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December 2023

ISRAEL Comments turned off

MICHAEL ORDMAN: POSITIVE NEWS DURING WARTIME IN ISRAEL

By on December 17th, 2023

 “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”  General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891).

The tragedy of friendly fire killing three Israeli hostages haunts us today. It will be investigated thoroughly by the IDF. This particular event reminds us that Israel has a citizen army -everyone serves-and alas, some are less experienced than others in the fight for survival against genocidal enemies.

But, as Michael Ordman reminds us, Israel has another nonmilitary army of researchers, doctors, technical experts, and civil servants who work around the clock to bring succor and a better and peaceful life to billions of citizens on every continent. rsk

 

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR

From war to the Olympics. Israel’s Sports Association for the Disabled and Israel’s Paralympic Committee have launched a voluntary initiative for IDF personnel who have lost limbs. Rehabilitation and recovery include personal trainers, coaches, physiotherapists, and sports psychologists. More than 20 have already joined.

https://www.israel21c.org/paralympians-to-help-war-wounded-heal-trauma/ 

When father meets son. Rambam hospital’s Dr. Arik Schechter has been serving in the IDF reserves deep inside Gaza since the outbreak of the Swords of Iron War. With three sons and a son-in-law also serving, perhaps it should not have been such a surprise when he was reunited with one of his sons in the fighting.

https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/father-son-meet-in-gaza.aspx

When Dad meets wife & new son. I admit that I shed a few tears when I read this story and then saw the video on Instagram.   https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/dad_arrives-for-birth_despite_war.aspx

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz0NpHksLYG/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

What motivates us. Research led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has discovered that the impulse for motivation is generated by the balance in the striatum area of the brain of simultaneous wavelike patterns of two neurochemicals – dopamine and acetylcholine. The team used advanced genetic tools and imaging.

https://en.huji.ac.il/news/wave-theory-neurochemical-balance-brain

Impact of early life trauma and possible treatment. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have also been studying the brain. In lab tests they found that trauma in early life caused problems in adults that showed up on brain scans. But a short treatment of diazepam soon after trauma erased those signs on adult brain scans.

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/traces-trauma-young-brain-%E2%80%93-and-how-erase-them

Bring back the light. On Chanukah, Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund (SICF) launched its campaign, “Bring Back the Light.” for children scarred by terror.  SICF uses individual and group therapies, both traditional and alternative, administered by a team of skilled social workers, psychologists, and specialty therapists.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/miracle-of-healing-shiloh-israel-childrens-funds-bring-back-the-light-initiative/

Empathic robot companion in NY State. (TY OurCrowd) A few weeks ago (see here previously) the ElliQ empathic robot from Israel’s Intuitive Robotics was being offered free to seniors in two areas in South Florida.  It is now being offered to seniors in New York State. The pilot shows a 95% reduction in loneliness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZBKjK9WXE8  https://elliq.com/pages/free 

https://abc7ny.com/seniors-ai-robot-companionship/14154002/

https://aging.ny.gov/news/nysofas-rollout-ai-companion-robot-elliq-shows-95-reduction-loneliness

Simultaneous simulations. Israel’s QuantHealth (see here previously) has upgraded its platform for simulating clinical trials. Its new product, called Katina, simultaneously simulates hundreds of thousands of combinations of each element in a clinical trial to maximize the probability of success when real human trials begin.

https://nocamels.com/2023/12/new-ai-platform-simulates-thousands-of-clinical-trials-at-once/

Best Buy remote monitoring. Israel’s BioBeat (see here previously) is integrating its wearable devices for remote patient monitoring into the Current Health home care platform offered by Best Buy Health in the US.  The devices monitor 13 parameters, e.g., blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, pulse rate and respiratory rate.

https://nocamels.com/category/news-briefs/#post-125875  

https://www.currenthealth.com/remote-patient-monitoring/

When dormant bacteria revive. Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have discovered how bacteria spores retain vital genetic information during dormancy and activate when revived. The RNA polymerase, inside the spores, initiates copying processes. The knowledge could help research into controlling pathogens.

https://www.afhu.org/2023/12/01/hebrew-university-researchers-discover-mechanism-for-dormant-bacteria-spores-to-retain-genetic-memory/

Herbal diabetic remedy and more. Israel’s Curalife manufactures Curalin – a herbal supplement formulated to treat diabetes but with anecdotal indications for stress reduction, improved metabolism and even insomnia. It contains nine herbs based on Ayurvedic medicine – an ancient Indian practice.

https://www.israel21c.org/ayurvedic-herbal-supplement-targets-diabetes/   https://global.curalife.com/

US approval for glaucoma laser device. Israel’s Belkin Vision (previously Belkin Laser – see here) has received US FDA clearance for the use of its automatic and noninvasive glaucoma laser surgery device. The Eagle is the first and only contactless laser surgery for glaucoma patients.

https://nocamels.com/category/news-briefs/#post-125889

AI sensor to monitor kidney function. Israel’s FIZE Medical has developed a new AI device that measures production of urine by the kidneys via a patient catheter. It identifies problems with kidneys, heart, medication, etc. Fize has FDA approval and has completed a pilot at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. 

https://nocamels.com/2023/12/ai-sensor-monitors-kidney-function-one-drop-at-a-time/  https://fizemedical.com/

How does your dog smell?  Israel’s Tech4animals lab (see here previously) has developed an algorithm that detects the canine breathing condition known as Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome (BOAS). It is common in dogs such as boxers, pugs and French bulldogs that have been bred with short snouts.

https://nocamels.com/2023/12/ai-doggie-doctor-diagnoses-breathing-problems-pugs-boxers/

ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL

Occupational therapist, soldier, and bone-marrow donor. Lee, an occupational therapist at Israel’s Rambam Health Care Campus has been serving as a casualty officer since she was called up for reserves at the beginning of the war. She volunteered as a bone-marrow donor and was a lifesaving match for a woman in need.

https://www.rambam.org.il/en/rambam_news/three-in-one.aspx

She just can’t stop. I was surprised to see this on the BBC. Praise for a woman (Yael Noy) whose heads the organization “Road to Recovery” group of Israeli volunteers. Despite Oct 7, Yael drives sick Palestinian Arabs – mostly children – from security checkpoints in Judea and Samaria to hospital appointments in Israel.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-67592468 

1000+ volunteering TAU students. Some 6,000 Tel Aviv University students are serving in the IDF reserves. At least 1000 more are volunteering to help patients at hospitals; make food for serving soldiers, harvest fields and transport people to the Gaza border; help run factories at evacuated kibbutzim, and more.

https://english.tau.ac.il/news/volunteering_initiatives  https://english.tau.ac.il/news/Helping_Israeli_farmers

Lost and asleep. (TY Hazel) In the middle of fighting a war, IDF reservists discovered a 4-year-old Gazan girl who had got lost, stumbled barefoot into an IDF camp, and fallen asleep. They cleaned her up, bandaged her injured feet and then arranged an ambulance to take her to the safe civilian area of Southern Gaza.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/watch-reservists-help-lost-gazan-child-who-fell-asleep-in-idf-encampment/

Rescuing abandoned pets from Gaza. Many of the IDF’s heroic efforts go unnoticed, such as the rescue of abandoned animals from Gaza. They include cats, dogs, parrots, owls, and even a neglected, malnourished lion from the Gaza Zoo. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority is working with the IDF to bring the lion to safely.

https://worldisraelnews.com/idf-rescues-abandoned-pets-exotic-birds-and-even-a-lion-from-gaza/

Rescuing unsold food. Israeli food rescue startup SpareEat (see here previously) shut down when Covid-19 regulations prevented people from collecting food in person. It has now re-launched and is even more popular than the first time around. Israelis collect “surprise” bags of highly discounted excess food from businesses.

https://nocamels.com/2023/12/spareeat-app-unsold-food-rescue/

US National Academy of Inventors “fellow”.  Prof. Shulamit Levenberg of Israel’s Technion Institute (see here previously) has been chosen to be a fellow of the prestigious American National Academy of Inventors. She is a founder of Aleph Farms (see here), NurExone (spinal cord regeneration) and Nanosynex (see here).

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-777863

https://nurexone.com/professor-shulamit-levenberg/

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The World Is at War by Gordon G. Chang

By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20223/world-at-war

[Senator JD] Vance has apparently not heard of World War II, which did not end with a negotiation either in Europe or the Pacific.

Leaders, officials, and legislators across the political spectrum have gone crazy, thinking their crowd-pleasing but truly awful ideas, if implemented, will have no consequences.

[Biden] is far more interested in avoiding escalation than in winning, and not angering the totalitarians in Beijing and Tehran has apparently become his primary goal… That is a grave strategic mistake.

[Putin] is unlikely to stop with just that embattled state. By explicitly adopting the language of Peter the Great, Putin has made it clear that Russia has the right to expand to areas now in NATO states. The Baltics, for instance, are obviously at risk. So is much of Eastern Europe.

Many in the West say that Putin would not dare to attack a NATO country, yet a failure of the West to defend Ukraine, a country protected by the guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, could convince Putin that he does not have to worry about the trans-Atlantic alliance or its most important member, the United States of America.

Senator JD Vance on December 11 suggested that Ukraine surrender land in order to obtain a peace settlement with Russia.

“It ends the way nearly every single war has ever ended: when people negotiate and each side gives up something that it doesn’t want to give up,” the Ohio Republican said to reporters. “No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries.”

Vance has apparently not heard of World War II, which did not end with a negotiation either in Europe or the Pacific. Moreover, given what he just said about a peace-for-land agreement with Russia, Vance also apparently knows nothing about the Munich Pact of 1938. I suspect he may not be able to locate the Sudetenland on a map.

Vance is not the only misguided American in Washington. Leaders, officials, and legislators across the political spectrum have gone crazy, thinking their crowd-pleasing but truly awful ideas, if implemented, will have no consequences.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Global Warming and ‘Big Bad Oil’ by Amir Taheri

By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20222/global-warming-oil

[H]istory shows that civilizations based on recycling and no growth end up disappearing, the most glaring example being ancient Sumer.

Nuclear energy may sound attractive…. But the fact is that we still know little about its impact in the long run, especially when it comes to disposing of the waste it produces.

Since the Paris Conference of 2015, those leading the “save the planet” crusade have opted for a piecemeal approach to a problem that, if it exists, cannot be solved by diplomatic gimmicks, fixing sectorial targets such as a maximum of 2 degrees increase in global warming by an arbitrary date…

Even before it started, it was evident that the COP28 jamboree to “save the planet” would not satisfy the high expectations, some of them contradictory, of the 198 nations and dozens of non-governmental organizations attending the event with different agendas, including some hidden ones.

It is, therefore no surprise that some participants pronounced the event “a big failure” even before the conference president, the UAE’s Sheikh Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, struck the final gavel.

The next move was to blame “the Arabs” and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a whole.

The fact, however, is that OPEC as a whole accounts for just over a third of global oil production.

Of the top oil producers, only two Saudi Arabia and Iraq are Arab states. The United States, Russia and Canada claim first, third and fourth slots as largest producers. Of the top 20 consumers of crude, oil only two, Indonesia and Iran, are OPEC members.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard Early Admissions Applications Drop Nearly 20 Percent Year over Year By Ari Blaff

By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-early-admissions-applications-drop-nearly-20-percent-year-over-year/

The number of early admission applicants to Harvard University fell by nearly 20 percent compared to the previous academic year.

Some have cited growing concerns over the administration’s handling of antisemitism on campus, highlighted by President Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress earlier this month.

“That’s possibly one of several reasons, about the concern of safety on the campus,” Bob Sweeney, a veteran college counselor from a New York high school told Bloomberg. “There might be other factors as well as students are being more realistic about their expectations and chances for acceptance.”

By comparison, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania reported modest gains in annual early admissions. The latter’s president, Liz Magill, stepped down recently following her testimony in front of the House Committee on Education alongside Gay.

Bill Ackman, a Harvard alumnus and school donor, who has been a vocal critical of the administration’s handling of antisemitism, applauded the news. “Harvard College Early Applications Drop 17% From Last Year. It takes 400 years to build a reputation and only a few months to destroy it,” the hedge fund executive wrote.

Harvard has generated successive controversies since the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas. Shortly after the Palestinian terror group invaded southern Israel, student groups on campus released a joint statement trying to contextualize and justify the massacres. “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum,” the letter explained. “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”

The blowback — including a billboard truck circling campus highlighting signatories’ faces and names under the banner, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” — led at least ten student groups to walk back their endorsement of the statement.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

U.S. Relies on China, Congo Abusive Labor for Key Mineral Catherine Salgado

By on December 17th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2023/12/16/us-relies-on-china-drc-abusive-labor-for-key-mineral-n4924807

Net zero’s dirty little secret is the African child labor and China’s forced labor for mining cobalt. But what that also means is that the United States is heavily dependent on our existential enemy and child labor for one of the most important minerals in modern society.

Even NPR recognizes the problem. “Right now, most of the cobalt the US and its allies use comes from mines that are owned or controlled by China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the outlet reported. Of course, NPR did not explain that those supposedly wonderfully eco-friendly electric cars, besides being unreliable, are a lot dirtier than environmentalists admit, precisely because of that cobalt mining for their batteries. But our phones also require cobalt. The need for lithium ion batteries made relatively unimportant cobalt a highly desired substance within the last few decades. The U.S. was set to have one cobalt mine in Idaho, but it closed before starting to operate. We need these mines — not to chase the Biden administration’s impossible “net zero” dreams, but because the electronics that form such a key part of our society require cobalt.

I previously highlighted the ethical concerns around cobalt mining for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. According to “Ethical Consumer” in 2022: “70% of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.” But there’s a massive child labor problem in the DRC. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), child labor is involved in Congo’s cobalt ore, copper, diamond, gold, tantalum ore, tin ore, and tungsten ore mining. Despite the smug smile on your hippie uncle’s face as he drives his Tesla, his toxic EV battery is dependent on exploitation of kids.

It gets worse. Much of the DRC’s cobalt is under the influence or control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which also has a modest little goal of taking down America and dominating the world. As of March, “China’s share of cobalt production is expected to reach half of global output, up from 44 percent currently. China’s cobalt refining reached 140,000 metric tons in 2022–77 percent share of the world’s refining capacity.” So your phone quite possibly depends on our worst enemy for its cobalt. That’s not exactly what we’d call an encouraging state of affairs. Oh, by the way, Hunter Biden was part of a venture that helped the Chinese buy one of the world’s biggest cobalt deposits.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Border Agents on Alert After 10 IEDs Recovered Lincoln Brown

By on December 17th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/lincolnbrown/2023/12/15/border-agents-on-alert-after-10-ieds-recovered-n4924778

We live in an odd time. Ours is the era caught between the normal life of the past and a dystopian future. We are watching things come to pass that, less than a decade ago, most of us would never have envisioned. We have front-row seats to the devolution of society. I will spare you the litany of those things that have gone awry in the past few years as America and the world approach terminal velocity.

Aside from 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Japanese incursions into Alaska, and balloon bombs during the Second World War, for the most part, combat has been unknown on or close to American soil. In fact, we now have a generation of people who know little, if anything about 9/11. 

The concept that a foreign agent or power would commit an act of war in or even near the United States has seemed for so long to be impractical and impossible. Some would like to believe that 9/11 was a fluke. Nothing like that could ever happen again. Hamas is a liberation organization, and everyone who crosses the border illegally is just here to make a better life for themselves. Only a racist, xenophobic conservative would ever believe otherwise. 

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection has told its agents to keep an eye out for IEDs. In our arrogance, we tend to think that things like IEDs are confined to war zones in distant lands. But on Wednesday, Mexican authorities located ten such devices on the Mexican side. Fox News reported that the IEDs were found after what amounted to a firefight near Tucson between two rival cartels. Each side wanted control of the area that has a gap in the border fence. That gap has previously served as a portal for transporting drugs. It is currently used for human trafficking. One suspect was found with an AK-47, two magazines, loose rounds, and a handgun. 

Granted, Americans were not the targets of this firefight, but does anyone think that the cartels care if non-combatants are caught in the crossfire? And how long will these sorts of skirmishes be contained to the border? Cartels already have shown that they have no regard for human life. The prevalence of drug and human trafficking is evidence enough of that. The Fox story said that even as Republicans try to fight for tougher border security, the Biden administration is digging in its heels, claiming that such measures would “cut off nearly all access to humanitarian protections in ways that are inconsistent with our Nation’s values and international obligations.” 

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MEDIA, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Media’s Deafening Silence About American Hostages

By on December 17th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/14/the-deafening-media-silence-about-americans-held-hostage-by-hamas/

On Monday, the White House held a Hanukkah reception. Among those not invited: American families who have relatives currently being held hostage by Hamas.

CNN reported that: “Ruby Chen, whose son Itay is a reservist missing since the militant group’s October 7 attacks on Israel, said a number of the families of American hostages were in Washington, D.C., this week, and had reached out to the White House asking to attend the reception but were not invited. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.”

The White House then scrambled to have these families meet President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Biden isn’t the only one who doesn’t seem to care much about these hostages. The press has been weirdly quiet about their plight and seems content to wait for Biden to “negotiate” their release. If they’re even still alive.

Who are these hostages? Who are the families? What are they going through? It’s possible there have been news reports telling the world about the seven American men and possibly one American woman who are being held captive by these murdering, butchering, raping terrorist thugs. But we couldn’t find any. Even Biden’s unbelievable invitation foul-up was given ho-hum treatment.

This is in stark contrast to other such stories, where the press devotes endless amounts of ink to personalizing and humanizing victims — if they’re the right victim of the right sort of crime, that is.

This media blackout is not for lack of trying by the families. USA Today notes that these families have a public relations firm representing them. And several told CNN that “they wanted the international community – both governments and the Red Cross – to push more forcefully on behalf of their loved ones, to speak out against the terrible conditions they’re experiencing and for their release.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

America’s Dismal Test Scores Are a Bipartisan Failure US students are falling further behind the rest of the world. Politicians don’t seem to have noticed. Michael Bloomberg

By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-13/michael-r-bloomberg-students-dismal-test-scores-are-a-bipartisan-failure?srnd=opinion

For anyone concerned about America’s future, the latest findings from the Program for International Student Assessment are nothing short of alarming. US math scores fell by 13 points between 2018 and 2022, with students continuing to underperform their peers in most other developed countries. This failure underscores the need to improve America’s schools and hold them accountable for results. Sadly, it’s not clear our country’s elected leaders are paying attention.

The PISA test measured the aptitude of students from 81 countries in math, reading and science. And while US students mostly held steady in reading and science, overall, they are behind many competitors. Out of 37 participating members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranked 26th in math — a slight improvement over 2018, but still unacceptably low. Yet it was enough for Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to declare that the $190 billion in federal relief spent on public schools since 2020 has “kept the United States in the game.”

If so, too many students are still losing. Student math performance was its worst in two decades. The gap between the US and the highest-performing countries grew. More than a third of American students failed to demonstrate basic proficiency in math. Just 7% of 15-year-olds scored in the highest two levels, compared to 41% in Singapore and 32% in Taiwan.

At the most basic level, US students need more classroom instruction to make up for pandemic learning loss. That should include high-dosage tutoring, longer school days and mandatory summer school for those furthest behind. Over the longer term, closing academic deficits with the rest of the world also requires policymakers to bolster teacher quality, adopt more rigorous instructional materials and promote greater competition through the expansion of high-quality public charter schools.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Most Powerful Anti-Trump Argument in the GOP Has Evaporated With Biden’s poll numbers plummeting, Trump’s electability isn’t an issue anymore. Rich Lowry

By on December 17th, 2023

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/14/trump-biden-primary-electability-00131616

Joe Biden has done Donald Trump the enormous favor of collapsing before our eyes.

As the 2024 GOP presidential race heads into the first contests, Biden’s abysmal run of polling has boosted Trump and undercut his Republican opponents by hanging a neon sign on our politics reading, “TRUMP CAN WIN.”

It may be that Trump, such is his hold on GOP voters, didn’t need any help establishing a dominant position in the fight for the Republican nomination, but two exogenous events have boosted him.

First, the indictments from the Justice Department and Democratic prosecutors created a predictable rally-around-Trump effect that put him on a fundamentally higher trajectory in the race, and second, Biden’s execrable polling has completely eliminated any possibility of making an electability argument against Trump.

There’s picking your opponent through underhanded ads — something Democrats did to help get vulnerable MAGA opponents in 2022 — and then there’s picking your opponent through your own incredible weakness that makes him look even more alluring to his partisans.

The most salient doubt about Trump among on-the-fence Republicans has never been his policy priorities, governing effectiveness or conduct after the 2020 election, but his ability to win.

Trump’s standing in the party was shaken after the 2022 elections when Republicans underperformed, and he had his fingerprints on the disappointment. The Ron DeSantis landslide in Florida created a contrast that seemingly opened a vista for an intuitive, winning argument — stick with Trump and lose, or go with the young, fresh governor and win.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Claudine Gay’s way with words How to get away with plagiarism at Harvard Peter Wood

By on December 17th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/claudine-gay-way-words-dei-plagiarism/

Claudine Gay is a self-declared “transformational” president of Harvard University. She campaigned for the job by promising to retire the old Harvard of privilege and patrimony and to bring into being a new Harvard founded on principles of anti-racism and social justice. How is she doing?

At the moment, she is a bit distracted by allegations of plagiarism in her slim portfolio of publications. But she has a whole sea of troubles to take arms against. Let’s let her rest a moment on the shore and consider a small story from the not-always-illustrious past of America’s greatest university. 

In 2007 Harvard admitted as a transfer student a young man, Adam Wheeler, who had completed his first two years at Bowdoin College in Maine. Adam had achieved a spectacular academic record at Bowdoin and would go to achieve comparable results as junior and senior at Harvard. But before he could graduate, Adam was exposed as a fraud who through a combination of plagiarism, forgery and arrant lying had faked his way through his whole undergraduate career. Julie Zauzmer, a reporter for the Harvard Crimson, provided the audacious nuts and bolts in her 2012 book, Conning Harvard. 

How did Adam Wheeler get so far? He worked very hard at fooling people but, beyond that, he trusted that Harvard would never bother to double-check anything he submitted. His test scores were phony. His grades were doctored. His letters of recommendation were forged. And his essays were plagiarized. And he was right.

Wheeler’s luck ran out only when the chairman of the English Department, James Simpson, read his application for a Fulbright fellowship and discovered that Wheeler had stolen long passages from a book he knew well: Essays on General Education in Harvard College.

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