Princeton Alumni Weekly | The Weekly Blog: Brett Tomlinson Archives

September 21, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Peter Hessler '92

(Courtesy the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

When author and freelance journalist Peter Hessler ’92 received the surprise call notifying him that he’d won the MacArthur fellowship, the reporter in him took over. He jotted down notes, names, and phone numbers on a pad near the phone. But afterward, he could barely make sense of what he’d written. “It’s disorienting,” Hessler told PAW. “You wonder if it’s real.”

For the lucky few who receive the $500,000 no-strings-attached MacArthur fellowship, the award can mean many things, like more time to do research and freedom to take risks. Hessler said that in his case, the timing was particularly fortuitous. Next month, he and his wife, journalist Leslie T. Chang, will move to Cairo, Egypt, with their twin daughters. Having the backing of the MacArthur fellowship should help in their transition to new surroundings.

Hessler and Chang had decided to move to Egypt before the “Arab spring” uprisings that have significantly reshaped the country’s outlook. Hessler, whose previous reporting has focused on China, said he is attracted to places in transition that also have deep history. “The present plays off [history] in so many different ways,” he said. “As a writer, it gives you different directions.”

Continue reading Tiger of the Week: Peter Hessler '92 …

September 20, 2011

Alumni blogs: Salad for dinner, the Netflix split, and more

The following highlights are drawn from sites listed on our directory of alumni blogs. If you know of blogs by Princetonians that are not listed, please contact us.

(Courtesy MonkeyEggplant/Flickr)

Don’t let the word “salad” fool you. As a kid, when Carolyn Gratzer Cope ’98 thought about leafy greens, she also had meat in mind, along with cheese, bacon, croutons, and creamy dressing. “The more it resembled a burger, the better,” Cope writes in a recent post on Serious Eats. But as an adult, the author of the food blog Umami Girl has turned to healthier options that can turn a bed of lettuce into a hearty meal: roasted winter squash, root vegetables, and the like. In the latest installment of Cope’s "Crisper Whisperer" column, readers chimed in with their favorites as well, including chickpeas, avocado, sunflower seeds, and pulled pork.

In other posts this week: When it comes to recovery time, “less is less,” professional triathlete Jordan Rapp ’02 writes in a Slowtwitch.com post. … New York Times ArtsBeat blogger Dave Itzkoff ’98 looks at the latest example of odd author memorabilia being sold online: J.K. Rowling’s boots, given to a fifth-grade class in Omaha 12 years ago. … On the Disruptive Economics blog, Forbes.com contributor Timothy B. Lee *10 questions the logic behind Netflix’s plan to split its streaming video and rent-by-mail businesses. … John Stossel ’69 of Fox News cries “Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi!” in his look at Social Security and Medicare, backing the words of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry. … Photographer David Cardinal ’81 posts this captivating view of the Princeton Mill on the banks of the Millstone River two weeks after Hurricane Irene.

September 14, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Bill Dietrich '60

Bill Dietrich '60 (Courtesy Carnegie Mellon University)

In the history of Pittsburgh, two names top the list of local industrialists-turned-philanthropists. They happen to be linked in the name of one of the city’s top universities, Carnegie Mellon.

Last week Bill Dietrich ’60, former steel-industry executive and longtime Carnegie Mellon trustee, made a gift to the school that will make “Dietrich” an enduring name on campus as well. He pledged $265 million for a fund that would be made available after his death.

In announcing the gift, Carnegie Mellon president Jared L. Cohon called it “truly historic,” noting that “even taking into account the time value of money, this gift is larger than the one Andrew Carnegie made in establishing this university in 1900.” Carnegie Mellon has a wide range of plans for the fund, which is the 14th-largest donation ever made to an institution of higher education, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. It will support global initiatives, research, and new academic initiatives for both undergraduates and graduate students.

Dietrich, speaking on a webcast Sept. 7, said that the gift was inspired by his mother, Marianna Brown Dietrich. (Carnegie Mellon’s college of humanities and social sciences will be renamed in her honor.) The Pittsburgh-area native also joked about his choice to attend Princeton, motivated in part by an article in the World Book Encyclopedia. “Underneath a picture of Blair Arch, the article began, ‘Princeton has sent more Rhodes scholars to Oxford than any other American university,’” he said. “I never bothered to read the rest of the article. Hell, I didn’t even know that Princeton was in New Jersey.”

Dietrich did not go on to win the Rhodes, but he received his A.B. in history and went on to a successful career for Dietrich Industries, a family company that produced steel and building products, paving the way for his remarkable bequest to Carnegie Mellon.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

September 7, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Jim Lee '86

Jim Lee '86 (Victor Ha)

Relaunching some of the world’s most beloved comic-book heroes requires careful planning, attention to detail, captivating storylines, and extraordinary artwork. Oh, and free pizza, too.

For Jim Lee ’86, co-publisher of DC Comics and the artist behind the new Justice League series that hit stores Aug. 31, last week was the culmination of all of the above. After helping to lead the company’s effort to attract new readers, he delivered pizza to fans who had camped out at Manhattan’s Mid Town Comics for Justice League 1’s midnight release.

Lee, the illustrator behind legendary titles such as X-Men I, has high hopes for reinvigorating Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and others by paring down their extensive “continuity” – the long list of storylines that the characters have collected in more than 70 years on the shelves. As he explained to NPR’s Melissa Block, “We’re sort of shortening and simplifying the backstory so that new readers can jump in and understand what’s going on from the very first issue. … When a book is up to issue 900-something, you don’t feel like you can kind of jump in and really understand what’s going on right off the bat.”

So far, reviewers and readers have been divided, but from a publicity standpoint, the relaunch has been a success, with The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Wired, and several other media outlets covering the story. And according to Rich Johnston of the blog “Bleeding Cool,” Lee was the right artist for the job. While comics aficionados may be accustomed to Lee’s style, Johnston wrote, “for the unfamiliar eye it simply looks glorious.”

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

August 31, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Ryan Boyle '04

Ryan Boyle '04, pictured at the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship. (Courtesy Timon Lorenzo '07)

Ryan Boyle ’04 just keeps winning. The former Princeton All-American and current pro lacrosse star helped the Boston Cannons capture their first Major League Lacrosse championship Aug. 28. For Boyle, it was his fourth MLL title in eight seasons. He also has represented the United States in the World Lacrosse Championship three times, winning two gold medals. And at Princeton, he was part of four Ivy League championship teams and one NCAA championship, in 2001.

Boyle’s Midas touch comes partly from his ability to help the players around him. He led Boston in assists this year – no surprise to those who followed his Princeton career – and teammate Matt Poskay told Lacrosse Magazine that Boyle “is the essential quarterback of the team.” In the league semifinals, Boyle assisted on a last-second goal that propelled Boston to the final. He added a goal and three assists in the title game.

While collegiate lacrosse continues to grow, professional lacrosse remains a niche sport. Boston averaged more than 8,600 fans per home game this year; the league championship, played in wet conditions in Annapolis, Md., less than a day after Hurricane Irene passed through, drew just over 5,000. But Boyle is one of the game’s bona fide stars, excelling in MLL and the indoor pro circuit, the National Lacrosse League.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

August 25, 2011

Alumni blogs: Microfossils, the cons of coupon clipping, and more

The following highlights are drawn from sites listed on our directory of alumni blogs. If you know of blogs by Princetonians that are not listed, please contact us.

In an Aug. 22 item on The Washington Post’s “Achenblog,” Joel Achenbach ’82 examines a fascinating new finding of “ancient squiggly critters” in Western Australia that may be the planet’s oldest fossils. As Achenbach notes, “We don’t know how nonlife became life, whether it was in a small, warm pond, or at the edge of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, or in the back of someone’s refrigerator,” and we may never know. But the new microfossils appear to indicate that there was life on Earth not long after the planet became habitable, Achenbach writes. Whether these are indeed Earth’s oldest remnants of life remains open to dispute. Click here to read the full explanation.

In other posts this week, “Feministing” blogger Chloe Angyal ’09 interviews actress and director Vera Farmiga. … On “HuffPost Tech,” Bianca Bosker ’08 takes a look at Facebook’s new privacy settings. … Rick Klein ’98 of ABC News’ “The Note” debunks hall-of-shame misstatements from Democrats and Republicans with PolitiFact.com editor Bill Adair. … Is coupon clipping anti-feminist? Laura Vanderkam ’01 argues that it may be on her “168 hours” blog. … And finally, “Serious Eats” blogger Maggie Hoffman ’04 has the enviable job of reviewing a bottle of wine each day for the site’s Summer of Riesling.

August 24, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Bill Frist '74

Bill Frist and Jill Biden listen to USAID Administrator Dr. Raj Shah en route to a refugee camp in Kenya. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

Since leaving the U.S. Senate in 2007, former majority leader Bill Frist ’74 has returned to his first career – medicine – with an emphasis on health in developing nations, continuing the yearly visits to Africa that he began making during his first Senate term. Earlier this month, he accompanied Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, on a goodwill trip to camps in Kenya, where thousands of Somalians have fled, seeking relief from a crippling famine in their home country. Since returning, Frist and Biden have urged individuals to contribute to the aid efforts currently supported by governments and international organizations, co-authoring an op-ed piece in USA Today.

Frist explained what he saw in the Horn of Africa in a related column, published in The Wall Street Journal:

“Mrs. Biden and I spent most of our time engaging refugees who emotionally recounted their painful, weeks-long treks through parched lands with little food and water, having no choice but to leave their husbands in war-torn Somalia, often losing a child or two along the way to dehydration or lung infection.

“The extreme drought has destroyed crops and caused the death of 80% of the livestock. For most Somalis who live a pastoral lifestyle, these conditions amount to an American losing their home, job and all worldly possessions, with no food or water available to beg for or borrow.”

But Frist added that “there is much Americans can do – immediately and inexpensively – to save lives and quickly reverse the current trajectory of catastrophe,” like supplying nutrient-rich liquids to combat dehydration and providing vaccines to halt the spread of disease in densely populated camps.

Frist, a cardiothoracic surgeon and two-term Republican Senator from Tennessee, is chairman of the nonprofit Hope through Healing Hands, which promotes “using health as a currency for peace.”

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

August 18, 2011

Cheiten *71, Berkowitz '70 stage original play at Hamilton Murray Theater

A few years ago, playwright Marvin Cheiten *71 noticed that Princeton’s Hamilton Murray Theater was empty from late August to early September, between the end of the Princeton Summer Theater season and the start of Theater Intime’s fall calendar. Cheiten and director Dan Berkowitz ’70, who had staged works at Hamilton Murray, inquired about the vacancy. “We know the theater, we like the theater,” Cheiten recalls saying. “Could we perhaps use it, and use as many Princeton students as we can?”

Zenobia
Hamilton Murray Theater
Aug. 19, 20, 26, and 27 at 8 p.m.; and Aug. 21 and 28 at 2 p.m.
Click here for more information.

Theater Intime and the University were amenable, and in the span of seven years, Cheiten and the California-based Berkowitz have become August regulars, staging a half-dozen original works with a rotating cast of local performers and Princeton undergraduates.

This year’s production, the historical tragedy Zenobia, opens its six-show run Aug. 19. The play debuted on campus in the summer of 2005, and Cheiten said he has made the script “sharper” with a series of recent changes. It tells the story of Queen Zenobia, the third-century leader of Palmyra (now part of Syria), who used her political and military clout to take on the Roman empire. Carolyn Vasko ’13, a veteran of Lewis Center productions and Triangle Club shows, plays the title role.

Zenobia marks a change of pace for Cheiten, whose most recent plays have been comic mysteries built around a teen detective and her father. In the ill-fated queen, he expects audiences to find a sympathetic protagonist. As she loses her power, she becomes a better person. “It’s a tragedy,” Cheiten said, “but yet, I don’t think people will leave frowning.”

August 17, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Katherine Milkman '04

Digging up interesting research topics is nothing new for Katherine Milkman ’04, an assistant professor of operations and information at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Milkman’s senior thesis, an operations research study of short-fiction selections in The New Yorker, drew coverage in The New York Times, and during her Ph.D. studies at Harvard, she co-authored a study that showed movie renters prefer low-brow flicks over high-brow fare, even when their stated preferences indicate otherwise. (Portfolio framed it as the “Harold and Kumar or Citizen Kane” question.)

At Wharton, Milkman has continued to explore choice in a social-science context, and her papers continue to reach beyond academia, adding insight to questions like why some patients don’t keep their appointment for a flu shot and how readers pick the news stories that they pass along to their friends. This week, another timely finding from Milkman and co-author John L. Beshears of Stanford has popped up in the media. Milkman and Beshears found that stock analysts who are wrong about their forecasts tend to become more entrenched in their erroneous positions, a phenomenon that could contribute to market bubbles. The research was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

August 10, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Alexander Wolff '79

Alexander Wolff '79 (Courtesy Alexander Wolff '79)

As a boy growing up in Princeton, Alexander Wolff ’79 was too young to remember Bill Bradley ’65’s time on the hardwood at Dillon Gym. But when Wolff’s parents, who were not basketball fans, followed the star forward’s career, Wolff said he had “this vague sense that I was missing something important.”

In the last three decades, Wolff has not missed many important basketball stories, chronicling the game at all levels – and in several countries – for Sports Illustrated. On Thursday, Wolff and broadcaster Jim Durham will receive this year’s Curt Gowdy Media Awards at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The Gowdy Awards, first presented in 1990, recognize writers and broadcasters who’ve made “outstanding contributions to basketball.”

Wolff joined Sports Illustrated in 1980, shortly after graduation, but his first experiences as a reporter came during his undergraduate years at Princeton. His family had left for Rochester, N.Y., when Wolff was 12, and when he returned as a freshman, Princeton’s basketball reputation was reaching another peak, following its 1975 NIT Championship. Wolff typed play-by-play reports for the athletic communications office at Tiger football and basketball games, and he wrote news stories for the Trenton Times as a member of the University Press Club.

Continue reading Tiger of the Week: Alexander Wolff '79 …

August 4, 2011

Road reflections: An 8,000-mile journey to Reunions and back

Geoff Smith '71 and his Road King covered 8,000 miles from San Diego to Princeton and back. (Courtesy Geoff Smith '71)

At the end of his senior year, Geoff Smith ’71 bought a motorcycle and left Princeton for a two-week “head-clearing adventure” across the country to his home, career, and the rest of his life in San Diego, Calif. Going back to Princeton for his 40th reunion, Smith decided to complete the circle, leaving his son in charge of the family business and riding a 2004 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle on an 8,000-mile wandering journey from San Diego to Princeton and then back to San Diego. (His wife, Julie, flew to New Jersey to join him at Reunions.) Smith collected his thoughts near the end of the journey and wrote this essay for PAW.

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m 10 miles out of Gila Bend, Ariz., on the Road King heading home to San Diego on I-8. My mirrors show me a line of black mountains silhouetted by the orange promise of dawn. In front of me a huge full moon is hanging low in the lightening sky and the desert is still blessedly cool. This is the 28th and last day of my coast-to-coast-to-coast journey across the country that began with me rolling in the opposite direction on this same road. With my boots up on the highway pegs and the Road King’s engine faithfully thumping beneath me as it has for every one of these days, I find myself replaying some of the trip’s experiences in my mind.

Just two days ago, riding along the old Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Colorado, I ran into a couple of fellow Harley riders at a gas station, and they decided that my path and theirs were close enough to accompany me to the site of Bent’s Old Fort on the trail. While walking the fort site and talking I learned that they were prison guards at the State of Texas death row. Amazing conversation – and I decided I liked my career a little better than I had previously thought. This is typical of the road conversations with salt-of-the-earth citizens of this country you meet in diners, bars, gas stations, and sitting outside of motels. The road delivers you to people like this that most of us Princetonians do not interact with, due to our typical driven focus on our personal and often upper-class sphere of influence. You can’t help but feel these people are the real America for better or worse. Hearing their thoughts and desires can give one a broader perspective on what life in this country is or should be, and it goes way beyond the sound bite and editorial generalities we all hear every day from our favored sources.

Continue reading Road reflections: An 8,000-mile journey to Reunions and back…

August 3, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Ranjit 'Ricky' Gill '09

Ricky Gill '09 (Courtesy Gill for Congress)

Ranjit “Ricky” Gill ’09 graduated from Princeton two years ago and still has a year to go in law school at the University of California, Berkeley. But that hasn’t stopped him from planning his next step. In May, the 24-year-old announced plans to run for a seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican candidate in California’s 9th district, which includes his hometown of Lodi. He’ll turn 25 – the minimum age for a representative – before the election in 2012.

In the last few months, the precocious Gill has been turning heads, partly due to his extraordinary fundraising. He collected more than $426,000 from individual donors in the first quarter of his campaign, and his overall fundraising ranked third nationally among non-incumbent Republicans, according to The Ticket, Yahoo’s politics blog. The Fix, a Washington Post blog, called Gill one of nine big “winners” in the second-quarter fundraising race. And in a July 28 National Journal profile, David Wasserman wrote that the Indian-American Gill “may be the perfect GOP candidate for a district where non-whites are now 50 percent of all residents and Vietnamese and Filipino-Americans are numerous.”

Gill, a Woodrow Wilson School major, has a remarkable résumé (beginning with his service on the California state Board of Education at age 17), and he counts distinguished alumni Jim Leach ’64 and Bill Frist ’74 among his mentors. In March, Gill told The Daily Princetonian that his undergraduate experience helped to shape his career ambitions.

“I think Princeton has certainly contributed to a desire to serve,” he said. “I credit Princeton a lot for putting me in a position to even contemplate [running for Congress].”

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

Recently in Brett Tomlinson

September 21, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Peter Hessler '92

September 20, 2011

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September 14, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Bill Dietrich '60

September 7, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Jim Lee '86

August 31, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Ryan Boyle '04

August 25, 2011

Alumni blogs: Microfossils, the cons of coupon clipping, and more

August 24, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Bill Frist '74

August 18, 2011

Cheiten *71, Berkowitz '70 stage original play at Hamilton Murray Theater

August 17, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Katherine Milkman '04

August 10, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Alexander Wolff '79

August 4, 2011

Road reflections: An 8,000-mile journey to Reunions and back

August 3, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Ranjit 'Ricky' Gill '09

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