Bodrum Castle, Türkiye Sept 12, 2025   

 

 

At our friend Andrea’s birthday in Hampshire last weekend, the Man in the Lime Suit said to me above the din, “they’ve taken the spark out of everyone. Taken what’s inside people that belongs to them and makes them act.”  I nodded. The spark never does go out, but I knew exactly what he meant.

 

The spark to make one’s own things is the origin and outcome of teaching and research. It leads to a set of powers in art to show what’s not seen and to diverge from what exists. 

 

In politics, it’s to break with a nightmare of the present, and build an alternative to it, brick by brick, where you have to make most of the bricks yourself. 

 

In management, the spark enables the creation of the positive narrative of your institution’s destiny and the coordination of your people into a powerful movement towards it. (I wrote about these linked elements last time.)

UCLA on May 14, 2018    

It’s a Friday in the 6^th grade, when you eat at the lunch truck parked outside the school gate. While standing in line, the big kid behind you grabs the five-dollar bill out of your hand. When you turn around, he smirks and says, “I’ll give you this five back if you give me a ten.”  

 

This is the genius shakedown that Trump has imposed on UCLA.  He announced the freezing of $300 million, which UCLA officials said is really $584 million.  Two days later, it was like the first Dr. Evil scene in Austin Powers.  “We hold UCLA ransom for--one BILLION dollars.”

 

Obviously, the choice can’t be to pay $1 billion to get back $584 million. The choice is to say okay, keep the $584 million, or, instead, sue to get back the $584 million that has been (unlawfully) withheld. 

 

It’s not really a choice. UC must pick door number two.