In the age of Google, our main competition is with ourselves, or, more precisely, with those who share the same name. In that context, I find myself several rungs below the esteemed Peter Dorman, professor of things ancient and Egyptian at the University of Chicago. Now his fame is destined to spread further, as he
accepts the presidency of the American University in Beirut. From what I can see from afar, AUB’s star will also rise from its association with this highly accomplished archaeologist. My hat (the one in the photo) is tipped to both of them.
"American UNIVERSE"?! Boy, you US guys are WAY overreaching -- not enough to own one WORLD, now you want to own the UNIVERSE?! Wow, and there I thought it was only about the way-more-modest American UniversITY...!-)]
ReplyDeleteOops! Thanks for proofing this -- the correction has been made.
ReplyDeleteRed hat or black/brown/grey hat?
ReplyDeleteThe AUB has a history that few realize. Started in the 1870s by some US Protestants, most of its original students were Christian Arabs, especially Syrian Orthodox, whose services are in Aramaic, with some of them in mountain villages actually still speaking Aramaic. It was this group on that campus (which was not then called by its current name) that founded the pan-Arab nationalist movement, which was to be a secular movement not tied to either Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any religion. That movement would eventually spawn a variety of political parties and tendencies in the region, some still in power, such as the Ba'ath Party in Syria. For better or for worse, however, that movement has faded across much of the region, partly due to corruption and dictatorship by some of its regimes, with fundamentalist Islamic movements rising to replace it, with the electoral victory in Gaza by Hamas over al Fatah a symbol of this shift.
ReplyDeleteBetter red than dead.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Davies has a bit of fun (eyes right) with his Googlegangers.
ReplyDeleteOne advantage of a name like Gar Lipow: not a lot of googlegangers. Disadvantage too: if you screw up publicly, zero doubts about who did it.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Time to donate again to AUB, I see.
ReplyDelete