December 2, 2001

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Last night Nancy and I had dinner at Bill Fredlund's house. You can always count on Bill for good food, great wine, and excellent conversation.

You can also always count on Bill to invite interesting young people. There was Andy (the heartbreakingly handsome South African), Erin (Andy's drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend), Jenny (cute... and possibly Jewish, if you go far back enough), and Melanie from class (who claims to be 42... if so, she has a rapidly aging portrait hanging somewhere in her attic).

At the last dinner (which Nancy and I missed), Andy had apparently made a few predictions about the war in Afghanistan -- all of which turned out to be spectactularly wrong. Andy was good-natured about it though, and when Bill put him on the spot he cheerfully made a few more predictions. Here's hoping he's wrong again.

Bill also described his experience living in Italy in the 80s, when the Red Brigades still had the country paralyzed with terror. I'm trying to imagine how it must have been to live in Italy back then. Assign a tough new anti-terrorism czar? Boom! he's blown up in the middle of a piazza. Elect a competent prime minister? Kidnapped, murdered, and left in the trunk of a car.

Eventually Italy managed to break the movement (with a little help from us). In the end, it turned out that some of the ringleaders were extreme left-wing university professors. Everyone knew that these professors were vocal communists... but no one had any idea that they were directly responsible for violence.

I find it interesting that while the Italian professors did awful, criminal things, they at least acted on their convictions. In contrast, our very own American and British academic extremists merely prattle on about their ridiculous world-views, knowing full well that they live in a masturbatory fantasy world; that nobody outside of their tiny circle cares what they think. We should all give thanks, looks like we got the better deal.