September 2010 Letters
LETTERS
troupe effort
I wanted to let you know how much my wife Heather and I (both proud members of the Class of 1981) enjoyed the latest issue of the Williams Alumni Review (June 2010), in particular the piece by Denise DiFulco on Jennifer French and the Center for Environmental Studies. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I made it the jumping-off point of a post on our blog, “Free Range: Food, Writing, the Texas Hill Country, and More,” which I titled “The literary environment (with apologies to the Williams Alumni Review).”
(See madronoranch.blogspot.com, July 2, 2010.)
(See madronoranch.blogspot.com, July 2, 2010.)
—Martin Kohout ’81, Austin, Texas
In June’s Alumni Review, James MacGregor Burns ’39 answers questions about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s impending confirmation hearings. He notes, “There will also be the usual red herring about ‘original intent.’ It is important to remember that the original framers of the Constitution disagreed about the meaning of the Constitution they had just drafted.”
That originalism does not always lead to a simple —or even one—answer on matters of Constitutional interpretation should not lead to the wholesale untethering of the Court from the limits of the Constitution’s language and meaning. Then again, I suppose that, thus unmoored, the Court would be free to arrive at Professor Burns’ desired political ends.
—Russ Day ’91, Washington, D.C.
Why would you put a picture of a dorm with an Amherst College sticker on the cover of the June Alumni Review?
—Diana del Valle ’95, Boca Raton, Fla.
They Said: Opinions and ideas expressed by members of the Williams community
“What I’ll miss about Williams is the people. Bricks and mortar are great, but the real value of this place is the folks who work here. I’ll also miss Cole Field on a beautiful fall morning well before either soccer team kicks off. Weston Field late fall afternoon after the football game is over and stragglers are making their way out … the whole spirit of the place.”
— Harry Sheehy ’75, departing athletic director, on his appointment as director of athletics and recreation at Dartmouth College
“Like his idol, George S. Patton, he wanted to be the general who never cried. So I count myself among the fortunate few who knew the other George, the loyal and giving one, as well as the one who seemed regularly to be in hot water.”
— Fay Vincent ’60, Commissioner of Baseball, 1989-92, writing of the late George Steinbrenner ’52, in the New York Times, July 13, 2010