So Rose and Bonds, in or out?
I see what you’re doing there.
Bonds is easy. Cheated to get his stats. Colors everything he did as a player. Out.
Rose is more complicated. Him betting didn’t compromise the legitimacy of his performance over his career. But it’s the HOF and they get to consider a person’s total impact on the game. Betting on your sport while still involved in your sport is hubris and everybody knows it and he did it. So, while debatable it’s entirely reasonable to say Charlie Hustle is out.
I have to confess that I once saw Rose being an a$$hole at one of those signing events in the Forum Shops in Vegas, and everyone knows Bonds is an a$$hole, so it’s not hard for me to be punitive in both cases.
Here is a good piece (by way of book reviews) on the topic of Pound and Evil.
A relevant excerpt:
Pound made these matters stand at the heart of his life’s work, inextricable from his larger concerns about history, culture and economics. Robert Casillo is therefore entirely correct to say that Pound’s writing raises ‘the problem of evil in literature’ in an especially clear way. ‘For it must be emphasised that Pound’s anti-semitism is quite different from Dostoyevsky’s and Eliot’s. Not only is it a massive and prevalent theme, but at a number of points in Pound’s poetry and prose it becomes so virulent that Pound hints covertly at the extermination of the Jews. This is a fact … always to be kept in mind, for it would be difficult if not impossible to find a truly great work or writer in Western tradition embracing such acknowledged evil.’ No one before Casillo has raised this ‘problem of evil’ in Pound’s work in the context of such massive documentation and thoroughgoing scrutiny. The general shape of the situation has been no secret, however – Pound’s work is a problem precisely because it pushes these issues to the fore. (emphasis added)
For a broad perspective on Ezra Pound, this documentary might serve as an introduction for those who would like to learn more about him: https://youtu.be/NETupSPHa4o?si=WuzPI3NVg5c5oqQQ. The film offers aspects of being a primary source, with some of Pound’s poetry being beautifully read. Nonetheless, the documentary includes commentary on his deeply unsettling viewpoints as well.
This excerpt includes some of Pound’s own words of contrition and mentions his late-in-life return to Hamilton:
"Ezra Pound, aged eighty-seven, died in the night of November 1, 1972, released at last from a long, agitated silence (‘but the mind as Ixion, unstill, ever turning’). For ten years, haunted by despair, contrition, or some other, nameless, more complicated sentiment, he had spoken very little. ‘I ruin everything I touch,’ he told an Italian journalist in 1963. ‘I have been mistaken, always…I have arrived at doubt too late….’ He thought The Cantos were ‘botched,’ and confessed to Allen Ginsberg (in a conversation reported by Michael Reck in Evergreen Review) that his worst mistake had been ‘that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.’
“The drafts and fragments of the late Cantos, published in 1969—Pound himself appearing at Hamilton College, his old school . . .”
He sounds a lot like anybody else in the FO stage of FAFO.
Since further comments would be regarded as off-topic, Pound cannot be — and decidedly hasn’t been, in my opinion — discussed fairly in this space.
Well, the inclusion of Ezra Pound was for a “trial period“; a way to bring Hamilton into the discussion. And, like any typically LAC bull session, I actually wound up learning a few things I had not known about the subject. On perhaps a lighter note, any ideas why there are no little ivies in New Hampshire or Rhode Island?
Because they already have Brown and Dartmouth! ![]()
Interesting article from The Record re: NYC students and social cultures, applicant pool is largely from NY, Mass and California at Williams.
I guess my only question is whether this is peculiar to NYC private school children or are the New England private school kids just as tightknit?
Correct. And after careful consideration of the points proffered, I’m inclined to make Mr. Pound’s inclusion on the list official and permanent. So let it be written, so let it be done.
and yet, you persist:
Look, I didn’t start the year looking for a reason to hang this guy but I also would not lift a finger, much less work this hard, to see to it that he’s portrayed fairly in a spoofy sub-thread.
We are talking about a treasonous man who:
- Enthusiastically embraced the writings in Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and recommended them as “useful reading”.
- Wrote in a 1953 letter to Olivia Agresti (long after the holocaust was known to the world), “Adolf clear on the bacillus of kikism… but failed to get a vaccine against that.”
- In one of hundreds of propaganda radio broadcasts for the Italian fascist regime, explicitly said: “You let in the Jew and the Jew rotted your empire, and you yourselves out-jewed the Jew. Your allies in your victimized holdings are the bunyah, you stand for NOTHING but usury”.
- After escaping the hangman’s noose by agreeing to take crazy pills for a short while, was photographed in Italy in 1961 giving the fascist salute and marching in a neo-fascist parade, clearly unrepentant in his views.
“Stupid, suburban prejudice” seems like a gross understatement for this virulent Jew-hating poet. And it’s not clear he ever really let go of these views other than saying so for convenience in a world that didn’t pan out well for the Third Reich and Benito. Had it been otherwise, I don’t think Ezra ever takes crazy pills or regrets being an antisemite.
He’s on the list.
My guess is that its NYC, seems like prep school students from New England and from the Boarding schools draw on a broader demographic.
News From Around The `Cac (this is a great sub-string, props to @TennisParent for starting it off!):
Bowdoin:
Trouble with notable alumni.
Wesleyan:
A peeping tom is on the loose in Middletown.
Amherst:
“Suggestive” student performances.
College Receives National Attention, Controversy Over “Voices of the Class” Performance
Middlebury:
Various illustrations of how the Trump administration’s NIH, NSF funding policies may be affecting even LACs.
“My NSF grant is through this EPSCoR program [Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research], which is for underfunded states like Vermont. I thought for sure that was going to be cut, and it wasn’t,” Crodelle said. “But I have this constant fear that it’s just going to be taken away if the administration one day decides, ‘We don’t care about Vermont anymore, we don’t care about math or neuroscience, and we’re just going to take that money back.’” Middlebury faculty retain most federal research grants despite delays and uncertainty - The Middlebury Campus
Trinity:
A Tripod editor resigned recently over a “breaking news” article published in the wake of a student death.
“On Wednesday, Jan. 28, the editorial board of the Tripod voted to go against longstanding Tripod policy and retract the article. Outside of misinformation or imminent danger, retraction ultimately goes against the very function of a newspaper as well as the stated mission of the Tripod. It has become clear to me in the recent week, particularly in light of this decision, that my journalistic values and standards stand at odds with a significant portion of the Trinity community and the Tripod staff.”
Letter to the Editor: Statement of Resignation from Savannah Brooks ’26 – Trinity Tripod
Is anyone ever prepared to respond to a Peeping Tom?
It’s so obvious the culprit is a fellow first-year who has budgeted a lot of cash for disposable phones.
Pretty impressive of Colby and one is still a student there.
Missing from this list is Middlebury sophomore Nikhil Alleyne, who was the flagbearer for Trinidad and Tobago at the Opening Ceremony. He’s the first-ever male alpine skier from TTO (joining Emma Gatcliffe, who is on this list).
As the only NESCAC with its own ski hill, I’d expect nothing less.
Remind me, as St. Lawrence has D1 hockey, isn’t Midd’s ski team D1 as well? I thought I knew that at one point.

