Bob Schwartz

Tag: Harvard

December 8, 2024

Bodhi Day, Part 2: Time Magazine, December 7, 1925, reports on Buddha’s Birthday

That isn’t Buddha on the cover of Time Magazine, December 7, 1925 issue (99 years ago). It is Jose R. Capablanca, then world chess champion, who had recently lost some matches in a Moscow tournament.

Buddha did appear in the magazine, with this in the Religion section:

Buddha’s Birthday

In Tokyo last week the Far Eastern Buddhist Congress, attended by 500 Chinese, Korean and Japanese delegates, decided to spread the teachings of their Master by the publication of Buddhist books, pamphlets, magazines. A resolution was passed urging that the birthday of Buddha be celebrated by a worldwide holiday, like the birthday of Christ.

As a cultural archaeologist, with an inordinate love of old magazines, I would like to post every page of the issue. Instead, I have selected just one full-page ad. This is for the Five-Foot Shelf of Books, aka The Harvard Library, compiled by legendary academic Charles W. Eliot, who was president of Harvard for forty years. The Shelf/Library contained “418 masterpieces” in fifty volumes.

In promoting this as the perfect Christmas gift, the headline says “It took twenty centuries to make this Christmas gift for you” and closes with “BOOKS—The finest gift of all”.

The good news: The complete Shelf/Library, later known as the Harvard Classics, is widely available for free online.The better news: Books are still the finest gift of all.

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October 7, 2013

How Much Is That in Harvard Years?: Why Ted Cruz Thinks He Is Leader of the Senate

Ted Cruz - Double Harvard
One of the puzzles of the current political situation is how a U.S. Senator with less than a year in Congress believes he is the leader of his party—if not of the nation.

One theory is that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, and therefore doesn’t completely understand the American political system. But that would make him more reasonable, conciliatory and polite, so that has been rejected.

Another possibility is that the sudden disappearance of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has left a vacuum that the party is scrambling to fill. In the chaos of the relentless search for the Kentucky Senator, Sen. Cruz has leapt into the breach.

The best explanation is a bit esoteric, but if you attended one of the “major” Ivy League colleges, as Ted Cruz did, you should have no trouble following. (Note: This writer, as a graduate of what Ted Cruz considers a “lesser” Ivy, is still struggling with the theory. Hopefully there is a Harvard, Princeton or Yale grad out there to help.)

Just as there are “dog years,” there are also, at least in the mind of Ted Cruz, “Harvard Years.” The exact numbers aren’t clear, but on a one-for-one basis, this means that the seven years he spent at Harvard (College and Law School) is the equivalent of seven years in Congress. If it is two-for-one, he has been there for fourteen years. And if it is a canine calculus, Ted Cruz has been in Congress for 49 years! That is a near record achievement that should put complaints of his inexperience to rest, though other concerns won’t go away so easily.

Note: The Ivy League colleges are famous (at least among their attendees) for their mottos. These are in Latin, because at the time the schools were founded, Latin was the lingua franca of the intelligentsia. (And yes, of course, Ted Cruz probably speaks Latin, along with French and Spanish.)  For all his Haravardian pride, he should pay closer attention to the motto of his alma mater: Veritas (truth).

Even closer to home for Ted Cruz, if he would deign to consider the motto of one of those lesser Ivies, is this: Leges Sine Moribus Vanae—laws without morals are in vain.

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