(OPE-L) Remembering James F. Becker

["Gerald A. Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bertell Ollman " <obertell@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: ""Gerald A. Levy"" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 6:57 PM
Subject: RE: Remembering James F. Becker


 Dear Jerry,
   Thanks so much for remembering Jim - and in such a generous spirit - and
for jogging my memory on the subject. Jim and I shared a university for
about 30 years, and tho we were never very close personally we were the best
of political comrades. There were few political meetings, esp. those
relating to our life at NYU, where one of us was present and the other not.
Jim argued well and got angry at all the right moments, or so I thought. In
any case, it generally worked. A keen intelligence and blood curdling
disgust at all that deserves just that are a hard combination to beat. More
than one radical student owes his/her narrow escape from the jaws of the
Administration to Jim's stirling peformance in defense. And always there was
the courage, the willingness to take risks with his own career, whenever the
occasion required it, as it often did. In all this, and in his teaching - as
you point out - Jim Becker was a model radical professor. It's only right
that the world should know what a terrible loss it suffered when Jim died.
  Yours-in-Common-Struggle,
   Bertell Ollman
   Dept. of Politics
   NYU