FREE SPEECH/DYNES

I’m sorry, but as a disillusioned constituent of the grifting ex-congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, I don’t buy UC President Robert C. Dynes’ version of the late Kenneth Lay’s discredited excuse, i.e., evil, evil everywhere, but how was I, beleaguered newcomer alone in a ramshackle manse, to know?

But how could Dr. Dynes, after the Gardner fiasco, not know that the last decade of lavish UC administrative handouts to a favored few lacked the Board of Regents approval? Before becoming president in late 2003, Dr. Dynes was chancellor of UCSD for years, one of the University’s highest officials, and therefore, fully within the loop. Or did the elite have no grapevine or rumor mill to rejoice in the tainted good fortune of a colleague such as the UCD vice-chancellor who resigned only to receive a $20,000-a-year raise for a new job without regular duties?

In cases of civic graft, the victims, viz., taxpayers, have no choice but to continue to fund the defalcations, whether known or unknown. But are the donors to a major university that misuses its funds under a similar obligation? With handouts such as $355,000 recently allowed ex-UCB Chancellor Robert Berdahl, as an "exception to policy," what credence should alumni and others give the University’s annual fund-raising pleas?

Dr. Dynes suggests that public discussion of the compensation scandal raises the concern of insiders " ... about inappropriate people dictating the agenda of the University." But isn’t this just what the fox said about someone else guarding the henhouse?

Henry P. Johnson, Boalt Hall ’56

I read the interview with President Dynes in your September/October issue with great interest and considerable sympathy for anyone faced with heading a public university these days. It struck me as unfortunate, however, that the article’s introductory comments about the executive compensation controversy, like much of the media reporting on this issue, failed to convey any sense of context: "Public records revealed that for years, UC administrators had awarded millions in compensation packages and perks ... that contradicted (agreed-upon) guidelines..."

As a former chancellor and vice president who served with three UC presidents, it has been my experience that in a large and complex organization like the university, effective communication between the administration and the governing board depends far more on mutual understandings than on written guidelines, and that reporting practices considered entirely acceptable in one administration can come to be seen as problematic in another. Clearly, some exceptions to policy and lapses in reporting occurred that needed to be fixed. But discussion of executive compensation policy and practices would benefit from a contextual setting that has so far been lacking.

Karl S. Pister, Chancellor Emeritus, UC Santa Cruz

GLOBAL WARMING

Your issue illuminates why a substantial number of people cannot embrace the human-driven global warming frenzy. Only one point of view was presented. Too much warming philosophy is based on manipulated computer simulations. Global warming is cyclical even without human pollution. It would be more productive to honestly and realistically quantify how much and what aspects of this current cycle may be exacerbated by human activity.

Darrell Lackey ’75

The September/October issue is one of the best I’ve read. Keep it up and you’ll be one of the best magazines available.

Roman Gankin ’53

Why is the question "Can we adapt?" Why isn’t it "What can we do about it?"

Claudia Bower ’89

Your excellent journalism provided an unparalleled presentation of this crisis facing civilization. This is the best reference I have yet seen for informing friends and colleagues. At a grassroots level, the Berkeley Environmental Alumni Network (www.calbean.org) is a new group that provides a framework for taking up the challenge of environmental stewardship while serving the university.

Karl Brown ’82

It was heartwarming to find that at least three UC scientists, Jay Keasling, Daniel Kammen, and Jim Williams, have staked their careers on addressing global warming. I hope there are more where they came from.

Scott Robinson ’69, M.D.

I am appalled by the propaganda and preaching of "Global Warning." You did not mention that the "hockey stick" has been thoroughly discredited. The world will soon realize [this] is a fraud, and then the former great university will lose its credibility, as is so richly deserved.

Guy W. Winton ’50

The editors reply: More than one reader complained about the so-called "hockey stick" graph, which became a political football (or puck?) among partisans and pundits. Independent observers debate the margin for error, not the basic science, of the graph, which links rising global temperatures to CO2 emissions. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education provides a good primer on that debate. Climate change modeling is by definition a simulation, and all credible models do factor in cyclical changes from human effects; our report concerned the increased success of Inez Fung’s model in predicting current climatic events.

CHINA

I was in Beijing about 30 years ago. There were several American climatologists there at the time and the only topic of conversation was the environmental disaster already in progress in Eastern China and the basic inability of China or anybody else to find a solution to the country’s persistent atmospheric temperature inversion. The Chinese know that fact but coal is the only large energy source domestically available.

This supposedly intelligent species must start using its brains on meaningful topics. Not trash about hybrid cars and energy-conserving homes and devices. Further population increases and industrialization of the world will overwhelm any measures that can be taken.

Jack F. Evernden ’48, Ph.D. ’51

The problem faced by China is very similar to that faced by the U.S. following World War II, when it realized the states could not be expected to control pollution. [This realization] resulted in the establishment of the EPA. China needs the same approach, but the provincial governments are like local czars, which can and often do ignore the wishes of the central government.

Harvey F. Ludwig ’38

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Peter Schrag and David Hollinger may be right about Proposition 13, but before condemning that initiative we should set it in its context. In 1978, property taxes had been skyrocketing for some years while our legislature did nothing about them. They were regressive and only tenuously connected to the ability to pay. After Prop. 13 passed, the legislature could still have created a progressive local income tax for the support of our schools.

John Polt, M.A. ’50, Ph.D. ’56
Emeritus Professor of Spanish

It was quite a coincidence that not long after I finished reading Shelby Steele’s White Guilt you would publish an excellent example of white guilt ("UC’s mission and the color line"). Steele makes the case that guilt over the past racist practices of white society and its institutions, including universities such as UC, is the driving force behind much of today’s liberal social policy, including affirmative action. Many whites believe that, since past racist practices were what prevented minorities from succeeding, we can atone for those actions by assuming responsibility for solving the problems racism caused. As this transfer of responsibility became more pervasive, and minorities became more and more dependent on others, their condition actually deteriorated rather than improved.

Jeffery Keller