MOSCOW NEWS MATRIARCH
“A Paper of Pioneers and Purges” (Moscow News, Apr. 23, 2009)
In honor of its upcoming anniversary, editors at the Moscow News are taking a three-part look at the origins of their newspaper, founded in 1919 by Anna Louise Strong, PhD 1908, in Seattle.

ON BOARD
“O-I Appoints Geldmacher to Board” (PRNewsWise.com, Apr. 23, 2009)
Jay L. Geldmacher, MBA’91, has been appointed to serve on the board of directors of glass-container manufacturer Owens-Illinois, Inc.

HERSH WORDS
“Ace Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh to Deliver Keynote Speech at Arab Media Forum” (AME Info, Apr. 29, 2009)
Seymour Hersh, AB’58, is scheduled to talk about his journalism experiences in the Middle East at the Arab Media Forum in early May.

PROVOST PROMOTION
“Anderson Becomes Associate Provost” (Wesleyan Connection, Wesleyan University News Office, Apr. 29, 2009)
In her new position as associate provost of Wesleyan University, Karen Anderson, AM’89, PhD’01, will develop curriculum, recruit faculty, manage student services, and incorporate new technologies on campus.

NEW FLIGHT PLAN
“That Big Hole You See at American Airlines Is Where Henry Joyner Used to Be” (Dallas Morning News, Apr. 27, 2009)
Henry Joyner, MBA’80, is retiring from American Airlines in June. Since coming on board as planning veep in 1980, Joyner held several positions with the company and created many lasting programs, including AAdvantage.

BREAKBEAT CONNECTIONS
“In Harlem, Reaching Out to Muslims Through Hip-Hop” (World Hip-Hop Market, Apr. 27, 2009)
“Hip-hop has become a space where young Muslims can express themselves and not feel like an alien, but feel respected,” says Intercity Muslim Action Network founder Rami Nashashibi, AM’98.

RESPONSE TO STIMULI
“Counting Jobs a Political Numbers Game” (KansasCity.com, Associated Press, Apr. 29, 2009)
It’s too soon to measure jobs created—and jobs saved—as a result of stimulus money according to Chicago Booth economics professor Steven J. Davis: “How do you know what a saved job is? How do you know what jobs would have been lost without this?”

TOXIC AVENGERS
“Researchers Look for Better Ways to Clean Toxic Waste” (Eight Forty-Eight, Chicago Public Radio, Apr. 29, 2009)
Argonne National Laboratory scientists describe how they’re cleaning up cancer-causing solvents in soil using poplar trees.

FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES
“Long View: ‘Real People’ Economics” (Financial Times, Apr. 29, 2009)
Chicago Booth professor Richard Thaler talks to the Financial Times about how “real people” economics can help us understand market bubbles and why some are unavoidable.

ARTIFACT AFTERLIFE
“A Fragile History, Besieged” (Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr. 17, 2009)
English and comparative literature professor Lawrence Rothfield, author of the new book The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum, answers questions about the items stolen from the National Museum of Iraq.

SMART MONEY’S ON SMAGHI
“Smaghi Makes the Case Against EU Quantitative Easing” (Market Watch, Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2009)
Columnist David Marsh explains why economist Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, PhD’88, is a familiar name to people who follow the European Central Bank.

A WALK TO REMEMBER
“The Meaning of ‘Philanthropy’” (The Phoenix, Apr. 27, 2009)
Christopher Lawrence shares a story about his last walk with his father, G. E. “Skip” Lawrence, AM’75, who recently died.

(UN)COMMON LAW
“Smorgas-Bork” (City Journal, May 1, 2009)
University of Mississippi law professor Jack Wade Nowlin reviews A Time to Speak, a new book of selected writings and arguments by Robert Bork, AB’48, JD’53.

UNDEAD PUB PROWLERS
“It’s the Dawn of the Zombie Zeitgeist” (Chicago Tribune, May 4, 2009)
Justin Hartmann, ‘10, and his friends were inspired to create the Zombie Readiness Task Force RSO after playing a game of “What would you do if…?”

ANIMAL SPIRITS
“The Interview: 02/05/2009” (BBC World Service, May 2, 2009)
Chicago Booth professor Richard H. Thaler talks to the BBC about why people’s behavior in a crisis is never rational.

PUBLIC SERVICE THROUGH STORIES OF SUFFERING
“Slumdog Millionaire Under Scrutiny” (National Public Radio, Feb. 5, 2009)
“This is not the first slum film ever made, but none have evoked this kind of response globally, and that’s important,” says film professor Rochona Majumdar during a discussion of the Slumdog Millionaire producers’ moral obligation to address the social ills they show on screen.

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS
“A Discussion with Nobel Laureates in Economics: Whither Capitalism?” (Milken Institute, Global Conference 2009, Apr. 28, 2009)
Economics professors Gary Becker and Roger Myerson join Myron S. Scholes, MBA’64, PhD’70 (who taught at Chicago Booth from 1973 to ‘83), for a panel discussion of the economic crisis. (Note: The video on the Milken Institute Web site includes the entire session. To skip to the discussion, start watching the video at approximately 15:30.)

When organic farmer Larry O’Toole began explaining to a couple dozen students and Hyde Parkers in Bartlett Lounge just how hard it is to break away from conventional agriculture, I thought of a farmer I know back home in North Carolina, who converted his family land to organic crops after about 200 years of traditional agriculture. More than once he’s told me that it was about the hardest thing he’s ever done, but worth it.

A city farmer, O’Toole transforms more vacant lots than family farms; he works for Growing Home, a nonprofit that provides job training to homeless and low-income people on three organic farms in Chicago and rural Illinois. His comments came at a lunchtime forum on Earth Day—amid a week of green-focused campus events—and on the table in front of him sat boxes of soy milk, organic cheese cubes, a tub of organic hummus, and someone’s bike helmet. O’Toole shared a panel with Martin Felsen, an Archeworks architect looking for ways to replenish some of the 2.1 billion gallons of water that Chicago removes daily from Lake Michigan. Also in the discussion was Esther Bowen, AB’08, a TA for geophysical scientist Pamela Martin’s class-cum-study crunching the numbers behind environmentally sustainable farming.

All three panelists began on a note of optimism but quickly converged on the reality that altering America’s agricultural landscape will require difficult, fundamental changes. O’Toole discussed the outdated agricultural and zoning policies that made establishing a produce farm in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood nearly impossible, even though “the mayor and the alderman loved the project,” he said. “It took four years of fighting tooth and nail to get the farm going.” Growing Home’s Englewood site finally got under way in 2007.

Then there’s the question, O’Toole said, of ingrained tradition. “Historically, farmers rely for their training on knowledge that gets accumulated and perfected over generations.” Going organic means reversing centuries of momentum and starting over. “It’s like studying for a PhD,” O’Toole said, which was what reminded me of my friend in North Carolina. He lives just outside Asheville on the farm his family has owned for seven generations. He decided to switch to organic about a decade ago. He gave up pesticides and heavy machinery, found a new water source that didn’t require pumps, and figured out how to keep his goats warm all winter without heating the barn. “I feel like I’m studying for a PhD,” he once remarked about all the research his organic conversion required. And although his farm is more rural than O’Toole’s, he still had to clear a few municipal roadblocks. Ten years later, he’s finally making money.

What he and O’Toole both believe is that if organic farming can survive, it will flourish. “The demand from consumers is there,” O’Toole said. His Bartlett Lounge audience nodded their heads. “We could multiply our farms by ten or 20 and still not meet the demand.”

Lydialyle Gibson

CREATURE KEEPER
“A Travel Coordinator for Lizards and the Like” (New York Times, May 4, 2009)
Replacing broken dinosaur bones and hunting down bats to buy is all in a day’s work for the American Museum of Natural History’s Adrianna Gyorfi, AB’08.

TIMELESS TOME
“Jersey Boy” (Paper Cuts blog, New York Times, May 4, 2009)
Fifty years ago Philip Roth, AM’55, published Goodbye, Columbus. Here he discusses his first book’s 50th-anniversary edition.

KEYS TO SUCCESS
“Philip Glass’s Other Career as a Pianist” (Sunday Times, May 3, 2009)
“The older I get, the better I get,” says Philip Glass, AB’56. “I love performing, and without sounding arrogant, I’ve [gotten] better.”

EARNED INHERITANCE
“Key to a Legacy of Learning” (Mennonite Weekly Review, May 4, 2009)
For her academic achievements, USC student Sam Bishop, the great-great niece of C. Henry Smith, AB 1903, PhD 1907, was given the same Phi Beta Kappa key her ancestor earned while at the University of Chicago.

AURAL HISTORY
“Mad about Music” (New York Public Radio, May 3, 2009)
Mike Nichols, X’53, names his favorite composers (Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss) and describes how his poet grandmother translated Oscar Wilde’s Salome from the French into German so it could serve as a libretto for Strauss.

MILESTONES

• “Calderon Names Sanchez to Mexico Central Bank Board” (Bloomberg, Apr. 23, 2009)
  Mexican President Felipe Calderon nominated economist Manuel Sanchez Gonzalez, AM’83, PhD’85, as the central bank’s deputy governor.
• “Retired Kroger Executive Pichler to Receive Honorary Doctorate” (University of Cincinnati News Office, May 4, 2009)
  Joseph A. Pichler, MBA’63, PhD’66, will receive an honorary degree from the University of Cincinnati at its commencement ceremony June 13.
• “Mount Carmel Honors Robinson” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 2, 2009)
  Revisiting his high school last week, Craig Robinson, MBA’91, reminisced: “This place is terrific. It played a big role in my Ivy League education. The work ethic, discipline, and structure they have here helped shape the person I am.”
• “Event for Juvenile Diabetes” (Breaking Schmooze blog, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 14, 2009)
  In early May Arnold W. Donald, MBA’80, will receive the Living and Giving Award for his philanthropy and efforts to help find a cure for juvenile diabetes.

ACADEMIC INTERCEPTION
“Bryce Fisher’s Journey Takes Him Far Beyond Football” (Seattle Times, May 3, 2009)
“If I live to 80 and all I did was play football a few years,” says former Seattle Seahawks player Bryce Fisher, who begins at Chicago Booth this fall, “then I wasted the other 50 years of my life.”

OUT OF EQUILIBRIUM
“Climate Scientist Warns of Underestimated Global Warming Forecasts” (Medill Reports, Apr. 28, 2009)
Climate scientist Raymond Pierrehumbert explains that we have seen only “a tiny part of the warming that we are eventually going to get. We haven’t even seen the warming that goes along with the carbon dioxide we’ve already put into the atmosphere.”

ALL IN THE FAMILY
“Main Street Money” (Newsweek, Apr. 18, 2009)
“We used to struggle to explain to people the value of a community bank,” says Law School student Katy Welter, who with her father recently qualified for a national banking charter. “I don’t think we’ll have to now.”

GIVING BACK
“Program Gives Some City Colleges Students a Leg Up” (Chi-Town Daily News, May 4, 2009)
University of Chicago alumni who tutor through the Illinois Education Foundation help students like Shawn Mayberry from Truman College get back on track academically.

What were the three cities where musicians in the ‘70s and ‘80s could make it big? New York, Los Angeles, and Dayton, Ohio—according to Scot Brown, assistant history professor at UCLA and Thursday’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture lecturer with “‘More Bounce to the Ounce’: The Blues Afro-Futurism of Roger Troutman and Zapp.” Troutman and his brothers—who made up the funk band Zapp—lived, played, and recorded in Dayton for nearly three decades, contributing to an African American music scene in the Midwest that was characterized by commercial success, independent record labels and shops, and the fusion of music with black cultural nationalism and social activism.

“Think of Roger as a sound innovator and experimentalist,” Brown says, adding that Troutman’s most noteworthy work was his use of the talk box—which he “translated from an exotic effect to an instrument with lots of capabilities.” The talk box is a technology that transforms human speech into robotic, “futurist” sounds. Prior to the funk revolution, Brown says, the dominant “masculinist style” and “culture of cool” dictated that a man might go out to a club and stand at the wall. “Roger’s task,” Brown notes, “was to get them to take off their fedoras, ask a lady to dance, and get sweaty.”

Chicago’s music and humanities associate professor Travis Jackson, who introduced Brown, had another take. “Part of what makes Roger’s work seem exceptional,” he said, “is the correlation people make between African American musicians and the body, and European musicians and the mind.” He pointed out that Troutman was one person in a long line of sound innovators, some of whom implemented techniques such as rhythm boxes and dub recording. Brown acknowledged the critique, but it had little bearing on one of his favorite points: “You can think of sampling as reaching back to the past, or you can see the past as imposing itself on the present,” he said, “with a chunk of funk so thick that history has no recourse but to double back and make you dance.”

Shira Tevah, ’09

FRIEDMAN’S REMEDY
“WWMFD” (Free Exchange blog, Economist, May 1, 2009)
Recalling the ideas of economist Milton Friedman, AM’33, and his former students and colleagues—including Chicago Booth’s Gary Becker, AM’53, PhD’55, and Sam Peltzman, PhD’65—may shed light on how Friedman would remake America’s financial regulatory system.

DESIGNER GENES
“Analysis Finds Strong Match Between Molecular, Fossil Data in Evolutionary Studies” (BiologyNews.net, Apr. 28, 2009)
University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski’s research with John A. Finarelli, PhD’07, finds that genetics more accurately determine evolutionary relationships than a comparison of discrepancies in the physical characteristics preserved in fossils.

MACROECONOMIST FOR GOVERNOR
“Inflation Concern for State Candidate” (Ventury County Star, May 1, 2009)
“It is worth the two years of pain to get what I consider permanent, realistic reform,” says California’s Republican candidate for governor Tom Campbell, AB’73, AM’73, PhD’80. “I recognize it’s a long-term benefit and a short-term pain, but that’s the kind of trade-off I would make.”

MILESTONES

• “Two Commanding Officers of Obama’s New Volunteering Era” (Vita Europe, Apr. 30, 2009)
  Sonal Shah, AB’90, is the head of the new White House Office of Social Innovation.
• “Durbin Announces Bipartisan Screening Committees” (Senator Durbin’s Web site, Apr. 27, 2009)
  Abner Mikva, AM’51, Diana White, PhD’78, JD’81, and Michele Ruiz, JD’94, were appointed to Senator Dick Durbin’s screening committee to assist in selecting federal district court judges, U.S. attorneys, and U.S. marshals for the state of Illinois.
• “Focus: Holly Humphrey” (Crain’s Chicago Business, May 4, 2009)
  Crain’s Chicago Business labeled Pritzker School of Medicine’s dean for medical education Holly Humphrey, MD’83, one of this year’s “Women to Watch.”
• “Circuit Court Judge and Constitutional Law Scholar McConnell Joins Stanford Law School Faculty” (Business Wire, May 5, 2009)
  Former Law School professor and scholar Michael W. McConnell, JD’79, was chosen to direct the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.
• “Profiles in Power” (National Law Journal, Apr. 1. 2009)
  James G. Potter, JD’78; Rick Palmore, JD’77; and William von Hoene, JD’80, were named to the National Law Journal’s “Top 20 Most Influential General Counsel” list.

LIVING THE QUESTION
“College Presidents Pen Admissions Essays” (Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2009)
When Wall Street Journal editors turned the tables on the presidents of 10 top colleges and universities with an unusual assignment—answer an essay question from their own school’s application—University President Robert J. Zimmer responded.

DEAD OF THE CLASS
“Students Exposed to Careers in the Autopsy Lab” (Chicago Tribune, May 1, 2009)
Thirty 7th graders from Paul Revere Elementary School participated in the University of Chicago Medical Center’s “Best of the Best” program, an initiative started in 2003 for South Side students in grades 6-12.

STARTLING EMISSIONS
“Humans Halfway to Causing Dangerous Climate Change” (Wired Science blog, Wired, Apr. 29, 2009)
Wired bloggers dissect the highlights of University of Chicago geoscientist Gavin Schmidt’s recent paper in Nature—written with Oxford’s Myles Allen—in which they posit that climate change is going to be hard to avoid: “Unless emissions begin to decline very soon, severe disruption to the climate system will entail expensive adaptation measures and may eventually require cleaning up the mess by actively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

ENVELOPE PUSHING ECONOMIST
“The 2009 Time 100” (Time, May 11, 2009)
The annual issue of short essays on 100 of “the world’s most influential people” includes Roland Fryer, who as a postdoctorate fellow worked with Gary Becker, AM’53, PhD’55.

By now, the Internet-savvy among you surely have noticed a trend: parodying Facebook news feeds to provide a laugh at the expense of some literary, political, or divine figure. Always good for a chortle, and nobody enjoys a chortle more than me. But look closer; doesn’t something about these strike as you as jarring, dissonant—just plain wrong? That’s right, the feeds go in the wrong direction! All the world knows that you read a Facebook feed in reverse chronological order—from the bottom up. And yet these spoofs are written from the top down! O tempora! O mores! Even the University of Chicago Magazine isn’t immune. What’s next? Will cats marry dogs? Aristotelians become Platonists?

You could gnash your teeth in woe or spam editors Mary Ruth Yoe and Amy Puma with hate mail. But why not join the U of C Magazine fan page on Facebook? If every one of you joins, perhaps we can show them the folly of their ways.

Benjamin Recchie, AB’03

TEACHING TREASURE HUNTERS
“Field Museum, University of Chicago Training Iraqi Archeologists” (Chicago Tribune, May 6, 2009)
Over the next two years, scientists from the University’s Oriental Institute and Field Museum will tutor 18 Iraqi archeologists and cultural preservationists in conservation techniques, including preserving artifacts, using ground-penetrating radar, cleaning pottery shards, and analyzing sediments.

POWERED UP
“Scientists Receive Tech Transfer Award for Battery R&D” (Argonne News Office, May 8, 2009)
Three Argonne National Laboratory scientists were recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer for their research on a battery system expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

GENDER GAP EXAMINED
“Why the Earnings Gender Gap in Business? Women Work Less.” (New York Times, April 29, 2009)
Research by Chicago Booth’s Marianne Bertrand and Harvard economists Claudia Goldin, AM’69, PhD’72, and Lawrence F. Katz provides a statistical explanation for why women with children earn less than men.

“How do you teach something that is an art form?” asked Elizabeth Crane, a short-story writer and a creative-writing faculty member at the University. The question set the tone for a panel discussion Tuesday evening featuring some of the city's most prominent authors.

Two dozen students, professors, and visitors gathered in Classics 110 for the event. The participants were Crane; Aleksandar Hemon, author of two critically acclaimed novels and regular contributor to magazines such as the New Yorker; and Stuart Dybek, known as an expert short-story craftsman, winning a PEN/Malamud Prize for distinguished achievement and an O. Henry award. The three writers have been tag-team teaching an invitation-only seminar for ten advanced fiction writers at the U of C this quarter.

The conversation fluctuated between their methods of teaching writing and their own writing practices. Hemon noted, "You cannot approach it as, 'I'm an expert and these are what my tricks are.'" But the authors did agree that reading—observational, voracious, and broad—is essential to becoming a good writer. Hemon seeks out everything from Nabakov and Chekhov to names in phonebooks and nutritional information on the backs of cereal boxes. "I like the Yellow Pages," he said.

After a few audience questions that prompted the writers to explore associations between academia and creative writing, they explicated how they saw their own work in relation to their readership. "Reading is like dancing," said Dybek, who noted that, aside from popular musicians, writers have the most active audience of any art form. He offered an example: a student writing a dissertation chapter on Dybek's story "Blood Soup" read transubstantiation into the Miracle Whip jar full of holy water that the protagonist empties out. His dying grandmother urges him to empty it and embark on a quest for duck's blood to give to her. Dybek claimed he didn’t intend to make such a connection to the miraculous in the story, "but if I make things specific enough, then a great reader like that will be able to dance with it."

Rose Schapiro, '09

YOUR BRAIN ON FAT
“Former FDA Commissioner Reveals Why Americans Overeat” (Chicago Tribune, May 5, 2009)
Former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, JD’78, answers questions about how fatty dishes loaded with salt and sugar “hijack our brain circuitry.”

GO-EASY ECONOMICS
“Bailout Justice” (New York Times, May 4, 2009)
In an op-ed for the New York Times, John Ashcroft, JD’67, writes: “Justice is a value, the adherence to which includes seeking the best outcome for the American people.”

WIRELESS WORDS
“Princeton to Launch Kindle Pilot Program” (Daily Princetonian, May 8, 2009)
“[The selection of books] actually available on the Kindle is not very impressive,” says Princeton history professor Anthony Grafton, AB’71, AM’72, PhD’75, a user of the Kindle 2. “They will need to do some work on what’s available before it’s totally satisfactory.”

‘HOMEWARD’ BOUND FOR BROADWAY
"Lithgow, Jones, Sadoski and Dano Set for Reading" (Playbill, May 7, 2009)
Pulitzer-winning playwright David Auburn, AB’91, penned a new adaptation of the 1957 play Look Homeward, Angel, which is aiming for a fall 2009 Broadway revival.

STAR TREK
“Grunsfeld Will Ride to Rescue of Hubble” (Chicago Tribune, May 8, 2009)
John Grunsfeld, SM’84, PhD’88, who heads back into space next week on a mission to rescue the Hubble Space Telescope, was “a very hard worker” as a student, according to University physicist Dietrich Mueller.

EXAMPLES OF THE UNTHINKABLE
“Future Shock” (Economist, May 7, 2009)
In a review of The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo, AB’92, Economist editors praise his use of case studies: “Ramo uses his anecdotes to make some sharp observations.”

MILESTONES

• “Marsalis, Bienen to Receive Honorary Degrees” (Daily Northwestern, May 7, 2009)
  Before Northwestern president Henry S. Bienen, AM’62, PhD’66, steps down in August he will receive an honorary degree at the university’s 151st annual commencement.
• “Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center Approves Technical Advisory Chair” (NanoWerk, Apr. 28, 2009)
  Research scientist Paul Share, SB’80, was chosen to chair the technical advisory committee of the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center.

Yes, it was my idea. But I was still a little freaked out about meeting “Chicago Pop,” a.k.a. David Hoyt, AB’91, the man behind the notorious (his adjective) local blog Hyde Park Progress. Although I graduated in 1991 too and we have at least one friend in common, somehow we never crossed paths.

The blog’s name is pretty bland, and the content could be, given Hoyt’s narrow focus on neighborhood development, his background in urban planning, and his tendency toward wonkishness. But rather than a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down, Hoyt prefers oil of vitriol. He has a particular genius for writing offensive, occasionally obscene headlines and photo captions, and his analysis is bitingly funny—as long he’s writing about somebody else. If you live in Hyde Park, that somebody else could be the guy who sells you bagels or who rents you a space in the community garden or who edits the weekly paper.

Because of conflicting work/parenting schedules, Hoyt and I agreed to meet at a local playlot. He arrived with a golden retriever, Ella; his two-year-old son, Isaac; and a shopping cart that Isaac likes to push around.

After college you earned PhD in European history at UCLA. When did you move back to Hyde Park?

In early 2006. I graduated in 1991, and when I came back to Chicago a decade later, the only thing that had changed about Hyde Park was that it had a Starbucks.

If you had a magic wand, what are the five things you would change about Hyde Park? Put another way, what are the five lamest things?

Wow, what a Facebook-y question. I don’t know.

Want to e-mail me later?

Yeah.

[Later, by e-mail.]

1. We need to get used to the idea of more density. That means more taller and bigger buildings, and more people.
2. We need to recognize that Hyde Park is not an island, but is part of the South Side and shares many of its challenges, problems, and opportunities.
3. We need to recognize that the University is not an Evil Empire. Related to #2, the University should be encouraged to develop outside its historic "boundaries" in Hyde Park. Concretely this means Woodlawn and Washington Park.
4. It should be recognized that the goals of economic development in Hyde Park are inseparable from those of the surrounding, poorer, and primarily African American neighborhoods (which is why #3 is important).
5. The University needs to be smarter about its opposition, and less solicitous of the opposition when their intentions are obstructionist.

How do you respond to the charge that you make ad hominem attacks?

You think they’re ad hominem attacks?

They’ve been described that way.

I define what I do as satire. If people think it’s too mean and nasty, sorry.

Is it fair to write under a pseudonym, when you criticize other Hyde Parkers by name?

Yeah, it’s fair. There’s a long tradition of writing under a pseudonym for critical purposes. My identity is known. I write for the Huffington Post under my own name, and Hyde Park Progress is linked to that.

[Isaac, wanting to play in a different area, says, "Train. Train." Hoyt responds, "In a minute Isaac."]

Why do you do it?

I see the blog as community service. I don’t get paid. I don’t get anything out of it. I’d like to stay in Hyde Park, but if I’m going to stay here, it’s got to change.

What about your contributors, Elizabeth A. Fama, AB'85, MBA'91, PhD'96; Peter Rossi, MBA'80, PhD'84; and Richard Gill?

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that three out of four of us have PhDs. In graduate school you don’t think it’s impolite to point out that someone is full of it.

Anything else you wanted to say?

Not really. I hope I didn’t offend you.

Carrie Golus, AB'91, AM'93

LOVE AND MARRIAGE...AND POLITICS
"Could the GOP Win Converts with a New, Pro-Family, Anti-Divorce Agenda?" (My TPM blog, Talking Points Memo, May 8, 2009)
Writer Joe Perez, AM'69, looks at the politics of same-sex marriage: "It's quite possible that youth raised in an age where Britney Spears and other celebrities have trivialized marriage could be attraced to a pro-family policy agenda that isn't just a mask for homophobia."

OF GOATS & GROUCHY FARMERS
"Steel Beam to Bring Local Writer's Musical to Life" (Daily Herald, May 10, 2009)
Wild Goat, a new musical collaboration between Mark Hollmann, AB’85, and Edward Jack Helbig, AB'80, opens this Friday at Steel Beam Theatre in suburban Chicago and runs through June 28.

AGAINST ALL ODDS
"Know When to Walk Away" (AntiWar.com, May 11, 2009)
"It is too late to capture bin Laden. It is time to fold and walk away. The longer we stay, the more occupying soldiers will die," writes Thomas Gale Moore, AM'59, PhD'61.

MILESTONES

• "Law Professor Resigns from Federal Appeals Court" (Salt Lake Tribune, May 5, 2009)
  Michael W. McConnell, JD'79, is leaving the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to go back to his first love: teaching.
• "Rogers Named President of Institutional Capital LLC" (PRNewsWire.com, May 2009)
  Paula L. Rogers, MBA'88, was promoted to president of Institutional Capital LLC, a large-cap value investment management company.
• "Teaching Awards Presented at Annual Class and Charter Day" (Hamilton College News Office, May 8, 2009)
  Bonnie Urciuoli, AM'76, PhD'84, was awarded the Sidney Wertimer Award in recognition for her work as a "mentor and active participant within the Hamilton community."

Most participants in the annual University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt are College students, but there’s no rule saying they have to be. Witness GASH, the Graduate Alumni Scav Hunt team. In its second year, the group is the brainchild of Sam Friedman, AB’04, who wanted to play with his friends and fellow alumni. When I dropped by GASH headquarters Friday afternoon—inside a former preschool with papered-over windows on Hyde Park Boulevard—to see how the team was faring, Friedman and a few fellow alums were pondering if and how they would attempt item 46: “Give us a new Alma Mater we can all be proud of and perform it in front of President Zimmer’s Admin office.”

Like Friedman, each person in the room had been involved in their own dorms’ Scav Hunt teams, often against each other. (“I used to hate Sam’s guts,” volunteered GASHer Alan Mardinly, AB’06.) One described GASH as a kind of “Scav Hunt Valhalla,” where the great heroes of Scav lore lay down their old rivalries and play together.

The GASHers filled me in on a few of the items they were working on. Item 11 (building a moai statue on the quads): they salvaged a steamer trunk left in the alleyway behind their HQ to serve as the body, then added onto it. Item 47 (a classical quartet on the “L”): after a short discussion they decided they could create a respectable quartet from two violins, a cello, and a slide whistle. Item 235 (“The Ark of the Covenant. Ark must be to specs, within reason.”): Clara Raubertas, AB’06, quickly determined that the phrase “within reason” meant that a scale replica would be acceptable.

As I bade the team good day and good luck, I opened the door, illuminating the artificially lit space with glorious sunshine. “Aaaghh!” Friedman winced. “Sunlight!”

Benjamin Recchie, AB’03

The results are in: The Snell-Hitchcock team took home first place, and GASH tied for sixth place.

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS

• Audio: Item 8 ("Your success as a Scavvie and a U of C student implies a certain discerning and critical sensitivity for bullshit: you know the best of the worst. Demonstrate your peerless taste by finding the perfect submission for The Annoying Music Show and getting it played on the air. The show broadcasts on Saturday, so you’ll want to get your entry to AnnoyingMusic@aol.com by Friday night. And remember, when the competition is fierce, music that is merely bad will not be good enough." 13 points, Shoreland team submission)


• Video: Item 43 ("Render the Sox/Cubs rivalry in the guise of up to ten iconic commercials." 2 points, Maclean Hall and Pierce Tower team submission)


• Video: Item 51 ("Nothing is worse than a mismatched music video. Re-record the lyrics, keeping the tune, so that they explain what the hell the director was thinking." 8 points, Breckenridge House team submission)


• Video: Item 105 ("Holy Mackerel! Proselytizing wall fish." 12 points, GASH team submission)


• Video: Item 111 ("Make and drink a glass of chocolate milk as dramatically as possible." 2 points, Burton-Judson Courts team submission)


• Video: Item 209 ("Build a vending machine. Vending machines must be coin operated, with multiple button-selected options to choose from. In addition to whatever sugary goodness you choose, machines must vend three other List items when you type in their item numbers." 250 points, Burton-Judson Courts team submission)


• Video: Item 239 ("Perform the Scav Hunt Theme Song ("Under Pressure") on the greatest instrument of all time: The Mario Paint Composer!" 13 points, Breckenridge House team submission)


• Video: Item 243 ("Have the Bad Horse Singers deliver a message to your favorite Evil MacArthur Genius." 20 points, F.I.S.T. team submission)


• Video: Item 267 ("You know that game Labyrinth, where you try to navigate a little ball through a wooden maze? It's fun and all, but not quite deserving of the name. Construct a game of Labyrinth truly worthy of the Goblin King, using dials to navigate a bowling ball through the maze and avoid the pitfalls." 200 points, Burton-Judson team submission)

RELATED LINKS

• Web site: 2009 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt


• PDF: 2009 Scav Hunt List and Rules

CARLOS, DON'T GO CHANGIN'
"Lay Off Big Z" (ESPN Chicago, Apr. 30, 2009)
"If you strike out, break a bat over your knee. If anyone gives you lip, feel free to pop them one. And if the mood strikes you, feel free to point out to the bleachers and swing as hard as you can, because what the hell, right? It's just baseball," writes sports columnist Jon Greenberg, AM'07, about Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs.

LIBERTAD Y LA LEY
"'It's Not a Place, It's a Pathology'" (American Spectator, Apr. 30, 2009)
Juan Javier del Granado, U-High'84, AB'89, dreams of transforming Latin America into a place where "foundations of law can foster prosperity and ordered liberty."

FOOD POLITICS
"The Gourmet Q+A: David Kessler" (Gourmet, May 11, 2009)
"If I give you a package of sugar and say, 'Go have a good time,' you’re going to look at me and go, 'What are you talking about?' But if I add fat, then I add color, and then I add texture and temperature, then I add the emotional appeal of advertising, and what do you expect to happen? You end up with a highly addictive product," says former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, JD'78.

THE EGGHEAD VOTE
"The Decline of the Conservative Intellectual" (FiveThirtyEight blog, May 12, 2009)
"Having attended the University of Chicago, where there are plenty of booksmart people that you wouldn't consider particularly bright, I can tell you that the correlation between intelligence and educational attainment is considerably less than one-to-one," writes Nate Silver, AB'00, in a blog post about Law School lecturer Richard Posner's recent column about the conservative movement.

MILESTONES

• "Davies Named College Dean" (Beloit Daily News, May 9, 2009)
  Beloit College professor Ann Davies, AM'91, PhD'96, was promoted to vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college.


• "Miriam Elson, 1909-2009; Wrote Textbook on Psychology in Social Work" (Chicago Tribune, May 12, 2009)
  Psychiatric social worker and SSA lecturer Miriam A. Elson, AM'42, died May 6 in her Hyde Park home at age 99.

The big idea behind the University of Chicago’s model for urban elementary schooling is that every child should be engaged in ambitious, intellectual work. Students of all ages and in every school—public, charter, or private—should pose questions, scrutinize answers, and explore new ways of thinking. Last week, tagging along with third-graders from Beasley Academic Center on a tour of the Smart Museum of Art, I saw theory in action.

On this, their third visit to the museum through its Art in Focus program, 29 neatly uniformed boys and girls from the South Side public magnet school began with a review of earlier material. Constance and Caitlyn, Chicago student docents, asked and got quick answers to basic questions: What are the elements of art? What’s the difference between a three-dimensional and two-dimensional piece?

Moving into the Asia gallery, a small group contemplated some early Ming Dynasty sculpture. “What do you guys see?” asked Constance, pointing to a row of Buddhas. “What’s going on here?” Hands shot up. “It looks like they’re meditating,” said a boy.

Seated cross-legged on the floor, the kids defined and discussed—in that halting, quiet, third-grade way—the difference between representational and nonrepresentational art. They had questions of their own for Constance: Who made this art? When did they make it? How do we know? (Answer: read the label.)

Jumping ahead to Reg Butler’s Machine, a mysterious, modernist, cast-bronze sculpture, a girl wondered, “How come he made it like that?” “He just wanted to put something out there,” suggested a classmate. Constance told them the artist produced the piece just after World War II. That prompted more thinking. “I learned that they dropped a bomb in Japan,” a boy said, “so maybe he is trying to build a plane to get away.”

Last stop was a wood, glass, and tin sculpture called Burning House, featured in Your Pal, Cliff, the Smart’s exhibition of works by H. C. Westermann. What’s going on here? “I think someone set the house on fire to get payback,” said a boy. Why did they think Westermann gave his future bride the piece as a wedding present? “He’s burning in love with her,” smiled a girl.

The kids were excited to see a photo of Westermann’s studio and a reproduction of the wooden crate that Burning House was shipped in. The crate prompted more discussion: What’s the difference between fine and functional art? Can a crate be considered art? Does it belong in a museum? The group was divided.

After an hour in the galleries, the third-graders began to get fidgety, and so did I. Constance invited them to come back with their parents for an open house next week. Beasley Academic Center is a couple miles west of the Smart Museum—on South State Street and 52nd—but it’s not a world away. Something tells me these kids will be back.

Elizabeth Station

RECOMMENDED LINKS

• Web site: Your Pal, Cliff: Selections from the H. C. Westermann Study Collection


• Web site: Smart Museum of Art

RELATED READING

• "Center Stage" (University of Chicago Magazine, Mar-Apr/09)


• "Artistic tourism" (UChiBLOGo, Apr. 12, 2009)

IN DEBT WE TRUST
“The Real Problem with Credit Cards: The Cardholders” (Time, May 12, 2009)
Chicago Booth professor Richard H. Thaler suggests that credit-card companies should provide a statement of customers’ yearly fees, interest, and other charges to make comparison shopping easier.

MATHMASTERS
“Seventh-Graders Create iPhone App” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 11, 2009)
Tapware, a software company started by Lab School seventh-graders Sam Kaplan and Louie Harboe, released its first application: the Mathmaster. “Our goal was to get approved by the app store, sell a bunch of copies, and make more apps,” says Kaplan.

HYDE PARK HEROINE
“Found Horizons” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 10, 2009)
Chicago writer Christina Henriquez’s debut novel, The World in Half, follows Miraflores Reid, a U of C student, as she searches for the Panamanian father she’s never met.

VIOLENCE ON VIDEO
“Sexual Assault Awareness Documentary” (Chicago Defender, Apr. 29, 2009)
University of Chicago artist-in-residence Aishah Shahidah Simmons documents rape survivor stories to demonstrate that slavery was at the root of sexual abuse and assault: “You have to talk about what happened during slavery, in terms of interracial rape, and the silence of black men being lynched at the turn of the century, many for allegedly making advances towards white women. All of this plays a role in the silence in our community.”

BUDGETING FOR AN OLYMPIC MESS
"Hurdles and Hassles" (Chicago Tribune, May 12, 2009)
Chicago economist Allen R. Sanderson asks the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid backers—from Mayor Daley to construction crews—to repay debts from their own pockets if the event becomes a fiscal burden for Illinois citizens.

NAMING NARCISSISM
"Why Your Baby's Name Will Sound Like Everyone Else's" (Wired Science blog, Wired, May 8, 2009)
Psychiatrists Jean Twenge, AB'93, AM'93, and W. Keith Campbell assert in their book, The Narcissism Epidemic, that “naming rituals are central to cultures around the world and always have been. We now wish so fervently that our children will stand out from the crowd that we equip them with unique labels from birth.”

OUTSMARTING FATE
"Don't Underestimate the Art of Chance" (View by the Bay, ABC San Francisco News, May 12, 2009)
"When you can't predict, accept the fact you can't predict and act accordingly," argues Robin Hogarth, PhD'72, who wrote Dance with Chance, a book about luck.

WILL TWEET FOR WORK
"Using Twitter for the Job Search" (Laid Off and Looking blog, Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2009)
Rachel Levy, MBA'98, has made job-search connections more meaningful through Twitter: "I registered for an event at Harvard Business School to listen to a panel about the future of marketing. The day after I registered, one of the panelists started following me on Twitter. When I met her in person, our introduction was much more meaningful, and I could stand out from the other people she was meeting. Fast forward three months later, and she just referred two potential consulting clients to me."

MILESTONES

• "Leon Despres, R.I.P." (Brainstorm: Lives of the mind blog, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 2009)
  Columnist Stan Katz remembers Leon Despres, AB'27, JD'29: "Chicago is a better city for having been home to Leon Despres, and I hope his career will inspire others to aspire to the old fashioned liberal values of this great urban citizen."

Burton-Judson's team members attempt item 36 (pull a wagon across Scavegon Trail)
on the first day of Scav Hunt.

Photo by Avi Schwab, AB'03.
Schwab posted more than 70 additional photos of Scav Hunt 2009 on Flickr.

Submit your best University of Chicago-themed photos to Phoenix Pix.

Foreclosure filings in Chicago rose 100.5 percent from 2006 to 2008, according to a flyer that greeted students and community members at the entrance to the SSA’s Community Economic Development Organization dinner last Tuesday. At the dinner, representatives from the city and four neighborhood organizations shared strategies for foreclosure relief. While the city is buying abandoned units—widely considered harmful to neighborhoods—community organizations also emphasize foreclosure prevention through workshops and homeowner assistance.

In January Chicago received $55.2 million in stimulus money from the federal HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to buy foreclosed properties in 25 “areas of greatest need”—identified using the program’s rules, explained Ellen Sahli from the city’s Department of Community Development. Chicago's abandoned properties were recently valued at $1.2 billion, Sahli noted, so the city must spend the stimulus money strategically because it “will not be enough to tackle all the vacant properties.” City officials will work with Mercy Portfolio Services to connect with neighborhood developers to rehab the properties, ensure they are up to code, and find occupants. “The role of the city is convener,” Sahli said, “and the role of community partners is to get properties into productive use.”

The other side of foreclosure relief—prevention—has been taken up by organizations across the city. Bruce Gottschall of Neighborhood Housing Services and Reverend Rodney Walker of Teamwork Englewood described their organizations’ work, such as mediating between lenders and homeowners and advocating in Springfield for legislation like HR 0521, which would authorize state funds for foreclosure-prevention counseling. Guacolda Reyes of the nonprofit Resurrection Project described a March workshop in which some 600 families met with potential lenders face-to-face. Reyes was frustrated that Resurrection Project’s neighborhoods aren’t on the city’s list—instead it has turned to statewide NSP funds—but condoned the city’s decision to work with Mercy Portfolio. “The city’s strategy of having one negotiator will have a good effect on the rates people get from lenders for their homes,” she said.

Chicago is addressing the foreclosure crisis through federal funds, city planning, and local organizations. Woodlawn East Community and Neighbors director Mattie Butler even sees an opportunity for her community to end up better off than it was “before the bottom fell out.” The city-community partnership, she believes, will help reinstate the area’s affordable housing. Woodlawn “lost a lot of affordable units during the area’s upward mobility to condos that are now empty,” she said. “We’re going to recapture those and make them affordable again.”

Shira Tevah, ’09

RELATED READING

• " Westward How?" (University of Chicago Magazine, Nov-Dec/08)


• "Hyde Park snark" (UChiBLOGo, May 8, 2009)

Elizabeth Cheney, JD'96, defends interrogation methods—and talks about crashing her dad's car—during an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe while debating with Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about an op-ed he wrote about her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. (via Twitter @UChicagoLaw)

BOOKMARK IT
"Review: The Chicago Blog" (Beachwood Reporter, May 13, 2009)
The University of Chicago Press blog earns high marks for its posts that are "straightforward with the occasional dash of wry humor" and "smartly written and based on interesting books."

IDA NOYES GOES SEMPER FI
"Generals Talk at Local University" (Today in the Military blog, Military.com, May 13, 2009)
Three general officers in the Marines held a one-hour Q&A with students and faculty to discuss how their experiences in the military apply to business skills like effective team building and flexible decision making.

TRIVIA WINNERS
"University’s Three-Time National Champion Quiz Bowl Team Has All the Answers" (Chicago Maroon, May 8, 2009)
The University's Quiz Bowl team swept both the Academic Competition Federation (ACF) and National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT): “We’ve had the most successful year in the history of the game,” says team president-elect Michael Arnold, '11.

Professor Neil Shubin describes how new organs arise through evolutionary processes at a University of California lecture earlier this month.

SUPREME CHOICE
"Who's on the Way to the Court: Chart the Course" (Legalities blog, ABC News, May 12, 2009)
"We don’t know how President Obama—who is uniquely qualified among past presidents to understand this process—will factor the prospect of a second nomination in his decision-making," writes legal news correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg, JD'93.

SOUND OPINIONS
"Conversations from St. Norbert College" (St. Norbert College, May 6, 2009)
Sonic Solutions CEO David Habiger, MBA'98, talks about the importance for businesses to having a global footprint: "Most companies are doing what seems rational, and that is trying to find markets outside of the U.S. to grow and build accordingly."

TOO MUCH OF A BAD THING
"Mind Over (Food) Matter: Combating 'Overeating'" (Fresh Air, NPR, May 13, 2009)
Former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, JD'78, describes how the food industry creates cravings that are so hard to resist.

HOTEL CHECK-IN
"Checking in with the Chief: Hyatt CEO Blogs Next Week" (USA Today, May 13, 2009)
Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian, MBA'89, is looking for questions to answer about the hotel industry when he guest blogs next week for USA Today's Hotel Check-In.

ALL THE (GOOD) NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT
"Media Sector Has Its Bright Spots" (FindingDulcinea, May 13, 2009)
Anne Szustek, AB'03, AM'04, reports that print-media investors see promise in the industry.

Leon Botstein, AB'67, conducts the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra through a rehearsal performance of a concerto written by a Hungarian composer and Holocaust victim. The concerto had its Israeli premiere earlier this month.

FUTURE OF MARKETS
"Eavesdrop on Milton Friedman’s Heirs" (Real Time Economics blog, Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2009)
Save the date: Chicago Booth is webcasting its annual management conference May 29 featuring experts Gary Becker, AM'53, PhD'55, Raghuram Rajan, Anil Kashyap, Kevin Murphy, PhD'86, Marianne Betrand, and Steven Kaplan.

GLASS NOTES
"Philip Glass Is Reflecting on Tradition" (Metro, May 14, 2009)
Composer Philip Glass, AB'56, describes how music evolves different from technology: "Music doesn't always go forward–it goes sideways, and sometimes backwards."

TO HELL AND BACK
"Grad Student Gives One 'Hell' of a Tour" (Chi-Town Daily News, May 14, 2009)
My tours were originally intended to be guerrilla walking tours, that is, un-sanctioned and un-publicized, but I like how they've evolved into participatory experiences in which my authority is continually being challenged,” says English PhD candidate Paul Durica, AM’06, who runs the Chicago-based Pocket Guide to Hell Tours.

MILESTONES

• "University to Award Honorary Degrees" (News Center blog, Case Western Reserve University News Office, May 14, 2009)
  Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, AM'70, PhD'74, will receive an honorary doctorate of science from Case Western Reserve University at commencement this month.


• "Abad Wins Italy's Top Literary Prize" (Good News Pilipinas, May 14, 2009)
  Poet and literary critic Gémino H. Abad, PhD'70, will be awarded Italy’s most coveted literary achievement in the Foreign Author category for his 2004 collection In Ordinary Time: Poems, Parables, Poetics.

"On both fronts—both domestic politics front and foreign national front—the Pakistani regime, the Zardari regime, is facing big legitimacy crises," says South Asian Islam and Pakistan historian Manan Ahmed, PhD'08, who closely follows current events in Pakistan, as well as how they get talked about in the United States.

Students and faculty milled about ex Libris last Thursday, exchanging greetings while pouring glasses of Bordeaux and filling their plates with bread and cheese. The evening was à la mode française, and appropriately so: the minglers were there to kick off a marathon reading of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, a benefit running through tomorrow, with proceeds going to Fonkoze, a nonprofit providing micro-credit loans to destitute women in Haiti.

At 8:45 p.m. Robert Morrissey, the Benjamin Franklin professor of French literature, welcomed the crowd. “The idea for this exercise came out of a course I am teaching this quarter on Les Misérables," he said, "out of a rare confluence of life and literature, of text and our current economic context. No one has more deeply, more durably, and more magically explored the subject of human misery than Victor Hugo. We wanted to make this event not just an opportunity to read and listen to this wonderful work, but also an occasion to reflect on the values and morals of our society and a means to help others.” He thanked student organizers as well as the University Community Service Center, the Library, the College, and the France Chicago Center, all of whom teamed up with the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures to cosponsor the event.

Then Morrissey introduced Daniel Desormeaux, a Haitian native and scholar of 19th-century French literature who will join the Chicago faculty next fall. In town looking for a new home, Desormeaux asked if he could participate in the reading. Morrissey replied, “Well, you can inaugurate it.”

Desormeaux opened a tattered, faded-red text and delivered the novel’s opening lines:“En 1815, M. Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel était évêque de Digne. C'était un vieillard d'environ soixante-quinze ans; il occupait le siege de Digne depuis 1806.” (In 1815, Monsieur Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of Digne. He was then about seventy-five and had presided over the diocese of Digne since 1806.) Desormeaux passed the book to his wife Magda, followed by a series of current faculty, each of whom read a passage. Then Morrissey introduced the first student reader and announced that the event would move upstairs to the Regenstein outer lobby.

Since then the marathon has continued, starting at 9 a.m. weekdays and noon weekends by the C-Bench, moving to the Regenstein lobby in the evenings, and concluding at midnight. The student and faculty readers sit beside water jugs doubling as donation depositories. Tomorrow morning's readers will include Jean-Luc Marion, the John Nuveen professor in the Divinity School, philosophy, and social thought—and recent inductee to the Académie française. Marion happily agreed to participate, says Morrissey: “His only request was that he be able to smoke his pipe while reading.”

Katherine E. Muhlenkamp

Salsa performance group students in color-coordinated outfits—including Magazine intern Shira Tevah, '09, in blue—dance to Sonora Carruseles's Micaela at the University's Ballroom & Latin Dance Association's spring party last Saturday.

The students rustled into Rosenwald Tuesday evening, making louder conversation than one usually hears at campus readings—greeting each another, asking questions about spring quarter classes, scoping out the book-shaped layer cake on a table by the doorway. “Congratulations!” the cake read in ornate yellow script. The occasion was the English Department’s annual BA-thesis reading. Ten students had volunteered to read from their newly finished works (due at the departmental office April 27 at 5 p.m.—and believe me, it was tight).

English majors are not required to write BA papers; they do so only if they want to receive honors in the major. So the projects are, for the most part, labors of love. Students who write theses tend to love what they are writing about, whether they manage to actively love what they are writing. We could write either a creative piece (a collection of poems, essays, or stories) or a critical thesis. My BA was the latter—a 38-page argument about the function of subjects and objects in Gertrude Stein’s literary portraiture.

As the audience settled down, Christina von Nolcken, the undergraduate chair in English, addressed us. She noted the incredible number of projects—50—turned in this year. “There were more than I’d ever had before, and they were wonderful,” said von Nolcken. She then distributed the annual departmental prizes—honors in creative writing and two awards for outstanding BA projects, one for criticism, one for a creative thesis. The first reader was Rachel Lewin, ’09, who began by explaining the books she analyzed for her paper, “Classical Friendship: Cicero, Bacon, and Cross-Dressing in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. “I’ll assume you haven’t read the book,” ventured Lewin, “because almost nobody’s read it.”

The reading continued with an alternation of creative and critical theses. Critical prizewinner Greg Conti, ’09, read from his “Spectatorial Thinking and Thoreau’s Ethics of Solitude,” explaining that for Thoreau, interacting with society was “secondary to figuring out oneself.” Conti wanted “to connect this to Thoreau’s economic and political thinking," he said. "Solitude is not socially or economically indifferent.” Creative prizewinner Luke Rodehorst, ’09, read from “Shape Notes,” his collection of poems about embarking on journeys. Rodehorst completed his second creative thesis this year—the first, a nonfiction essay, was awarded the same prize in 2008, when Rodehorst was a third-year. Elizabeth Block, ’09, elicited chuckles when she read from her creative thesis. Block’s poem about her hometown, “I Worry for Atlanta,” apologizes for her lack of Southern drawl, noting she was raised by transplanted Midwestern Presbyterians. Her kinship with the city, she explains, came from “a dogwood tree in my backyard and a vague sympathy with Margaret Mitchell.”

I abstained from reading my paper. Afterward, we finished off the book-shaped cake and tea sandwiches. “I don’t want any food left over,” said von Nolcken. We lingered in the hallway, exchanging jokes and library horror stories with friends to whom we knew could relate. There’s nothing like writing a long, somewhat scary paper to ensure solidarity with your classmates. And there’s nothing like a cake shaped like a book to get English majors to cheerfully show up to an event.

Rose Schapiro, '09

LOVING KURT
"God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut" (Boston Globe, May 17, 2009)
Steve Almond reviews the new memoir by Loree Rackstraw, a former student of novelist Kurt Vonnegut, AM'71: "Rackstraw remains loyal to the end, tracking [Vonnegut's] triumphs and disappointments with a tone of tender worship."

BREAKING AWAY—AND APART
"Monstrous Midway 2009" (Butler's Beers and Bikes blog, May 17, 2009)
Kevin Butler, AB'74—who's ridden in the U of C cycling team's annual "Monsters of the Midway" race for the past 15 years—recaps how this year's ended with him on the pavement, heading to the ER.

SCOTUS PICKS
"The Pitfalls of Politics" (Legalities blog, ABC News, May 18, 2009)
"This first Supreme Court pick for the new president has to be a home run—with impeccable credentials and experience and a squeaky clean record. And under the bright lights of a Supreme Court confirmation, politics—even if they’re not dirty—don’t always look squeaky clean," writes Jan Crawford Greenburg, JD'93.

ONLINE & LEGAL
"The University of Chicago Class of 2001: A Post by Eugene Kontorovich" (PrawfsBlawg, May 17, 2009)
A quarter of the bloggers writing for PrawfsBlawg graduated the Law School in 2001. "Smart, dynamic people with a lot to say will wind up looking for additional avenues in which to do so," writes Eugene Kontorovich, AB'96, JD'01. "Their cups run over."

HUBBLE BABBLE
"This Week in Science" (Daily Kos, May 16, 2009)
Daily Kos bloggers look at the life of Edwin Hubble, SB 1910, PhD 1917.

MILESTONES

• "Court’s Professionalism Award for the Ninth Circuit" (Business Wire, May 15, 2009)
  Harry H. Schneider Jr., JD'79, received the American Inns of Court’s Professionalism Award for the Ninth Circuit. The group cited Schneider for "a life and practice displaying sterling character and unquestioned integrity, coupled with ongoing dedication to the highest standards of the legal profession." (via UChicagoLaw)


• "100 Geeks You Should Be Following on Twitter" (Geek Dad blog, Wired, May 13, 2009)
  John Scalzi, AB'91, made Wired's list for must-follow tweets by "awesomely geeky geeks."


• "Tenure and Fulbright" (Empirical Legal Studies blog, May 18, 2009)
  Jason Czarnezki, JD'03, received tenure at University of Vermont Law and was named a Fulbright Scholar for 2009-10. Czarnezki and his family will travel to China, where he will teach environmental and natural-resources law. (via UChicagoLaw)

PRESIDENTIAL TEST
"Just for Fun: Obama's Con Law Exam" (ZDNet Government blog, May 18, 2009)
View the constitutional law exam that President Obama gave his Law School students in fall 1996, and read the explanations.

3D MUMMY
"Computed Tomography Scanning of Meresamun" (SPIE Newsroom, SPIE.org, May 18, 2009)
Oriental Institute Egyptologist Emily Teeter, PhD'90, and Medical Center radiologist Michael Vannier review the 3D scans of the 3,000-year-old mummy Meresamun: "Inspection of the results revealed many previously unrecognized details, including subtle post-mortem fractures of the upper skeleton, dental features, jewelry, radiodense inclusions in the casket, and degenerative changes in the spine."

BIG BANG THEORISTS
"QUIET Team to Deploy New Gravity-Wave Probe in June" (Science Centric, May 16, 2009)
University physics professor Bruce Weinstein and his team detect remnants of the radiation emitted a fraction of a second after the big bang.

I.T. GOOGLE IT
"Spreading the Summer of Love" (Google Open Source blog, May 12, 2009)
Computer-science PhD student Borja Sotomayor recaps the local kick-off party for Google's 2009 "Summer of Code"—a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for open-source software projects. Chelsea Bingiel, '11, who spoke at the event, will be adding support for the Atom Publishing Protocol.

MILESTONES

• "Time Out Chicago Announces New Theater Writer" (Theater Loop blog, Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2009)
  Social Thought PhD candidate John Beer was named Time Out Chicago's new theater writer.

During his last trip to outer space astronaut John M. Grunsfeld, SM'84, PhD'88, e-mailed astronomy & astrophysics professor Michael Turner a photograph he took of the century-old basketball Edwin Hubble, SB 1910, PhD 1917, tossed around in a 1909 game with Indiana University.

Photo by John M. Grunsfeld; courtesy Michael Turner.

Submit your best University of Chicago-themed photos to Phoenix Pix.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when celebrating someone's 100th birthday, it is not unwise to start a little early. Doctors, especially, know this.

So on May 29, Joseph B. Kirsner, PhD’42—also known as "GI Joe" and as "Papa Bowel"—will celebrate the prospect of turning 100 with his friends—even though he was born September 21, 1909.

The American Gastroenterological Society is making him jump the gun. So are the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. All these gastro-groups and more will gather in Chicago at the end of May to discuss fecal incontinence, debate the fine points of inflammatory bowel disease, and investigate restaurants during Digestive Disease Week, the "largest and most prestigious meeting in the world for the GI professional."

Kirsner, the Louis Block distinguished service professor of medicine, has served on the University’s faculty since 1935. After more than 70 years in practice, he has seen a lot.

During World War II Kirsner was an army doctor in Europe, where he consulted on the difficult issue of refeeding those who had nearly starved in the Nazi concentration camps. Soon after VE Day, he was shipped off the Pacific theater, where he advised on the rehabilitation of more prisoners of war, including a group of Dutch prisoners held captive in Nagasaki by the Japanese army in August 1945, when the second atomic bomb obliterated much of the city.

Tight patient bonds were a hallmark of Kirsner's career. Early on he was recognized "locally and nationally for his successful and compassionate care of patients,” says gastroenterologist James L. Franklin, the author of GI Joe, a 305-page chronicle of Kirsner’s first 100 years distributed by the University of Chicago Press. "The love and devotion his patients felt for him was celebrated and admired." Although he no longer sees patients, they still call him for advice. The key to this lasting connection, says Kirsner, is "competence with compassion."

As competent and compassionate as ever, Kirsner no longer has the energy that enabled him to put in 12-hour days for weeks on end, well beyond the standard retirement age. The problem with turning 100, he says, is "having an active mind trapped in a body that's just too old." He looks forward to his 101st birthday, which he plans to spend "in my office, catching up on the literature."

John Easton, AM'77

Most travelers know there’s a Hyde Park in London; it’s the former hunting grounds of King Henry VIII and the modern city’s 350-acre green lung. But on a recent visit to London, I might have been the only person looking for signs of Chicago’s Hyde Park there.

En route to the Woolgate Exchange building—home to the European campus of the Booth School of Business—the biting wind and gray sky were reminiscent of a May day in Chicago. Tucked away on side streets near the drab cement canyon of banks and office blocks were some real (rather than Collegiate) Gothic buildings, including at least one with gargoyles.

Chicago Booth occupies a light-filled, modern space that evokes the Harper and Gleacher centers, in the heart of the City of London financial district. Students in the executive MBA program were off for the week, and the evening’s networking event hadn’t begun, so the empty classrooms and vacant lounges gave the place a bit of a ghostly feel.

Is the global economic crisis affecting enrollment in executive programs? “Actually, I’ve been surprised at how well we’ve done,” said Arnold Longboy, MBA’08, director of Chicago Booth’s executive education and student recruitment for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The number of inquiries about nondegree and degree programs is comparable to last year at this time, he said. “People tell me, ‘I’m working on fewer deals now, so I have more time for personal development.’”

Chicago Booth’s London-based MBA program draws about 90 students annually, two-thirds of whom receive some funding from their employers. For one week each month, about three-quarters fly in for classes, some from as far away as South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. Some 43 countries will be represented in the class beginning in June, said Longboy, and a near-record 24 percent will be women.

One of the program’s biggest selling points, he added, is that it connects students to the University of Chicago in a broad sense. Events featuring visiting faculty from Chicago Booth and other departments have drawn well. In April alumni and students turned out to meet Laura Letinsky, professor and chair of visual arts, and attend the London opening of Likeness, her latest photography exhibit. Dean of Humanities Martha T. Roth will be in town in July to give a talk about Hammurabi’s code.

“We invite the whole University of Chicago community to events,” said Longboy, although “whenever the faculty make references to Hyde Park—meaning the campus—we do have to remind them that there’s a Hyde Park in London.”

Elizabeth Station

RECOMMENDED LINKS

• Slideshow: "Photo tour: London campus"

RELATED READING

• "GSB relocates its European campus " (Chicago Chronicle, Feb. 3, 2005)

Almost from the moment they sat down, the three panelists at last Friday’s discussion on free speech on campus waded into what law professor Geoffrey Stone, JD’71, called “uncomfortable” issues for universities navigating the murky waters of academic freedom: professors at anti-abortion rallies, students in T-shirts with provocative Biblical passages, Communist petitions, antiwar movements, civil-rights marches, the Holocaust, genocides, and questions about divestment—not only from Darfur but also apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.

“It seems that issues of free speech and free expression are always with us in the University, and the past couple of years are no exception to that,” said social-sciences dean John Mark Hansen, who moderated the discussion among panelists Stone, Div School Christianity professor Margaret M. Mitchell, AM’82, PhD’89, and historian Ramon Gutierrez. “There is always the question of how one maintains an environment where free speech and free expression can flourish,” Hansen said, “in a community that deeply values openness and mutual respect as well.”

Held in Social Sciences’s first-floor auditorium, the 90-minute conversation revolved around the 1967 Kalven Report governing public expression at and by the University. As they walked in, audience members picked up copies of the three-page report, and Hansen posed a series of hypotheticals based on its rules. “Suppose a faculty member criticizes key tenets of Islam in class,” Hansen said. “What if he also characterizes Muslim believers as ignorant and bloodthirsty?” Or, “Suppose an academic center sponsors an event at which all speakers assail the government of Turkey…for unwillingness to characterize the actions against the Armenians in 1915 as a genocide.”

The panelists’ frequent answer to these and other scenarios was, in a nutshell: it depends. But when in doubt, err on the side of freedom. “The University doesn’t want to be in the business of drawing lines” about what constitutes appropriate discourse, Stone said. “Academic freedom should reach at least as far as the First Amendment.” More than once Gutierrez pointed out that what might look like provocation or even harassment might in fact be “a teaching moment.” Mitchell, who was hard-pressed to find any situation where she would sanction speech, urged listeners to remember the difference between “invective” and “argument.”

Then Hansen opened the floor to audience questions. Listeners pushed for answers about handling professors’ openly held political views, the strength or weakness of faculty governance, divestment from Darfur, and the University’s historical actions in the world. Time and again, the conversation came back to the notion of neutrality. “Look,” Stone said finally, “no person or institution can ever be wholly neutral.” As a business, the University must make decisions, and decisions involve judgments and consequences. “I don’t think the claim is that the University is absolutely neutral, any more than any of us are absolutely neutral. The claim of the Kalven Report is that the University should aspire to be as neutral as possible in taking positions itself—knowing, intentional positions—on matters of public moment. And that is an aspiration that I think is perfectly credible.”

To see how the discussion unfolded, watch the video.

Lydialyle Gibson

Photo by Jason Smith.

RRRRREV LIFE EXPERIENCE
“Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (Slate, May 19, 2009)
Matthew Crawford, AM’92, PhD’00, shows all freedom takes is a little willingness to get your hands greasy in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work.

SURROUNDED BY GREATNESS
“CEO Values Complementary Skills—for Himself and His Employees” (Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2009)
The secret to success is to “hire people smarter than you, with complementary skill sets from different industries,” says Suzlon Wind Energy CEO Andy Cukurs, MBA’94.

WRITER OF WORLD RELIGIONS
“Huston Smith: Rock Star of Religions Turns 90” (San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2009)
May is a busy month for Huston Smith, PhD’45. He’s celebrating his 90th birthday, the release of his autobiography Tales of Wonder, and the 50th anniversary of his best-selling book The World’s Religions.

MILESTONES

• “John G. Morris Awarded Légion d’Honneur In Paris” (National Press Photographers Association, May 19, 2009)
  Earlier this week photojournalist John Morris, AB’37, was awarded Légion d’Honneur—France’s most prestigious award.

Based on “official nomenclature,” economist Robert W. Fogel, who turns 83 in July, is not yet “old-old.” Only people 85 and up qualify for that status. “I’m just old,” Fogel said.

It’s not a trivial distinction. In the B. Peter Pashigian Memorial Lecture May 13 at Chicago Booth, Fogel presented his working paper, “Forecasting the Cost of U.S. Health Care in 2040,” exploring the complicated economics of an aging population. The Nobel laureate and Charles R. Walgreen distinguished service professor of American institutions offered “tentative answers” about the course of physical and financial well-being, assuming many more old-old people will be around a generation from now.

That safe assumption comes from the steep upward curve in life expectancy during the 20th century, from 45 to almost 80. A decrease in the prevalence of chronic diseases, delays in onset age, and more effective treatments also promise improvements in the quality and quantity of life. But at what cost? “Advances in both surgical and drug therapies have significantly reduced the rate in which chronic conditions turn into disabilities that severely impair functioning,” Fogel said. “However, many of the surgical procedures are quite expensive, and the cost of new and more effective drugs is increasing sharply.”

Fogel’s analysis indicates that demand, more than aging, will drive costs higher, perhaps to as much as 29 percent of GDP by 2040. Public policy, he believes, should not attempt to restrain that increase. “As people get richer,” he said, “they want to spend a larger share of their income on improving their health.” Between 1875 and 1995 that share grew from 1 percent to 9 percent while dwindling for other necessities like food, clothing, and shelter.

Governments and businesses, he said, need to provide basic, affordable coverage, but more expensive policies and private savings accounts for health services should be available for people with the means. “Health care is not a homogenous good, all of which is essential. There are large luxury components in health services that may appeal to some tastes but that are not necessary for sound basic health care”—for example, private rooms, shorter waiting times, expensive alternative treatments, and physicians nationwide.

“And if you want to,” Fogel said, “you can throw in 200 channels of TV.” Kids today.

Jason Kelly

MAN UP
"‘Up’ and Away" (Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2009)
Ed Asner, X'48, shares stories about bringing cranky balloon salesman Carl Fredericksen to life in the Pixar animated movie Up.

AUSTERE COMPOSER
"Classical Features: Philip Glass" (Independent, May 22, 2009)
Philip Glass, AB'56, reveals how his fastidious life informs his music.

CAMPUS FREE SPEECH
"Kalven Calling" (UChiBLOGo, University of Chicago Magazine, May 21, 2009)
Geoffrey Stone, JD’71; Margaret M. Mitchell, AM’82, PhD’89; and other Chicago faculty and administrators discuss “uncomfortable” issues for universities navigating the murky waters of academic freedom.

Social neuroscientist John Cacioppo is kind of a big deal in his field. Without his own work, Cacioppo couldn’t even be called a social neuroscientist. His 1992 American Psychologist article coined the name of the discipline, which examines how the brain and social behaviors affect each other.

It was his groundbreaking research on loneliness that earned him this year’s Ryerson lecture. Loneliness, Cacioppo explained to a near-full Max Palevsky Cinema, is an evolutionary biological response to perceived social isolation. It has nothing to do with whether a person is alone or surrounded by people—the relationship quality is more important than quantity. (In fact, he said, those Facebookers aiming to collect the most virtual buddies may in reality be quite lonely.) Like hunger, thirst, or pain, loneliness triggers an impulse, telling a person that something is wrong. Loneliness “protects you as an individual body,” and engaging in social behaviors, said Cacioppo, “helps an organism survive, reproduce, and carry offspring.”

In the 30-minute lecture (plus a Q&A), Cacioppo detailed his findings on how loneliness affects emotions, biology, and health. His longitudinal studies have shown that, overall, chronically lonely people are at risk for more health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, than those who feel less socially isolated. "Loneliness is actually a very virtuous feature," Cacioppo concluded. "Chronic loneliness is not. But if you didn’t have physical pain as a process in your body," he said, "you wouldn’t survive because you wouldn’t know if you were harming your own body. Loneliness contributes to our own humanity because it motivates us to connect and do things for others."

Three findings in particular surprised Cacioppo and his colleagues:

1. Collectivist cultures, like Italians, are lonelier than individualist ones: “When are people in America at their very loneliest? It’s not during the busiest of days—it’s during the holidays when the social norm is that everyone’s with friends and family.”


2. “Loneliness is just as characteristic of popular kids as it is of unpopular kids.”


3. "How lonely you feel on a particular evening predicts that night’s sleep efficiency."

Ruthie Kott, AM'07

RECOMMENDED LINKS

• Slideshow: "Video: Cacioppo | Why Do We Feel Lonely?"


• Slideshow: "Video: Cacioppo | Loneliness and the Body"


• Twitter: J_Cacioppo

RELATED READING

• "Cacioppo to deliver Ryerson" (Chicago Chronicle, Apr. 30, 2005)


• "Linking the Mind and Body" (University of Chicago Magazine, Feb/00)

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON FOOD
“Hijacked Brains Conditioned to Overeat, Author Says” (CTV.ca, May 25, 2009)
“If you take these fat-sugar and fat-salt foods and put them on every street corner, it’s not a matter of willpower; your brain has been activated,” says former FDA commissioner David A. Kessler, JD’78.

THE PRESTIGE OF “DIRTY JOBS”
“The Case for Working with Your Hands” (New York Times, May 21, 2009)
Matthew Crawford, AM’92, PhD’00, excerpts his new Shop Class as Soulcraft and explains how “many of us do work that feels more surreal than real.”

SHAKESPEARE IN CHICAGO
“Tempest at Steppenwolf” (Blogcritics, May 24, 2009)
“There is something truly satisfying about the flexibility of Shakespeare’s work, and familiarity with the traditional staging makes a new, modern version that much more astonishing,” writes reviewer Marissa Flaxbart, AB’05.

NEWS ABOUT THE NEWS
“The Fat Lady Sings for Newspapers” (Marketplace, American Public Media, May 21, 2009)
While delivering the keynote speech at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University last week, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, AB’58, claimed the future of newspapers depends on the collaboration between “university and local media to train independent reporters.”

MILESTONES

• “NCAFP 35th Anniversary Gala & Award Dinner” (PR Leap, May 23, 2009)
  The National Committee on American Foreign Policy honored Joshua Cooper Ramo, AB’92, one of three recipients of the first Young Leaders in Advancing American Foreign Policy Award.


• “Historian Was Expert on English Revolution” (Washington Post, May 25, 2009)
  Scholar and historian Perez Zagorin, AB’44, died April 26.

POLITICAL PARTY
“Community Leader Launches Grassroots Campaign for City Council” (YouTube, May 25, 2009)
At a Memorial Day gathering of supporters, John Choe, MPP’95, announced his candidacy for the New York City Council’s 20th district seat.

HIGHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION
“Increasing High School Graduation Rates, College Going, and College Completion” (Cheyney University President’s Blog, May 26, 2009)
Cheyney University president Michelle Howard-Vital, AB’74, MAT’74, writes about her experience in higher education and explains how she has seen that “exposure to a broad base of knowledge and experiences is necessary for many individuals to develop problem-solving skills, compassion, tolerance, judgment, and empathy that will enable them to live as productive and contributing citizens in our nation.”

MEASURING UP
“Multidimensional” (New York, May 24, 2009)
Pixar’s new animated movie Up and its protagonist Carl Fredricksen, voiced by Ed Asner, X’48, charms another reviewer for being as “dark and complex and lovely as Wall-E was—with the extra charm of 3-D glasses.”

CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATOR
“Jeff Fort Founds the Black P. Stone Nation” (Chicago Crime Scenes Project, May 26, 2009)
Todd Kendall, SB’98, AM’00, PhD’03, tells the history of Jeff Fort and his Blackstone Rangers, once Chicago’s largest street gang.

FLYBOY
“This Is Why We Fly” (Houston Chronicle, May 25, 2009)
For those who question the need for people in space exploration, astronaut John M. Grunsfeld, SM’84, PhD’88, and his shuttle Atlantis team prove why “human hands and minds in orbit remain indispensable.”

FOUR DECADES ON THE FRINGE
“Urban Legend” (Time Out Chicago, May 21-27, 2009)
Gary Houston’s 1968 arrival at the University of Chicago for graduate school marked the beginning of his presence on the Chicago theater scene.

CHARGE AHEAD
“The Brave New World of Restricted Credit” (Forbes, May 26, 2009)
Law School professor Richard Epstein laments Congress’s recent credit-reform legislation, calling the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act of 2009 too good to be true: “It’s the old story that high-minded legislation bites the very individuals whom it is intended to protect—now in a market starved for credit.”

FLOORED BY RESULTS
“Why the Elevator Floor Is So Interesting” (Wired Science blog, Wired, May 26, 2009)
Mouths shut. Eyes straight ahead. Professor Dario Maestripieri—who studies human and nonhuman primates—finds that during an elevator ride people act as if they have serious concerns about their own safety despite virtually no chance of being attacked.

SET TO SPIKE AT CHICAGO
“Trinity Valedictorian Headed to U of C” (RiverForest Leaves, Sun-Times News Group, May 26, 2009)
When she arrives on campus this fall, Caroline Brande—who hopes to be a surgeon—plans to study biology and Islamic religion and join the volleyball team, whose members she met during a campus visit: “I loved the people on the team so much,” she says. “They were so friendly. It was a perfect fit socially for me, too.”

A DIG THROUGH NEWSPAPER ARTIFACTS
“Historical Trove, Freed From Storage, Gets a Home” (New York Times, May 26, 2009)
Associate professor Jacqueline Goldsby helps preserve treasures she uncovered from the Chicago Defender’s archives, including unpublished pictures of Duke Ellington and Jack Johnson.

INSIDE BECKER’S MIND
“A Freakonomics Quiz” (Freakonomics blog, New York Times, May 27, 2009)
How well do you know Chicago Booth’s Gary Becker, AM’53, PhD’55? Attendees at the econ department’s annual skit party tried to figure out how Becker answered questions such as: Who’ll win the next Nobel Prize in economics? When will the recession end? Who’s his favorite economist?

Chicago Booth professor Richard H. Thaler talks about real people making real choices based on nudges.

HIGH-TECH HEALTH CARE
"Working His Way Up: Success the Norm in Nguyen's Immigrant Family" (Pensacola News Journal, May 10, 2009)
Former emergency-room doctor Huy Nguyen, AB'90, MD'96, started a new career as the head of a cutting-edge software company that enables the sharing of protected health information between military and civilian doctors: "We're pretty well-positioned to facilitate the further digitalization and operability of American medicine."

MERRICK MELODRAMA
"The Elephant Man Comes to New Place Studio Theatre" (BroadwayWorld.com, May 8, 2009)
The Tony-award winning play The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance, AB'52, runs through June 21 at North Hollywood's New Place Studio Theatre.

CONSTRUCTION GALLERY
"South Side Artist Breaks Down Walls to Build Neighborhood Sociability, Inspires Conversation" (Medill Reports Chicago, May 27, 2009)
“I’m attracted to places where the boundary between outside and inside is really thin, and you can pass back and forth really easily without much trouble," says artist John Preus, MFA'05.

LAND OF THE FREE... AND THE FAT
"America's Reverse-Famine Crisis" (Full Comment blog, National Post, May 27, 2009)
Columnist Barbara Kay reviews The End of Overeating, the new book by David A. Kessler, JD'78: "Kessler offers no magic bullets," she writes. "Resisting hyper-palatibility still comes down to exercise and will power, which works temporarily, but rarely long term."

MILESTONES

• “WWII Nurse Gets Her Medals” (Register Citizen, May 25, 2009)
  After a 60-year delay Mary Lefebre, SB’49, was awarded the American Defense Medal, American Campaign Medal, and World War II medal for her service as an operating nurse: “I was sort of embarrassed at first about the idea, but now I’m kind of excited about it,” she says. “My uniform doesn’t fit anymore, but I have all my medals.”


• “Three Great Oregon Books for the Summer” (Powells Books blog, May 27, 2009)
  A Brief History of Time by poet Shaindel Beers, AM’00, was picked as one of three must-read books for the summer.


• “White, 1913-2009: Official with Forerunner of U.S. Energy Department” (Chicago Tribune, May 28, 2009)
  Scientist Philip Cleaver White, AB’35, PhD’38, died May 1.

Through her short documentary film The Original Slam, director Melina Kolb, AB'06, shares the story of how Chicago's legendary Green Mill pub has become a home for poetic expression.

SCOTUS REALITY CHECK
"Legal Realism Informs Judge's Views" (Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2009)
Law School professor Brian Leiter considers Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a legal realist: "The idea that appellate judges never make law, and only apply the law as written, is a fiction, as every American lawyer knows."

A MORE SELF-ASSURED INDIA
"Good News for Democracy" (American Spectator, May 26, 2009)
In an essay about Indian politics, Harris School lecturer Frank Schell writes, "To state that the challenges to absorb more people into the economic mainstream of India are enormous is a gross understatement. We should take stock that amidst all the world's tumult, occasionally the forces of reason and light can prevail."

PUBLIC HEALTH CARE
"Yeah, We Need That Public Plan" (The Treatment blog, New Republic, May 27, 2009)
Associate professor in the School of Social Service Administration Harold Pollack writes about why "we need a public health plan to have any prayer of making health reform work."

INCOMING PHYSICIST, ACTIVIST, AND DRAMATIST
"Lakewood Resident to Attend University of Chicago" (YourHub.com, Lakewood, June 5, 2009)
Incoming first-year Hunter Davis—whose interests include charity work and musical theater—plans to study physics when he arrives at the University of Chicago this fall.

MARKET WATCH
"How Unusual Was the Stock Market of 2008?" (Fama/French Forum, May 4, 2009)
Chicago Booth's Eugene Fama and Dartmouth's Kenneth French write an in-depth analysis of 2008's market volatility.

MILESTONES

• "Scientist Wins Prestigious L'Oreal Fellowship" (Argonne Newsroom, May 27, 2009)
  Argonne National Laboratory scientist Tiffany Santos has been awarded the sixth annual L'Oreal fellowship for her work at the Center for Nanoscale Materials. Santos will use the funds to investigate transition metal oxides: "If we can understand the origin of a material's properties at the nanoscale, then we can design and create new materials for the next generation of electronic devices that meet these global challenges."

Philip Guziec, MBA'00—a derivatives strategist for Morningstar, Inc.'s individual investor business unit—defines derivatives and explains why they're considered to be the financial instrument at the center of the economic crisis.

Daft punk

When you’re thinking about spending $100 an hour—especially for help with something you really don’t want to screw up, like a work visa—you want to make sure the person offering assistance is actually qualified, right? Especially if the listing itself is a bit less than persuasive.

Hmmm, okay. I guess in some cases, xenophobia can be an effective marketing tool. Perhaps it would be best to check out some of the seller’s other listings before forking over that C-note.

It’s true, hobbies can be a positive thing. But now I’m even less convinced of the seller’s claim to be non-daft. On to another listing.

Wow. As Nietzschean prose poems go, that’s impressive. And resile? Very nice. But then, what’s this listing about?

Luckily, I am one of those daft Americans who can live and work in this country legally as it is. But if I weren’t, I think I’d call an immigration attorney.

Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93

For more from UChi Bizarre-ketplace, check UChiBLOGo the last Friday of each month and the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of the Core, the College supplement to the University of Chicago Magazine, available in early June online.

Joshua Cooper Ramo, AB'92, (start watching at 39:57) tells Charlie Rose about the process of writing and putting together his new book, The Age of the Unthinkable.

ENERGETIC BUILD-UP
“A Bolt of Urban Energy for State Street” (Cityscapes blog, Chicago Tribune, May 28, 2009)
Architect Jackie Koo, AB’86, finished her first major building—the Wit hotel, located in downtown Chicago’s theater district.

TEACHER’S LESSON PLAN
“So You Want My Job: High School Teacher” (Art of Manliness blog, May 28, 2009)
Inner-city teacher Aaron Kurtz, AB’05, talks about running an after-school Chess club, relishing genuine thanks from students’ parents, and finding a classroom job in a tight economy.

PROSECUTOR-TO-BE?
“Two Current, Three Former Federal Prosecutors Are Finalists for Job” (Washington Post, May 29, 2009)
Roy L. Austin, JD’95, is one of five finalists being considered for U.S. attorney for Washington, DC.

HOW TO AVOID NORTH KOREAN BLOWBACK
“Intimidation Won’t Further Non-Proliferation” (Anti-War.com, May 29, 2009)
“It is vitally important to convince the ‘Dear Leader’ that nuclear weapons must be scrapped, but the carrot is much more likely to succeed than the stick, however emotionally satisfying the latter may seem,” writes Thomas Gale Moore, AM’59, PhD’61.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT’S LOST VOICE
“Missing Milton: Who Will Speak For Free Markets?” (Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2009)
“I would rank Milton Friedman (AM’33), next to Ronald Reagan, as the greatest apostle for freedom and free markets in the second half of the 20th century,” writes columnist Stephen Moore. “No one could slice and dice the sophistry of government market interventions better.”

PALEO-LIT
“Scientists’ Nightstand: Donald Johanson” (American Scientist, May 2009)
Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson’s (AM’70, PhD’74) recommended reading list includes quite a bit of Darwin (The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and The Voyage of the Beagle), a little suspense (Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City), and a touch of the classics (Homer’s Odyssey).

PUCKISH POLITICIAN
“Icy Tirade Hawk Squawk” (Chicago Sun-Times, May 29, 2009)
“I don’t want anyone to think I’m a tough guy,” says diehard Blackhawks fan—and Congressman—Mike Quigley, AM’85, in reference to his squabble with a Red Wings fan last Friday. “I just like hockey.”