Harassment of Dead Sea Scroll Scholars Leads to Arrest of Professor's Son

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Harassment of Dead Sea Scroll Scholars Leads to Arrest of Professor's Son

By STEVE KOLOWICH

The son of a prominent Dead Sea Scrolls scholar was arrested on Thursday on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation, and aggravated harassment relating to a complex online campaign designed to smear opponents of his father's theories.

The Manhattan district attorney's office alleged in a statement released on Thursday that Raphael Haim Golb, 49, son of Norman Golb, a professor of Jewish history and civilization at the University of Chicago, used dozens of Internet aliases to “influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls” and “harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint.”

Raphael Golb’s alleged base of operations was the Bobst Library at New York University, one block away from his home. According to the district attorney's office, Mr. Golb acquired access to the university's computers by virtue of his status as an alumnus and a donor to the university's library fund.

The office contends that Mr. Golb impersonated and harassed Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University and a leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, by creating an e-mail account in Mr. Schiffman’s name and using it to send e-mail messages in which the sender admitted to plagiarism.

Mr. Golb also allegedly supplemented that campaign to discredit Mr. Schiffman by sending letters to university personnel accusing Mr. Schiffman of plagiarism, and by creating blogs that made similar accusations. Two blogs, each with a single entry, accuse Mr. Schiffman of plagiarizing articles written by Norman Golb in the 1980s.

Robert R. Cargill, an instructional technology coordinator at the University of California at Los Angeles's Center for Digital Humanities, has for the last two years been tracking the activity of an academic cyberbully who, writing under as many as 60 different aliases, has been waging a campaign to harass and defame opponents of Norman Golb’s theories about the origin of the 2,000-year-old scrolls.

He said that by tracking the Internet protocol addresses attached to a number of e-mail messages, blog posts, and other Web activities, he was able to conclude with reasonable certainty that the perpetrator was working from a series of computers at the Bobst Library. (An IP address is a unique number, assigned by Internet-service providers, that identifies every connection to the Internet.)

Mr. Cargill, who has carefully refrained from making any direct accusations against Raphael Golb or his father, Norman Golb, declined to say whether he had assisted the district attorney's investigation.

Mr. Cargill began tracking the cyberbully—whom he calls the “Puppet Master”—two years ago after he himself was targeted. At the time, he was a doctoral student at UCLA helping to produce a film about Khirbat Qumran—the site in present-day Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—and its inhabitants for an exhibit on the scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Mr. Cargill said it was then that the aliases began attacking him and his film, both in e-mail messages to his superiors and on various Web forums, for failing to give credence to Norman Golb's long-held theory about the origin of the scrolls and how they came to Khirbat Qumran.

Some scholars, including Mr. Schiffman and Mr. Cargill, believe that the 2,000-year-old documents were assembled by inhabitants of Qumran. Mr. Kolb, however, holds that they originated in Jerusalem and were transported to Qumran later.

Risa Levitt Kohn, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University who curated the San Diego show and several subsequent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibitions, said she too has been “under regular attack” by Internet aliases since then, both in Web forums and in e-mail messages addressed to her superiors.

“Sometimes the criticisms of me are straightforward and overt,” she told The Chronicle via e-mail, “and sometimes the letters appear reasonable but essentially demand that these individuals take note of previous exhibitions’ supposed ‘failings.’ Then they provide helpful suggestions to find solutions, almost always involving Norman Golb in one way or another.”

A number of other Dead Sea Scrolls scholars also said they have been harassed by mysterious Internet personas. Because the messages were written under aliases, they had little choice but to ignore them.

“This person has posted horrible stuff about me online,” said Jodi Magness, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I don't even look anymore, it makes me too upset.”

Eric H. Cline, a professor of classics and Semitics at George Washington University, was another target of an anonymous critic. “People like my grandmother would call me up and say, ‘What's the matter, why are you ignoring that guy?’ ” he said.

During the time that these Internet aliases were attacking Mr. Cargill's film and Ms. Levitt Kohn's exhibition, Norman Golb sent letters—copies of which have been provided to The Chronicle by Mr. Cargill—to both the provost of UCLA and the president of the San Diego Natural History Museum, also criticizing the film and the exhibition.

The district attorney’s office would not comment on whether it is investigating Norman Golb in connection with the allegations it has levied against his son.

Raphael Golb is charged with one felony count of second-degree identity theft, plus four misdemeanor charges. If convicted of the felony count, he could face up to four years in prison. According to news reports, he did not have a lawyer as of Thursday evening and had not yet responded to the charges. An arraignment hearing is scheduled for today in Manhattan.

But Asashoryu does, in fact, look like Vaisravana

Form your own opinion here.

Mad Detective (movie of the month, February 2009)

The best movie I watched during February 2009 was Johnnie To’s amazing Mad Detective.  (My January entry was Man on a Wire.)  The movie’s plot is highly original – an insane detective (Bun) gives his boss a retirement present – his ear.  After being forced to retire, he is called in again to help with a murder spree using a stolen police gun.  “Don’t use logic to investigate – use your feelings!”   Bun freely hallucinates to find the true inner character of various persons – in the case where there are conflicting personalities, he sees multiple people.

The movie is visually striking, as the view switches between “Bun’s” schizophrenic views and the "natural” view.  The film further benefits from outstanding acting from Ching-Wan Lau, an eerie modernist soundtrack, and amazing Ka-Fai Wai script.  It is the most original mystery film I’ve seen since Memento.

The film is rather violent in parts, and is not appropriate for children.

David Foster Wallace

The New Yorker has published an extraordinarily painful biography-article on David Foster Wallace, a post-modern novelist who recently committed suicide.

Despite the pain of the article, I do recommend it – it is fascinating in it grimness, and briefly surveys Wallace’s completed and uncompleted works.

The paranoid style of American politics

In today’s New York Times, Yale law professor Stephen Carter analyzes recent shallow analysis of public statements.  He begins with these remarks:

Just weeks before taking the oath of office in 1861, Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd in Pittsburgh. The times were fraught. Since Lincoln’s election, several slave-holding states had left the Union. More were threatening to go. But Lincoln told the worried assemblage, “There is really no crisis except an artificial one!”  Actually, Lincoln said much more than that — hundreds upon hundreds of words, calculated to soothe the public’s fear of war. But had his speech been covered the way the news media cover political remarks today, it is likely that most people would have heard only that one line, and Lincoln, the nation’s greatest president, would have been pilloried as an out-of-touch bumpkin.

In fact, I don’t think Stephen Carter correctly characterizes Lincoln’s speech, which you can read for yourself.  Most of the address concerns tariff policies, and the key paragraph reads as follows:

Notwithstanding the troubles across the river, [the speaker pointing southwardly, and smiling] there is really no crisis, springing from anything in the government itself. In plain words, there is really no crisis except an artificial one! What is there now to warrant the condition of affairs presented by our friends “over the river?” Take even their own view of the questions involved, and there is nothing to justify the course which they are pursuing. I repeat it, then – there is no crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any time by designing politicians. My advice, then, under such circumstances, is to keep cool. If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as heretofore. But, fellow citizens, I have spoken longer on this subject than I had intended in the outset – and I shall say no more at present.

However, even if Carter’s opening example is flawed, one of his larger points is certainly correct – reading complex ideas requires reading full material in context, without hysterical reactions.  In particular Carter is to be praised for reminding of us a classic of American political philosophy:  Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”  I am in not in a position to characterize whether over-reaction and sound biting has increased or decreased over time (I can imagine a strong argument, and Hofstadter provides evidence that this style of rhetoric is nothing new.)  But there is something particular about posting short notes on the web that can at times it lends itself to shallow analysis.  And it certainly is the case that readers, teachers, and thinkers we should encourage contextual, full, subtle reading.

February 12, 1809: Twin Birthdays (a few books)

February 12 is the 200th anniversary of both Lincoln’s and Darwin’s birthday.  There are even at least two comparative biographies on the market now:  Adam Gopnik’s Angels and Ages and David Contosta’s Rebel Giants.  And there are flood of good and bad Lincoln and Darwin books flooding the market (the oddest of which I have seen mentioned to date is Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book.)

Lincoln and Darwin share more than a few parallels, but for me, both are giants of 19th century writing.  And for both of them, I think their strongest work came early on:  in Darwin’s case, The Voyage of a the Beagle – an amazing travelogue and coming of age story.  It is available in numerous editions, here is a new hardcover (that promises to include the original illustrations) and here is a link to many online editions.  See also the illustrations here.  Darwin’s final popular work (on earthworms) is also excellent and well worth reading.  A well-received book about Darwin’s writing style and influence is the Norton Critical Edition.

For me, the highlight of Lincoln’s work are his debates with Douglas Stevens – again there are numerous versions available, but here is a new critically edited volume.  Close behind is Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union – here is a recreation of it by Sam Waterston (and here is the text).  A well-received book about Lincoln’s speaking style is Gary Will’s Lincoln at Gettysburg.

If you want a fuller selection of Darwin, I can recommend an omnibus edition published by Norton.  If you want a fuller selection of Lincoln, there is an excellent set published by Library of America.

Dream tonight in honor of Joyce

Today, James Joyce’s 127th birthday, is the 70th anniversary of Joyce’s greatest novel – his great book about dreaming:  Finnegans Wake. 

Here are some quotations noted by David Kelly.

Anthony Burgess:

The world has forgiven Joyce for the excesses of Ulysses, but it is not yet ready to forgive him for the dementia of Finnegans Wake. Yet it is difficult to see what other book he could well have written after a fictional ransacking of the human mind in its waking state. Ulysses sometimes touches the borders of sleep, but it never actually enters its kingdom. Finnegans Wake is frankly a representation of the sleeping brain. It took Joyce 17 years to write between eye operations and worry about the mental collapse of his daughter, Lucia. He got little encouragement, even from Ezra Pound, that prince of avant-gardistes; his wife, Nora, merely said that he ought to write a nice book that ordinary people could read. But clearly Finnegans Wake had to be written, and Joyce was the only man dedicated or mad enough to write it.

Edna O’Brien:

Madness he knew to be the secret of genius . . . . He preferred the word exaltation, which can merge into madness. All great men had that vein in them. The reasonable man, he insisted, achieves nothing.

My favorite book on Finnegans Wake (other than the novel itself) is John Bishop’s Joyce’s Book of the Dark.  (I know the author, but I formed my high opinion of the work before I met him.)  Bishop’s book treats the Wake as a dream novel, and has incredible explanatory power to this famous difficult book.

See also this first draft version.

Best Jane Austen Yet?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

From the publisher’s description

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

JANE AUSTEN is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature.

SETH GRAHAME-SMITH once took a class in English literature. He lives in Los Angeles.

On wishing one listened to the CD instead

Carnegie Hall.  Expensive tickets.  Difficult new music.  Out of control cell phones.  Drunk patrons.  Rashomon-like retellings of the stories.

Matthew Barson’s account

Bruce Hodge’s account

(HT:  Alex Ross)

Funeral for Analogue TV

If you need something to mourn, why not hold a funeral for analogue television the way they do out in wacky Berkeley?  (But be sure to hold onto your old sets so you can receive those pirate broadcasts – it seems this group is sponsoring a workshop on how to create your own pirate television station.)

From http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/tvfuneral/

The service will take place at the Berkeley Art Museum
Tuesday, February 17, at 7:00 PM.
The friends of the family are respectfully invited to attend.

Join author Bruce Sterling, technology pundit Paul Saffo, and other special guests on the UC Berkeley campus to mourn the loss of our long time acquaintance, the Analog Television Signal. Born in the 1920's in San Francisco, the signal has been an integral part of all our lives, bringing us news of the rich, the famous, the politicians, the wars, the Apollo landings, the thrills of victory, and the agonies of defeat. While Analog Television has not been a good friend to us all, it has been important to each and every one of us. Analog Television is survived by its wife Digital Television, and its second cousin Internet Television. In a soap-operatic melodrama fit for TV itself, Congress has debated changing the official date for the switch to digital television; however this event will proceed on Feb. 17 because we prefer to bury a fresh corpse rather than wait for the walking dead to fall over.

Please bring your Analog TV for display and recycling, as we will stack the first 40 in memoriam to our life long friend. At the ceremony Paul Saffo will spell out the sordid history of the Analog TV Signal's life, the group Author & Punisher will perform the funeral dirge, and author Bruce Sterling will deliver the eulogy just before the analog signal winks out for the last time and the frequency wasteland is invaded by pirate TV artists. It's rare that the entire nation gets a specific date on which one major medium dies and is replaced by another. This event will be a scholarly and artistic reflection on the passing of one of the dominant mediums and cultural influences of the late 20th century.