Smithsonian articles from December 2003

Smithsonian archives from December 2003

American bounty.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... For a week this past may, more than 25,000 photographers--amateurs and professionals alike--set out across the United States to document daily life in all its astonishing variety. They'd been enticed by the prospect of contributing to a project...

This month in history: December anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... 150 YEARS AGO: FINISHING TOUCH U.S. minister to Mexico James Gadsden and Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna sign the Gadsden Purchase December 30, 1853, in Mexico City. The treaty gives the United States 29,000 square miles, in...

Little shop around the Coroner: the Los Angeles County morgue sells ghoulish souvenirs for a good cause.(Points Of Interest)
December 1, 2003... Gift shops and I don't usually get along. They want my money, and I want to be amused by something I haven't seen a hundred times. This is not a problem at Skeletons in the Closet, an emporium of one-of-a-kind items designed to tickle my funny...

To catch a thief: when biologists study food theft among endangered roseate terns, they find that crime most definitely pays.
December 1, 2003... Patrolling the june skies above Long Island Sound's tiny Falkner Island, one roseate tern spies another flying 15 feet below with a fish in its beak. The first bird dives, grabs the fish and repairs to a nearby pebbly beach to feed its chicks....

Jazzed about Roy Haynes: a robust 78, one of the greatest drummers of all time still riffs up a storm and wows fellow musicians.
December 1, 2003... You may not have heard of Roy Haynes, but you have almost certainly heard him. In nearly 60 years as a jazz drummer, Haynes has appeared on some 600 recordings, many of them classics. With Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie on 1951's stirring...

The elusive Marc Chagall: with his wild and whimsical imagery, the Russian-born artist bucked the trends of 20th-century art.
December 1, 2003... David mcneil fondly remembers the day in the early 1960s his father took him to a little bistro on Paris' Ile St. Louis, the kind of place where they scrawl the menu in white letters on the mirror behind the bar, and masons, house painters,...

Our man in Karbala: coming to terms with Shiite beliefs.(Editor's Note)(Andrew Cockburn)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... In October, Andrew Cockburn spent two hectic weeks in Iraq reporting our story on the Shiites ("Iraq's Oppressed Majority," p. 98), members of the diverse Muslim sect that may well hold the key to the nation's future. He was interviewing a...

Taking wing: from the Wright brothers' breakthrough 100 years ago this month to the latest robot jets, the past century has been shaped by the men and women who got us off the ground.(A Century Of Flight)(Cover Story)
December 1, 2003... As an air force test pilot, Lt. Col. Dawn Dunlop has flown dozens of different airplanes, from the nimble F-15E Strike Eagle fighter to the massive C-17 transport jet to the Russian MIG-21. Stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, she's part of the...

Hold everything! The Enterprise. The Blackbird. The Enola Gay. A vast new Smithsonian facility outside Washington, D.C. opens December 15, with scores of restored aircraft and spacecraft, many on display for the first time.(A Century Of Flight)(Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center)
December 1, 2003... Lars McLamore and Samantha Gallagher are standing on the wings of a Focke Wulf 190, a German World War II fighter. They peer under the forward engine cowlings, searching for a place to attach straps so a crane can hoist the airplane onto a...

Too hot to handle: taken at the start of his multifaceted career, Gordon Parks' photograph of a Washington, D.C. worker was so inflammatory it was buried for decades.(Indelible Images)
December 1, 2003... When gordon parks arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1942, he was 29 years old, with a past defined by his black skin and a future in his camera bag. He was starting out as a professional photographer, and his first shot was American Gothic,...

Princess of the church.(Just Looking)(Cardinals)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Princes of the Church New cardinals embrace October 21 in Vatican City after their induction into the College of Cardinals by 83-year-old Pope John Paul II, who celebrated his 25th year as pope October 16. Selected from 22 countries, including...

Dear Santa: the world's most heartfelt wishes find their way to a post office near Rovaniemi, Finland.(The Last Page)
December 1, 2003... One january afternoon, with snow falling thickly, I traveled by bus from Rovaniemi, Finland, a few miles north to Santa Claus Village. I had wanted to go there ever since I heard the village had a post office. I was touched to imagine children...

Dubai development.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... The tolerance that Dubai is said to exhibit for other cultures ("Dazzling Dubai") is, in my opinion, subverted by its extreme materialism. Instead of admiring Dubai's achievements, I see a society devoted to exploring and exploiting the sensual...

Last word on Obits.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... Reading richard conniff's article about obituary writers ("Dead Lines"), I was reminded of my favorite death notice, which appeared in London's Spectator, the world's longest continually published magazine. (It was founded in 1828.) A famously...

Stanley's short comings.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... "Stanley meets livingstone" almost grudgingly acknowledges that Stanley "besmirched his reputation by accepting money from King Leopold II of Belgium to help create the Congo Free State"--as if accepting money were the worst of his moral...

Blair's bravery.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... Peter stothard's fawning over the "brave" Tony Blair, the U.K.'s prime minister ("Tony Blair Goes to War"), seems like propaganda. A year ago, Blair told Parliament: "Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed...

Draw! A richly detailed scrapbook assembled by a 19th-century illustrator offers a fresh look at some of the West's most colorful characters.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian museums and beyond)
December 1, 2003... There sits lawman Wild Bill Hickok--a rifle propped against his left leg, his mustache hanging lankily over the corners of his mouth. And scout Kit Carson Jr., a penetrating gaze issuing from beneath the broad and sweeping brim of his hat. And...

From the attic.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian museums and beyond)(Wilbur and Orville Wright recognized)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Wrighting Past Wrongs It took decades, but on October 24, 1942, the Smithsonian finally apologized to Orville Wright and acknowledged that he and his brother Wilbur were the first to pilot a powered airplane. Now, Orville (Wilbur died in 1912)...

You've gotta be kidding: a world-famous collector of Japanese prints leaves an emperor-size surprise in his will.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian museums and beyond)
December 1, 2003... Among his friends, Bob Muller was known as a practical joker. Even so, Jim Ulak, chief curator at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, was stunned to get a call two weeks after Muller's April 10 death, informing him that his friend had bequeathed his...

Hurry in.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian museums and beyond)(Diana Walker Photojournalist exhibition)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... "Diana Walker Photojournalist," a 135-image retrospective of the work of the portraitist and Time magazine photog-rapher, closes at the National Museum of American History January 4. She's best known for documenting presidents and their...

Prize fight: Raymond Damadian refuses to take his failure to win a Nobel Prize, for a prototype MRI machine, lying down.(The Object At Hand)
December 1, 2003... Raymond damadian says he'll never forget that day in June 1970 when he drove from his New York laboratory--his car trunk jammed with cages of cancerous rats--to a little town near Pittsburgh. He was heading for an obscure company, NMR...

Tall Ships & Salty Dogs: Avast, Lubbers! How Hollywood's splashy Master and Commander draws on the amazing exploits of a true-life Royal Navy hero, re-created by an author with his own barnacled secret.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... From 1792, when France declared war on Austria because of its opposition to France's three-year-old revolutionary government, to 1815, when Emperor Napoleon, having conquered most of Europe, was finally defeated near the Belgian town of...

The real "sea wolf": the dash and courage of Thomas Cochrane, the Napoleonic era's nautical maverick, provides the spark behind the fictional Jack Aubrey.
December 1, 2003... Thomas cochrane had enjoyed a spectacular year, but now the jig was up--perhaps fatally. An untested lieutenant when he was given command of his first ship--the tiny brig Speedy, the British Navy's equivalent of a popgun--the rangy 25-year-old,...

Master Storyteller: Patrick O'Brian's briny novels, as teeming with life as a man-of-war, have charmed millions. But his most inventive tale was about himself.
December 1, 2003... It was a delicious dilemma. A new book in the series was just out. Did you snap it up at once, have a few hours of pure enjoyment, a brief and lovely time sailing with the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars on the far side of the world, under a...

Man of the hour: Master horologist John Metcalfe keeps on ticking.(People File)
December 1, 2003... Collectors bring John Metcalfe their rarest treasures. He disassembles each one at an elf's workbench while scores of clocks around the room chime the passing hours and the mighty computers of the world's financial giants whir in the tall...

Who was deep throat? An investigative reporter enlists his journalism students to help him solve Watergate's most intriguing puzzle.(Presence Of Mind)
December 1, 2003... After 36 years as a full-time reporter at the Chicago Tribune, I retired in 1999 to teach journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During that first semester, as the students searched for an investigative project to tackle,...

A century's roar and buzz: thanks to an immigrant's generosity, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center opens its massive doors to the public.(From the Secretary)
December 1, 2003... Steven Udvar-Hazy did not actually leave the ground when he first felt the release of flight. The year was 1953, he was 7 years old, and his parents had taken him to a military air show in their native Hungary, then occupied by the Soviets....

Iraq's oppressed majority: for nearly a century, the nation's 15 million Shiite Muslims have been denied access to political power. How their demands are met in the months to come could well determine Iraq's future.
December 1, 2003... Karbala, 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, is usually no more than a 90-minute drive through an increasingly green landscape of date palms, eucalyptus trees and reeds watered by the nearby Euphrates. But for most of a week this past October, the...

Lewis gets his marching orders: Jefferson spells out the mission.(Lewis and Clark)
December 1, 2003... Over the next several months Smithsonian plans to run excerpts from the journals of the members of the Corps of Discovery, better known as the Lewis and Clark expedition, and other documents. We begin this month with Jefferson's June 20, 1803,...