It looks like King is being demoted to pawn
It looks like King is being demoted to pawn

By Alan Chartock
Fri, Jan 21, 2005 2:33 pm
Publishers Corner- The Legislative Gazette

For quite a while now I have been writing about the misadventures of SUNY Chancellor Robert King. I have recounted how the guy, with the help of Gov. George E. Pataki, has brought disgrace to the great State University.
There is nothing worse than trying to fashion a political house of ill repute from a university dedicated to objective learning. Of course when The New York Times finally prints what you have been saying all along, it does lend a certain note of legitimacy to your insights, and for that I thank the Times and their well-trained, if late to the story, reporters.
Now the Times tells us that King is finally being forced out by a board of trustees and a governor who were once close political allies. We are told that finally, they have decided they want more of an established academic to lead the University and bring prestige to the position. Where in the world were these folks when Pataki and King were doing their dirty work?
The politicization of SUNY has been an ongoing process and there have been few voices to document it. Some real harm has been brought upon the University and that directly influences the way our children learn.
Lately we have heard about strange, even bizarre, moves from the $250,000-a-year [plus a huge housing allowance] chancellor of the State University. Let’s remember who this guy is as we hear the rumors swirling around that he would like to be governor.
He was once an obscure upstate Assemblyman in the almost extinct Republican minority party in that house, and then had a series of political jobs given to him by his former buddy Pataki. The last of these political jobs was as the state budget director.
The State University of New York then mounted a national search for the head of the University. They looked all over the country and lo and behold, who did they come up with as the best educator to lead the biggest university in the country? Right! You guessed it. They picked politician King who then began the process of firing college presidents whose politics were different than his or who would not “go along.”
It was disgusting. But wait, there’s more. A short while back this same guy King, who has been applying for other college presidencies [and not getting them] asked that his already huge salary be increased, and then, with almost no warning and the University in crisis, asked for a six-month sabbatical so that he could, among other things, take a middle level executive management course! Wait just a second, now you want to learn how to be an executive?
We did not know what was really going on. Now we know that King was on the ropes with his own board. He clearly saw the axe heading in his direction and he tried to jump gracefully out of the way. Now it all makes sense. One of the ways King moved his college president victims out of the way was to offer them six-month sabbaticals as an incentive for moving along without fighting back. Now the Times seems to be telling us, based on “inside sources,” that King was playing by his own rules. He wanted the same six months of free money.
If you look at it from his, and not the taxpayer’s position, it makes sense. All we know is that the reaction to his move was swift and immediate. People were outraged that he was abandoning ship just as small matters, including tuition increases for the children of New York State, were being implemented and draconian cuts were being considered. In short, things were falling apart.
I have been writing about King and his policies for years from my perch at the State University as a professor. I had the guy’s number from day one and now the rest are catching up. His tenure has been checkered.
After he fired the president of The State University College at New Paltz, Roger Bowen, for allowing a group of women there to put on a conference on human sexuality, he replaced him with one of the best college presidents in New York State, Steven Poskanzer. In other places, the results were less than stellar and less qualified folks with political connections were picked. The incredibly well thought-of president of the University at Albany, Karen Hitchcock, also was shoved aside, we hear, for not going along with a political deal that the Patakiites were bringing down on the university.
Now we are told that there is real dissonance among several of the higher education players including the chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees, the governor and the chancellor. From where I sit, it looks like the game is up and King is being demoted to academic pawn. Sometimes in life, what goes around comes around.


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- posted by Raymond @ 1/24/2005 01:53:00 PM

 
Lee, Mass. -- home of what?
I, Publius
Lee, Mass. -- home of what?
By Alan Chartock
Special to The Eagle

America seems fixated on breasts. There is no denying it. A rogue breast becomes uncovered at a national event and it receives the kind of attention reserved for cataclysmic events like the recent tsunami. Are we nuts or what? Is this indicative of the kind of sexual repression written about by social psychologists and discussed by Freud and Kinsey? What is it about breasts that makes this nation crazy? At least one pop psychologist believes that the big deal is over the fact that women have them and men don't.

There are some societies in which uncovered breasts are part of everyday life. Anyone who has ever subscribed to National Geographic knows that. Breasts, in their natural state, don't raise an eyebrow. The problem is that we have turned the female breast into forbidden fruit. Some believe this is just another manifestation of this country's overwhelming objectification of women. Others will say, "Vive la difference."

One wag put it this way, "Cleavage is like the peacock and all those feathers he uses to attract the opposite sex." This is particularly relevant to all of us here in the Berkshires since nestled in the little town of Lee is a company focused entirely on breasts.

I was speaking to some folks at a party the other night and asked the usual question, "What do you do for a living?" You can imagine my surprise when Ted and Karen Davis, the married couple of whom I'd asked the question, told me.

It seems that they make stick-on bras that are used by women all over the world. Their products are sold in the ritziest department stores and in some of the most recognizable lingerie shops and catalogs in America.

Their business, Brazabra Corp. in Lee, employs a lot of people. In addition to the stick-on bra, they make things that will cover parts of the breast that you don't want showing through your clothing.

Twenty years ago, a pair of Venezuelans made a telephone call to a young Ted. The idea was a simple one. Women needed something that would support their breasts in a way that traditional brassieres could not. It had to be virtually invisible, with no straps. The idea was to use simple fabrics and tape to accomplish that task.

They are also working on a product that will allow a woman with a strapless gown to resist the urge to continually pull it up from the top. Their new product, Upsi Daisy, is shaped like a worm and does something that defies gravity. Now if they could only do something like that for aging men who are always hitching up their pants.

Ted and Karen, childhood friends, met on the street one day. He showed her the plans for the stick-on bra and she said, "Count me in." They began trying to sell the product to small stores and it was a tough sell. They were literally laughed out of the department stores until they met a farsighted buyer at Lord and Taylor who loved the idea. From then on, everyone wanted the product, which you wear once and throw out.

Once kept in drawers and out of view, these bras are now right up front at places like Victoria's Secret. One new product, called Reveal, is designed to be used under clothing with deep-plunging necklines that, as Ted puts it, "go all the way." Women will be able to use this product in bathing suits that have no built-in bras. The whole success story is unbelievable when you consider that there was no such product available in a department store until 1984.

Karen used to give seminars to buyers explaining how the devices work so they could sell them to their customers. She has demonstrated with models who show the differences between wearing nothing on one side and a stick-on bra on the other. They now make products that are used by women who have had reconstructive surgery or whose breasts are two different sizes. In all, they have about 30 different products and they're always on the lookout for new ideas.

It really is fortuitous that Ted and Karen brought their product to the Berkshires. There are cities in this country that would die for the designation as the breast capital of the world. Unfortunately, we tend to take for granted what others would brag about. The very least that the town of Lee should do is to have a sign coming into town proclaiming, "Welcome to Lee, Massachusetts -- Home of the Stick-On Bra." Hey, if we're going to fixate on breasts, at least let's get the credit.



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Alan Chartock, a Great Barrington resident, is president and CEO of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and a professor of communications at SUNY-Albany. His web site is www.alanchartock.com




- posted by Raymond @ 1/24/2005 01:50:00 PM