J. K. Rowling (2) vs. Joan Didion; Arnold advances

Our most recent competition was close.

Ethan goes for Mr. 22 based on the duplication of duplicate names:

Well Benny can stretch to a double major – Major General for us, working with the Brit’s Major Andre. But that’s not close to Major Major Major so it has to be Heller.

I think Ethan meant “Brits'” rather than “Brits” but there’s no Elizabeth Taylor here to check grammar this time so I’ll let him off the hook.

Jrc offers a one-liner:

Is this a breakfast seminar? Literally no other reason to go Benedict.

Oncodoc comes in at the other end of the day:

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear? Working for the Russians! Gotta go with Heller for this prescience. I’d like him to lecture on family gatherings; Good as Gold was clearly written verbatim at my family dinners.

It’s neither a breakfast seminar nor an after-dinner talk, so the above two arguments cancel out. (That’s how I used to judge middle-school debate.)

Ben breaks the tie:

I have a Benedict Arnold conundrum that I wouldn’t mind some resolution on.

I biked up in the direction of West Point once. I didn’t make it, but on the way there I passed through a place my phone calls Haverstraw and another place called West Haverstraw.

There was a sign on a trail in the woods in Haverstraw titled “Treason Site”. There was a sign at a Ford dealership in West Haverstraw titled “Treason House”.

Where, precisely, did the treason-ing happen? How many other treasonous places are there between Haverstraw and West Haverstraw? I think Joseph Heller would agree this is a worthwhile question.

We’ll have to include Henry Ford some time in the already-overstuffed Racist Tycoons category.

And a different Ben ices it with a Thurber rhyme:

Half a mile from Haverstraw there lived a halfwit fellow,
Half his house was brick and red, and half was wood and yellow;
Half the town knew half his name but only half could spell it.
If you will sit for half an hour, I’ve half a mind to tell it.

Not quite Veronica Geng, but it’s the closest we’re gonna get today, so Ben it is, due to the strong support of two commenters named . . . Ben!

Hmmmm. As Raghu said, it seems like this one may be Rigged. Get ready now for the next round, Diana!

Today’s matchup

The second seed in the “People known by initials” category would also have fit in just fine in the “Children’s book authors” category, and she’s also a “Creator of laws or rules.” Quiddich, anyone?

On the other side, Joan Didion may be unseeded in her category but she’s undeniably cool. Would her dry wit and deft social commentary work in a Columbia University seminar, or would the audience demand magic and an old-fashioned battle between good and evil?

It’s up to you to make the case.

Again, here are the announcement and the rules.

18 thoughts on “J. K. Rowling (2) vs. Joan Didion; Arnold advances

  1. There’s no contest here. Joan Didion is one of the best writers of the last century.

    While J.K. Rowling has sold many books, her actual writing is mediocre, sometimes even relying on repeating the same descriptors multiple times in the same chapter. Her characterizations are shallow and rely on ethnic stereotypes that are factually inaccurate (“Cho Chang” is a nonsensical stereotype) or downright racist (the goblin bankers are blatant anti-Semitic tropes).

    Not to mention that Rowling is an outspoken transphobe, and given how she spends most of her opportunity for public comment these days focusing on spewing transphobic propaganda, it’s quite likely that she’d do the same in a seminar. Who wants to listen to that?

    Joan Didion may be dead, but even then I’d rather listen to whatever she has to say.

    • But there’s nothing to test. PrezBo’s stance on free speech is well established. The university has hosted far more controversial and noteworthy figures than Rowling over the years, and in far more visible platforms than a seminar lecture. Heck, some of those controversial figures include tenured Columbia University professors.

      Rowling wouldn’t be breaking any new ground. The only point in having her would be if you think what she says has value and can stand on its own merits against the alternatives.

      Judging by the bulk of her uncensored writing and public comments over the last several years, it’s clear she doesn’t. She doesn’t actually say anything that isn’t also being said by countless other people who share her beliefs. Many of the others argue it better and more articulately. None of what she says is profound, original, or well-argued. It’s only noteworthy because she’s famous – and fame alone is not enough to distinguish a good seminar lecturer.

    • Agreed. Rowling would likely attempt to use a platform to stir up controversy, but she doesn’t tend to have anything specific/novel/interesting to say. Inviting her would be a great way to alienate trans people and LGBT allies, without actually contributing a relevant discussion about gender. It seems like it would be effective at signaling a willingness to embrace controversy, but not much else. She’s not exactly known for having novel ideas about gender or transness. Mostly she just complains about being persecuted, which is ironic but not very interesting.

  2. Inviting JK Rowling would form an excellent test of Columbia Security staff and the university’s committment to free speech principles. Pick her, and I’ll supply the popcorn.

  3. J.K. Rowliing is for kids; Joan Didion is for adults. Didion’s scope of work was vast and her commentary on modern day Los Angeles is worth a seminar and a half.

    • Zhou:

      I was kinda hoping she’d come up with a new Harry Potter story! I haven’t actually read the Harry Potter books myself, but lots of people love them, so a new story would be fun. Maybe it could take place during a visit of the Columbia quidditch team to London?

      • A new Harry Potter story would be fun! But I think if she has one up her sleeve she’ll probably write it down and sell it for a load of money, rather than tell it to us

        No, she’s gonna talk about gender (read: transphobia) or–even more likely–“cancel culture.” Bleh. go with Didion.

      • Andrew, for once we concur. You said,

        I haven’t actually read the Harry Potter books myself, but lots of people love them…

        I haven’t read them either, nor am I interested in doing so. I too know of lots of reasonable people who love the things, and I don’t know why! My former colleague in the hoi polloi world of “everyday applied statisticians”, as anti-fascist hero Hillary Clinton and fellow travelers would doubtlessly and disdainfully describe us (recall her term “everyday Americans”), even chose to go to Harry Potter World for her honeymoon. Yuck! By the way, there is nothing classist nor racist about having an antipathy to J.R. Rowling and Harry Potter World. I’m not crazy about Joan Didion. Someone said she was a leading writer of the 20th century! LOL! He needs to get him some T.S. Eliot in addition to CRAN (STAN?) and probably Haskell, IMHO.

        I am a terrible fascist to you and your readers. One of them recently ridiculed my admiration of your statistical prowess and remarkable academic credentials in the comments. I am an unemployed childless widow at the moment. He made me cry. Was that truly necessary? Y’all don’t care cause you think I’m a fascist, right?

        Should I be thrown into the same thought crime detention facility as all those nasty free speech absolutists? Would you allow me to observe the sabbath, Chanukah, and Pesach despite my sins of supporting Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Zionism, and the Abraham Accords? I doubt it, not after I defended the scientific and engineering accomplishments of that well-known CalTech PhD terrorist and fascist John Poindexter in response to one of your posts of a few days ago. Is my defense of the policies of the AFL-CIO on Twitter–with enough passion and veracity that the AFL-CIO itself interceded to support me, and on a Sunday night no less–enough to redeem me? (URLs, and screenshots available upon request). Not to you and your readers, I suspect.

        I was Brian Wansink’s girlfriend while he was studying for his PhD at Stanford University. I was a mere ‘everyday American’ masters degree student in the operations research department, unlike the rarified personages who comment on your blog posts. In retrospect, I’m glad that I didn’t fill in the missing pieces for you as Wansink’s sad story played out, 5 years back. I wanted to help, but doubted you would believe me. Later, I spoke to him in 2018, trying to figure out what he could have been thinking with his behavior at Cornell. As a Trump supporter, I couldn’t possibly understand probably. Deborah Mayo seemed to think I could, and interacts with me in a cordial manner, but hey, we’re mere frequentist women. What do we know!

        Even my Twitter friend the Evil Political Scientist praises you as a statistician nonpareil. He told me to stop trying to interact with your blog posts, as it causes me so much grief. He is right. I will still guard your Wikipedia biography page against vandals, as I have for many years but I won’t blight your comments again. I apologize for my presumption.

        • P.S. Consider going a bit easier on your academic colleague, Harry Crane? He is a member of the statistics faculty at Smith College. You are the great Andrew Gelman, full professor at Columbia University, so you don’t need to attack statisticians at other institutions for their political stances, or what you perceive them to be.

          One of the comments was worse. That frequent though anonymous commenter went so far as to accuse Harry Crane of DANGEROUSLY UNDERMINING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY with his subversive statistics blog post! That is beyond the pale of decency and decorum among professionals… but hey, it is your blog not mine.

        • One of them recently ridiculed my admiration of your statistical prowess and remarkable academic credentials in the comments. I am an unemployed childless widow at the moment. He made me cry. Was that truly necessary?

          In case you’re referring to me, it was not necessary. I regret doing it. I’m sorry. I do not think you’re a fascist, and can’t speak for everyone else but I don’t think anyone else thinks so either.

          No snark, no argumentation, just honesty; this does not look like healthy behavior. You’re looking for approval from credentialed strangers on the internet who you don’t know and who don’t know you. I am literally just some guy, an academia-reject code-monkey in my early 20s. My opinion does not matter and you should not care. Andrew is an amazing statistician, but he doesn’t know you; if he thinks you’re a fascist, but you know you’re not, he’s just wrong. Some of us might know stuff about programming and numbers and math and politics and stuff, but we don’t know anything about you. We can’t throw you in the gulag, we don’t matter. The same goes for these twitter folk; they might have great snark in 300 characters, or they might be representative of people and organizations that do good work, but you cannot live for retweets from the AFL-CIO.

          I genuinely hope the best for you and your well being. I don’t think you can find it in the transient pseudo-social interactions here or on twitter.

        • Ellie:

          I met Harry Crane when I spoke at his seminar and we had a very pleasant interaction. When I comment on something he writes for public consumption, it’s not personal, nor is it an attack. It’s just open discussion.

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