»  Radio Derb — Transcript

01 — Intro.     And Radio Derb is on the air! That was a snippet of Franz Joseph Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2 and this is your penitently genial host John Derbyshire with observations and reflections.

Before I get to the obs and refs, though, I have some housekeeping to do — cleaning up some small messes I left lying around last week.

There are two things in particular I should set right, each big enough for a segment of its own. As follows …

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02 — Instrumentally challenged.     Housekeeping, yes. First please cast your mind back to last week's intro — precisely to the intro music. In case you forgot it, here it is again:

[Music clip: Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2, fife'n'drum version]

The music there is of course Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2. I've been using that for intro music since April 2005, most commonly from the 1985 recording by organist Peter Gould playing the main organ of Derby Cathedral.

I went on for eight years using that as intro music, only occasionally breaking the continuity with a different sound clip that was somehow relevant to my main content, or just because I felt like a change. In my August 13th 2010 podcast for example, I used the Spongebob Squarepants intro music, I have no idea why.

Then in 2013 I somehow got the idea to split the difference: that is, to use Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2 but in some version other than Peter Gould's organ. For my March 30th podcast that year I used a version I'd found online somewhere, a version I tagged as "fife'n'drum" because that's how it sounded to me.

From there my creativity blossomed out. I found a piano version of the Haydn, then readers favored me with a piano'n'kazoo version, an electronic piano version, a dobro guitar version, a traditional instruments version, and so on. I sometimes shifted slightly in the horizontal plane, too, sticking with Peter Gould on the Derby Cathedral organ but using Derbyshire March No. 1 instead of No. 2

Regular Radio Derb listeners got into the spirit of the thing and sent me other versions, although my request for a version played with spoons fell on deaf ears … or perhaps just on ears more easily insulted than mine are.

And then suddenly, from a listener to last week's podcast, who must also have read the transcript, I got this indignant email, quote:

The intro version of Haydn's Derbyshire March is most assuredly not a "fife'n'drum" arrangement, as the lead instrument is a clarinet, and I can hear at least one horn and possibly a bassoon as well in the background. I'm guessing this is a small wind band arrangement, either from Haydn himself or some later pen. Given that this is a march we're talking about, it might be the original orchestration from the Master.

End quote.

Thank you, Sir. While I am a keen opera fan, and have even written a novel on that subject, I have confessed honestly in writing at least once that where instrumental music is concerned I am an ignoramus.

When in future I use that sound clip for intro music I shall no longer describe it in the transcript as a "fife'n'drum version" but as a "small wind band arrangement."

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03 — The sociology of Higher Ed.     Just one more housekeeping note arising from last week's show.

Mentioning Justice Neil Gorsuch's new book, I noted that the résumé of his co-author Janie Nitze mentioned her having a B.A. in physics and M.A. in statistics from Harvard University.

Physics and Statistics are sciences, not arts, I grumbled. Shouldn't that "B.A. and M.A." be "B.Sc. and M.Sc."? Then, to cover my rear end, I added, quote: "Probably this is some peculiarity of the U.S. higher education system that I've never encountered before." End quote.

Yes it is — more than one such peculiarity, in fact, with the word "peculiarity" translating as "difference between British and American usages."

For one thing, American universities mostly do not issue B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees, only B.S. and M.S. Sorry about that.

And for another, as several listeners told me, you can get either a B.A. in Physics or a B.S., depending on where you go and what workload you sign up to. Here is one listener's explanation, considerably edited. Quote:

I, personally, have a B.A. in physics. Rather than a peculiarity, in my case anyway, it is a substantively different degree. I went to a liberal arts college, and approximately half of my courses were in science and math …

I appreciate the fact I got a B.A. I enjoyed the philosophy and art courses I took, and I feel they made me a more well-rounded person. I was told the grad schools understood this — they see the lower-than-normal physics GRE score along with the stellar regular GRE score, then say, "Oh, he has a B.A. not a B.S., he just has some catching up to do." This was the case for me — during my brief stint in physics grad school, I found that the students who had B.S. degrees were better prepared, which makes sense. Had I not dropped out for completely unrelated reasons, I feel the catching up would have been very doable.

End quote.

Thank you, Sir. I recall from the teacher training course I did at Liverpool University in England, 1966-67, the lecturer on Sociology of Education telling us that Americans had a different approach to higher education than did we Brits. Quote from him: "A university education over there is broad but shallow; ours is narrow, but deep." End quote.

That had certainly been true of my own undergraduate degree at University College, London: three years of uninterrupted math, math, and math. The only non-math instruction I took was a one-year, once-a-week course in Russian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies next door … so that I'd be able to read math texts in Russian. (I could already read German.) Courses in other subjects — and not just in the sciences — had a similarly narrow focus.

Does that transatlantic distinction still apply, sixty years after I heard it? — I mean, the distinction between broad but shallow here, narrow but deep in the U.K.? I don't think so. From occasional conversations in the 21st century, I'm pretty sure that broad-but-shallow applies over there just as much as here nowadays.

Perhaps that's for the best. Shallow of course isn't good, but neither is narrow. It depends what society wants from its college graduates, what we collectively believe education is for.

The whole issue may anyway soon be moot. Just yesterday I read this article in the Daily Mail Online — a British outlet, please note. Title: The AI exam cheating epidemic: How thousands of students use artificial intelligence to sit tests for them … and they're near impossible to catch. Sample quote:

Tens of thousands of students across Britain are using AI to write their essays and — even worse — do their exams for them. According to research obtained through a Freedom of Information request by AI company AIPRM, over 80 per cent of U.K. universities have investigated students for cheating with AI in the past two years.

The phenomenon has become so widespread that we may be on the verge of a major academic crisis.

End quote.

So perhaps society's choice is shaping up not just as shallow versus narrow, but as shallow versus narrow versus … totally artificial.

I really don't much like the way the 21st century is going.

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04 — Educrat out.     That's all my housekeeping, I promise. However, that last segment leads irresistibly to an item from the week's news.

August 15th we heard that Minouche Shafik has resigned from her position as President of Columbia University. Ms Shafik, in case you're wondering, is of Egyptian parentage, whether Coptic or Moslem I don't know. Wikipedia says she has triple citizenship: U.K., U.S., and Egypt. I didn't know that was possible.

Well, Ms Shafik has retired as President of Columbia University. This is a delayed continuation of events in Higher Ed administration last winter and spring. You probably remember the riots and campouts on Ivy League campuses following Israel's invasion of Gaza in retaliation for Gaza's invasion of Israel October 7th.

Senior administrators of those colleges were criticized for their feeble responses to the rioters. Two of these senior educrats soon quit: Claudine Gay at Harvard and Liz Magill at U. Penn. Minouche Shafik's resignation this week follows on from all that.

It's timely, for sure. A couple of weeks from now students will be drifting back to the colleges for the new academic year. At Columbia, whose Presidency Minouche Shafik just resigned from, classes start September 3rd. That's only four months on from the last round of riots, which culminated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall at the end of April, with property damage and beatings of Jewish students.

Radio Derb favors a firm approach by the educrats, as I'd guess most outside observers and probably most students and faculty do, too.

College administrations should make it plain to students that they are present in the institution to learn: to attend classes, listen to the lecturers, study the course materials, and conduct whatever off-campus activities the college authorizes in further pursuit of knowledge.

Outside the learning curriculum, sports facilities will be provided for students' relaxation and continued support from alumni. Student magazines will be allowed, debating societies, drama clubs, and so on. Freedom of speech and writing will be respected.

However, learning of structured disciplines is firmly at the center of the students' experience. Activities that disrupt learning will be punished by expulsion, with a ban on future enrolment. Criminal acts will be reported to local law enforcement for arrest and prosecution.

That's what I favor: a straightforward disciplinary approach. If you have opinions about some conflict on the other side of the world, some dust-up between the nations of Craponia and Trashcanistan, by all means express them in speech, writing, or online social media.

However, if you express your opinions in such a way as to disrupt the learning process, you will be expelled with no refund of fees, and barred from future enrolment.

Why don't we see that from the administrators of our premier universities? Why don't we hear the smack of firm government?

It's not hard to figure. Just cast your ears back over the names I've named so far in this segment, the names of college presidents: Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, Minouche Shafik. Female, female, female; ages 54, 58, 64.

Speaking as a Margaret Thatcher fanboy from way back, I'm not totally opposed to post-menopausal women being in charge of major institutions. Maggie was of a different generation and background from these Ivy League matriarchs, though. If she were still alive she'd be coming up to a hundred years old.

And I believe she was an outlier even among her own cohort. When she was Prime Minister the joke going round was, she had the biggest pair of balls in the cabinet. If Maggie were president of an Ivy League college her approach to student discipline would, I am sure, strongly resemble the one I just laid out. Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, and Minouche Shafik are much more representative of their class and age.

And also of their academic backgrounds. Maggie was a research scientist before she took up law as a profession. There's nothing like a little hard science to acquaint you with reality. These female educrats of our own time were more Economics and PoliSci — pseudosciences, at best.

So with Minouche Shafik out and classes starting up in three weeks, what does Columbia University have to look forward to?

Her replacement will be Katrina Armstrong as Interim President. I never heard of this lady so I looked her up on Wikipedia. She's female of course, sixtyish, legacy white American, an educational background mostly in medicine. She currently heads up Columbia's medical school.

That's an improvement on Economics and PoliSci; but Interim President Armstrong is no Maggie Thatcher. Her engagement with the field of medicine has leaned heavily towards the social aspect … and that's "social" as in "social justice."

Samples from Wikipedia, edited quotes:

At the turn of the century, she received a U. Penn. University Research Foundation Award to fund her projects Identifying and Reaching Populations at Risk: The Paradox of Cancer Control …

While continuing her research into cancer control, genetic testing for cancer susceptibility, and racial disparities in cancer outcomes, she earned the Samuel Martin Health Evaluation Sciences Research Award for [inner quote] her research program that seeks to elucidate the complex relationships among the social environment, health care use, and health outcomes [end inner quote] …

Her work has focused on cancer risk and prevention in Black and Latin [sic] patients, examined racial inequities in genetic testing and neonatal care, and analyzed the roles that segregation, discrimination, and distrust play in the health of marginalized populations.

Ebd quotes.]

So again, no hard science. Interim President Armstrong hasn't been asking how protein molecules do the amazing things they do, she's been asking ghetto folk how much they trust their doctors.

What does this portend for Columbia University this coming new semester? Nothing good, would be my guess. If you're a student or faculty member at Columbia and you're Jewish, stock up on pepper spray.

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05 — A jolly good lesson.     Yesterday, August 15th, was a melancholy anniversary: three years since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban warriors. We didn't actually complete our withdrawal until two weeks later; but to anyone who didn't know we had lost the Afghanistan War, the fall of Kabul already made it plain.

We'd evacuated Bagram Air Base six weeks before, leaving behind a mighty treasure pile of military equipment. The lowest estimate I've seen for the total is seven billion dollars' worth in the form of: 350,000 rifles, 42,000 trucks, 12,000 Humvees, and — for Goodness' sake! — more than 78 aircraft.

The Afghanistan War, in its twenty years' duration, also cost us two and a half thousand military fatalities, close to two thousand civilian contractor fatalities, and corresponding numbers — figure twenty to thirty thousand — wounded, maimed, blinded, etc.

Some large number of Afghans and Pakistanis also died. Seventy thousand is the figure usually given for civilian deaths, but no-one really knows. Even less do we know military deaths on that side.

Whatever that last figure is, it plainly wasn't enough. The nature of war is that each side kills as many as it can of troops on the other side until one side surrenders. Since it was us who surrendered, clearly we didn't kill enough of them.

What a colossal failure this war was on our part! It would be bad enough to report that Afghanistan today is in no worse shape than it was twenty years ago when we first went in. In fact it's in better shape.

Wednesday this week, by way of celebrating the third anniversary of their victory over us, the Taliban government held a grand parade showcasing some of that seven billion dollars' worth of hardware we left them.

To rub salt in the wound, the parade was held at Bagram Air Base. Chinese, Russian, and Iranian diplomats were on hand to share the joy. No women were present, none at all.

There's been some disputing about how much of the seven billion dollars'-worth is actually operational without American technicians to service it. The Humvees seemed to be driving pretty smoothly on Wednesday, though, and planes and choppers were in the air. Probably Russian and Chinese techs have been taking care of them.

I say again: What a horrible U.S. failure this war was! There's an argument — I think quite a plausible one — that it wasn't just a military disaster, but also a geopolitical one. If we hadn't scuttled out of the place so ignominiously three years ago, this argument goes, Russia wouldn't have been inspired to invade Ukraine and Iran wouldn't have let loose its proxies on Israel.

I wonder how many government employees in Washington, D.C. can be tagged as in some degree responsible for the Afghanistan war — for keeping it going all twenty of those years? It must be hundreds. Has any of them paid a price for it?

After Imperial Britain got its butt kicked by South African rebels in the Boer War 120 years ago, Kipling wrote the following lines, quote:

Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.

Not on a single issue, or in one direction or twain,
But conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and again,
Were all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite.
We have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right!

End quote.

Those are the opening lines of a poem titled "The Lesson."

Did we hear any such admission from our own poets three years ago? Well, given the quality of poets we produce nowadays, that would be too much to expect; but did anyone in a position to have his voice heard nationwide express any similar humility? Admit fairly, as a business people should, that we have had no end of a lesson that will do us no end of good?

Perhaps someone did and I just missed it. For all I can see, though, if someone did point out the Lesson, it didn't sink in with our politicians and public intellectuals.

What is the Lesson? The Lesson is that U.S. foreign policy has, since the end of the Cold War, really sucked.

It hasn't been a military failure. When my son joined the U.S. Army eleven years ago I had no fear that he and his commanding officers all the way up to the division level would fail to accomplish the missions set for them. I had no fear of that.

My fear was that some damn fool civilian policy-maker or military advisor in Washington, D.C. would get my boy wounded or killed in some damn fool missionary war that was none of our proper national business.

Thank God that didn't happen. It did happen to thousands of other young Americans, though. If no-one in authority is honest enough to step forward and admit responsibility, could some significant portion of our ruling class at least learn the Lesson?

The U.S.A. is the most remote, most territorially secure major power in the world. Could we please get our national defenses up at the technological forefront and our borders secure, and then MIND OUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS?

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06 — Miscellany.     And now, our closing miscellany of brief items.

Imprimis:  So … nothing about the election, Derb? What's up with that?

No, I can't think of a whole lot to say about our Presidential election; and what I can think of to say, twenty-nine online, TV, and newspaper commentators have already said before I can sit down at my Radio Derb desk on Friday to say it.

At this stage in an American election cycle, in fact, I am usually grumbling that the whole thing's gone on for far too long. I then add something wistful about British election campaigns, which last about two weeks.

I won't be doing that this year. It just doesn't seem right after what the Brits did to themselves on July 4th, voting in Sir Keir Jong Un to strip themselves of the few ancient liberties they still had. I'm no longer going to preach that U.K. elections are a model for anyone to emulate.

A sample story out of Sir Keir's domain. This is from the BBC website, August 14th.

David Sweeney is 76 years old, retired and a grandfather. His wife Julie is 53, also of course a grandmother, and also, I think, retired. Married 29 years, they live a, quote, "quiet, sheltered life," end quote, in a small village in the English West Midlands.

Mrs Sweeney belongs to a Facebook group with five thousand members. During the recent riots that followed the murder of three little English girls sixty miles away there were rumors — false rumors, it later turned out — that the killer was a Muslim. Englishmen took to the streets demonstrating and damaged a mosque.

The Facebook group showed a picture of volunteers repairing the mosque. Angered by that, 53-year-old grandmother Julie Sweeney posted the following to the group, quote:

It is absolutely ridiculous. Don't protect the mosque. Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.

End quote.

A group member reported Mrs Sweeney's posting to the police. Three patrol cars showed up at the Sweeneys' house. Julie was arrested, prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to fifteen months in jail.

A spokes-bot for local law enforcement said, quote: "As this case demonstrates, there is nowhere to hide."

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Item:  A happy smile crossed my face Wednesday morning, reading the Daily Mail online. "Here," said the headline I was looking at, "are the best jokes from this year's Edinburgh Fringe."

I need to explain about the Edinburgh Fringe. Every year at the end of August there is a high-culture festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. That is the Edinburgh International Festival. It's heavy on concert music, drama, and dance, but with some art exhibitions and lectures on the side.

Starting in the 1950s there began to be unofficial events staged outside the main festival. They included a lot of amateur stuff — student revues, standup comics, and such. You could never be sure what you'd find at one of these unofficial events; there were no printed programs.

This little unofficial subculture became known as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, or just the Fringe. In the 1960s a lot of Fringe performers got nationwide attention, and in some cases lasting fame. Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, and many others got their start at the Fringe.

The 1960s were my salad days, so I have fond memories of the standard of comedy at the Fringe. It was clever, satirical and irreverent, sometimes violating social norms — just the stuff to get a smile from a high-spirited twenty-ish English lad.

So that Wednesday morning headline got a smile from me. "The best jokes from this year's Edinburgh Fringe." I started reading through them.

I started, but didn't finish. Most of these jokes were lame. Sample, quote:

The Romans invented Vaseline. Or was it Ancient Grease?

End quote. Uh-huh.

They weren't all bad. This one got another smile from me. Quote:

My girlfriend told me she's never seen the film Gaslight. I told her [Inner quote]: "Yeah you have … we watched it together." [End inner quote].

End quote.

The general standard, however, was low. If you like English comedy, stream some Monty Python, French and Saunders, or Blackadder. In Britain today, comedy's dead.

(Oh, and don't try to find the French and Saunders Gone With The Wind sketch on YouTube: they consider it "unsuitable.")

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Item:  Meet Kyra Lynn Johnson, Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Social Impact Officer for Delta Airlines.

Ms Johnson is only the chief such officer, mind. How many Indians report to this chief? I don't know; but if you thought a reputable airline could operate in 2024 without a full staff of DEI&SI enforcers, well … Correct your thinking, Comrade!

Chief Johnson's latest initiative, reported at Fox News August 9th, is to banish the phrase "ladies and gentlemen" from boarding announcements. It's not inclusive, you see?

Now see if you can hazard a guess about Ms Johnson's appearance.

That Fox News report has an interesting comment thread. I think this comment captured the sense of the meeting, quote:

Two places I really don't want to see a DEI hire, the emergency room and on an airplane. Thank you for publicly letting us know your hiring practices. I'll be flying on a plane where they prioritize hiring the best possible employees not ones that check off boxes.

End quote.

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07 — Signoff.     That's all I have for this week, ladies and gentlmen; and Kyra Lynn Johnson can kiss my heinie.

My thanks once again to the Z-man for hosting my podcast. Thank you, Z, and may your tribe increase.

I should also like to issue a general thanks to all listeners who have followed me to the new site. I know from emails and donations I've been getting that the numbers are more than I'd hoped for. Thanks to all for your loyalty and generosity; and please note, those who would rather read than listen, that the text transcript will come out Wednesday morning on my personal website johnderbyshire.com as before.

Some signoff music. August 12th, I am sure I neecd not remind you, was World Elephant Day, dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world's elephants. We should therefore have some elephant music to see us out.

Here is just the thing, a song from way back in the 1950s, sung here by British child actress Mandy Miller, who according to Wikipedia is still with us although long since retired from show business.

A curiosity of this recording, made in 1956, is that it was produced by George Martin, who six years later took on the Beatles and helped propel them to worldwide fame.

OK, over to you, Mandy, wherever you are — somewhere in New York City, last I heard.

There will be more from Radio Derb next week.

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