Hanover Review Inc. P.O. Box 343 Hanover NH, 03755
Volu m e 3 8 , Is su e 9
Mond ay, O c tob er 2 9 , 2 0 1 8
THE JOE ASCH MEMORIAL ISSUE
A HAPPY FAMILY Joe Asch with brothers Peter Asch and Richard Asch (left to right).
In Memoriam: Joe Asch ‘79 The Dartmouth Review The Masthead
Editor’s Note: Edited and compiled by Daniel M. Bring. The obituary written by the Dartmouth Review will be followed by several written statements dedicated to the memory of Joe Asch from his brother, staffers at the Dartmouth Review, and a professor at Dartmouth. Thank you to Dartblog for allowing us to reprint many of these statements that were published one their site, and to the authors of them. Joe Asch ’79, of Hanover, NH, passed away on Tuesday, October 9th, 2018, at the age of 60. He is survived by his parents, Bob and Rosie, his brothers, Peter and Richard, his children, Henry and Tory, and his wife, Elizabeth. His sister Kate predeceased him. He was memorialized by friends and family in
an open service on October 13th at the Dartmouth Outing Club House on Occom Pond. Originally from Montreal, Quebec, he spoke fluent French in addition to Italian. At Dartmouth, he put his language skills to good use as a Rassias drill instructor, while also excelling in his major of History. A member of the Dartmouth Class of 1979, he attended Yale Law School, graduating in 1983. He worked for Bain & Company for a few years before setting out with his entrepreneurial ambitions. After operating a successful medical supply company in France, Joe bought and renovated the River Valley Club in Lebanon, NH, in 1998. Co-owning and managing the club with his wife, it quickly became one of the most
successful health clubs in New Hampshire. In 2004, Joe returned with his family from France to settle in Hanover. That same year he met a freshman, Joe Malchow, who founded the Dartmouth-focused blog Dartblog.com. After Joe Malchow graduated in 2008, Joe Asch took over the website and transformed it into a hub of investigative reporting and insightful criticism of Dartmouth College and its administration. For the last ten years, Joe ran Dartblog illustriously, earning praise from alumni and current students alike, and at times, drawing the ire of administrators. He was known for his cutting-edge, in-depth reporting about happenings at the College on the Hill. Joe was a tremendous friend and constructive
critic of The Dartmouth Review and a wholehearted supporter of all the students of the College. With Dartblog, he kept the administration on its toes. He gave from his wallet and time to assist students as a drill instructor and by funding a writing skills tutoring program. His tireless dedication to Dartmouth made him a model alumnus and an individual who will be dearly missed. Joseph C. Asch (1957– 2018) Requiescat in pace. In lieu of flowers, his family have asked that donations be made to the Dartmouth Outing Club or the Political Economy Project in his honor.
> FEATURES PAGE 6
Image Courtesy of Peter Asch
Protesting Thought
The Blackford Cloaks
Guest Contributors
Editor’s Summary: On October 23, David Horowitz spoke to a large gathering of Dartmouth students in the Rockefeller students at an event organized by the College Republicans. This event was protested by a large number of students, organized through a variety of leftist student organizations. Some protests that were actualized included doing homework while blasting music from headphones, heckling the nearly octogenarian speaker, and even public displays of erotic affection. In addition to these protests that were seen by many students, in-
cluding several writers for the Dartmouth Review, we have received a report from sources that infiltrated the leftist protest groups. Through screen shots, copies of documents, and from other people familiar with the protestors’ plans, we have confirmed that these sources are genuine and were party to much of the detailed planning that went into the protests. The report submitted to us contained allegations of wide-reaching protest plans that were not implemented, including but not limited to standing between Horowitz and the crowd while staring emotionlessly into the crowd.
> FEATURES PAGE 8
THE TRAGEDY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
GREAT PROFS: STEVEN ERICSON
INTERVIEW WITH JOE ASCH ‘79
Editor-in-Chief Webb Harrington examines the recent act of bigotry that killed eleven Jews.
The Review’s Griffin Mackey interviews History Professor, Steven Ericson.
One of The Review’s former contributors coducted an interview with the late Joe Asch ‘79.
> EDITORIAL PAGE 3
> FEATURES PAGE 10
> FEATURES PAGE 11
2 Monday – October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
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In Memoriam: Joe Asch ‘79................................................Page 1 Pete Asch......................................................................Page 6 Jack Mourouzis ‘18.....................................................Page 6 Andrew Samwick........................................................Page 6 Brian Chen ‘17.............................................................Page 7 Daniel Bring ‘21..........................................................Page 7 Protesting Thought: ..............................................................Page 1 Editorial: Tragedy in Pittsburgh........................................Page 3 Best Professors: Steven Ericson.......................................Page 10 An Interview with Joe Asch ‘79........................................Page 11
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GEORGE W. BUSH READS THE REVIEW
The Dartmouth Review
Monday – October 29, 2018
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MASTHEAD & EDITORIAL EST. 1980 EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief
B. Webb Harrington
Executive Editors Daniel M. Bring
Managing Editors Eashwar N. Sivarajan Alexander Rauda Tech Editor Erik R. Jones
Associate Editors Brian L. Drisdelle Jacob H. Swenberg Jacob M. Karlan
Senior Correspondents Marcus J. Thompson William G. Jelsma
BUSINESS STAFF President
Jason B. Ceto Noah J. Sofio
Vice President
Jacob G. Philhower
ADVISORY Founders
Greg Fossedal, Gordon Haff, Benjamin Hart, Keeney Jones
Legal Counsel
Mean-Spirited, Cruel, and Ugly
Board of Trustees
Martin Anderson, Patrick Buchanan, Theodore Cooperstein, Dinesh D’Souza, Michael Ellis, Robert Flanigan, John Fund, Kevin Robbins, Gordon Haff, Jeffrey Hart, Laura Ingraham, Mildred Fay Jefferson, William Lind, Steven Menashi, James Panero, Hugo Restall, Roland Reynolds, William Rusher, Weston Sager, Emily Esfahani-Smith, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Sidney Zion
NOTES Special thanks to William F. Buckley, Jr. “Ave atque vale., Joe.” The Editors of The Dartmouth Review welcome correspondence from readers concerning any subject, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material published previously in The Review. We reserve the right to edit all letters for clarity and length. Please submit letters to the editor by mail or email: editor@dartreview.com Or by mail at:
The Dartmouth Review P.O. Box 343 Hanover, NH 03755 (603) 643-4370
Please direct all complaints to: editor@thedartmouth.com
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win great triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to takerank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” —Theodore Roosevelt
EDITORIAL
Tragedy in Pittsburgh The Review has always been a heavi- the end of this article, but unfortunately it ly Jewish publication. Our current staff is the Review’s responsibility to accurately is heavily Jewish, and a disproportion- report on the mishaps of Dartmouth and ate number of our Editor-in-Chiefs have the mistakes of its Administration. been Jewish. It has been a point of pride President Phil Hanlon also sent a refor me personally that people in this pub- sponse to the national tragedy out to the lication largely treat people as individuals whole student body. This was very aprather than as representatives of larger propriate as during times of distress it is groups. the responsibility of our leaders to help I think it is partly for this reason that bring us together to deal with the tragethe recent act of evil – the murder of dy in a unified, dignified, and empathetic eleven innocent Jews in Pittsburgh, manner. Much of the email Pennsylvania - has afwas excellent. Hanlon is fected so many of our right that political divicontributors as much sions need to be dealt as it has. Such an act of with in the right way, wicked anti-Semitism by pursuing open diais difficult to comprelogue and “careful lishend for many of us tening and understandwho grew up in a funing across difference.” damentally tolerant na“Bigotry and hatred” tion. This is even more do not have a place in the case since America our society. It is deeply has framed itself as the wrong, and unameriopposite of Nazi Gercan, that people across many. World War II the country have been helped us become the targeted with violence Achilles to their Hecfor their religious or B. Webb Harrington tor, the Caesar to their political views. Vercingetorix. Even in this deeply dividDespite these great parts to his email, ed time, one thing most Americans can Hanlon forgot something important. agree upon is that we defeated true evil His message never mentioned the words when we destroyed Nazi Germany and “Jew,” “anti-Semitism,” or “murder.” Incut-short the Holocaust. The liberation stead his message was plagued by generalof the concentration camps in Europe is ized statements about hatred. Rather than along-side the ending of slavery as one of being addressed to the tragedy in Pittsthe greatest accomplishments of our short burgh, or to the thankfully failed bombnational history. We, as a nation, have de- ings across the country, Hanlon made fined ourselves by this victory and today the subject of his email “Recent National we celebrate tolerance, freedom, and in- Events.” While recent national events are dividual liberty, values truly the opposite deeply troubling, and the level of political of Nazi Germany. That definition is only division is worrisome, those are not what the ideal however, and ideals are never this editorial is about or what Hanlon’s accurate. Even in the United States that email should have been about. Hanlon defined itself as the complete opposite of should have focused on the despicable, Nazi Germany, anti-Semitism is too com- anti-Semitic, murder of eleven Jews in a mon. Pittsburgh synagogue at the hands of a Our thoughts and prayers go out to white supremacist. Al Nur, the Muslim those who were despicably murdered and student group, and several other student to their families. Were there words to de- organizations wrote incredible emails scribe all of the feelings caused by the evil that did do this explicitly and well, and man who did this, they would be used demonstrated exactly how such addresshere. There are none. We also hope and es to campus should be structured. In the pray against hope that nothing like this end however, most of Hanlon’s email to will happen again. Evil men will always campus put things in the right direction exist however, and not all will be stopped. and hopefully in the wake of this tragedy Thus we know that our hope will probably campus can be unified in opposition to never be a reality. such evil acts as those that were done in That is the Review’s response to the Pittsburgh to the members of the Tree of tragedy in Pittsburgh. I wish that could be Life Synagogue.
4 Monday – October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
WEEK IN REVIEW SENIORS INDUCTED INTO PHI BETA KAPPA A few weeks ago, twenty-one seniors were inducted into the Alpha of New Hampshire chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Dennis Washburn administered the oath since he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Chapter at Harvard College. The criterion for admittance into the prestigious honor society is that every inductee must have finished with one of the top 20 grade point averages in his class after completing eight terms within three terms after matriculation, according to Kate Soule, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa national governing body. The seniors inducted were Olivia Bewley ’19, Connor Bondarchuk ’19, Emily Chao ’19, Liu Chen ’19, John Davidson ’19, Christine Dong ’19, James Herman ’19, Meredith Holmes ’19, Young Jang ’19, Josephina Lin ’19, Andrew Liu ’19, Anant Mishra ’19, Colleen O ’Connor ’19, Siyuan Sonia Qin ’19, Sonia Rowley ’19, Samantha Stern ’19, Alexander Sullivan ’19, Arvind Suresh ’19, Elizabeth Terman ’19, Ruoni Wang ’19, and David Wong ’19. In addition to these members of the Class of 2019, the Phi Beta Kappa Sophomore Prize was awarded to nine members of the Class of 2020. These juniors are not officially Phi Beta Kappa inductees, but are each well on their way to being one. Dartmouth’s Phi Beta Kappa Chapter was founded in 1787, only eleven years after the honor society was established. The fourth oldest in the nation, Dartmouth’s chapter is one of 286 chapters in the country, and the twenty-one inductees are among only a half million living members of the honor society. We at The Dartmouth Review would like to congratulate these students of The College on four dominant years at this small liberal arts college and on a well-deserved education.
MASSACRE AT TREE OF LIFE CONGREGATION On Saturday, the people of the Tree of Life Congregation, a large Pittsburgh synagogue, gathered for a peaceful morning of worship. What they got, was far
from peaceful. During the worship, 46-year-old Robert Bowers burst into the synagogue and opened fire indiscriminately at the crowded room. Bowers, a man who had a long history of posting anti-Semitic threats online, finally acted upon his word and massacred 11 Jewish people and injured 6 more. During the attack, Bowers continued to proudly proclaim his hatred for Jewish people. “They’re committing genocide to my people,” Bowers told one officer. “I just want to kill Jews.” Make no mistake, this is an explicit and horrific attack on the Jewish people. With such a history of not only making anti-Semitic comments online, but threatening physical violence, it’s shameful that preventative law enforcement absolutely broke down. This is a chilling reminder that anti-Semitism is still alive and well, not just overseas, but in our own neighborhoods and communities. Regardless of sex, race, religion, creed, or national origin, each person deserves to be safe in this country, especially at a place of worship. Preventative law enforcement absolutely failed in this situation, but we must put the onus on ourselves to self-police and address or report radicals who preach threats of physical violence against different groups. We live in a society that has become particularly uncivil with each other as of late but calls for violence against different groups are unacceptable. Jewish people deserve better than this. If people begin to fear for their lives in public just because of their faith and heritage, this will begin to chip away at the pillars that uphold our free and civil society. “It’s a very horrific crime scene,” Wendell Hissrich, the city’s public safety director told reporters. “It’s one of the worst that I’ve seen, and I’ve been on some plane crashes. It’s very bad.” Anyone who is ignorant enough to believe that anti-Semitism is dead in the West ought to listen to the chilling accounts of Saturday’s events. Bigotry has no place in the Dartmouth community. We as a community must come together and make it clear that hatred or threats directed at Jewish people or Judaism have no place on our campus.
ALUMNUS DONATES $10 MILLION TO THAYER EXPANSION PROJECT On October 16, disloyal son of Dartmouth President Philip J. Hanlon appeared at an alumni event in Stamford, CT, announcing that the college had accepted a $10 million donation from Scott Stuart ’89 and his wife
Lisa. Stuart, an undergraduate English major with an MBA from Stanford, founded the Greenwich-based firm Sageview Capital in 2005. The couple has had two children who have attended the College, a ’16 and a ’20. Their donation will work to transform the West End of campus by putting computer science and engineering under a single roof. The overarching goal of this expansion is to turn the end of Tuck Drive into a sort of technology “hub.” This would create a more immersive environment for students and would allow for further interdepartmental ventures into fields such as machine learning, cybersecurity, and robotics. 70% of undergraduates take an engineering or computer science course during their time at The College, and thus this project has the potential to revolutionize Dartmouth’s STEM experience altogether. This proposed expansion of Thayer would also house the new Magnuson Family Center for Entrepreneurship, formerly known as The Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, as well as a new facility containing a state-of-the-art scanning-electron microscope. With this new donation, fundraising for the West End project has come to a total of $136 million out of the College’s $200 million goal. The hope is to procure the remaining funding before construction is slated to begin in the Spring of 2019, which so happens to be Dartmouth’s 250th anniversary year. With a goal to raise another $24 million by the end of the month, The College’s efforts are certainly ambitious; at least the funding is being dedicated to a concrete academic improvement and not just thrown recklessly into the dumpster that is the housing communities. The Stuarts also serve on the Executive Committee for The College’s “Call to Lead” capital campaign, which has purportedly raised $1.8 billion out of its $3 billion goal so far. With more, similar alumni events coming soon, the administration hopes to see more donations on the horizon soon.
A DEAD BONFIRE- BUT NOT THE WORST CLASS EVER On October 26, The College celebrated this year’s Dartmouth Night, 123 years after the first such event. Colloquially known as Homecoming, Dartmouth welcomes back its illustrious alumni for one glorious night of celebration of the institution’s traditions. This year, however, several changes were made to both the Homecoming Bonfire and to the event’s specifics, changes reported in this humble paper last week. As a result, the fire was reduced to little more than a glorified camp-
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Brian L. Drisdelle Philip R. Swanson James S. Rikton Eashwar N. Sivarajan Richard B. Klemente fire, and the recently matriculated Class of 2022, to a group of Boy Scouts who marched exactly one lap in lockstep around the once-spectacular fire. Despite the customary singing of the “Alma Mater,” (itself an “inclusive” version of Men of Dartmouth) Hanlon’s administration let the old traditions fail. The President of The College was derelict in his duty to the institution, and surrendered to the unreasonable demands of the Town of Hanover. The fire was smaller, the Class of 2022 did not run around the fire 22 timesas is tradition- and most importantly, not one student attempted to touch the fire. As much as the upperclassmen blame the freshmen for failing to do so, Hanlon and his administration made it practically impossible to touch the fire, imposing severe punishments on those who did so last year. A beam of light shines through a chink in the administration’s dark armor, though. More than fifty freshmen were seen running around the artificial perimeter of the fire after end of Dartmouth Night, in solemn defiance of the edict issued by the administration. That, and that alone, gives us hope for the future and comfort that the ‘22s might not be the worst class ever.
DAVID HOROWITZ COMES TO DARTMOUTH On Tuesday, the Dartmouth College Republicans hosted David Horowitz, a conservative legend who used to be one of the early adherents of the New Left, to speak on “Identity Politics and the Totalitarian Threat from the Left.” He attributes his rightward political shift to Betty Van Patters’s murder, which may or may not have been committed by the Black Panthers, an organization with which Horowitz had had deep ties. Mr. Horowitz last came to Dartmouth along with Bill Buckley thirty years ago, to defend this humble paper from the baseless attacks of then-President James Oliver Freedman. The talk was disrupted by numerous protesters, as one has come to expect from the babies the administration coddles night and day. Mr. Horowitz, perhaps due to a mole in the protester’s circles, was aware of everything the protesters planned to do, which allowed him to ridicule their juvenile actions. Even when faced with everything from staged walkouts, a flurry of signs, passionate kissing shared between two “gender-queer” students, and the ridiculous image of people doing their homework while listening to music loudly enough to disrupt other attendees, the speaker remained undeterred in his educational oration. Horowitz began his speech by rightly attacking The College’s administration and students and their close-minded bigotry, which, as one would imagine, was not popular with the leftists in the audience. He then debunked various myths that terroristic politicians who call themselves Palestinians spew every day. Triggering was had aplenty; many of Dartmouth’s leftists were unable to handle the full-throated defense of The Jewish State of Israel, causing them to screech like banshees and storm out of the room. Horowitz also attacked many of the Left’s favorite people, particularly the Palestinian nationalists (“The Palestinian national movement was based on ‘a series of monstrous lies’ and anti-Semitic beliefs”), the “marginalized” (“The only serious race war in America is against white males”), and Christine Blasey Ford (“she wanted to destroy a man’s life without coming forward”). Barely five minutes into the talk, the audience in the packed lecture hall started to realize Horowitz was unlike most speakers invited to Dartmouth. He lacked the grace characteristic of famous personalities and the panache that normally comes with age. Unencumbered by his reputation, the near-octogenarian lambasted the protesters every chance he got, and thanks to the infantile students, he could barely get through fifteen minutes of lecturing. With signs saying
“Trans Rights are Human Rights,” one student continually interrupted the talk, and when an uncharacteristically restrained Mr. Horowitz asked for the most egregious disruptors to be ejected, Hanlon’s administrators did worse than nothing, at one point asking the speaker if he wanted to end his talk. Despite the audience’s reaction, Horowitz’s opinion on the Palestinians were not his most controversial. Perhaps it is because Israel is far away in the Middle-East that the relatively mild remarks on the state of treatment of African-Americans in America garnered the most outrage. He said that no one was leaving the country because they were oppressed, citing the lack of an exodus of African-Americans from the country as evidence against systemic oppression. Despite having explicitly stated that bigots who mistreated certain groups of people existed, Horowitz was bombarded by the same question over and over during the Q&A session, based on the false premise that Horowitz had claimed that “oppression does not exist.” Another “provocative” statement of Horowitz’s was, “White people ended slavery,” an inarguably true statement. Naturally, the same Left which equates the phrase “It’s OK to be White” to the Fourteen Words would hear this factoid as “White People are not responsible for slavery.” A similar reaction followed the
sentiment, “The only serious race war in America is against white males” Some in the audience were visibly distraught at every statement Horowitz made, and some erupted into shouting at him. One protester screamed, “Hey Horowitz, black people don’t need your help,” to which Horowitz responded, “I wouldn’t help you if you were drowning.” The pithy retort, as one would expect, was not well-received by some attendees. Despite the fact that the College Republicans banned signs from the lecture hall, many protesters ignored this policy and dropped banners on the floor whenever one of them left the room. Mr. Horowitz, however inelegantly, took it upon himself to ridicule the childish students into allowing him to speak interrupted. He referred to two protesters “making out” in public as “disgusting,” to the protesters in general as “guerrillas,” “self-inflicted imbeciles,” “idiots,” and “jacka*ses.” While Horowitz’s insults made the talk more entertaining, this review would have been more substantive had the Left not tried to shout him down. Horowitz came to The College once thrirty years ago, and faced no protests. Hopefully, if he chooses to return to this small college, her students will let him speak. That’s literally the least they could do.
CARTOON
“What are these guys with chainsaws doing on the Green?”
CARTOON
“The ‘22s are running around the bonfire anyway!”
6 Monday – October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES
Joe Asch: You Will Be Missed Joe, we hardly knew ye…. From Pete Asch, Joe’s younger brother Much has been written about Joe. The words that I believe captured Joe’s essence were written by the Chabad Rabbi, Moshe Gray in the Dartblog. “Joe was unapologetically honest, and if you couldn’t reciprocate, you weren’t his friend for very long”. From the days I began to know him (50+ years ago), Joe was different and was forthright to a fault. He mixed this honesty with deep intellectual curiosity, a longing to find the truth, and an ability to explain the truth as he saw it with an unusually strong grasp and command of the English language. After Joe graduated Yale Law, he challenged me to prove 2 + 2 = 4. Joe said, “I can prove to you 2 + 2 equals 5”. By this time I was in my early twenties and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and declined the debate, mostly because I knew Joe would be relentless until I acquiesced! Unlike many intellectuals, Joe also had an entrepreneurial streak that caused him to ACT on his thoughts. An opportunity was not just something to ponder and intellectualize, Joe had to DO something about it. This entrepreneurial gift in Joe caused him to build and create, always seeking to improve and do so with an exactness and perfection that came deep within his belief system. Joe’s curiosity also took him to places all over the globe and he relished learning and improving, and was relentless in his quest to understand cultures. Most of us trade our absolute beliefs for a larger amount of peace and contentedness, an often essential compromise we accept as a consequence of a complicated world, one filled with a diverse range of people and a multitude of opinion. Joe was a complicated man and his thirst for exactness and accuracy transcended everything he did. Joe wanted the best of everything and he fought for this value his entire life. He had extremely strong opinions, and our beliefs were often at odds. Nonetheless, he taught me a lot about ambition, exactness, the wonder of travel and the highest of standards. Joe was additionally a generous person and would have people over to his Mr. Bring is a sophomore at the College and an Executive Editor at The Dartmouth Review.
JOE ASCH’S PARENTS Bob and Rosie Asch home in Hanover or in Paris on but you found so unsatisfying. invited me into his home in a frequent basis, either to stay Hopefully now in the after-life the heart of Paris’ beautiful for dinner or simply to stay you have found true happiness, 16th Arrondissement; he introduced me to his family and over, often for days at a time satisfaction and contentment. his African grey parrot - an or even weeks. This generosity impressive bird who, in many is well documented in people’s I truly wish this for you. ways, reflected many aspects of tributes in the Dartblog. Joe himself - and we sat down It seemed fitting that on the Joe Asch – Rest in Peace. for a glass of wine and some day of Joe’s Memorial, there test appetizers Elizabeth was would be a double rainbow for a few brief moments, and Joe’s From Jack F. Mourouzis ’18, preparing in anticipation of the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. family would be driving by. A Editor-in-Chief Emeritus: coincidence? A sign? Who is Originally Published on Dart- After a while, we moved on to a fantastic bistro just across to say or opine with certitude blog on October 18th, 2018 the block where we enjoyed a over such things. We simply happened to be driving by after My first correspondence fantastic French menu. When a heartfelt and loving tribute with Joe was during my sopho- I pulled out my wallet to pay, to Joe, his life and his accom- more fall at Dartmouth. Short- he waved it away and leaned plishments. ly before Thanksgiving, I was in, saying to me: “Don’t pay The gift of Dartmouth was visiting some friends in Paris. me back. I tell everyone I meet truly on display at the Memo- Given my flexible time and my with, pay it forward to another rial – the quality of the people, friends’ preoccupation with undergrad one day.” Since then, Joe and I corthe thoughtfulness and the wis- school, I was left with a few responded regularly on topdom in their words, the gener- free days on my own to explore ics ranging from our mutual osity of spirit in their actions the city. On a whim, I decided love for the City of Light to and the tenderness and caring to reach out to Joe via email. incessant ranting about Phil in everyone’s words. Some- Up until that point, I had Hanlon’s direction of Dartthing about a rainbow gives us been a casual yet loyal reader mouth. Joe mentored me in a deep sense of joy. A rainbow of Dartblog, enjoying his peswriting throughout the rest of over the Dartmouth green after simistic-yet-hopeful musings my Dartmouth career, and afmy Brother’s service, greater on the College’s many troubled ter I became Editor-in-Chief joy. Indeed, life does happen, facets. I’ll admit, I was certainof The Dartmouth Review, he would help us coordinate news “‘Joe was unapologetically honest, and if campaigns to help bring about you couldn’t reciprocate you weren’t his meaningful change at the College, and would even occasionfriend for very long’” ally stop by our office to meet with the staff as we worked. both for good and for ill. ly intimidated; it seemed out He offered me heartfelt career To My Brother Joe, I learned of place for a lowly sophomore advice and encouraged me to many things from you. You to reach out to such a distin- do whatever I can to get out were a fighter and a maverick guished and successful alum- and see the world. He always and you plowed your own path nus. Regardless, I invited him spoke passionately about his through all obstacles. This sin- to meet for coffee for a dis- business endeavors; I will nevgle mindedness took you far in cussion on the state of affairs er again meet someone who the world you so dearly loved at the College. He graciously could so passionately and er-
Image Courtesy of Peter Asch uditely speak about running a fitness center, regulations on child care centers, and needle manufacturing. But, of course, the topics were unlimited given the breadth of his knowledge and wealth of experience. And - most important of all - he did it with a pep in his step and a fiery love of gelato. African grey parrots are certainly not the most attractive of avians; their dull, disheveled appearance pales in comparison to many other species in the order Psittaciformes. Rather, the bird is well-known and popular due to its intelligence and vocal nature. I found Joe’s choice of this bird as his pet quite appropriate. With his razor-sharp intellect and passionate vocalization, and to the best of his ability, Joe ran his flagship in the perpetual fight to preserve the dignity and reputation of Dartmouth College - an institution he loved with all his heart. He never backed down, even when his opinions were not always popular with the masses. I can only hope that the world comes to know many more men like Joe, who fight for their convictions and for their success with a fiery passion and who enjoy purely the world and all the fine things it has to offer. In my mind, I will forever remember Joe as a beloved man, with a beloved bird, who would do anything for his beloved institution. From Professor Andrew Samwick:
The Dartmouth Review
Monday – October 29, 2018
7
FEATURES
The True Son of Dartmouth Originally Published on Dartblog on October 15th, 2018
When my dad passed away a few years ago, I was having trouble coming to terms with the sadness and grief that I felt every day. In the end, the only tactic that worked for me was to take a moment every time I missed him to say the following: “It is not his absence from my life that I am feeling. I am feeling his presence in my life.” I admit that this is more helpful than it is true. But when a close bond is torn apart, I’ll use any tactic that works. So in that spirit, I’d like to share some things about Joe’s presence in my life. If I had to say it in just one word, I would tell you that Joe lived “generously.” I confess -
everyone who makes it a great place to work and to exercise. Maybe I’ll be back one of these days, and I will remember and celebrate Joe for how much of himself he put into his work, there and elsewhere. Example number three: he shared his time. Joe loved to immerse himself in the life of the College. He often attended public events at the Rockefeller Center. And he would frequently audit classes. In the summer of 2014, he sat in on a new class on Social Entrepreneurship that I offered. He contributed his wisdom and experience and offered himself as a resource to the students. At the end of the term, I got some helpful and critical feedback. And, of course, some Morano gelato. Those of use on the faculty who cherished him did so
“If I had to say it in just one word, I would tell you that Joe lived ‘generously.’” in a phrase that would either amuse or disgust Joe - I had “Joe Asch privilege.” For reasons still not fully clear to me, and probably to many of my faculty colleagues as well, Joe would write nice things about me and my work. And that privilege let me in on a little treasure: If Joe liked you, anything he had he wanted to share with you. I’ll give you four examples that bring me joy as I remember and celebrate Joe. Example number one: he’d share food and wine. We were on a number of occasions guests in Joe and Elizabeth’s home, both in Hanover and in Paris. The food was exceptional. The wine was even better. The conversation rich and varied. But, best of all, was the feeling that in Joe you had a true friend, a fellow traveler whatever the path in life you were taking. I will remember and celebrate Joe for his hospitality. Example number two: he’d share his passions. In this case, the River Valley Club. I’m not much of a gym rat, but ever since our mutual friend Rick Mills got lean and healthy through personal training sessions at RVC, Joe was after me to do the same. He offered me some free sessions. I said, “Joe, thank you, that’s very kind of you. But how could I possibly stay in this kind of shape if I exercised?” But he was relentless, and I eventually took him up on his offer, at least for a while this spring. I enjoyed meeting some of the people who worked there and seeing the great fitness results for members of our community. You can see Joe’s influence on the RVC, but you can also see the individual contributions of
because he made the effort to understand us in our element. And, of course, that invited reciprocity, and with it, a lasting friendship that I remember and celebrate today. Example number four: he shared his opinion. He would do this in any venue, but we know him best from his online writing. I tried blogging actively for a while. Notionally, I still have a blog. But I was never a voracious blogger like Joe. And yes I have a day job, but so did Joe. At least one. Joe’s writing was a combination of three qualities I enjoyed very much about him - a burning desire to know more, about basically everything; a very agile and aggressive mind; and the
for their decisions. I tried my best, in my own way, but I suspect I disappointed him. He once said to me, “I’ll bet you wish I’d stop throwing bombs.” To which I could only reply, “No, but I sometimes wish you had better aim.” It is evident from all of Joe’s life that he admired excellence and celebrated it wherever he could. And the notion that Dartmouth might settle for anything less was simply galling. I think it is noteworthy that many of his best posed questions about Dartmouth have gone publicly unanswered to this day. We would be a better institution if we had more forthrightly engaged with his critiques. I think that sentiment is widely if not publicly understood on campus. A friend asked me this week, in response to this awful tragedy, “How the heck is anybody going to know what’s going on at Dartmouth now?” How indeed. That’s the presence that Joe was in my life. I was privileged to be a friend to such a generous soul. I will miss him dearly, but I am grateful for the time we had together. From Brian Chen ’17: Originally Published on Dartblog on October 15th, 2018
Joe was a mentor and a friend to me. His first love was Dartmouth, but he always had a soft spot for his other alma mater, the Yale Law School. He once confided in me that while he hadn’t sent Dartmouth a dime in years, he tossed a few thousand dollars in the direction of 127 Wall Street on a regular basis. It’s fitting that Joe’s two final posts were about the Yale Law
“In a phrase that would either amuse or disgust Joe - I had ‘Joe Asch privilege.’” lowest tolerance for muddled thinking I have ever encountered in another human being. And that’s saying something. He had a lawyer’s ability to cross-examine; a consultant’s facility with data; and a philosopher’s attention to the big picture questions. He would want to engage - any subject, any time. But Dartmouth held a very special place in his heart and our conversations. What I as a senior and visible member of the faculty was expected to do about anything he found wanting at Dartmouth was a frequent topic of our conversations. He wanted me to do the same thing he was doing - desiring the best for Dartmouth and holding those running the institution we love accountable
School, because I wouldn’t be here were it not for him. And that’s not hyperbole. I was a very confused Dartmouth student, as evidenced by the fact that I was pre-med for two whole years. Joe gave me direction when it really counted. Like any good Yalie, one of his first acts of guidance was to disabuse me of the notion that Harvard was a good law school. All kidding aside, in telling me his own story, he opened this path to me. It’s one that I never would have thought about pursuing on my own. (Seriously, I didn’t know that the Yale Law School was a thing, and that people who didn’t want to do law went here.) Joe was a force of nature in the best sense. This is someone who convinced Mitt Romney to
give him a second chance, and then went on to prove his first impression wrong. No matter how bleak things looked, Joe never gave up on Dartmouth, and he never would have. To tell you the truth, I think he was better than Dartmouth deserved. When I was admitted to the Yale Law School in December 2017, Joe had the good grace to telephone and warmly congratulate me—and to say that he had absolutely zero confidence in my chances and was thus pleasantly surprised. That’s just Joe for you. I’ll miss him dearly. From Daniel M. Bring ’21: This is the last piece in this section, which I have had the distinct honor to compile and the grave misfortune to have had to. I didn’t think I could write it until all the other parts were assembled. I struggle still to look back on such a trag-
Joe had that rare energy that only history’s prime movers seem to demonstrate. His passion was immediately recognizable. He had a ferocious tongue and quick wit, which served him as the best and most vociferous defender of the College since Daniel Webster. He possessed a real force of personality, rivaling, at least in my mind, that of a pugnacious Harvard man named Theodore Roosevelt. Like Roosevelt, Joe’s candle burned brightly and unfortunately quickly. I was Joe’s youngest friend at the College at the time of his passing, having been introduced to him late last academic year. I did some work for him over the summer and into this fall, conducting research for Dartblog and even writing a short piece which ran on the site. His addendum to one of our emails, “BTW you are a good writer!”, will stick with me as one of the highest compliments I ever received. It was a far cry from the comment he
“Joe taught me to search for answers and speak truth to power, even if it means being a voice crying out in the wilderness.” ic loss, but I figured I would do my best to eulogize a great man, gone all too soon. When I heard of Joe’s passing, I was out to lunch with a professor and some colleagues. In all my lengthier conversations with him about the College, Joe had always stressed the importance of meaningful relationships with professors. I’ve taken that advice to heart and always tried to build a rapport with my professors across the departments. When the news reached me, even while I was taking his advice, I was beside myself. It was so baffling and shocking. I started up from the table to go call the mutual friend who had introduced me to Joe, to confirm the reports, which I had only gotten over text message. I had seen Joe so recently at that point. It was a brisk and sunny Tuesday, and only nine days had passed since I joined Joe at Market Table for Sunday brunch. I couldn’t believe that such a dynamic and inspiring man had so suddenly vanished from the earth. There are questions still unanswered, and I will not belabor them now by begging them onto this page. Nevertheless, his passing cast a dark shadow over the weeks to come, not just for me, but for everyone who knew Joe. I want to think that even those who didn’t know him or didn’t even know of him, were somehow moved by his passing. The impact of his absence will surely be felt by the students, alumni, and employees of the College.
left on one of my Week in Review posts last fall, challenging me to dig deeper into the topic. I expected to maintain a lasting friendship with him, like many Dartmouth students who got to know him before me. His passing showed me never to take anyone for granted. Joe pushed me to reach for new heights with my writing and journalism. Once when I was working on some research for Dartblog, he pressed me never to take no for an answer dealing with Ivy League administrators. It seemed he was never at a loss for enthusiasm or inspiration when editing Dartblog. He was always full of ideas to improve The Review and Dartmouth. When he passed, I had assignments from him on the docket to last me into November. So, in the days since his passing, I’ve had much time to reflect on my all-too-brief friendship with him. I’m fortunate to have known him and gotten to see a bit of what made him such a remarkable person. However, the importance of his last words to me can never be understated and should be shared with the whole community: “Keep well.” Joe taught me to search for answers and speak truth to power, even if it means being a voice crying out in the wilderness. That’s a lesson more valuable than any other I’ve learned at Dartmouth so far. Joe, you are missed.
8 Monday – October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES
Exposé on Horowitz Protests
The Blackford Cloaks
Guest Contributors Editor’s Note Continued: Both the president of Native Americans at Dartmouth (NAD) and supposed Antifa members participated in the planning of these events. Also revealed in the group chat was substantial calls to identity politics that we here at the Dartmouth Review consistently oppose, including preferring non-white representatives to speak to the media, presenting the protest only in terms of “marginalized groups and their allies.” What follows is the report submitted to us by those sources in the protests. The following represents only the views of its authors. Introduction: William F. Buckley Jr. once wrote, “Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.” Never was this fact more evident than when David Horowitz spoke at The College amid protests on October 23. Mr. Horowitz was hosted by the Dartmouth College Republicans and was slated to speak on “Identity Politics and the Totalitarian Threat from the Left.” While the topic of the night’s discussion was undoubtedly provocative, it was no more so than the rest of Mr. Horowitz’s long and illustrious career as a conservative legend. Born in Queens, New York, David Horowitz was the son of long-standing members of the American Communist Party. He continued to identify as a Marxist intellectual even after his parents left the party following Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech.” As an early adherent of the New Left, Horowitz was friends with Huey Newton, the founder of the Black Panthers, and worked closely with other Leftist groups. His disillusionment with Leftism began after Betty Van Patter, whom Horowitz had recommended Newton hire as a bookkeeper, was found dead, seemingly raped and beaten. Horowitz believed that the Panthers were behind the murder, an allegation later findings would render plausible. As Horowitz moved rightward politically, he drifted away from his liberal former-allies. As the Left’s hatred of him grew, the now-conservative Horowitz’s The Blackford Cloaks are students at the College and Guest Contributors to The Dartmouth Review.
defense of American ideals became more and more passionate, resulting in his now-infamous reputation as a “conservative provocateur.” The purpose of this column is not to analyze in great detail every aspect of Horowitz’s talk, but rather to delve into the reaction his very presence evoked from the Dartmouth Left, a group of perennially offended toddlers who seek to erase from existence all that offends their liberal sensitivities. They consist both of those who cared enough to disrupt the lecture and those who thought it fit to justify their reaction, the latter a category which consists of some fifth-column moderates who would only be considered “conservative” by liberal standards. Some disruptors seemed to be driven largely by their animalistic instincts. For two protestors, Ellie Gonzalez ‘18 and Makale Camara ‘21, these carnal desires were so strong they began necking in spite during Horowitz’s talk. It is a pity that the other “protests” were no better, but at least they did not publicly engage in sexual acts. The Dartmouth Left embodies a miserable nexus of privilege, entitlement, and victimhood which would come to result in these despicable albeit hilarious responses to Mr. Horowitz’s talk. The protests were both a joy to watch and a watershed moment in the on-going liberal coup of The College.
The Infiltration: On behalf of our unofficial student organization, The Blackford Cloaks, we snuck into the protesters’ group chat and gathered information on the Dartmouth Left’s clandestine activities. Thankfully, we were never discovered and continued to gather data long throughout the night. We were shocked how far some were willing to go, and even more surprised that some, including some self-described socialists, were willing to engage in meaningful discourse. This conglomerate of “The Left” varied in tactics, erudition, and eloquence. John Perotti ‘21, who initially started the chat, soon found himself drowned out by the screeching of reactionary, anti-white troglodytes. The fact that less than a third of the members were potentially male raises eyebrows (we wouldn’t want to assume their gender). The chat devolved from initially a place to discuss questions targeted at Horowitz to a hub full of wastrels.
Many were hurt by the splash damage as some tried to impose their dominance over others. Some tried to set themselves up as self-proclaimed leaders of the group in order to ban certain types of protest. As to whether or not this constitutes an artificial hierarchy, is debatable.
The Forethought: President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” The relevance of this statement to the protests that occurred against David Horowitz cannot be understated. At the beginning, it seemed that David Horowitz was just another slated speaker in the College Republicans docket. Had a thoughtful few not sent smoke signals to the Dartmouth Left, this event would have probably flown under the radar of most midterm-inundated students, assuming that is the “iden-
There can be no doubt that the end goal of the group chat was to disrupt, protest, or even cancel Horowitz’s talk. Many in the chat expressed their discomfort of College Republican plants in the chat, but those supposed plants were quickly vetted. Amari Young later questioned the College Republicans and one of the supposed plants at the talk. The exact tactics of the protest were discussed in depth, during the day of the protest, with a broad overview given to the protesters in the days leading up to it. Some wanted to have a sit-down, having students do their homework with headphones. Others wanted students to hold up signs in front of the stage while looking emotionless towards the audience, as if trying to guilt the audience into leaving. A couple of students even wanted to organize a walk-out but made sure to state that it should be obvious that a walk-out was occur-
“‘It definitely feels like bait. But I’ve decided that I personally do not care if it is bait.’” tity studies” departments still have midterms. A couple of days before the protest, rumors started circulating of an Islamophobic, racist, sexist, nasty man visiting Dartmouth, with quotes taken out of context to hype people up to protest against him. While it is true that Horowitz can at times be inflammatory, can one really blame a near-octogenarian who grew up during the 60’s, working with-and later against- radical groups that were shamelessly inflammatory and dangerous to America and the West? Nonetheless, these out of context quotes at first brought up genuine discussion. For example, some claimed that Horowitz, while provocative, still had the right to speak. Others were less than enthusiastic but claimed the best way to show dissent would be to not attend. In the meanwhile, members of the Dartmouth ANTIFA, 4A, and other assorted groups decided to mobilize the Red Guard. Within hours of the College Republicans’ news, a group chat was formed titled, “Horowitz Action.” While initially in the low to high 20s in membership, the group chat soon ballooned to around 80 people. However, let us first discuss the development of the chat, and how it mutated into the debacle that we saw on Wednesday.
ring. The extent that a walk-out itself needs to be obvious, was only a sign of the ineptitude of things to come. One of the plans discussed that was actually carried out was a set of flyers to be distributed at the doors of the event. Lastly, the President of Native Americans at Dartmouth, Poli Sierra-Long ‘19 gave a message of hope, support, and much needed ‘selfcare’: “Your actions here can have real-world consequences. We don’t say this to deter you, we say this to prepare you. Strategy is all we really have in the fight against fascism. Make every moment count.” If that wasn’t motivating enough, it was signed “-XOXO your local antifas.” The saccharine signature was juxtaposed ironically with the violent, animal-like nature of the Antifa thugs. One of the main concerns of the chat members were the risks associated for illegal immigrants, DREAMERS, and apparently financial aid students. Michaela Caplan ‘18 told the chat to “be prepared for Dartmouth Review folks to take pictures/ ID you/ pass on stories to sh*t media sources.” Whether she was referring to CNN or MSNBC remains unclear. A moment of self-awareness was shown by Sierra-Long, who claimed, “As a group, we also think that people should be mindful of the fact that the loud disruption is ex-
actly what they are planning for and should expect them to be prepared for that.” This shows some restraint on part of the protesters, which sadly did not carry on to the “protests” that occurred. Early in the afternoon, Todd Huang ‘19 was added to the Group Chat. Huang, who recently returned from dancing on Dartmouth constructive critic and blogger Joe Asch’s ‘79 grave, would prove to be a toxic addition to an already vapid movement. Soon after the addition of the senior, a purge mysteriously occurred, one that expelled a few members, not all of whom are known to be Conservative plants. Valentina Garcia-Gonzalez ‘19 ejected Alexander Rauda ‘21 and Eashwar Sivarajan ‘21 from the group chat, because she had reason to suspect that there was a “mole.” Oddly enough, this coincided with the departure of one Executive Board member from the College Republicans group chat. A ratiocinative analysis yields the unfortunate conclusion that it is this person is probably the one who snitched on presumed-conservatives. Just prior to the sophomores’ expulsion, some students were discussing the possibility of Republican plants within the chat and the fact that the event was probably bait. To justify their abrasive actions, one student boldly claimed: “it definitely feels like bait. But I’ve decided that I personally do not care if it is bait.” The Motivation: We turned over most of the protesters’ plans to the College Republicans, who in turn showed them to Mr. Horowitz and his team. This is public information since Horowitz, as is his signature style, mentioned it at the start of his lecture. The protesters did not care that Horowitz was prepared for their absurd displays of rage, and followed through on whatever parts of their plan the College Republicans had not preemptively thwarted. Jasmine Collins ‘21, aided by Bryce Luchan ‘21 and others, wrote an essay on behalf of the protesters, outlining the reasons for the protest and standing in solidarity with the groups oppressed by Horowitz’s deadly words, and the protesters had an elaborate plan involving multiple groups of people doing whatever they wished as long as it was consistent with the plan of the leadership, which is ironic given their supposed opposition to fas-
The Dartmouth Review
Monday – October 29, 2018
9
FEATURES cism. Ms. Collins’s essay begins by warning the reader that “this letter contains information about injustices against marginalized people - particularly Palestinians and individuals of Arab descent - that may be upsetting.” She then proceeds to outline in great detail the terrible “injustices” committed by Israel against the self-styled “Palestinians.” We will not deign to respond to Collins’s inane babbling on this subject and assume that she is simply unaware of the antisemitism of the “Palestinian” people, something that would have been rectified had she listened to Horowitz’s lecture and its references to Nazi supporting Arabs. Many of the founders of “Palestinian” nationalism fully supported the Third Reich during World War II and to this day, many politicians despise Jews. We will even overlook the comparison of the Jewish State of Israel to the segregationist “Jim Crow” South as the hyperbole of the benighted. What we cannot overlook, however, is the implicit assumption that Israel is like any other State. The case for the existence of Israel has been made by far greater men than us, and we would direct you to Leo Strauss’s 1956 letter to Willmoore Kendall for the conservative case for the Jewish State, centered around the preservation of its Occidental nature. Collins then slanders the College Republicans as only wanting to “provoke marginalized students,” an accusation that reveals her own inflated sense of self-importance, a characteristic typical of the Dartmouth Left. Operating from this false presumption, Collins concludes that it is a lose-lose situation, as protesting “only allows people to galvanize deeply prejudiced voters for the upcoming midterm elections,” while on the other hand, reasons Collins, doing nothing “sends the message that we are indifferent to the humanity of Palestinians, Muslims, and every other marginalized group.” She interestingly did not mention white South African farmers nor Uyghurs, who are being put into concentration camps through the use of QR codes, in the communist country of China. Trapped in zugzwang, Collins and the protesters chose to play
the move that would make them appear noble, or “virtue signaling” as it is now known. The protesters conclude their letter by glorifying communistic principles and standing by various groups of people, as is customary for “In Solidarity” letters. Collins also describes “The Left” as a “collective of women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, undocumented immigrants, low income individuals, religious minorities, disabled individuals, people with egalitarian political views, and individuals at the intersections of these identities.” Despite the listing of groups that could give “The Great Gathering of the Armies” from The Iliad a run for its money, if this were the case, then “The Left” would win every election in a landslide, a verifiable falsehood. The Strategy: Taking a leaf out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook, Michaela Caplan created a Google document accessible to all the protesters to better enable them to organize. Though we have now been denied access to the document, we copied its content and are willing to present it to any and all who wish to see it. The stupidity of some
last of these “tactics” was classified as “high risk,” which illustrates the spinelessness of the protesters. Group 2 was tasked with making signs for the protesters to hold up during the talk, in defiance of … something. We apologize for being unable to twist our brains to formulate whatever idiotic reason the protesters came up with. Messages displayed included “I.C.E is the Gestapo,” “Trans Rights are Human Rights,” and “Muslims are welcome here.” When the idea for one that said “Palestinian Lives Matters” was floated, Paulina Calcaterra ‘19 expressed her concern that the sign might be “co-opting BLM … like in a way we dont want to do [sic]” Good people everywhere should be glad that the Dartmouth Left’s virtue signalling, their very reason for life, will result in their perpetual dysfunctionality. Group 3 was the most reasonable, seeking only to ask difficult questions at the Q&A session at the end of Horowitz’s talk. So it should come as no surprise to hear that there were few people in this category, and many who were only sought to make a mockery of the whole thing. While
“Messages displayed included ‘I.C.E. is the Gestapo,’ ‘Trans Rights are Human Rights,’ and ‘ Muslims are welcome here.’” of these plans need to be seen to be believed. The only effective strategy was executed by “Group ½” students who distributed flyers on David Horowitz outside the lecture hall, an idea from the mind of Rachel Florman ‘21. Ms. Florman also indicated she would be willing to protest other speakers, demonstrating that this disruption had nothing to do the unique extremity of Horowitz’s views. The flyers contained the same flawed reasoning as the aforementioned letter, along with quotes by Horowitz stripped of context. Group 1 was asked to “put on headphones [and] do homework, while he speaks,” “walk out 10-15 minutes in,” or “move to the front of the room and sit down/meditate/stare into the crowd [without] emotion.” The
Perrotti sought to ask Horowitz tough questions he would be unable to answer, other protesters sought to ask juvenile questions, giving us an inside view of their childish sense of humor and sophomoric intellect. One of these questions used a real-life example of a U.S citizen with Palestinian grandparents who was apparently detained in the Ben Gurion airport. This would have been a question worthy of being answered by Horowitz. The other eleven questions on the list are presented without comment. Why is David Horowitz so ugly? Is David Horowitz an extraterrestrial? What are your thoughts on pineapple on pizza? What is the point of life?
When are you going to die? Why haven’t you died yet? Did you marry four times because you are a terrible person and [your wives] hated you, or because you’re an extra terrible person? Why do your parents regret raising you? Who hurt you? Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Have you ever taken it up in the a*s? Don’t be shy. Conclusion: Triggered by the beating of Horowitz’s heart, the Dartmouth Left needed everything to go as planned for their “protest” to be impactful. Sadly, as we mentioned, the College Republicans, along with David Horowitz and his team, were aware of the disrupters’ plan and did everything they could to thwart them at every turn. The College Republicans banned backpacks, to ensure that protesters could not sneak contraband in. They forbade signs, since they believed that much of the disrupters’ plans relied on their fancy banners. They were clearly proven correct, since the leftists ignored the policy and snuck them in anyway. Fortunately for Horowitz, The College ensured that nobody was allowed into the hall until fifteen minutes before the lecture, thus making sure that the speaker would not be in any danger. Mr. Horowitz, however inelegantly, took it upon himself to ridicule the childish students into allowing him to speak interrupted. He called the two protesters who were necking in public, “disgusting,” and said it was “proud stupidity.” As for the protesters in general, he called them “guerrillas,” “idiots, “self-inflicted imbeciles,” and “jacka*ses.” While Horowitz’s insults made the talk more entertaining, they would not have been necessary had The College kept the screeching adolescents in check. Dartmouth’s administration all but sided with the protesters. For instance, Associate Dean of Student Life and Director of the Collis Center, Eric L. Ramsey, emailed Ms. Gonzalez before the protests to offer to assist her in her endeavors. He was aware that she
VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU: THOU SHALT READ THE REVIEW!
“may be organizing some form of dissent at the Horowitz event” and asked her if she “would like to talk it through,” claiming his only “goal was to assist her (and others) understand the policies [regarding Freedom of Expression and Dissent] and expectations.” Ramsey is undoubtedly an important man at Dartmouth, given that he has more titles than Idi Amin, evident by the fact that his bio on The College’s website reads as follows: “Oversees the Office of Student Life, the Collis Center, Student Involvement, Office of Greek Life, Outdoor Programs Office, Dartmouth Broadcasting, Dartmouth Forensic Union, and New Student Orientation. Coordinates long range and strategic planning. Advises the Undergraduate Finance Committee, Student Assembly, the Elections Planning and Advisory Committee and the Student Life Advisory Board. Responsible for Moving Dartmouth Forward Initiatives including the Alcohol Management Program and the Student Organization Accountability Program.” Just as a mother who coddles her kids hates to expose them to experiences that could cause them pain, Hanlon’s administration, which has long treated Dartmouth students like children, did not want Horowitz’s words of “violence” to hurt them. Should things not change, more and more moderate speakers will get shut down over the next few years. The Horowitz debacle illustrates a few truths. It demonstrates that the Left will disrupt any event they do not like, even if, maybe especially if the speaker was one of their heroes fifty years ago. It shows us that some self-labeled conservatives are willing to betray their principles in order to maintain their political credit among the liberal sheep on campus. And it proves, once and for all, that even at Dartmouth College, often thought to be the most conservative of the Ivy League schools, the administration is willing to kowtow to radical leftists who seek to tear down the institutions The College once held dear. May God have mercy upon our souls.
10 Monday – October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
FEATURES
Best Professors: Steven Ericson Griffin Mackey
Contributor
The Dartmouth Review interviewed professor Steven Ericson from our History department. Professor Ericson specializes in Japanese history with a focus on the country’s modern transformation. His research focuses on government financial and industrial policies and their economic and social effects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Professor Ericson’s classes on imperialism in modern East Asia and Japanese history has made him well liked among majors and non-majors alike, and he has been one of the Reviewers’ favorite professors. TDR: When you were younger, did you ever envision yourself becoming a Japanese historian and professor one day? SE: Not really. My parents were missionaries stationed in Japan. From their work, I was born in Japan and grew up there through my high school years. However, I think when I was very young I thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps and become a bishop. Instead, life would happen, and in a sense, I’d become a missionary for Japanese history. TDR: Do you feel that there is a higher value in studying a particular subject over another? SE: Well at Dartmouth college everyone should embrace the liberal arts mindset and receive an extensive but varied education. But I do feel history is a subject that lends itself to a lot of different perspectives and different methods of understanding and learning. Not that I would privilege history over other topics but I think there is a real benefit to getting in-depth training in a subject that can translate rather seamlessly to other issues and fields. TDR: Being an economic historian, how do you balance the fields of economics and history? SE: For starters, I do not take not an economist’s perspective in regards to my studies. I don’t do a lot of statistical analysis and things of that sort. Instead, although I do work with numbers and figures, it’s in no small amount that I take a more political economy approach. So it’s borrowing from legislative history as well as economic history and combining them. For example, my first book was on the development of railroads in Japan which looked at business-government relations and on the government’s legislative policies on private railroad companies. TDR: Speaking of your books, what products are you currently working on? SE: I’m currently finishing my second book which is on the significant financial reform that occurred during the 1880’s in JaMr. Mackey is a sophomore at the College and a contributor to the Dartmouth Review.
pan. Funny enough, through my research on the topic my views on this reform have changed quite a bit since I sent in the original draft manuscript. When I started, I was originally going to argue Matsukata Masayoshi was very much a practitioner of orthodox finance by placing the Japanese currency on initially a silver standard and eventually gold which was quite an Orthodox. However, as I researched I came to realize his methods were quite heterodox for the time in terms of British orthodox finance. Instead of following the orthodox method by cutting spending and raising taxes to carry out this financial, he actually increased spending because of various unexpected events that occurred and he did raise taxes but for military expansion, not financial reform. On top of this, he doubled the socket tax which is the biggest consumer tax in the biggest revenue source of the government after the land tax you know. And he did that not to fund his financial reform but again for military expansion. TDR: Your elective on the Emergence of Modern Japan is renowned for its quality and intensity. What is your favorite part of this course? SE: This question is very tough because I love teaching that course, but I particularly enjoy one lecture I give on an early social change in Japan during the Meiji period. In this lecture, I talk about the Japanese fascination with the West, and more specifically I discuss how this fascination manifested itself in crazy combinations of Western clothing with traditional Japanese dress start to appear. Through this, I try to show that the Japanese people wanted to showcase their perceived progress but couldn’t quite afford a whole Western wardrobe. The lecture also highlights, on the whole, the intellectual changes that occurred by identifying that the Japanese saw Western society as more advanced. On top of this, I also enjoy that this lecture is not what I do my research and writing on. TDR: Speaking of your elective on modern Japan, what degree of academic freedom do you have to teach the course at your discretion? And then more generally, what’s the relationship between the administration and the faculty when it comes to course content? SE: In the history department, we have quite a bit of freedom of how we want to set up our courses. We do have to get approval from our department for syllabi for new courses. In these approval meeting, the department is very diligent about looking over the class outlines and making sure it is an appropriate amount of work. Specifically, the department looks over the number of reading assignments to determine if the syllabi appear to have a proper
STEVEN ERICSON Professor of History amount of weekly work. TDR: What do you consider to be your most significant intellectual contribution to the study of Japanese history? SE: I would say my main contribution to the field of Japanese history has been clarifying the role the government played in the economic and financial development of the nation. I often find that there are broadly accepted interpretations of the government’s relationship with corporations that do not represent the most accurate picture. Specifically, there is a notion that the Japanese government had a massive influence over the economy. To correct these misinterpretations, I try to present a more complex view of the relationship between government and business in regards to the economy. From this, I try to show that the relationship was not, in fact, cut and dry. Overall, I’ve always decided to give my manuscripts a different more encompassing look from what you would get in a typical textbook in an attempt to paint the clearest picture of the situation. TDR: Expanding upon your idea of misinterpretations in Japanese history, many people think we are living in a period of misinformation and deception. If you could set the record straight in one area of modern Japanese history what would it be? SE: As I explained before, I have
a lot of sort of smaller areas where I’m revising views and trying to paint a more accurate picture for my audience. One misperception that I frequently confront is that there is a sense that Bushido way of the warrior carried on into the modern period and became embodied in the Japanese army. In reality, I think there’s no connection with the kind of ideology that was that became instilled in modern society Japanese and to those who eventually became part of the army with that of the way of the warrior. Instead, it was more a kind of a modern nationalist ideology that embodied the army. TDR: What are the characteristics of students who are successful in your courses and this department? SE: Writing ability is very important. All of our courses in the history department require term papers or some form of essay writing. Having the ability to present their ideas clearly and effectively with combination relevant research often succeed in the history department. On top of writing ability, being an active and precise speaker helps as well. Although, I think I would tend to privilege a little more writing ability. TDR: Our staffers have had enough great experiences with you to recommend that you be featured in our best professors list. What do you do differently in the classroom? What do you think contrib-
Image Courtesy of dartmouth.edu utes to the students’ reverence? SE: I guess in my class lecturing I always want to hit the essential facts and trends. To do this, I try to find illustrative anecdotes and maybe even somewhat humorous stories that represent the main themes I want to present to build my lectures around. On top of this, students appreciate that I give a clear outline at the beginning of the lecture with the main interpretive problems that I’ll address in the course of the talk. TDR: How did publishing a book spark change your writing process? SE: When graduating students write their dissertations, it’s almost like a stream of consciousness. So you’re making an argument and then finally at the end of the work you make the point and come to a conclusion. Well when you publish a book, it’s almost the reverse. Instead, you put the conclusion at the beginning, and then you explain how you got to that. So the reader knows right away what you’re talking about as opposed to having to wait to the end to figure out what the argument is. This change has made my writing process much more conscious of being systematic and transparent in the argument that way. From this change, I’ve begun to stress the importance to have a clear topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph for my undergraduate students.
The Dartmouth Review
Monday – October 29, 2018 11
FEATURES
An Interview With Joe Asch ‘79 Kush Desai
Former Contributor Few alumni have shown as much concern and interest in the affairs of Dartmouth College as prolific Dartblog writer and vigilante Mr. Joseph Asch ’79. The Yale Law School alumnus, Bain & Co. consulting veteran and serial entrepreneur split his time between Paris – where he resided for nearly 30 years – and Hanover, and he hasn’t failed to enroll in a summer class since the early ‘90s. Readers of Dartblog know well the level of insight and knowledge Mr. Asch possessesd of the College and its inner workings. Several years ago, the Review was lucky enough to conduct an interview with Mr. Asch, and in light of his recent passing, we have decided to reprint that interview. Honest Phil The prevailing campus mood is rather harsh on President Hanlon and his administration. A series of punitive decisions for Greek houses – especially the derecognition of Alpha Delta fraternity – and stricter restrictions on student life – namely the hard alcohol ban – have not gone over well with the majority of the student body. When asked about the current Hanlon Administration, however, Mr. Asch put things in a rather positive context. “There was a huge change when Phil Hanlon arrived… at least in terms of honesty,” he explained. “Jim Wright, Jim Kim, and Carol Folt would tell lies if it profited them and they would do so with no hesitation at all. The new administration tells the truth.” Honest dialogue from the administration is nothing short of welcome change. And this honest dialogue is complemented by more openness to criticism. Mr. Asch explained, “the staff and faculty is still a little reticent to speak up because for years, if you voiced any criticism of the administration, you were punished harshly.” Mr. Asch also explained how Hanlon’s arrival has contributed to more firsthand involvement of the Board of Trustees. “Phil has encouraged them to meet more with students and faculty, and so they’ve done so during the past two trustee meetings.” He went on to explain just how closed off prior administrations wanted the trustees – to whom it directly reports to – to remain in day-to-day affairs: “Prior to that, the administration absolutely discouraged the trustees from meeting with faculty members.” This isn’t to say that Mr. Asch was entirely positive of the Hanlon administration and the changes it has brought to Hanover – more to follow on his thoughts on specific decisions and initiatives. He does, however, provide an interesting Mr. Desai ‘17 is an alumnus of the College and a former contributor to the Dartmouth Review.
perspective on how the Hanlon Administration has dealt with its position at the helm of the College and its honesty and openness compared to many of its predecessors. It is a perspective that likely comes as a surprise to the student body – many members of which, at the end of the 2015 Winter term, bought shot glasses with a picture of college student President Hanlon in reaction to the hard alcohol ban. Trustees in Absentia The people who ultimately have the final say at Dartmouth (at least, in theory) are its Board of Trustees. In the aftermath of President Hanlon’s much promoted Moving Dartmouth Forward plan, many commentators – especially Mr. Asch – have questioned the Trustees’ involvement in the initiative, or lack thereof. “It’s interesting that the Trustees were presented with the MDF proposal the weekend before it was announced. So, they got to have their say,” Mr. Asch explained, “but if you were asked about the plans for D-Day on June 5th, there won’t be a lot of change. That’s been a constant criticism of mine, that the trustees are very much out of touch.” Readers of Dartblog will hardly find Mr. Asch’s criticism novel; the lack of engagement and involvement of Dartmouth’s Trustees has long been a core issue that Mr. Asch has discussed and written about. It’s an issue Mr. Asch takes seriously – to the point of having running for the Board of Trustees himself. His anecdote about former Provost of the College Carol Folt hones this point: “it’s astounding how out of touch the Trustees can be. Carol Folt was really held in contempt by most of the faculty here and yet she gets a job [as Chancellor of] the University of North Carolina. It is clear that no one on the UNC Board of Governors called anyone at Dartmouth and asked ‘How do you like working with Folt? Has she done a good job?’ Had they done that, they would’ve gotten an earful from just about anyone.” On Alpha Delta With Alpha Delta’s official derecognition by the College as of April 20th, a slew of eulogies by upset students overran Yik Yak, bored@baker, and Facebook. When asked about his thoughts on the derecognition and its broader implications, if any, as well as the administration’s Greek policy going forward, Mr. Asch explained: “There’s never been a consistent approach to fraternities. You get Alpha Phi Alpha beating on people with sticks, and they get a slap on the wrist when that was as clear hazing as you could ever hope to find. And yet, you get something like this which didn’t even involve everyone and the house gets
derecognized. Fair justice is consistent justice, and that hasn’t been the case here.” As it pertains specifically to AD’s derecognition, Mr. Asch went on to explain, “I think they wanted to choose a fraternity that was A) iconic and B) was Phil’s former frat. Either they’re just making an example of AD to put the fear of God in all the other fraternities or else we could see two or three other fraternities derecognized in the next year as a way of eliminating the fraternity system on a slow timeline.” Either rationale behind AD’s derecognition spells out a frightening paradigm for its surviving peer fraternities.
Hanlon & Ameer? Or Ameer & Hanlon? Given Dean Ameer’s relatively recent ascent to the Dean of the College’s Office and the unleashed administrative action that has followed President Hanlon’s Moving Dartmouth Forward announcement, we had to ask Mr. Asch about his thoughts on Dean Ameer- does she have the best interests of the students in mind? More importantly, is Hanlon really as passive in his relationship with Dean Ameer as we think he is? “Everyone has the best interests of students in mind. It’s all a matter of definition…” Neither this paper nor Mr. Asch has ever fully agreed with Dean Ameer’s definition of students’ interests. About President Hanlon, Mr. Asch continued, “My sense of Phil Hanlon is that he never leaves fingerprints. He comes across as someone who’s somewhat passive, but I think he’s not that way behind the scenes. Certainly with something like derecognizing AD, he was involved.” Vomlettes, and Kiddie Pools, and Hard Alcohol! Oh, my! “When Andrew Lohse’s column came out: I said you shouldn’t punish SAE for the hazing. What you should do is do what South Africa did at the end of Apartheid: they had a truth commission and they obliged everyone to come forward and confess what they had done. As long as you told the truth and all the truth, then it was ‘okay, let bygones be bygones.’ Otherwise you’d have a huge percentage of the white population in jail. If they had gone to the fraternities then and said ‘fess up now; what have you done?’ And then pledge to stop it, you might have had some change.” The Review has agreed with Mr. Asch that the College’s traditional reaction to hazing allegations has not been productive. This past fall’s “ban” on pledge terms, we reported, would eliminate only the innocuous public aspects of hazing, such as the wearing of lettered shirts; already surreptitious and potentially dangerous activities would remain unchanged. As it turns out, Mr. Asch and
The Review also are in agreement about the College’s recent hard alcohol ban. Mr. Asch explained: “There has to be a give and take with these policies. One of the things that I thought was foolish about the alcohol ban was that the administration didn’t offer anything in exchange. If they had gone to the frats and said, ‘okay, we’ll let you have taps back – so you can have kegs, and you have one point where you serve beer – but in exchange you have to do a deal with us: no more hard stuff. And if we find hard stuff, we’ll take away your taps,’ then you might have achieved a workable agreement.” Mr. Asch is right — there is no real incentive for any Dartmouth fraternity or individual to completely do away with hard alcohol even with the harsh punitive reaction that may result from keeping it around. Given this situation, Mr. Asch predicted the hard alcohol ban would end up the way that the similarly unilaterally imposed SEMP alcohol restrictions have — ineffective. Dartmouth’s PR It’s no secret that the College has been the subject of some less than positive media coverage. From Lohse to myriad protests, one scandal after another has left a mark on Dartmouth’s image. As Mr. Asch tersely put it. “If you look at the College’s PR strategy in the last three or four years, it was the PR strategy from Hell. The College has taken a massive hit in the eyes of college counselors and students from scandal after scandal.” How should the College recover its tarnished image? The solution, as Mr. Asch describes it, doesn’t quite have to do with a better PR strategy: “As for our PR strategy, ‘you can’t sell a product unless you have a product to sell’…” In other words, Dartmouth’s image can improve if Dartmouth made the headlines for positive developments — if great professors left Harvard or Yale for Dartmouth, if Dartmouth students won international competitions, if major scientific breakthroughs occurred at Dartmouth laboratories. The College could serve itself well to heed Mr. Asch’s advice. The Bureaucracy is Rapidly Expanding to Meet the Needs of the Existing Bureaucracy When asked about rising tuition costs and growing numbers of non-academic staff employed by the College, Mr. Asch harshly observed wryly: “In another decade or so, we’ll have an administrator for every student.” Why is this so? How did we get here? “A faculty member once told me,” Mr. Asch explained, “that for a long, long time, the school has been run for the staff, not for the faculty, and not for the students.” Of course, few students – or their tuition paying parents – are surprised. A single purchase
from Novack Café says more than enough on the matter. Just as unsurprising are the significant questions of administrative competence that Mr. Asch raised. In light of Dartmouth’s media blunders and poor handling of a seemingly endless array of protests and scandals, Mr. Asch commented, “We’ve just been putting people in place who just aren’t competent… Over the past fifteen years the Dean of the College’s Office has been staffed by weak people, and we’re suffering the effects of those choices today.” The Dartmouth community does have something to look forward to on the issue. Mr. Asch shared his opinions on the upcoming split of the Dean of the College’s Office: “Essentially what they’re doing now is splitting the Dean of the College’s Office into two offices: Dean Inge-Lise Ameer in a Provost Office position and a faculty member as the official Dean of the College.” Mr. Asch did mention that while the decision technically involves adding to the existing bureaucracy, it “would be a good idea if done with the right people… If you look at the Dean of the College’s equivalent at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, they’re faculty positions held by very impressive faculty members. They’re tenured professors with long records of publication and research, and people that students respect.” ni
Myth Busting: Fraternity Alum-
“There’s always been a notion that in disciplining students,” Mr. Asch remarked to us, “all the big rich alumni call up and say ‘don’t do it!’ and give the frats a bye or give the students a bye… This superstition should die.” What is the reality when wealthy and influential fraternity alumni get involved when their former fraternities get in trouble? Mr. Asch himself asked two former deans the same question. “’If anything,’” he told us they explained to him, “‘the alumni encouraged us to be harsher than we were willing to be. The alumni wanted bad behavior cleaned up… The alumni wanted rigor and seriousness.’” Dartblog’s Source Any Dartblog reader often finds him or herself asking how exactly Mr. Asch gets his information. How does he always seem to know the inside scoop? We got the chance to ask him. “I have sources in the administration. I don’t know who they are. They get a fake email address and they send me email with comments, documents and pictures. It’s untraceable… At least half my posts come directly from sources.” The Review thanks Mr. Asch for his time and frankness. Sandor Farkas ‘17 also contributed to this report.
12 Monday– October 29, 2018
The Dartmouth Review
THE LAST WORD GORDON HAFF’S
COMPILED BY JAMES S. RIKTON AND ALEXANDER RAUDA
“Tradition is the living faith of dead people to which we must add our chapter while we have the gift of life.” – Jaroslav Pelikan “The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.” -Willi Schlamm “I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.” -Russell Kirk “Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.” -Benjamin Disraeli “The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.”.” -Dinesh D’Souza “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.” -Ronald Reagan “Texas, to be respected, must be polite. Santa Anna, living, can be of incalculable benefit to Texas; Santa Anna, dead, would just be another dead Mexican.” -Sam Houston
“We can build the fence. We can triple the border patrol. We can end sanctuary cities by cutting off funding to them. We can end welfare for those here illegally.” -Ted Cruz “When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.” -Jean-Paul Sartre “Morally significant freedom is merely an aspect of the human condition: it is indispensable, but it is also inalienable.” -L. Brent Bozell Jr. “No man can act morally unless he is free to choose good from evil.” -Frank S. Meyer “He remembered the forceful hand that cast him to the earth. He’d fallen like a shooting star, his flesh burning until his wings fell away. Pain was something he had never known before. But even worse than the physical affliction was the knowledge that he would forevermore be denied Heaven.” -J.C. Burnham “It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth.” -Bill Clinton
BARRETT’S MIXOLOGY
A Man’s Last Drink Ingredients
A Bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon An Unsuspecting Freshman Dartmouth’s Old Boy An Active imagination
You approach the counter. The Bartender smiles and says, “My name is Lloyd and I’ll be your bartender today. I can get you any drink you want in the world.” You remain confused. You walked into the wrong exhibition at an Italian museum and find yourself in a giant hall filled with Renaissance statues and mirrors. You take him up on the offer and order the finest glass of red wine you can think of. You are immediately transported to Hanover, Hew Hampshire, in the bench farthest opposite from Dartmouth Hall. A man with a stark gaze and subtle intensity sits next to you. He tells you about the wine you just received and how the dry notes of the wine were shaped by the oak barrel it was fermented in. You are impressed by his erudition. You proceed to have a conversation about Dartmouth and the future that lies ahead of it. “I’m sick and tired of President Hanlon,” you mention to him. “That is a feeling shared by many,” he replies. “But that is not the attitude through which we should maintain the traditions of Old Dartmouth. Instead, we must present our case. Analyze the data, but always keep an eye open for changing factors. Once we realize why traditions exist, only then can we consider changing them.” Instead of pouring one out for Old Dartmouth, you drink to it. Thanks for everything, Joe. — Descartes Horace
“A great novel, The Camp of the Saints, appeared thirty years ago featuring great boatloads of Africans arriving in the south of France in legions too great to be simply turned aside, like the Cap Anamur. What to do? Starve them? Shoot them? We don’t do that kind of thing — but what do we do when we run out of airplanes in which to send them back home? -William F. Buckley Jr. “Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide. When once this initial and final sentence is understood, everything about liberalism - the beliefs, emotions and values associated with it, the nature of its enchantment, its practical record, its future - falls into place.” -James Burnham “The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs.” -Jerry Brown “I will continue to find ways to help poor people find a job, get a job, and learn someday to own the job.” -Newt Gringrich “The more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias.” -John Derbyshire “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.” -Karl Marx
R.I.P. JOE ASCH ‘79