That's Outrageous

"THE CAPITAL GANG" is one of those cheesy Washington talk shows currently passing for insightful political discourse. You've seen the type--they all feature loud, obnoxious chattering about the same topics, and they all feature Pat Buchanan. But "The Capital Gang" offers the Outrages of the Week at the end of every show, and the Outrages of the Week are cool.

The panelists wax indignant for a few seconds each on some topic that rankled them during the past seven days. This week, I have my own outrages.

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OUTRAGE NUMBER ONE:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are free. Sort of.

For four decades, a snobby clique of academics appointed indirectly by the state of Israel has controlled access to study of the ancient texts. But last week a posh California library announced, to much fanfare from the academic world, that it has photos of the documents available for the perusal of those not in the bevy of privileged editors.

It's too bad the texts won't be totally free, however.

Huntington Library in swanky San Marino has said it will only allow those with proper "scholarly credentials" (according to The New York Times) to see the photos. If you're interested, the library wants to know the purpose of your study project--along with letters of recommendation, ideally. Even then, you don't get to see the actual photograph negatives of the texts. You get microfilm.

Obviously the scrolls themselves, which are an Israeli national treasure, should be protected under lock and key, as most of them currently are in Jerusalem. But every-one should be able to see at least the photos of the documents precisely because they are so important.

Special hours for those writing books on the scrolls (a tiny number because of the long-standing monopoly) could be arranged, but requiring a complex application process is not much better than keeping them completely secret.

In fact, these restrictions are only the beginning. The real outrage is that the elite bunch of editors, including (until last year) two Harvard professors, oppose even limited access to the photos. "It's a way of taking away a scholar's work," former group member and current Harvard Professor of Christian Origins John Strugnell told The Crimson this week.

That's absurd. And it's dishonest to suggest that Huntington Library is somehow sanctioning plagiarism. The scrolls were not written by the editors, and they should not be allowed to play favorites with who gets access.

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OUTRAGE NUMBER TWO:

James F. Hoge did some despicable things as publisher of the strike-ridden work for compromise. He stationed guards in the newsroom. It's said that he even brought in some guard dogs to keep Daily News employees away from the printing presses. Pretty fascist for a newspaper publisher.

But shouldn't he be allowed to teach anyway? A coalition of unions, both on campus (the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers) and in Boston, think not. They say Hoge should be kicked out of the Institute of Politics (IOP), which named him as one of its fellows for this fall. Joining them is the director of the Civil Liberties Union of Harvard (CLUH), Joshua E. Burstein '93. Pretty strange reasoning for a civil libertarian, even though he's acting independently of CLUH.

Burstein, who has a personal stake in the issue since his father worked for The Daily News and died of a heart attack during the strike, is right to attack Hoge's political views on strikes. But those views should not be enough to keep Hoge from teaching his study group. Granted, Burstein doesn't plan to blockade the IOP, but he does want Hoge removed.

If the IOP screened out all potential fellows who engaged in some arbitrary set of Bad Things, they would lose the political diversity which make the study groups successful--or at least somewhat interesting. As John W. Roberts, director of the local American Civil Liberties Union, told The Crimson in what was purportedly a defense of Burstein, "Well, you don't want anyone drummed out because of their message." Exactly.

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OUTRAGE NUMBER THREE:

Most of the world's scientists disagree with his work. The chair of Harvard's Earth and Planetary Sciences department, Michael B. McElroy, called his conclusions "way on the fringe." But White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu loves him.

He's MIT's Sloan Professor of Meteorology Richard S. Lindzen '60. His specialty is global warming, which he thinks is bunk. The business world and conservatives who oppose emissions standards love him for this--Fortune (?) magazine even featured him in a cover issue last spring.

Lindzen says he has never advised the Bush Administration in any formal way on environmental policies, but admits that he and Sununu have "talked about warming."

The controversial chief of staff fancies himself as the real science expert in the White House (although the job of science adviser officially belongs to another conservative scientist, D. Allan Bromley). Unfortunately, this means the administration opposes many global environmental protections.

Just last week the U.S. refused to sign an international treaty in Nairobi, Kenya, which would impose mandatory cuts in heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, even though this country is responsible for 25 percent of all the carbon dioxide dumped into the air.

Perhaps the president should look beyond armchair environmentalists and darlings of corporate America for advice on the environment.