SPAN January/February 2009

"This is the Journey we continue today" •

President Barack Obama, his left hand on a Bible used in the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln. takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts at the Capitol before delivering his Inaugural Address to crowds gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. on January 20, 2009.

Excerpts from the Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama

ur Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure th~ rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.

Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all Cl. other peoples and governments who are watching ~ today, from the grandest capitals to the small village •..•....•••• ~ ~ where my father was born: Know that America is a ~ friend of each nation and every man, wornan, and ~ child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and ~ we are ready to lead once rnore. a? Recall that earlier generations faced down

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fascism and communisrn not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy all iances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please ....We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you For we know that our patch-

work heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture~ drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass, that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve, that as the world grows srnaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself, and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.·~ .

Cover story

Front cover: Collage by Hemant Bhatnagar PhotographsŠ AP-WWP, BOBFITCH

January/February 2009

SPAN Publisher: Editor in Chief: Editor: Associate Editor: Urdu Editor Hindi Editor Copy Editors.

Art Director: Deputy Art Directors: Editorial Assistant: Production/Circulation Manager: Printing Assistant: Business Assistant: Research Services:

Left: Martin Luther King, Jr. PhotographŠ BOBFITCH

Larry Schwartz Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera Laurinda Keys Long Deepanjali Kakati Anjum Nairn Giriraj Agarwal Richa Varma Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Hemant Bhatnagar Khurshid Anwar Abbasi Qasim Raza Yugesh Mathur Rakesh Agrawal Alok Kaushik Shaji T. Kommery Bureau of International Information Programs, The American Library

* Health:

Diagnostics For All

By Daniel Gorelick

50 * Comedy: Azhar Usman Allah Made Me Funny

By Anjum Nairn

On the Lighter Side * An Interview with

* Achievers:

Jeffrey Bigham Helping the Blind Use the Web from Anywhere

Ambassador David C. Mulford

By Laurinda Keys Long

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* The Inauguration of the U.S. President

By Jetfrey Thomas

By Richa Varma

Website

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Contactus

Forsubscriptionsor addresschange:

*

Reinventing Puppetry

By Jetfrey Thomas

* Education:

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When Staying Home Doesn't Mean Skipping Class

The Man Behind the Music

By Laurence Glasco

20

The Man Who Would Be King

By Kurt Soller

20 * Answers to the Presidential Quiz

By Richa Varma

By Jane Varner Malhotra

44 * Opera: Arjuna's Dilemma

By Daniel B. Haber

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A LETTER FROM

THE

PUBLISHER tis not surprising, I suppose, that we have dedicated this issue of SPAN to presidents of the United States of America-and especially to the 44th president, Barack Obama.

On January 20, America completed the transfer of power to a new government after a very long and hard-fought election campaign. While this process has been honored in the United States for 220 years, since the inauguration of our first president, George Washington, Americans and people around the world have commented on the many simultaneous challenges facing the new .president and wish him success.

This Inauguration Day was exceptional also because Barack Obama became the first African American president of the United States in a national celebration that put an end, at last, to the question of whether Americans could accept a black president. No one will ever ask that again and we hope it will not be long before people wonder what all the fuss was about. But the answer came through clearly on Inauguration Day: "Yes, we can!"

Historical resonances abound. It was only 40 years ago that America's great dreamer of racial equality, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., asked whether it might be possible for his young children to be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." President Obama's inauguration was celebrated the day after a national holiday commemorating what would have been King's 80th birthday.

President Obama's inauguration took place just a few weeks before the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who brought an end to slavery in America in the struggle to build "a more perfect Union." At his inauguration, President Obama took the same oath of office as George Washington and all of his successors; he placed his hand on the same Bible used at President Lincoln's inauguration.

In January, here in India we marked the 50th year of service by the iconic Embassy of the United States in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. The historic modern structure designed by Edward Durell Stone was hailed in its day as an artistic achievement and later became the model for The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In February, we intend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the visit to India by Martin Luther King, Jr. He called it "a pilgrimage," to study the life and work of Mohandas K. Gandhi in India's freedom struggle, which was adapted and used effectively in the American civil rights movement. "The destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and the destiny of every other nation," King said during his visit to Mumbai.

We agree and are presenting in this issue historic photographs and an article by Laurinda Keys Long on that journey through India.

President Obama has said that he looks on Gandhi as an inspiration, too, "because he embodies the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things." Until his official photograph gets to us in the mail, we will be using a photo of the president in his former Senate office, with photos of Lincoln, King and Gandhi on the wall behind him.

In this SPAN we are also including articles on Presidents Lincoln and Washington and on the changes and traditions of Inauguration Day by Richa Varma. For fun, take a look at the answers to our presidential quiz from the last issue, with some odd and interesting facts about American presidents, our "50 Years Ago" feature by Deepanjali Kakati, as well as the article by Laurence Glasco on how our new president has inspired popular songs around the world.

But there is a lot more in this month's SPAN: You will also read about a new American opera based on the Bhagavad Gita, a very entertaining Indian American comedian, innovations in health care and the pleasures of Santa Catalina Island, off the California coast.

Indians who enjoy this country's great tradition of puppet dramas will be pleased to know that Americans also have adopted and adapted the art and built the world's largest puppetry museum. Let us know what you think!

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arlo u er • 10 , Only 12 years after Indians won their freedom with nonviolent protests, noncooperation and boycott, African Americans were using the same tactics to overturn unjust laws.

Illustration b Y HEMANT

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A D' GAR. • SotJrca pholographs © •.•••wwp, Yoichi R . Ol<amoto. While House '" .

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yearlY 1959, Martin Luther King, Jr. had led the successful Montgomery boycott of buses and businesses in the southern US. state of Alabama. He, as well as his colleagues and followers, had been arrested, jailed, convicted, fined, threatened and beaten. And in 1956 they had celebrated the histOlic US. Supreme Comt ruling that said laws allocating public resources on the basis of race are unconstitutional. Segregation was doomed, but not yet dead.

The newsreels, photographs and newspaper articles-about African Americans nonviolently resisting unjust laws, but refusing to cooperate with arbitrary rules that treated them as second-class citizens-were fascinating to Indians who only a dozen years earlier had won independence using similar tactics.

King was also making the connection. In a speech to the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in June 1956, he mentioned that through "soul force," Mohandas K. Gandhi "was able to free his people from the political domination, the economic exploitation and the humiliation that had been inflicted upon them by Britain." .

The Montgomery boycott was carried out by black Americans to force the local authorities to rescind discriminatory laws. It was part of a widespread, multi-state, non-violent, church-based cam. th kn k d . h . h d f1 d' . d pat~n . at oc e a gapmg gas m a . y ra 0 aw, .tra It:Ion.an prejUdICe that for almost two centunes had depnved Afncan Americans of the rights of a citizen guaranteed by the Constitution.

There were many more boycotts, marches, sit-down protests, church meetings and prayer vigils, many families who fled their burning homes or sat up all night in fear, men and women and children who were beaten, spat upon. They were denied jobs, the right to vote, to walk down the street without being harassed, to go to a good school, use the p\lblic library, eat in a restaurant, sit on a park bench, use a public restroom or get a drink of water.

The U.S. civil rights movement has obvious resonances in India, where the Dalits and people born into "lower castes" have lived for centuries under the same type of oppressions that were being faced by African Americans in the years since the Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln had ended slavery. Although they were full US. citizens, the African Americans, especially in the southern states, but elsewhere, also, often had to choose between being killed or harmed and putting up with humiliating treatment, illegal discrimination and deprivation of their rights.

And even when the laws were changed, just as with the caste system-and other forms of discrimination around the world against people because of their appearance, race, family, name or tribe-it takes decades for the laws to be fully enforced.

How long for the hearts of their would-be

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Resources: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, 11:, edited by Clayborne Carson; Martin Luther King, Ir. Tour of India in 1959, from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University; With the Kings in India, Gandhi National Memorial Fund, articles by James E. Bristol and Swami Vishwananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, by Mary King. i!

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Above: Martin Luther King, ir. (second row, left) with Reverends Ralph Abernathy (front row, left) and Glenn Smiley (second row, right) in an mtegrated Montgomery, Alabama bus after the Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional on December 21, 1956.

Below left: The Kings at their Atlanta Georgia home on March 17, 1963 with children (from left) Martin III, Dexter and Yolanda. Their infant daughter, Bernice, is not shown.

oppressors to change? Perhaps centuries.

King and his cohorts were realists. They knew how hard it was, how long it might take. Yet they were brave, patient, peaceable and-despite the horrors of lynching, house burnings and church bombings-hopeful, optimistic, determined and full of faith. That faith rings forth in King's speech in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of thell- character," he said. Implied in that articulated dream is that there would be, some year, an African American president. King is unlikely to have visualized Barack Obama. His father a Kenyan, his mother a white American, Obama was six years old and living in Indonesia at the time of King's death. Yet he became president 40 ,.~ yeat·s later, within the lifetime of King's ~ children.

Q Back in 1959, however, some people IE dreamed that King himself might become I _ \\! the first African American president. His ~ oratorical talents, leadership abilities, strategic planning, courage and amiableness made him a man of interest to the ordinary and the great across the world. One of these was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India.

During a short visit to the United States in 1956, Nehru said he wished he had met King. Indian representatives followed up, as did fOlmer US. Ambassador to India Chester Bowles, to bring about a journey

Above: A policeman leads away Abernathy (left) and King from a demonstration they organized against continued dis-' crimination by businesses in Birmingham, Alabama, on April/2, /963.

Below: King Montgomery of conspiracy the case was

receives a kiss from his wife, Coretta, after leaving the Courthouse, where he was found guilty on March 22,1956 to boycott city buses. The judge suspended his fine while appealed.

to India for King.

"While the Montgomery boycott was going on, India's Gandhi was the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.

So as soon as our victory over bus segregation was won, some of my friends said: 'Why don't you go to India and see for yourself what the Mahatma, whom you so admire, ~ has wrought?' " King said, accord- ~ ing to The Autobiography of~ Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by 0<:~ Clayborne Carson of Stanford ~ University in California. ~ .\=In the end, King, his wife, The Kings were garlanded upon arrival in New Delhi on Coretta, and Alabama State College February 10, 1959. professor Lawrence D. Reddick, ',King's biographer, spent just under a month in India. Because of flight problems, they landed on February 9, 1959, in Bombay, spent the night at the Taj Mahal Hotel and flew the next day to Palam Air Base in New Delhi, two days late.

One could say, however, that the ~ scene had been set years before, ~ when King, as a teenage student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, ~ Georgia, was mentored by the prin- The Kings spent March 9, 1959, their last Indian evening, at the cipal, Benjamin Elijah Mays and home of Acharya 1.B. Kripalani, an interpreter of Gandhi's fIrst read the writings of Gandhi. ~ teachings (third from left). Others are (from leji) Kripalani's secMays had "returned from India as ~ retGlY, Shanti; Barbara Bristol and James E. Bristol of the one of the growing number ofi Quaker Centre.

African American disciples of~ 'j= Mahatma Gandhi" and became one ~ of the great influences on King's ~ life, H.Y. Shivadas of the Gandhi ~ o Foundation of USA has written. ~ According to King, Reddick~ had told him at the outset of the ~ I India trip " ... my true test would ~ come when the people who knew ~ Gandhi looked me over and ~ passed judgment upon me and the 2 Montgomery movement."

He ~ described the ensuing, so-called ~ "hurricane tour as "one of the most The Kings and Lawrence Reddick, in prayer at the Gandhi concentrated and eye-opening memorial in New Delhi. experiences of our lives."

----------------------He spoke to thousands, was greeted by name as he walked the streets or traveled in trains, planes and cars, was besieged for autographs, welcomed into the poorest village homes and the most palatial. He said that 1)iswife "ended up singing as much as I lectured."

The American Friends Service Committee (or Quakers, a pacifIst Christian denomination) co-sponsored the trip, along with the

Gandhi National Memorial Fund.

James E. Bristol, director of the Quaker Centre in New Delhi, acted as guide throughout the journey. The Indian government did not host the visit, but Nehru sent a welcoming note and had dinner with King on his second night in India. The prime minister had scheduled a.dinner for the Kings the night before. But because of the delayed landing (due to fog!), in an amazing move that must have sent the protocol-checkers into a tizzy, the prime minister had them for dinner the next night.

So February 10 was spent in greetings, garlanding and interactions with reporters to whom King commented, "To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim." From the accounts we have, the evening dinner was a fascinating four hours, as King and Nehru had fundamental differences on impOltant issues of their day, which humanity is still disagreeing over today.

The vast number of India's poor struck King, just as it does visitors these days when they see it for the fIrst time. "Most of the people were poor and poorly dressed. In the city of Bombay, for example, over a half million people-mostly unattached, unemployed, or partially employed males-slept out of doors every night," King said in recalling his visit later. The Kings saw these scenes as they were being driven from the qirport to the luxury hotel on their fIrst night in India. "The sight of emaciated human beings wearing only a dirty loincloth, picking through garbage cans, both angered and depressed my husband," Coretta Scott King said in her memoir. "Never, even in Africa, had we seen such abject, despairing poverty."

Even earlier, King was concerned, having visited Africa, about the questions facing emerging, post-colonial governments on how to use resources: should they follow Western capitalism, socialism, Soviet-inspired centrism, encourage natural crafts and professions or build huge factories.

The issue of developing countries, in particular, using precious national wealth to build up armies and buy weapons was on

King's mind. At his final news conference in New Delhi on March 9, he called on India to set an example to the world by unilaterally disarming. "It may be that just as India had to take the lead and show the world that national independence could be achieved nonviolently, so India may have to take the lead and call for universal disarmament, and if no other nation will join her immediately, India should declare itself for disarmament unilaterally.

Such an act of courage would be a great demonstration of the spirit of the Mahatma and would be the greatest stimulus to the rest of the world to do likewise," King said. The suggestion, though echoing Vinoba Bhave, seems as astounding in its context as the one made by Gandhi after the start of World War II in open letters to the British and the Jewish people, advising them not to fight, even to the point of allowing themselves to be conquered, exiled or killed. King did not go so far; he said passive resistance should not be confused with non-resistance.

King could not have known, as he engaged the prime minister in discussion on the evening of February 10, 1959, "that India's ambitious nuclear power program (which was then consuming a third of the nation's research budget) could someday produce nuclear weapons" Carson, founding director of Stanford's Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, wrote in a recent article for the Times of India.

Just days before he set out for India, King had addressed the War Resisters League in New York, saying, "What will be the ultimate value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and White, are merely free to face destruction by Strontium 90 [radiation] or atomic war?"

"He probably realized at that time that this was not Nehru's viewpoint when he had dinner with Nehru," Carson told SPAN in an interview. "We know now that India had already started its atomic program; it saw the threat of China. That's one of the things ~ where, by the end of the trip King 3 i ::;;::had become more Gandhian than o I many of Gandhi's former col- ยง leagues. I think he came to India ~ to learn more about Gandhi' s ~ ideas, and by the time he left ~ o India, he was the pre-eminent ~ Gandhian." ~ In fact, Reddick wrote in his ~I account of the trip, With King ~ through India, that Nehru had ~ acknowledged, "as an individual ~ and a follower of Gandhi he ~

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Washington, D.C. speech http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm Martin Luther King, Jr Research and Education Institute http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/ The King Center http://www .th eki ng center. orgl favored nonviolent resistance in every phase of life-between persons, groups and nations; but as a head of state, in a worJd that had not accepted the nonviolent principle, it would be folly for one country to go very far down that road alone."

In commenting on tills, Carson could immediately tillnk of only one other country that has done so, Costa Rica. "I think nonviolence is one of those ideas that everyone kind of believes in for the other person, but it's hard to accept for oneself, particularly if we believe we have something of value that other people want," says Carson.

"I think he left India on the road to the Nobel Peace Prize because he had become by that time an international figure and international symbol of the greatest freedom struggle the world has ever known, the struggle of the 20th century to bring basic rights to the majority of the world's people," Carson says of King. "He and Gandhi are the primary symbols of that. Gandhi was assassinated; King was left to carryon that mantle of the preeminent global symbol of the constructive solution to the central problem of the century."

According to the Autobiography, a compilation of King's writings, conversations and speeches edited

by Carson, King's impression was that India was divided between those who wanted it "to become Westernized and modernized as quickly as possible" to raise the standard of living, and those who felt Westernization would "bring the evils of materialism, cutthroat competition and rugged individualism," causing India to "lose her soul."

King felt that Nehru was trying to "steer a middle course between these extreme attitudes." King recalled that in their talk, Nehru felt "there were some things that only big or heavy industry could do for the country" and that the The Kings met (photos top to botrom) Indian President Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister lawaharlal Nehru and a longtime Gandhian, Amrit Kaur, soon after their arrival.

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basis was used when the similar method, called "affirmative action," was adopted in the United States.

King described himself as delighted that Indian leaders had " "placed their moral power" behind laws aimed at ending discrimination against Dalits. His enthusiasm when he returned home and talked of these things may have been overly rosy, almost as if he believed the laws and the government's support were on their way to eliminating caste discrimination very soon. He praised the village projects he saw that were aimed at helping lower castes, but he may have been surprised at how entrenched it remains 50 years later, comments Henry Thiagaraj, author of Human Rights from the Dalit Perspective, brought out a year ago

by Gyan Publishing House.

"The treatment of American Blacks in the 1960s, the violence inflicted on them and their suffering, is comparable with the treatment of Untouchables," Thiagaraj tells SPAN. "Untouchability, in my opinion and study has the origin in racism, although the distinctive feature in India is that is has acquired a religious sanction." Giving one example of the similarities, Thiagaraj mentioned segregation of dwelling places, with Indian villages divided into sections so that Dalits live separately from caste Hindus.

Thiagaraj argues this is exactly what African Americans faced, until U.S. laws were passed, and enforced, that prohibited refusing to sell or rent housing to someone based on their race. Other similarities he cites: "Dalit children are asked to sit separately, play separately and prohibited from drinking water from the same tap as caste Hindu children. Laws and safeguards are not enforced in rural areas, where landowners maintain their age-old discriminatory social customs, violations of which are punished by lynchings." King and other African Americans of his time would have found such a description almost identical to their way of life in the southern states. Well into the 1960s, and in some places later, signs appeared over public drinking taps and toilets designating them for "Whites" or "Coloreds" in the American South.

In fact, one of the moving stories King told about his trip to India showed how clearly and forcefully this similarity had been brought home to him. It was when the principal of a school for the children of former Dalits introduced him as "a fellow Untouchable from the United States of America." Six years later, as King told an American church congregation about this, he said, "For a moment I was a bit shocked and peeved that I would be referred to as an Untouchable."

Then, he says, he started thinking: About the fact that 20 million of his fellow black Americans "were still, by and large, in ratstate's watchful eye could prevent pitfalls. At the same time, infested, unendurable slums in the big cities of our nation, still Nehru supported the expansion of weaving, spinning and other attending inadequate schools faced with improper recreational home and village handicrafts to "leave as much economic self- facilities." And he said to himself, "Yes, I am an Untouchable, and every Negro in the United States is an Untouchable." help and autonomy as possible to the local community."

The subject of this 50-year-old discourse is still relevant today.

King was moved when he visited small villages and saw hunThe talk also touched on what Nehru described as India's dreds of people sleeping on the ground, or living in little huts efforts to eliminate caste discrimination, including the policy of shared with cows and chickens, with no water for washing. giving preference to Dalits in university admissions, an idea that "Pretty soon we discovered that these people were the was hotly controversial when it was later applied to African Untouchables," he said, according to the Autobiography. "These Americans in the United States, and stirs mixed feelings in India, were the people who worked hardest, and they were trampled also. "This is our way of atoning for the centuries of injustices we over, even by the Indians themselves. Gandhi looked at this syshave inflicted upon these people," Nehru had explained. The same tem and he couldn't stand it. ...And he decided that he would

speak against it and stand up against it the rest of his life." King told of Gandhi's adoption of an Untouchable as his daughter, against his wife's wishes, and of his fasting until Untouchables were allowed into Hindu temples. "He demonstrated in his own life that untouchability had to go," King said.

The continuing existence of casteism and racism 50 years later should not produce despair, but illustrate the need, now more than ever, for "shining examples of individuals who reach across difference for the sake of a common goal, a common good," comments Eboo Patel, executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, based in Chicago, Illinois. "We may not have achieved it yet, but King understood that 'the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.' Neither King nor Gandhi knew the fruits that their labor would produce following both of their assassinations," Patel tells SPAN. "But still their lives illuminate the pathway to justice today."

The Kings saw a good deal of India. They got used to rising early in the morning to make connections, nevertheless arriving late, sometimes eating from banana leaves, cross-legged on the ground, walking through villages, interacting with students and academics, taking a swim in Kerala, viewing the Taj Mahal, enjoying the cultural richness of Gaya and Shantiniketan, and watching the sun set and the moon rise at the same time off Cape Cormorin on India's southern tip. The beauty of that scene, with two heavenly lights shining, affected King so profoundly that he later used it in a sermon.

His pilgrimage would not have been complete, however, without passing time at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which Gandhi founded upon his return to India from South Africa, and where he had lived for 18 years, "working out his way for the freedom of the country and the new social order," as Swami Vishwananda put it. He described his travels with the Kings in a very descriptive and personalized memoir published by the Gandhi National Memorial Fund. It was at the ashram, of course, that Gandhi's closest associates were trained for nonviolent action, where the march to the seashore began. 'The Kings Below: Mohandas K. Gandhi, in white shawl, walking with others in New Delhi, in March 1936.

Right: Martin Luther King, Jr., in white cap, marching with others from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965.

Some of the stops on King's tour of India. had a great experience going round the hallowed place and meeting in prayer the 600 or so inmates-most of them Harijans," wrote Vishwananda. "We came back much refreshed mentally and feeling grateful for the purity and the strength we had gained by the visit."

What King gained was evident, as he returned to the United States to live for a few more years, marching, preaching, calling, cajoling, walking toward the goal of an end to the evils of injustice and racialism that held back his country from its full potential.

To encourage the Freedom Marchers back home, King spoke about that March 1, 1959 day that he had spent at the ashram in Ahmedabad. He told how Gandhi had started the 322-kilometer walk to Dandi Beach with just a few people, and ended up with millions, all there to break the law by scooping up handfuls of sea salt. King told his listeners the story, in that compelling African American Gospel preaching rhythm that builds enthusiasm and "- sends a thrill down the spine: ~ "And Gandhi said to his ~ people: 'If you are hit, don't , .ยง. hit back; even if they shoot at you, don't shoot back. If they & curse you, don't curse back.

Just keep moving. Some of us might have to die before we get there. Some of us might be thrown in jail before we get there, but let's just keep moving.' And they kept ."

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Please send your comments on this article to editorspan@state.gov

The U.S. -India Relationship

Broad,

Strategic, Diverse and ~ArmQ!l!N~g

But there are still concerns expressed

by Indians about whether the United States does enough to push Pakistan to do its part.

remain in his post for some time, a reflection of the seriousness with which the new U.S. administration views the relationship with India. Meanwhile, the ambassador has been saying his farewells, including a final interview with SPAN reflecting on the five years that he and his wife, Jeannie, have spent in India.

What do India and the U.S need to work on to continue the building of this relationship?

tnhe American political system, aU U.S. ambassadors, cabinet members and many other appointed officials submit their resignations just before a new president takes office, facilitating the transition to a new governmental team.

Ambassador David C. Mulford submitted his resignation effective January 20, five years after he was sworn in as the United States' representative to India. Unusually, the administration of President Barack Obama has asked Ambassador Mulford to

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our level of cooperation to where we should be between two major democracies.

The presence of the FBI team in Mumbai following these attacks has been an extremely constructive experience for both sides because they made a real contribution, they have done it well and they have been appreciated. It has not been controversial in any way; it has been widely accepted as positive and I think it will lead to closer cooperation between us. This is important because India needs to substantially improve its preventive abilities. The United States has not experienced a large terrorist attack post 9/11 because, in part, of the number of things we have done to improve our preventive capacity. In working together with India we can both gain a lot from these experiences.

The area which in my five years I felt, until recently, was not developing as quickly as other areas was closer cooperation in the field of counterterrorism. One of the reasons for that is the very nature and complexity of that field, which involves sharing intelligence and possibly cooperating in joint operations. This has been slower in coming, in part I thjnk, because of certain complicating aspects of our relationship with Pakistan, which because of traditional differences between India and Pakistan has perhaps had a dampening influence on that level of cooperation over time.

But in the last 18 months we have begun to really see some progress, and I think now, with all these recent attacks in India and especially in Mumbai, there is a very clear view of the need between us to upgrade

Well Pakistan is a sovereign nation, as is India. And the United States, post Mumbai, has been very clear, through the visits by the secretary of state and others, that we take very seriously what's happened here and we are pushing very hard with Pakistan to get to the bottom of this ...and we have also maintained the same strong position in Pakistan with the Pakistanjs. We must remember that there were six Americans killed in this attack and that we have a duty under our law to pursue and to get to the bottom of these kinds of outrageous acts, quite apart from the issue of cooperation with India.

What have been the main developments in the U.S.-India relationship since your arrival in 2004?

We have seen an enormous growth in the diversity of the relationship, so much so that today, among standard U.S. missions, apart from Iraq, this is now the largest. We also have something like 25 different agencies and departments of the U.S. government that are represented here, which tells you a lot about the diversity of America's interface with India.

What was the most notable accomplishment?

The civil nuclear agreement, which was regarded as sort of the cornerstone of this building relationship and which, despite many hurdles and complexities, was concluded after three-plus years of

Below: Ambassador Mulford with Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at the January 5 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy building.

Below right: Ibrahim George, a survivor of the 2006 Mumbai train blasts, talks to the ambassador and his wife, Jeannie, at a commemoration ceremony in Mumbai for the victims of terror in the United States and India.

there will be, I am told, approximately 100,000 trips avoided from Hyderabad to Chennai for ordinary Indian citizens who will not have to buy an airline ticket, who will not have to spend money making a trip, staying overnight, maybe buying their lunch or whatever because they can get the process done there. That's a real service.

How does this transition process work, shifting to a new presidential administration from a different political party?

People who serve in the administration, who are political appointees, are required to resign so that the incoming administration has the privilege and ability to replace officials well down into the bureaucracy.

This means that a new government can remake itself very quickly because it is able to sort of replace substantial areas of leadership in the entire administration, which permits a fresh start and new blood to come in and be effective quickly. This explains why America is so good at recasting itself and changing itself in relatively short periods of time.

have grown dramatically, the number of joint exercises has risen sharply, we have begun to execute large defense sales.

Most recently we have signed a $2.2 billion dollar contract for a new surveillance aircraft.... India wants to diversify its supply base. It wants the top-level technologies of the world. The United States has those in its military competence, and they get totally transparent accountability in deals without any question of underhand,

But wouldn't Indians be concerned that such in-depth change of personnel might change the relationship and policies that affect them?

I don't think the relationship with India will move backward again as it has in the past from time to time. I think the direction and momentum is clearly established and will be maintained. I cannot think of any major issue that would provoke a major setback. ~

negotiations, and has now resulted in India returning to the world of civil nuclear technology.

Are there other satisfying moments?

I was particularly happy that we were able to revise and expand the Fulbright agreement because I am very interested in education and the potential for developing educational institutions in India. To have the Indians agree to share the funding of this program equally with us, permitting the approximately doubling of the size of the program, and to have them agree to the solicitation of private resources for future expansions of a very, very premier brand, Fulbright-I'm very proud of that.

How much more cooperation in defense and military affairs have you seen?

The military and defense relationships

corrupt practices.

There has been quite a change in the process of Indians obtaining U.S. visas.

How was that accomplished?, You know, our so-called visa blitz was perhaps the most satisfying thing from a public diplomacy standpoint because we had arrived at the point, in the middle of 2006, where the waiting period was 187 days for an Indian citizen to get a visa interview. We convened the leadership of the Mission and determined that we would address and fix that problem. Within the space of some months we did, by reducing the waiting period to six days everywhere in India. And the most impressive thing, perhaps, is that we have maintained the waiting period at less than 14 days most of the time and in most places in India since, with very few exceptions.

We got all kinds of happy feedback from people ... .It was probably the highest public diplomacy return on anything we do in terms of customer satisfaction in India.

And there is the new U.S. consulate in Hyderabad.

This is the first full-service consulate opened by the United States, as I am told, in the last 20 years. The ...previous one was in northeast China. The thing that is really impressive about opening there is that

An artist's impression of President William Henry Harrison's inauguration in 1841. Harrison refused to use a closed carriage and rode on horseback to and from the U.S. Capitol on a bitterly cold, wet day.

He died of pneumonia a month later.

Inauguration Day represents the continuity of leadership for America.

With its speeches and festivities, it also represents the country's renewal. ne hundred and forty four years after African '...4."'"

Americans fIrst marched in â&#x20AC;˘ S~~ President Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural parade, the inauguration of Barack Obama, the fIrst African American U.S. president, com. memorated the 200th anniversary of ~

.Each US president recites the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S Constitution: "

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. , ,

Lincoln's birth in 1809 with the theme "A New Birth of Freedom."

These words are from Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address of 1863. Although the phrase "...government of the people, by the people, and for the people ...," is iconic, the lesser known "this nation shall have a new birth of freedom" was the cor-

nerstone for Obama's 2009 inaugural theme. The battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War and the 16th U.S. president hoped the sacrifice of those who died for the unity of the nation would lead to "a new birth of freedom."

Obama's inauguration followed many "-customs set by Lincoln and other ~ presidents over more than two cen"-~ turies .

Inauguration is the official day when the president of the United States is sworn into office, its purpose being to provide a visual, peaceful transfer of power, emphasize the seriousness of the office and President Abraham Lincoln takes the oath as the 16th U.S. president in front of the U.S. Capitol in 1861.

honor the new chief executive and commander in chief. Many traditions associated with presidential inaugurations-using the Bible when taking the oath of office, delivering an inaugural address-were established by America's first president, George Washington. He also pronounced the words "So help me God" after taking the oath, which other presidents have chosen to follow.

Inauguration Day begins with a morning prayer service. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began the tradition of attending such a service in 1933. After a brief meeting at the White House, the outgoing president, president-elect, vice president-elect and their families proceed to the U.S. Capitol building for the swearing-in ceremony.

Since the first inauguration in 1789, the procession to the inaugural ceremonies has been an occasion for much celebration. In fact, the parade that now follows the swearing-in ceremony first began as the procession. Things changed in 1873, when President Ulysses S. Grant reviewed the troops from a stand in front of the White House after he was sworn in.

For a greater part of America's history, Inauguration Day was held on March 4, which was also the final day of the congressional session. In 1937, the day was moved to January 20, a change enacted by the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Upon arriving at the Capitol, the vice president takes the .oath of office. Until 1937, most vice presidents did this in the Senate chamber, prior to the president's inauguration. After 1937, when the inauguration date changed, the vice president took his oath on the inaugural platform on the Capitol's east front. In 1981, at President Ronald Reagan's inauguration, both ceremonies moved to the west front terrace of the Capitol, where they have been held ever since.

Following the vice president, the president-elect takes the oath of office and addresses the nation.

Most presidents have used this speech to present their vision of America. In 1865, in the waning days of the Civil War, Lincoln stated, "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle

and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." ., In another historic inaugural speech in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, " ...The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." President John F. Kennedy declared on his Inauguration Day in 1961, "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." .

While Washington's second inaugural address was the shortest by a U.S. president, at 135 words, William Henry Harrison delivered the longest-8,445 words-in 1841. John Adams' 1797 address, which totaled 2,308 words, contained the longest sentence, at 737 words.

In 1921, Warren G. Harding became the first president to take his oath and deliver

then proceed to the inaugural luncheon in the Capitol.

While the luncheon tradition oates to 1897, it acquired its current form in 1953 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower, first lady Mamie Eisenhower and 50 other guests dined on creamed chicken and potato puffs. As the years progressed, the luncheons became more elaborate. Often featuring cuisine reflecting the home states of the new president and vice president, as well as the theme of the inauguration, it includes speeches and toasts to the new administration.

In 1829, at President Andrew Jackson's first inaugural reception, a horde of 20,000 revelers broke windows, tore curtains and stood on the White House furniture in their muddy"boots. While Jackson fled to the safety of a hotel, aides filled washtubs on the lawn with orange juice

An artist's rendition shows the crush of people after President Andrew Jackson's inaugural ceremony in 1829. More than 20,000 people turned up at the White House to meet the president. his inaugural address through loud speakers. In 1925, Calvin Coolidge's address was the fIrst to be broadcast across America by radio. And in 1949, Harry S Truman became the first president whose inaugural speech was broadcast on television.

After the new president has taken the oath and delivered his inaugural address, he and the vice president escort the previous president and vice president out through a military cordon.

The new president and vice president

and whiskey, to lure the mob out.

After the luncheon, the president and vice president make their way down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, leading a procession of ceremonial military regiments, marching bands and floats. The parade is a celebrated and anticipated event for Americans, who watch it on television across the country.

The inauguration is free and open to the public, but members of the U.S. Congress and the administration of the incoming

president give out tickets to the seated area to control the crowds. Hundreds of thousands more line up along Pennsylvania Avenue to watch the parade.

William Hemy Harrison's parade in 1841 featured floats and military companies from outside the Washington, D.C. area for the first time. Citizens' clubs, political clubs, military bands and college students also marched in the parade, set. ting future precedent.

Despite a blizzard that forced President William H. Taft's inauguration ceremony indoors, the parade proceeded as planned, as workers busily cleared snow from the route in 1909. The only parade that was canceled because of bad weather was Ronald Reagan's second in 1985, when frigid temperatures made the situation dangerous. The largest parade, with 73 bands, 59 floats, horses, elephants and civilian and military vehicles, lasting four hours and 32 minutes, was in 1953 at Eisenhower's first inauguration. Now the

limit is set at 15,000 participants.

Women first participated in an inaugural parade in 1917, at Woodrow Wilson's second inauguration. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding became the first president to ride in the procession in an automobile. The parade was first televised in 1949, at Truman's inauguration. Jimmy Carter broke precedent in 1977 by walking in the parade, from the Capitol to the White House, with his wife, Rosalynn.

The much anticipated inaugural ball concludes Inauguration Day festivities.

Most presidents and first ladies have held an inaugural ball since James Madison hosted the first in 1809.

President Ulysses S. Grant's second inaugural ball in 1873 proved to be a fiasco. It was freezing cold, and the temporary structure built to host the event had no heating or insulation. Guests danced in their overcoats and hats, the food was cold and organizers ran out of coffee and hot chocolate. Even the caged, decorative

canaries froze. In 1913, President-elect Woodrow Wilson felt the ball was too expensive and unnecessary for the solemn occasion of the inaugural and cancelled it.

Others who did not celebrate their inaugurations were those who came to office after the death of a predecessor, like Lyndon B. Johnson, who took the oath of office aboard Air Force One hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On that occasion, Judge Sarah T. Hughes became the first woman to swear in a president.

Truman revived the official ball in 1949. Four years later, Eisenhower attended two balls due to high demand. Kennedy attended five balls in 1961. By Bill Clinton's second inaugural in 1997, the

The inaugural addresses of the U.S. presidents hltp: avalon.law.yale.edu/sutiject menus/inauas~ Inauguration Day hlt ://inaugural.senate.gov/ Inaugural precedents and notable events hlt ://memor .Ioc. ov/ammem/pintml!pinota5Ie.htr

Above, far left: Military units splash along in the pouring rain during the inaugural parade for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937.

Above: Men aboard the state float of Massachusetts salute President John F. Kennedy during his inaugural parade in 1961.

Right top: Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president on board Air Force One hours after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

Witnesses include his wife, Lady Bird (left), and Jacqueline Kennedy (right).

Right center: President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter walk down Pennsylvania Avenue after the president took the oath of office in 1977.

Right bottom: President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan dance at an inaugural ball in 1981.

number of balls reached a record 14.

Although inaugural traditions have evolved over the years, their fundamental premise remains unchanged. Inauguration Day represents the continuity of leadership for America.

With its speeches and festivities, it also represents the country's renewal. ~

usic reflects a people's politi- Obama- The WorldBeat Album from the cal, social and cultural life, so site Calabash provides a small but useful it is no surprise that We Shall sampling of this proliferation in world Overcome conveys the opti- music. In addition to Obama Girl and Yes mism and determination of We Can, there is a calypso track by the Civil Rights era, and Marvin Gaye's Trinidad's Mighty Sparrow (Barack the Whats Going On conveys the disillusion- Magnificent), an Afrobeat rendition by ment of the post-Civil Rights era. Similarly, Cameroonian musician Fojeba (Fired-up! it is no surprise that since Barack Obama Ready to Go!), a reggaeton-style song by has opened a new chapter in the history of Miguel Orozco (La Caminata) and a Texrace and politics in America, that the music Mex mariachi song (Viva! Obama '08). If inspired by his candidacy is suffused with these songs are representative of broader his message of hope and change. trends, Obama-inspired world music is Indeed, Obama inspired an unprecedentupbeat, hopeful, committed and of sured wave of unsolicited campaign songs and prisingly high quality. videos. I Got a Crush. ..on Obama by Mighty Sparrow's Barack the MagniObama Girl (Amber Lee Ettinger) [was ficent is an overtly political praise song one of the biggest Web videos] of 2007. Yes that asserts: We Can, which has garnered over 15 million viewings so far, earned Will.i.am a Webby award, and [became] the unofficial theme song of the Obama campaign.

Together these two videos rank among the most popular political campaign songs of all time.

But the success of these American videos to some extent obscures the degree to which Obama's candidacy captured the imagination of the world and inspired an international outpouring of music.

A music compilation blog called

M

The respect of the world that we now lack, If you want it back, then vote Barack!

Because this time we come out to vote!

Stop the war!

Stop genocide in Darfur!

No matter what, Get health care for who have not! ...

He stood his ground When the war was a conception, Said it was wrong, So he didn't go along ...

Fojeba's Fired-up! Ready to Go! is a sweet, lyrical, complex Central African makossa [a type of music popular in urban Cameroon] that overlays samples of the rhythmic cadences of Obama's own voice with soft guitar riffs and group vocals.

The combination is an engaging and

inspired music piece that captured Obama's mood and message.

Obama: But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Audience: {roar overlaid by a lilting guitar] Obama: We've been told we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't.

Generations of Americans have responded, with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: "Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can.

Audience {chants with soft guitar overlay] "Yes we can."

Fojeba: Ready to go. Ready to go. Fired up {repeated over and over].

Obama: And if one voice can change a room, it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and ifit can change a nation, it can change the world. One voice can change the world! So we just want to know one thing: Are you fired up? {Crowd roars.]

Obama: Are you ready to go? {Crowd roars.]

Fojeba: I am ... ready to go. Ready to go {repeats]. Senator Obama, Senator Obama {repeats] will be {repeats] our next {repeats] president! {repeats]. Ready to go! {repeats]. I am ... ready to go {repeats].

Miguel Orozco, a [Mexican American] from East Los Angeles, has a more direct approach that mixes English and Spanish in the reggae ton La Caminata.

Viva! Obama '08 (www.amigosdeobama. com!) urged [Mexican Americans] to get out and vote in the March 4 Texas primary.

A band of horns, violins and guitars, with the musicians dressed in full mariachi regalia, has the feel of a paid political song, and its lyrics for that reason are not as engaging as the others. Nonetheless, it catches what young [Mexican Americans]

found fulfilling in Obama's candidacyhis humble origins, a champion of the working class, an ability to bring people together.

To the candidate Barack Obama This song we sing to you from our heart Born humble and without pretense He began on the streets of Chicago Working to fulfill a vision of protecting working people And bringing us together In this great nation.

Viva Obama! Viva Obama!

Families will be intact, secure and even have a health plan Viva Obama! Viva Obama!

A candidate fighting For our nation It doesn't matter if you're from San Antonio It doesn't matter if you're from Corpus Christi From Dallas or from the Valley From Houston or El Paso What matters is that we vote for Obama ....

Jamaican singer Coco Tea's song, entitled simply Barack Obama, celebrates an Obama-inspired interracial call for change to meet the needs of the people: Why why why why why, boy, why why?

Lord. for more information: Well this is not about class nor color, Yes We Can-Barack Obama music video race nor creed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = jjXyqcx-m YY Make no mistake, it's the changes, what all the people they need.

The Mighty Sparrow-Barack the Magnificent I'm a shout out: Barack Obama! Barack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =tnjKmpllFn8 Obama! {repeats].

Fired-up! Ready to Go! Them say Barack Obama! Barack Obama! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ex_OLA3fs Now you can hear it in the morning.

Calabash-Tune Your World Obama!

And you can hear it in the evening. http://caabash.typepa.com/globaL music_news Obama! /2008/04/obama-music-is.html

Black man and white man shouting.

You can hear them saying: ...Barack Obama, Barack Obama {repeats] They say Barack Obama. {repeats] ...

Obama's international appeal rivals that of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. That he was born to parents who were international as well as interracial, and that he grew up outside the United States makes him a biological and cultural emblem of the new global era. His very persona is an implicit promise that past racial, ethnic and class divisions can be, and are being, overcome. That he speaks of change, of transforming the way Americans deal with each other and with the world also resonates internationally.

Germans see Obama almost as the reincarnation of their favorite American president, John F. Kennedy. Obama's father's people hail him as ...the first "Kenyan" president of the United States. [People] in India and Europe with whom I have spoken recently see his rise to prominence as inspiration for what their own societies might one day achieve. On a less optimistic note, a black Cuban friend tells me people there are relatively indifferent to Obama ....

A group calling itself The World Wants Obama Coalition tracks Obama's international standing in some 37 countries around the world. The coalition finds that Obama's support defies usual assumptions, being highest in Japan and Brazil, one of which has almost no blacks and the other has more than the United States. Support is also high in Europe. With all this enthusiasm, ...musicians in other nations have produced, or are producing, songs similar to those highlight_ed_o_n_th_e_C_a_la_b_a_sh_w,_e_b_s_it_e_ .._.. ~ Laurence Glasco teaches history at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

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If George Washington had been made monarch, this Texas family might be American royalty today. he children of Paul Emery Washington think of their father as an unpretentious, generous guy who climbed the corporate ladder to become regional manager at CertainTeed manufacturing, a buildingsupply company. Now 82, he takes care of his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, while spending time on the San Antonio, Texas, property that he shares with his children.

"I think he would've been a great king," says son Bill Washington-a statement...that might seem a little odd. Except that Paul Emery Washington is a...descendant of [the brother of) George Washington, [America's] first president and perhaps the only man in history who turned down the position of monarch.

Had George Washington ascended to the throne, Paul Emery Washington ...could now go by King Paul, the first. Lore has it that President Washington was so well liked after his Revolutionary victory that a group of citizens frustrated with the Continental Congress floated the idea of a coup d'etat and the installation of King George and the creation of an American monarchy. But Washington, who believed that anyone (anyone!) might make for a good leader, staunched the idea and eventually relinquished his power as commander in chief.

Since then, genealogists have been pondering the possibilities

T

had President Washington been a bit more power-hungry. As early as 1908, newspapers published accounts of history buffs who worked their way through the Washington family tree using rules of succession to determine the rightful heir to the theoretical American throne. But without the Internet, branches of the Washington tree would be lost in Ohio, say, or forgotten by lineage sleuths who couldn't quite decipher a family tree made complicated because Washington himself didn't have any [biological] children.

But while brainstorming ideas for their election-themed coverage, Ancestry.com turned to their chief family historian, Megan Smolenyak, for an answer to the historical mystery.

Smolenyak first turned to Google where she figured out that, because kinship rules vary by country and because Washington [had no biological children], there were four possible kings (or queens) among the nearly 8,000 descendants of Washington who are alive today. Of the 200 men that carry the Washington name, though, Paul Emery is the end result of two lines-a very rare possibility that makes him the likely heir.

That's a concept that Paul would rather not think about. "I doubt if I'd be a very good king," he says. "We've done so well as a country without a king, so I think George made the best deci-

Copyright Š 2008 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of the material without express written permission is prohibited. (www.newsweek.com).

Answers to the Presidential Quiz

By RIeRA VARMA

From the November/December 2008 SPAN issue.

1. Who became both vice president and impeachment in the wake of the Watergate president without winning a national election? scandal.

Gerald R. Ford, a member of the House of 2. Who was the last president to be born in a Representatives, was appointed log cabin?

The son of a farmer, James A. Garfield was vice president by President Richard Nixon following the the last U.S. president born in a log cabin, in resignation of Spiro Agnew on Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He rose from the depths of poverty tax evasion charges in 1973. ÂŤ Less than a year later, Ford to become president at 50 in 1881. Within four months, he J! became the only Ameri~an ~ president not elected to national office when he was shot by an assassin and ~ succeeded Nixon, who resigned to avoid lay in the White House for

i @ Q

weeks. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, tried unsuccessfully to find the bullet with an induction-balance electrical device which he had designed, but Garfield died from the resulting infection and internal hemorrhage.

3. Who was the first president to reside in what would become known as the White House?

The first residents, in 1800, were second President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, who moved in when the paint was still wet. In 1790, President George Washington signed an Act of Congress declaring that the federal government would reside in a district "not exceeding ten miles square... on

George Washington (right) and 82-year-old Paul Emery Washington (far right).

sion." His family, which includes three sons and one daughter, are fifth-generation descendants of George's oldest brother, Samuel.

But Paul would've been the ninth or tenth king of America depending on which of the lines you follow. "A guy would get the crown and then live forever, or have no children, or just have a girl and that would send the crown careening across the family tree," Smolenyak says of the lineage, which she spent a month whittling down using a process of elimination, usually while looking at genealogical software on two computer monitors, often while singing Queen's Another One Bites the Dust.

She concluded that leadership would have passed not to men named Abraham or Teddy but to those named Lee, Felix or Frank. "We would have had a King named Spot. How cool is that?" Smolenyak muses of the son who would've fallen between King Bushrod, the first, and Bushrod II. And term lim-

Formore inlormalion: Who Would Be King of America? http://www.ancestrymagazine.com/2008/09/ woman-who-wou Id-be-ki ng/

cover-story/the-man-or

its? Not so much: King Larry would have been in power from 1935 to 1997, she says.

Many historians question the legitimacy of the King George myth, especially since most royals endure stricter marriage restrictions than the ones faced by today's Washingtons. And even among Paul's own children, there is varying skepticism. Richard, the eldest heir, has little interest in his supposed birthright while his younger brother, Bill, fills the upstairs floor of his home with George Washington memorabilia-paintings, coins, tobacco tins-and claims membership in the [National Society of the] Sons of the American Revolution. He's also visited ancestral homes in Mount Vernon [George Washington's Virginia home] and manses in England where the British Washingtons lived.

"With my brother, there's always that jealousy thing involved," the second heir says. "I go out and do the parades-but he's still got the claim." Paul Emery Washington's family has known for some time that they are descendants of America's first president, but Ancestry.com has used the latest technology to make a definitive case for Paul being the "lost king."

---------*-*_. -*--*-*-------~

Genealogy Web sites cast wide DNA net http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21426919/

the river Potomac." Although he oversaw the construction of the house, he never lived in it.

4. Which president served the shortest time in office and was the first to die in office? ~ President William Henry Harrison ~ had the dual distinction of delivering ~ the longest inaugural address-8,445 ~ words-and serving the shortest time ~ in office, Harrison was sworn in on a ~ bitterly cold, wet day in 1841. His speech lasted one hour and 40 minutes and he rode a horse to and from the Capitol building without a hat or overcoat.

He died a month later of pneumonia, 5. Which president had the first phone installed in the White House?

Though President Rutherford B. Hayes rarely received any calls, he had the first phone installed at the White House in 1877. His telephone number was 1. Fifty years later, President Herbert Hoover had the first telephone line installed at the president's desk in the Oval Office.

6. Which president had the first electric lights installed in the White House?

President Benjamin Harrison is credited with installing electric lights in the White House in 1891. After he got an electrical

shock, his family often refused to touch the light switches and left their operation to the domestic staff. Sometimes, they would go to bed with the lights on.

7. Which president began the White House fleet's transition from coaches and carriages to cars?

President William H. Taft rode to his inauguration in a horsedrawn carriage, but he is credited with having the White House stables converted into a garage for four cars, all ordered in 1909. Also, his wife, Helen, was the first to ride in the inaugural parade from the Capitol building to the White House. Taft is the only man to have been both president and chief

justice of the United States.

8. Which president got stuck in a White House bathtub and remains the heaviest U.S. president in history?

President William H. Taft, who took office in 1909, was the heaviest U.S. president at 136 kilograms. After he got stuck in a White House bathtub, Taft ordered a replacement, which was big enough to hold four men.

9. Who was the first president to use helicopters to travel to and from the White House grounds?

President Dwight D. 路'Eisenhower began presidential helicopter travel when he flew from his vacation home in Newport, Rhode Island, to the Naval Air Station Quonset Point in September 1957. He often made short trips to and from his Gettysburg farm in Pennsylvania.

10. Which first name is the most common among U.S. presidents?

There have been six U.S presidents named James: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield and Carter, Tied at second place is John: Adams, Quincy Adams, Tyler and Kennedy; and William: Henry Harrison, McKinley, Taft and Clinton.

11. Who was the tallest U.S. president and the only one to hold a patent?

Abraham Lincoln was

the tallest US. president at 6 feet 4 inches. Lincoln was also the only presi- . dent to acquire a patent, for "A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals" in 1849. The invention consists of a set of bellows attached to the hull of a ship just below the water line. On reaching a shallow place, the bellows are filled with air and the vessel, thus buoyed, is expected to float clear. It was never marketed and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

12. Which president was elected to the House of Representatives after leaving the White House?

Since 1789, 19 presidents and 33 major party presidential nominees have served in the U.S. House of

Washington' s Bi~thdayJlnli George Washington served as military, civilian leader.

mericans long have honored George Washington, commander of the United States armies in the War of Independence, first president of the United States, and "first in the hearts of his countrymen."

During the Revolutionary War, Washington's small band of soldiers faced a well-equipped professional army, but he led his often ragged forces to victory in the face of incredible hardships.

Washington enjoyed nearly universal respect, not least for spurning all offers of political power at the moment of his military triumph in 1781, choosing instead to return to his Mount Vernon, Virginia, farm. The drafters of the new Constitution in 1787 were willing to afford the executive branch greater powers because they anticipated that Washington, who could be counted on not to abuse his office, would serve as the chief executive, and would establish important precedents for his successors.

The most popular figure in America at the end of his second four-year term, Washington decided to路 relinquish power, establishing an informal eight-year limit that was formalized by the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951.

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It has been said that the American people themselves forced the US. Congress to establish the Washington's birthday holiday, which today is fixed by law on the third Monday of February. Nineteenth-century Americans commonly celebrated a holiday on February 22, the day of Washington's birth. Apparently motivated by chronic employee absenteeism on that date, Congress in 1879 declared Washington's birthday a legal, public holiday, In 1971, the US. Congress fixed Washington's birthday and a number of other holidays on Mondays, to createlong holiday weekends, Becausea number of states (but not the U.S federal government) also officially celebrate the February12 birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, many Americans

For more information: George Washington http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens http://www ,mountvernon ,org/ US Army Five-Star Generals http://www.history.army.mil/faq/FAQ-5star.htm

Representatives at some point during their careers. Only in the case of John Quincy Adams, in 1830, did a president become a Representative after he left the White House.

13. Who was the first president to appear on

TV? Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to appear on TV in 1939 when he spoke from the World's Fair in New York City. Very few people saw him. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman pioneered telecasts from the White House when he asked Americans to cut back on their use of grain to help starving Europeans, still recovering from World War II and a famine.

14. Which president was the first to use e-mail?

Personal computers began appearing in the White House through the 1980s and email was first introduced in the waning days of President

George HW. Bush's term in 1992. The first White House Web site was developed in 1994, during the Bill Clinton Administration.

Presidents are usually advised nOhto use email because of security risks and fears that messages could be intercepted.

15. Which president was the first to have a live press conference on TV? Braving the risk of making mistakes and injudicious statements, John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president to go live on television in 1961 and received a positive public response. By November 1963, when he was assassinated, Kennedy had held 64 news conferences, an average of one every 16 days.

16. Which president never married?

James Buchanan is the only U,S, president who never married. His niece, Harriet Lane, became extremely popular for hosting presidential gatherings with spontaneity and poise during his term, 1857-1861. She remains unique among first ladies.

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17. Which president had 14 children?

President John Tyler was the first vice president to be elevated to the office of president after the death of his predecessor, William Henry Harrison. Tyler's first wife had been an invalid for two years when he unexpectedly became president in 1841. After her death, the first of a president's wife in the White House, Tyler became the first president to marry in office, when he took a second wife, 30 years his junior, Tyler had 14 children from both marriages.

18. Why is Barack Obama the 44th U.S. president, but only the 43rd man to become president?

Only 43 men have become president, through election or succession from the vice presidency. Grover Cleveland was elected twice, nonconsecutively, and is thus America's 22nd and 24th president. Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president, who served between Cleveland's terms. ~

Reproduction of a painting by Percy Moran showing General George Washington inspecting the flags captured from the British after the Battle of Trenton in 1776.

.:J---------------~ havecome to believe-incorrectly-that the third Monday of February is a consolidated Presidents' Day honoring both Washington and Lincoln, and indeed all US. presidents. Many states designate the holiday as Presidents' Day,and merchants offer Presidents' Day sales.

The federal holiday, however, remains Washington's birthday It is but one way in which Americans celebrate the life of the man often called the "father of his country." The 169-meter-high Washington Monument, dedicated in 1885, dominates the skyline of America's capital, Washington, D.C. An 18-meter-high likeness of Washington was carved in stone and completed in 1941 on South Dakota's Mount Rushmore, along with those of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford posthumously appointed Washingtonto the rankof six-star Generalof the Armies of the United States,assuring that he would continue to outrankall other members of the military.

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From the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs.

The Mask of Lincoln:

ma HSâ&#x20AC;˘ 0 an n urln Smithsonian exhibition explores Lincoln's transformative role.

braham Lincoln (1809-1865) is widely regarded as one of the greatest U.S. presidents and is perhaps the most admired and compelling figure in American history. Studied by generations of schoolchildren, Civil War enthusiasts and historians, Lincoln remains a brilliant enigma, as much of a riddle today as he was to his contemporaries.

Lincoln's elusive nature-and the qualities that enabled him to steer his nation through its gravest crisis, the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865)-are the central focus of an exhibition, "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln," at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition offers rare photographs and other objects, including two life masks (plaster casts of Lincoln's face, which provide a three-dimensional view of the man, warts and all). The objects bring visitors tantalizingly close to a shadowy figure who seems always to hover just out of reach.

Because he lived in the 1800s, when photography was a fairly new technology, Lincoln enjoyed an advantage denied to earlier presidents: the opportunity to disseminate his image far and wide, and even to shape that image to a significant degree. David Ward, curator of the "One Life" exhi-

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Alexander Gardner's 1865 "cracked-plate" photograph reveals a weary, careworn President Abraham Lincoln two months before his assassination.

bition, explains that Lincoln was quick to grasp the implications of photography and to embrace the new medium.

As Lincoln rose from obscurity to make a name for himself, first as a lawyer and later as a politician, he regularly visited photographers' studios to sit for his portrait.

Early photographic prints of Lincoln reveal that he "presented himself as a socially powerful, responsible figure" in sober business suits, says Ward. The image that Lincoln projected in these pictures undoubtedly helped establish him as a serious candidate for high office," Ward adds.

GeUing ahead in 19th-centurv America "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" makes it clear that Lincoln was able to overcome his impoverished background because of his intellect, his charisma and his fierce ambition. In fact, a journalist of the period "once dismissively said of Lincoln that 'the little engine of his ambition knew no rest,''' Ward says. Yet, even those who initially underestimated him soon came to realize that Lincoln was a man of extraordinary gifts.

To succeed in 19th-century America, "you had to be two things: physically very strong," which was essential in a rugged environment, "and convivial in a way that resonated with men in a frontier society," says Ward.

Lincoln, at 6 feet 4 inches, was physically imposing and strong. He regularly won axe-wielding contests of brute strength-a common form of entertainment during the

mid-1800s, Ward observes. Moreover, Lincoln "was able to tell stories and jokes," which was an important asset in the political arena. According to Ward, Lincoln's sociability and self-deprecating sense of humor "were a critical part of his ability to get men to follow him."

Although populist notions of Lincoln as "Honest Abe" were not entirely inaccurate, such characterizations were mostly the work of clever campaign managers, who functioned in much the same manner as today's political operatives. Before long, the idea of Lincoln as a prairie version of Everyman gave way to a more statesmanlike presentation, and his many studio portraits of the l860s reinforce the concept of Lincoln as a dignified chief executive.

As the Civil War escalated, Lincoln grew a beard-most likely because it made him seem more authoritative at a time "when an anxious country looked to him for leadership," says Ward.

"The beard symbolized that he was girding for battle; it's literally a show of testosterone." Photographs of Lincoln meeting with his generals, and with soldiers on the battlefield, sent a signal, as well. "These images demonstrate that he's actively involved with the prosecution of the war as commander in chief," Ward says. "And they demonstrate civilian control of the military.

Lincoln is communicating that he's in charge."

The pressures of war transformed Lincoln from an exceedingly nimble politician into one of history's giants. By restoring his country's founding commitment to the principle of freedom, Lincoln "redeemed the notion of America as a place of boundless possibility," says Ward. "He was the indispensable man of his era."

Among the greatest treasures in "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" is an albumen silver print-now known as the "cracked-plate" photograph-which became the most iconic image of Lincoln ever produced. Taken by Alexander Gardner in 1865, the picture reveals a contemplative Lincoln, evidently exhausted and careworn. He gazes directly into the camera, his expression a mixture of elegiac sadness and deep empathy. A jagged line appears at the upper left-hand corner of the photograph and slashes through the top of Lincoln's head.

That distinctive flaw-resulting from a crack in the glassplate negative due to careless handling by the photographer or his assistant-makes the image especially memorable and haunting. Despite its accidental provenance, the crack serves as a powerful symbol of the divided nation that Lincoln was striving to unify. More ominously, it also foretells the trajectory of the assassin's bullet that would kill Lincoln two months later.

"Lincoln was always conscious of his own mortality," and the "cracked-plate" photograph conveys a certain fatalism, says Transformation In aligning himself with the cause of the Union-the northern Ward. "It's almost a spectral image. Lincoln seems to be disapforces that opposed slavery and the secession of the southern pearing into history, slipping away from us as we try to approach Confederate states-Lincoln "developed an unwavering sense him." Also, he says, "there's a faint smile" on Lincoln's faceevocative of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, "Mona Lisa"of mission" about preserving the republic, says Ward. Moreover, he says, Lincoln was "an intensely spiritual man, yet he that enhances the air of mystery. The photograph's preservation belonged to no church. He acted according to his view of God's was a remarkable stroke of fortune, since it might easily have been discarded as "a throwaway picture" on account of the crack will, which freed him up to do as he saw fit." that marred its surface, Ward explains.

It is, arguably, the defining image of the exhibition, and the for more information: one that most fully captures the sphinx-like persona of the 16th Abraham Lincoln president of the United States: a mythic figure who continues to http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/aI16.html -I fascinate and puzzle his compatriots, 200 years after his birth.

"One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" runs through July 5, 2009.~ "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln"

http://www.npg.si .edu/exhibit/lincoln/

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Lauren Monsen is a writer for America.gov

e new U.S. Embassy in New Delhi was formally opened on January 5 in the presence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, and other ~uests. "I was enchanted by the building. I think it is a very beautiful structure and a very attractive combination of various typical Indian motifs with latest modern techniques," Nehru commented later.

The embassy was the first constructed under the new U.S. government directive that its buildings abroad should be in keeping with the culturai, architectural and climatic conditions of their host countries. Designed by architect EdwardDurell Stone, it also had the first Indian:-built. internaldial telephone exchange. ''To me this building is symbolic of what can be achieved through the cooperation of our two countries. From beginning to end it has been a joint venture," U;S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker said at the opening ceremony.

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What Americans and Indians were doing in 1959.

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ore than a million people greeted President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he landed in New Delhi as part of an 11-nation tour. The enthusiastic crowd chanted "Eisenhower zindabad!" as the motorcade carrying President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru proceeded from Palam Airport to Rashtrapati ShavanoThe entire city was decked with lights and thousands of Indian and American flags to greet the first U.S. president to visit India.

During the four December days he spent in India, President Eisenhower addressed Parliament, attended a state banquet, received a Doctor of Laws degree from Delhi University, was entertained by Indian singers and musicians, visited the Taj Mahal in Agra and a village nearby. From Indian leaders to common people, the president created a bond that would endure despite differences on major international issues in the following decades.

Speaking to the largest crowd ever gathered, up to that time. at the RamLila Grounds in New Delhi, President Eisenhower said, "I see in the magnificent spectacle before me a soul-stirring testimonial by half a million of India's people to America, a sister democracy-and to the cause for which both India and America stand: The cause of peace and friendship in freedom.... We who are free-and who prize our freedom above all other gifts of God and naturemust know each other better; trust each other more; support each other." http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid = 11620&st = eisenhower &st1 =India

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mriki Mela, the $2.5 million American exhibit at the first World Agriculture Fair, in New Delhi, was America's largest effort of its kind in an international exposition.

"The American exhibit at this fair presents

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the role we feel agriculture can play in furtherance of a healthy, fruitful, peaceful world where the families of all nations can live in freedom from fear of famine and war," said President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who ope~ed the Amriki Mela during his India trip in December.

Built around the theme of "Food, Family, Friendship, Freedom," the exhibits were displayed in four buildings spread over two hectares.

Visitors even got to see a nuclear training reactor that produced radio isotopes used in agriculture Other displays included the latest farm equipment, reproductions of American farms, a dairy milking room, a poultry section, packaging machinery, hybrid grains, demonstrations of Us. agricultural research.

Members of America's 4-H Club provided live folk music and dances. http://www. presidency. ucsb .edu /ws/index.php?pid = 11618

oordarshan, India's public television network, went on air on September 15 with half an hour of programming from a makeshift studio in New Delhi.

The United States provided some equipment for the experimental venture, which was started with the aim of discovering what TV could achieve in community development and formal education.

Initially, programs were telecast twice a week and the audience comprised members of 180 television clubs in and around New Delhi. They were given free TV sets by UNESCO. Now, Doordarshan reaches more than 90 percent of India's population. http://www .dd i nd ia. g ov. i n/Kend raID e I h i/ Program + Column + 3/delhi.htm

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Front row (from left); Walter M. Schirra, Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and Scott Carpenter. Back row (from left); Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. "GuS!! Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. e first American astronauts-the Mercury Sevenwere introduced to the world at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on April 9. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton became the new heroes, embodying the spirit of space exploration.

Project Mercury, completed in 1963, was the United States' first man-In-space program. Six manned and eight automated flights were completed as part of the project, proving that human spaceflight was possible. These paved the way for the Gemini and Apollo programs as well as for further human spaceflight.

The U.S space program witnessed another landmark _ event on May 28 when a squirrel monkey and a rhesus monkey, Able and Miss Baker, became the first living beings to successfully return to Earth after a suborbital space flight http://wwwpao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/mercury.htm

ne of the world's most popular fashion dolls, Barbie made its debut on March 9. Its inventor, Ruth Handler, co-founder of the toy company Mattei, named the doll after her daughter, Barbara. Dressed in a black and white striped swimsuit with her signature ponytail, Barbie was introduced to the world at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.

The first Barbie sold for $3 and was a great success, with 351,000 dolls sold in 1959. Since then, the 11 Y2 inch doll has had more than 80 careers-from rock star to flight attendant to paleontologist and U.S. presidential candidate.

Barbie turned Indian in 1982 with the launch of the India Barbie. The doll's other Indian looks were the Princess of India Barbie and the Diwali Barbie.

Currently a $1.5 billion-per-year industry, Barbie also made it to No. 43 in the book, The 101 Most ~ Influential People Who Never Lived. ~ http://wwwbarbiecollectorcom/ ~

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igi was the big winner at the Academy Awards, winning nine Oscars. Besides Best Picture and Best Director (for Vincente Minnelli), the movie won awards for its music, costumes and cinematography.

The musical was based on a novel by French writer Colette. Starring Louis Jourdan, Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier (left to right in foreground below), the movie follows the life of a young Parisian girl, Gigi, being groomed for a career as a courtesan and her relationship with a wealthy, cultured man who discovers he is in love with her.

A day after the movie won its nine Oscars, telephone operators at the offices of its production studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) were apparently told to answer all phone calls with, "Hello, M-Gigi-M." Gigi was released in India in 1959. http://movies.nyti mes. com/movi e/19 761 /G ig i!overview

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awaii became the 50th U.S. state when President

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation on August 21 and announced the design for the new 50-star American flag.

"We will wish for her prosperity, security, happiness and a growing closer relationship with all of the other states.

We know that she is ready to do her part to make this Union a stronger nation-a stronger people than it was before because of her presence as a full sister to the other 49 states. So all of us say to her, 'good luck,''' he said.

President Eisenhower supported the idea of statehood for Hawaii early in his administration but appropriate legislation failed to make it through Congress until the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959. He signed the bill into law on March 18. The citizens of Hawaii voted in a referendum to accept the statehood bill in June, paving the way for the proclamation in August. http://gohawai i.about. com/od/hawai ianh istory3/a/ admission _ day.htm

mericans love vacations, and one of the favorite destinations for those living in Southern California is Santa Catalina Island, which attracts about a million visitors every year.

Catalina, as it's commonly called, offers a quick getaway from the jammed freeways, smoggy air and nonstop pursuit of money and fame that characterizes much of Los Angeles. Reached primarily by high-speed ferryboats that run several times a day from the mainland, the island is a quiet, somewhat sleepy throwback to California as it was a half-century ago.

One of eight islands sprinkled over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast, Catalina is the only one with hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, stores and recreational facilities. The others, including the five rugged and undeveloped islands that form the beautiful Channel Islands National Park, are accessible only by private boats, small planes or helicopters.

Two islands are controlled by the U.S. Navy, with one off-limits to the public and used for weapons testing and training.

Most of Catalina is a nature preserve open to campers and hikers by permit only.

Avalon is the only town, with a population of about 3,500 that swells to more than 10,000 on summer weekends. Originally developed as a fishing camp in the 19th century, Avalon has dozens of hotels with room prices ranging from about $75 to $500 per night, as well as condominiums and cottages that can be rented by the week starting around $1,000. The town is shaped like an auditorium, with multimillion-dollar homes perched on hills that rise sharply from its center and a picturesque small boat harbor situated like an oceanfront stage. Pleasure boaters from the mainland secure their sailor power boats to underwater moorings they rent from the city and go ashore on water taxis.

The peaceful town, which sparkles with lights at night, is also a popular spot for

For more information:

weddings and honeymoons.

"It's unique," says Tim French, a businessman from Atascadero, California, who has spent the last five Thanksgiving holidays at Avalon. 'The to'wn has a character you don't find elsewhere in California. It makes you feel like you've really gotten away."

Catalina became well-known across the United States during the 1920s, when a style of music called the "Big Band Sound" was broadcast by radio from the circular Casino building at one end of

Avalon. A song called 26 Miles, written in 1957 by a California lifeguard (who had never been to Catalina) and referring to its distance from the mainland (it's actually 22 miles) became a huge hit and made Catalina even more popular.

"It's got almost everything I like about California," says Ed Ditlefsen, who grew up in California and now lives in Twin Falls, Idaho. "There are historical buildings, beautiful beaches, hiking trails with great views-all packed into one spot.

You can eat Mexican food and spend very

Calalina's Hislorv Mirrors California's rchaeologists have found evidence of human habitation on Catalina and other Channel Islands dating back at least 7,000 years, Early islanders subsisted on plants and sea life, meeting their other needs by paddling plank canoes to the mainland, where they traded sea otter pelts and carved stone bowls for other goods.

The first contact between Native Americans and Europeans came in 1542, when Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo visited the island and claimed it for the king of Spain A second Spanish explorer, Sebastian Viscaino, came ashore 60 years later and named the island Santa Catalina in honor of Saint Catherine, Spain established missions on the mainland in the 1700s, but when what was then called New Spain broke away from the mother country in 1820, Catalinabecame part of Mexico, In 1846, the United States seized what would become the state of California from Mexico and Catalina came with it.

From that time on, Catalina has been a microcosm of

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Pleasure boats moored at Avalon.

California history-miners burrowed into its steep cliffs during the 1849 Gold Rush, Union soldiers built barracks there during the Civil War, the timbers of a Chinese junk still lie in one of its harbors, and the island was used by the Navy in both World Wars, It remained in private hands until the mid1970s, when title to almost 90 percent of its land passed to a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and protecting the island's undeveloped areas, Perhaps the greatest influence on Catalina was that of chewing gum tycoon William Wrigley Jr" who bought most of the island in 1919, Wrigley bankrolled an ambitious economic development program, building a country club, bird park, ferry boats, hotels and

the legendary Casino building, (The name came from an Italian word for entertainment-the Casino houses a large, ornate movie theater and a 1920s-era, ocean-view dancehall, but there has never been any gambling,) Wrigley's son continued his father's dream, giving Avalon an early California ambience and building a mid-island landing strip for small private planes called the Airport in the Sky, Today, most of Catalina remains close to what it was when the Spanish arrivedgrassy hills, rocky coastline and crystal-clear waters, It is a quiet, tranquil place just a few kilometers away from the nonstop energy and bustle of modern Los Angeles, -SF

~ little, or have fresh seafood and good

di wines at a luxurious oceanfront restaurant. .~ Lie on the beach, shop in the little stores ;:;or take bus tours to the interior of the ~ island. There are so many choices." ~ Avalon is like a small village with red~ tiled roofs, Spanish-style archways inlaid ~ with colorful tiles, and a long, semicircu~ lar walkway next to the water. Golfing, ~ camping, fishing, swimming, diving, hik~ ing, shopping, reading and simply lying ~ on a sandy beach are favorite activities for ~ tourists, who generally come for stays of ~ less than a week, according to the Catalina ~ Chamber of Commerce. ~ "It's sunny, quiet and restful-the perfect place near the water to decompress," says Gary Libman, a college professor who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena. "Almost anything you could want is within walking distance. It's a wonderful blend of relaxation and convenience."

Catalina is 34 kilometers long and varies in width from 13 kilometers to less than a kilometer at a mid-island spot called Two Harbors, which has one store, one restaurant and one hotel. Two Harbors primarily attracts pleasure boaters, as well as campers who pitch their tents at designated areas nearby. The island is warmed with sun or partial sun an average of 267 days a year, with summertime temperatures rarely topping 26 degrees Celsius and winter lows averaging around 10 degrees. There is little rain-about 14 inches a year, all of it falling between October and April. The ocean waters surrounding the island vary in temperature from the low 20s in the summer to around 10 degrees in the winter. The sea is much clearer than California's coastal waters, making Catalina's beaches popular with swimmers and scuba divers who prowl Top: Santa Catalina Island narrows to less than a kilometer in width at Two Harbors, where boaters tie up to permanent moorings in the Pacific Ocean. Campers also come ashore on ferries from the mainland.

Center: Many Hollywood movies have been filmed on Catalina, including Westerns that featured buffaloes brought from America's Great Plains.

Left: Visitors stroll along Catalina Island's main seaside street, Crescent Avenue, in the , early evening.

Catalina: Hollvwood's Back lot

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ere's a Hollywood trivia question: What do the movies Mutiny on the Bounty, Jaws, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, MacArthur, Apollo 13, The Hunt for Red October and Pearl Harbor have in common? All had scenes filmed on or around Catalina.

More than 500 motion pictures, documentaries, television programs and commercials have used Catalina as a location, beginning with the silent films of the early 1900s. Because it is

close to Hollywood and easily reached, the island has served as the coast of North Africa, the beaches of Tahiti, the American frontier, and the lost continent of Atlantis. The mechanical shark in Jaws "swam" in Catalina's waters, palm trees used to simulate Tahiti still wave on the island, and descendants of buffalo used in Westerns now roam its hillsides.

Catalina was a favorite getaway for early Hollywood stars, including Charlie Chaplin, Clark

Gable, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Joan Crawford. Director Cecil B. De Mille filmed at least three pictures on the island, telling the local newspaper it was "the only place where I can get away to work amid real inspiration" While film production has largely shifted to other locations, Catalina remains a favorite spot for television programs and commercials, music videos, magazine and advertising shoots.

Above: Palm trees and arched doorways, reminiscent of Mexican and Spanish architecture, are evident throughout Avalon. Hillside homes above the town sell for several million dollars.

Bottom left: Avalon Bay

the dense kelp forests. This vegetation rises from the ocean floor, providing cover for seals, sea bass and large numbers of bright, orange Garibaldi, which resemble giant goldfish and are California's State Marine Fish.

While prices have risen on Catalina, the island remains a relative bargain.

Roundtrip ferryboat fares are just over $50 per person, there are many choices of accommodation and food, and the beaches, fresh air and quaint, seaside atmosphere are free. It hasn't really changed much in the last 50 years, which is a large part of its appeal to busy Southern Californians. ~.

-----~

Steve Fox is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Ventura, California.

he Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, has been delighting children and adults ever since Kermit the Frog and the late Jim Henson of Muppet fame cut the ribbon in 1978 at its official opening. The founder and president of modern puppets from around the world, while the center's perthe center, Vincent Anthony, himself a puppeteer, was at manent collection comprises more than 1,000 puppets. that time head of the American branch of the international pup"If someone wants to see what puppetry was like, is like, in petry organization, Union International de la Marionnette, which their region, we have it," Anthony says. "The center is global in is now headquartered at the center. Every four years, the associa- nature, and someone coming from another country can connect tion has an international festival in a different country. The festi- very easily with their culture, or understand another culture. val was held in the United States in 1980 in Washington, D.C., "We wanted to put a magnifying glass over the field globally and and Anthony had fiscal responsibility for the project. to look at all of it on an ongoing basis, which is what we've done for "I saw the potential for something incredible," Anthony says. 30 years. We wanted to highlight every aspect of the field that we "We took over the entire Kennedy Center, and we had perform- possibly could-that's the reason the word 'center' is in our title." ances .... We had two major exhibits in Washington-one at the Create-A-Puppet Workshops are available for children from Corcoran [Gallery of Art] and one at the Smithsonian. We curated kindergarten through 12th grade on such topics as Cultural puppets from all over the world, and we had an education compo- Awareness through International Puppetry. Workshops for prenent at the Kennedy Center as well. So that gave !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~ school children have been offered since 1995. me the idea-because I didn't want that to go Adult education classes in puppetry started in away. I wanted the United States to have the abil1997. ity to entertain the world's artists and to celebrate The center attracts more than 350,000 visithe puppetry field through looking at objects." tors each year to its workshops, puppet shows

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The Center for Puppetry Arts has won many awards: it has 12 times won puppetry's highest award, the Citation of Excellence; it has repeatedly been chosen as one of MSN.com's top 10 children's museums in the United States; and it won the 2008 Microsoft Education Award.

The center's interactive museum features hands-on fun with more than 350 ancient and

The center is one of the few arts or performing arts museums to provide classes via videoconferencing.

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and exhibits.

In the Family Series, the center's company of puppeteers presents original adaptations of such classic stories as The Ugly Duckling.

The New Directions Series is geared toward adults with, for example, the Xperimental Puppetry Theater presenting mature content and employing everything from marionettes to

Above: The Ugly Duckling, part of the 2008-09 Family Series at the center.

Right: Adults can learn from puppetry professionals such skills as character voice, puppet making and manipulation. robots and masked dancers.

The Microsoft Education Award recognized the center's distance learning program for improving education quality for rural and low-income communities, as well as those with special needs, by delivering arts lessons through interactive videoconferencing.

In a sample interactive video on the center's Web site, a teacher leads a class through the construction and manipulation of their own puppets, which can then be For more information: used to explore topics such as the biology of butterflies or rainCenter for Puppetry Arts forest ecology. http://www.puppel.org/ The center is one of the few The Tech Awards arts or performing arts musehttp://www .techawards.org/laure ums to provide classes via videoconferencing. For school ates/stories/index.php?id = 184 districts facing budgetary constraints, interactive videoconferencing is an excellent way to provide students with hands-on experience in the arts.

Anthony says he has a vision: "total access to the center from any part of the globe."

He sees "tremendous potential" globally for virtual tours, interactive programming and distance learning. "I want to eventually have all of what we do available on a regular basis on our Web site-which means you can go in, you can look at a performance taking place, you can go to the distance learning studio and see what's happening there," Anthony says.

More than 130,000 students in 43 U.S. states and three foreign countries have participated in the center's distance learning programs. In September 2008, the center launched its permanent collection online.

The Henson family announced in 2007 that it was choosing the center as the home for their definitive collection of Jim Henson's creations-SOO to 700 puppets, props, scenic elements, posters, sketches, drawings, films and videos. The collection will be housed in a newly proposed Jim Henson Wing, to be included in the center's new museum space, scheduled to _op_e_n_in_A_tl_a_n_ta_i_n_2_0_1_1_.

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Doesn't Mean Skipping Class Despite the provision of universal, free public education for American children, more parents are opting to teach their kids at home. s the sun rose slowly one December morning, so did my children. We were in no hurry.

Although schools were in session, our school had moved to a new and convenient location: home. No rush to pack the lunches, find the backpacks, sign the permission forms, comb the hair, buckle everyone in the car, and beat the traffic to beat the school bell.

"What are we doing today?" Mabel asks.

"Studying earthquakes," answers her elder sister, Helen.

"And hiking the fault line," adds Zoe with a nod.

We'd recently moved our family of six to California.

With little time to research which neighborhoods offered the best schools, and a reluctance to enroll our children at a school in the middle of the academic term, we decided to try homeschooling. We knew others who homeschooled and the whole-family benefit of learning together appealed to us. We would have more flexibility to explore our beautiful new community together, with the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco, Monterey Bay and the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains within easy reach. Oh, and the San Andreas Fault that is blamed for so many of California's earthquakes.

A growing number of families in the United States are choosing to educate their children at home. According to

A

Left top: Amit Malhotra and his children hike to the ancient petroglyphs in Phoenix, Arizona, as part of a study unit on desert life.

Far left: The Malhotra children play outside the public library in Santa Clara, California.

Left: Maya Jain and Zoe Malhotra join other children on a wagon ride through the Saratoga, California, orchards during the town's annual Mustard Festival.

Right top: Alicia and Jiten Vaidya's son discovers starfish and anemones in the tidepools near Mendocino, California.

Right: Diane Toler, director of the Catholic Homeschoolers of New Jersey, works with her children Joshua (from left), Alexandra, Michael and John at their home in Cherry Hill.

I

a report issued by the U.S. Department of Education, an estimated 1.5 million school-aged children (between 5 to 17 years) were being home schooled in 2007, an increase of 412,000 since 2003. Current figures are estimated at closer to 2 million.

Parents who were surveyed cited the desire to provide religious or moral instruction as the most important reason for homeschooling, with concern about the school environment the second most important reason. Other reasons included dissatisfaction with the academic instruction at other schools, interest in a nontraditional approach to education and children with special needs. In a similar report in 2004, parents had cited concern about the school environment as the main reason for homeschooling.

The typical American child attends a free, neighborhood public school offering education in grades kindergarten through 12 (usually between 5 to 18 years). All children are legally required to attend school-public, private or home school-with specific regulations varying by state. The state, county, city or local school district governments establish curricular guidelines, number of days in a school year, teacher salaries and other particulars. The quality of a public school education changes dramatically between states and even within cities and neighborhoods. Often the better performing schools are found in wealthier communities where more local tax dollars are spent on education, and housing prices tend to be higher due to demand.

While interest in homeschooling in the United States is growing, controversy about

it abounds. Anti-tax and anti-government individuals often choose to homeschool their children to maintain independence from publicly supported institutions like schools. Some religious fundamentalists prefer to raise their children in an isolated, protective environment at home, and critics argue that without exposure to the ideas of others, those children are receiving a narrow education. Concerns have been raised about whether girls in such families are being as well educated as the boys and whether they learn of the full options available to them in life as American citizens.

Lawmakers prefer some level of oversight in the interests of the children, while home educating parents maintain their freedom to teach their children according to their own values.

For many Americans, homeschooling is not a practical alternative for their family.

"Dad, read the story again, but this time add some special effects. " Copyright

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Media Services,

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Above left: Colin Schiessle (right) plays with a calculator while his sister, Amber, works on a painting at their home in St. John, Indiana.

The children learn through a branch of homeschooling called unschooling.

Above center: Andrew Odor (left) studies math while his brother, Jarred, works with their mother, Karen, in Groton, Connecticut.

Karen Odor is a coordinator of the Christian Homeschoolers Organization of Southeastern Connecticut.

Above right: Beverly Hartley and her son, Harrison, use their kitchen as a homeschooling classroom at their home in Burbank, California.

Single-parent families or those with two working parents may have trouble finding time to eat with their kids, let alone teach math or science. Of the homeschoolers polled by the Department of Education in 2003, more than half had two parents in the household and just one parent in the labor force. Amy Thompson, a mother of five in Washington, D.C., sends her children to the neighborhood public school, but understands the appeal of homeschooling for some. "I support the fact that parents have the right to homeschool, but there should be some accountability," she notes. "Some people say that homeschool kids have trouble socializing, but my brothers both homeschool their children and they interact with other families all the time. It just takes more effort from the parents to find opportunities for their kids to meet others, compared to a neighborhood school that comes with a built-in community."

Her husband, David, is an employee of the public schools. "He is committed to supporting the public schools, and is not a

fan of homeschooling," she says. "We believe that a good public school offers the best choice for our family. But it's important for the parents to be involved in their children's school, know the teachers, and have a sense of what is going on in the classroom and on the playground, too. We have made it a priority to impart our values on our children, and spend as much time with them outside of school as we can.

These are some benefits of homeschooling but you can manage them and still enjoy the benefits of public schooling. Plus, I can see that our kids have a certain level of resilience and independence that comes from navigating their way in school."

It is notable that the relatively few families in India that have chosen to homeschool give the same reasons as their American counterparts-their dissatisfaction with the atmosphere in schools. In online chat forums they complain about bullying, bad peer influence, excessive scholastic pressure and insufficient creative outlets.

"The reason for homeschooling that was most frequently cited as being applicable was concern about the environment of other schools including safety, drugs or negative peer pressure," said the U.S. Department of Education report in 2004.

"Eighty-five percent of homeschooled students were being homeschooled, in part, because of their parents' concern about the environment of other schools."

Jennifer Glaese, who relocated to the United States in 2007 after several years in Germany, expressed disappointment with her children's first year at their neighbor-

hood public school in Hendersonville, North Carolina. "There's no art education in the elementary schools and no languages offered until high school. Both of my children are blight and I noticed how much of their day was spent doing busy work, standing in lines, going to the bathroom, waiting for children who do not understand a concept to catch up before

Many states require registration with the local school district, attendance records, a portfolio of work samples and annual testing for the children. the rest of the class can move on. Plus there was little or no time for recess!"

This year she and her German husband have decided to homeschool their ll-yearold son and 8-year-old daughter, along with several other families in their community. Five years ago, living in VenTIont, they homeschooled their son for first grade and found the experience rewarding. "We believe we can offer our children a better learning environment and richer opportunities to know themselves as whole beings-incorporating the mind, body and the spirit of who they are," Glaese says.

Jiten Vaidya, a father of two in Sunnyvale, California, was apprehensive when his wife, Alicia, first suggested they homeschool their son. "For a lot of Indian

families in the U.S., education is considered very important-close to people's hearts. Respect for the teacher, guru knows best-these values in the Indian culture made it a challenge for me to believe that I knew better than the teachers, that I knew what was best for my kids."

Looking back seven years later, he knows they made the right choice, even if it was a decision he would revisit each year. "I myself was taught to read at home by my mother, and I did a lot of early arithmetic on my own. So for our son's early years I believed there was no reason to be conventional. As each year passed, I could see how much he was learning. He is curious, lively, engaged. He is relaxed-not on somebody else's schedule. Eventually I came around to thinking homeschooling would work, and now I have no misgivings."

The biggest reward for Vaidya? "The opportunity to know and connect with your child."

A high school teacher by training and homeschool mother of four, Amy Chesser of Champaign, Illinois, agrees. When her 8-year-old son broke down one summer day with anxiety about school starting again, she sat with him and listened. "He was bored at school, frustrated with waiting for other kids, upset and distracted by frequent teasing. I'd worked as a fourthgrade substitute teacher the previous year, and even in the structured classroom of a great school, these things happen." Several families in her church community homeschooled, as did her sister-in-law. After reading about it, she became excited. "I

wanted to be with my children, to learn a homeschool co-op and a park group to with them, and to help my son love learn- find other families and share ideas about alteruative education resources in our coming," she says.

Although she would not describe reli- munity. ,'At our first park day, we met families gion as the main reason she chose to homeschool her children, her faith plays a role with Ivy League-educated parents and forfor her on a personal level. "God gives me mer public school teacher parents now leading their own, small, home classrooms. the courage to homeschool," she explains.

Taking on full responsibility for your Public schools' emphasis on standardized children's education definitely requires testing was a common concern among the courage. Many states require more, such as registration with the local school district, maintaining attendance records and a pOltfolio of work samples, annual testing for the children, progress review by a certified educator, and a high school diploma for the primary educator. In Vermont, considered to be among the more restrictive states, the home study statute outlines an annual progress assessment required of each homeschooling family for at least two years. If the students demonstrate adequate progress during the first two years, families no longer have to undergo the "Assume you make me the /oGI1 and I dOll 'I pay you back-you probably would have assessment, which consists either of a dropped the money in the market anyway." completed standardized test, a report from Copyright Š Tribune Media Services, Inc. a licensed teacher in Vermont, or a report All rights reserved. from the parents or instructor along with a portfolio demonstrating the student's former teachers. We discussed the ins-andprogress in each subject area. In New outs of homeschooling in California, a state Jersey, with minimal regulations regarding considered friendly to alternative educahomeschooling, a child is exempt from tion. Some parents chose to work through compulsory education as long as the child their school district's independent study is receiving "equivalent instruction" else- programs, which enabled them to be eligiwhere, including at home. However, if a ble for free cunicula, two-hours-a-week local school board has credible evidence group class time for their children, and in that the child is not receiving this equiva- some cases, a stipend toward approved lent instruction, then the board may bring courses or materials. Some parents opposed charges against the parent or guardian for this formula, preferring complete independence from government SUppOitor control. not educating the child.

According to Chesser, "lllinois requires Some of the families adopted the unschoolno paperwork or testing-at this time." In ing approach to educating their children: North Carolina? For Glaese, the process letting the children direct their learning was straightforward: "You simply go to the based on their own random interests, with Web site of the state's division of non-pub- parents simply facilitating or supporting lic education, fill out a form and send it in along the way. Two of the families used a to them. They okay it, send you an accept- strictly structured approach, with formal daily lessons in advanced math, Latin, ance letter back, and you are homeschooling!" In our case, following California law, robotics, piano, etc. Two other families we registered online as a private school located in our own home, with For more information: three school-aged children in atten- Homeschooling in the United States dance. We set up record-keeping of http://nces. ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschoo 1/ the children's progress and the hours Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling spent in instruction, and we reviewed http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/us/26muslim.htm the state's broad cmricular guidelines for each child's grade level. We joined Homeschooling resources

http://www.homeschool.com/

were something in between, which is where we found ourselves over the course of the year, shifting slightly as we learned, accommodating life's other demands, and embracing the concept of learning by doing, with a heavy emphasis on field trips.

Earthquakes were new to me and we spent that December morning learning all about them, on the United States Geological Survey Web site. We could track California quakes with the click of a button, compare strengths, locations and frequency, and observe what constitutes merely a quarry explosion. After much discussion of plate tectonics, we reviewed what to do when the earth inevitably shifted in our new home. "Don't panic!" said the state-issued safety guide. I assured my children that I would indeed panic, so they must be responsible for whatever practical steps that followed, like "get under a table." We then enjoyed a beautiful hike along the fault near Palo Alto with another homeschooling family whose dad was involved in the Sierra Club environmental group. The Los Trancos Trail offered interpretive markers explaining how to identify various geological clues to earthquake activity in the area.

Our friend and his children also taught us how to identify local flora, cougar and coyote tracks, and scat (a favorite).

We usually spent moruings at home and afternoons out exploring and enjoying the company of friends. A typical day included plenty of time to read, some time writing or drawing in journals, and a more structured math lesson from our books we'd saved from the start of the school year, when the kids were emolled in the traditional school on the East Coast.

Afternoons included hiking, museum visits, park days and classes at a homeschool community center on subjects like sign language and the martial art of Aikido.

"A typical day for our son begins with reading," explains Alicia Vaidya. "After breakfast, he'll do a couple hours of math.

Now that he is 11, he's mostly self-directed and he has the answer key. Periodically I'll have him check his answers, and every week I go through a problem with him. He'll ask me if he comes across ones he doesn't know how to solve. We follow the math system used in Singapore. He then has lunch I and we do one other subject like science, writing or history. He loves

music and practices piano an hour a day.

Then we head to either music or dance lessons, and three afternoons a week we go to the park with friends." She agrees that getting to spend time with your children is a great benefit of homeschooling.

Keeping them away from the worries of bullying that often takes place at school is another incentive. But mostly she wants her children to be challenged. "I don't believe in sugar-coating learning. If the material is interesting in and of itself, you don't have to make it interesting."

Chesser purchased a structured curriculum the first year, but by the second year, "The kids were figuring out their passions and we let that guide them. My son was a reluctant reader in school. Now he loves to read. He has time, it's relaxed, and he reads books that he likes. He's curious. He wants to leam, versus school where he had to learn to make good grades."

Her 8-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. "At home, she doesn't have to feel bad that she's moving all the time. She has Play-Doh (modeling clay) to hold while we read. As a professional teacher, I know that if she were in a traditional school setting, they would expect us to medicate her. By teaching her at home, we've been able to avoid medication. She's smart, she loves learning, she's very creative. She likes to do. She attends art class with a wonderful teacher and she won first place at a universitysponsored art festival this spring."

Chesser's son enjoys a small, group math class taught by a retired University of illinois professor. "He encourages us to pay bills with the kids, have them experience math through regular life. I have my son estimate the total of our grocery bill as we go through the store. It also helps give him an appreciation for how much things cost.

"I try to get good, thoughtful moments with my children each day. I also remember what it was like as a teacher, trying to do that with 20 or 30 kids in a classroom.

It's not possible," she says.

As the children enter upper grades, questions about graduation emerge. How does a family decide when a child is "finAndrea Moore and her daughtel; Emily, fly a kite as part of recreation with other members of a homeschooling group in South Carolina.

Colleges are less concerned about gra,desfor homeschooled students and more interested in what the applicant studied and how the subject was learned. ished" learning? Graduation from homeeducated high school varies according to state regulations, but in most cases, homeschools are treated like small, private schools, and a high school diploma is issued by the school administrators. In a homeschool, that would be the parents.

For example, in Colorado there is no state diploma, and local school-district diplomas are only given to students who attend the public high school. Parents create their own diplomas to give to their children upon completion of their homeschool program. General Education Development tests, commonly taken by adults who do not have high school diplomas in order to establish that they have high school level academic skills, are not required of homeschool graduates in Colorado.

Colleges require a transcript of some

kind, listing which courses the student has taken, the number of "credit hours" and the grades. Standardized test scores, interviews and recommendations are also important.

With home school students, colleges are less concemed about grades and more interested in what the applicant studied and how the subject was learned, which families typically demonstrate through a portfolio. In an article in the Boston Globe, Williams College Associate Director of Admissions for Operations Connie Sheehy explains, "We read home-scholars' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either.

Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives." While the Department of Education's 2003 study did not track infom1ation about university attendance by homeschool graduates, college admissions offices report a growing number of homeschool applicants. Harvard U ni versity desclibes itself as "homeschool friendly," yet would not make available any statistics regarding the number of homeschool students admitted annually.

The Vaidyas' son entered 6th grade at a carefully-selected private school this fall, where his parents believe he will be in a cooperative, supportive and academically challenging environment. He is looking forward to participating in the orchestra.

In illinois, Chesser plans to continue homeschooling a few more years, when she'll ask her son ifhe'd like to return to traditional school. "There are some things you miss by not going to public school," she admits. "But I'll leave it to him to decide."

After that first year of homeschooling, we found a public parent-participation school for our children that mirrored the values we sought to instill, embracing whole-child leaming, supporting learning by doing, and offering lots of venturesome field trips where the children do much of the planning themselves. Now back on the East Coast, our children are in their old neighborhood school again. For our family, homeschooling challenged all of our beliefs about traditional education, and stretched my understanding of why and how we learn. ~ Jane Varner Malhotra is afreelance writer based in WaShington, D.C.

After the last of three performances of Arjuna's Dilemma in November 2008, the full house audience of Asian Americans and other New Yorkers rose for a standing ovation at the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A review in the November 7 New York Times, titled "Warrior Prince From India Wrestles With Destiny" called the opera "appealing and unabashedly eclectic." Opera Today Web site, which also praised the production, stated that "the grandeur of the presentation matches the grandeur of the conception."

For Cuomo, previously best known for his effervescent, salsa-like theme music for the HBO TV series Sex and the City (also used in the movie), the intimate 70minute chamber opera is his most ambi-

Boutte (left) and Kelly (center) during their performance. tious composition. Seamlessly melding modern jazz and traditional Indian musical forms, Arjuna s Dilemma explores ancient themes that remain startlingly topical: the conflicting claims of conscience and duty of a combatant in the time of war, and the search for self-knowledge in a changing world.

"The writing of Arjuna s Dilemma has allowed me to spend a lot of time thinking about profound philosophical questions, and to consider how to express these questions musically," Cuomo says in a statement on the audio CD of the opera.

"Arjuna's quest for knowledge-how to live, what a human being should fight for-is reflected for me personally not on the battlefield, but in" daily, often mundane-seeming life. On my best days I'm able to think about what it means to aspire to the divine nature that is in each of us. At such times I struggle with the most basic questions of how one should be a human being in the world, and how to seek to lead a good life," he says.

The opera was scored for an Indian singer, a tenor and a female chorus, and 12 instrumentalists-string quintet, piano, two winds, two percussion, tabla and jazz saxophone. It blends North Indian performance styles and musical structures and patterns with Western instrumentation, harmonies and forms. Indian vocals

mingle with a Western tenor and four-part choral singing. The Indian singer, tabla player and jazz saxophonist each use their respective traditions to reach for the ecstatic and the sublime. "The ecstatic nature of Indian singing led me to the idea of saxophone and improvising," Cuomo says. Although the work was originally inspired to utilize the talents of Indian musician Amit Chatterjee, who sings on the CD, the Brooklyn Academy performance directed by Robin Guarino featured Afghan vocalist Humayun Khan, who trained under Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, as the voice of Krishna, and tenor Tony Boutte as Arjuna.

Boutte also sang in Satyagraha.

Krishna and Aljuna are known to Indian audiences as the central protagonists of the Bhagavad Gita-Arjuna as the warrior prince, and his dear companion, Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, in the role of a charioteer.

The Gita is the famous philosophical battlefield dialogue of the great mythological epic, Mahabharata, which relates the historic conflict between the rival clans, the Pandavas and the Kauravas. (Brooklyn Academy also hosted Peter Brook's ninehour adaptation of the Mahabharata two decades ago.)

Despite being in the midst of the great battlefield of Kurukshetra, filled with thousands of warriors, in this production only Krishna and Arjuna are present on stage-on a raised platform, in full view above the brightly costumed musicians.

Arjuna, as the title figure of the drama, is also the only one in full warrior's costume, grandly holding the elongated reins.

Krishna is dressed in simple, almost contemporary costume.

Unbecoming his status as a noble prince, Aljuna, in a state of almost paralyzing confusion, drops his massive bow and falls to the ground. He must-but cannot, he fears-lead his army against an enemy that includes family, friends and teachers. Arjuna's dilemma is whether or not he should fight in this righteous battle against his kinsmen and elders.

Unable to justify such violence against his own people, he turns for guidance to Krishna, who takes the opportunity to instruct him not only about duty, but the illusory nature of the visible world. As an oratorio concentrating more on the music than the visuals or action, the opera staging does not attempt to depict any of the traditional imagery associated with the climactic scene in which Krishna reveals his awesome universal form.

Aside from the stirring music, the scope of the battlefield and any hint of the divinity of Krishna are left to the imagination.

So those in the audience looking for the typical mythological trappings and iconography well-known in the subcontinent might be disappointed by its conspicuous absence in this production.

Vibhuti Patel, an Indian journalist based in New York who moderated a discussion with the composer at the Asia Society, commented that while she "enjoyed

Above: Chorus members Anita Johnson ([TOm left), Bora Yoon, Kirsten Sollek, Suzan Hansen and Barbara Rearick.

Cuomo's blend of jazz and Indian classical music, Tony Boutte's fine singing in the role of Arjuna and Badal Roy's virtuosic tabla playing," she was "less thrilled" with the production.

If some audience members were disappointed at the lack of epic spectacle or by the mundane depiction of Krishna, we are reminded that in this chamber production it is the interior mental struggle that is stressed. As musicologist John Schaefer writes in the CD album notes, "the story of Arjuna's Dilemma may unfold on a grand, mythic stage; it may encompass grand concepts of faith, duty and the nature of the universe; but it is essentially

For more information: Douglas J. Cuomo http://www.douglasjcuomo.com/arjuna.htm I BAM Harvey Theater http://www .bam. org/vi ew.aspx?pid = 120 Warrior Prince From India Wrestles With Destiny http://wwwnytimes.com/2008/11/07/arts/ music/07arju.html

an internal story-a story about, and taking place in, a single consciousness."

Hence, although dubbed a chamber opera or oratorio, it is really, as Schaefer points out, basically a solo or a monodrama. He says, "All the voices, despite the characters they're associated with ...are ultimately within Arjuna's own mind ..."

Regarding the structure, as Schaefer says in the notes, the opera is composed in a familiar Western form of three acts: The Dilemma, The Answer, and The Vision, but begins, Indian style, with the slow unfolding of the material as in a raga performance. The work ends with a recasting of the opening material, an invocation of the many names of Krishna. The effect, as Schaefer suggests, is like the ritual chanting of the names of the divinity common to many Indian mystical devotional schools.

In commenting about his journey from the seemingly profane, Sex and the City, to the sublime, Arjuna 's Dilemma, Cuomo told SPAN in an interview that what he learned from the Gita is that one must perform one's duty, which in his case is writing music. He says that the Gita influenced "the way that I see myself in the world-and the idea of doing right action

without making any claim to the fruits of action. It changed and enriched my ways of looking at the world and my interaction with others." And he hoped that the opera would also influence others.

"For me, being in the world includes writing music, and so one of the questions I face is how to write music that reflects these aspirations and struggles," Cuomo said in the CD statement. "I think that beauty and art can reference the unknowable: what is seen and felt but often beyond expression. The Bhagavad Gita holds many moments in which one experiences this ineffable sense of the world, and an individual's place in things.

My desire in writing Arjuna's Dilemma has been to convey some sense of that wonder, fear, vastness and hope."

In his review in Opera Today, music critic John Yohalem writes that Arjuna's Dilemma is "a modern opera, a tale told through singing." Harking back to the oral tradition of ancient traditional cultures such as the Vedic, the Gita and the opera that it inspired, is after all, a song. ~ Daniel B. Haber is a freelance writer and native New Yorker who divides his time between New York and South Asia.

Nonprofit company's unique business model could revolutionize the way I I I

are tested for disease. hanks to an international group of scientists, engineers, physicians and business people, a nonprofit company with a novel business model is poised to change the way patient health is monitored in the developing world.

The company, Diagnostics For All, was founded by Harvard University professor George Whitesides and Hayat Sindi, a scientist from Saudi Arabia, based on technology developed in Whitesides' laboratory.

Using inexpensive and readily available paper and adhesive tape, Whitesides and colleagues developed a small, disposable device that can be used to test bodily fluids for signs of illness.

Sindi, the driving force behind commercializing the technology, assembled a team of Harvard and Massachusetts

T

Institute of Technology students and scientists to write a business plan, which won first place in two prestigious competitions: the Harvard Business School Business Plan Competition and the MIT $lOOK Entrepreneurship Competition.

Diagnostics For All is the first nonprofit company to win the MIT competition.

Team members include Sindi, scientist Carol Waghorne and Iranian American bioengineer Roozbeh Ghaffari; physicians Gilbert Tang, from Canada, and Indian American Krishna Yeshwant; and businessman Jon Puz. "U.S. universities expect students and professors to achieve great things, but they also understand that to achieve truly great things you often need to take calculated risks that don't always end in suc-

cess. To encourage people to take calculated risks U.S. universities offer grants, develop competitions like the MIT $IOOK and HBS business plan competitions, they provide space for people to work, enable access to innovators from academia and from industry, and offer ways to take ideas that seem viable from the business plan stage to actual implementation," says Yeshwant, who is in the final year of a combined MD/MBA five-year degree program at Harvard.

To make the test kits available in the developing world quickly, the leaders of Diagnostics For All (http://www.dfadx. org!) passed up potentially lucrative royalties and made the company nonprofit.

"It is hard to treat people who are outside of conventional medical settings," says

James Barber, executive director of Diagnostics For All, who was hired to run the company after the Harvard and MIT competitions. He says the company's technology offers a "really compelling" solution for the 60 percent of people in the developing world who live in rural areas and do not have access to medical facilities.

Using the technology involves placing a drop of a patient's blood, sweat or urine on specially treated paper. The fluid is then conveyed to distinct zones that change color to determine the presence of certain proteins that can, in turn, indicate certain renal diseases and metabolic disorders.

The images of the color changes can be read at the point of care or photographed with a cell phone and sent to an off-site lab where they can be analyzed by a specialist, who can then send back a result.

"A couple of my friends told me about the technology during my first year of business school and said they needed help putting a business plan together. Having had a couple of entrepreneurial experiences in software before and a lot of interest in medical technology I thought it would be worth learning more about what they were working on .... Someone had to make these devices for the sake of all the people who currently have no access to diagnostics," says Yeshwant, who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. His parents moved to the United States from Andhra Pradesh in the 1970s.

An urgent problem Sindi's goal is to make the diagnostic technology quickly available to the developing world-the main reason for setting up Diagnostics For All as a nonprofit rather than a for-profit company.

As a for-profit company, Diagnostics For All would have to defer devoting resources to manufacturing and delivering diagnostic kits to developing countries until the company was profitable, a process that might take seven or eight years, according to Sindi.

The team writing the Diagnostics For All business plan agreed the problem of inadequate medical diagnostics needs to be addressed now, according to Tang, a resident in cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto. He worked on the plan while a student at Harvard Business School.

Supply chain and distribution issues are "really different" in the for-profit and nonprofit markets, says Tang. For example, diagnostic test kits in sub-Saharan Africa would be subject to high levels of heat and humidity, conditions that are not a factor for the for-profit markets in the United States and Western Europe.

An unusual business model Nonprofit companies typically rely on donations and grants from philanthropic organizations. Diagnostics For All's business plan is unusual in that it envisions using patent royalties as a sustainable income source.

In a typical arrangement, a for-profit company would pay a royalty fee to Harvard University to license the diagnostic technology. Whitesides and his colleagues, the scientists who invented the technology, would receive a percentage of the royalties.

Diagnostics For All, however, is able to license Whitesides' technology without charge. In an agreement negotiated with Harvard University, if a for-profit company wants to license the technology, Diagnostics For All can negotiate royalty fees on behalf of itself and HarvardHarvard would receive a share of the royalties, and Diagnostics For All's share would be invested in itself.

Sindi, Tang, Whitesides and others will forgo their share of potentially lucrative

Far left: A sample device detecting glucose (two left areas) and protein (two right areas) in artificial urine.

Above: Carol Waghorne (from left), Krishna Yeshwant, Gilbert Tang, Hayat Sindi, Roozbeh Ghaffari and Jon Puz. royalties because, as Tang explains, the global health consequences trump the loss of financial rewards. "This technology could completely transform diagnostics" in the developing world-present methods are "archaic" in comparison.

Some question whether the nonprofit model will motivate employees in the absence of financial incentives.

Barber says that the profit motive does not guarantee productivity. Profit motivation is a disciplining tool, but there are many ineffective, unproductive for-profit companies-for example, the big three U.S. automobile companies. Determination to succeed is a powerful motivator.

Hiring talented employees will also not be a problem, Barber says. "We pay a reasonable wage, and people are excited.

They want the personal satisfaction that comes from making a difference."

Diagnostics For All is now working to adapt Whitesides' technology to test for levels of proteins in the blood that are a sign of liver failure, a byproduct of some medications used to treat disease. Barber hopes to have working prototypes in 2009 and to begin pilot manufacturing programs and field tests in 2010.

In the future, Barber imagines using the technology to develop tests for kidney function and diseases such as tuberculo-

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am doing more than just telling jokes. I am waging peace by promoting a better understanding of Muslims, using humor as my vehicle," says Azhar Usman, an Indian American stand-up comedian who toured India in November.

It was the Chicago native's first tour of India and he had audiences doubling up with laughter in New Delhi, Aligarh, Pune and Mumbai. The 32-year-old did not spare anybody with his jokes-his relatives, American society, not even himself.

Usman, whose India debut occurred at the American Center in New Delhi, is part of a troupe of Muslim comedians who perform under the banner "Allah Made Me Funny." The son of immigrant parents from Bihar, Usman began his career as a corporate attorney. Why the change of profession? "Because I wanted to give voice to the voiceless. I had to tell the people that the community which I come from is not an 'angry community,''' Usman explains. "We too entertain, we too enjoy and we too burst into laughter. Humor is an essential ingredient of life; it is embedded in human tem-

I

perament. Allah made me funny."

Usman is aware there's a very thin line between humor and satire and that ignoring it may cause serious complications.

"To me, comedy is a funny way of being serious. I do not attack the positive values of society nor do I make fun of religious beliefs. I make human life the target of my jokes," he says. So while he makes digs at his religious and ethnic community and at the presumptions of the society he lives in, he is careful not to cross the line that would turn the audience's laughter into anger.

As a stand-up comic, it is absolutely vital for Usman to connect with his audiences and be capable of witty repartee. In this respect, performances at university campuses or youth clubs are his testing ground. Usman's performances for students of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi and the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh were unqualified hits.

Speaking before a crowd of 3,000 at Aligarh's Kennedy Hall, Usman's challenge was to not only entertain but to keep a check on the hecklers in the crowd. In fact, Usman's father, an alumnus of the university, had warned his son that he would definitely encounter hecklers and the airport, only to learn that he is looking that he would be successful only if he in a mirror. managed to win them over. Usman manUsman explains that there must be aged to control the crowd and kept them some boundaries even in comedy. "The engrossed throughout the two-hour per- butt of the joke cannot be religion or formance. belief itself. I am very careful about sacri"I used to bring a big mirror to the stage legious humor. I am not a shock comic and ask the audience to look at their faces who is going to do something that will in it, and laugh at yourself, because it is inflame the audience," he says. your face, and the ... expressions are Indeed, Usman's hilarious impersonexclusively yours," he says. "Perhaps the ation of an Indian aunty having a telephone students were looking at their images in conversation in which every word-haan, the minor I showed them." ji Iwan, achcha-means the same thing, Usman's own image-imposing size, "yes," was so affectionate and true to life long hair, heavy beard-do not escape his that the whole audience could see their comic sting. Even when the crowd can own aunties right there on the stage. expect the punchline that's coming, his Professor Abul Kalam Qasimi, director delivery elicits laughs when he tells about of Kennedy Hall, confesses that he was a spotting a suspicious-looking character at bit apprehensive that "the jokes of this

American comedian may inflame the emotions of the students, ...but Allah really made him funny."

Usman's interest in humor dates to his childhood in Illinois, in the American Midwest. "During my childhood, whenever 1 saw American comedians cracking jokes on everyday affairs, 1 thought some South Asian comedian could present his problems and challenges in the form of humor," he says.

He translated his desire into action in 2001 with the help of two friends, African American comedian and writer Preacher Moss and Palestinian American Mo Amer.

They established Allah Made Me FunnyThe Official Muslim Comedy Tour. After successful shows all over America, Usman toured South Africa, Turkey, Egypt, England

and Pakistan.

"1 wish 1 could come to the stage every day and tell the truth to the entire world," says U sman. He thinks it is not possible for ordinary people to point out a king's frailties to his face, to tell an emperor that he has no clothes. But a comedian can discharge this civic obligation.

So is U sman discharging a moral duty and mere entertainment is not his aim?

Usman replies that he had posed the same

For more information: Azhar Usman www.azhar.com America's Funniest Muslim litlp] www.americaatiroaameaia.org/ programs/view/id/28

question to African American comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who said, "We should understand well that no entertainer ever could change the world through his art. He only shows a mirror to the world. However, there is always an activist inside every artist."

If an artist considers his art a serious business, U sman says, his inherent activist will be more active. Usman's mission is to negate the idea that Muslims are humorless. "To me this is not just about standing on stage telling jokes," he says. "There is a lot riding on this."

Laughing and crying are part of being human, he told his New Delhi audience, and it is important to remember that Muslims, like everyone else, laugh and cry. ~

Dancer Judith Jamison performs in Cry for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Photograph by MAX WALDMAN, Smithsonian

Institution,

1976, National

Gift of Carol Gmenke,

Portmit

Gallery,

Max Walden Archives.

omencj OurTime ?<.

Photography exhibition celebrates women who challenged and changed America. he Smithsonian Institution's exhibition, "Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs from the National Portrait Gallery," celebrated women from all walks of life whose achievements have changed the course of U.S. history.

The exhibition, which closed on February 1, included 90 photographs of women activists, artists, athletes and others.

"We have a panoply of women's ideas, struggles and achievements in the 20th century," says Martin Sullivan, director of the gallery.

"When the century opened, most American women did not even have the right to vote, much less hold public office. But by its close, all that had changed ....Most of the women represented in this exhibition were affected by this remarkable transformation, and many of their distinctions were largely shaped by the century's increasingly openended environment for achievement by women. But more important, many of these individuals were themselves significant instruments in creating that environment," states the National Portrait Gallery Web site.

Nineteen female photographers were showcased in the exhibition, which celebrated not Author of the children's classic Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown wrote more than 100 books.

Photograph by PHlLlPPE

HALSMAN,

1946

National Portrait Gallery. Smithsonian Institl/tion, Gift of Steve Bello in memory of Jane Halsman Bello.

only women but the art of photography as well. The exhibition began as a traveling show when the National Portrait Gallery was closed for renovation from 2000 to 2006. As it crisscrossed the United States, the show acquired more photographs along the way.

The photographs were arranged in chronological order through six rooms. Mentors and those who followed in their footsteps appeared practically side by side. Carl Van Vechten's likeness of Bessie Smith, a great blues singer, was followed a few rooms down the hall by Linda McCartney's photograph of Janis Joplin, a rock singer who cited Smith as one of her influences. Alice Paul, a leader in the women's suffrage movement in the 1920s, served as a model for modern feminists Susan Faludi and Gloria Steinem, whose joint portrait was the exhibition's final image.

Choosing the subjects "There were people on an informal list" of possible subjects for the show, says Ann M. Shumard, the curator of "Women of Our Time."

Madam C.J. Walker, founder of a beauty empire in the early 20th century and the first African American woman to make $1 million, was on that list. But the gallery did not have an image of Walker to display in the original exhibition-which is surprising,

Above: Celebrity chef Julia Child who introduced French cooking to Americans with her bestselling cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her TV appearances.

Photograph National

by HANS NAMUTH, 1977,

Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Institution,

Gift of the Estate of Hans Namuth.

Right: Virginia Apgar, who was the first full professor of medicine at Columbia University. She developed a simple, quick method for determining a newborn's health.

Photograph National

by ANN ZANE SHANKS, 1966,

Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Institution.

Amelia Earhart made history as the first woman pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.

Photograph

by unidentified

artist, Acme Newspapers,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Inc., 1936, Institution.

Helen Keller became deaf, blind and mute due to a childhood illness, but learned to read Braille, speak and write. In 1904, she graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College and visited India in 1955, Photograph by CHARLES WHITMAN, 1904, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

since the photograph sought by Shumard was used in hundreds of print advertisements and appeared on Walker's cosmetic products.

"Publicity images don't always survive," says Shumard.

"They were used for publications and then they disappeared." Shumard finally tracked down a print of Walker and was about to bid on it at an art auction in New York City when Walker's great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles, donated the likeness that hung in the exhibition's main hall.

Acquisitions are dictated by what is available on the market, but sometimes the museum scores an unexpected find, like the photograph of actress Marilyn Monroe donated by Navy medic David Geary. He had a front-row seat at Monroe's 1954 performance for U.S. troops stationed in Korea. The image, one of the few color photographs in the exhibition, captures Monroe in a moment of personal triumph, thriving on the crowd's energy.

Susan Johann's photograph of playwright Wendy Wasserstein also catches a candid, personal moment: Johann photographed Wasserstein right after it was announced that Wasserstein had won the Pulitzer Prize for her play The Heidi Chronicles. The picture shows Wasserstein in a state of disbelief. "I love the fact that it just captures her at this completely sort of informal moment," Shumard says.

Judy Garland's starring role as Dorothy in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is the most fondly remembered of her long acting and singing career.

Photograph

by BOB WILLOUGHBY, 1954 (printed in 1977), National

Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Institution,

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bob Willoughby.

Institution.

Above left: Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most active first ladies in U.S. history, promoting equal rights for women and minorities. She visited India in 1952.

Photograph by CLARA SIPPRELL,

1949,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Bequest of Phyllis Fenner.

Above right: A maternity nurse in Manhattan in the early 1900s, Margaret Sanger worked to remove legal barriers to disseminating information about contraception. She visited India in 1935.

Photograph by IRA L. HILL, 1917, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Margaret Sanger Lampe and Nancy Sanger Pallesen, granddaughters of Margaret Sanger.

Left: Madam c.]. Walker, the first African American woman to become a millionaire, founded a beauty empire in the early 20th century.

Photograph by ADDISON

SCURLOCK,

1914,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of A 'Lelia Bundles/Walker family.

Women in action Many of the photographs capture their subjects at work and in motion. "It's not always easy to find an image of a celebrated or important figure actually doing the thing they do," Shumard says. An exquisitely composed photograph of dancer Judith Jamison showcases her fluid movements in Cry, which Jamison stalTed in during her tenure with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Virginia Apgar, the first full professor of medicine at Columbia University in New York and creator of the Apgar test for infant viability, was shown examining a minutes-old child in the hospital. Helen Wills Moody, the tennis champion who did not lose a set in singles play for six years, was photographed just before she

Novelist and essayist Susan Sontag was a prominent analyst of popular American culture.

Photograph by PETER HOJAR,

1975,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Institution.

backhanded the ball.

The studio images can be just as arresting. An elegant Carolina Herrera, fashion designer and style icon, s~ands tall in a photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe.

The first woman to hold a U.S. Cabinet position, Frances Perkins, was photographed in her signature pearls, but without her three-cornered hat, a wardrobe staple during her term as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of labor.

"This exhibition can't begin to be a comprehensive look at every woman who has played an important role in the 20th century," Shumard says. "Our collection is a work in progress." ~

"Poor accounting practices are causing us problems ill the fourth quartel: However, we should have them straightelled olll by the fifth quartel:" Copyright © Tribune Media Services. Inc. All rights reserved.

Cartoon by Dana Summers. Copyright © Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with pennission.

Copyright © Tribune Media Services, Inc. ~11rights reserved.

Cartoon by Dick Locher. Copyright © Tribune Media Services, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinled with permission.

J1frey

Bigham

Helping the Blind Use the Web From Anywhere ess than one percent of the 38 million blind people in the world have a screen reader, a software program that reads the contents of a computer screen aloud.

Even those who do, often need to use the Web when they are not at their own computers. There just has not been anything inexpensive that was readily available in a public library or an Internet cafe or on a friend's laptop. Until now.

In May 2008, Microsoft awarded its first Accessible Technology Award for Interface Design to Jeffrey Bigham, a 27-year-old doctora~ candidate in computer science at the University of Washington, for creating WebAnywhere, a selfvoicing Web browser that enables blind and visually impaired people to access the Web from any available computer.

Bigham was inspired to create WebAnywhere because "Web access is becoming increasingly vital to our lives," he says.

As a researcher in human-computer interaction with a focus on Web accessibility, he had "been looking at how the ideas of community-based content and Web pages as applications can be leveraged to improve access. WebAnywhere was a natural fit," Bigham says. "People talk about how applications [such as e-mail, word processors and spreadsheets] continue to move from the desktop to the Web. I thought: Why can't access technology, like self-voicing Web browsers and screen readers, do the same?"

WebAnywhere-which Bigham is making available as free, open-source software-can be run on most systems, even public terminals on which users have few permissions. Its small size means users can begin browsing the Web Quickly even on relatively slow connections.

L

fl •

WebAnywhere http://webanywhere. cs.washington.edu/

The system is written in JavaScript that is Jeffrey Bigham works on Web Anywhere, downloaded from a server, allowing it to run in a self-voicing Web browser. most modern Web browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. WebAnywhere can Web browser.

Because WebAnywhere is free, open-source act as a search engine or give voice to all of the text on a Web page. It also learns to take into software, anyone can help improve it or add new account the user's past preferences and to antic- features. While at present WebAnywhere only works in English, Bigham says versions in other ipate what the user will want.

People who suffer visual impairment short of languages hosted on local servers could also be created. blindness or who have certain learning disabili"We do not currently make WebAnywhere availties may also benefit from Bigham's system.

He plans to add more features and ensure that able in any Indian language ... We would love for WebAnywhere can operate on cell phones and someone to work on support for other languages, especially Hindi, as our logs indicate a large other mobile devices with built-in Web access.

Blind people who evaluated WebAnywhere number of users from India despite the lack of support for Indian languages," he says. during its design phase were able to complete Bigham says he has been getting "very posithe kind of tasks that users may want to do on the tive" comments from users. "People get excited go: checking e-mail, looking up a bus schedule when you talk about providing nonvisual access and searching for a restaurant's phone number.

Now the alpha version, an early version of the from almost any computer, especially when you software that may not contain all of the planned say it's open-source and free."

WebAnywhere has been funded by the U.S. features, is available for general use.

"The trial has gone well," Bigham says. National Science Foundation and a Boeing "We've had a lot of people visiting the site and Company professorship.

The Microsoft Award included $8,000 and a giving us feedback, and we've thus far had no trip to the software company's Imagine Cup world major problems. " ...The beauty of the Web is that releasing and finals in Paris in July, where Bigham demonstratdistributing new versions is relatively painless. To ed WebAnywhere.

"My goals in the future are to continue doing do so, we just update the site and the next time a research and working with students, and also to visitor comes to the site, they get the latest verkeep doing things that actually help people," sion of WebAnywhere. In that sense, we're able to Bigham said after receiving the Microsoft make smaller changes Quite regularly, and we've Accessible Technology Award. "That has been been doing so."

To use WebAnywhere, a user visits the one of the cool things about this project: It's not WebAnywhere Web site, which provides a like we just did the study, learned some things screen-reader interface that translates Web- and that's it. With WebAnywhere, we're actually based text to speech and reads the content aloud taking it to the next step and getting it out to people who need it." in English.

The software processes the text of the Web ------~ page on a server at the University of Washington Jeffrey Thomas is a staff writer with and then sends the audio file to play in the user's America.gov

>ca

== =•••••• ••• Z

U

The U.S. Embassy's minister counselor for public affairs and SPAN publisher, Larry Schwartz (left), gave the 2008 reprint of Crossing Over: Partition literature from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to author Khushwant Singh at his home in New Delhi in January. The 2007 book, edited by Frank Stewart and Sukrita Paul Kumar, is a collection of short stories from the 1947 partition of India, many never translated before. The U.S. State Department funded the reprinting. http://americanlibrary.in.library.neV

Thirty children painted a mural on the wall of the U.S. Consulate in Chennai to welcome hundreds of visa applicants arriving for their interviews. The children received a helping hand from U.S. Consul General Andrew Simkin (above) after artist Thota Tharrani (right) designed the mural and painted its outlines. The event was part of a two-day children's festival organized by the NalandaWay Foundation in January. All children came from situations where tHey had been trafficked, forced into child labor or were vulnerable to these evils. http://www.thotatharrani.in/

Pitchers Rinku Singh (left) and Dinesh Patel, both from Uttar Pradesh, are the first Indians to sign professional contracts with an American baseball team. The deals were finalized in November with the Pittsburgh Pirates, a five-time World Series championship team based in Pennsylvania. Patel and Singh are joining the team for spring training in Florida. http://pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com

The Indian Navy has signed

a $2.2 billion deal with Boeing for eight highly sophisticated P-81aircraft, marking the first direct military sale to India by the Seattle, Washington-based company. The planes are to be delivered in phases from 2012. The multi-mission aircraft, fitted with onboard electronic surveillance, intelligence and attack systems, are expected to fill the long-felt void in India's capability to tackle seaborne threats. http://www.boeing.com/

Anya Bernstein is a PhD candidate

in anthropology from New York University and a documentary filmmaker researching trends in Asian Buddhism. Shown (right) with Buryat nun Ani Tenzin, one of her ethnographic consultants from Siberia, at a pilgrimage site in Himachal Pradesh, Bernstein was in India for about nine months as a Fulbright scholar at the Drepung Gomang .~ Monastery near the town i of Mundgod in ~ Karnataka. !r www.usief.org.in/