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KAREN LAUB-NOVAK
JANA NOVAK Jana's latest adventures can be found on her new blog: Latest Book All Nature Is a Sacramental Fire: By Michael Novak
Living the Call:
No One Sees God
Summer institutes TMI (Krakow) » Slovak Seminar on Free Society. Principles for the new millenium.
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Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part V & VI Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part V and VI of VI. Part V. The Theater of Board Meetings and Responsibility of Media No discussion of the ignorance in which the members of the Board are kept would be complete without mentioning the Board’s meetings, which can only be described as dog-and-pony shows.
The meetings are planned solely as a backdrop for publicity aimed at the general public or the Legislature, at which the administration presents whatever good news and statistics they have in order to show that everything is going swimmingly — except that the Legislature is never appropriating enough money. The agenda is tightly packed with housekeeping functions, such as approval of building plans or real estate transactions, and information presentations by various colleges or programs of the University — all telling of great promise or success.
Never, never is anything raised as a problem area in which the Board is invited to give advice or input as to policy. Policy is only presented to the Board for approval after it has been fully formulated by the president together with the Power Group.
The annual budget, for example, is one of the more important things the Board must regularly approve, along with annual increases in tuition and fees and major changes in college or program funding. But this is never on the agenda to be discussed during the year until the proposed budget document, which is quite lengthy and detailed, is sent to the Board a week or so before the July meeting at which it is to be approved.
In this theatre of the absurd, any Trustee who seriously questions what is going on is subtlety placated, cast as a “loose cannon,” or otherwise marginalized. For the majority of the Board who are not permitted to know anything other than what the president tells them, and who are expected to approve whatever is set before them, there is only one word: Baaa.
The Responsibility of Media
What was most disheartening in the past were the press and media. Undoubtedly that is changed today, now that the media senses scandalous stories that attract controversy and readers. But before the Sandusky scandal it was quite different.
If a Trustee raised a serious question at a meeting (unless he or she is was member of the Influential Ones) that Trustee would definitely not be sought out afterwards for interviews on his or her issues, and would not even be mentioned in the news releases about the meeting. It is like he or she never said anything — except when the issue had previously been a subject in the media; then the dissenting Trustee was merely grist for the media’s pre-digested mill.
Reporters would go to the press briefing after the meetings, and the president or public relations vice president clearly indicated what they were to cover — and the journalists and media representatives dutifully filed their stories in a manner even more sheep-like than the Sheep on the Board who cast the votes. So, for a single Trustee to take a principled stand contrary to the administration or the Influential Ones was to shout into the void.
Example: The Naming of a University Building
The Board of Trustees once had a written rule that no University building could be named after a living Trustee. Then one of the Power Group gave a very large donation for a particular building, and the agenda for the next Trustees meeting contained a resolution for naming the building after this Trustee, who was still serving on the Board. While I had no particular objection to so naming the building, I felt that it would be an interesting test to see how the Board deals with a clear violation of its own rules. So, I raised a procedural objection, and asked the secretary of the Board to read the rule, which she did.
At that point, the chairperson of the meeting asked for a ruling by the Board’s legal counsel as to relevance. Legal counsel spoke around the bush for some minutes until he dutifully ruled my objection out of order. I knew legal counsel personally; he looked at me sheepishly after his ruling, as though imploring me to understand why he had to do what he had just done. The resolution naming of the building after the living Trustee was then called to a vote and adopted.
During this entire exchange, the press corps looked thoroughly bored, and not a word of what had just transpired appeared in the media. It was a non-event.
The Opportunity for Media
Now, of course, the press and media now have an insatiable desire to cover Penn State. Unfortunately, it has taken charges of pedophilia to get their attention. If the media would only responsibly cover what is going on — as it happens, rather than after a crisis — it is likely that the University and its various parts could be run more responsibly.
I’m hopeful that today, after such a sea change in the landscape of the news media and in its delivery mechanisms, we will see an improvement in how the Board of Trustees and the activities of the administration and its president are covered for all of us on the outside.
Careers can be made — and lives changed, or saved — if young reporters were to adopt a more skeptical and discerning eye toward the seemingly boring details of boring men and women on a boring Board of Trustees, and administrators to whom they’re happy to defer.
Part VI. What is Needed Today
While there are calls for the entire membership of the Board to resign in unison, they are unlikely to do so. Therefore, the loyal Penn State community — students, faculty, alumni, townspeople, and all true friends of Penn State — must band together to replace them. The first goal is electing new Trustees who will speak out both to and for the entire Penn State community.
In just a few days, the Board will be sending out an announcement for the election of three alumni Trustees. Each alumnus and alumna may nominate someone by writing in his or her name on the nomination form and sending it back. It is vital that alumni nominate people dedicated to restoring Penn State’s honor.
In May, the agricultural societies in each county will have the chance to elect two new Trustees. It is imperative that loyal Penn Staters involved in agriculture throughout the state begin now to make sure that two new members who are deeply committed to restoring Penn State’s honor are elected to these positions.
Every loyal Penn Stater has a role to play in helping Penn State recover from this disaster. Keep thinking through the kinds of reforms that will be necessary to enable us to get back on track again. Keep sharing with others in the community the deep love that binds us all to our Alma Mater. Reach out to help one another. Most of all, keep your faith in Penn State shining brighter than ever.
Dr. Novak can be reached by e-mail at ben@bennovak.net.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part IV Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part IV of VI.
Part IV. The Root of the Problem: The Centralization of Power with the President The root problem with the Penn State Board of Trustees arises from the centralization of all the powers of the University into the hands of the president. This occurred in July 1970.
The Old Model: Shared Tripartite Governance
Prior to this, the academic side of the University was governed by a whole plethora of largely independent parts. These consisted of departments, loosely presided over by department heads, who were in turn loosely overseen by deans of the colleges, as well as a variety of relatively independent programs such as Agricultural Extension Services, all largely working independently, though in concert. All of these in turn were very loosely brought together in the Faculty Senate. This was theoretically only one part of the University — the Faculty.
The second part consisted of the student body, roughly organized as the Student Government Association, or the All-University Cabinet, or the Undergraduate Student Government, as it was called at various times. Believe it or not, in many respects and at various times the student government through its chartering powers had slightly more control over its organizations — such as the fifty-six independent fraternity houses, its thirty-three independent sororities, the house governments in the dorms, and the multitude of independent student organizations that existed on and off campus — than the Faculty Senate. Indeed, back then the student body organized more university-wide activities than the faculty did.
The last loosely organized third of the University was the administration, which was supposed to be directly, but was actually only loosely, under the control of the president of the University. I say “supposed to be directly, but was actually only loosely” for three reasons.
First, because there were often conflicting lines of authority. For example, before 1970, the chief administrator in charge of student affairs was the Special Assistant to the President for Student Affairs. But he had no authority to promulgate policy regarding student affairs — that was vested in the Faculty Senate. Thus neither the president of the University or the chief administrative officer had any direct authority over student affairs. The same lack of direct authority held true for many other sectors of the University.
The second reason that the president of the University had only loose control over even his own administration was that nearly all employees in administration could exercise a large degree of discretion in how they handled their responsibilities. For example, Agricultural Extension and most research activities on campus looked primarily to their sources of funding and the communities they served, rather than to the central administration for guidance.
The third reason is that two of the first two communities were like states in the Union, each with their own governor and legislature — the Faculty Senate and its president, and the student government and its president. Each had their its own realm of power and activity separate from the others. Thus, before 1970, the president of the University had limited powers, and power was diffused throughout the community. In other words, the president did not rule the others, but presided over them like a chairman.
Over most of the University, therefore, the president had little real power, although he had a lot of authority. The difference is this: that while power is exercised from above, authority is given from below. Thus the president of the university could rarely order what he wanted done from on high. But his prestige was such that deans, department heads, program directors, and student leaders tried mightily to get together from below in order to go in the direction the president pointed.
How Governance from Below Works
Prior to 1970, the president’s real prestige and authority did not come from a Standing Order of the Board of Trustees, but rather from the general understanding that we — students, faculty, and administration—were all united in working for the good of the whole institution. This is what held us together and made Penn State so dynamic. It was the source of our great Penn State pride. We did things, not because we were ordered to, but because we wanted to. We were tremendously proud that we all had a part in determining where Penn State was going and what it was aiming to become.
At that time, too, there were a lot of men and women who, although they had no power that you could see on an organization chart, were nevertheless so highly respected that their opinions carried weight far beyond their job descriptions. Penn State was not an organization of mechanical parts back then, but was an organic whole, where the slightest pain in one limb was instantly communicated through the whole body. As a result, there were hundreds of checks and balances throughout the university system. Nobody could get away with much for very long because there were too many people watching. Everything was everybody else’s business because we were all in this together. Everyone kept one eye open for what was best for the University as a whole … and the other eye open for what was not.
Before 1970, a Jerry Sandusky would have been out on his ear at the first whisper of improprieties. This would have occurred at the lowest level and few above would need to know about it. The problem simply would have been gone before anyone had to think about it — and the kids would be — and indeed were — infinitely safer than they are today.
The Change to Power from Above
After 1970, all this began to change. Not suddenly but gradually an entirely new mentality began working itself through the Penn State body. It said: all that matters is who has the power — and this is determined by organization charts. Whole new positions and offices grew up to make regulations telling everybody how to do their jobs. Turfs were no longer decided by what was best for the University, but by who had the power. Revered professors found themselves of no more account than a junior administrator. Countless rules were issued that made no sense to those who had to enforce them, but were ordered from on high.
Let’s now give an example that ties this all together with what is happening now.
Example: A Veritable Epidemic
In the 1990s while I was serving on the Board, several nurses from Ritenour Health Center were upset because they believed that there was a veritable epidemic of venereal disease — herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, AIDS, etc. — on campus. They came to me because all their attempts to get administrators at Ritenour or higher to do something about it had been fruitless.
The problem that I faced was that the nurses were afraid to allow their names to be used because they were afraid of losing their jobs. Therefore, I could not name anyone that administrators could go to in order to confirm what I told them. Nevertheless, I talked about the issue without naming any names with administrators who shrugged their shoulders; and with other Trustees who listened politely and said, “this is the president’s problem, he’s in charge;” or “We can’t talk about this kind of thing at the Board of Trustees level.”
By the 1990s, no one below the president had the power to institute, or even investigate anything, no matter how serious it was, unless his or her immediate superiors knew that the president approved. So, no word ever went out to the students about what some nurses at Ritenour thought was a major health problem.
(Personal confession: Perhaps I should have done more. I don’t know how many students now go through their lives bearing the scars of venereal disease. Maybe I am the Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary of a similar issue in an earlier age; if so, I know exactly how they feel. But I also know that even if I had stood on the rooftops shouting it, it would not have made any difference to administrators — it would only have been shouting into the void.)
The Moral of the Story
The point of this example is to show how the 1970 decision of the Board vesting all power in the president has played out. The moral is simple: Nothing happens anymore at Penn State unless and until the president says so. In this type of atmosphere, it is no wonder that a Jerry Sandusky could haunt the showers for years with no one taking action.
Under the previous system of governance, when someone of the stature and integrity of Joe Paterno reported to the heads of Athletics and Police Services in 2002 that a former emeritus coach was engaged in sexual activities with boys in the showers, these people would have done everything in their power to make sure that the problem was taken care of — and then prayed that the president of the University would never hear of such a disgusting thing!
But no, in a world where only presidential power matters, the only thing that Curley and Schultz did was to tell the president. Then everyone sat around for the next nine years waiting for the president of the University to tell somebody what to do. Since he did not tell them, Curley and Schultz did nothing more with what McQueary told them.
So, the moral of the story in the Sandusky case is the same as it was for when the nurses at Ritenour reported what they believed to be an epidemic: When all power is centralized in the president, Nothing happens anymore at Penn State unless and until the president says so.
Because of this principle of governance, Sandusky could go to the showers with boys for nine more years.
Because of this, two good men, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, are charged as criminals.
Because of this, Joe Paterno, the greatest Penn Stater since Our Founders Strong and Great, has been rudely kicked out of Penn State.
Because of this, the reputation of America’s most famous football coach has been scarred forever.
Because of this, our football program and our University are in shame and disarray.
Because of this, Happy Valley is now sad and distraught.
This is the root of the problem and the key to understanding how this whole humiliating affair has happened. And this, my friends, is the system of governance that the Board of Trustees set in place since 1970.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part III Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part III of VI.
Part III. Why We Hear Nothing from the Trustees: The Silence of the Lambs
Ever since the Sandusky scandal erupted, members of both the University community and the public have been puzzled by the silence of the Trustees. Many find it hard to believe that all thirty-two of the individual Trustees are in favor of firing Joe Paterno, and they naturally wonder why none of them has spoken out. When any other type of governing body is called to deal with a problem, individual members usually offer their ideas as to how it should best be handled. But there has been not one peep from Penn State Board of Trustees members. Why is that?
The answer lies in the rules of the Board, specifically Standing Order IX, which contains without doubt some of the most amazing rules you will ever read governing the conduct of democratically elected representatives.
Section (1)(f)((5), for example, requires that members are expected to: “Speak openly within the Board and publicly support decisions reached by the Board.” While the first part of this sentence — “Speak openly within the Board” — is laudable, the second part — “and support decisions reached by the Board”—is not. What the second part means is that no member of the Board may publicly speak against a decision of the Board once it is adopted. Thus, the silence of the individual members on the Board is guaranteed by the rules of the Board.
To get an idea of how ridiculous this is, imagine that the United States Congress had a rule that once Congress adopted Obamacare, no member of Congress could thereafter speak publicly against it or urge its repeal. Yet, that is exactly what the rule governing individual members of the Penn State Board of Trustees states. One of the constant mantras that I heard repeatedly while on the Board was that the “Board acts as a Board, not as individuals.” What this was meant to enforce is that any dissent from a vote of the majority of the Board is considered speaking against the Board itself.
This rule is further buttressed by two others. Subsection (1)(f)(10) requires the individual Trustee to: “Maintain confidentiality without exception.” Thus individual Trustees are enjoined from ever reciting the arguments he or she disagrees with. Think of the scene of the entire Board sitting as silent as stones behind John Surma as he announced the firing of Joe Paterno—and you will have some idea what this rule means in practice This rule is further employed to get Trustees to agree to unanimity after-the-fact, because even if they oppose an action before its adoption, they are bound to support it after it passes.
Subsection (1)(f)(11) requires that each Trustee shall “Advocate the University’s interests, but shall speak for the Board only when authorized to do so by the Board or the Chair.” This could be interpreted reasonably, but it is not.
How the Influential Ones interpret it is that no Trustee may publicly give his or her idea of what is in the University’s best interest unless he or she first gets the permission of the Board or the chairperson of the Board. Of course, no permission will be given to speak against any action the Board has already taken. Thus, once the Board acts, every individual Trustee is required by the rules to remain silent — which is exactly what the public has seen since the Sandusky scandal erupted.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part II Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part II of VI.
Part II. How the Board Governs the University: The Prohibition Against Knowledge As the Sandusky scandal goes on and on, many people wonder what responsibility the Board of Trustees has in all this. The answer lies in how the Board has set up the University to be governed. In a nutshell, the Influential Ones, most of whom are businesspersons, have set it up to be run as a business corporation on the model of Enron, concentrating all the power and information flow in the hands of the president.
To understand how they have done this we must delve into the documents by which they have structured the deal. While the discussion that follows may seem detailed and legalistic, it is simply a situation where the old saying applies: “the devil is in the details.” We shall be concerned here specifically with Standing Order IX entitled “Governance of the University.”
(Anyone may follow the detailed discussion of these Standing Orders by reading them for himself or herself. Simply visit www.psu.edu/trustees and click on “Charter, Bylaws & Standing Orders,” then scroll down to Order IX. Or you can download a copy from my own website here.)
The Board’s Removal of Itself from Responsibility for Policy
Section (1)(a) of Standing Order IX recognizes the Board of Trustees as the “corporate body established by the charter with complete responsibility for the government and welfare of the university.” This means that the Board is responsible for what goes on … but not really.
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Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part I Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part I of VI.
Introduction
I was elected to the Penn State Board of Trustees more than two decades ago, and served on it as an alumni Trustee for twelve years — from 1988 to 2000. I came onto the Board thinking that it was a deliberative body such as one reads about in civics books. It is not.
It took me years to understand what was really going on. In what follows, I hope to shed some light on the inner workings of the Board, as well as to explain both why the Board remains so secretive, and why it has offered so little public leadership to the University since the Sandusky scandal erupted.
The simple truth is that it is not simply one bad apple that has brought about the humiliating situation we face. Rather, it is the way the Board of Trustees has structured the whole governance of the University that has made this scandal not only possible but almost inevitable.
Part I. Who Runs the Board
To understand how the Board works, one must understand how one set of Trustees runs it. The thirty-two-member Board (actually forty-eight members when one includes the sixteen Emeritus Trustees) consists of four separate groups, which I call the Power Group, the Praetorian Guard, the Emeritus Trustees, and the Sheep — with the latter divided into two subgroups.
If I Didn't Need the Exercise Published by Jana Novak at www.murphyscabin.net I went out of town this past weekend for one reason, and one reason alone: to be able to watch tv. Yep. I choose to live in an isolated cabin with no television and barely any internet, and yet.... And yet sometimes ya just gotta watch....
Okay, so it's actually not just that. It's because it was the first weekend of playoff games in the National Football League. And I happen to love sports.
Okay. Not all sports. Professional basketball is just useless to me: put 100 points on the board and 2 minutes on the clock, and then maybe we have a game and I'll watch. Otherwise, with such a short shot clock, there is no strategy, no plays -- just egos running up and down the court showing off.
But there are some sports I do just love, and will go out of my way (ie, drive an hour to a friend's house) to watch: Professional and college football. I also really like college basketball and professional baseball, but not necessarily enough to drive an hour.
I will be honest, there is a much deeper reason and meaning to my love of sports: my father. For those of you who have never heard of the writer, philosopher and thinker Michael Novak, he is worth researching a bit, and you can check out his website here. And I swear it's not just personal bias.
Okay, maybe just a little....
I know I have talked repeatedly about my mother, and all the things she has given me and taught me. My father was also a critical teacher in my life, but I will admit that the one thing I associate most with him is sports. He, of course (he is a writer people!), wrote about it (see here), a book chosen by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 100 sports books of all times.
But he also watched it religiously, played it, lived it. So if you wanted to spend time with dad when he was in town -- you did as well. He taught me how to focus and how to ignore fear by throwing baseballs straight up in the air as high as he could and having me catch them barehanded. He taught me plays, strategy, rules and regulations. He taught me to note the camaraderie of the fans, the importance of the team working together, and the anticipation and tension and release that occur during every game -- a million times during every game -- and the joy of those lessons and those sensations. He taught me that sports were sacred, and bonding....
Which just means that while I might allow myself to skip most of the season nowadays, I will absolutely ensure I can watch my team(s) in the playoffs.
So I basically invited myself over a friend's house, and she and her husband generously and graciously took me and my two pups in for the weekend. It was lovely. Especially since they happen to have a huge yard with an 8 foot high perimeter fence. Yep. Hollow proof.
And I got to watch the games. And what games they were this weekend! Okay, well -- there was one game that was actually interesting!
More than that though, I watched "teevee".... And um, that was where the problem is, and a reminder of why I have so far chosen not to install satellite television at the cabin: I sat there and watched and watched and watched.
It didn't seem to much matter what I watched (though I'm partial to crime shows and home shows), I was just mesmerized. I didn't manage to go to bed before 3 am a single night while I was there. It was delicious, it was awe-inspiring, it was awful, and dangerous.
I barely walked the dogs (I might miss the end of a show, or the next one on after that one, or a commercial!). I barely showered, I didn't eat full meals. I sat and I watched....
I did nothing. And loved it.
Which is probably why I fully deserved my arrival back home at the cabin this evening.
I open the vehicle doors, let the dogs jump down, grab one bag and turn to go open the front door, and.... out of the corner of my eye I see Rilke barely in view up the drive, and Hollow sprinting after him.
~ sigh ~
As a friend pointed out -- they surely had lots and lots of peemail to catch up on. Umm yes. Clearly their inboxes were quite backlogged. As I saw no sight of them for an hour.
And then just now, on our late evening potty break? Well, Rilke came back when called. Hollow did not. She still has not made an appearance....
So it's become even more blatantly clear to me: these dogs do not need me. Frankly, they are pretty happy with the toys, treats and dog food.....but I think, given a choice, they'd probably actually hesitate.... Clearly they do not need me for their exercise or adventures.
Which just means.... If I didn't need the exercise, I would give up worrying about ensuring they have at least 2 hours of vigorous exercise every.single.day. I would give up on worrying about them period -- and just hope they have enough sense to come home at night before I lock up for the evening.
But the problem is? I, ummmm... do need the exercise. And I ummmmmm.... do need them. I need the camaraderie, the sense of a team working together... And yeah, probably the anticipation, tension and release of their disappearances. Well. Maybe not that.
~ sigh ~
Still waiting on Hollow.....
Oh wait, I just saw that the motion sensor light by the front door has just come on....
Collar cams. Yep. Collar cams.
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The Horoscope of Barack Obama Published in the Italian daily Liberal, January 1, 2012 It is entirely possible that this coming election day President Barack Obama will surprise everyone, even those of the current 54% who do NOT want him to win. It is possible that on January 1, 2013, President Obama will be studying drafts of his Second Inaugural Address, for delivery three weeks later. My crystal ball is alternately cloudy and wispy these days. I don’t have an Ouija Board. The signs in the stars are contradictory.
Still, as far as I can see, a year from now Barack Obama will once again be unemployed. Of course, he will still have his luxurious multi-hundred-thousand dollar mansion which certain dubious Chicagoans have bestowed on him, and his dear wife Michelle (who has captured many hearts her husband has not) will go back to her $350,000 job with the hospital she had a contract with before – or perhaps something much more attractive. There will be people offering top-top dollar for the services of her and her husband, too.
The whole country may rejoice that the Obamas have rejoined the top one percent of income-earners in the nation. The very one percent the President has spent the last two years vilifying as the enemies of the people, for not “paying their fair share.” (Actually, that one percent pays more than 20% of all income taxes paid. Obama refuses to say how much more is "fair.")
The President has spent most of the last 12 months campaigning for his reelection. He has not spent it, except occasionally, in presidential leadership -- over the Congress, for instance. There are hundreds of Congressmen of both parties who have never, ever received a phone call from him, let alone been invited to the White House.
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Truman’s New World Published in National Review October 31, 2001 The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan, ?by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. (Cambridge, 192 pp., $24.99)
Back when I was in graduate school at Harvard in the early 1960s, I hoped to do my doctoral thesis on Reinhold Niebuhr, so questions of morality and politics were uppermost among my interests. This led me, naturally, to wonder about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan — and the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo. At the Catholic University of America a few years earlier, a prominent moral theologian, Fr. John Ford, S.J., had condemned these bombings as immoral: They were the direct killing of civilians in crowded urban areas.
My curiosity led me to a joint study by U.S. and Japanese experts in military history, some of them in high enough positions to know the internal political struggles on their own side. Although I have not been able to locate this study since, I think its authors called themselves “The Pacific War Group.” Two of their considerations were new to me, a novice in the field: first, the pressures on Emperor Hirohito from his military command never to surrender; and second, the race by the Germans and the Russians to build the atomic bomb first.
The horror of Hiroshima gave the emperor a powerful argument in favor of a negotiated peace to spare the homeland. The bomb on Nagasaki proved that there might be a steady stream of such bombs, on city after city. I remember, too, vivid descriptions of the obscurities and uncertainties under which decision makers in Japan and the U.S. then worked: Neither could know the fierce internal arguments going on in the other’s inner circles, nor the most persuasive personalities, nor all the military intentions, nor the mysteries of the new atomic science.
I was powerfully reminded of this early study by this new book by Prof. Wilson Miscamble, making use of a scholarship far more advanced in nearly all areas than it had been in the 1960s. Miscamble produced an earlier study, From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War, focusing especially on the complexities of Truman’s personal strengths, weaknesses, hesitations, and uncertainties in the field of foreign policy. In this new book, he follows an analogous course — using all available scholarship to shed light on the human factors of decision making, but especially the internal controversies. Adm. William Leahy, for example, maintained that the atomic-bomb project was “the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.” Miscamble describes an army of participants slowly assembling to make, over time, this “most controversial decision” — passionately controversial even in their own midst.
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Called in Love: An Interview with Michael Novak By: Kathryn Jean Lopez Published in National Review Onine October 14, 2011 In Living the Call: An Introduction to the Lay Vocation, the philosopher and theologian Michael Novak and businessman William E. Simon Jr. have teamed up to highlight what Harvard professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon has called “The Hour of the Laity,” a real revolution in lay leadership in the Catholic Church. It’s a collection of profiles in Christian witness, offering both encouragement and a menu of options. And in All Nature Is a Sacramental Fire: Moments of Beauty, Sorrow, and Joy, Novak reveals his heart and soul, with poems he penned throughout his life, including some about his late wife, Karen. Novak talks to National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about both fall books.??? KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: You went to Rome to cover the Second Vatican Council and hoped to pay your way by writing articles? Who was paying rates then that might make that possible? Did you pull it off??
MICHAEL NOVAK: We carried with us a famous book of those days, Europe on Five Dollars a Day. Well, each day cost a little more than that, but each time I sold a book review for about thirty dollars or an article for maybe ninety, that was like adding an extra week — or two weeks — to our budget. Once you set aside the weekly amount for our pensione, the cost of two meals out was not high, if you picked local places. Karen and I were both Depression children, able to get along on a little. Since we were newlyweds, Signorina Baldoni started to pray that Karen would conceive in her pensione, put us in “a room on the corner” (which was supposed to bring good fortune), and made sure Karen had a poached or soft-boiled egg every morning, in addition to the normal generous layout for the rest of us. Midway through, I took over a contract for a book on the Council (The Open Church, still in print) that the author was unable to fulfill, and so that solved our problem in one fell swoop.
Calling All Catholics -- Opportunities for Lay Persons to be God's Hands and Feet Have Never Been Greater By William E. Simon Jr. Published on FoxNews.com October 8, 2011 William E. Simon, Jr. is co-author with Michael Novak of "Living the Call: An Introduction to the Lay Vocation" (EncounterBooks, 2011). This essay is adapted from the book.
Thirty years ago, if you had told me I was going to write a book about opportunities for lay Catholics to become more involved in the Church, I would have said that would take a miracle. I grew up the oldest of seven children in an Irish Catholic family, going to church every Sunday. I even had a sort of evangelical experience while I was working at a hospital during high school. But by my young adulthood, I was not a model of religious piety. I worked hard, but I did a lot of partying too. I got married at 27 and was divorced by the time I was 32.
I still have some trouble piecing together how I got so lost in my 20s. But slowly, I returned to the Church.
After an annulment, I remarried, and though my wife didn’t convert to Catholicism until 15 years later, we raised our three children in the Catholic faith.
My churchgoing and sacramental life became consistent. I juggled a career and a family, and on Sundays we would go to Mass. Occasionally, I would yearn for greater spiritual engagement, but that feeling would usually disappear amid the busyness of life.
But about a dozen years ago, with some significant professional and material success under my belt, I began to feel that something was missing, that maybe these three things in my life – my family, my faith, and my career – shouldn’t be separate. And maybe the balance among the three wasn’t quite right.
So I started to pray.
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What Obama Sowed, He Reaps Published in Stanpoint Magazine October 6, 2011 President Obama has just taught the people of the United States a very big lesson. If you want to hurt the poor and workers by destroying jobs and draining animal spirits, then do all in your power to discourage the rich from investing in new discoveries, new products, new industries. In his first three years in office, Obama has presided over the loss of more than one million jobs a year.
Ten Years Later, a New World Published in National Review Online September 11, 2001 Ten years after Sept. 11, 2001, the world has a different face, a wholly new (well, fairly ancient) set of problems, and above all, a new promise. The Soviet Union seems to have slid into historical darkness mostly unmourned. The Arab nations are in great and maybe hopeful turmoil — “the Arab Spring,” many call it. Ten years from now, its fruit may be marvelous to behold. Or it may prove to have been a false spring.
As Two Years Arrive Published in First Thoughts July 27, 2011 As two years arrive before your anniversary Mostly I think of you, my darling,
I regret the full weight of my personality
While you –
Regrets are useless, dear, I know,
I used to love so much the ducking of your chin
Two years!
Will you wait for me, my love?
How long it is, —Michael (April 13, 2011) Read more »
Without Secure Moral Identities No Democratic Republics Will Survive Remarks prepared for Hudson Insitute/Bradley Foundation conference on "Democracy, Identity and the Nation State" See full video of the conference here. By Michael Novak: Democratic republics with creative economies have not proved easy to defeat in war. But more than any other regime they are vulnerable to internal self-destruction. The entire foundation of a republic is moral or not at all. One of the foundational principles required for the survival of republics is the clear recognition that there is enough good in human beings to allow republics to work, and also enough evil in human beings to make republics necessary. In one dimension, republics depend on the ability of citizens to trust one another to hold firm to moral principles. In another dimension, republics dare not trust in perfect moral probity, for every man sometimes sins against his own principles, and for this basic reason all public powers must be divided, and all exercises of public power in the republic must be checked and balanced by other powers, as well as by other auxiliary methods. “In God we trust,” yes, but for all human beings there must be checks and balances. Read more »
Development of Doctrine in Islam After-dinner remarks at the Witherspoon Insitute in Princeton, NJ My prediction is this: By the year 2020, rough and painful human experience will lead the Islamic nations of the Mediterranean Basin to resound with positive cries for Democracy, Human Rights, Individual Liberty, and the Dignity of Every Muslim Man, Woman, and Child. By 2020, Islamic peoples will be crying out publicly in favor of regimes that allow men and women to act from reflection and choice, and to live as peoples who are free and adult and responsible, and are eager to show initiative and unprecedented creativity. Read more » |
January 11, 2012 Matthew Kenefick reviews Living the Call in the December/January issue of The American Spectator. Read the whole thing here. December 18, 2011 In a recent piece in The New York Times about Speaker Gingrich's Catholicism, Michael had the following to say:
He was just attracted by the stateliness and the beauty of the church, and the antiquity, and that’s what prodded his historical interest. As he got involved with the history, it blew his mind. There was just so much of it and I don’t think he had understood that before, that he really had a sense of the intellectual tradition behind it.
Read the whole piece here. November 16, 2011 Newsmax.com recently interviewed Bill and Michael about Living the Call. Watch the whole thing here. October 17, 2011 Make sure to check out Living the Call on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest news and to get involved in the conversation. See you there!
October 12, 2011 Listen to the podcast of Bill and Michael discussing Living the Call at the Catholic Information Center here. And make sure to check out the Catholic Information Center website for other fantastic events. |
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