Smithsonian articles from October 2008

Smithsonian archives from October 2008

Puzzlers: Stonehenge's purpose and a noble fish's demise.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)
October 1, 2008... Although Dan Jones has written about archaeology for such magazines as New Scientist, he had never visited Stonehenge, just 80 miles from his Brighton home, until we asked him to cover the first dig within the monument's inner circle in more...

Letters.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... I cried when I saw the image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, fists raised, at the 1968 Olympics [Indelible Images: "Taking a Stand"]. That year's historic moments rushed back as I recalled the heroes of my generation who sacrificed so that all...

Heroic perspectives.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... IN YOUR PIECE about Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the black power salute, you failed to show gold medal boxer George Foreman waving the American flag in the ring, which received widespread attention. I hope you will...

TR'S rough edges.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... LEWIS L. GOULD'S "Parties to History: Return of the Rough Rider" captures the acrimony between Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft but falls victim to a slight bias toward Roosevelt. Gould contends that "Roosevelt believed that the federal...

Diddley rules.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... AS A YOUNG BOY in St. Louis in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I loved rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues and soul music. Bo Diddley [Tribute: "Who Do You Love?"], along with Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, were...

Running on the wall.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... "UP AGAINST THE WALL" brought back memories of our experience as the first people to run a full marathon on top of China's Great Wall. We were told by Chinese authorities that this was an ill-conceived idea and they would not be responsible for...

The cowboy in winter: Gerald Mack lived the life--and photographer Sam Abell went along for the ride.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
October 1, 2008... TWO BLACK DOTS appeared in the distance, barely visible through swirling snow. Drawing closer, they resolved into recognizable forms: a man on a horse, a dog running alongside. That'll be Gerald," said Ken Perry, a rancher who had driven...

Wild things: life as we know it.
October 1, 2008... IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN (OR ORANGE) Of 6,300 known amphibian species, one-third are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered, say scientists in California. Tropical countries have the most amphibians and the most threatened species....

Invasion of the cassowaries: passions run high in an Australian town: should the endangered birds be feared--or fed?(PHENOMENA)
October 1, 2008... RIPE FRUIT PLUNKS to the ground and rolls to the road at my left. That instant, the cassowary bursts from a tangle of ferns outside Clump Mountain National Park near Mission Beach, Australia. The bird's sharp beak is pointed roughly at my neck....

This month in history: October anniversaries momentous or merely memorable.
October 1, 2008... 70 YEARS AGO WE INTERRUPT OUR PROGRAM Orson Welles, 23, and the Mercury Theatre inspire panic October 30, 1938, when thousands mistake their radio version of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds for news of a Martian attack on New Jersey....

Southern comfort: the celebrated poet succumbs to Houston's humid charms.(MY KIND OF TOWN)(Houston, Texas)(Travel narrative)
October 1, 2008... IT DOESN'T TAKE LONG in Houston to realize that the beauty of the place is in the sky. The swamplands and fields that became the fourth-largest city in the country are almost entirely flat, and the availability of cheap land and an exuberant...

Life lines.(FROM THE CASTLE)
October 1, 2008... I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED Van Gogh's work. For years I have admired his Starry Night. One day at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, I turned a corner and there it was, so spectacular I almost had to sit down. I could see the brush strokes and...

Art of the game: paintings--and even tattoos--hold clues to solving a puzzle.(Around the Mall)(alternate reality games: Ghosts of a Chance)
October 1, 2008... IT BEGAN WITH the man who would not talk about his tattoos. He walked bare-chested into an academic conference at the Radisson Hotel in Boston, dull red tattoos crawling all over his chest and arms. He circled the room, posing, for three...

Q&A.(Around the Mall)(Bonnie Erickson)(Interview)
October 1, 2008... BONNIE ERICKSON designed and built the inimitable Miss Piggy in 1974 for an early "Muppets" television special, produced by Jim Henson. Puppets, props and storyboards from Henson's prolific career are featured in the traveling exhibit "Jim...

What's up.(Around the Mall)(exhibitions)(Brief article)(Calendar)
October 1, 2008... NOT JUST FOR KIDS Popeye, Peter Rabbit, Cinderella and other fictional heroes leap out from vintage pop-up books. Experience a second childhood October 3 at New York City's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. SEEING THE LIGHT ...

New light on Stonehenge: the first dig in 44 years within the inner circle changes our view of why--and even when--the monument was built.
October 1, 2008... THE DRUIDS arrived around 4 p.m. Under a warm afternoon sun, the group of eight walked slowly, to the beat of a single drum, from the visitor's entrance toward the looming, majestic stone monument. With the pounding of the drum growing louder,...

The secret of San Luis Valley: the discovery of a cancer gene among some Hispanic Catholics in southern Colorado supports the theory that they're descended from "secret Jews" who fled the Spanish inquisition.(San Luis Valley, New Mexico)
October 1, 2008... ONE SEPTEMBER DAY IN 2001, TERESA CASTELLANO, Lisa Mullineaux, Jeffrey Shaw and Lisen Axell were having lunch in Denver. Genetic counselors from nearby hospitals and specialists in inherited cancers, the four would get together periodically to...

Inside Iran's fury: scholars trace the nation's antagonism to its history of domination by foreign powers.
October 1, 2008... NO AMERICAN who was alive and alert in the early 1980s will ever forget the Iran hostage crisis. Militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, captured American diplomats and staff and held 52 of them captive for 444 days. In the United States,...

The Last Doughboy: he lied about his age to serve in World War I. Today, at 107, he says he feels an "obligation" as America's only living link to the great conflict.(Frank Woodruff Buckles)(Interview)
October 1, 2008... FRANK WOODRUFF BUCKLES was visiting the Kansas State Fair in Wichita one day in the summer of 1917 when, seeing a Marine Corps recruiting booth, he decided to enlist; the nation had just entered World War I. Buckles was only 16, but he told the...

Bernini's genius: the Baroque master animated 17th-century Rome with his astonishing sculpture and architecture.(Gian Lorenzo Bernini)(Biography)
October 1, 2008... Gian Lorenzo Bernini was said to have been only 8 when he carved a stone head that "was the marvel of everyone" who saw it, according to a contemporary biographer. He was not much older when he dazzled Pope Paul V, who reportedly declared, "We...

Farewell to the king? For the first time there's no fishing for chinook salmon on the California coast. The search is on for why the prize catch is so scarce.
October 1, 2008... The salmon-boat cemetery in Fort Bragg, a fishing port tucked into shaggy pines about 150 miles north of San Francisco, is full of bleached and peeling hulls. Over the years many California vessels have landed in Bruce Abernathy's front yard,...

A man of his words: of all the U.S. presidents, Lincoln had the best speechwriter--himself.(PRESENCE OF MIND)(Abraham Lincoln)
October 1, 2008... ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the greatest American president, was also in my view the best of all presidential speechwriters. As a youngster in Lincoln, Nebraska, I stood before the statue of the president gracing the west side of the towering state...

Same olde, same olde; Swiftboating George Washington.(THE LAST PAGE)(Delaware Boat Veterans)(Reprint)
October 1, 2008... Back page of the January 3, 1789, edition of the Philadelphia Weekly Gazette: WE, THE DELAWARE BOAT VETERANS, take as our solemn duty before our Creator to make known the truth concerning the Presidential candidate who calls himself George...