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I found this interesting tidbit this morning:

Posted Saturday, March 29
He always seemed like such a nice boy. . .

Nicholas de Genova - radical Columbia prof impaled on post after post after post after post, the blogosphere over - was my college roommate at the University of Chicago back in 1986. (This New York Newsday piece catalysed the chain-reaction of righteous indignation. And now I find this National Review piece as well.) The following quote will do to set the tone:

"The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military," Nicholas De Genova, assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University told the audience at Low Library Wednesday night. "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

Sad, sad. Thoughtless. Indefensible. Appalling.

Nick was an orthodox Marxist (Trotskyite) way back when. He was actually homeless way back when. He had a full scholarship at the University of Chicago but nowhere to live. (Well, it was a bit more complicated than that; but it boiled down to tuition-paid homelessness.) I let him live in my dorm room. Mostly a generous gesture of charity on my part; but in part a shrewd, tactical gambit. I'd recently had an unsatisfactory roommate move out and was risk-averse. I knew I could get along with Nick and guilt-trip anyone the housing office sent over - 'you don't want to responsible for kicking this poor guy out on the street, do you?' - into looking elsewhere in the system. Scheme worked for five months. Everyone on the floor thought we were gay. 'Comrade Nikolai,' I said, 'my running-dog white-guard counterrevolutionary floormates believe we two are lovers.' That was part of a running gag. Whenever anyone annoyed Nick, I would put on my best Boris Badinoff: 'Comrade Nikolai, it is absolute impossible he will not be firrrst against wall when rrrrevolution comes.'

He thought that was quite hilarious and we got along great, agreeing to disagree about politics. I was sort of a wishy-washy Mondale Democrat at the time. (Pardon me, that last sentence contains a redundancy.) As I was saying, we got along fine (except he hated The Feelies album Crazy Rhythms, which I was in the process of wearing down to a useless wafer; and he liked Gil Scott Heron.)

We didn't keep in touch after college. Nick visited the Bay Area once while I was in grad school at Berkeley (some sort of Spartacus Youth get-together he was attending;) we did dinner. And, then - just a few months ago - I googled him out of the blue, tracked him to Columbia, fired off the requisite 'long-time, no see' email; included a few JPEGS of wife and kid. He sent back a jokey, friendly reply. That was that, until I got up this morning and discovered the stink Little Nicky has raised.

I'm bummed out.

I know some folks would say: why are you even surprised that your radical friend has radical things to say? Truth is: I always pegged Nick for a sweet and gentle soul, basically level-headed. I typecast him as the humane and too-concerned-for-his-own-good union organizer in some classic film like On the Waterfront. (Well, there actually isn't such a character in that classic film. But there could be.)

In the revolutionary yearbook I figured he would be voted most-likely-to-be-brutally-purged, on account of his soft heart and genuinely high level of fellow-feeling. I always tempered my complete political disagreement with Nick with a high degree of respect for his moral seriousness. (Orwell was a fervent socialist, we must always remember. I always figured Nick would bail if he ever saw ugly writing on the wall.)

I'm not going to join the dogpile on my old friend. I don't have the heart or stomach for the exercise, and there are already enough dogs on the pile. I'm sure as hell not going to defend what he said. I'd like to think he fired his mouth off in the heat of the moment and somehow it came out horribly not how he meant it.

Agreements to disagree are getting harder to agree on these days.

taken from:
http://homepage.mac.com/jholbo/homepage/pages/blog.html