Matthew Goodman’s acclaimed new book, “The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York,” tells the stranger-than-fiction story of Benjamin Day, a 23-year-old printer and founder of the New York Sun in 1833. The first newspaper sold by newsboys on the streets, had a 1-cent price that attracted working-class readers to its tales of “man-bats,” unicorns and other creatures that allegedly lived on the moon. “It all seems perfectly incredible to us now, but nine out of 10 New Yorkers believed these accounts,” said Goodman, whose book was chosen by The Economist as one of the best books of 2008. In a talk sponsored by the Gotham Center History Forum at the CUNY Graduate Center, Goodman discussed his work and read from his book.
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Blue Note Records, the legendary jazz label whose catalog includes such musical giants as Sidney Bechet, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, jazz critic Gary Giddins, a visiting lecturer at the Graduate Center, brought together Bruce Lundvall, Blue Note’s CEO for the past 25 years and Joe Lovano, the label’s talented tenor saxophonist and composer, to reflect on Blue Note’s success and what’s in store for the music industry. “I see the future as finding the right artist, making the right records and keeping the credibility,” said Lundvall, who extended the label’s reach, signing non-jazz artists including Norah Jones and Anita Baker. “This music has a brilliant future.”
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Prescription drugs can treat children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but, says Dr. Jeffrey Halperin, much more can be done. “Environmental enrichment, as well as physical exercise, improves brain growth,” said Dr. Halperin, Queens College distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Queens College Preschool Project, a federally funded research lab that works that examines the interplay of biology and environment on preschoolers. Dr. Halperin discussed his work in the final lecture of the Serving Science Cafe series, “Thinking Outside the Jack-in-the-Box: Novel Approaches to the Treatment of ADHD.”
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Her muse is the group of childhood photos of herself that she keeps on her desk. “There is something about that little girl within (me) that I felt I could never disappoint,” said Hettie Cohen Jones, whose first poetry collection, “Drive,” was honored by the Poetry Society of America in 1997. The author of “How I Became Hettie Jones,” (1990), a memoir of the Greenwich Village beat scene of the 1950s and 1960s when she was married to the poet LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), discussed her life and read her poetry at an event co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America and the Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation.
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Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson was so convinced Wall Street was about to collapse, he wrote “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (2008), which argues that every bubble bursts, and now it’s the U.S. economy’s turn. “Americans have gone from a culture of thrift to one of debt, ” Ferguson said at a Hunter College talk moderated by WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. Economist Jeff Madrick, a visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, countered: “People have had to borrow a lot to make ends meet, and it will become much deeper if we don’t take on more debt.” The event was co-sponsored by the Aspen Institute and Roosevelt House.
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Forensic DNA expert John M. Butler says there are many more applications for DNA “typing” today than when it was first introduced in the mid-1980s. “We are constantly finding new ways to use DNA testing,” said Butler, a pioneer in the field and author of the seminal textbook Forensic DNA Typing: Biology, Technology, and Genetics of STR Markers. As a forensic tool, it has helped convict criminals, free the innocent and identify the faceless, including 9/11 attack victims and deceased military personnel. “Because of DNA testing, there will be no more unknown soldiers,” Butler said at the Louis Levine-Gabriella de Beer Lecture at City College. A research fellow and group leader of applied genetics at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, he detailed DNA testing advances in “Beyond CSI: Exciting Applications of Forensic DNA.”
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Overnight, the video clip of Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle went viral. More than 30 million people watched her “Britain’s Got Talent” TV performance, on YouTube alone. Digital marketing leaders want advertisers to use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to sell their products to similar-sized audiences. “The primary gateway to content and branded content will be search and social networks.” says Steve Rubel, senior VP of Insights for Edelman Digital. “We need to make sure what we’re creating is relevant and discoverable…we’re redefining how we do public relations.” Rubel was joined by panelists Peter Himler, founder of Flatiron Communications; social media strategist Howard Greenstein, and Les Blatt, former editor/producer for ABC News, and others, at a Baruch College conference, “Yes We Can: Going Viral in a Social Marketing World.”
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Often defined as “holy war” or “just war,” jihad actually means “struggle” or “striving in the path of Allah,” according to Kristina Richardson, professor of Islamic history at Queens College. “Fighting and warfare are central things found in the Koran, but jihad itself does not have that same meaning,” she said. “These are misuses of the Koran and should not have been applied to modern Jews and Christians.” In a lecture at Queens College, “Myths and Realities of Jihad,” Prof. Richardson examines the theological debates surrounding “greater” and “lesser” jihads and the rise of a new jihad by current-day Muslim extremists.
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Harlem surpasses the rest of the city by more than 25% in cancer deaths, according to a city Department of Health study. A new federal collaboration between City College and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hopes to address that disparity. “Our focus is to go into the community and find out what the issues are and then try to strategize with them,” said Karen Hubbard, a City College biology professor and co-director of the Partnership for Cancer Research, Training and Community Outreach. “It’s very hard for women to go to the clinic for mammographies, even though they know they should, because they can’t take a day off from work.” Hubbard says the project, funded by a $15.9 million grant from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute, aims to educate residents about cancer screenings and choosing healthy lifestyles.
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Six years after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the debate over the war’s true intentions and management continues. Thomas Ricks, former senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post and bestselling author of the 2006 book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, calls the invasion “the biggest mistake in American foreign policy history” and says he fears another Saddam Hussein is waiting in the wings. “It had nothing to do with the ‘War on Terror’ and I worry that, what we wind up with is a smarter, tougher version of Saddam Hussein,” said Ricks at the Great Issues Forum at the Graduate Center. He joined retired U.S. Army four-star general Barry McCaffrey; Alex de Waal, program director of the Social Science Research Council in New York, and moderator Thomas Weiss, political science professor at the Graduate Center, in a discussion of the repercussions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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