starting today till 5pm tomorrow graduate students are voting on the same larry summers motion put to the faculty last week. i am not voting till tomorrow, so i can think over it a little more, but at present i'm inclined towards a vote of confidence. it won't be because i like him or because i approve of the way he is running things. never did, and of course i'd rather have an english professor run a university than an economist, but what on earth has he done to actually deserve a vote of no-confidence from the FAS? perhaps he was not the right appointment for this school at this time, and he certainly has gone and upset a lot of people, first with the afro-am department and then the women in science affair, but while i'm leftish about a great many things much of the controversy in both these cases has also been unfairly exaggerated and taken out of context. the relish - lust practically - with which people are jumping on him is sickening. it's not as if he is some kind of dolores umbridge. even if we don't like him do we have to be such a bloody-minded lot? and just what good would it do to force a resignation? (vimes: don't put your trust in revolutions.) it's rather chinese family of me but what in the world is the good of all this public embarrassment. or worse, what good would it be to have all this nastiness out in public if he stays on (which he certainly is intent on) and we all have to carry on knowing what has happened and it's all bitterness and recrimination and divided faculty and cloak and dagger from now till domesday? public brawling and show of divisiveness are completely undignified and not in the least constructive and what has it achieved so far other than giving the rest of the country more excuses to be rude about us.