Day: February 21, 2006

“…and Sweet’s the Air with Curly Smoke…”

I called it a year (and four days) ago. The President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, has resigned. I’m reminded, at this time, of my friend and advisor Josh Freeman who was cool to the movement to oust our Queens College President, Allen Lee Sessoms, back in 1999. What comes next is not necessarily better, he reasoned. It’s not hard to imagine this episode being used in the right-wing assault on the Ivory Tower. Those lefty professors are out of control. They have no respect for their university presidents, or any attempt to establish “standards.”

Paul Avrich, Anarchist and Historian 1931 – 2006

Paul Avrich died last week, aged 74. He was a respected anarchist, and a historian of anarchism (particularly Haymarket and the Sacco and Vanzetti trial) and the Russian Revolution. He was a Professor Emeritus at Queens College. I was fortunate enough to have been a student in the last regular undergraduate course that Dr. Avrich taught at Queens College. It was an invaluable experience to learn about the Russian Revolution from a talented and diligent scholar, who was sympathetic to the utopian goals of the revolution, while critical of the undemocratic nature of the Bolsheviks. There will be a service tomorrow at 12:45 pm at the Riverside Chapel (Amsterdam and 78th).