Results from Class Colloquium 19:  How We Fix Climate Change

Results from Class Colloquium 19: How We Fix Climate Change

Our presenter, Wayne Willis, called on his experience as a tech entrepreneur and a leader of Citizens’ Climate Lobby-Nevada to offer a framework for understanding how humanity can successfully address the causes of climate change.  His thesis, called “The EcoTech Synthesis,” observes that: Reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires CleanTech to replace DirtyTech…

Victor Danielsen Norman, September 20, 2024
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Victor Danielsen Norman, September 20, 2024

Here is an obituary crafted by some of Victor’s academic colleagues and published in Centre for Economic Policy Research earlier this month.   See other tributes on X and other platforms. Victor Danielsen Norman passed away on 20 September after a long battle with cancer. For almost 50 years he was a leading figure in the…

What Croesus and Steve Schwarzman Want From Trump

What Croesus and Steve Schwarzman Want From Trump

Editor’s Note: Yale1969.org is not a bulletin board for proselytizing one’s opinions, but we do want to highlight when classmates’ positions enter the public discussion.  In this post, Jim Sleeper comments on an article in the Financial Times inquiring why certain US billionaires are strongly supporting President Trump … and featuring our own Steve Schwarzman.

Jim writes, “You might well think that I’ve had my say about Steve Schwarzman by now, and I do wish that someone else would take up the torch of remonstrance and dissent. Financial Times writer and American editor Edward Luce has done that today (October 23, 2024) in ‘What Croesus Wants from Trump.’”

Class Colloquium 19:  How we fix climate change – Oct. 24, 4 pm ET

Class Colloquium 19: How we fix climate change – Oct. 24, 4 pm ET

The central chapter of Wayne’s forthcoming book is a framework outlining HOW a climate crisis can be avoided … and what YOU can do today to make a huge difference. This Zoom meeting will share that model and highlight why NOW is a critical time:  You see, regardless of the election outcome, there is a time window in November and December to pass one law (ready for a vote now!) and another window in 2025 to enact a different one (that is being developed)!

Both pieces of legislation are bipartisan, both are incredibly impactful and neither is assured of Congressional action without your support.  Congress will need to hear your voice … a strong voice empowered with your understanding of how and why the legislation is necessary.

Register here

 

Life Magazine profiled our 1969 Commencement

Life Magazine profiled our 1969 Commencement

Life Magazine published an article in June of 1969 entitled “The Class of ’69 – With eloquent defiance, top students protest right through commencement.”   It reported on the campus unrest then roiling on campuses, including Yale. 

The speeches and remarks from student leaders, speaking at commencement and other formal assemblies were included verbatim.  Rebuttals from adult leaders of the day were also quoted. Our own Mac Thompson was featured, with Life commenting …

Ted Snow’s new book: The Sixth Element: How Carbon Shapes Our World
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Ted Snow’s new book: The Sixth Element: How Carbon Shapes Our World

Ted Snow announced his new book, published just after our reunion, with customary humor: “There are a few benefits of having a stroke, which I did several years ago – like good parking spaces and getting special treatment at the airport – but I don’t recommend it. However, a few good things came out of it: Time to copy and organize of a lifetime’s worth of photos, and writing a book, The Sixth Element: How Carbon Shapes Our World.

The following Amazon blurb summarizes the contents and offers a preview of the book. Ted’s other personal update is included below that.

Open for business: Reed Hundt’s Coalition for Green Capital gets $5.1 billion for lending programs

Open for business: Reed Hundt’s Coalition for Green Capital gets $5.1 billion for lending programs

If you’ve been following developments in green banking, you might remember the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed in August 2022. That landmark legislation opened the door for funding Reed Hundt’s Coalition for Green Capital.  See “Reed Hundt’s Coalition For Green Capital Wins Major Victory,” April, 2024.  

Well, the funding finally arrived last month.  $5.1 billion dollars!

Reed has been passionately advocating for this initiative for over 15 years. It’s great to see a successful milestone achieved. Click thru to see how he’ll spend the money and what’s coming next.

Philip Roger Garvin, September 5, 2024

Philip Roger Garvin, September 5, 2024

Below, we reprint the full story that appeared yesterday in Sport Video Group News.  The only other recent mention of Phil online is a story from June when he “stepped upstairs” to Chairman of his business, Mobile TV Group, and named his son Nick as CEO.

You may enjoy this story he told in his 50th Reunion Essay about how he got his start in film and production.  My limited experience with Phil was that he could artfully create a great narrative.  I only wish he’d shared a bit more. There was a nice profile of Phil printed in his hometown Denver Post in 2016.  He briefly touches on how he created a book in 1973 — “Religious America” — that later became a PBS series.  In 1983, he became managing producer of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and moved to Denver to start its western production center.  The profile covers later chapters in Phil’s like, like how he and Mark Cuban created HDNet.

Donald Marc Lewis, July 20, 2024

Donald Marc Lewis, July 20, 2024

Terri Lewis, Don’s wife, reports that Don passed away on July 20, 2024.  Services will be held on July 23rd at 3:00 pm at the Jewish Funeral Chapel in Bangor, ME.

After Yale, Don went on to MIT, where he graduated with a Masters in Architecture in 1973.  As he reported in his 50th Reunion Essay: “After Yale, I got my architecture degree from MIT, married, worked in Boston for a while, then moved to Maine. We thought we’d do a lot of camping and canoeing for a year or two, then move somewhere more sensible. We’re still here 45 years later. Along with work, served on several community boards and 6 years as board member then president of the Maine Humanities Council. Was involved for over 30 years with the men’s movement and several groups that met monthly for 30 years.”

In 1983, Don co-founded Lewis+Malm Architecture with a partner, Rick Malm.  He sold his interest in the firm to an employee in 2016, after …

Robert Michael Williams, July 18, 2024

Robert Michael Williams, July 18, 2024

From his wife, Ellen: “Dr. Robert Michael Williams aka Dr. R. Michael Williams untimely passed away on July 18, 2024.  Instead of winning the Nobel Prize for his lifetime work, he died unexpectedly.

“He is one of those unsung heroes, well known in the scientific community, without whom the modern world would not exist.  To summarize a fulfilling, exciting and productive life of a gifted humanitarian who shared his profound talent and intellectual achievements unselfishly with family, friends, colleagues and patients requires a proper biographical text.  He was a rare individual with laudable accomplishments who, without being pretentious, carried himself with precise dignity and professionalism with an absolutely profound knowledge of immunology and the biology of cancer. 

“Dr. Williams was the proud and only child of Mr. Robert Arvel Williams and Mrs. Eva Mae Williams.  As a loving child of …

Calling All ’69ers who were in the Yale 5-Year BA Program or took a “Gap” year

Calling All ’69ers who were in the Yale 5-Year BA Program or took a “Gap” year

As members of the first group of “Fivers,” Tim Weiskel and Mark McCormick are reaching out to any Yalie in the 5-Year B.A. program — or who took a “gap year” of their own design — and inviting them to a Zoom meeting with kindred souls on Thursday, 26 September 2024 at 4 PM Eastern Time.

Register Here

Read the article for details and/or how to stay in touch with the group even if you can’t make the Zoom meeting.

Trial by Zoom – A trial lawyer’s view

Trial by Zoom – A trial lawyer’s view

Editor’s Note:  A trial lawyer in New York City, Bill Beslow has represented many famous, wealthy and powerful people at intensely personal times. In this essay, Bill expounds on how the Zoom Freeze, the Zoom Drop, barking dogs, technical issues and other Zoom Glitchs require radical adjustment of the structure and style of trial practice.

Attorneys in our class will appreciate Bill’s insights; others might enjoy this peek into how attorneys prepare and conduct direct and cross examinations and the extensive, detailed analogies to classical music and dance.

Jim Porter lands NSF grant to continue studying corals

Jim Porter lands NSF grant to continue studying corals

Jim Porter is a retired professor of Ecology at the University of Georgia, and the National Science Foundation just did something highly unusual: It funded a research grant to continue his studies on coral reefs in the Florida Keys.

Jim is unaware of anyone else who has received an “Individual Investigator” grant from NSF in retirement. His best guess about this accomplishment is this:  Because his long-term work is so timely in assessing the future of coral reefs, NSF and its expert panel of external reviewers decided to fund it regardless of the age or retirement status of its investigator.

New novel from Matt Flynn: Hunting Bernie Weber
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New novel from Matt Flynn: Hunting Bernie Weber

As Amazon explains:  “Our math genius, Bernie Weber, is a high school student in Milwaukee who has the ability to deduce the prime factors of any large number. (FYI: modern cryptology is based on using large prime numbers, which computers cannot extract when they are used in encoded messages).

When Bernie performs as “Pryme Knumber” in a math circus at a Milwaukee college, an intelligence officer in the audience realizes the value of his innate ability and informs the CIA of this potential human resource. They test Bernie to see if his ability is authentic and decide to give him a thumb drive with an encoded message to crack. By mistake, they give him a top-secret message they have intercepted but have not been able to decipher….