Word: fame
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...history of the record industry. Forget that he produced 131 gold, platinum or multi-platinum records. Forget that he was recognized by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the Grammy award people) for achievement in every major category. Forget all measures of Elvis’ fame relative to his time. One could still write him off as a relic—a “white trash icon” now relevant only in the minds of an increasingly geriatric fanbase. Let’s focus specifically on his enduring influence...
...danger of celebrity is that it can confer a prominence that outlasts merit. In an academic institution like Harvard, this point is less obvious, because Harvard’s fame tends to attract brilliant men and women anyway. At the same time, Harvard actively recruits celebrity professors, in part to perpetuate its image, and this can run contrary to the University’s academic mission. A celebrity professor may win awards, go to important parties and attract the best grad-student lackeys, but none of these things necessarily contribute anything to pioneering intellectual thought...
More likely, celebrity distracts from scholarship. In reality, there is little to gain by further inflating the egos of academics. The beauty of the life of the mind is that it is unadulterated by temporal concerns like fame and money. An academic’s habits need not resemble those of a Benedictine monk, but the driving force of an academic’s ambition should be truth for the sake of truth...
...DIED. BYRON R. WHITE, 84, retired Supreme Court justice and early football star; in Denver. An inductee to the College Football Hall of Fame, White was appointed to the court in 1962 by John F. Kennedy, served 31 years and was known for his conservative and often dissenting opinions, ruling on landmark decisions such as Miranda v. Arizona and Roe v. Wade. DIED. ROBERT URICH, 55, Emmy Award-winning actor best known for his starring roles in the television detective sagas Vega$ and Spenser: For Hire, of synovial cell sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that attacks the body...
Which brings us back to the original point—why is Matthews so astronomically popular amongst American college kids? His fame has not spread far beyond U.S. borders—a British magazine article last summer described him performing in almost complete anonymity in Trafalgar Square in London, until a gaggle of American exchange students showed up to get an autograph...