Author: Admin

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

    ByAdmin

    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

    ByAdmin

    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

    ByAdmin

    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

    ByAdmin

    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

    ByAdmin

    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 …

  • Trial by Zoom – A trial lawyer’s view

    ByAdmin
    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

    ByAdmin

    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.

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    New novel from Matt Flynn: Hunting Bernie Weber

    ByAdmin

    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….

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    Michael and Maureen Folz release several new songs

    ByAdmin

    Michael and Maureen are using their new editing / mixing equipment to perfect some new songs, which are publishing-ready.  (Watch for it on Spotify!)   Here are two of the latest recordings.  Check ’em out:

    See also
    More original music from Michael and Maureen”
    and
    “Re-releasing your music using new digital editing tools”

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    Daniel Duke’s latest novel: Pursuit of Happiness

    ByAdmin

    Dr. Daniel Duke, a professor emeritus at UVa, released a new novel, Pursuit of Happiness, in late June.  It joins two earlier novels — Man Camp (2022) and River of Dreams (2023).  His author profile explains that “his novels address important issues, ranging from what it means to be a man in the 21st century to whether pursuing happiness is worth the effort.” The Amazon “blurb” for The Pursuit of Happiness gives a peek into…

  • The Transformative Experience of Nature

    ByAdmin
    Editor’s Note: Chris Hoffman recently published the following essay and offers it to classmates for both enjoyment and feedback.

    When priest and earth scholar Thomas Berry was about ten years old, he had a transformative experience upon seeing a certain meadow for the very first time. He says: the sight of that meadow in early May, “together with the sounds of the insects – the crickets, the birds – all of this somehow struck me in such a way that ever since then that meadow has become my norm of reality and value…If we don’t have certain outer experiences, we don’t have certain inner experiences or at least we don’t have them in such a profound way. We need the sun, the …

  • Reunion: Saturday Dinner

    ByAdmin

    The early birds started to party on Thursday evening. The delicious buffet on Friday was a great welcome for the arriving majority. But the Saturday Dinner was the true culinary apex of the weekend.

    The crowd happily visited with old friends, made trips to the bar and restrooms as needed, and stopped on the way to greet and catch way up with even more old friends.

    The music program was very different from prior reunions … and quite successful. And the formal parts of the evening were short and very sweet, with recognition …

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    Reunion: Miscellaneous Pictures

    ByAdmin

    Editor’s Note:This will be a spot where reunion attendees can contribute miscellaneous pictures — of close friends (as Derry does next), of meaningful places or activities they explored (as Brad does below) , or … basically ANY interesting, relevant pictures.

    We aren’t sure about the final layout yet — check out the Gallery so far. Then just send any of your pix to support@Yale1969.org!

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    Memorial Service Remembers Those Who’ve Passed

    ByAdmin

    The Class convened in Battell Chapel on Saturday afternoon to share remembrances of the 45 classmates who have passed away during the prior 5 years. The Rev. J. Douglas Ousley ’69 officiated. Eliot Norman and Dick Williams organized the musical portion of the program. Dan Seiver read off the names (see slides below, one per person) and attendees shared stories and memories of the deceased.

  • Reunion: Climate and Energy Panel

    ByAdmin

    Class Program

    A panel of ’69ers with some serious climate bona fides reported

    • results from the class survey on our views of climate change (Tom Guterbock),
    • a framework discussing timeframes for science, the public and the economy to react to the reality of a changing climate (Eugene Linden),
    • the latest scientific reports on the extent of the damage so far (Skip Hobbs) and
    • what we Boomers can do about (Wayne Willis).

    A robust discussion followed in the Q&A. Click through on the links and resources offered by the panel.

  • Norman Jakob Resnicow, May 4, 2024

    ByAdmin

    from Norman’s 50th Reunion Essay:

    “…. Beyond these headstrong episodes, I’ve realized what a lucky life has been granted me. After our parental generation’s 16 years of economic depression and world war (my mother’s family escaped Germany in 1939), I was born in the right place at the right time. It was a given our generation would advance and prosper beyond our parents. (Not a given now.)

    I had the luck to apply to Yale just when the Ivy League broadly opened up to boys of my background; to enter the law firm world just when top tier firms likewise opened up; and to begin practice when there was a fair shot to grab the prized partner ring. Timing does matter and, for me, has made a strong difference. …”