This week, let’s go back to the future—or, at least, three decades forward from last week to 1999.
A day of losses…
The Chronicle reported on Monday, October 25, 1999 that the North Carolina Triangle Region lost out to San Antonio, Texas as the choice city for the U.S.’ bid for the 2007 Pan American Games. Tom Fetzer, then-mayor of Raleigh, heard the decision with tears in his eyes. The United States Olympics Committee chose San Antonio as a result of the area’s Hispanic population and culture, which they thought would appeal as a vacation spot and was more likely to help the U.S. win the bid. The Texas proposal also offered athletes financial incentives, and provided money to national governing bodies and international federations who would make the Pan American Games a qualifying event for sports.
In any case, there was no need for tears. The 2007 Pan American Games didn’t take place in San Antonio—it took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
...and of gains.
Meanwhile, on Sunday the Freeman Center for Jewish Life was officially dedicated as a tribute of Jewish culture at the University. The Center for Jewish Life was named after Brian Freeman, a donor whose three children all attended Duke. The dedication took 14 years of fundraising and debate, and at last over 600 students, parents and administrators gathered the day before to support the dedication ceremony.
Duke was also at the center of a debate over data-access regulations to federally funded research. Senator Richard Shelby, a republican representative of Alabama, requested that the University provide all data that had been federally funded. This caused a lot of worries for the University. “The way we initially thought it might appear, it would be the kind of thing where we would have to hire people to take all the requests that were coming at us,” said John Burness, then Duke’s senior vice president for public affairs and government relations.
Happily, the Office of Management and Budget decided that open access did not apply to studies that lead to federal regulations, but only to those that undergirded federal agency actions with the force and effect of law.
But soft—oh. Never mind….
Romance bloomed on Tuesday, October 26—for lemurs. After six years without a mate, Romeo, a rare diademed sifaka, had finally found his Juliet, another lemur from Madagascar. Lemur Center Director Kenneth Glander captured Juliet after numerous trips to the island, using a tranquilizer dart that he had developed 27 years ago.
Sadly, Romeo and Juliet could not escape their Shakespearean tragedy. In November, researchers discovered that Juliet may have been part of a previously undiscovered sub-species of lemur, and thus incompatible with Romeo. But before they could analyze her DNA, Juliet died. After running wild in Madagascar, the stress of acclimating to captivity in Madagascar before being shipped to Durham, was too much for her to handle.
Technological blasts from the past
On other environment-related news, Brent Blackwelder, a Trinity graduate of 1964 and president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth spoke of how environmental issues tended to be ignored. Interestingly enough, he endorsed candidate Bill Bradley over Al Gore for the Democratic ticket. Blackwelder called Bill Clinton’s presidential term with very environmentally inclined Vice President Al Gore,“a pattern of real disappointments in one area after another.” As for the Republican ticket, he said he would support Senator John McCain.
On Wednesday, October 27, before the takeover of Apple and Google, one of Microsoft’s biggest challengers was something called Red Hat Inc., a Linux distribution company. After seeing potential, Netscape and Intel invested in the Triangle-area company. Microsoft apparently felt so threatened by Linux that they wrote up an internal memo on how to get rid of Linux—the strategy was leaked the year before in what was called the “Halloween Document.”
It is hard to think of Duke without Internet, but in 1999 the University upgraded their Internet. Back when the Internet was not the streamlined, fast, all-encompassing behemoth it is now, the University was concerned about sorting through the increasing commercialization of going on online and making the connection faster for education and research. The University was also concerned about whether students would use it only for class-related purposes, like they wanted it to be, or if they would use it for entertainment purposes.
Changes, Changes, Changes
On a political note, the Duke branch of Students Against Sweatshops sent a delegation on behalf of the entire nation to testify at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding sweatshop conditions caused by American enterprises. Then-Trinity junior Casey Harrel, who now works at Greenpeace, led the delegation.
On Friday, October 29, The Chronicle reported on the status of the Campus Master Plan which is responsible for the walkways through the woods near the Bryan Center (which I walk three days a week for classes—thank you, Weinstein Copeland Architects!), pedestrian spaces on Science Drive, pedestrian connections from East Campus to Ninth Street, and bicycles lanes.
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