GEORGE WILL - HIS VIEWS CONCERNING Young Men in this Sea of Hormones and Alcohol

GEORGE WILL  --  PART I   

I unearthed an article I wrote about George Will in the late seventies.  Then it was about him being annoying.  At that time he was writing a back-page essay for Newsweek.  He wrote it one week and Meg wrote it the next.  (Meg is Meg Greenfield who wrote this biweekly essay for Newsweek for twenty-five years.  Anna Quindlen took over when Meg left.)

I wrote this article with two other critiques - of Jackson Pollack and violinist Mark O'Connor.  The three-part theme was that they all might be good, but Pollack must be an artist's artist, O'Connor must be a musician's musician, and Will must be a journalist's journalist.  I have come to change some of my opinions over the years.

I expanded the theme for Jackson Pollack in a post on April 20, 2014.  JACKSON? WHATEVER! 

1970s Essay on George Will  by Chris Antenen 

Then there's George Will.  Down here in the South we speak plain talk, even those of us who didn't grow up here.  But you, George, y'all are a piece of work that defies plain talk, and soft edges don't come to mind either.  I anticipate, with some ambiguity of feeling, your essay every other Tuesday in Newsweek.  Now that Meg is gone, I shall miss seeing her picture in the middle, back there where nobody but the Newsweek insiders look.  I was always disappointed not to find you, but also somewhat relieved.

Meg demanded less of me because I could be a thoughtful one-time-through reader as I counted on her to provide a fresh slant on a current topic of interest.  There was that opening idea with a hook, a well-developed theme, and a little kicker at the end to make me frown or smile.  Granted, she never quite saw the pen of the press in all the havoc wreaked lately.  But she had such a keen sense of what's what.

If, however, your sweet face and little round glasses are there, I approach the page as I approach the crossword puzzle.  I read it carefully, looking for a theme.  Usually I can find one if I read the piece two or three times and use only the right half of each half of my brain.  While I'm reading, I check for topic sentences (Composition 101.)  I can't find any.  I look for a summarizing statement, not there.  I look for some continuity, some logical progression of ideas (Journalism 101.) Nope, it's all over the place.  I search for something basic; a foundation, a premise, a new idea, a well-researched and validated statistic - other than an RBI - nary a one.

Last I go for the vocabulary bit, try to learn a new word or two.  There are plenty of big ones from which to choose.  I look up a couple.  Maybe I'll want to use them tomorrow.  I doubt it.  Recently I found 'benighted,' 'puerilities,' and 'argot.'  Fun, huh?  Maybe that's George's argot.  Then I get out my thesaurus and look up a few others.  Yup, yeah, yawp; every word you used is there with a lexicon of others that could have been used.  I think you use that book backwards, George.  It's there to present new and interesting words to clarify your writing, not to facilitate obfuscation.

Usually at this point, I admit defeat and throw my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender!  I'm in over my head, George!  You win!  You're smarter than I am.  Once again your intelligence and wisdom have escaped the grasp of the goobers, eluded the minds of the mundane.  Yet, again, you have gnomed the gnostic.  Your musings obscure to the masses, you have vexed the vulnerable and ideologued the idiots.  For me, it's onward to the crossword puzzle.  I need something that has a handle on reality.  "Take it someplace else, George."

GEORGE WILL --  PART II - Rape on College Campuses

       George Will wrote a syndicated column for the Washington Post from 1974 until the present, in addition to the back-page essay for Newsweek from 1976 to 2011.

I was reading recently a column by George Will -- his views on sexual assault and rape on college campuses, printed with the approval of his editor Fred Hiatt and another male editor.  Actually, it's been all over the news.  Will explained that he took issue with the practice of adjudicating campus sexual assault cases by a "preponderance" of evidence, rather than hitting the bar of evidence beyond a "reasonable doubt."  That flies in the face of due process, he argued, and ultimately harms young men's future prospects.

"What's going to result is a lot of young men in this sea of hormones and alcohol, that gets [sic] into so much trouble on campuses, you're going to have charges of sexual assault," he said.  "And you're going to have young men disciplined, their lives often permanently and seriously blighted by this -- don't get to law school, all the rest." 


Note: No mention in George Will's column or the extensive interviews and writing he has used as attempts to explain, are there any references to what effect sexual assault or rape might have on the young girls' futures, except of course their acquisition of  'coveted status.'  No mention of  'don't get to law school, all the rest' for them.

Other articles were written to confront Will's assertion that "when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."  Following is a link to the column he wrote for the Washington Post, agreed to by his editor, the article all the fuss has been about.  It seems that women who have been raped or assaulted on university campuses object to being accused of gaining a "coveted status" because according to Mr. Will, "when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."
THIS COLUMN HAS BEEN PULLED AND MAY BE HARD TO FIND, BUT IT''S WORTH THE SEARCH. 
The George Will column in the Washington Post that caused all the trouble is HERE.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e93e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

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Opinions by 'reinvented daddy' on daily KOS are HERE.
          http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/20/1308495/-AGAIN-George-Will-Succumbs-To-Hormones-Alcohol-w-no-Sense-Of-Regret

          "Remember young men might have lost their slots at medical school (sob) or law school ferchrissake just because they raped a co-ed.  And that's not even mentioning all of the young women who might have lost slots at medical schools (stop yer cryin') or law school ... because they didn't have a PENIS!"


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St. Louis paper dumps George Will for Michael Gerson.  HERE 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/06/19/st-louis-paper-dumps-george-will-for-michael-gerson/


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A letter to George Will from a gynocologist/obstetrician. HERE
http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling
THIS MAY BE HARD TO FIND, BUT IT''S WORTH THE SEARCH.
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George you are so wrong about sexual assaults.   HERE
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/21/opinion/robbins-campus-sexual-assaults/


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New Regulations for Sexual Assault Reporting and Prevention Announced  HERE
http://www.michigandaily.com/news/new-regulations-sexual-assault-reporting-and-prevention-announced/

The Clery Act requires institutions to give timely warnings of crimes that represent a threat to the safety of students or employees.

Want to guess how many institutions do that regularly?