Marc Fisher, Post Team Profile Newtown Killer

Marc Fisher and a team of reporters collaborated on a major piece in today's Washington Post titled, "A Frustrating Search for Motive in Newtown Shootings." The article states,

In the desperate search for motive where madness has prevailed, the Lanza case is more frustrating than most. For a young man who spent most of his waking hours at a computer, he appears to have left behind an astonishingly small online footprint — no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

The Connecticut State Police, assisted by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, has poured everything it has into the Newtown shootings investigation, but “we don’t have any smoking gun to say this is why it occurred, at least not yet,” said Lt. J. Paul Vance, a department spokesman. “We are looking at several months before we really have our arms wrapped around this.”

Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani's $10 Million Donation to Princeton

Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani '80 and her husband Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani '74 have donated $10 million to Princeton University to establish the  Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. It will "provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to understanding Iran and the Persian Gulf, with special attention to the region's significance for the contemporary world," according to the official announcement. 

The release adds,

The couple, of New York City, grew up and completed their high school education in Iran before coming to, and eventually settling in, the United States. Each majored in economics at Princeton and earned a certificate in the Program in Near Eastern Studies.

Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani joined Goldman Sachs as a partner in 1993. She previously worked at Fidelity Management Trust Co., where she was chief investment officer for all separate and co-mingled fixed income accounts. She is member of the board of trustees and the investment committee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the board of trustees and the investment committee of Trinity School in New York City, and the national advisory board of the Merage Foundation for the American Dream. She has published books on bond indexing and on OPEC natural gas, as well as numerous articles on portfolio management issues. She earned an M.S. from Stanford University. She is a former member of the advisory council for Princeton's Bendheim Center for Finance.

Doug McGrath Discusses "Checkers" Play with the NY TImes

A seminal moment in the political career of Richard Nixon is getting fresh attention thanks to the new off-Broadway play "Checkers," written by Doug McGrath and playing at the Vineyard . He recently discussed the play and his inspiration with the New York Times. The article, "Mixed Feelings Lead a Writer to Nixon," says,

Nixon, Mr. McGrath said over a meal last month at the Union Square Cafe, is “one of the few people I know who can be hateful and pitiable at the same time, which is kind of maddening.” He laughed. “We like a cleaner feeling. You just want to hate someone, or pity him, but not both. It’s that essentially human quality of Nixon’s that everyone connects with in some way: that fear, that social insecurity, that inability to feel loved or popular.”

Peter Elkind Examines Nu Skin and Romney in Fortune Magazine

Peter Elkind is making journalistic waves again with an article he co-wrote for the October 26 issue of Fortune magazine, titled, "Nu Skin and the Short Sellers."  The lead-in summarizes:

The $2 billion multilevel marketer in Utah -- with ties to Mitt Romney -- says its skin-care and nutritional products can delay aging. But short-sellers and a couple of angry ex-husbands are taking the company on, and they're not being quiet about it.

Joseph Nocera in the October 27 New York Times discusses the story and mentions Elkind. He writes,

In the case of Nu Skin, Elkind spoke to a number of scientists who scoffed at Nu Skin’s anti-aging claims. Because so many multilevel marketing companies are based in Utah, critics joke that the initials MLM stand for Mormons Losing Money. (Nu Skin executives insist that their products work as advertised, and that distributors are not taken advantage of.)

Elkind’s story is primarily a rollicking tale of the battle between Nu Skin and a handful of short-sellers, who are betting that the company’s products and practices are headed for trouble. (Herbalife is another multilevel marketing company the shorts have targeted.) 

Ted Fishman on the Kalamazoo Promise

Ted Fishman takes a close look at a program in Kalamazoo, Mich., through which anonymous donors pay for the college education of local students -- no strings attached. The Sunday New York Times article appeared in September and discusses the struggles of the Midwestern city, its former industrial strength, and the surprising impact of the program on schools in the region. Fishman writes,

One of every three students in the Kalamazoo district falls below the national poverty level. One in 12 is homeless. Many of them are the first in their families to finish high school; many come from single-parent homes. Some are young parents themselves: Kalamazoo has one of the highest pregnancy rates among black teenagers in the state.
And yet, for the vast majority of the 500-plus students who graduate each year in Kalamazoo, a better future really does await after they collect their diplomas. The high-school degrees come with the biggest present most of them will ever receive: free college.

You can learn more about Fishman's other writing projects at his website.

Kathryn Hall to Lead Search for New University President

In the wake of the September announcement that Princeton President Shirley Tilghman will step down at the end of the academic year, Kathryn Hall, chair of the Board of Trustees, will lead the search for a replacement. A long University statement about the change noted,

The search for Tilghman's successor will be led by Hall. The search committee will include nine members of the Board of Trustees (including Hall), four members of the faculty who will be elected by the faculty, two undergraduates, a graduate student and a member of the staff. "This search process is modeled after previous processes that have worked very well for Princeton and we look forward to active participation from all of Princeton's key constituencies, including faculty, students, alumni and others," Hall said. "We will provide further information soon about the process and the composition of the search committee. Obviously our highest priority will be to identify the best possible person to serve as Princeton's 20th president, and I hope very much that we will be ready to bring a recommendation to the Board of Trustees in the spring."

Hall served on the board from 2002 to 2006, then rejoined in 2007. She is chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Hall Capital Partners LLC. 

Musician Steve Wexler Rocks NYC with Fall Performances

Musician Steve Wexler and his band, the Top Shelf, will be playing first-Thursday concerts in New York this fall at the Drom night club at 85 Avenue A, between 5th and 6th Streets. The series kicks off on Oct. 4 at 8 pm, with the next gig on November 1 and then December 6. On December 1, Top Shelf will be playing at 12 Grapes in Peekskill, NY. Says the Drom website,

Turning out unique arrangements of everything from Marvin Gaye to Beyonce, this 10-piece band is powered by original arrangements of familiar favorites. Steve Wexler and the Top Shelf features a powerhouse, four-piece horn section whose members have performed with The Temptations, The Fifth Dimension, Ray Charles, and The Tonight Show Orchestra. The horns are backed by a virtuoso rhythm section whose members have performed with John Lennon, Al Green, Audra McDonald, Jackson Browne, Carly Simon, Larry Harlow, Maria Schneider, and Bruce Springsteen. If those accolades weren’t enough, the vocalists for Top Shelf have worked with Aretha Franklin, John Legend, LL Cool J, Sting, Michael Jackson, and many others. Combine these band members with superior material and arrangements and the result is truly “Top Shelf”. 

 Meanwhile, here's a word about Steve:

Steve Wexler (Bass, Arranger, Cat Herder): Steve has arranged for Broadway, off-Broadway, television, and numerous record albums.  As a student, Steve cut his teeth at Princeton University writing for the Triangle club and university jazz ensemble, and went on to win awards from The University of Miami, The Eastman School of Music, andDownbeat magazine.  As a professional, Steve has written for and performed with many "top shelf" artists including jazz legend Benny Carter, Salsa all-star Larry Harlow and Grammy award winner Maria Schneider.

When not leading the Top Shelf, Steve plays bass as a "hired gun" with numerous bands.  You can also find Steve playing bass in many orchestra pits throughout the tri-state region.

Steve Strogatz Starts New Math Series in NY Times

Cornell professor of applied mathematics Steve Strogatz has kicked off a six-part series in the New York Times "Opinionator" section called "Me, Myself and Math," looking at people through the lens of math. The first entry is called "Singular Sensations" and starts like this:

Sharpen your pencils, dust off your abacus and join me once again for a few weeks of mind-bending pleasure. No, I’m not speaking about politics.We’ll travel to a place where problems have answers and truth exists.The haven of mathematics.My previous series offered a panoramic view of the field. This time, in “Me, Myself and Math,” we’ll focus on how the subject I love — math — relates to the subject we all love — ourselves.

Amy Myers Jaffe on the Move to the Golden West

After 16 years at Rice University, energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe is packing up and heading west for a new position at the University of California-Davis. Here's the scoop:

Amy Myers Jaffe, a leading expert on the oil industry and influential thought leader on global energy policy, will join the University of California, Davis, next month. She strengthens the university’s leadership on clean technology, sustainable energy and transportation.

On October 1, Jaffe will become the executive director of energy and sustainability in a joint appointment to the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and Institute of Transportation Studies. She has spent the past 16 years at Rice University, where she served as director of the Energy Forum at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. She is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, as well as associate director of the Rice Energy Program.

Jaffe’s expertise spans oil geopolitics and strategic energy policy, including energy science policy and energy economics. She said she was drawn to UC Davis by its focus on sustainability and the interdisciplinary research and relationships between transportation and energy, and by the opportunity to work near California’s state capital, which is an international pioneer on environmental and public policy issues. 

As Olympics Approach, Jill Pilgrim Analyzes Sports Protests

Jill Pilgrim, co-founder and principal of the Precise Advisory Group, has been blogging on sports issues at the Precise website. In a recent piece, she focused on the topic of "Run A Mile in Their Sneakers: Olympic Games & Political Protest." Pushing off from an article in The Nation magazine, Pilgrim writes,

The Dave Zirin article, “After 44 Years, It’s Time Brent Musburger apologized to John Carlos and Tommie Smith” —http://bit.ly/NzlD34 — gave voice to a myriad of issues and sub-issues that surround the quadrennial (now bi-annual) celebration of “selected” sports that is the Olympic Games.  These include: the exploitation of athletes’ talent for the financial gain of a small cadre of elite business executives and their business enterprises, the unavoidable focus that an Olympic Games brings to the issues of human rights, discrimination and politic power and, most of all, the failure of international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee to achieve their lofty goals such as “[t]o develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples” or to prohibit “[a]ny form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise”.

Coco Myers: "Picky Eater" Featured in NY Times

Writer Coco Myers appears in a Sunday New York Times article today with the title "The Picky Eater Who Came to Dinner." The article addresses dinner parties and other events where hosts adjust menus for guests with food restrictions. Featuring a photo of Myers preparing a salad in her East Hampton, NY home, the article says,

Some group-dining devotees say they are happy to adjust as the occasion demands. In April, Coco Myers, a writer who avoids gluten and lactose, invited a fish-averse friend to a dinner party in East Hampton, N.Y., hosted by a couple who don’t eat red meat. A few days earlier, the hostess (Scott O’Neil, a painter and an amateur cook, who had been planning a seafood stew) e-mailed Ms. Myers to ask about problem foods.
“Sometimes I go to dinner parties, and you just deal with what you get, right?” Ms. Myers recalled. “But she put it out there.” So she compiled a dietary no-fly list: no fish, no gluten, no lactose.

Anne-Marie Slaughter Causes Stir with Essay "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All"

Anne-Marie Slaughter is causing an Internet stir of commentary with her new essay in The Atlantic, titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." The essay starts with a gripping summary of the essay's themes:

EIGHTEEN MONTHS INTO my job as the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, a foreign-policy dream job that traces its origins back to George Kennan, I found myself in New York, at the United Nations’ annual assemblage of every foreign minister and head of state in the world. On a Wednesday evening, President and Mrs. Obama hosted a glamorous reception at the American Museum of Natural History. I sipped champagne, greeted foreign dignitaries, and mingled. But I could not stop thinking about my 14-year-old son, who had started eighth grade three weeks earlier and was already resuming what had become his pattern of skipping homework, disrupting classes, failing math, and tuning out any adult who tried to reach him. Over the summer, we had barely spoken to each other—or, more accurately, he had barely spoken to me. And the previous spring I had received several urgent phone calls—invariably on the day of an important meeting—that required me to take the first train from Washington, D.C., where I worked, back to Princeton, New Jersey, where he lived. My husband, who has always done everything possible to support my career, took care of him and his 12-year-old brother during the week; outside of those midweek emergencies, I came home only on weekends.

The article instantly sparked debates centering on the key premise and also Princeton's climate. Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse, for example, did a quick analysis that generated over 200 comments, here.

The New York Times' parenting blog did a Q&A with Slaughter, here.

The opinions just keep rolling down -- do a search and pick out the ones that strike your attitudinal fancy.

Amy Hopkins Fights the Good Fight for Horseshoe Crabs

Amy Hopkins is volunteering in a project that tags and studies horseshoe crabs in Connecticut. The New Haven Register reports:

“You are feisty tonight, aren’t you!” Amy Hopkins tells one horseshoe crab attempting to crawl away on the beach as she bends down and measures its shell with a ruler. 

Groups across the state study local horseshoe crab populations each year at this time as part of Project Limulus, an effort started more than 10 years ago at Sacred Heart University. In May and June during high tide and their mating season, horseshoe crabs emerge close to the coast, making this a prime opportunity for hands-on research. The creatures are sturdy, but still can’t bite, sting or pinch humans.

Sacred Heart University researchers and community volunteers use special tags to track the species as well as study attributes of local populations because of their medical and ecological importance — even if they have to sacrifice sleep for the cause.

Andrew Steinberg, Aviation Lawyer, Dies at 53

Andy Steinberg died on May 20 in Maryland, due to a form of eye cancer. He was 53 and had had a distinguished career in the public and private sectors serving the airline industry. An obituary in the Washington Post noted,

“Andy Steinberg was one of the greatest aviation lawyers of his generation,” said Jeffrey N. Shane, a partner at the Washington firm Hogan Lovells and a former undersecretary for policy at the Transportation Department. “He was in full command of the most complex and obscure laws and regulations — both domestic and international — and brought a level of creativity and intellectual rigor to his work that consistently impressed clients and colleagues alike.”

From 1990 to 1996, Mr. Steinberg was one of American Airlines’ senior attorneys, handling a range of employment and environmental matters for the carrier. In 1993, he was a member of the in-house legal team that helped American successfully defend against an antitrust lawsuit brought by rivals Continental and Northwest.

At Princeton, Andy served on the 1980 Board of The Daily Princetonian, on the editorial page staff.

Wallach's New Book "A Kosher Dating Odyssey" Gets Coverage in PAW, and More

Class Webmaster Van Wallach's new book, A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist's Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl, earned an online write-up in the weekly blog section of the Princeton Alumni Weekly on May 4. PAW summarized the book this way:

Raised a Southern Baptist, Wallach slowly began to question his beliefs and was drawn to his parents’ Jewish heritage and later to the women who embodied it. In this humorous memoir that explores the search for faith and love, he looks at the challenges of dating as an ex-Baptist Jewish intellectual single man.

Wallach also did a Q&A with the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, focusing on his family background and insights into the many ups and downs of baby boomer dating.  In it, he touches on his experiences of transitioning from small-town Texas to Princeton, noting:

I found myself always drawn to Jewish women, whom I described as “smart, vulnerable and shtetl-lovely.” I never had any interest in seriously seeking a relationship with non-Jewish women – quite a change from my upbringing, because I didn’t know ANY Jews outside my own family until I arrived at Princeton University in 1976.

The book has a strong connection to the Class of 1980, as the book was published by Coffeetown Press in Seattle, where Catherine Treadgold is the publisher, and classmates Cora Monroe and Steve Hughes contributed blurbs that are contained in the book.

Yadin Kaufmann Featured in Article About Investing in Palestinian Start-Ups

Yadin Kaufmann was featured in a New York Times "Dealbook" article today about how his Veritas Venture Partners is investing in Palestinian start-up companies. The article says,

Mr. Kaufmann, a lawyer by training, has worked with international technology companies over his last 25 years as a venture capitalist. He has had a long-standing relationship with Cisco since the company acquired Class Data Systems, a Veritas investment.

Working with a Palestinian partner, Kaufmann has raised $28.7 million to invest in companies in Palestinian territories.

Amy Myers Jaffe to Speak at NY Times Energy Conference

Amy Myers Jaffe will be speaking at the New York Times's Energy for Tomorrow Conference: Fueling a New Global Economy. It will be held April 11 at the the Times Center at 242 W. 41st Street in New York. The event will bring together 400 leaders from the energy sector and related industries, as well as policy makers, to debate the principal challenges and opportunities in meeting the world’s energy needs. The all-day conference will include debates, panel discussions, keynote addresses, case studies and brainstorming sessions.

Jaffe will be on the closing panel discussion, on the topic of "Counting the Cost." Panelists will consider if there is a way to promote renewables that doesn’t require subsidies. Some countries have traditionally offered substantial subsidies to encourage the use of alternative energies, but this process may not be sustainable long term. What role should governments play in promoting renewable energy, and what is required of companies seeking to deliver renewable energy into the marketplace?

The conference program has this description of Jaffe:

Amy Myers Jaffe is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies and director of the Energy Forum at the Baker Institute, as well as associate director of the Rice Energy Program. Jaffe’s research focuses on oil geopolitics, strategic energy policy including energy science policy and energy economics. Jaffe was formerly senior editor and Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. She is widely published and served as co-editor of “Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future” (Palgrave, 2002) and “Natural Gas and Geopolitics: From 1970 to 2040” (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and as co-author of “Oil, Dollars, Debt and Crises: The Global Curse of Black Gold” with Mahmoud A. El-Gamal (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Jaffe also contributed to Foreign Policy’s “21 Solutions to Save the World” (May/June 2007).

She served as a member of the reconstruction and economy working group of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group, as project director for the Baker Institute/Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Strategic Energy Policy, and as a principal adviser to USAID’s project on “Options for Developing a Long Term Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry.”

She currently serves as a strategic adviser to the American Automobile Association (AAA) of the United States and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Jaffe was among the Key Women in Energy-Americas honorees in the Pathfinders/Trailblazers category (2004), the honoree for Esquire’s annual 100 Best and Brightest in the contribution to society category (2005), Elle magazine’s Women for the Environment (2006), and was named to Who’s Who in America (2008).

Jaffe is a Princeton University graduate with a degree in Arabic studies.

Florence Hudson Speaks at TEDxNJIT Event

Florence Hudson spoke on March 23 at the TEDxNJIT Conference at the New Jersey Institute of Technology campus in Newark. The theme of the event was Sustainability on a Smarter Planet. There were about 100 people in attendance, Mike Ehrlich *87 (Princeton PhD Economics 1987) was one of the organizers from NJIT, and the live stream on the Internet had people from 21 states and 14 countries watching live. The photo above shows Erhlich, Hudson and Tom Blum '80.

Here's what TED is:

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. At TED, the world's leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring in Long Beach, California (along with a parallel conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Princeton Club of Chicago to Honor David Chandler

David Chandler will be presented with the Arnold M. Berlin '46 Distinguished Service to Princeton Award on April 17 by the Princeton Club of Chicago at its annual dinner. The event will be held at the University Club of Chicago at 76 East Monroe Street. A cocktail reception is at 5:30 pm, followed by dinner at 6:30 pm. The event features Jeffery A. Smisek '76, S77, P09, the President and CEO of United Continental Holdings, Inc. In addition to David, the Club will also honor Heather Steans '85 with its Distinguished Service to the Community Award.

The Club notes about Dave:

Dave Chandler joined William Blair & Company in 1987 from Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. At William Blair, he partnered with others to build the firm’s merchant banking capabilities, ultimately known as William Blair Capital Partners. In 2004, the team leading William Blair Capital Partners established Chicago Growth Partners (“CGP”) to pursue its growth-oriented buyout strategy on an independent basis. Since 2004 David has served as Managing Partner and Co-Founder of CGP. Dave received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA from Princeton University.

In addition to numerous current and past directorships, he currently serves as Board Chair of The Golden Apple Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring, developing and supporting teacher excellence in Illinois, especially in schools of need. David lives in Northfield, IL with his wife Liz and four children, three of whom have left the family “nest.”

Doug McGrath Film Featured in Spanish Newspaper Promotion

Steve Hughes passes along this update from the world of global cross-media cinema marketing:

The Spanish national daily newspaper El Mundo has an offer (one of several) for subscribers to its digital platform Orbyt.es, consisting of a DVD of an auteur film a day. This week, one of the films is… Doug McGrath's Infamous. He's in good company this week, too, such as David Lynch and François Truffaut. Not bad!

Here's a link to the offer this week's offer. Infamous is the first from the left, under its Spanish title, although the DVD has both the original English and the dubbed Spanish version.

http://www.orbyt.es/estaticas/promociones/2012/02/cine_autor/index.html

Bob Bradley, Coach of Egyptian National Soccer Team, Featured in Princetonian Articles

Classmate Bob Bradley finds himself in the center of world-historic happenings these days because of his passion for soccer. Formerly the head of the U.S. soccer team, Bradley was named the head of Egypt's men's soccer team in September 2011. In February of this year, a riot at an Egyptian soccer match left scores dead. Bob's decision to take part in a memorial march led to wide press attention, including a dramatic feature article and a Q&A interview in the Daily Princetonian. In the interview, asked about the factors that led him to the march, Bob said,

The morning after the tragedy, when I spoke to Zak Abdel, Zak is a friend of mine, he was with the U.S. team the last five or six years as goalkeeper coach. The morning after me, Zak and the assistant coach El Sahed spoke about what happened. I asked them for different opinions. When Zak and I talked more about it, we went back where I live, and my wife was there. At that point, he had gotten word from somebody that there was going to be a rally in Sphinx Square. We all agreed at that time that it was important to show respect to those who lost their lives and show respect to their families, and that it was important to be with the people at that moment. I’ve said it many times: The people in Egypt are very warm, they’re very proud. They’re proud of their culture, they’re proud of their history, and of course they’re very, very proud of their football. I say football only because here that’s what they call it. They’re very proud of their football, and they’re passionate, and in a country where there’s so much passion for football, it’s incredibly sad that a group of young people would lose their lives at a football match. We all felt it was important to be in Sphinx Square with the people and make sure that in a simple way we were showing our respect.

Classmate Dariush Arasteh has passed away

Classmate Dariush Arasteh, an efficient windows expert in the Environmental Energy Technologies Department at the , passed away on February 3 after an eight-year battle with cancer. He was 51 years old. A 30-year veteran of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Arasteh was involved in all aspects of research on energy-efficient windows, with a focus on the development and experimental analysis of highly insulating “superwindows,” creating a suite of computer tools to analyze window-heat transfer, leading industry to develop a rating system for the thermal performance of windows. The windows research led to other innovations such as the development, patenting and licensing of gas-filled panel insulation.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday March 3rd at 2 pm at St. John’s Presbyterian Church located at 2727 College Avenue in Berkeley, California. To see a memorial page and post memories of Dariush, click here.

Dariush leaves his wife Nancy Hendrickson and son Jasper Arasteh, his sister Roya Arasteh as well as his extended family in the United States including his uncle and aunt Dr. Ahmad and Mrs. Mahin Arasteh, and his cousins Nahid, Mashid, and Megan Arasteh all of Safety Harbor Florida, cousin Bibi Arasteh and her husband Osama Othman of McLean, Virginia; as well as a worldwide network of friends and colleagues. For information about the memorial service or memorial gifts, email remember.dariush@gmail.com.

Robert Klitzman Publishes New Book on Genetic Testing

Robert Klitzman, MD, will speak at the New York Academy of Medicine on February 28 as part of the release of his new book, "Am I My Genes? Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing." The presentation will be at 1216 Fifth Avenue and starts at 6 p.m. The NYAM website says of the topic:

Genetics is rapidly enhancing our understanding and treatment of disease, but presents ever new dilemmas for physicians and patients. Countless people wrestle with fear and apprehension about whether to get tested, and if so, what they should do with the information. In his new book, psychiatrist Robert Klitzman explores how individuals confront these complex issues in their daily lives. He has interviewed a wide range of people who are at risk for various genetic diseases, and grapple with whether to get tested; to whom to disclose their genetic risks (spouses, parents, employers, physicians); what treatments to pursue; whether to have children, knowing that genetic diseases may be inherited; and to what degree and how our genes may shape our destiny. These difficult ethical and sometimes metaphysical questions are also embedded in intricate social contexts--the family, the clinic, and the world at large. Klitzman's gripping presentation of the human face of these new tests is important and compelling. These patients--and often their doctors--are pioneers in whose paths most of us will eventually follow.

Bob will also be speaking on the topic on Sunday, March 4 at the Guggenheim Museum.

Cato Laurencin Takes Part in Healthcare Discussion

Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences recently spoke with four alumni, including our own Cato Laurencin, about the future of health. Cato is the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Connecticut and member of the National Academy of Engineering. Cato commented,

The elimination of health disparities in the United States, especially those based upon race and ethnicity, is a major challenge. I applaud the fact that the National Institutes of Health has launched a new initiative dedicated to minority health and health disparities. By the year 2050 (maybe sooner) ethnic minorities in American will be in the majority. The issues contributing to disparities in health care -- environment, racism, genetics -- need to be studied; solutions need to be proposed and tested.

The comments can be found in the winter 2012 edition of EQuad News, which had as its theme "exploring the intersection between engineering and health."

Big Hollywood Interviews Doug McGrath About His Documentary "His Way"

Doug McGrath discusses his documentary about Hollywood film producer-concert promoter-manager-philantropist-entrepreneur Jerry Weintraub in a two-part interview at the website Big Hollywood. Interviewer Kevin Williams writes,

Weintraub first managed musical acts ranging from The Four Seasons to The Moody Blues, then promoted artists such as Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Kiss, Aerosmith and Queen. He also promoted the “comeback” tours for Elvis Presley, then Frank Sinatra. Weintraub’s movie producing credits include “Nashville,” “Oh God!,” “Diner,” “Cruising,” “The Karate Kid,” “National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation,” “The Karate Kid” (2010), and the 2001 remake of “Ocean’s Eleven,” as well as “Ocean’s 12″ and “Ocean’s 13.” He appeared in all the “Ocean” films as well as “The Firm.”

“His Way” is the first documentary feature film directed by Douglas McGrath. McGrath is an actor/writer/director whose past directing credits include “Emma,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” “Infamous,” and “I Don’t Know How She Does It.” In my opinion, “His Way” is pound for pound and frame for frame the most entertaining and inspirational documentary of this past year. “His Way” was shot and edited for nearly ten months and culled from approximately seventy hours of interview footage.

"His Way is available on Netflix, along with Doug's other works.

Adam Bellow Nurtures Broadside Books for Conservative Thinkers

The Washington Post kicked off 2012 with a long feature on Adam Bellow in its January 1 Style section. The article focused on Adam's imprint at HarperCollins, Broadside Books, which follows on his work with independent thinkers such as Dinesh D'Souza, Jonah Goldberg and Charles Murray. The article says of e-books published by Broadside,

One author is Milton R. Wolf, a Kansas physician and distant cousin to President Obama who opposes his health-care plan. He wrote “First, Do No Harm.” Another is Dallas tea party leader Lorie Medina, who wrote “Community Organizing for Conservatives.”Sales have been “modest,” Bellow says. The health-care pamphlet had been the best-selling, at 500 copies, until a satiric offering by Frank J. Fleming titled “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything” sold 2,300 copies in its first week. Starting this month, Broadside will add longer works, called e-originals and running 20,000 to 30,000 words, to the series. First out of the blocks: “The New Quislings: How the International Left Used the Oslo Massacre to Silence Debate About Islam,” by Bruce Bawer.

In explaining the impetus behind the project, Adam noted,

“There is zero fresh air coming from the left. There is more genuine intellectual ferment on the right. Conservatives are better educated, if only to know what the left is saying and how to defend themselves.”