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WINTER 2010––11 COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Shanghai Expression Camera in hand, journalism professor Howard French ventures beyond China’s boom CONTENTS Winter 2010–11 34 26 12 DEPARTMENTS FEATURES 3 Letters 12 The Power of Lingering By Paul Hond 6 College Walk Journalist and photographer Howard French When de Bary met Merton . Albert Ellis’s chooses his shots as carefully as he chooses unruly papers . Norman Cantor’s death wish . his words. Apartment hunting with Andrew Dolkart 20 Grave Decisions 34 In the City of New York By David J. Craig When the ballet ended for Arlene Shuler, she Social psychologist Sheena Iyengar transformed herself —— and the stage on which takes her study of decision making to she once danced. the ultimate limit. 40 News 26 A Midterm Examination Fundraising campaign hits milestone . By Lincoln Mitchell Jewish-studies librarian hired . Big gift President Obama and the Democrats for B-school . CUMC plans new medical didn’t exactly ace the 2010 midterms. education building What are the lessons? 50 Newsmakers 30 Thinking of You: A Short Story By Emma Aarnes 52 Reviews A young woman goes on an epistolary vacation. 62 Classifi eds 64 Finals Cover photograph by Howard French IN THIS ISSUE COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Executive Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations Fred Van Sickle Howard French is a former senior writer and correspondent Senior Executive Director for Communications for the New York Times who has headed bureaus in China, Offi ce of Alumni and Development Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS Japan, West Africa, and Latin America. He is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Journalism and a fellow Editor in Chief Michael B. Shavelson of the Open Society Foundations. >> Page 12 Senior Editor David J. Craig Associate Editor Paul Hond Contributing Editors Sheena Iyengar is the S. T. Lee Professor of Business at the Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN, Eric McHenry Columbia Business School. An expert on the psychology of Art Director human decision making, she is the author of The Art of Eson Chan Choosing, which was a fi nalist for the Financial Times and Assistant to the Editor Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award. >> Page 20 Nicole Brown Web Editor Jacqueline Ballantine Editorial Assistants Deaton Jones, Amanda Pickering, Lauren Weiss Lincoln Mitchell is an associate research scholar at Columbia Mailing Address University’s Harriman Institute, where he focuses on Georgia, Columbia Magazine Columbia Alumni Center the Caucasus, and political development in the former Soviet 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 Union. He blogs on baseball and foreign policy in the Faster New York, NY 10025 Times and domestic politics in the Huffi ngton Post. >> Page 26 Tel. 212-851-4155 Fax 212-851-1950 [email protected] www.magazine.columbia.edu Address and Archive Assistance [email protected] 212-851-4155 Emma Aarnes was born in South Carolina, attended Vassar To update your address online, visit College, and is a 2009 graduate of Columbia’s MFA program alumni.columbia.edu/directory in fi ction. She currently lives in New York City and is or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586). fi nishing her fi rst novel, Fleeing Charley. >> Page 30 Advertising: Associate Director Publisher’s Rep. Taren Cowan Bruce Ellerstein 212-851-7967 917-226-7716 To download our advertising brochure or submit a classifi ed advertisement online, visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. Columbia Magazine is published for Samuel Moyn is a history professor at Columbia. He teaches alumni and friends of Columbia by the modern European intellectual history and has special interests Offi ce of Alumni and Development. in France and Germany, political and legal thought, and © 2011 by the Trustees of Columbia University Jewish studies. >> Page 56 in the City of New York 2 Columbia Winter 2010–11 1-2 ToC.indd 2 12/16/10 3:45 PM letters IN DEEP WATER For some reason, the well that exploded What a wonderful job Jason Dempsey and “Oil + Water” (Fall 2010) provided a clear was named Macondo, from the misbe- others in the military are doing to assess and simple explanation of how deep drill- gotten village in García Márquez’s novel political attitudes in the armed forces ing works and how BP got into trouble. One Hundred Years of Solitude, while its openly and without bias. There is a point on which I’d like clarifi - gooey detritus washed ashore on Bara- I consider myself a veteran — but one cation. Roger N. Anderson asserts that “oil taria, named for Sancho Panza’s fanciful who fought for my country by blocking and gas production make up a large per- “insula” in Don Quixote. Life, it seems, the steps of Low Library to prevent the centage of the government’s revenue. That has never ceased to imitate art. ROTC from recruiting on campus; by and the IRS are the two big moneymakers Gregory Rabassa ’47CC, ’54GSAS being dragged away from anti–Vietnam that feed everything . .” That’s news to New York, NY War rallies by the police; and by registering me. I teach the federal budget in a college voters in South Carolina for Martin Luther course. The budget has only one category OUR ARMY King’s Southern Christian Leadership Con- where direct fees from oil and gas pro- I read the Fall 2010 issue of Columbia ference. All this was while I was attending ducers could reside: “other miscellaneous Magazine in almost one sitting. Each and graduate school, studying physics. receipts.” However, at $18 billion, that’s a every one of the articles was fascinating and My son joined the Army just before small percentage of the $2.5 trillion total informative. I wonder, however, whether 9/11, and I found myself returning to my receipts expected in FY2011. Might we the editor was dozing or lost his blue pencil pre-college enthusiasm for the military. have some clarifi cation? while preparing Paul Hond’s excellent arti- Today’s all-volunteer Army is an enlight- Peter Martin ’03SW cle on Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey (“You and ened and supportive organization. Occa- New York, NY Whose Army?”). What possible relevance sionally it even goes after some of its bad to the story was it that the interview was apples, as it did in the case of Gen. Stanley Roger N. Anderson responds: conducted in the lounge where Linda Tripp McChrystal, who was forced to stand down Thanks to Peter Martin for correcting me. had tea with Monica Lewinsky? It was a after trashing the commander in chief — I should have said that oil and gas royal- prurient and snide aside that added noth- and who also had a hand in the cover-up of ties generate signifi cant income for the U.S. ing to the story and simply reminded us of the Pat Tillman killing. government. I overstated its scale by com- a chapter in American history that shamed All of this leads me to the shortcoming of paring it to the IRS. our politicians and our civic institutions. Dempsey’s research. Several contacts I have Keep up the good work, but use the blue with active military personnel tell me that Here is a literary footnote I should like to pencil occasionally. throughout the ranks there is open and bit- submit for the excellent piece on the infa- Larry Kobrin ’54CC, ’57LAW ter trashing of the commander in chief. This mous Gulf oil spill. New York, NY is insubordination and should be punished Winter 2010–11 Columbia 3 LETTERS and suppressed. Almost certainly McChrys- the background material on the Atlantic con- and, as Rosenberg writes, thoroughly iden- tal’s, and who knows who else’s, high-level fl ict, from start to fi nish. My sincere congrat- tifi es with Podhoretz. Indeed, Jeffers’s voice permissive attitude about such stuff has ulations to the author. merges with Podhoretz’s voice. trickled down or burbled up. It is annoy- I was an aviation ordnanceman in the Rosenberg himself was briefl y an editor ing as hell for military personnel to be sur- New Hebrides islands Efate and Espiritu at Commentary, so it’s no surprise when he rounded by those who air their conspiracies Santo in 1944 and 1945. (New Hebrides is praises Podhoretz as “a fi rst-class intellectual about Obama. now Vanuatu.) Readers of James Michener’s of enormous culture and considerable human- Dempsey, particularly from his current Tales of the South Pacifi c will recognize the ity” whose “pugnacity masks a warm heart.” offi ce attached to Michelle Obama, should setting. I recall there were French planta- And with what results? The most notable look into this. It is degrading to the military tions there, with owners who protected achievement of Podhoretz, the godfather of to have this going on unchecked. their daughters from the barbarian Yan- neoconservatism, is the U.S. invasion and Claude Suhl ’65GSAS kee sailors at all costs (maybe the offi cers occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq High Falls, NY were allowed social contact), and I presume has suffered over a million dead, 3 million Michener drew on this atmosphere for his refugees, and 5 million orphans. In propor- SITUATION NORMAL stories. It was not as romantic and lovely tion to the population, this is equivalent to After reading Josh Getlin’s fascinating piece as portrayed in the book, but was rather the U.S. suffering 10 million dead, 30 million in your Fall 2010 issue about Next to Nor- a very hot and humid jungle environment. refugees, and 50 million orphans. mal (“The Ballad of Kitt & Yorkey”), my Port Vila was the capital, and was governed This is quite an accomplishment for a man wife and I got tickets and attended a per- jointly by the British and the French, in of considerable humanity and warm heart, formance.