But will it stop here, Doug?

My guess is that the whole thing will be wrapping those metaphorical 
fish-and-chips in a few days' time, *but insofar as the story is still 
alive, it has shifted drastically from "What happened in Harvard in 1981?" 
to "How Closely Was Padel Involved?"

This may be unfair, but it is how it is currently playing here.

The problem from Padel's point-of-view is that while what happened in 1981 
is fugged by the moss of history, what happened since Johm Walsh published 
his Independent article on 28th May is documentable.

Oh boy, Libby Purvis has just chipped in!!!

        http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article6307735.ece

"In a shockingly nasty and potentially libellous line (if quoted accurately) 
a former postholder James Fenton describes Padel and Walsh as "this 
hypocritical duo [who] have kicked a 79-year-old poet in the slats . . . 
because he stood in the way of Padel's ambitions"."

Oddly enough, that was my own first response when I originally read Fenton's 
article:

        http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23692488-details/The+hounding+of+a+Nobel+poet+has+shamed+Oxford/article.do

How the hell did this get past the London Evening Standard Lawyers?  (And 
you can bet it was pre-vetted for libel.)

Then I reread what Puris said,  and did a double-take on "(if quoted 
accurately)" -- the article was *written by Fenton (not just "a former 
postholder" but a respected foreign correpsondent,  as a poet a name in the 
frame to succeed Larkin and, to put it another way,  a former Professor of 
Poetry at Oxford.)

If Purvis has a case, why does she feel she has to imply that the Standard 
article was "quoting" Fenton rather than written by him?  (And it's not the 
only case in this Purvis piece where this kind of elide takes place.)

This issue was never to do with poetry, and has little to do with sexual 
harassment as such, otherwise more attention would be paid to the efforts of 
the students at Harvard in 1983 to get due process put in place.  It does, 
however, demonstrate an incredible amount of quite mind-numbingly inept and 
slanted journalism, and an *ongoing agenda.

Just what agenda, I don't know ...

Anyway, the New York Times (bless their tiny boots, gleefully and 
selectively cited by Seth Abramson on his blog for principledly refusing to 
use the term "smear") have this to say:

"It is still unclear who sent the material, but on Tuesday it had what was 
probably its intended effect. Mr. Walcott, a candidate to become the next 
Oxford professor of poetry in an election on Saturday, withdrew from the 
race."

        http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/books/13poet.html?scp=1&sq=walcott&st=cse

So according to the NYT (not me) the purpose of the anonymous campaign 
wasn't to *influence the electors of Oxford but to *pressure Walcott into 
withdrawing from the race.

Which is what happened.

Go figure ...

Robin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 4:57 PM
Subject: more on Oxford


> for those who are still interested, I guess:
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/bittersweet-victory-for-ruth-padel-1686273.html
>
> Doug