city dropped the charges against the torturees, as it tries to smooth over this embarrassment. Though the details released were unusually grizzly for this sort of case, the corruption of law enforcement by drug money is an old and reliable standard.

Perhaps this is why President Obama declined to release bonus photos of the Abu Gharib victims. He didn’t want to give our War on Terror partner nations any bright ideas.

Originally posted on The Fresh Scent

Passionately following a losing sports franchise is sort of like having a mal-formed congenitally attached twin fetus to your skull. It serves as a constant reminder that you have invested a great deal of emotional energy in something that will never be a source of pride or happiness.

Sure, you can put a scarf on your head. You can change the topic of conversation. But short of dangerous surgery, you can never separate yourself from the fate of this being that nature has declared unfit to thrive.

Speaking of which, one of my new favorite sports blogs is that of Joe Posanski’s. A writer for Sports Illustrated, Posanski has a special ability to communicate the eternal state of suffering that is rooting for the Kansas City Royals.

For those not in the mood to read about it, here’s a quick video synopsis:

The Emu Peck of the Week is a new weekly feature on TMR that will point you to something on “teh intrawebs” that especially stands out, and/or pleases the Giant Flying Beaver That Rules the Universe.

In the first ever installment of the Emu POTW, I’d like to bring your attention to an amazing little website called FUH2.

FUH2 presents a special tribute to the GM’s defunct guzzler, Hummer H2. FUH2 is a mecca where hundreds of devoted followers take pictures of themselves flipping off these vehicles wherever they come upon them. There are FUH2 tribute videos, song parodies, and even a haiku:

Hulking black Hummer
Purchased in rank atonement
small peckered driver

And honestly, who of you hasn’t had the urge to flip off the drivers of one of these ego-enhancement abominations? Good thing for us that the internet always thinks ahead.

Brit news source TechCrunch is reporting that Trent Reznor is completely fed-up with his fanboy community on Twitter.

In his own words:

I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.”

Yes, apparently Twitter is nothing more than a Pretty Hate Machine.

Reznor continues:

It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck… Cutter’s tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff.

Now that’s commitment.

Everyone needs to be loved, even evil alien superbeings and cyber constructs. The following short is a tale of a love so powerful, it crossed movie trilogies, genders, and even parallel universes to come true.

This is the tale of Smith & Zod.

Feel free to  Digg this video.

“All I did was change my name, and your evil witch queen said it’s not allowed to be!”

Urrgghh. Again.

Dear Minnesota Twins,

You are now 3-22 in Yankee Stadium since 2002, thanks to three more losses over the weekend in each of which you had the lead and then decided it would only be right to give the game, through a host of hideous scoring squanders, pitching mistakes and fielding errors, to your aging, average opponent (despite its having spent 400 million in the offseason) which needs only your presence to feel good about itself again.  Since you seem incapable of rising above the standard of gutless incompetence which characterizes all of the sports teams in your city, we would very much appreciate it if you immediately disband and allow professional teams to take your place.  You know, the ones which don’t fall on their swords the minute they see a pinstriped uniform.

Sincerely,

Every other team in baseball

P.S. Oakland Athletics: please see above.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As ‘Fun, Watchable’

Being on call for jury duty this week, I found this post particularly amusing.

Full-sized link.

Download Mep Report #112

Now, obviously I’m not talking about the asshats who kidnapped Captain Phillips in last weekend’s widely publicized story.

But, as it turns out, the Somali Pirate movement was started as the “Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia,” in response to major EU countries dumping nuclear waste and other toxic chemicals on the shores of the recently collapsed nation.

Apparently EU dickheads have been abusing the coastal areas off Somalia for years, illegally overfishing the waters when their own fisheries became depleted and dumping waste that could not be cheaply disposed of otherwise.

Unfortunately, once the opportunity for profit came into the equation, more of the seedy elements emerged that make up most of the “newsworthy” pirate stories of recent note.

But, just like the pirates of old, their inception was just as much a reaction to tyranny and abuses of power as it was to profit motive.

So… Yo Ho Ho, and stick it in your craw, EU. Let’s give these brave boys their due.

No, I'm not talking about Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Apparently some mental health clinic aids actually encouraged patients to fight each other for the sheer pleasure of the staff goaders. Of course, anyone who actually absorbed Fight Club would know that fighting was just an outlet for post-modern male blue-collar angst and should not be the object of violence fetishists.

Wow, who ever thought that Walker, Texas Ranger would turn out to be a right wing nutjob? Everybody thought that? Oh…

Well fun readings in a recent editorial of his are to be had, anyway. My favorite part is where he alleges that the separation between Church and State doesn’t exist. Awesome!

But I swear that's what happened!

Fortunately Brandeis came to its senses about the Rose Museum kerfuffle a few weeks ago, but alumni just got a message from the president which was intended to “clear up some of the misconceptions surrounding these issues.”  I only bring it up here briefly because I get annoyed when other factors–meteors, locusts, a terrible flood–get blamed for something instead of the real culprit, in this case the administration itself.

–From an FAQ in the current message:

Q. What is the situation involving the Rose Art Museum?

A. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misinformation circulating in the media regarding the Rose. The facts are:

1. The Rose is NOT going to close. The Board of Trustees voted to keep the Rose open as a teaching and exhibition gallery that is even more fully integrated into University life and the academic enterprise.

Well, now, that seems much more reasonable than…

–From the original message sent on January 26, 2009:

I am writing to tell you that the Board of Trustees met today and voted to close the Rose Art Museum.

Honestly, what were those crazy media types thinking about?

–From an FAQ in the current message:

2. The Board of Trustees voted to authorize Brandeis to sell a limited number of pieces in the collection — if the need arises in the future. Nothing will be sold into the currently depressed art market.

Okay, well that seems like a sensible…

–From the original message sent on January 26, 2009:

After necessary legal approvals and working with a top auction house, the university will publicly sell the art collection. Proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in the university to combat the far-reaching effects of the economic crisis, and fortify the university’s position for the future.

Ah, E-mail. What a tremendous way to record, permanently if you’re careful, opinions and events. It does such wonders in compensating for faulty memory and uncertain history, don’t you think?

Download Mep Report #111

Brought to you by crap catalogue, Everything is Terrible.

Brandeis remembers its motto.

…since we’re doing the debate metaphor, I thought I’d finish with my “rebuttal” speech.  But since Jehuda ended up “punting” (though not surprisingly and unlike Storey, I applaud him for it), I figure there’s no reason to go through some big point by point refutation.  I’ll just make three final statements:

1.  The “revelation” in my comments about Storey’s argument wasn’t that he didn’t like art, but that he was arguing on the basis of that dislike.  And I haven’t changed my mind, since Storey (while accusing me of arguing “OMG ART IS SO GOOD!!!11!!!!!”) is actually arguing the opposite: science should be Brandeis’s priority, because it should be, because it’s science and Brandeis likes science and it’s a priority.

What?

The truth is that if we’re going to threaten to sell off art because of a financial crisis, we ought to be able to sell off anything–including expensive equipment associated with, I don’t know, science and athletic programs.  But perhaps that’s absurd.  Perhaps they’ve done feasibility studies and demonstrated that selling art, in a down market, is clearly the best way to make money.  Fine.  If that’s true, let them show the studies they did.  And if they didn’t do the studies, they need to before deciding that fire sales of precious artwork are the best way to rescue a school which it’s unclear even needs rescuing.

2.  OMG ART IS SO GOOD!!!11!!  This would indeed be a terrible argument if I had made it. Fortunately, I didn’t.  Allow me to quote from myself:

Art museums, by contrast, store important things such as, well, art.  Paintings.  Sculptures.  The finest examples of human expression.  For any university, one of the primary goals must be not simply to impart knowledge and provide methods of learning–teaching people how to learn, so to speak–but also t0 act as a repository and storehouse of that knowledge and its products, information both written and artistic.  It is only this which allowed knowledge to survive during the darkest times of our history when most people found things like books to be a useless luxury and preferred rather to burn them than read them.  An absurd premise?  Not if you believe, as Storey does, that America is on a path to inevitable annihilation, and that society will eventually break down.  If that does happen, you better hope some storehouses of literature, music and art survive, as they did in the monasteries during the Dark Ages, or get ready to start over from scratch.  I’d rather not go down that road, thanks.  And this is particularly important for Brandeis, a university which was founded on the premise of knowledge and artistic achievement overcoming the ignorance and hatreds of people more interested in behavior driven by anecdotal evidence (”The Jews took my job!  The Jews are the problem!”) than the common humanity reflected in the art all races, creeds and ethnicities produce.  Art was given to Brandeis specifically because it was the university which would not sell out, which would not forget, which would be a storehouse of memory.  It violates both that trust and the spirit which motivates its founding when it decides selling art makes more sense than closing an athletic facility or cutting a bloated program, even if such choices are really necessary.

I think that’s a lot different than ART IS GOOD OMG!!11!  The point, which Storey ignores, is that art is a significant preserver of humanity’s cultural legacy, and that Brandeis has a unique responsibility to preserve such a legacy.  And what Storey also ignores is that this isn’t just about art.  It’s not that people would stop giving art to Brandeis–who cares, if there’s no place left to put it–the point is that people would stop giving anything (save money) to the university.  No Judaica, no rare books, no period music instruments (Brandeis has a few)–nothing.  “But that’s silly…Brandeis just sold art!” No–Brandeis sold something which was never given to it with the intention of it being sold.  The fact that it possesses a monetary value is good for insurance purposes, for calculating Brandeis’s total assets against which it can take loans and the like, but it was never intended to be valued so it could be sold when the time was right (or in this case, wrong).  No donor in his / her right mind will ever give anything of this kind to Brandeis again when it has proven it can’t be trusted to maintain and not sell such items when it screwed up and is getting desperate, and I think there’s little doubt that this was one of the major reasons Brandeis backed off this past week.

3.  Finally, I find Storey’s argument about the Brandeis’s administration to be, well, laughable….call it the OMG BRANDEIS’S ADMINISTRATION WOULD NEVER MAKE A BAD DECISION!!!11!!!! argument.  I continue to be mystifed at what gave Storey this warm and fuzzy feeling about the administration, but I’ll just put it this way: Brandeis could have done much, MUCH more–as Jehuda himself admitted–to bring people into the process (and I’m sorry, it’s not enough to say “but people would have said NO!”  The answer to that is not to ignore said people.  The answer is to do a better job of convincing them–by, say, showing actual facts and figures rather than coming up with a decision that utterly excludes every affected party, including the museum itself .  I’m particularly amused that Storey, a resident of California which is in love with sending every decision to a vote by the population of his entire freaking state, is making this argument.).  When it didn’t do this, it badly hurt its credibility.  Do I think it intended to destroy the school’s reputation?  No.  I think a bunch of business people badly miscalculated the reaction to an ill-considered scheme, and made–as business people are often wont to do, reference Madoff, Bernie–a bad, short sighted move.  No one is calling for the Board to be fired.  They’re asking, instead, for other people besides the Board–like, you know, the university community which the Board governs and to which it is intended to answer–to be brought into the process.  That is now finally starting to happen, albeit later than it should have.

Other than that, I think my major points still stand.  The Rose was self-sustaining; its art was never intended to be sold, and selling it now in a down market would be an incredibly stupid financial decision; selling it would permanently ensure that nothing tangible besides money–nothing, not just art–would ever be donated again, or at least not for a very long time; and the administration, which botched this so badly, shouldn’t be trusted to handle this by itself again.  Now is the time for all of Brandeis to make a decision collectively, and I’m glad it’s decided to do that.  I hope it’ll maintain that far-sightedness in the future.

Run away! Run away!!

Before Storey and I continue our pleasant little war, it appears Brandeis has already ended the debate, while pretending the sides weren’t the right ones to begin with.  From Jehuda Reinharz to the Brandeis community today:

“Dear Members of the Brandeis community:

The past ten days have been extremely difficult for all of us. I have
heard from many of you and listened carefully to your criticisms and
constructive suggestions. I have read every message on the faculty
list serve, and the thoughtful letter sent to me by a group of
faculty last night. I have also heard from students, staff, alumni,
university presidents and complete strangers about my statements
regarding the vote by the Board of Trustees concerning the Rose Art
Museum.

In retrospect, I wish I had handled the initial statements I made in
a far more direct way. Unfortunately, those statements did not
accurately reflect the Board’s decision authorizing the
administration to conduct “an orderly sale or other disposition of
works from the university’s collection.” The statements gave the
misleading impression that we were selling the entire collection
immediately, which is not true.  The University may have the option,
subject to applicable legal requirements and procedures, to sell some
artworks if necessary, but I assure you that other options will also
be considered.  The Museum will remain open, but in accordance with
the Board’s vote, it will be more fully integrated into the
University’s central educational mission.  We will meet with all
affected University constituencies to explore together how this can
best be done.

I regret as well that I did not find a more inclusive and open way to
engage the Brandeis community in the deliberations that led to the
Board’s decision.

I take full responsibility for causing pain and embarrassment in both
of these matters. To quote President Obama, “I screwed up.”

Having learned from this experience, I will do my best, as will the
entire administration, to work together with all of you in a
collaborative manner. We must cooperate as we move forward to
confront our financial crisis.  But we also have to take bold steps.
Obviously, we have many tasks ahead of us regarding the curriculum
and the budget.

In meetings with members of the faculty and with students in the past
few days, I have been heartened by the enormous reservoir of good
will, imagination and willingness to work hard to guarantee that
Brandeis will continue to thrive as a first-rate institution of
higher learning.

Sincerely,

Jehuda Reinharz”

Translation: whoops.  Nothing to see here.  Please disperse.  I’m glad that Jehuda apologized for screwing up the rollout of this plan, specifically by not including others in the decision, and that he says he will learn from the mistake in the future.  We’ll see; I hope so.  But what needs to be pointed out here is that this is not the original plan Brandeis rolled out, which absolutely called for the Rose to be closed and the art sold (whether now, next week or next decade is immaterial); this is a frantic walk-back of an ill-considered and badly communicated scheme.  I’d like to take credit, but I suspect this had much more to do with the furious reaction from the majority of alumni and donors who made clear how universities who sell priceless collections don’t usually get more, you know, stuff to collect.

So good for you, Brandeis.  Next time, a bit more looking before you leap, please.

You're using me to justify what?!

I must admit I hadn’t expected a reply of any kind from a fellow Mepper, though I considered the possibility that some Brandeis alumns might disagree (though, as Storey points out, the vast majority of Brandeis alumni are as annoyed about this as I am)–but I must say I was pretty flabbergasted at Storey’s take on my post about the closing of the Rose Museum. 

And it took me a while to figure out what exactly was behind it…I mean, Storey’s not a big fan of a lot of things the Brandeis administration does (I’m surprised to hear of his positive feelings towards Jehuda, actually), so I would have assumed a fire sale of invaluable art to make up for the ill judgment of people who trust too much in snake oil salesmen wouldn’t have made his top ten list of good Brandeis decisions, let alone being a “brilliant and courageous move.”  But after reading through the post a number of times, I think I’ve finally figured it out:

Storey doesn’t like art.

Or more to the point, Storey doesn’t like funding things which, well, he doesn’t like.  Now this isn’t an attack on him personally: he’s extremely intelligent, cultured, obviously loves great literature, music, things of that nature.  And he brings up a lot of good points in his reply to my post.  But at the core of what he’s arguing is the basic premise that when it comes down to it, art just really isn’t that interesting to him, and since it wasn’t that interesting to his friends either, it must not be that important to Brandeis’s “educational mission” (which, apparently, refers only and exclusively to classes and classrooms–more on that later) as a whole.  Arguing by anecdote is always problematic, and even more so when the anecdotal arguments are based on faulty premises to begin with. So taking up the gauntlet, let’s take some of Storey’s general premises first.

“<1. Brandeis Needed to Make Cuts
I think this is perhaps the round-winning premise right here. Because frankly none of the discussions I’ve seen among alumni have seriously engaged this issue. If you’re going to argue that closing the Rose was a bad idea, you have to be able to point out what you believe should have been cut instead. Because Brandeis is (perhaps a little late, but finally) taking this economic situation seriously and being serious about their endowment and ensuring that the university doesn’t disappear in twenty years.”

I’m a bit surprised, frankly, that someone as naturally suspicious of authority and unprovable claims of fact as Storey would buy into this so easily.  But the basic problem with this argument is it relies on the assumption which is presented as a given: Brandeis needed to make cuts. An excellent argument, except for one problem:

How do we know?

How do we know that Brandeis really needs to make cuts?  I can see three possible things to explain why:

1.Because the economy is bad.

Er, yes.  The economy is bad.  But there are lots of institutions of higher learning–such as my own, which is much larger–which have managed to navigate these turbulent waters thus far (without the incredible tuition revenues Brandeis enjoys, by the way) without having to cut programs, gut salaries and hold art tag sales.  Certainly lots of adjustments have had to be made–hiring freezes, possibly, or reducing travel reimbursements, or increasing the cost of meal plans.  But using the vague argument that “the economy is bad, so obviously we’re in bad shape” doesn’t wash here, not without specific evidence.  Moreover, this didn’t come out of nowhere–the evidence that a serious recession was on the way has been building for many months.  If Brandeis truly is in such dire straits that it needs to make cuts everywhere to survive, I would suggest that the expert business people who so badly misunderstood market conditions in the first place that they put Brandeis in a terrible position are not the best ones to make decisions now on how to get it out.  File this under Jon Stewart’s theory that the bus driver who drives the bus in the ditch is not the best option for driving the bus back out again.

2.  Because the Shapiros won’t be able to give more money to Brandeis–in the future.

First of all, the Shapiros have made it clear that they intend (and will be able) to honor all their commitments to Brandeis.  If they are affected by the Madoff scandal, it would affect future giving.  Second, if Brandeis has lived so beyond its means that it’s relying on uncertain future revenue to pay for current projects, then again, I don’t think trusting the people who put it in that position to make the right decisions to fix the problem is particularly wise.  I’m sure even Einstein would agree.

3.  Because the trustees say so.

Sorry, but I’m not nearly as sanguine as Storey is about the reliability of people who put Brandeis in this terrible position in the first place.  This is especially true since the board obviously consulted almost no one outside of the administration about this: not the faculty, not the students (but hey, who cares about them, right?), and certainly not anyone from the Rose itself.  If you hold secret discussions, then publicly reveal your decision without any kind of public comment period, any solicitation of suggestions, any reaching out to other groups on campus, you’re hardly in a position after the fact to ask people to trust you.  Show some facts and figures.  Show me the programs you’ve determined you would have to cut if you don’t sell the art.  Show me how lean and mean the rest of the university’s departments and sections are functioning (how about those administrator salaries, by the way?  Are those, you know, in line with a university about to close up shop unless it sells some paintings?).  If the administration really did all that research–and I’ve got a Picasso to sell you if you honestly believe it did–then it should be happy to reveal it to everyone, or at least members of the Brandeis community.  What’s the danger?  People might find out things aren’t quite as dire as they’ve been told?

Hmm.

But beyond all of this, there’s one huge problem with the “but Brandeis needs to make cuts!!!!!!” argument: this isn’t a cut.  It’s a sale.  The Rose is a self-sustaining institution–it costs Brandeis essentially nothing to keep it on campus and running, as the director of the Rose himself points out.  This is an attempt to sell assets to shore up other areas of the university.  You can still argue a sale of assets is warranted–I’ll get to that argument in a minute–but you can’t pretend it’s a budget cut when it isn’t.

“And so Brandeis’ only alternative to cutting was to raise tuitions. And if you’re going to plant your flag on raising tuitions into a recession/depression when Brandeis already offers arguably the most overpriced post-secondary education in America, well then hats off to you. But you’re not going to win this round.”

Nope, it’s not.  There are lots of other alternatives: for instance, closing down the athletic program entirely.  I hope Storey won’t argue that the sacred “educational mission” *rumbling effect* is more harmed by closing a Division III athletic program r0utinely doing battle with the mighty NYU Violets and those titanic teams from Bentley than by closing a highly internationally respected art museum, but if he does, I’ll just say this: he does like basketball more than Van Gogh.  But just because he does, or I do, or Russ does, doesn’t mean that it has more educational value in the aggregate.  And there are other examples: the science program (about which more later), or renting out more of the unnecessarily huge student center which no one asked for but got built because a rich family wanted one, are two more.  But again, if the Brandeis administration did look into all these things and rejected them for good reason, let’s see the numbers.  There should be nothing to hide, and no reason to accept the board’s stated reasons on good faith alone.

Also: does getting rid of one of Brandeis’s significant assets make its tuition more or less of the “most overpriced post-secondary education in America”?  Just curious.

“2. Resale Value
So as long as we’re all together on Brandeis needing to cut something,”

We’re not, but on you go!

“the only task left is to prove why the Rose Art Museum is the absolute best possible thing to cut. And it is, big time.

The biggest, most obvious argument here is that the Rose Art Museum is one of exactly two locations on the entire Brandeis campus that contains significant stock of resalable items. The other is the Library.

I hope no one out there thinks that an art museum is more essential to a general education university than a library.”

Come on, now, who needs books?

…kidding.    But the problem with this argument is that it’s based on the at best unverified and at worst false premise that these are the only two options–they’re not.  But even if they were, you could make the argument that the Library, which is NOT self-sustaining, drains more from Brandeis than the Rose, which is.  And the more Storey claims the Rose isn’t used by the student body (which I think is based only on anecdotal evidence), the more his argument here falls flat, because obviously the fewer students who use something, the lower the maintenance costs (you don’t need to keep it open at all hours, you don’t need as much staff, you don’t need as much security, etc., etc.)  Fortunately for Storey in this case, I don’t agree that the Rose isn’t well used.  Unfortunately, that fact also harms his earlier argument about how useless it is for Brandeis’s “educational mission” *crash of thunder*.

“So why is resale value important? It means you can cut, pound for pound, far less than you would otherwise have to cut, because you’re recouping the losses as you cut. So really, if you don’t cut the Rose, you’re going to have to find two things of Rose-budget-size to chop instead of one, or maybe even three. Think the bowls-of-cereal vs. Total commercials here. And if you think ‘Deis alumni kicked up a fuss about closing an art museum they never visited when they were enrolled, imagine the fury over clubs or sports or classes – things that they actually used.”

Except, again and with feeling, this isn’t a cut.  The Rose does not drain significant money from Brandeis’s budget.  It’s self-sustaining.  There is no “Rose-budget size,” because there is no Rose on Brandeis’s books (in any significant degree).   This is a sale of assets, not a cutting of losses, and that’s an enormously important distinction to make.

And now we come to the real root of Storey’s approval of this move:

“3. WTF is an Art Museum Doing on a College Campus?
Seriously. Someone tell me. I never understood it then and I don’t understand it now.

This whole progression seems to me like someone sticking a pole in their back because they think it’s vaguely decorative and then getting accustomed to it for years because “it’s always been there”. And somebody walks up and says “we have to cut something from you – looks like that pole is pretty out of place” and then the guy screams and cries because he’s so used to the pole, instead saying they should chop off all his fingers.”

Um.  Wow.  I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for the “art museums aren’t like poles in the back” argument (can’t imagine why…), but here goes: Poles in the back serve no useful purposes, whether someone gets used to having one or not.  Art museums, by contrast, store important things such as, well, art.  Paintings.  Sculptures.  The finest examples of human expression.  For any university, one of the primary goals must be not simply to impart knowledge and provide methods of learning–teaching people how to learn, so to speak–but also t0 act as a repository and storehouse of that knowledge and its products, information both written and artistic.  It is only this which allowed knowledge to survive during the darkest times of our history when most people found things like books to be a useless luxury and preferred rather to burn them than read them.  An absurd premise?  Not if you believe, as Storey does, that America is on a path to inevitable annihilation, and that society will eventually break down.  If that does happen, you better hope some storehouses of literature, music and art survive, as they did in the monasteries during the Dark Ages, or get ready to start over from scratch.  I’d rather not go down that road, thanks.  And this is particularly important for Brandeis, a university which was founded on the premise of knowledge and artistic achievement overcoming the ignorance and hatreds of people more interested in behavior driven by anecdotal evidence (“The Jews took my job!  The Jews are the problem!”) than the common humanity reflected in the art all races, creeds and ethnicities produce.  Art was given to Brandeis specifically because it was the university which would not sell out, which would not forget, which would be a storehouse of memory.  It violates both that trust and the spirit which motivates its founding when it decides selling art makes more sense than closing an athletic facility or cutting a bloated program, even if such choices are really necessary.  And that makes art museums, especially at Brandeis, much more important than a pole in the back.

“I just fundamentally don’t understand why it’s even that great for an art program to have a fine art museum. Yes, you can get a closer look at some fine art during the relatively few hours the museum is open without getting out of your PJ’s. Seems like a luxury item at best to me.”

I think Storey would fundamentally understand it if he liked art, or found it valuable.  Creating a piece of art in your classroom and then being told “nice job, now send it home to mom and dad so they can hang it on the refrigerator” is not exactly what most fine arts students would appreciate, I think, unless Storey can convince the Musem of Fine Arts in Boston and the many others within the “cultural mecca” of Boston to take student work.  We’ll wait to hear the results of his request.

“4. Location Location Location”

I’ve already responded to this argument in detail above, but I would also ask here how this differs from the situation with the library.  Boston has more universities and colleges per capita than any other city in North America.  Brandeis students couldn’t go anywhere else to go to a library?  Really?  I mean, if it’s all about getting the kids out of their PJ’s, I suppose.

“5. Advancement of Art Education
Oh yes, this argument flows to my side of the house as well!

What the opponents of Brandeis closing the Rose don’t want you to realize is that the space for the museum itself is going to be converted into a fine-arts teaching center with studio space and an exhibition gallery!!!”

Dear God, that’s right!  Because we know that the space, once vacated by the art, will not present any temptation to people who have been trying to get rid of the Rose for years to be used for any other purpose!

….

Right.  First of all, Storey and I again just don’t agree on the trustworthiness of the board here.  Are we really to believe that a group of people who did no outreach, held no public discussion, solicited no opinion from the students who would be most affected by this decision, will then turn around and turn this into a fine arts teaching center?  I’ve still got that Picasso to sell you if you think so.  But second, if this is true, it obliterates the whole “budget cut” argument.  If Brandeis does turn this into a fine arts teaching center, it means it has to spend money to convert the building, increase hours to provide staff and security, maintain the building…

Wait, I’m confused…weren’t we trying to save money here?

Because as you’ll note, the minute this happens it becomes Brandeis’s burden.  Not the Rose–which is self-sustaining–but Brandeis’s.  And what happens if, a few years down the road, Brandeis finds itself in exactly the same position it is now, brought there by the same people who brought it there a few years prior?

Raise your hand if you think Brandeis might be tempted to cut that not-helpful, under-enrolled (using Storey’s logic) fine arts program and use the space for more, er, useful endeavors.

Moreover, once the art is sold, it’s sold.  There’s no getting it back, and I promise that no one will EVER give ANYTHING to Brandeis again.  Why do so when you know that it will be thrown away as soon as Brandeis needs some extra coin?  This won’t ultimately permanently end any giving of art to Brandeis–it will severely curtail the giving of anything not purely financial to the school.  And that has ramifications well beyond just the Rose.

Sooo, let’s now see what we have of Storey’s argument:

“Let’s see what’s left of Greg’s rant now…
‘This is indicative of a very, very bad trend: when you get in trouble financially, don’t look to the places where you’re financially strongest for help. Don’t go to the richest vein to mine.’

Why isn’t this a place where you’re the strongest? Cross-apply my analysis re: resale value. I think a big collection of rarely displayed fine art is about as rich a vein as you’re going to find at Brandeis, unless there’s gold under Volen or something.”

Nope, I’ve talked about this above.  Art isn’t a gold vein.  It might be an investment for people living in Westchester, but for most it is (thankfully) much more significant.  And such work wasn’t donated nor intended for the purposes of cashing in like a mutual fund when you need the cash.

“‘No, when you’re in trouble, completely obliterate something which doesn’t bring in a whole lot of money and the defenders of which will therefore squawk the least.’

Again, not obliterating the actual arts program, just the art collected itself. And not obliterating that, but selling it. It would be much worse to have a bonfire of the contents of the Rose Art Museum, I’ll grant.

Also, hard to imagine anyone squawking more than I’ve heard in the time subsequent to this announcement.”

See above for my comments about the altruism of this sale vis a vis the arts program.  But I’ll grant that there has been more negative reaction than I would have expected, which I’m both surprised about and glad to see.

“‘It’s the opposite of trimming the fat…this is cutting into the muscle first and seeing what happens.’

No, cutting into the muscle would be chopping a program that’s a known asset of Brandeis’. Which would probably be a science or pre-med program. That’s where Brandeis has made a name for itself and flexes its strength – cutting there would indeed be insane.”

Uh, why?  Perhaps because it’s not MIT, however much it pretends to be?  Perhaps because it’s a full university, not a technology institution?  Perhaps because there are lots of non-science majors on campus, more than there are science majors?

“‘Since it tends to be the business people who dominate Brandeis’s Board of Trustees who make decisions like this, I find this way of looking at things astonishing (though maybe I shouldn’t, given the way Wall Street conducted itself over the past decade)–I thought the whole business mantra is to cut the bloated areas, not remove from places where there is nothing left to, well, remove.’

Except for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art.”

Which shouldn’t be considered a removable asset–see above.

“‘It’s always the arts. Always. Every time, on any level. When in doubt, attack the arts. Low on funds? Cut the music program. Can’t make ends meet? Get rid of the art studio. Balance in the red? The heck with the theater program.’

See, this is exactly what this isn’t. It’s what it looks like at first glance, if one doesn’t realize that the space is staying in the arts program and that this decision was made in lieu of cutting faculty or classes in the arts program. It’s not your typical slashing of arts to protect sports or some similar decision that high schools make in these situations like clockwork. It’s a very smart analysis of a gold mine that Brandeis happens to have collected that is utterly tangential to the business of educating students. The arts program, despite a hit to reputation, actually thrives under this decision. They aren’t cutting theater, they aren’t cutting music, but they would probably have to if they didn’t have a whole bunch of paintings to sell.”

See, this is exactly the problem–Storey trusts the administration which has proved utterly untrustworthy through this whole affair, and I don’t.  Show the numbers, show the research, and give us more than “it was a hard decision.”  I’ll believe it when and if I see it, which I doubt.

“‘From middle school to research university, the script is the same: cut the arts to save money while pontificating about how difficult a decision it was, how much it pains you to do this, how truly necessary it is for the institution’s survival, etc., etc.’

I believe Jehuda’s sincerity here – I really do. I highly doubt he wants his legacy to be chopping out institutions that have been at Brandeis a long time. From his speech on September 11th to his treatment of the debate team, I’ve always found Jehuda to be remarkably smart and sincere. But maybe that’s just me.”

Did you get this from his “office minute”, or from his biannual letters asking for money?

“‘All this despite the fact, in Brandeis’s case, that how necessary this actually was is very much in question (given the utter surprise this came as to the museum’s board, director (check out his statement if you don’t believe me), faculty and students, it can’t have been in the works for that long, unless the university was planning this secretly for a while and is now lying through its teeth),’

Well, this is the fundamental question – is it necessary to cut? As someone who spends his days analyzing what cuts we need to make at a non-profit foundation with a formerly sizable endowment that’s evaporating ever more rapidly, I think it’s probably necessary for Brandeis to cut. Again, I trust them here. Even if they’re being a bit over-cautious, I think it’s brilliant and necessary to be over-cautious when facing this magnitude of bottomless pit type downturn. As my CEO explained when announcing layoffs the other day, organizations that don’t cut in a planful way ahead of when they need to end up cutting chaotically and painfully later than they should have. I like Brandeis being on this side of the fence.

As far as the speed with which this was done, have you seen how fast decisions are moving these days? Would you have believed a year ago today a third of what’s unfolded since then? It may have been something they’ve contemplated in the past as an emergency money boost, and they needed to pull the trigger when the Madoff thing hit.”

I’ve already talked about this many times: I don’t believe them (and will be happy to change my tune when evidence to the contrary is provided), and hardly thinks this qualifies as “brilliant.”  Smacking of desperation, perhaps.  And the fact that they would have contemplated this, and not going after a Division III athletic program or a huge science program, is I think instructive of the mindset there.

“‘since the art collection is likely not to fetch now as much as it was estimated to be worth then.’

This is a valid argument, but something of a chimera. If it were an up time, there would be no need to sell the art, so you’d never sell the art then.

Put it another way – let’s say you have twenty chunks of gold and a hundred chunks of coal and you need to raise cash fast. The gold’s value fluctuates from $10,000-$50,000 a chunk and the coal is always worth $5/chunk. If you need cash fast when the gold is worth $15,000 a chunk, do you sell the coal instead because later the gold might be worth more? I don’t think so. Because no matter how much coal you sell, it’s still freaking coal and basically worthless. And your gold will be foreclosed on by the time you get around to selling it, waiting for its value to pop back up.

I also question the extent to which the arts market is falling at a rate commensurate with, say, stocks or housing. Sure, it’s not an optimal time for luxury items, but rarity of items and auctions are mechanics that tend to keep these kinds of items in much more stable price rhythms than things traded on a wider market.”

Other people more expert on fine art than me have argued that this is a bad time to be trying to sell art–I’ll trust them more than non-art oriented business people.  Second, the whole point is you don’t sell art.  It’s not a stock and wasn’t intended to be such.

“‘And what happens the next time people defer too much to the Bernie Madoffs of the world, not asking questions, not following up, not looking for details about how this money is mysteriously being made, just happy to see the checks come in? What happens when the next set of big donors gets in trouble? Close down the music program and sell the instruments?’

See Greg, here’s where you really undercut your whole argument. The whole point of this is that Brandeis is getting smart NOW and planning for a future that’s less certain and rosy (pun intended) than the past looked. By putting money away now and shoring up the future sustainability of the institution, Brandeis is finding a way to make its own way forward and not have to cut like this in times ahead.

And if they fail and have to face a situation like this in the future, I sure hope they again prioritize selling off a valuable collection of rare stuff over cutting the actual tangible educational experience of the students.”

And I’m sure they will, since they won’t have learned their mistakes the first time around.  Indeed, what they and every other school will have learned is that when you get in trouble, you can and should raid your fine arts programs for financial assistance….as schools always, always do.

“‘So here is my suggestion to Brandeis, one of which I think many alumni would approve: have the guts to publicly admit you made a mistake, and using everyone’s input, come up with a way to ensure you won’t make it again.’

It’s not a mistake. Reneging now because people complained about an extremely intelligent (if somewhat painful) decision would be a gigantic mistake.”

It’s fair to say we disagree on this point. 

“‘Then stop this absurd and short-sighted art fire sale and go to your science program–the one which pays its graduate students far more than any other graduate program on campus–and take some money from it. Close down a lab for a change, or cut a grant, or freeze the funding for that new chemistry wing you’ve been talking about.’

Remember that “cutting the muscle” argument from before? Yeah, it’s here in spades. Science and research, though they personally hold even less interest for me than fine art, are what’s keeping Brandeis on the map. That butter stuff, the monkeys, all that stuff gets ‘Deis in the news even more than art museum closures. And that stuff pays for itself in time. Unlike the $5 admission fee at the Rose.

Props for suggesting a place to cut – not many are even going that far – but this ain’t the place for Brandeis’ long-term sustainability.”

Answered above.

“‘Perhaps then you’ll get some people asking the hard questions, and start finding solutions that don’t involve slashing programs which are fundamental to the cultural and artistic life of a university campus.’

Again, people are asking all those questions now, as evidenced by the massive number of people sharing your view. But I’d like more details on why a random collection of art is “fundamental to the cultural and artistic life of a university campus”. How was it fundamental to your experience? How did it affect those around you? What did you think of the Rose on a day-to-day basis? Because I just fundamentally question that there’s any real value there. I didn’t see it in four years on campus and I don’t see it now.”

But the fact that so many people have referred to its importance puts the lie to this view.  I’m not going to argue that because I didn’t go to the Rose much, no one else did either.  You can’t judge entirely on your own individual tastes.  Instead, look at the trends, and tell me what is more likely to go in these situations: fine arts or sciences?  Ever?

“‘But whatever you choose to do, please, just once, try looking somewhere other than the arts for things to cut. It’s about time someone else started paying the price for your ill judgment. I’m very fond of Brandeis and remember my time there with pleasure, but sorry…they’ve missed the boat badly on this one, and they deserve to take heat for it.’

Sadly, they are taking crazy heat for a really brave and brilliant decision. I hope they stick to it and don’t get cowed by the media and alumni blitz. Again, I can’t stress enough, the actual arts programs are getting more space from this transaction, while a misplaced museum gets redistributed.

Honestly, really, everybody wins here. Einstein would be proud.”

Thankfully, I think he wouldn’t.  I think he would be horrified that again, cultural treasures were getting sold off in the oldest capitalistic trick in the book on the whim of people who didn’t make their research public or their process transparent.

I appreciate Storey’s spirited argument, but I’m not convinced.  Brandeis has misstepped badly here, and it’s about time it started admitting that it has.

Anything this repetitive and oversimplified is bound to trip my Homer Simpson-esque “urge to kill, rising” mental switch.

A new and increasingly annoying twist is a remix of this advertisement featuring actors pretending to be ordinary people. They go through the motions singing the jingle, while self-inducing awkward fake laughter and mimicking general outtake-like behavior.

There are few ways to more poorly reproduce reality than to ask actors to play self-conscious, untrained, shlubs with a camera pointed at them. You see, most commercial grade actors are already self-conscious, untrained shlubs with a camera pointed at them.

Forcing people this vapid and shallow to look inward is a very dangerous exercise in existentialism. And irony-challenged television commercial directors probably aren’t the pioneers that we would choose to lead on this particular front.

My DVR is ill-equipped to fully insulate me from this garbage. Even fast forwarding through it makes me want to assume a sumo wrestling stance while shouting “FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE DOLLAH. FIVE DOLLAH!! FIVE DOLLAH FOOT LONG!,” at random passers by.

Please, if you have access to anyone that took part in producing any part of this commercial campaign, ask the bad men to stop.

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