An Ode to John and My Supreme Court Peeps
I took a class last semester with 15 freshmen and taught by NYU President John Sexton. We had a little “class dinner reunion” tonight at the “presidential penthouse” (which, um, is sick), and afterwards, John asked me to make a few “closing remarks” about the class. I kept it brief, but then I thought about it on the walk home, and ended up with 1,300 words. Heh.
I first met John Sexton when I was but a wee freshman staff reporter for NYU’s student newspaper.
I had been assigned the “university senate beat,” presumably because I was the only rookie without class when the senate convened from 2-4 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month, and while Sexton chaired these meetings, I didn’t actually meet him until November.
My other beat (yes, I had two!) was higher education, and in September, Margaret Spellings (the then-Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education) had published a report proposing a series of initiatives to “reform” American higher ed.
Sexton had vaguely criticized the so-called Spellings Report in October, and I had so impressed the paper’s editor by then that when she decided to arrange a sit-down interview about Sexton’s (and NYU’s) “reaction” to the Report, she handpicked me to do it.
“I told Sexton today that you’re coming, too, and now my plan is to sit back and smile and let you interview him,” she said.
Sarah had come to the first senate meeting with me to “show me the ropes;” I remember she would point out who was who among the school’s administrators, and we would write little jokes and comments to each other about the funny (and frequently ridiculous) things people said. Someone, maybe Sexton himself, made some ridiculous remark about NYU as a “gas giant” of American universities, so I drew a picture of Jupiter in the margins of my notebook.
“You take good notes,” she scribbled. More »
I’m Teething
Oh, LOOK WHAT I HAVE.
I was really hoping I’d be one of those highly-evolved genetic mutants who never get their wisdom teeth, but I guess now I can at least look forward to popping some heavy duty painkillers.
UPDATE: OH! And the doctor just told me that the molar which is bothering me (tooth number 32, in case you were wondering) could be really close to the lingual nerve (it’s impossible to tell from a 2D x-ray), so whoever extracts them will need to “really knows what they’re doing.” GREAT!!!
Wyclef, Wyclef, Let Me In; Please, By the Hair On Your Chinny Chin Chin
Wyclef Jean Gets Shut Out of George Clooney’s Telethon Money
By John Cook[ … ]
Of course, Yele Haiti also raised an estimated $1 million a day in the wake of the earthquake directly through text donations, and there are signs that it’s finding ways to spend it: It’s moved its headquarters from a desk in the kitchen in Jean’s Manhattan studio (for which the charity paid $30,000 in annual rent to Jean’s production company) to a 40,000 square-foot floor of New York’s Exxon Building.
The New York Post reported today that Yele is currently in talks to take over the floor, but Gawker intern Sergio Hernandez stopped by today to confirm that it has already moved into the new digs. He was there to ask for the charity’s 2008 tax return, which executive director Hugh Locke told reporters at a press conference last month had been filed with the IRS and which Yele is legally required to produced for inspection to anyone who asks for a copy.
Locke told reporters last month that he’d e-mail the return to anyone who wanted it, but our repeated requests to Yele’s publicist for a copy went unanswered.
So we sent Hernandez to ask for it in person.
They didn’t let him past security. More »
Rawr.
Did The New York Times’ Bill Keller Diss Gawker? Only Kind Of
Foster Kamer, the weekend editor over at Gawker.com, posted a great item this evening about Clark Hoyt’s take on this bizarre “New York Times is about to drop a David Paterson bombshell” story.
Hoyt included a quote where head Times honcho Bill Keller’s “called out” Gawker’s coverage of the story, and Foster had an (understandable) objection. But was it warranted? More »
