Culture Briefs

God and Che

“A glorious culture clash took place in Iran recently that made me laugh out loud. The children of Che Guevara, the revolutionary pinup, had been invited to Tehran University to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their father’s death and celebrate the growing solidarity between ’the left and revolutionary Islam’ at a conference partly paid for by Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.

“One of the speakers, Hajj Saeed Qassemi, the coordinator of the Association of Volunteers for Suicide-Martyrdom (who presumably remains selflessly alive for the cause), revealed that Che was a ’truly religious man who believed in God and hated communism and the Soviet Union.’

“Che’s daughter Aleida wondered if something might have been lost in translation. ’My father never mentioned God,’ she said, to the consternation of the audience. ’He never met God.’ During the commotion, Aleida and her brother were led swiftly out of the hall and escorted back to their hotel. ’By the end of the day, the two Guevaras had become non-persons. The state-controlled media suddenly forgot their existence,’ the Iranian writer Amir Taheri noted.”

— Sarah Baxter, writing on “Where do you stand in the new culture wars?” Sunday in the Times of London

College tango

“Without much fanfare, college lectures are being put online, for free. MIT lectures can be downloaded from ITunes University, and you can watch Cal professors pontificate on your computer via YouTube. …

“Has anyone thought through this whole free lectures thing? …

“Lectures are free, college requires lectures, therefore college is worthless. Makes sense. But of course, college isn’t worthless, not if you ever want to get a job. The lectures may have no value, but the sheepskin and transcripts certainly do — $200K please.

“College is not optional. … In our knowledge economy, it’s your ticket to the job dance. So maybe you can give away the content, but without the proof of purchase diploma, no tango.”

— Andy Kessler, writing on “YouTube U.,” in the Oct. 29 issue of the Weekly Standard

Borked

“Twenty years ago … the United States Senate voted to reject President Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. The senators may have had every reason to believe that was the end of the story. However ugly it had been, however much time it had taken, Mr. Bork’s defeat was only one more routine sacrifice to partisan politics. But time would prove wrong anyone who actually thought that. The battle over Mr. Bork was politically transformative, its constitutional lessons enduring.

“To many at the time (and still today) it was inconceivable that a man of Mr. Bork’s professional accomplishments and personal character could be found unacceptable for a seat on the court. Warren Burger summed it up for many when he described Mr. Bork as simply the best qualified nominee in the former chief justice’s own professional lifetime — a span of years that included the appointments of such judicial luminaries as Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. Such praise was no empty exaggeration.”

— Gary L. McDowell, writing on “The War for the Constitution,” Tuesday at OpinionJournal.com