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Web Exclusives: More letters from alumni
about Maxim
mayhem Hear hear! to those who wrote in outraged protest over your coverage of Keith Blanchard '88, editor-in-disgrace of Maxim. The magazine triumphs the self-obsessed decline of the American public to lowest-common-denominator entertainment. Though I've restrained myself from the urge to phrases such as "Peter Pan complex" and "birdcage liner," I must certainly say that the magazine's stewardship by Mr. Blanchard is no way to redeem the benefits proffered by higher education. Do we need to be reminded that those benefits are highly coveted, that we were lucky enough to receive them while many very worthy candidates are denied simply by the pressures of supply and demand? One should not take one's education lightly when it has been won at such cost. So one must ask, is it in the nation's service to spend that education by pandering to appetites for flatulence humor? I myself spent time working with Tiger magazine during my own undergraduate years, but unlike Mr. Blanchard I recognize that there comes a time for childish things to be left behind. My current desk job may not be as jovial, but neither is it as frivolous as sitting in Maxim's offices shirking any contribution to society in favor of discussing aerosol flame-throwers. It is irresponsible for presumed adults to indulge in pastimes appropriate for college sophomores; that's why we call this humor "sophomoric." The fact is, in the words of a great educational leader, that "fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life." Is this the ideal to which Maxim offers its paean for the Modern Guy? Then the effort of its publication is in no one's service. Mark Jackman '90 Palo Alto, Calif. Respond
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