Friday, August 12, 2011

Oh, Brother

Last night I read my brother's article about John Chambers of Standard and Poor's on Slate

As it turns out, Whittaker Chambers is not the only Chambers in my brother's intellectual life. As a fellow Grinnellian, class of 1990, my experience in the late 1980s was quite different from Sam's description of the Grinnell Experience in the mid 1970s. Yet I did have the same English professor, Mike Cavanagh, who taught Sam and John. While visiting Grinnell last spring with my family, Mike told us how intense my brother and his classmates were. My friends and I were different. We certainly loved literature, but gravitated to constitutional law and history. I remember listening to The Clash's I Fought the Law before taking exams. I liked the anger in the song, but it wasn't mine.

This summer has helped me to understand the 1970s much better.