Former Provost Of College Has Trouble With Academic Citation

Or...Congressman Tim Bishop is a snake like every other politician trying to run for re-election.


As an alumnus of Southampton College, the degree hanging on my wall is beginning to have less and less meaning with each passing day of this political season. Have you seen this? It's a political ad approved by Tim Bishop in which he accuses his Republican opponent, Randy Altschuler of outsourcing American jobs to other countries around the world.


The ad comes replete with grainy video footage of Altschuler speaking to what appears to be local businessmen about his company (Office Tiger) and its ability to save them money by shipping back-office support positions to other regions of the world, such as India, and the Philippines.


Then he pulls out a quote Altschuler gave the Financial News in 2003. "In India you get a much higher standard of person doing...work than in America," the full-screen reads. What a scumbag, right? Saying Indian workers are better than us? And now he wants us to vote for him!?


Only. The ellipsis troubled me. You know, the "dot, dot, dot" after the word "doing?" That couldn't have been a pause on Altschuler's part. And if it was, what journalist would have inserted the pause? Something was fishy. So I did about five seconds of research through my local library and I found the article in question, from the March 23, 2003 edition of Financial News.

Here's what Altschuler said in the article. "In India you get a much higher standard of person doing assistant work."
That was it. The Bishop ad cuts the qualifying term "assistant" and then adds what their Cap N' Crunch invisible ink detector apparently picked up on the page hiding "than in America."
Or, more likely, Altschuler never said "than in America." And he was talking about assistant work, not ALL work. This also followed that quote from Financial News:

"Altschuler says banking staff in Western financial centres need not be concerned about losing their jobs. Instead they should be pleased that the roles remaining in the West will be of higher calibre. He says: "People in New York and London will be working in higher-end areas. There will be more need for people with higher education-employees are going to have to get smart."

I know Tim Bishop was the provost of a failed college and all, but come on. Tim. A quotation is word-for-word. That's why it's in quotes. And next time you're going to lie to us about something your opponent didn't say: do yourself a huge favor and don't bother providing the citation.

In other news...Randy Altschuler is a huge outsourcing douche. Don't vote for him.

The Obligatory 'I'm No Snob' Snobby Hamptons Wrap-Up

Every so many weeks we get these blog posts or (gulp) New York Times Magazine pieces that attempt to wrap up the whole spirit of the Hamptons in summer. It's the usual formula, whereby a given writer somehow gets the daunting and unwanted task of "weekending" in the Hamptons like some embedded reporter in Afghanistan and has to inform us of the goings on.

It usually works (in subtext alert tonality) like this:

I'm a young, hip, good-looking, appletini drinking, social climber who was unfairly tapped by my editor, (or in the case of bloggers: I could hear the masses calling out to me) to cover the Hamptons scene after another wild summer winds down. Sigh. I so hate covering the rich. I'm so not rich, or in any way interested in the rich. I'm just a regular gal who happens to be wearing designer clothes that I dug up somewhere. I'm really just like you, and I loathe to be in the company of rich people, but since I have to cover this story, I might as well embed myself in the culture of the privileged. Now that we got that out of the way, let me count off the myriad boutiques I'm completely familiar with, and then complain how I was not treated like a wealthy person enough!

Next batter, How Very Lucky To Be A Girl, another chick blogger who goes on dates and uses words like "fabulous" while wanting us to believe she's one of us. In her treatise on how she's not a fan of the Hamptons, she proceeds to ring off every store that opened on Main Street in East Hampton, and drops more than one high-end, famous restaurant she dined at. Why? So she could tell you how lousy the service was. (Click on the hyperlink to read her entry)

That's right. How Very Lucky To Be A Girl, the down-to-earth, working class hero blogger, who hates what the wealthy have done to the quaint, sleepy towns of the east end adds her two cents to the growing pile of complaints from rich people about the poor quality of work they get out of their poors.

For some of you who may remember J-school. Here's the organizational checklist for these recurring pieces.

Insert self-conscious opening lines about the unapologetic display of Hamptons wealth?...Check

Justify your reason for being there by citing editorial assignment?...Check

Transition to the "if-you-can't-beat-em'-join-em'" tone?...Check

Depart from your original position to suddenly embrace the Hamptons and lament the trials and tribulations the wealthy must endure?...Check

Mention you'll be back next year?... Absolutely

Eat a bag-a-dicks?...Please do

Kelly Bensimon Sells Clothes For A Cause. Still Manages To Sound Like An Idiot

We know. Ripping apart this broad is low-lying fruit, and we usually try to be fair when someone repugnant does something to benefit humanity. In this case, we can't.

Real Housewives of New York City star Kelly Bensimon was out on someone's front lawn in Amagansett this past week. Eating their grass and sputtering out nouns? No. She was selling her soul, (see also: her clothes) for charity. If you happened to make it to her big fur yard sale, you too can dress like so last year.

The proceeds of cleaning out her closet to make room for this coming year's unnecessarily absorbidant shopping spree went to benefit Island Harvest, a non-profit organization that helps feed hungry Long Islanders.

Wonderful. Insightful. Caring. Philanthropic. Kelly...how does this act of generosity fit, philosphically speaking, into your world-view?

Added Bensimon: "I can't even do a yard sale without my hair being done."

Sigh. Something tells me she can quote Plato's Republic and make it sound stupid.

Real Housewife of NYC Ramona Singer Hates Africans

We just wanted to come back from our semi-vacation from this blog to put up a headline like this. Looks like Ramona Singer of the Real Housewives of New York City blew off hosting an event to raise funds for African children suffering from HIV/AIDS.

According to this article, she'd been prodding her assistant to call the party throwers and come up with all sorts of excuses not to host the thing. Our best guess is that her final excuse, the deal-sealer, was something like: "tell them I'm out of the planet. No, tell them I have bees in my closet. No, tell them my deck chairs rioted last night."

Anyhoo, the brave, the very noble, the very AIDS-educated scientist and world policy-maker Sonja Morgan (a Real Housewives co-star) stepped up to the hosting podium. And then fell down drunk while demonstrating her identity with Africans by doing the running man. But the brass balls award must go back to Singer. After rattling off all her reasons why she couldn't be there to host the event, she found out Sonja was hosting, and called the organizers to book a ticket as a guest! Wow.

We know three things. We know Ramona Singer's condemned soul is going to be everywhere proclaiming her innocence. We know the organizers of this Colors of Hope should feel deep shame for even asking a Real Housewife to host anything. We know children in Africa are shaking their heads and burying their faces into their hands.

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Buy our product so you can cyberstalk and rubberneck the Lindsay Lohan train wreck and still sleep the deep, quiet slumber of a person not worried about viruses. I need to go wash. Check out this press release. Not even her dad would do this. We think.

How To Survive Stony Brook Southampton's Summer Writing Conference

Today kicks off Stony Brook Southampton's annual backslapping festival: the summer writing conference, and it all starts with keynote speaker Lorrie Moore. After that, it kicks up a notch with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout and Sag Harbor native Colson Whitehead. Returning to the conference are a mix of visiting writers and Stony Brook Southampton faculty members such as Roger Rosenblatt, Kaylie Jones, Melissa Bank, Peter Hedges, Thomas Lux and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. The full list of faculty and workshops are dumped on a release posted here at Hamptons.com


In the interest of full disclosure (and to effectively inform this blog post) it should be noted that I am a graduate of the Stony Brook Southampton MFA program in Creative Writing and have hands-on experience dealing with some of the aforementioned named "faculty," dating back to when Frank McCourt and Peter Matthiesson were part of the program. McCourt has since died. Matthiesson is 83 and sick of talking to people. (probably.)


Here's a survival guide for all you aspiring writers and MFA candidates currently primping, tweazing, hair-gelling, and printing out fresh pages of your latest novel "just in case."


Don't:

• print out fresh pages of your latest novel/chapbook/play "just in case." There is no just in case. They don't care. Not really. Now, if you have a wine spritzer balanced on a tray, they care. Really.
• tell anyone, under any circumstances, that your book is a "slice of life."
• ask for their help with anything specific. In the 50+ years combined of experience in publishing and literati, they haven't met a single writer, agent, editor, publisher, or proofreader that they can introduce you to. This doesn't sound possible, but you might as well believe it, because if the truth is otherwise, they ain't sharing.
• tell any of the male writers that you adore his work. This is especially true if you're a doe-eyed, apple-cheeked female MFA student. They will open up the world to you, but first...a drink at the bar?
• invite any of them to an open mic or student reading. They don't care. Not really. Better you live inside the cocoon of your delusions than endure the heartbreak of the inevitable blow-off. (Note: some will do it more harshly than others. See: Rosenblatt.)
• ask long-winded and semi-autobiographical questions during the Q & A period. Not only do they not care, your fellow audience members don't care either. You can ask Whitehead how he maintained proper emotional distance while writing "Sag Harbor" without telling him your cousin's best friend's girlfriend at the time was an 8th-grade classmate of his.
• ask "what advice would you give an aspiring writer?" during a Q & A. This is a complete masturbatory allie-oop question that will only be met with witty, sarcastic, faux-existential, jerk-off answers, and will at worst provide a writer with a golden opportunity to share how their genius was discovered. (An example? Sherman Alexie answered the question by saying the only thing a writer needs is money for postage stamps.)
• tell any of them about your literary aspirations. They're going to say "that's ambitious of you," and you're going to take it for what it is: rank condescension.
• believe that by running copies for Melissa Banks, or picking up Roger Rosenblatt's laundry, or dropping off Elizabeth Strout at the airport is going to get you published. It's going to get you to a gas station to refill your tank.
• believe that shoving a manuscript in a writer's gut is going to get you published. It's going to get you kept in the dark about where the after-reading-party is going down.

Do:

• embrace your own arrogance. Of course your writing is much more revolutionary and game-changing than theirs, and you'll get your chance to prove it. Don't grovel. Don't falsely stroke their egos because you feel it's the nice thing to do.
• ask broad and abstract questions during any Q& A period. "How do you write female characters so well?" is a good one. Also, "do you write every day?" And, "describe your process. Do you hand write, and then type it out?"
• drink heavily and try to hook up with a fellow conference attendee. I'm putting out personal bonus points if you can peel Melissa Banks' panties, but that's as far as it goes with faculty-student co-mingling.
• hide your envy. There is nothing more embarrassing and eye-rolling than an MFA student popping off at a reading or after-party about how much more talented he is than X, who everyone is surrounding at the moment. For the record: "popping off" includes shaking one's head, rolling one's eyes, looking bored while clapping, leaving the room when X is about to entertain everyone with a story, or verbally shredding X's latest tome while out of earshot of X. We know where it's coming from. We all feel the sting of watching a writer that isn't you sign autographs, take pictures, and control the floor of a room. Keep it to yourself. Scream inside your car. Write it in a journal entry. It's fuel for your ambitions, not to burn off and look like a jealous fool while doing it.
• recognize your inherent right to barroom pugilism. Or, to add as a "don't": don't take shit from anyone. There's a good chance, particularly if you're a male writer, that another male writer is going to say something that is so enraging, so caustic and dismissive that you're going to feel like the unpublished writer is getting picked on by the published one. It's more a case of a published writer getting so stroked for so long, he feels he's above an ass-whooping. If this happens to you, don't hesitate. Punch him right in his fucking face.
• recognize, of course, when a writer isn't picking a fight; he's just having a little fun with you. In this instance, probably a good idea not to punch him in his face.

Godspeed, you young and hopeful scribes! E-mail us at news5525@gmail.com with any updates or embedded reports from the conference.

What's One More Hamptons Rubbernecker?

International man of intrigue, blogger extraordinnaire, world traveling business mogul, fashion authoritarian, Egyptian influencer, and creator of all things, Francesco has surprisingly never been to the Hamptons. He plans to rectify this grave injustice this coming weekend. From his blog "Men's Fashion by (of course) Francesco," he cops to never visiting the east end...:

"But now, there is a reason to go: the Simon Spurr Fall 2010 Men’s Preview and In-Store Trunk Show, hosted by designer Simon Spurr at Blue & Cream, 60 On The Circle, East Hampton, New York. The event will take place on Saturday, July 17th, 6-8PM with complimentary cocktails by Svedka."

Go there, if for no other reason than to see Francesco in the flesh. His life "can best be characterized by an intricate mosaic of various languages, cultures, educational backgrounds, and work experiences of nearly 25 years."

He sounds really interesting, and I'm sure he'd love to share his story with you. And by share, we mean tell you all about his blog. Click on his name above to read more about this fascinating Hamptons rubbernecker. Then yawn. And punch a puppy.