Smithsonian articles from October 2005

Smithsonian archives from October 2005

Entangling alliances: from Alaska to France, kindred spirits find common ground.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
October 1, 2005... ALTHOUGH THE TWO Native Alaskan groups who live closest to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) remain divided over whether drilling for oil should be permitted there--a question that the U.S. Congress plans to take up this fall--they...

Wealth of a nation: an exhibition of portraits from Latin America highlights the region's many contributions to U.S. cultural life.(From the SECRETARY)(Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits)
October 1, 2005... HISTORY TELLS the stories of people, and so do portraits. Through the windows of these works of art, we can observe its grand sweep--the heroic deeds of significant protagonists, the movers and shakers of the past, and also the strivings of men...

Dissenters disquieted.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... Readers respond to the August issue: J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER recommended using nuclear bombs against Japan to hasten the end of the war ("Building the Bomb"), but later said he regretted it. What is less well known is that he also squelched...

A war's end.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... I WAS IN TEARS reading through the stories about the end of the war ("It's Over!"). I couldn't help but think of my late father. He was in San Diego in the Navy in World War II, awaiting involvement in the first wave of the planned invasion of...

Alien invasion.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... I CHUCKLED AS I READ Ann Hodgman's gardening philosophy ("Give Weeds a Chance"), as it matches my own. I, too, learned that weeds are just wildflowers growing where someone doesn't want them, but they have a beauty all their own. Since people...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2005... Our piece about sharks ("Shark") mischaracterized the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. She was a heavy cruiser and was sunk in the western Pacific.

Where are they now? Buffy Sainte-Marie: folk singer/activist.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE, Native American folk singer and anti-Vietnam War activist, told the Los Angeles Times in October 1970 that Indian children "are not taught to be proud they're Indian. Here the melting pot stands with arms open--if you're...

Doonesbury.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Garry Trudeau's comic strip, Doonesbury, debuts in about two dozen newspapers October 26. Its witty, sometimes biting social and political commentary earns Trudeau a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1975, and in the same year fellow...

On October 24, Dr. Salvador Allende, a Marxist-Leninist, is elected president of Chile.(IN THE NEWS)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... On October 24, Dr. Salvador Allende, a Marxist-Leninist, is elected president of Chile. His socialist reforms and friendship with Fidel Castro strain relations with the United States, and at age 65, Allende dies in a 1973 coup d'etat led by...

Egypt's National Assembly.(IN THE NEWS)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Egypt's National Assembly nominates interim president Mohamed Anwar el-Sadat to succeed the late Gamal Abdel Nasser as president October 7. In a national referendum a week later, Sadat, who promises to take back parts of Israel for the...

The list: 1970 Tony awards.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Drama: Borstal Boy Musical: Applause Actor, Drama: Fritz Weaver, Child's Play Actress, Drama: Tammy Grimes, Private Lives Actor, Musical: Cleavon Little, Purlie Actress, Musical: Lauren Bacall, Applause Director,...

Comings & goings.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... BORN: Kelly Ripa, host/actor October 2 BORN: Matt Damon Actor, October 8 DIED: Janis Joplin, 27 Singer, October 4 DIED: John Scopes, 70 "Monkey Trial" defendant, October 21

New York Times.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)
October 1, 2005... "I'm happy I was able to take advantage of my visit to the United Nations to visit Disneyland too. Everybody was friendly, very friendly, and the relationship between American and Romanian people is quite good, too." --PRESIDENT NICOLAE...

Fashion faux paw: Richard Avedon's photograph of a beauty and the beasts was marred, he believed, by one failing.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
October 1, 2005... RICHARD AVEDON, who died last October while on assignment for the New Yorker, was never completely satisfied with his most famous fashion photograph. A few years ago, at the opening of a San Francisco exhibition of pictures he made for Harper's...

Oh deer! Contraception shows promise, but other measures may be needed to lessen the toll that the deer boom is having on forests and suburbs.(PHENOMENA & CURIOSITIES)
October 1, 2005... "PUT YOUR CHEST on the deer. Reach out and hold the legs. Never let go of the hooves." Bill McShea, a wildlife biologist at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., is instructing a handful of assistants in the art of subduing a wild...

Broad shoulders: when union leader Cesar Chavez organized the nation's farmworkers, he launched a movement that changed history.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
October 1, 2005... ANYONE WHO HAS EVER bought secondhand clothing--an activity these days for the chic as well as the shabby--knows that in a well-worn cashmere sweater or double-breasted tuxedo there remains some echo of the original owner's life and times,...

To some, sunglasses are a fashion accessory ... But when driving, these sunglasses may save your life!(Urgent: Special Autumn Driving Notice)
October 1, 2005... Drivers Alert: The sun is at its most dangerous position in the autumn months, creating difficult driving conditions at rush hour. Dangerous glare is at maximum levels when the sun is low in the sky. In the fall, this glare is at its worst...

Dive bomber: underwater archaeologists ready a crashed B-29 for visits by scuba-wearing tourists at the bottom of Lake Mead.(DIGS)
October 1, 2005... ON A BARGE IN LAKE MEAD, in Nevada, under a scorching sun, Dave Conlin pulled on long underwear, wool socks and a fleece jacket and pants. He donned an insulated drysuit over all that, strapped two scuba tanks to his back and slung another...

World's most valuable timepiece disappears.
October 1, 2005... Back in 1933, the single most important watch ever built was engineered for a quiet millionaire collector named Henry Graves. It took over three years and the most advanced horological technique to create the multifunction masterpiece. This one...

Dazzling digital color, 10.0 mega pixels, unbeatable price!
October 1, 2005... Super-advanced digital camera This camera has 3X the detail-resolution of many digital cameras. It takes astoundingly beautiful photographs-from a macro detail-shot of a flower up to an 8X digital zoom portrait to a distant panorama on...

Push to the Pacific: guided by the Nez Perce, the men and women of the corps reach the Columbia amid threats to their lives.(200 YEARS AGO THIS OCTOBER)
October 1, 2005... After a difficult crossing over the Bitterroot Mountains (the northern Rockies), the corps set up camp and began work on canoes to journey down the Snake River to the Columbia. (They lent their horses to the Nez Perce Indians.) From existing...

They shoot icebergs, don't they?(JUST LOOKING)
October 1, 2005... Chas Bishop takes aim at a drifting mass of frozen fresh water just off the northeastern coast of Newfoundland. Between May and August, several hunters like Bishop shoot weak sections of the frosty hunks into smaller one- to two-ton pieces,...

Unmasking George Washington: what did he look like before he became the elderly founding father known to all? Curators are turning to forensic science for clues to his lost youth.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
October 1, 2005... NOT EVEN GEORGE WASHINGTON is immune to the current makeover craze. But scholars hoping to overhaul his image--the tight-lipped bewigged old George we see on a dollar bill--drew a blank when they set out to portray him as a youth. The problem?...

How to clean a harpsichord (and other hints).(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... STORING PATCHWORK QUILTS in a cedar chest? Not the best idea, says Don Williams, a Smithsonian Institution furniture conservator and co-author of Saving Stuff (Simon and Schuster/Fireside). A chest isn't bug-proof, and cedar oils can stain...

Artistically yours: a book of artists' illustrated letters showcases the imperiled practice of handwritten correspondence.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
October 1, 2005... IN 1949, long before his Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe portraits made Andy Warhol the patriarch of Pop Art, he wrote a two-paragraph letter to an editor at Harper's magazine who had asked for a biography to accompany one of Warhol's...

This month in history: October anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.
October 1, 2005... 150 YEARS AGO: DARN TOOTIN' Massachusetts beekeeper J. C. Stoddard patents the calliope, October 9, 1855. Fond of the sound of locomotive whistles, Stoddard affixes 15 of them of varying sizes on a steam chest, with a music box cylinder to...

ANWR: the great divide; The renewed debate over drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge hits home for the two Native groups nearest the nature preserve.
October 1, 2005... "Hear that howling out there?" Charlie Swaney asked, cocking an ear and shifting the weight of the rifle slung on his shoulder. The cry of a lone wolf echoed in the distance. "That's a good sign. When there's wolf around, that means they're...

The dying of the Dead Sea: the ancient salt sea is the site of a looming environmental catastrophe.
October 1, 2005... GIDON BROMBERG is nervous. On a sweltering August afternoon, the Israeli environmental activist leads me along the shore of the Dead Sea, watching every step we take. Towering sandstone mesas loom above our heads; the saline lake extends like a...

Advertiser directory.(Directory)
October 1, 2005... Travel Great Escapes 1. Alaska Sternwheeler Crulses. 7 & 11-night cruises included shore excursions, live entertainment, fine dining and spacious staterooms. www.AmericanWestSteamboat.com 2. Arizona Office of Tourism. Arizona--The...

Love to travel? Love to learn? Take the Smithsonian on your next trip.
October 1, 2005... NORTH AMERICAN JOURNEYS CHRISTMAS IN ASHEVILLE December 21-26, 2005 Celebrate the yuletide in Asheville, featuring the extravagant Biltmore Estate Christmas festivities, the work of local craftspeople, and sumptuous holiday...

Matisse and his models: the author of a new biography of the artist argues that the women he painted were full partners in the creative enterprise.
October 1, 2005... IN SEPTEMBER 1940, less than three months after Paris had surrendered to Hitler's armies, artist Henri Matisse, stranded in Nice on the Mediterranean coast, sent a moving letter to his younger son, Pierre, in New York City, explaining why he...

Hiding in plain sight: a veteran photographer shows the extraordinary knack that some animals have for ... disappearing.(Art Wolfe)
October 1, 2005... THE WILDLIFE photographs that make us ooh and aah usually depict dramatic action. A lion digs its teeth into a zebra's neck, buffaloes stampede through a cloud of dust, a pair of cranes strut out a mating dance--we like our animals highlighted...

The glory that is Rome: thanks to renovations of its classical venues, the Eternal City has never looked better.
October 1, 2005... CLIMBING THE CAMPIDOGLIO, or Capitoline Hill, which has lured visitors to Rome since the days of the Caesars, still provides the best, most inspiring introduction to this dynamic city. This was the most sacred of antiquity's seven hills, and in...

Building a better banana: it is the world's No. 1 fruit, with millions of people dependent on it to stay alive. Now diseases threaten many varieties, prompting a search for new hybrids of "the smile of nature".
October 1, 2005... SLEET SLICES THROUGH THE SKY nearly sideways, propelled by Arctic blasts from the North Sea. I am in northern Belgium, wandering the grounds of a Baroque castle at the Catholic University of Leuven, about 15 miles northeast of Brussels. I am on...

People's choice: almost from birth, Andrew Jackson was in training to become democracy's champion.(PRESENCE OF MIND)(Brief Article)(Biography)
October 1, 2005... JOHN QUINCY ADAMS had seen this day coming for years. His only consolation was that he had helped postpone it till now. The son of the man he considered most responsible for American independence, Adams felt a peculiar responsibility for the...

This side of parodies: seventy-five years ago. A national icon was born the sendups started almost immediately.(PHOTO FINISH)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Perhaps no work by a U.S. painter has been parodied more than Grant Wood's American Gothic, which was unveiled in October 1930 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Many critics have said his version of rural life was itself darkly satirical, but...