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FAALLL 2013 M AG AZ I NE Director Kimberly Peirce takes on Carrie C1_FrontCover_final2.indd C1 9/24/13 4:33 PM your columbia connection. The perfect midtown location: • Network with Columbia alumni • Attend exciting events and programs • Dine with a client • Conduct business meetings • Take advantage of overnight rooms and so much more. APPLY FOR MEMBERSHIP TODAY! 15 WEST 43 STREET NEW YORK, NY 10036 TEL: 212.719.0380 in residence at The Princeton Club of New York www.columbiaclub.org C2_CUCNY.indd C2 9/24/13 1:30 PM CONTENTS Fall 2013 10 22 28 DEPARTMENTS FEATURES 3 Letters 14 Moving Pictures By Paul Hond 8 College Walk Kimberly Peirce, director of Boys Don’t Cry, His poker face . An international-student applies her powers to Stephen King’s Carrie. affair . Carbon nations . Kibbitzers and criers . Chapel chamber music 22 The Pillage Option By Chris Cannon 38 News In his fi ght against genocide, James Stewart, David Madigan to lead Arts and Sciences . a former war-crimes prosecutor, has revived Community Impact’s campaign . Brown an old legal tactic. Institute’s inaugural “Magic Grants” . Engineering prof opens biotech incubator 28 The Carbon Eaters in Harlem . Libraries acquire art-book By Douglas Quenqua publisher Granary’s archives The climate crisis has put humanity between a rock and a hard place. And that’s exactly 44 Newsmakers where Peter Kelemen hopes to fi nd a solution. 54 Explorations 36 Shades of Green By Michael Christman 48 Reviews During his fi nal tour in Afghanistan, a Marine captain emails home. 55 Classifi eds 56 Finals Cover illustration of Kimberly Peirce by Jeffrey Alan Love 1 ToC2.indd 1 9/24/13 5:18 PM IN THIS ISSUE COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Executive Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations Fred Van Sickle Gaiutra Bahadur ’97JRN is a Guyanese-born journalist and Publisher critic who writes primarily about immigrants and refugees. Tim McGowan She is the author of the forthcoming book Coolie Woman: Chief Editorial Adviser The Odyssey of Indenture. >> Page 53 Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS Editor in Chief Michael B. Shavelson Managing Editor Rebecca Shapiro Senior Editor David Benefi eld is a professional poker player and a student David J. Craig in the School of General Studies, where he plans to major in Associate Editor Chinese and political science. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Paul Hond he hopes to pursue a career in foreign policy. >> Page 8 Copy Chief Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN Contributing Editor Eric McHenry Art Director Eson Chan Assistant to the Editor Jason Bordoff is the director of Columbia’s Center on Global Lauren Savage Energy Policy and a professor of professional practice at the School of International and Public Affairs. He previously Editorial Assistants Juwon Kim, Elisabeth Sherman worked in the White House as a special assistant to the president and as senior director for energy and climate change Mailing Address Columbia Magazine >> Page 10 on the staff of the National Security Council. Columbia Alumni Center 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 New York, NY 10025 Tel. 212-851-4155 Fax 212-851-1950 [email protected] Wm. Theodore de Bary ’41CC, ’53GSAS, ’94HON is the www.magazine.columbia.edu John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus, provost emeritus, and Address and Archive Assistance a special service professor. This semester he is teaching Asian [email protected] 212-851-4155 Humanities and a second-level Core course, Nobility and Civil- ity. He is the author, most recently, of The Great Civilized Con- To update your address online, visit versation: Education for a World Community. >> Page 50 alumni.columbia.edu/directory, or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586). Advertising: 212-851-4155 [email protected] To download our advertising brochure or submit a classifi ed advertisement online, Victor Navasky is the George T. Delacorte Professor in visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. Magazine Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism. Columbia Magazine is published for He was the editor of the Nation from 1978 until 1995, alumni and friends of Columbia by the Offi ce of Alumni and Development. and its publisher and editorial director from 1995 to 2005. >> Page 52 © 2013 by the Trustees of Columbia University EDWARD SOREL EDWARD in the City of New York 2 Columbia Fall 2013 2 Contributors.indd 2 9/20/13 2:20 PM letters GONZO JOURNALISM creations. It seems that the artists aim to SAVE OUR SHIP I loved the profi le of Juan González (“Street- épater les bourgeois, to provide such a Columbia is a terrifi c alumni magazine, Beat Confi dential,” Summer 2013). As a visual shock as to disorient and confuse and the College Walk section is always journalist, I write profi les; they take enor- the senses of what they think is a naive entertaining. However, in “The Tender” mous time, thought, patience, and a true public. It’s the emperor’s new clothes. (Summer 2013), you did a disservice to give-and-take between subject and reporter. Nicolas Kariouk ’61SEAS readers — including GSAPP preservation Then there’s the writing: in this case, Paul Baton Rouge, LA professors, grads, and students — by fail- Hond’s marvelous weave of present day, ing to mention whether or not the Lilac near past (9/11), past past (college, activ- NO DEFENSE OF STATE was listed on the National Register of ism), plus the particular struggles of Puerto In your interview with Harold Brown (“To Historic Places. Mary Habstritt is fi ght- Rican immigrants. A life story, fully told. Deter and Protect,” Summer 2013), the for- ing the good fi ght, and various nonprof- Anne Moore ’82BC mer secretary of defense charges that “State its (National Maritime Historical Society, Chicago, IL Department people tend not to be decisive Historic Naval Ships Association, etc.) and decision makers. For them, a negotiation our government (National Maritime Heri- As a medical student at Columbia in the is a success no matter what happens.” But tage Program) work alongside Habstritt to early 1970s, another student and I fol- wasn’t it a success that the Cold War never save National Register–listed and –eligible lowed Juan González and a few Young became a hot war, and communism came to maritime sites every day. Lords to the health commissioner’s offi ce, an end in the Soviet Union? Kirsten Brinker Kulis ’03GSAPP, ’05GSAPP where Juan was extraordinary in obtaining Yale Richmond ’57GSAS Alexandria, VA lead-testing kits that were not being used. Washington, DC Ed Weeks ’73PS The Lilac is listed on the National Register Moab, UT Harold Brown’s observation that for State of Historic Places. — Ed. Department people, a negotiation is a success THE BEHOLDER no matter what, applies equally to federal MEDIC ALERT I am almost amused by the presumably agencies, and even to big-company business The College Walk article “Safe at Home” serious article that your editors defi ne as these days. I can’t count the times I’ve heard (Summer 2013) states that Columbia “A jaunt through the boundless visual people compliment each other on a confer- baseball player Joey Falcone is “a former worlds of six young, successful Columbia ence call or meeting in which absolutely Marine combat medic.” But how can this artists” (“Without Walls,” Summer 2013). nothing was accomplished. be, when our Marine Corps has no medi- I am glad to read that the artists are William J. Mahon cal corps? Can it be that he was a Navy successful, but I fail to see beauty in their Great Falls, VA corpsman assigned to the Marines, as I was Fall 2013 Columbia 3 3-7 Letters.indd 3 9/20/13 2:01 PM LETTERS assigned to be a battalion fi eld surgeon I was fourteen when the US was attacked offi cials but resembled a full-fl edged trial. with the Third Marine Division in Viet- at Pearl Harbor and seventeen when I enlisted Columbia retained retired federal judge Har- nam, though I held a Navy commission? in the Army Air Corps. I was called to active old Tyler, now deceased, to preside over the Those of us who served deserve a clari- duty two days before the fi rst atomic bomb disciplinary hearing, and employed outside fi cation on this point, and the proper mili- was dropped on Hiroshima. After spend- counsel from a prominent New York law tary service should be given credit. ing a year on occupation duty in Germany, fi rm to prosecute Jealous and other students. Martin Flamm ’64CC I returned home ready to resume my educa- Seemingly, any and every charge that could Sun City, AZ tion. I had credits at Newark College of Engi- have been brought against them was. neering, but neither it nor NYU worked for During these proceedings, Jealous did not While Falcone initially enlisted in the Navy, me. As I was returning from NYU, I noticed hesitate to testify truthfully about his actions, he served as a “corpsman,” or medic, the station sign for 116th Street–Columbia although as his lawyer, I would have preferred within a Marine infantry unit. — Ed. University. I had never considered Columbia. he not testify at all. He did not seek to avoid I knew only that it was prestigious, expen- responsibility for his actions, or allow his sub- INTERWOVEN TALES sive, and diffi cult to get into. “What the sequent punishment to stop him from fi nish- Your College Walk article on the late Frank heck,” I thought. “What have I got to lose?” ing his undergraduate education at Columbia, Lautenberg (“Army of One,” Summer 2013) I got off the train, went to the admissions or deter him from going on to a life of service brought back a number of memories.