Posted on 10/12/2001 5:58:42 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
This is a tale of two college campuses and a Rorschach test for Americans to decide where they fit along the nation's cultural divide.
It's corny vs. cool, instinctive patriotism vs. deeply ingrained political correctness.
It's Texas A&M vs. Harvard. Despite my Harvard background, I come down squarely with the Aggies.
My guess is that most Americans will, too, even those who might be embarrassed to admit it, until they think about the two schools and themselves.
Harvard ended funding for, and kicked off campus, the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which provides financial aid to students who receive training and become military officers. It did so in 1995 because the Pentagon prohibits homosexuals from openly serving in the military.
Harvard, whose students can take ROTC at nearby schools, apparently believes that promoting gay rights takes precedence over the national defense.
At A&M, the military is part of a culture that reveres family, football and, in times past, making fun of New Yorkers.
But after the Sept. 11 attack, students at the working-class university devised a uniquely Aggie way to raise more than $150,000 for the victims, most of whom are from New York. Harvard students, with presumably greater financial resources, did nothing comparable.
A&M students sold 70,000-plus T-shirts proclaiming "Standing Up For America," in patriotic colors. The school's triple-decker, 82,000-seat football stadium was color-coded, the top in red, middle in white and the bottom in blue for the next game. It was one patriotic television picture.
Admittedly, these are not exact comparisons, but the anecdotes illustrate the cultural differences between Harvard and A&M, and, to an uncomfortable degree, between Ivy League elites and most of America.
Harvard is, well, Harvard, the nation's most-prestigious university. But it's a snooty place where many, although by no means all, look down on the rest of America as intellectually inferior and unsophisticated.
I spent two semesters there as a Neiman Fellow, taking advantage of a generous university program that allows mid-career journalists to sample its rich academic offerings.
At the time, shortly after Ronald Reagan's election as president, the campus consensus was that he had duped the country. Americans, the Harvard group-think argued, would return to traditional liberalism soon. That view was out of touch then, as now.
Fast-forward to today, when Harvard is among elite colleges where the view that U.S. foreign policy gave Osama bin Laden reason for his terrorism appears to be more than a fringe opinion. The Associated Press reports that "a recent peace rally [on campus] drew several times more students than a patriotism rally."
At A&M, this year rated the nation's 15th best public university by U.S. News & World Report, the T-shirts symbolize an instinctive belief in America and its values. Students and faculty there have the common sense to distinquish between foreign policy and murder.
The reality is that the comparison between Harvard and Texas A&M illustrates the heirarcy of institutional values.
At Harvard -- and I'm being generous to the school's students and faculty -- there is an underlying skepticism about the virtues of the U.S. military and unabashed patriotism. Some argue that hostility is a more accurate term.
Many at Harvard and similar institutions say that most Americans don't understand the complex nature of the issue. But they're wrong. Sometimes things are as simple as they seem.
The Harvard detachment from the military, symbolized by its looney ROTC policy, is one reason that students, faculty and administrators take an academic view of the situation. Many see flag-waving patriotism as wrongly judgmental about the superiority of the American way of life.
And Harvard is not alone. Other elite educational institutions, such as Yale and Cal-Berkeley, display similar attitudes, especially when compared with most of the nation's campuses and communities.
At A&M, as in most of America, the students and faculty believe national defense takes priority over pushing gay rights. And despite, what some of my liberal friends will argue, this view has nothing to do with anti-gay bigotry.
It has to do with common sense. When the nation is attacked, internal squabbles about policy nuances pale in comparison.
Times like these make me wish Harvard played serious football so I could root against them on TV. You can be sure that I will be pulling for the Aggies.
Peter A. Brown can be reached at 407-420-5276 or pbrown@orlandosentinel.com Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
Check it out Tier 4 if that TAMU education you apparently received has equipped you with comprehension of the English Language and nature the opposable thumbs that keyboards require!"
Now that... is funny!
Make an @$$ of yourself, why don't ya!
had about 30 minutes of air time to fill. He did so masterfully by getting both Newt and Charlie stirred up. The only thing he could do was nit-pick the speech, so he did. BTW, is it just me, or does Charlie Rangell look like he drinks way too much MD 20/20?
AB
Only A&M joke I know, and it is true is- What do you call an Aggie two years after they graduate?
Boss.
With my son it was two months.
I know and have been associate with several Harvard grads. They were fairly far removed from the real world. I forget just what William Buckley said, but it was on the order of if he had a choice for President and it was between taking the top Ivy League School grad and a person taken at random from the Boston phone book, he would take the phone book. More common sense. We have an elite college near us. It has shrugged off the attacks as not having anything to do with them since it does not interfear with their lifestyle. They are completely detached from the reality of this country and mirror exactly what is in the article. Even Bill Gates had sense enough to drop out of Harvard.
The late Dr. Gill of Corpus Christi relates the tradition of the 12th Man
"It was in January, 1922, following the 1921 football season. The Aggies were SWC champions and had been invited to play Centre College in what was then called the Dixie Classic in Dallas. I had played on the football team but was on the basketball team at the time, and those in charge felt I was more valuable to the basketball team.
I was in Dallas, however, and even rode to the stadium in the same taxi with Coach Dana Bible. I was in civilian clothes and was not to be in uniform. Coach Bible asked me to assist in spotting players in the press box.
So, I was up in the press box when, near the end of the first half, I was called to the Texas A&M bench. There had been a number of injuries but it was not until I arrived on the field that I learned that Coach Bible wanted me to put on a football uniform and be ready to play if he needed me. There were no dressing rooms at the stadium. The team had dressed downtown at the hotel and traveled to the stadium in taxi cabs. Anyway, I put on the uniform of one of the injured players. We got under the stand and he put on my clothes and I put on his uniform. I was ready to play but was never sent into the game."
George S. Patton Jr.
As per ol' Charlie, yeah, could be the ol' Mad Dog or maybe Schlitz Malt Liquor (they still make that stuff?). I suspect he drinks what ever he wants to, eh?
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