Smithsonian articles from September 2008

Smithsonian archives from September 2008

Newcomers: two new key additions to our staff.(FROM THE EDITOR)
September 1, 2008... IF YOU THINK the past few issues have been looking pretty smart, as I do, we have Maria Guerrere Keehan, our new art director, to thank. Maria came to us this past January from Fortune, where she had been an associate art director for some 18...

Day of the Iguanas: on a morning in a Oaxacan market, photographer Graciela Iturbide made one of the most enduring images of Zapotec life.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
September 1, 2008... IN THE EARLY 1920S, Diego Rivera returned to Mexico City from a trip to Oaxaca and began telling friends about a place where strong, beautiful women ruled. Soon Rivera was painting such women, and within a decade, the list of artists and...

Wild things: life as we know it.
September 1, 2008... FLORAL FLIRTATION Flowers sway in the breeze to beckon pollinators, a study from Wales' Aberystwyth University suggests. Sea campion plants with slim stems fluttered the most and attracted the most insects.(Flowers with average stems set...

Northwest passage: he arrived unsure of what to expect--but the prolific author quickly embraced the city's energizing diversity.(MY KIND OF TOWN)
September 1, 2008... I WAS HIRED IN 1976 to teach at the University of Washington, and so made the cross-country drive to Seattle from Long Island, where I'd been a doctoral student in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. But before...

This month in history: September anniversaries momentous or merely memorable.
September 1, 2008... 70 YEARS AGO THE LESSON OF MUNICH British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (left) and the leaders of France and Italy make a pact with Adolf Hitler in Munich, September 30, 1938, to let Germany annex a portion of Czechoslovakia in...

Washington's boyhood home: archaeologists have finally pinpointed the Virginia house where our first president came of age.(DIGS)
September 1, 2008... SUFFICE IT TO SAY that the idea of historic preservation hadn't quite caught on by the mid-19th century. As Union soldiers decamped on the banks of the Rappahannock River before their offensive on Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862,...

Deep science.(FROM THE CASTLE)
September 1, 2008... AT THE RECENT SMITHSONIAN Folklife Festival, NASA astronaut Loren Shriver was asked what struck him most about Earth from space: "When you're circling the Earth every 90 minutes, what becomes clearest is that it's mostly water; the continents...

Spirit of the sea: Tlingit artisans craft a canoe that embodies their culture's oceangoing past.(Around the Mall)
September 1, 2008... ON THE MORNING OF JUNE 19, a crowd gathered in Washington, D.C. to watch a boat plying the Potomac. The distinctively carved canoe bulged with eight paddlers sitting two abreast, while a coxswain beat a drum to keep stroke. "Who are you, and...

Jukebox.(Around the Mall)(William Chadwick, Jr.)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... MOMENT OF DISCOVERY Legend has it that the Greek mathematician Archimedes ran naked in the streets shouting "Eureka!" when, in his bath, he came up with a way to measure the purity of gold. While most modern scientists keep their clothes on,...

True to form: an exact replica represents a particular North Atlantic whale.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
September 1, 2008... GAZING UP AT AN amazingly lifelike 45-foot-long right whale, visitors to the new Sant Ocean Hall at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) may get the idea they are about to become the marine mammal's snack. But right whales feed on...

Q&A.(Around the Mall)(Nancy Knowlton)(Interview)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Renowned coral reef biologist NANCY KNOWLTON was recently appointed to the Smithsonian's Sant Chair for Marine Science. She will lead the Institution's effort to foster a greater public understanding of the world's oceans. The magazine's Beth...

Most likely to ...(Around the Mall)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... In the Ocean Hall some 100 sea creatures reside preserved in glass jars. Each specimen has its own unique traits, and together the collection represents the vast diversity of sea life. Here is a quick guide to the standouts of the "Ocean Hall...

What's up: exclusive screening the Puerto Rican government created silk-screen posters in 1947 (right) to advertise pro-democracy films. View posters and movies at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, September 17.(Around the Mall)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... TRUE BLUE Travel through time with the new Smithsonian book Ocean. Which traces the history of life over millions of years, from oxygen-producing bacteria to humanity's conquest of the seas. TWO IF BY SEA Painter Dwight Tryon...

Victory at sea: the world's largest protected area established this year in the remote pacific, points the way to restoring marine ecosystems.(OUR IMPERILED OCEANS)
September 1, 2008... AT FIRST SIGHT, THE PEOPLE OF Kiribati, a nation of tiny islands in the central Pacific, would not appear to be model conservationists. Trash is abundant all along Tarawa, the capital island, a skinny atoll shaped like a backward L and...

Seeing is believing: photographs and other historical records testify to the former abundance of the sea.(OUR IMPERILED OCEANS)
September 1, 2008... WHETHER IT'S A MESS OF BLUEGILL hooked with a cane pole, a rare trout snagged with a fly or a sailfish suitable for mounting, people like to have their pictures taken with the fish they catch. They beam, proud and pleasantly sunburned, next...

Face the nation; Abraham Lincoln's debates with Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate in 1858 turned the backwoods rail-splitter into presidential timber.
September 1, 2008... IN FREEPORT, ILLINOIS, JUST BEYOND THE SOMNOLENT DOWN-town, a small park near the Pecatonica River is wedged next to the public library. In the mid-19th century, however, land along the shore stretched green into the distance, the grassy...

Lost & found: ancient gold artifacts from Afghanistan, hidden for more than a decade, dazzle in a new exhibition.
September 1, 2008... KABUL, 2004 ON A HOT DAY IN LATE APRIL some 30 archaeologists, cultural officials and National Museum of Afghanistan staffers crammed into a small office at the city's Central Bank. Before them was a safe, one of six containing a cache...

Four for a quarter: photographer Nakki Goranin shows how the once ubiquitous photobooth captured the many faces of 20th-century America.(American Photobooth)
September 1, 2008... NAKKI GORANIN AND I SQUEEZE INTO A CRAMPED PHOTOBOOTH in a Vermont shopping mall and practice our expressions. Goranin, a veteran, tries out some wacky poses, sticking her tongue out and squinting at the lens. I'm a bit more inhibited and, as...

Macau hits the jackpot: in just four years, this 11-square-mile outpost on the coast of China eclipsed Las Vegas as gambling's world capital.
September 1, 2008... IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT and jet foils are pulling into Macau's ferry terminal every 15 minutes, bearing crowds from Hong Kong and the Chinese city of Shenzhen, each about 40 miles distant. A mile to the north, arrivals by land elbow their way...

Clan-do spirit: a genealogical surprise led the author to ask: what does it take to be one of the family?(PRESENCE OF MIND)
September 1, 2008... WHEN I WAS 20 YEARS OLD, I crammed my most valued possessions into a big purple backpack and moved to Prague. This was in the mid-1990s, when the city was buzzing with American expats--writers, artists, musicians, bohemians--serching for the...

U.S. Gov't Gold: 5,000 U.S. Gold Coins authorized for immediate release.
September 1, 2008... The United States Rare Coin and Bullion Reserve Vault Facility today announces the final release of 5,000 U.S. Gov't Issued Gold Coins previously held in The West Point Depository/U.S. Mint. For a limited time, U.S. citizens will have the...

The bugs who flew too much: this invasion would have driven even Alfred Hitchcock psycho.(THE LAST PAGE)(ladybugs)
September 1, 2008... "HITCHCOCK," my husband said. "It's like something out of Hitchcock." I was confused. We'd been discussing Tommy's spelling grades, which, though suspenseful, were hardly terrifying. Then I noticed a clicking sound, growing louder by the...