Princeton in the News
August 12 to 18, 1999
PrincetonUniversity
Communications Office
Stanhope Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA
Tel 609 258 3601, Fax 609 258 1301
Feedback
Headlines
HEADLINE: Capitals trade Gratton to Flames for Shirreffs
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
The Washington Capitals traded center Benoit Gratton to the Calgary Flames on Wednesday for defenseman Steve Shirreffs.
Shirreffs, a 1995 entry draft selection, played four years at Princeton University. Last season, Shirreffs had two goals and 17 assists in 27 games, making him one of the top ten defensemen in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
In 16 games for the Capitals last season, Gratton scored four goals and had three assists.
HEADLINE: Hateful Lies in Israel's Schools
BYLINE: Eric Fettman
'The "new historians" contend - just as Israel's enemies have for the past 50 years - that the foundation of the Jewish State was rooted in immorality, injustice, deception and war crimes.'
Last Saturday's infuriating front-page New York Times story about new Israeli school textbooks that deliberately set out to shatter the "myths" of Zionism and "replace them with facts" brought to mind, surprisingly enough, the classic World War II movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai."
The new texts for Israel's state-sponsored schools are the result, the Times reported, of a little-publicized five-year campaign by Michael Yaron, an Education Ministry official. The books teach that the long-accepted view of Israel's founding is grounded in myths designed to hide the nefarious "machinations" of early Zionist leaders to build an "iron-walled Jewish state" at the expense of the Arab population, which did not flee in fear but was forcibly expelled by Israeli soldiers.
As Princeton University history professor L. Carl Brown wrote last year in the academic journal Foreign Affairs, "the common theme running through all this new history" is that, from the beginning, Israel's "Machiavellian" leadership "did not draw away from violence when that seemed warranted and was in no hurry to move toward peace, but preferred to hang on to every gain achieved while keeping an eye peeled out for more."
HEADLINE: West Side attorney is appointed as judge
BYLINE: Melissa S. Monroe; Express-News Staff Writer
"Wow" is the only thing Jo-Ann Sylvia De Hoyos remembers saying when she learned she'd been appointed to the new position of judge in County Court-at-Law No. 11.
Born and raised on the West Side, De Hoyos, 38, will be sworn in next month.
In the meantime, she is closing the general law practice she has operated for more than 12 years.
But De Hoyos said she doesn't regret closing her downtown practice because she has important work to do in her new position.
"It's a gift, and I plan to treat it that way," De Hoyos said. "It's an extreme responsibility to make decisions with people's lives, and I hope I can remember every single day that I can either hurt or help someone. I never want to forget that."
To receive her appointment, De Hoyos had to endure a nail-biting wait. In early June, 54 attorneys applied for the three new county court-at-law benches. The posts, with an annual salary of $110,000, were signed into law last month by Gov. George W. Bush.
De Hoyos, a graduate of Burbank High School, Princeton University and New York University Law School, is no stranger to a judge's robe.
HEADLINE: Fears about spacecraft flyby largely unfounded;
Critics say a mishap could cause the Saturn-bound Cassini to
reenter Earth's atmosphere and blow up, but advocates say the
chances are almost nil.
BYLINE: Steven J. Marcus; Staff Writer
Need something to worry about? Take a deep breath at 10:28 tonight, when the controversial Cassini spacecraft flies by the Earth.
Launched in October 1997 on a voyage to Saturn and its moons, Cassini will pass as close as 725 miles from Earth -- virtually at our front door by celestial standards _ after having logged more than 1 billion miles so far.
The spacecraft is coming back for a "gravity assist" to pick up energy from the Earth's gravitational field to help speed it on its way to a rendezvous with Saturn in July 2004, where it will conduct closeup studies of the planet, its rings and its moons.
But as Cassini flies by the Earth -- visible only from the eastern South Pacific -- the thrill of the moment could be not so much what it does as what it doesn't do.
Opponents of the mission -- such as the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice -- have fretted for years that an accident during the flyby could have disastrous results because of the 72 pounds of plutonium on board.
For this reason, Thomas Cochrane, staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City, called the one-in-a-million figure in this case "totally unbelievable." Members of an interagency advisory panel of the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy were skeptical, said Frank von Hippel, a physicist at Princeton University who studied the proposed Cassini mission in the early 1990s while a staff member of the President's Office.
HEADLINE: Officials prepare for flood of feet on parched
fields
BYLINE: By GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: VILLANOVA, Pa.
As Villanova football players prepare for their season-opener, they're stepping all over one of the hardest opponents they've ever faced in training camp.
The playing field.
They, and other colleges and high schools in the Northeast are practicing on fields as hard as concrete and scorched by one of the century's worst droughts. Coaches and athletic directors are worried that the rock-hard fields will cause injuries to players as they run, tackle and slide during drills.
"It's just the pounding. The grass right now is even harder than the turf is," said Villanova coach Andy Talley. "It's not the best surface to play on, but you've got to play the hand that's dealt to you."
There are other worries for returning athletes, said Charlie Thompson, head athletic trainer at Princeton University. The surface will be harder on all the body's joints since the turf will have less of a "bounce-back cushion" for athletes who may be working through two-a-day practices under the summer sun.
"The fields are absolutely solid; it's just dust," Thompson said. "It's the worst I've seen it in the 20 years I've been an athletic trainer."
HEADLINE: THE BIO SLIME PROJECT Bacteria stick together to beat
body's defenses
BYLINE: Tina Hesman
The next time Hollywood makes a movie about slime, it might be more of a medical documentary than a horror flick.
Slime-covered communities of bacteria - called bio-films - latch on to some of the most unlikely surfaces, say microbiologists. And when that surface is something like a heart valve or an artificial hip joint, a serious and stubborn infection can develop.
Biofilms are responsible for some of the most serious infections doctors deal with today, said Phil Stewart, deputy director of the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman.
Scientists have known about biofilms since the 17th-century biologist Anton van Leeuwenhoek found "animalculi" in the scum from his teeth. But it wasn't until the late 1970s that microbiologists came to appreciate that most microorganisms grow in organized communities. In recent years, scientists have begun scrutinizing the inner workings of these slime communities. Now, new genetic evidence and some chemical eavesdropping are revealing why bio-films are such a medical nightmare.
The Australian experiments are testing a variety of furanones to combat bacteria that speak different dialects of the chemical language. The furanones seem to be as effective against bacteria that cause infections as they are against ocean-dwelling slime producers, said Dr. Kjelleberg.
But there are many bacteria that don't speak this chemical language at all, said Bonnie Bassler, a microbial geneticist from Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. Gram positive bacteria - bacteria that take up the Gram stain - communicate with short pieces of proteins.
Dr. Bassler has discovered another language spoken by both Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria - a bacterial Esperanto. And some types of bacteria are multilingual, Dr. Bassler said.
The ability to communicate effectively with other types of bacteria is crucial to form a healthy slime village in nature. "It's really complicated to make a biofilm," Dr. Bassler said. "They [bacteria] have tobe yapping away to each other to make it happen."
HEADLINE: Policy Can Help Arts
To the Editor:
Alice Goldfarb Marquis (Op-Ed, Aug. 9) argues that we don't need a "national policy" for arts and culture because they are too diverse and amorphous and because there are plenty of signs of increasing support for them.
But diversity can be, and often is, the explicit goal of cultural policy. Moreover, we cannot assume that a laissez-faire approach is the best way to insure variety. For example, left on its own, the film industry is likely to consolidate, which may in fact limit the variety and scope of available movies.
Also, the "robustness" of the arts does not signal a need to ignore cultural policy. It is precisely during such periods of rapid growth and change that informed policy making is essential. Increased investment and robust activity should be a clarion call for more, not less, policy research.
STEVEN JAY TEPPER
Princeton, N.J., Aug. 12, 1999
The writer is associate director of the Princeton
University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies.
HEADLINE: Frank C. Carlucci to Succeed William P. Clark As
Chairman of US-ROC (Taiwan) Business Council
DATELINE: ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 16
The US-ROC (Taiwan) Business Council is pleased to announce that Frank C. Carlucci, Chairman of The Carlyle Group, will succeed William P. Clark as its Chairman.
William P. Clark, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of the Interior in the Reagan Administration, has been Chairman of the Council for the customary two year term. Mr. Carlucci will assume his Chairmanship of the Council effective September 1, 1999. Carlucci's appointment continues the tradition of leadership of the Council by prominent Americans such as David M. Kennedy, Caspar W. Weinberger, Daniel M. Tellep, and William P. Clark.
Mr. Carlucci is Chairman and a Partner in The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based merchant bank founded in 1987 as a private global investment firm. Before joining The Carlyle Group in 1989, Mr. Carlucci served as Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989. Earlier, he served as President Reagan's National Security Adviser in 1987.
Mr. Carlucci is a graduate of Princeton University and attended Harvard Business School. He serves on the Boards of a number of companies and non- profit organizations. He is married to the former Marcia Myers, and has three children: Frank, Karen and Kristin.
HEADLINE: Decathletes make quest for Sarasota; Dan O'Brien and U.S. Decathlon Team members may set up their Olympic training camp here.
BYLINE: Yolanda Rodriguez STAFF WRITER
For Dan O'Brien, next year's Olympics in Australia will be a chance to get another gold medal in the decathlon and to set another record in the most grueling of athletic events.
The Sarasota community may play a role in O'Brien's effort and in the dreams of about a dozen other decathletes who aspire to win national and international championships.
Plans are under way to bring the USA Decathlon Team to Sarasota for training camps several times a year. The plans include creating a nonprofit foundation that would give stipends to the top 10 team members to assist them in their training.
Under the plan, the team will come to Sarasota several times a year for training camps, something which is essential for keeping the competitive edge, said Frank Zarnowski, a team consultant who has written several books about the premier track and field event.
"They are extremely excited and they just hope that it all works out. They are extremely appreciative that the community is so supportive," said Fred Samara, the team's coach and the head of track and field at Princeton University.
HEADLINE: Missouri Illinois Don't Require Teaching
Evolution;
LIKE KANSAS, BOTH STATES AVOID SPELLING OUT CURRICULA MANDATES
BYLINE: Matthew Franck; Of The Post-Dispatch
If teachers at public schools in Missouri and Illinois didn't want to include the subject of evolution in their lesson plans, the states would likely do nothing to stop them.
Then again, the two states' education standards -- which spell out what schools should teach -- make no mention of gravity, triangles or Vietnam either.
Unlike many states, Missouri and Illinois do not play a strong role in dictating what curriculum and which textbooks should be used by individual school districts.
Last week, the Kansas Board of Education attracted national attention for voting to let schools keep that kind of flexibility in how evolution is taught in the state. In adopting new education standards for the Kansas schools, the board voted to make no reference to evolution.
Other national science officials, meanwhile, say Missouri and other states that have vague science standards run the risk of having students that lack knowledge of the basic tenet of modern biology.
"As much as I would like to believe that all local districts will make the right decision, I know that many will not," said Jeremiah Ostriker, provost of Princeton University, who also helped write the National Science Education Standards.
Another way of dictating what schools teach, officials say, is to cont rol which questions are asked in state-mandated exams.
HEADLINE: The professor claims a string of victories; Physicist Juan Maldacena offered tenure and $245,000 MacArthur grant;
BYLINE: By Kevin Penton, Globe Correspondent
CAMBRIDGE - Getting a surprise call from a prestigious foundation awarding him $245,000 was "nice." Receiving tenure at Harvard University after only two years was "flattering." Being named by Newsweek as one of 20 young Latinos to watch was "very amusing."
That's all great, says physicist Juan Maldacena, but what he would really love to do is publish a paper proving that tiny strings are the foundation of matter.
"I won't write it tomorrow," he said with a laugh.
Maldacena, a 30-year-old Cambridge resident, is in the vanguard of the physics world. His recent work on string theory, which suggests that the universe is composed of one-dimensional "strings," has created great excitement in his field. He gave lectures at conferences last month in Germany and Spain.
Maldacena emigrated seven years ago from Argentina, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees. His doctoral dissertation at Princeton University four years ago caused a stir among string theorists, who saw it as an impressive advancement of their own research.
"You wouldn't expect anyone so young to contribute so highly to this field," said Cumrun Vafa, a physics professor at Harvard who specializes in strings. "He's connected pieces of physics that were basically left in the dark with some very modern parts."
HEADLINE: Seems Like Ages Since It Was So Cold Here
DATELINE: TRENTON
While visitors stopped by to watch, Barbara Grandstaff, far left, and Susan Johnson compared fossil bones on the antler of an elk moose in the Natural History Hall at the State Museum. They are working on a long-term exhibition, "New Jersey and the Great Ice Age," which should be completed by December.
The elk moose fossil, dating back about 100,000 years, was discovered in Warren County in 1885. It is on loan from Princeton University.
In the museum laboratory, right, Ms. Johnson, a biology student at Stockton State College, and Ms. Grandstaff, a volunteer and professor of veterinary anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, were joined by David Parris, curator. Together, they looked over a map of the area where the fossil of the hip bone of a mastodon was discovered in June in Monmouth County. The fossil was donated and will become part of the exhibition.
Fragments of a bison fossil, above, were to be used for radio-carbon dating.
GRAPHIC: Photos (Photographs by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times)
HEADLINE: The Bush Clan's Inspiration -- and Curse?
BYLINE: By Sean Wilentz; Sean Wilentz is a professor of history at
Princeton University.
DATELINE: PRINCETON, N.J.
Gov. George W. Bush has raised a great deal of cash and a good deal of controversy with his slogan of compassionate conservatism. Hard-line conservatives, a large portion of the Republican base despise the term as wishy-washy. Liberal Democrats charge that Mr. Bush is far more conservative than he is compassionate.
Placed in historical perspective, though, compassionate conservatism is perfectly in keeping with the long arc of the Bush family's politics over the past three generations. Bushism is a way of positioning oneself through the successive watering down of what used to be called modern Republicanism, as originally articulated by Thomas E. Dewey, the two-time Presidential nominee and Bush family favorite.
Dewey became a national political star in 1942, when he won the New York governor's race. While upholding the familiar Republican theme of Federal fiscal responsibility, Dewey spurned his party's old guard and accepted some of the basic tenets of the New Deal, like old-age benefits, limited civil rights reform and an internationalist foreign policy.
Democrats and conservative Republicans accused Dewey of blatant me-too-ism -- that is, simply adopting popular Democratic positions to get elected. Heartland conservatives also charged that he was more a Wall Street man than a Main Street man. Dewey replied that he was a true-blue Republican and that, as President, he would end what he and his fellow Republicans considered Democratic fiscal mismanagement and corruption. Still, he proudly proclaimed that the Republicans were a liberal and progressive party.
George Bush was finally elected Vice President in 1980. By the time he was elected President eight years later, no Republican was calling himself or herself a liberal, let alone a progressive. Indeed, it was candidate Bush, in 1988, who stigmatized his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, with the dreaded "L-word."
Yet when he accepted the nomination, Mr. Bush quietly nodded to his family's old Deweyite connections by promising a kinder, gentler America than the one presided over by Ronald Reagan. When the cold war ended, he ignored his party's neo-isolationists.
August 15, 1999, Sunday
HEADLINE: Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir Francis?
BYLINE: By Theodore K. Rabb; Theodore K. Rabb is a professor of history at Princeton University. His most recent book is "Jacobean Gentleman: Sir Edwin Sandys, 1561-1629."
HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE
The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon.
By Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart.
Illustrated. 637 pp. New York: Hill & Wang. $35.
EXCEPT for Shakespeare, no Elizabethan or Jacobean writer crops up so often these days as Francis Bacon. Revered and vilified by turn, and just occasionally treated moderately and judiciously, he has come to stand for much that is either applauded or denounced in the modern Western tradition. Other than Bacon himself, not many in his own lifetime (1561-1626) would have foreseen such stature, and even 50 years ago he seemed but one medium-sized star in the firmament of 17th-century genius.
He was then widely regarded as something of a lightweight because of his failure to make a significant contribution to the scientific discoveries of his day. The common view was that he talked a lot about science but did little to advance its frontiers. Narrowly devoted to observation and to conclusions reached by induction, he failed to appreciate the theoretical and deductive breakthroughs that created modern science. Only his essays were first-rate, and even those paled by comparison with Montaigne's.
That dismissal, however, has been strenuously disputed in recent decades. In particular, the propaganda for new ideas about nature, of which Bacon was the undoubted master, has come to be seen as vitally important to their triumph. His inspiration was crucial, for example, to the founding and the program of England's Royal Society, the first great scientific society and the publisher of the first scientific journal.
The best of the overall surveys, and the place that any general reader should begin, is Perez Zagorin's "Francis Bacon," published last year, which pulls together the disparate elements of Bacon's thought, brings to bear the most persuasive recent interpretations while dismissing much of the foolishness that has also appeared, and fashions a sensible and coherent overview of the full range of his writings. We now have an equivalent survey of the life, "Hostage to Fortune," by Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart, which tells us, in exhaustive detail, just about everything of moment that is known about the tormented story of Bacon as both a private and a public figure.
JARDINE and Stewart, respectively a professor of history and a lecturer in English at the University of London, try to be fair to Bacon, but he does not come through their many pages as an appealing character. They have come up with some new information, especially about his little-known early life, which they illuminate through the activities and contacts of his better-documented older brother Anthony. And on his public career they offer closely reasoned accounts of the main episodes, buttressed by long quotations. Their judgments throughout these twists and turns are largely convincing, and they make it clear that much of Bacon's experience was conditioned by the pressures of his uncertain prospects and his fierce ambition, which eventually brought him to the Privy Council, a viscountcy and the Lord Chancellorship of England.
SECTION: EDITORIAL
HEADLINE: Searching for the Ancestor of Darwin's Finches
BYLINE: George Johnson
Charles Darwin first became convinced that evolution occurs when he collected a variety of small birds on the Galapagos islands off the west coast of South America. All these birds proved to be finches, a cluster of species closely related to one another and all resembling the finches of the South American mainland.
The simplest explanation, Darwin thought, was that a single ancestor species of finch had migrated to the islands, flying across the ocean from South America. This one ancestral species then evolved into the 14 different species now on the islands. Darwin called this process "descent with modification" and regarded it as key evidence for his theory of evolution by natural selection.
In the 140 years since, scientists have wondered about the identity of this ancestral species. Did it come from South America, as Darwin proposed? The nearest point on the mainland is Ecuador. To reach the Galapagos Islands from there, the ancestor of Darwin's finches would have had to travel 900 kilometers over the open ocean, a very long migration.
A breakthrough in using molecular data to test the Darwin's proposal has been achieved this year by examining variation in the length of microsatellite DNA sequences. Microsatellites are highly repeated gene sequences of a few thousand bases. Thousands of copies of them are scattered about the chromosomes more or less at random. Microsatellite sequences have very high mutation rates, and so are often used in DNA tests of paternity or for forensic identification, as in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Because of these very high mutation rates, microsatellites would seem to be an ideal way to compare clusters of recently formed species such as Darwin's finches, as many DNA differences can be expected to have accumulated even over a relatively short span of time. Evolutionary ecologist Ken Petren, with Peter and Rosemary Grant of Princeton University, have examined 16 microsatellite markers on genomic DNA drawn from the bird's blood. The markers show variation on exactly the correct time scale to distinguish between the species.
HEADLINE: People for August 14, 1999
BYLINE: Siobhan Gorman and Shawn Zeller
Blinder In the Tanks
Returning to Washington for a year's sabbatical (which conveniently coincides with the 2000 election season) is Alan S. Blinder, the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Blinder, 53, has been an economics professor at Princeton University since 1971 and director of its Center for Economic Policy Studies for the past three and a half years. Next month he'll set up shop at the Brookings Institution. During his last stop in Washington, from 1994-96, Blinder kept busy at the Federal Reserve; he was also a member of President Clinton's first Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-94. He said his big push at the Fed, aside from routine regulatory responsibilities, was cultivating greater candor with the public, which resulted, he said, in ''substantially more openness'' in the past few years. (See NJ, 7/24/99, pp. 2178-79.) At the Council of Economic Advisers, Blinder focused mainly on balancing the federal budget.
''I'd like to think we were extremely successful,'' he said.
HEADLINE: New Biography Almost as Retiring as Salinger
A daring new biography of J. D. Salinger, published in the U.S. in July, has arrived in Toronto bookstores without fanfare.
''We were so quiet about this book that not a lot of people knew about it,'' says author Paul Alexander, on the phone from his home in New York.
''Maybe we outsmarted ourselves.''
Alexander, who made a Toronto appearance after he published his Rough Magic biography of poet Sylvia Plath, says he has received no invitations to read from Salinger: A Biography at Harbourfront's authors' festival or elsewhere in Toronto.
And that's a pity, because the story he tells is fascinating and more complete than any other account of the life of the reclusive author of Catcher In The Rye.
In 1986, Salinger sued biographer Ian Hamilton over copyright infringement after seeing the English writer's pre-publication galleys.
Salinger's suit killed the book, which had quoted about 300 words from unpublished letters, though Hamilton eventually published a different version titled In Search Of J.D. Salinger.
Alexander was able to make use of Hamilton's research, which was filed at Princeton University, and also drew extensively on New Yorker archives that were donated to the New York Public Library in the early 1990s.
HEADLINE: Ivy League College Football Preview
By Ryan Nadeau
Predicted order of finish:
1. Pennsylvania
2. Brown
3. Harvard
4. Princeton
5. Yale
6. Cornell
7. Columbia
8. Dartmouth
Outlook
Although the Ivy League presidents have once again decided to continue to prohibit their teams from competing in postseason play, it does not mean that the Ivy teams will not have a big impact on postseason happenings. ..
PRINCETON led the league in total defense last season, and this season should be no different. The Tigers are led by preseason second team All-America defensive end David Ferrara, who recorded 66 tackles including 12 sacks last season. The offense will be led by wide receiver Phil Wendler and running backs Derek Theisen and Kyle Brandt.
The Tigers have a question at quarterback, with four players vying for the starting nod.
HEADLINE: Olympic Shot Makes Paor Quiver with Delight
BYLINE: BUDD BAILEY; News Sports Reporter
A couple of recent high-school graduates from Western New York have more than the start of their college education on their minds these days. Their sights are on a different target.
Brent Bollman of Elma and Lorinda Cohen of Angola have a chance to qualify for the United States team in archery at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. They are two steps away from qualifying for the team. The semifinals will be held Aug. 21-24 in Bloomfield, N.J. The survivors will move on to the finals in Chula Vista, Calif., on Sept. 4-5, where the top three finishers plus an alternate in men's and women's competition will be selected for the Olympic team.
"Ever since I was little, I dreamed about being in the Olympics," Cohen said. "Once I started competing nationally, I've always had the Olympics in the back of my mind."
The official U.S. Olympic team trains in California for the year leading up to the Games, so Bollman and Cohen would have the option of taking a year off from their studies to work with the team. Otherwise, they would have to fly to California at their own expense to practice with other team members on a regular basis.
"I don't start school until Sept. 12," said Bollman, who is a graduate of Iroquois High School and is scheduled to attend Princeton University this fall. "The last cut (for the Olympic team) is Sept. 5. So if I don't make the team, I'll be all right with that. Other kids start school earlier. If I make the team, I don't know what I'll do."
HEADLINE: Oral History Project is Open Mke for Voices of Experience
BYLINE: Pamela Perkins The Commercial Appeal
The cameraman's bulb lit up the living room of Carlotta Stewart Watson's cozy Orange Mound home last week. The legendary former teacher and radio voice settled down to record more than 90 years of memories of her life in her historic community.
Watson, 98, sat near her interviewer, Brad Bailey, whose job she'd made a bit easier. She had requested a list of his questions beforehand just to be prepared and returned them - edited for grammar.
In its efforts to revitalize Orange Mound, The Orange Mound Collaborative assembled a group of community residents, leaders and historians this year to design an oral history project.
The project involves documenting memories of Orange Mound's older citizens to package and market, giving Orange Mound's younger generations more pride in their community and attracting businesses to the area.
The task of setting up and carrying out the interviews fell on Bailey, 25, the Collaborative's summer intern, who is working on his masters degree in public policy at Princeton University in New Jersey.
During his summer with the Collaborative, he was impressed by Orange Mound residents' general respect for senior citizens and "that sense of community."
HEADLINE: A 'patchwork' tribute for Harry Thomas
BYLINE: Adrienne T. Washington; THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Everyone's wild about Harry.
Or so you'd think. In what had to be the longest wake in the District's political history, a patchwork of people lined up for hours to exalt former D.C. Councilman Harry L. Thomas Sr., 77, Wednesday night. The lengthy memorial service yesterday was a tribute to the brash and beloved Ward 5 politician. A tent was pitched outside to accommodate more than 100 overflow guests.
"This is crazy. Can you believe this?" asked a visibly overwhelmed Harry L. Thomas Jr., pointing to the steady stream of folks and flowers that continued to pour into the church six hours after the beginning of Wednesday's wake. Eventually, the floral arrangement had to be carried to the basement.
Take Tiara Dews, 16, a rising senior at Duke Ellington School for the Arts who broke down in tears as she spoke about how instrumental Mr. Thomas was in her life. As a little girl, she learned Japanese after greeting exchange students with High School Diplomats, a favorite program of Mr. Thomas'.
Mr. Thomas paid Tiara - out of his own pocket - until she was old enough to earn money as a summer intern in his council office. He helped her enroll in the High School Diplomats at Princeton University this summer. She was the only U.S. student - out of 100 - to be offered an international studies scholarship at the college when she graduates from high school.
HEADLINE: Whitney Darrow Jr., 89, Gentle Satirist of Modern
Life, Dies
BYLINE: By MEL GUSSOW
Whitney Darrow Jr., a witty, gently satiric cartoonist for The New Yorker for 50 years, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Burlington, Vt. He was 89 and lived with his wife, Mildred, in Shelburne, Vt.
Mr. Darrow, one of the last of the early New Yorker cartoonists -- a group that included Charles Addams, James Thurber, Peter Arno, George Price and Mary Petty -- published more than 1,500 cartoons in the magazine from 1933 to 1982. He was considered a master draftsman and, in contrast to some of his colleagues, he wrote his own captions.
"He was a great creator of comic ideas, and he avoided most of the standard cartoon cliches," Lee Lorenz, the former art editor of The New Yorker, said yesterday. Even away from the drawing board, Mr. Darrow was known for his sense of humor and for being shrewdly observant of the contradictions of human behavior.
Mr. Darrow was born in Princeton, N.J., where his father was one of the founders of the Princeton University Press. Growing up in Greenwich, Conn., he wrote parodies for his school paper. In 1931 he graduated from Princeton, where he wrote a humorous column for The Daily Princetonian and was art editor of The Princeton Tiger. He thought about being a writer but seemed to move naturally into drawing. He studied with Thomas Hart Benton and other artists at the Art Students League and in his early 20's began selling cartoons to Judge, Life and College Humor. In 1933, at 24, he made his breakthrough to The New Yorker at a time when, in Mr. Lorenz's words, the cartoon, at least as The New Yorker was to popularize it, "was still being born."