B- List

By | April 15, 2004

No matter where you go today, you can’t get away from Jesus. He’s everywhere! And not in the omnipotent sense either. He’s there in books like The Da Vinci Code and movies like The Passion of the Christ. Does this have anything to do with the resurgence of right-wing beliefs in the political arena? Are post-modern blues turning people back to stricter doctrines and dogmas for structure? Since Easter just celebrated the anniversary of Jesus’ death and resurrection, I thought I’d take this opportunity to ponder a little bit about this apparent resurgence of Christianity.

There’s always been a strong Christian population that has been willing to spend money on Christian fiction; it’s just only recently that people outside of this community have noticed this fact. Libraries all over the country are rushing to purchase the Left Behind series by Timothy Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, a series that has already sold over 60 million copies. Most people are becoming quite familiar with this series, but I wonder if most people know just what the premise of these books actually is. The Left Behind series is based on the idea that the Rapture occurs in which Jesus takes faithful Christians to heaven with him, leaving the rest of the world behind to be tormented by the Antichrist. My favorite part of the series is how a sinister yet hunky Romanian uses the UN to establish one religion and government for the entire world. The writing is immature, the story line is ridiculous, and stereotypes appear so often that it basically makes me sick. Buried in the schlocky writing is a fundamentalist Christian message that, unfortunately, appeals to many people: repent, and the Antichrist won’t torment you. Lahaye’s interpretations of Biblical prophecies are just weird. Maybe if the writing had a bit of style to it I could at least get through a whole book and be able to mock all of it instead of just the generalities that I’m poking fun at here.

Frank E. Peretti’s book, This Present Darkness, first published in 1986, was one of the first fundamentalist Christian works to become widely popular. I have actually read this book, and though I find the plot to be unrealistic and filled with conspiracy theories, the writing is vivid and engaging. The religious beliefs presented here are a little less crazy than Lahaye, though the premise of the book is still much too wacky in my opinion: a New Age plans to take over the town of Ashton before taking over the world. By the power of prayer, the demons are defeated. This book is at least entertaining, though it does come across that if you’ve ever read your horoscope or bought a crystal necklace, you’re going to hell. After being pestered for what seemed like forever, a friend of mine finally got me to read The Da Vinci Code a few weekends ago. It was a fast-paced and dramatic read, reminding me of the early Grisham novels with the danger and intrigue. This book, however, is a definitely not a fundamentalist view of Christianity. In fact, the ideas presented in this book have been around for a long time and have been deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, a lot of the “history” presented in this book is not true, which is fine, since it’s fiction. But I’m sure many people read it like a textbook. If you have nothing to do one weekend, it’s fine to kill some time, and perhaps might even interest you in French dynasties. Plus, it’s a great girl-power book. Lastly, to beat a dead horse just a little more, I’m going to talk about The Passion of the Christ. I have seen it, and it absolutely repulsed me. It wasn’t just the violence that upset me, but the glorifying of torture that made me want to puke. If Jesus was just a man, then this movie was the closest thing to a snuff film ever made by a major Hollywood production company. If Jesus was God, then none of it matters, because he didn’t really die. All of the attention on the torturing of Jesus is appalling because from what I understand, the point of Christianity is to follow the teachings of Christ’s life — how he treated other people, and how he loved even those who hated him. Focusing on his death doesn’t bring anyone closer to a divine understanding of God.

In general, I’m sick of fundamentalist books and films propagating their idea of Christianity so that the entire religion comes off looking like a bunch of crazy people. It’s true that the Bible is written in a very accessible form, allowing people to take out of it what they see. But that doesn’t mean that every Christian agrees with the ideas of prominent Christians who have a podium to shout their beliefs from. Also, it’s dangerous to give books like The Da Vinci Code more authority and historical credence than they merit, as entertaining as they might be. Basically, I feel that if someone is going to promote their own idea of Christianity in film or print, fine, but at the very least, they need to make it well done and not try to pretend theirs is the only view of religion.

Archived article by Sue Karp

Union Days Discusses Labor, Politics

By April 16, 2004

As a part of the annual Union Days program sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, three panelists discussed “Labor and Politics in 2004” before a mixed crowd of students, faculty and alumni yesterday afternoon in the Doherty Lounge in Ives Hall. The panelists represented three viewpoints on labor and politics. Bob Muehlenkamp, senior labor advisor for the Howard Dean campaign, spoke about his experiences on the campaign trail; Prof. Adolph Reed, political science, The New School, spoke from his experience as a professor and historian and Rick Perlstein, chief national political correspondent for the Village Voice, spoke from his experiences as a political journalist. Muehlenkamp spoke first, outlining his political career with the Dinkins and Clinton campaigns and then described his involvement with the Dean campaign. “I wanted to make sure that the labor movement did not end up on the wrong side of the issue this time,” he said, speaking about the war in Iraq and his reasons for wanting to work on the Dean campaign. He said that Dick Gephardt was the favorite to win the AFL-CIO endorsement in the Democratic primary, and that his job was to make sure that did not happen. In the end, Gephardt only received the support of one-third of the labor movement, and Dean had the endorsement of four major unions. Muehlenkamp also told the crowd the reasons that he believed that Dean fell out of favor with voters. He said that the negative campaigning between Dean and Gephardt “tore them apart” leaving room for other candidates to rise. He said that he thought that other candidates ganged up on Dean and that the “press decapitated his candidate.” In addition, he believes that Dean made many of his own mistakes, saying that “[the campaign advisors] could not keep up with the major gaffes.” In closing his segment, he said that the labor movement is running an aggressive campaign against President George W. Bush. “Twenty-six percent of votes cast in 2000 were from union families,” he said, “and 65 percent of them voted Democrat.” He added that the Democratic party has to concentrate on the persuadable votes. “Only nine states actually count in this election, and 45 percent of each of those states is on one side, and 45 percent is on the other side. So only nine percent of the votes in this country are actually up for grabs: that’s what its all about,” he said. “This will be the most polarized election since the civil war.” Reed began his portion of the discussion by saying that “this is the most dangerous administration that has been in the White House in [his] lifetime.” He said that Dean was “in a position to be vocal against the war that congressional Democrats couldn’t be in because they all voted for it in some way.” Adding that Dean enabled the country to have a different kind of debate. Reed spoke about the “deepening crisis involving the increasing costs of higher education in America.” He said that although most of the candidates had higher education plans, most were “convoluted.” He closed his portion of the discussion with his views on the 2004 presidential election, saying that the Republicans are going to run on the “gay marriage platform.” “They’re going to say that gay marriage is a blight in the eyes of God, man and the Easter Bunny,” he said. Perlstein, the final speaker, spoke about his experience as a political journalist. Although he covers national politics, he “stays as far away from [the campaign reporters] as possible.” He compared Dean to a bee, saying that his campaign “stung the Democratic Party before it died,” explaining the new life that he brought to the party. In his travels covering the political scene, Perlstein said that he went to political rallies and fundraisers. He spoke about a Lieberman fundraiser in particular. “The Lieberman campaign is what happens to a party when it doesn’t want to win, but it wants not to lose,” he said, saying that Lieberman was trying to act conservative in an attempt to gain the moderate vote. Perlstein went on a road trip through Illinois asking people who they plan to vote for in the upcoming election. He found that many of the people who voted for Bush in the 2000 election are now changing their allegiance based on employment and economic issues. He also spoke about white-collar outsourcing, the movement of white-collar jobs overseas, saying that he saw someone with a t-shirt that read “I lost my job to India and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” “Efficiency cannot be the only value in the economy, you have to have equity,” he said. He closed saying that, “the Democrats may be able to win the next election, but will they be able to win an election 14, 16 years from now? I don’t know.” After their statements, the floor was opened for questions from the audience. The first audience member asked who the panelists believed would be the Democratic nominee for vice-president. None of the candidates would garner a response, saying that they did not want to predict the outcome at this point. Another member of the audience asked about the panelists feelings about Ralph Nader and his effect on the upcoming election. Muehlenkamp said that he is working to “help Nader make a contribution without having to run.” He added that, “Nader wont drop out of the election.” Perlsteino said that in order for the Democratic party to be successful, they have to “have ambitious, grand ideas that need hard work to implement over several election cycles.”Archived article by Eric Finkelstein Sun News Editor
Presidential Economic Advisor Friedman '59 Speaks

By April 16, 2004

After attending an informal luncheon with 35 students from the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Stephen Friedman ’59, President George W. Bush’s assistant for economic policy and director of the national economic council, addressed a full Statler Auditorium yesterday to speak about the country’s economic situation. Friedman was appointed to his current position in Dec. 2002. His economic experience includes working with Goldman Sachs & Co. for 28 years, serving as co-chair for two years and chair for two years. Friedman then became a senior principal at March & McLennan, where he stayed until his political appointment. Friedman’s address came on the second day of the two-day “Managing the Future” summit at the business school. Robert Swieringa, the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management, said, “Most of Thursday is really looking to the future.” Opening his address, Friedman said that he spent his time as an undergraduate split between Teagle Hall and various sororities. “My time was extremely well spent,” he joked. In his introduction to Friedman’s lecture, President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77 recognized the speaker’s athletic accomplishments at Cornell. He was inducted into the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984 for his success as a college wrestler. Friedman, whose wife Barbara Benioff Friedman ’59 is vice chair of the Board of Trustees, serves on the Athletics Advisory Council. The Friedman Strength and Conditioning Center and the Friedman Wrestling Center, the first facility in college athletics to solely house wrestling, were named to honor the family’s significant gifts to the University. Friedman spoke about the many levels of the American government system from an insider’s view. Comparing it to other organizations, he said, “there is none more complex than the U.S. government.” Each of the many committees and interest groups “sees one aspect of the elephant,” he said. Because there are so many departments within the government, Friedman stressed the importance of “a coordinated approach” to tackle all political and economic issues. Friedman then turned to create “a snapshot of where we are today” in business. He spoke about the many “bubbles” that have popped over the past few years, including the stock market dip in 2000, an “excess of business optimism” that led to dangerous capital spending and the collapse of the job market. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to Friedman, “weighed on business confidence.” He claimed that despite the “dire effect” of corporate and accounting scandals, the employment crisis is starting to turn around. Even though there is some recovery, Friedman said, “labor is clearly not yet satisfactory.” The majority of Friedman’s address focused on the need for strong federal fiscal policies and the importance of keeping America’s economy flexible. After the Jan. 2003 tax cut, Friedman said, business capital spending improved, causing an increase in consumer confidence and spending. This resulted in a more stable stock market, which is now helping to strengthen the labor market. “We have that vibrancy” to recover from a “nearly catastrophic series of body blows,” Friedman said as he touched upon the economic effects of the terrorist attacks. Friedman then discussed what he sees to be some of the weaker parts of the American economy. He first mentioned the “lawsuit burden,” the harmful economic repercussions of having high administrative costs in a very litigious society. Friedman also said that the cost of health care has resulted in a decreased efficiency in the industry. “Efficiency … is back where American industry was 25 years ago,” he said. We must work on “finding that combination of incentives and stimuli” to make health care as efficient as a Fortune 500 company, he said. Friedman said that there does not have to be a tradeoff between health care quality and efficiency. Rather, he suggested, “they go hand in glove.” He also mentioned the need for a new energy plan so that businesses are not driven offshore for cheaper energy. Finally, Friedman spoke about the need for a globalized economy. “This administration has a very strong free-trade orientation,” he said. “Anything that puts up barriers runs the risk of having retaliation. We want to avoid … a tit-for-tat world,” he explained. The address continued with a few minutes about education in America. Friedman said, “The living standard [is] tremendously correlated to the level of education” a person receives. He said that while graduate and higher education in America are “the gems of the world,” our country’s lower levels of public education are weak. “We have a major challenge,” he warned. “Economic forecasting is an enormous challenge,” Friedman said regarding the summit’s title. Because “the pendulum always swings too far one way and then too far the other way … people get overly optimistic and then they sink into a trough.” In his introduction, Lehman called the summit’s speakers a “cavalcade of great thinkers.” Earlier in the day Walter LaFeber, the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor spoke on “Globalization and Globalizers.” Jay Walker ’77, Founder and Chair of Walker Digital, LLC and Founder of Priceline.com followed LaFeber with an address. Warren Staley MBA ’67, Chair and CEO of Cargill, Inc. lectured on the topic “The Future is Now: Building a Global Sustainable Enterprise.” Abby Joseph Cohen ’73, Managing Director and Chair of the Investment Policy Committee at Goldman Sachs lectured on “U.S. Companies and Markets back in the Global Flow.” Later in the afternoon, there was a panel discussion on “Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century.” The final address was by Jeffrey Immelt, Chair and CEO of General Electric Company and this year’s Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education.Archived article by Melissa Korn Sun Senior Writer