OYSTER
NEWS
March
2003
Two
more persons of charm and substance have joined The Oyster Foundation.
They are Boris and Luda Berenfeld. The membership was unanimously
enthusiastic in response to Eric Britton’s artfully composed
proposal, as follows.
 
I
would like to nominate Dr. Boris Berenfeld to join us as a charter member
of our wonderful and mysterious foundation. And as these things go in
this equal opportunity group in this fuzzy century, I guess I should
nominate the little woman too. The Berenfelds currently live near Boston.
Boris
is a Russian born educator and biophysicist, is a renowned authority
on educational technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in radiation biophysics
from the University of Moscow and has extensive research
experience in biology, ecology and the application of technology. He
has a lifelong interest in finding and implementing cost-effective ways
to use technology to help children communicate, learn and cross the
“digital divide”. He started doing this in the old Soviet Union, often with the KGB hot
on his tail. Indeed as a Ph.D. biophysicist, an inveterate innovator,
and, worse yet, a Jew, he was given the opportunity to work as a carpenter,
choosing from a career menu that offered a choice of one.
Previously
as an elected member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Boris
piloted one of the first telecommunication links between Soviet and
American schools. During the Gorbachev administration, Dr. Berenfeld
was involved in the reformation of Russian education. He is at present
working to complete a large project for the US National Science Foundation
called Molecular Workbench, which aims to study how technologies can
help students to reason with atomic scale models. He serves on the Editorial
Board of the Technology Horizons in Education Journal and is an Associate
Editor of the Education Communication & Information (ECi) International
Journal, published by Harvard University and the Open University
(UK).
Oh
yes, and then there is the missus (as these things go). She is
Ludmilla "Luda" Berenfeld, mother
of Anna. And oh yes again, she happens to be a Ph.D. too and an eminent
specialist working in the leading edge of genetic research. She
presently is running a major research program at the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center at Brandeis University where her team has
independently identified a gene on human chromosome 10q23 as a candidate
tumor suppressor gene that is deleted or mutated in a very high percentage
of advanced prostate cancers. In this the latest of a series of
path-breaking research programs that has kept her away from the kitchen,
her team had three objectives: to determine the function of the TEP1
gene product; to find the partner kinase; and to use this information
to identify novel targets for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.
Thus far they have accomplished the first two objectives and have developed
a strategy for the third.
That
plus tremendous Slavic charm has me at the end of this nominating note
wishing to change things around a bit. In fact, I nominee Dr.
Luda Berenfeld as a distinguished international Oyster. And if she chooses
to bring along the Old Man, well that’s all right by me too.
|
I
CAN’T SIGN THE CONTRACT UNTIL YOU LET GO OF MY HAND
I had hoped, as some of you
know, that New York University would be able to entice David Levering
Lewis from the Martin Luther King, Jr. chair at Rutgers to accept
a Silver chair, funded by my uncle’s will. The news, if possible, is
even better. David has agreed to accept an NYU University Professorship
in the history department. It’s important to emphasize the department
because Harvard and other places wanted him for African-American Studies,
a pigeonhole he firmly refuses to enter.
Although there are no sharper
knives than those sometimes drawn in academia, NYU’s historians voted
unanimously to invite him in. Next semester, to begin his new job,
he will teach 20 freshmen in a special seminar designed to capture the
minds and imaginations of the brightest students at the beginning of
their higher education. What a good idea. What a necessary idea.
And Ruth Ann Stewart, who like her husband has been at Rutgers, will also switch to NYU, accepting a professorship
at the Wagner School of Public Service.
I can’t say I'm entirely
surprised. Last April, at the NYU convocation celebrating the big bucks
left to the University by Uncle Julius, the incoming president, John
Sexton, schmoozed the table where David and I were sitting. When I introduced
them, Sexton dropped to his knees, took David’s hand and kissed it. I am not making this up. I thought, “Wow! This guy’s recruiting
tactics put Bobby Knight to shame.”
David has been writing, when
the phone isn’t ringing, a book on the origins of Islam. (See following
item.) If he wins a Pulitzer for this one, it will be a threepeat.
Don’t bet against it. |
SPEAK
UP 
The unofficial, tentative, provisional, speculative, hypothetical,
unconfirmed, faintly possible speaker’s agenda for May 29th is as
follows:
Stephen
Banker “Covering a Presidential Assassination”
How a big story
brought out the worst in me
•
Joel Dreyfuss “Me & Ben”
Joel confronts
Ben Bradlee in The Row that Shook Washington
•
Ruth Ann Stewart “The Politics of 9/11 Reconstruction”
Invisible influences
on New York’s
response to the WTC attack
•
Joe Schildkraut “How I Became a Psychoanalyst”
Huh? Since Joe
is not a psychoanalyst, what’s he talking about?
•
David Levering
Lewis “The Invention of Europe:
Islam in the 8th Century”
The Oyster Foundation
has the first peek at David’s new book
•
Eric Britton “Uncle Cordell’s Secret”
The U.S. Secretary
of State, 1933-44, didn’t have all his cards on the table
•
Peter Riddleberger “My Life with Cerebral Palsy”
Dealing with
a birth accident
•
To be followed
by the singing of The Oyster Anthem
|
IT’S
ABOUT TIME
When George
Klein visited me a couple of weeks ago, we took advantage of his
linguistic skills to call Auberge de Confignon and iron out some details.
To our pleasure, the establishment agreed to all our requests: that we will have the preprandial meeting in a comfortable room with
easy chairs, that we will be seated at a table royale (a large,
round table) for the dinner, and that there will be three choices
for the main course so that members can order according to their preferences.
None of this affected the banquet price we were negotiating. The
attitude of Carlos, the manager, was open, solicitous and hospitable
— for which George and I were pathetically grateful. There have been
recorded instances when some Swiss establishments have not lived up
to that standard.
The Rolex "Oyster" Watch
|
With
less than three months to go before our meeting, it is definitely
time for you to establish your itinerary. The nexus is, of
course, May 29th. You must be in Geneva
no later than early afternoon of that date. We are making arrangements
for members to stay over at Confignon that night, and the cost
will be included in your fee. What you do before and after the
29th is up to you, but George, Eric and I are talking about
optional activities on the 28th and the 30th.
That would include a Lake Geneva cruise
with lunch in a French lakeside village, and perhaps a motor
tour of the nearby Alps. More about all
that — and the banquet menu — soon.
Oysterers,
the clock has started! |
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