THE LAST VICE -- PART III

 

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(Continued from Part I, May 11, and Part II, June 17)

Take Us to Our Leader

Researchers at Ohio State University at Newark have been looking under a rock or two.

First, when a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge, the new study suggests. Amy Brunell, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at the university, observed: “It’s not surprising, but the desire for power is what really drives narcissists to seek leadership positions,” she said.

Remember, Bush was The Decider, not The Leader.

She adds a caution: It is important not to confuse narcissism with high self-esteem, she said. “A person with high self-esteem is confident and charming, but they also have a caring component. . .,” Brunell explained. “Narcissists have an inflated view of their talents and abilities and are all about themselves. They don’t care as much about others.”

Here’s the punch line: Narcissists are more likely to become leaders, results of one of the studies suggests, but once in power, narcissists don’t perform any better than others in that leadership role. “It’s not surprising that narcissists become leaders,” Brunell said. “They like power, they are egotistical, and they are usually charming and extraverted. But the problem is, they don’t necessarily make better leaders.”

Nnnoooooooooo!

And the pièce de résistance: “There have been a lot of studies that have found narcissistic leaders tend to have volatile and risky decision-making performance and can be ineffective and potentially destructive leaders,” she said.

Arrrrrggghhh.

Treatment? Torture?

So what is a Nation to do? The Psychology Today site offers suggestions for treatment, but maybe it is not prudent to interfere with nature.

“Psychotherapy may be useful in getting the individual with narcissistic personality disorder to relate to others in a less maladaptive manner. To avoid angering the patient, it’s important to work with, rather than belittle, the narcissistic ego. A therapist should, for example, address a patient's heightened self-importance and desire for control by saying such things as ‘Because you are obviously such an intelligent and sensitive person, I'm sure that, working together, we can get you past your current difficulties’.”

Ok, get him back on Fox News.

“If group therapy is used,” the site suggests “the therapist should, tactfully but firmly, place limits on their speaking time so that they cannot control the discussion or focus all the attention on themselves.”

Well, this isn’t gonna work.

And more: “While empathizing with the patient, the therapist should offer reality testing. If a patient complains that, ‘things are really going wrong’ or ‘everyone is against me’, the therapist might sympathize, but tactfully point out the reality of the situation and how it could be improved by behavior changes the patient could make.”

Well, a reality check really isn’t gonna work.

There’s this: “For patients with narcissistic personality disorder, the least restrictive treatment environment is preferable.”

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. Keith Olbermann has already been there, and he’s not even a therapist. At the end of his Special Commentary, he said

You, Mr. Cheney, you terrified more Americans than did any terrorist in the last seven years, and now it is time for you to desist, or to be made to desist. . . . More than 400 years ago, when a British Parliament attempted to govern after its term had expired, it was dispersed by the actions, and words, of Oliver Cromwell.

“ ‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately’, he told them — exactly as, Mr. Cheney, exactly as a nation now tells you: ‘Depart, I say, and let us have done with you’.

“In the name of God… go!”

That’ll work. After all, a hidden cold stone gathers no moss. Just go write your memoirs.

 

Technorati Tags: Vice President Dick Cheney,Cheney,narcissistic personality,Ohio State University,Amy Brunell,Psychology Today,Keith Olbermann,Spittin' Grits

In Memoriam: Dr. John L. Blackburn, 1924-2009

Today, Spittin’ Grits honors Dr. John L. Blackburn, who died at 84 on  Friday, July 3, 2009. One of the most honorable and upright men I’ve known, Blackburn, with Dean of Women Sarah Healey, is largely responsible for the peaceful integration of The University of Alabama in 1963 during his tenure as Dean of Men, despite Gov. George Wallace’s showy and futile “stand in the schoolhouse door.” He also played a serious role in ensuring the protection of and support for Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood.

His influence on several generations of students and adults is legend. He remained close friends with Jones until her untimely death several years ago and with Hood until his own death last Friday.

The University paid tribute to Blackburn by establishing the Blackburn Institute in 1995, which has become a nationally recognized leadership development program for UA students.

Blackburn also helped ensure UA’s future ability to offer students financial aid. As Vice President for Educational Development from 1978-1990, he led the first public fund raising campaign, the Sesquicentennial Campaign, for academic endowments, breaking a long-held tradition that public universities should not raise fund from private sources, especially in a state where it is rude to talk about money, politics, and religion. It brought $63 million for 16 endowed chairs, 14 professorships, and 250 academic scholarships. The University’s endowment went from $21 million to $79 million at his retirement in 1990.

He told a reporter once that when alumni would say, “I would die for the University,” he replied, “No, you don’t have to do that; just sent $1,000 and stay alive.” His efforts tapped into the alumni’s love for the institution and their continuing financial support.

Blackburn raised twice as much money in ten years as the University had done in 148 years.

Private giving to the University is now firmly established, and alumni generosity has ensured The University of Alabama’s rightful place as a major academic  influence and educational institution in the state and nation.

Blackburn opened opportunities for my future career at the University when he hired me as his Special Assistant to the Vice President for Educational Development. I worked with him and for him for more than five years.

When I went to interview with him, I was scared to death. We had crossed paths in 1964 when he was a feared Dean of Men. I had been a co-chair and –writer of a skit presented with several others in Foster Auditorium. My sorority and one of the fraternities collaborated on “Blackfinger,” to compete with the rival sorority-fraternity creations that night. Dr. Blackburn, UA President Frank Rose, and Dean of Women Sarah Healey sat on the front row, and they were guffawing because we watched them from behind the curtains.

The skit was a take-off on the James Bond movie blockbuster “Goldfinger,” and a parody of Dr. Blackburn and the whole administration. It was hilarious, if I do say so.

After what must have been serious reflection, we were all called into the Dean’s offices Monday morning. I was scared. As best I remember, we were all put on social probation for maybe a week. That was in the days we had to be in the dorms by 9 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends, so it wasn’t like we missed tons of social opportunities.

As the interview with Blackburn progressed twenty-something years later, I was terrified that he would go down to the basement files and figure out I was one of the culprits behind “Blackfinger.” He didn’t. He hired me.

I later told him about my role in “Blackfinger.” He just laughed in that unmistakable gravel voice of his that scared many male students for many years.

I am personally saddened by his loss. But I am forever grateful for my years under his guidance. I will miss him.

 

The family suggests that memorial gifts be made to the Blackburn Institute, P.O.Box 870122, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0122.

 

Technorati Tags: John L. Blackburn,Blackburn Institute,The University of Alabama,Sesquicentennial Campaign,The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door,Vivian Malone,James Hood,integration of The University of Alabama

400-Year-Old Grits

O ne of the most appropriate facts of American history is that Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, fifty years after the American Revolution. If a president had to die on a July 4, thank goodness it was Jefferson and not, say, Millard Fillmore. So, this weekend, on America’s 233^rd birthday and 183^rd anniversary of Jefferson’s death, we can raise our grits to both.

Thomas Jefferson portrait by American artist Charles Wilson Peale

Thomas Jefferson certainly served grits, says Craig Claiborne, one of the King’s of Culinary America and food editor for The New York Times. In a June 23, 1976 (at America’s Bicentennial), Times piece (available for purchase), Claiborne says, “When it came to the pleasures of the table Jefferson possessed extraordinary, undisputed taste.”

He refers to the most comprehensive work of Jefferson’s kitchen adventures -- Marie Kimball’s Thomas Jefferson’s Cook Book, available from the University of Virginia Press and from booksellers. A true grits lover, Claiborne goes on to say:

Throughout his lifetime, Jefferson’s table was no doubt supplied with such Southern staples as fried chicken, country ham, numerous kind of foods based on corn, including corn bread made in a black skillet, grits, and whole hominy.

Gritty Toast

But there’s more to raise our grits to. And grits is/are appropriate, as you can already see, for a toast.

As noted in the May 4 post, First Food, First Family, some call corn products -- grits, hominy, and meal -- America’s First Food, having saved the lives of Capt. John Smith and his group at Jamestown the winter of 1608. This fact suggests that America is more like 400 years old this summer.

And there’s even more. It took a while for America to become thoroughly American, for the Western World to shed the notion that America was just the Englishmen’s Annex. You don’t accomplish such a feat over a night in 1776. Certain political and cultural things have to happen, such as the right guys being born at the right time in order to intersect with history, including Ben Franklin, T. Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere and guys like that. Those are some of the political factors.

American had to also find its voice through writers, artists, musicians, artisans and many other venues.

The Grits Venue

Twenty years after the Revolution, in 1796, a cultural event took place that is one of those special markers on the unlit path to becoming America.

That year a young orphan lady named Amelia Simmons published a cookbook. Yeh, it wasn’t a guy and it was a cookbook. Prior cookbooks were just reprints of European works. All had been written by men for men and usually for the upper classes. Until then no cookbook dealt with the indigenous food ingredients available in America. This little 47-page democratic gem probably sealed America’s culinary fate:

AMERICAN COOKERY or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and all Kinds of Cakes from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake Adapted to the Country and All Grades of Life.

This was the first cookbook aimed democratically at the masses and slanted towards women; it is the first book to show corn meal as a primary ingredient. It includes the first recipes for Indian Slapjacks and Johnny Cake, as well as “A Nice Indian Pudding,” all of which became staples in the following centuries. Text and page images of this original edition are available at the Michigan State University Digital Library “Feeding America” site.

In the preface, Miss Amelia says:

As this treatise is calculated for the improvement of the rising generation of Females in America, the Lady of fashion and fortune will not be displeased, if many hints are suggested for the more general and universal knowledge of those females in this country, who by the loss of their parents, or other unfortunate circumstances, are reduced to the necessity of going into families in the line of domestics, or taking refuge with their friends or relations, and doing those things which are really essential to the perfecting them as good wives, and useful members of society.

It’s a lot to celebrate. So this 4^th of July, serve grits.

In honor of the birthday, here are Miss Amelia’s three recipes for A Nice Indian Pudding, found in the facsimile on page 26:

No. 1. 3 pints scalded milk, 7 spoons fine Indian meal, stir well together while hot, let stand till cooled; add 7 eggs, half pound raisins, 4 ounces butter, spice and sugar, bake one and half hour.

No. 2. 3 pints scalded milk to one pint meal salted; cool, add 2 eggs, 4 ounces of butter, sugar or molasses and spice q.s. it will require two and half hours.

No. 3. Salt a pint meal, wet with one quart milk, sweeten and put into a strong cloth, brass or bell metal vessel, stone or earthen pot, secure from wet and boil 12 hours.

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