Candles Are Now Controversial

Plus, Harvard calls Congress “unreasonable”

War on Chanukah? Anti-carbon activists are targeting candle emissions.

The latest support for the rule that it’s always better to read more than just one newspaper comes on an issue that I didn’t realize was particularly controversial, or even an “issue”: candles.

The Wall Street Journal’s news section publishes an interview with Karen Pflug, who is chief sustainability officer of IKEA’s main store operator. The Journal interviewer, Perry Cleveland-Peck, asks, “Last year, the burning of candles in customers’ homes accounted for tens of thousands of tons of CO2 equivalent emissions in your end of life Scope 3 emissions reporting. Why does IKEA still continue to sell candles?”

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seemed like a loaded question. What’s next, the Journal sending reporters out to interview McDonald’s executives about why they still continue to sell french fries?

Meanwhile, the print New York Times carried an advice column provided by the Times-owned Wirecutter. Under the headline, “Daylight Saving Time is Ending. Here’s How to Adjust to the Dark,” Caira Blackwell advises, “Whether you like it or not, winter is coming. If all else fails, get comfy: Grab a weighted blanket (we love the Nest Bedding Luxury Weighted Blanket), light a candle (I religiously buy the simple, inexpensive P.F. Candle Co. Amber & Moss Soy Candle, which permeates a room with a light scent), snuggle up on the couch with friends and family for a movie, or play a low-stakes board game…”

Maybe the Journal should send Perry Cleveland-Peck over to interrogate New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger about how Sulzberger can in good conscience advise Times readers to “light a candle” given the CO2 equivalent emissions.

Recent Work: “Day One Agenda: A Pardon” is the headline over an article I wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal suggesting that whichever presidential candidate wins, the victory speech should include a promise of pardons for the other side. “What better way to turn the page than by signaling that the new administration will be one of grace and forgiveness, of generosity of spirit?” You can check out the full article over at the Journal.

Fetterman on Israel, Gaza, Hamas: The New York Times magazine has an interview with Senator Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, that is in part about Israel. Fetterman is just so good:

[Times interview questioner:] I think there are two things going on. One is the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah, which are deemed terrorist organizations by the United States. And then there’s how you go about doing that and what is the cost. And people would look at the cost of how many people have been killed, civilians in Gaza, and say that the cost is too high. So I guess I’m struggling to understand a little bit of the nuance there from you. [Fetterman:]There isn’t any nuance.

You think that the price that’s been paid is fair? The price is terrible. It’s awful. That’s history. And that’s war. And Israel was forced to fight an enemy that are cowardly. They hide in tunnels. They hide in schools and in refugee camps. And they’re in those kinds of places and that forces them to reach them. They have to go through these civilians. That’s why they’re so evil. And that’s why that’s designed. The death and destruction and the misery was designed by Hamas. They understood that that’s going to happen. They don’t care. So we can both agree that the misery and the deaths in Gaza is terrible. And, you know, some people blame Israel. Well, I blame Hamas.

John Hopkins hire: While Harvard and Columbia soak up much of the press attention, Johns Hopkins, buoyed by Mike Bloomberg’s philanthropy, has been quietly gaining. Johns Hopkins University on October 24 named a former chairman of the department of political science at the University of Chicago, William G. Howell, as the inaugural dean of Johns Hopkins’ new school of government and policy. 

I saw Howell on a panel discussion at Harvard in May 2022 at an event celebrating Paul Peterson’s half-century of teaching. Howell wrote a book, The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools, with Peterson, who was one of my bosses and colleagues when I worked at Harvard. This is a good hire for Johns Hopkins. It’s also additional evidence that, as I’ve noted earlier, UChicago is a place that other institutions of higher education look to for leadership.

The school will be based at 555 Pennsylvania Ave Northwest in the former Newseum building, which is now known as the Hopkins Bloomberg Center.

House Committee College Antisemitism report: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued on October 31 what it labeled as a “Republican staff report” titled “Antisemitism on College Campuses Exposed.” 

I was quoted in the New York Times back in January on the specific question of whether this was partisan or genuine ( “There are partisan oversight hearings on Capitol Hill where the other party doesn’t show up at all,” said Ira Stoll, a former president of the Harvard Crimson who worked at the Harvard Kennedy School as the managing editor of an education policy journal. “That’s not what’s happening here.” ).

Unfortunately, the “Republican staff report” tilts a bit more toward partisan, from its election-eve timing to the fact that it was issued as a “Republican staff report” to the fact that prominent among those named in the report are “Harvard Economics Professor Jason Furman, who served as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama” and Senator Schumer. Schumer is said to have provided “assurances” that “universities would not face accountability from Democrats.”

The report includes a text message from Furman to an undisclosed recipient describing a Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting as “incredibly poorly run” by FAS Dean Hopi Hoekstra. “Hopi once again ran it while saying almost nothing and coming off as clueless,” the message said. Furman isn’t faulted for any anti-Israel or antisemitic sentiments (he’s been strongly supportive of the Harvard Jewish community) but was only named expressing frustration about the dean.

For all that, the report did get some traction on the left and center-left, with the New York Times devoting a respectful top-of-the-front-page account to the disclosures about the internal emails from Harvard deans weighing in on the wording of a post-October 7 statement. And Rep. Jake Auchincloss, Democrat of Massachusetts, issued a strong statement:

For Harvard's response to Oct 7, one dean insisted that the word “violent” be removed from the University's statement, because he didn't want to assign “blame”. Another dean asked to “omit the phrase about hostages.” This ‘word salad approved by committee’, as I termed it at the time, remains a moral embarrassment. In the year since this failure of leadership, Harvard Corporation has kept intact the governance of the university, with the exception of promoting #2 to #1. The Fellows of the Corporation are fully accountable for everything that happens, or fails to happen, on campus this year.

To me a telling thing about the whole situation was the editor’s column of the November-December issue of Harvard magazine, the alumni publication. The column complained about “unreasonable congressional demands for information.” That remains sadly indicative of the attitude of too many powerful people at Harvard—that it’s Congress, rather than Harvard, that’s unreasonable. 

Instead of denouncing Congress as “unreasonable,” maybe the people running the university might consider thanking Rep. Virginia Foxx, the chairwoman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, for exposing weaknesses and problems that badly needed, and in some cases still need, correcting. As the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, Penny Pritzker, told the committee in a transcribed interview on August 29, 2024, “I don’t think it’s all fixed yet.”

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