Category: Fall 2006 Newswire
East Haddam Woman Speaks Out About Breast Cancer Study
CTSISTERSTUDY
New London Day
Margaret Stevenson
Boston University Washington News Service
November 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 —Lyn May, a journalist from East Haddam who hosts a weekly television show on Long Island, interviews different people each week, but last year one guest’s message really hit home.
The guest, Carrissa Dixon, was there to speak about the Sister Study, a long-term project to study the health of sisters of women who have had breast cancer.
Dixon, recruitment coordinator for the study, said the study was looking to enroll a broader base of participants. May said Dixon mentioned needing more “women of color” and older women.
May, who is 66, African-American and the sister of a woman who has had breast cancer, realized she was exactly what the Sister Study was looking for.
“As we were doing the interview, I said, ‘Would you believe I am the perfect candidate?’ ” May said. “Then I said, on air, ‘I’ll join the study.’ ”
By analyzing the data of the currently cancer-free sisters of women who have had breast cancer, the study will seek to find the correlation, if any, of environmental factors and genetics to breast cancer.
Sixteen years ago, May’s only sibling and older sister, Carol Tyler, was diagnosed with breast cancer after being told for two years the lump she felt was only a cyst.
May said there were no previous cases of breast cancer in their family.
When May found out her sister was sick, she flew to Ohio, where the two grew up.
“It is ideal to have a sister to talk to,” Tyler said of May’s role during her illness. “So she could act like the grownup—and she did.”
Tyler said she demanded a biopsy on a Tuesday, went in for tests on the Wednesday and had a mastectomy on Thursday.
Tyler, who is now 72 and lives in Columbus, Ohio, has been cancer-free since her surgery. She said she was touched that her experience was so meaningful to her sister.
“She was there with me the night after I found out,” said Tyler, a retired health care administrator for the Red Cross. “It reminded us a lot of our mortality—I was in my mid-50’s.”
Tyler said being proactive about her personal health was what saved her life.
“Women need to be their own case managers,” she said. “My tumor was missed for a couple of years—you really have to listen to your body.”
May said medical help only goes so far and that it is really important to understand your own body and, in this case, to know your own breasts. She said valuing your intuition could help save your life.
“When it happens to one of us, it feels like it happens to all,” May said of the disease. “You feel powerless. You feel that you all have the cancer.”
Their family is not alone. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women of any ethnicity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2003, the center reported, 181,646 women were newly diagnosed with the disease and 41,619 died from it.
Tyler said she thought the Sister Study was right in trying to find more women on a broader spectrum.
Dixon said being interviewed on May’s show and having May sign up for the study on air really helped get the word out about the study.
“We are really looking at how women’s genes are affected by the environment,” Dixon said.
The Sister Study is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.
The study’s goal is to find out the environmental and genetic factors that may lead to breast cancer.
The Sister Study has nearly 30,000 participants and hopes to reach 50,000 in the next year, according to the study’s Web site, www.sisterstudy.org.
“Black women are more likely to get breast cancer at a younger age, and it is more aggressive,” Dixon said.
To participate in the study, a woman must be 35 to 74 years old and be the sister of a woman who has or had breast cancer.
A participant has to fill out questionnaires and be interviewed by telephone. Later a nurse visits the participant at home and collects blood, a urine sample, a toenail clipping and some household dust. Participants are followed over a 10-year period.
“Most people are afraid to join a study,” May said. “I think they are afraid it will take too much time.”
May said collecting the data doesn’t take long and doesn’t hurt.
“It’s important that I take part in this because of my age and because of my race,” she said. “I am part of a population that has had a tougher time with the disease.”
May said she felt the Sister Study can make an important contribution to understanding the impact of the environment and who gets breast cancer and who doesn’t.
“We really want to encourage more women of color and older women,” Dixon said. “We want them to benefit—women from all walks of life.”
Tyler said, “I wish them good luck on this –I think race and medicine are far too superficially dealt with.”.
Dixon said May was a keynote speaker in June at a rally in New York City to publicize the Sister Study and to enroll more participants.
May said she found her presence at the rally in New York to be beneficial because she wanted to get the point across that the study was not anything to be fearful of and that it was not intrusive.
May said she felt her value at the rally was that she was able to tell potential participants, “It’s safe! Come join!”
“Lyn has been an awesome spokesperson since the day she decided to join,” Dixon said.
“That one-day trip to Long Island really paid off. She has really been an asset.”
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Democrats Party as the House Turns Blue
Young
The New Bedford Standard-Times
Anika Clark
Boston University Washington News Service
11/8/06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 —Joy and beer flowed in abundance Tuesday night as guests of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s election gala watched the GOP-run House of Representatives turn blue.
The election night bash at a Washington hotel near the Capitol made two points clear: politicos know how to party, and anyone who assumes 20-somethings don’t care about national politics should reconsider.
“If the Democrats win [the House], this place is gonna go nuts,” predicted Patrick Rodenbush, a 20-year-old intern for Sen. Edward Kennedy who hails from Brockton, Mass.
Indeed, the place did go nuts and, with so many young faces in the crowd, tended at times to look more like a sorority mixer than an event marking a landmark political change. Rock music played in the background. Empty bottles littered the floor, and a gaggle of fresh-faced young women smiled for flashing cameras.
A wide-eyed young man helped lead his buddies in a fight song—“Na na na na…na na na na…hey hey hey, goodbye”—to mark Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) defeat. And a young woman committed the ultimate “party foul” by spilling her beer in front of two security guys in suits.
“Traditionally, young people are the least likely age group to vote,” said Michael Baum, chairperson of UMass Dartmouth’s political science department.
He said this might be partly due to the difficulty college students can have with the process of absentee voting. Additionally, he said he thinks young people have often felt the two-party system “just closes them out” with a lack of opportunity for Green Party and Libertarian candidates to really make a difference.
Increasingly, however, younger voters have been flocking to the polls.
Peter Levine, director of The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement—which researches political and civic participation among young people—said Wednesday that preliminary findings show that 10 million Americans under the age of 30 voted Tuesday. This represents an increase of at least 2 million younger voters since 2002.
“That increase in the youth vote did come into play,” said Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group, a political polling and campaign consulting firm that works with Republicans. According to Goeas, of the 28 new pick up seats for Democrats in Congress, 22 were won by margins of less than 2 percent and 18 were won by 5,000 votes or less.
“This youth vote is participating,” he said, adding that young voters “continue to be a group of voters that we need to emphasize, on both sides of the aisle.”
Due to the closeness of recent elections—particularly since 2000, “students realized that their voice could make a difference,” Baum said.
Also, in today’s current political climate, younger voters may be finding it harder and harder to remain unaffected.
Rodenbush is participating in Worcester’s College of the Holy Cross DC internship program this semester. “Issues today, whether you think they’re going to affect you or not, as a 20-year-old, they’re going to affect you,” he said.
Baum described his students as “clearly energized” by current “hot button moral issues”—stem cell research, gay marriage—as well as soaring educational costs that can make even public colleges difficult to afford.
Meanwhile, Hans Riemer of Rock the Vote, an organization that has reached out to potential voters through avenues like MTV and the web networking site, Facebook, cited the Iraq war and September 11 as major events that inspired younger people to vote.
“2000 was a pretty small turnout and 2002 was one of the lowest ever, but then after the War in Iraq, following on the heels of 9/11, in 2004, the youth vote exploded and it appears to be continuing through 2006,” Riemer said.
Rodenbush echoed this thought. “Our generation is defined by September 11,” he said. “I think people then realized how important government is in our lives.”
Describing the war as a crucial issue for voters regardless of age, Baum said in virtually every one of his classes there is at least one student who either has a close friend or loved one serving in the military. “It is personal, whether it’s pro or anti (the Iraq war), this is a highly pertinent issue.”
Of the more than three thousand fallen service members on The Washington Post’s Faces of the Fallen Web site, approximately 70 percent of them were under the age of 30.
“This is the generation that’s being asked to sacrifice,” said Riemer, who added that “young people are leaning very strongly Democratic.”
And last night at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee election party, Patrick Rodenbush stood among these young Democrats and hoped for change.
“The room is literally buzzing with excitement,” Rodenbush emailed in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. “The Democrats won a huge victory tonight, but they now have the burden of [the] American people on their shoulders. I hope they don't disappoint on their campaign promises to lead America in a new direction.”
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Connecticut Delegation Reacts to Rumsfeld’s Resignation
RUMMYREACT
New London Day
Margaret Stevenson
Boston University Washington News Service
November 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 —In the aftermath of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, Connecticut legislators are open to the “fresh perspective” President Bush hopes nominee Robert Gates will bring to the table but hesitate to pass early judgment.
“Today, the president finally acknowledged that we need new leadership at the Pentagon,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn .) said on Wednesday. “But it will take more than a personnel change to take our country in a new direction toward making America safer and respected again around the globe.”
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he is glad that the president is responding to the challenges the nation faces in Iraq by bringing in someone with a fresh perspective.
“I have said for some time that our country needs a new defense secretary,” Lieberman said. “Our policy in Iraq has been losing public support, and this allows us to open a new discussion with the American people, our military and our allies to find new approaches to getting the job done in Iraq quickly and in a way that does not compromise American security.”
Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) could not be reached for comment because of the pending recount in his tight race against Joe Courtney in the 2nd district of Connecticut.
Lt. Col. John Whitford, spokesman for the Connecticut National Guard, said: “We are very grateful for Secretary Rumsfeld's service. We will work hard with his successor to do what is right for our country. The National Guard will continue to fight the global war on terror both home and abroad with the newly elected leadership."
Dodd said that the nation needs a fundamental shift in its Iraq policy as well as an effort on the part of the administration to repair the damage he says the policy has caused to the U.S. armed forces.
“Inexplicably, Secretary Rumsfeld had reportedly once again refused the Army’s top leaders’ requests to address this serious concern by funding the replacement and repair vehicles and equipment lost or worn out in combat,” Dodd said.
The senators were also cautiously positive about Gates, a former CIA chief.
“By all accounts Mr. Gates did a credible job as the director of the CIA,” Dodd said. “It is my hope that his past experience has sensitized him to the danger that politicized intelligence can pose to our nation’s national security and to the ability of our military commanders to understand and carry out the mission on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as they seek to advance U.S. interests.”
Lieberman said he wished Rumsfeld well and thanked him for his service to the nation.
“Former CIA Chief Robert Gates is a very fine man with solid credentials in national security,” Lieberman said. “But I will withhold final judgment on the matter until we get through the hearings.”
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Maine House Members Look Forward to Majority Power
LEGISLATORS
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
11/8/06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8--With their party taking control of the House Tuesday night, Reps. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) and Thomas Allen (D-Maine) look forward to their first 100 hours in the majority, beginning in January .
“The House in Washington doesn’t work the way the house in Augusta does, and it doesn’t work the way the text books say,” Allen said. “The majority party has enormous power to determine the legislative agenda, and for the last six years that power has been exercised to help the pharmaceuticals, insurance, oil and coal companies, and not for middle-class Americans.”
Michaud, currently the senior Democratic member of the Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee, said he plans to seek the chairmanship of the full committee when Democrats organize the new Congress. He currently ranks fifth in seniority on the committee.
“I think it’s very important that we have someone in the chairmanship that is willing to work with both sides but is also willing to work with veterans’ service organizations all around the country,” Michaud said. “So I definitely will be running for chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.”
Both Democrats stressed the importance of ameliorating the high cost of prescription drugs and increasing the minimum wage.
“It is my hope that we’ll be able to get legislation passed in the House that would require the federal government to negotiate for lower-cost prescriptions,” Michaud said. “We’re the only industrialized country in the world that does not negotiate.”
During his first term, in 1998, Allen proposed negotiating prescription drug costs. The legislation, which he said would save taxpayers billions of dollars a year, has been strongly resisted by the pharmaceutical companies, according to Allen.
Michaud plans on continuing to push for his bill, America RX Act, which would pull together many existing patient assistance programs that provide low-cost or free medicines to qualified individuals. It is modeled after Maine’s Rx Cares for ME, which went into effect in 2003.
The minimum wage in Maine is $6.75 an hour, according to the Maine Department of Labor, higher than the federal $5.15. Both Michaud and Allen agree the federal minimum needs to be higher.
“If you look, every year Congress automatically gets a pay increase, but yet they refuse to increase the minimum wage,” Michaud said. “I think it’s very important that we raise the standard of living.”
Michaud also said he supported making higher education more affordable and making college tuition tax-deductible. Other legislation he ranks as a high priority is the Northeast Regional Economic Development Commission Act that would spend $40 million a year for the economic development of the Northeast.
Of first importance, Allen said, would be changes in the House rules.
“You could hear Nancy Pelosi promise a more open legislation process last night,” Allen said.
The rules changes, which Allen had a hand in developing, would provide more open government and restrict the ability of the leadership to manipulate votes or squeeze ordinary members to vote against their constituents’ interest.
“It would be a very different process from what the House has become in the last 12 years,” Allen said.
Allen said he plans to continue his role on the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most powerful committees in the House.
“It makes a huge difference whether you are working to bring legislation to the floor for a vote- which you can do much more frequently in the majority than in the minority- or whether you are proposing legislation that you hope at some time there will be a majority willing to push it,” he said.
Women Set New Records in Congress
WOMEN11.8
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
11/8/06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 —Tuesday’s elections produced historic gains for women in Congress, in both the House and the Senate.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is likely to become the nation’s first female Speaker of the House as the Democrats gained more than the 15 seats they needed to take the majority, and the number of women in the House and the Senate will rise to record highs.
“When I hear President Bush reach out to Nancy Pelosi, I think that is the ultimate achievement of last night’s victory,” said Ellen Malcolm, founder and president of EMILY’s List, a political action committee committed to recruiting and contributing money to pro-abortion rights women candidates.
The number of female senators will increase to 16, with Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) joining the ranks. Outstanding races in the House make it hard to predict exact numbers, but analysts predict a net gain of two or three women.
“It’s an issue of fairness,” said Barbara Palmer, assistant professor and affiliate faculty with the Women and Politics Institute at American University. “The fact is that women make up 50 percent of the population, but we’re not even close to that when it comes to our representation in Congress.”
But Maine has long been an example of female leadership.
The late Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) was the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, as well as the first woman elected to the Senate without first having been elected or appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat, according to the Congressional Research Service.. Smith’s 24 years of Senate service is still a record for a woman.
Today, Maine is (along with California) one of two states whose senators are both women. In the 109th Congress, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) both hold chairmanships, the only time two women members from the same state have chaired Senate committees.
“The increased number of women serving in both the House and the Senate as well as succeeding in national politics is clearly a sign of progress, and I believe we will continue to see more of it in the future," Snowe said. "The entire nation benefits when intelligent, dedicated women choose to serve their country as public servants.”
Malcolm also praised the women elected Tuesday as governors. “They clearly have shown that women know how to find consensus, know how to be tough when it’s necessary, but know how to make government work,” she said.
Palmer pointed to research that shows how women change the agenda. For example, in the early 1990s when there was a large influx of women into Congress, they were able to get former President Bush to sign the Family and Medical Leave Act as well as provide more money for breast cancer research, she said.
“Women don’t vote differently than their male counterparts,” she said. “But different things get talked about.”
There are 86 countries in the world that have more female representation in their parliaments than the United States, Palmer said. But she remains optimistic.
“There is clearly a role model effect here,” she said. “Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker will have a huge impact. That visual is really important.”
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Rumsfeld Resignation Applauded by Democrats
Rumsfeld
The Eagle-Tribune
Bryan McGonigle
Boston University Washington News Service
Nov. 8
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 – Hours after an election in which Democrats rode a wave of Iraq-related voter dissatisfaction to control of the House of Representatives, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned Wednesday.
“Don Rumsfeld has been a superb leader during a time of change,” President Bush said in a press conference Wednesday. “Yet he also appreciates the value of bringing fresh perspective during a critical period in this war.”
Democrats applauded the move.
“Changing policy in Iraq starts first with a change in leadership,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement Wednesday. “This decision is what is best for our troops and for our country.
Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., called the resignation “long overdue.” Meehan has been publicly calling for Rumsfeld to step down for two years.
"By failing to send in enough troops to secure the peace, by not giving our troops the necessary body armor, and by failing to send up-armored Humvees, Secretary Rumsfeld neglected his responsibility to protect our troops,” Meehan said.
Rumsfeld’s resignation comes after exit polls taken during Tuesday’s election showed nearly 60 percent of voters are dissatisfied with the war in Iraq.
More than 100 Americans were killed in Iraq during October, making it the fourth deadliest month for U.S. troops since the 2003 invasion, according to the Associated Press.
"I hope that Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation will not only change the public face of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, but will also bring about a meaningful change of course in Iraq,” Meehan said. “We need a strong independent voice in the Pentagon to stand up to the misguided policies coming from the
White House.”
President Bush nominated Robert Gates yesterday to replace Rumsfeld. Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group – a bipartisan panel that is analyzing how the president should proceed in Iraq.
Gates was also the head of the CIA from 1991 to 1993 and deputy director of the agency during the Reagan years.
Meehan expressed cautious optimism about the replacement.
"I fear that the appointment of another person from the Bush family's inner circle will not lead to a new strategy in Iraq,” Meehan said. “However, I look forward to working with the next Secretary of Defense on what I hope will be a new direction for Iraq in the months ahead."
Rumsfeld, 74, was both the youngest and the oldest person to serve as secretary of defense, having served in that role under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush.
He was elected to represent Illinois in the House in 1962 and resigned from that office in 1969 to join Nixon’s cabinet as director of the United States Office of Economic Opportunity. He left Washington in 1973 to serve as ambassador to NATO and returned in 1975 to serve in Ford’s cabinet.
“We thank Secretary Rumsfeld for his service,” Kennedy said. “Clearly now is the time to give our men and women in uniform new leadership and a new policy that is worthy of their enormous sacrifice.”
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N.H. Senators Congratulate Democratic House Colleagues
React
New Hampshire Union Leader
Kendra Gilbert
Boston University Washington News Service
11-8-06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 – Following the defeat Tuesday of New Hampshire Republican Reps. Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley, New Hampshire’s Republican senators said they will extend the olive branch across the Capitol to their new Democratic House colleagues and work together in the new Congress.
“They’ve obviously won a tremendous victory,” Sen. Judd Gregg said in a statement Wednesday congratulating Democrats Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter on their respective wins over Bass and Bradley.
Sen. John Sununu echoed Gregg’s commitment to work with the new representatives. “I welcome their partnership and will work with my new colleagues in the House on behalf of the people of New Hampshire,” he said in a separate statement,
The New Hampshire delegation, which for the past four years has consisted of the same four Republican members, will be divided starting in January, with Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate.
“This is going to be an interesting undertaking, and I’m looking forward to it,” Gregg said. “For my part, I intend to work with my colleagues across the aisle, as I have always tried to do.”
This is the first time in nearly 95 years that the two New Hampshire House seats will be held by Democrats, and the Republican senators said they hope the freshmen will meet the opportunity head on.
“They are now responsible for governance, especially here in New Hampshire, where we have some very big issues facing us, which I believe require fiscal prudence and responsible government,” Gregg said.
After congratulating Hodes and Shea-Porter on their victories, Sununu said that “the challenge before them to provide substantive leadership rather than just rhetoric is very significant.”
The senator’s words were similar to a statement by New Hampshire Republican Committee Chairman Wayne Semprini.
“The Democrats ran on the Republican agenda of no sales tax and no income tax,” Semprini said. “Now they must lead and show results. The citizens of the Granite State will be watching.”
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Holy Cross Students Witness History at Democratic Party
DCCC
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Katherine Geyer
Boston University News Service
November 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8-- Before the confetti fell at the Democratic election party Tuesday night, Patrick Rodenbush predicted that the Democrats would regain control of the House and that the 3,000 Democrats in the large hotel ballroom would “go nuts.”
And within minutes, the 20-year-old Holy Cross student was proven doubly right.
Mr. Rodenbush is one of the 16 Holy Cross students spending the fall semester in the nation’s capital. The program has students interning at the White House, the State Department and with various senators, including Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for whom Mr. Rodenbush interns.
He chose to go to Washington to “see how the process works” and went in the fall so that he could be there for the elections. He and fellow student Steven Hickey were volunteers at the election party hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. A big fan of politics, Mr. Rodenbush described the night as “definitely the highlight of the semester.”
The event featured likely new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who would become the first woman to hold that position. Joining her were possible Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and several House members who are part of Ms. Pelosi’s “30-something working group,” which she formed to engage the younger generation in the political process.
Bill Burton, communications director at the DCCC, estimated that one-third of those who attended the event were under the age of 30.
Among the top issues Ms. Pelosi and other speakers at the event mentioned were college tuition, affordable health care and the war in Iraq, which Mr. Rodenbush said was the reason that younger people have recently become more politically involved.
An estimated 10 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in Tuesday’s election, according to the Maryland-based Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. That would be an increase of 2 million from the 2002 midterm elections.
“The Iraq War has played a big role in that,” Mr. Rodenbush said. “Kids our age are over there fighting. They’re people we know and people we went to high school with.”
He added: “Our generation is defined by September 11th. I think people then realized how important government is in our lives.”
As for students’ political interest back at Holy Cross, he said a lot of the students are engaged in politics.
“Many students want to get involved and feel included,” he said. “It helps to see a 30-something standing up there, rather than somebody who is a lot older and might be out of touch with where you are as a student.”
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Connecticut Native Makes Her Photographs Soar
RUSSO
The New Britain Herald
Tia Nichole Albright
Boston University Washington News Service
November 7, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 – Aviation, beginning with the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903, is considered one of the greatest technological advances in human history. Now, a Smithsonian photographer is taking it to a new level.
Carolyn Russo, a photographer at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and a Norwalk native, is putting her love for photography and aeronautics on display in her newest exhibition, “In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight.”
In her third-floor office, tucked behind a crowded photography studio and surrounded by darkrooms, the 41-year-old pulls out a box of prints and points to a 24-by-24-inch photograph of the vibrant, red, heart-shaped tail of the Smithsonian’s 1931 Wittman Buster, a midget racing plane. The image pops against a black background.
The photo is part of “In Plane View,’ an exhibit that consists of 65 color photographs of artifacts in the air-and-space craft collection at the Smithsonian. Russo spent many nights during the past three years taking photographs in the empty museum using a medium-format Hasselblad film camera and a strobe light.
“These projects are important in my professional life,” Russo said. “I think ‘In Plane View’ will be important because it illustrates how an artist views aircrafts within a contemporary view of aviation.”
The three-year project, which Russo started work on during her pregnancy with son Jack, now 2, is set to debut at the National Air and Space Museum in March before touring the United States. A forthcoming book will be available in fall 2007.
Along with the 24-by-24-inch and 36-by-36-inch images of engines and aircrafts, the exhibit will feature commentary from historic aviators such as Jimmy Doolittle, Igor Sikorsky and Allan Lockheed. Combining the photographs with the quotes is just one of the ways Russo shows her appreciation for aviation, history and tradition.
Her mother, Joan, a New Britain native who now lives in Colorado, said Russo’s small-town Connecticut roots have provided her with an appreciation for family, an unwavering work ethic and an expansive imagination.
“The Connecticut values that Carolyn has are that she is family-oriented, a real old-fashioned girl who loves the holidays and spending quiet times with her children,” Joan Russo said.
Carolyn’s dedication to Connecticut runs deep: In a quiet quest to keep the state close to her, she refused to give up her Connecticut driver’s license until five years ago, even though she has not resided there since the early 1980s.
“I didn’t really appreciate Connecticut until I left, but I like being from Connecticut, we have good values up there,” she said.
Those values are evident in the mess of photographs of her sons, Max, 7, and Jack, that plaster the wall behind her desk. The two blond-haired boys beam into their mother’s camera lens. It is a reminder of all the challenges of working parents.
Max attends a local elementary school near the family’s home in Manassas, Va., and Jack spends his days playing with the children of other working parents at the Smithsonian’s childcare center.
It is Halloween in Washington, and while most parents are buying last minute bags of Tootsie Pops or putting finishing touches on their spooky spider webs, Russo is cooped up in her office trying to finalize research for her upcoming project and preparing for her exhibition.
Unlike in years past, Russo’s sons are wearing store-bought costumes. “I used to make their costumes, but I don’t have time for that right now,” she said.
Russo’s time constraints are further complicated by her husband’s career. Dr. Robert Craddock is a geologist for the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the museum – a job that frequently requires him to travel to Hawaii and Australia, among other places.
The two met in an elevator – as he recalls it – at the museum in late 1988, but, he said, she ignored him. Russo does not remember the meeting at all, but instead recollects meeting him out at a nightclub in town. The couple was married in 1992 at Norwalk’s St. Matthews Church, where she had been christened.
“As a working mother, there probably isn’t anything harder that I could ask her to do than let me go away for a couple of weeks at a time,” Craddock said. “She always lets me go out of respect for me.”
Russo said that although she picks up more slack by letting Craddock travel now, she knows in the future he will do the same for her, particularly for her newest project tentatively titled “The Art of the Airport Tower.”
The project will involve Russo traveling to various airport control towers in the United States and possibly around the world.
Russo came to the museum in 1988 with a degree in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art. What began as an entry-level job has developed into “a dream job” that allows her to pursue aviation photography projects that interest her.
Her first book, “Women and Flight: Portraits of Contemporary Women Pilots,” was published in 1997. A seven-year traveling exhibit of the photographs complemented the book, highlighting the women who have made great strides to be respected in aviation.
“I believe pilots portrayed in ‘Women and Flight’ offer inspiration not only to the current and future generation of women pilots, but to all of us,” Russo wrote in the last line of the book’s introduction.
She said the book inspired her to set goals and know that she can reach them if she works hard enough.
In 2003, when Max was a baby, she published “Artifacts of Flight.” It received awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the American Association of Museums.
Looking to the future, Craddock said he is in no rush to see their lives change because “the girl who once ignored me on the elevator now calls me to see when I’m coming home.”
Russo said that she hopes in 10 years they will both still be working at the museum doing the jobs they love.
Russo’s boss, Dr. Ted Maxwell, associate director for the Department of Collections and Research at the museum, said that Russo’s small-town values, good education and love of aviation have helped make her the talented, respected photographer that she is today.
“Carolyn is one of the many talented Connecticut natives that work at the Smithsonian,” Maxwell said. “I think we’re going to see a lot more of Carolyn in the future, and she’s going to continue to expand her role in flight and at the Smithsonian.”
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Weighing in on Homework: Is the Load Too Heavy?
Homework
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
11-7-06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7--Fifteen questions for Algebra. Three chapters for English. A worksheet for French. Oh yeah, and a History test.
That list reads like a nightly homework load for a typical high school student. But is it too much?
That is the question that has recently been on the minds of researchers, authors, the media – and the Norwalk school district, which is evaluating its homework policy. In light of recent research that has shown much of homework to be ineffective in helping students learn, all are asking the same question: how should homework policies be changed?
Education experts like Ron Wolk, founding editor of “Education Week” and “Teacher Magazine,” and Jay Mathews, author and education reporter for The Washington Post, debated last week at The National Academies, a group of research and advisory organizations in Washington.
“Do I think homework is too onerous for most kids? For most kids, the answer is a very strong ‘yes,’” Wolk said. “If I were the Imperial Wizard, I’d be tempted to ban homework, but it doesn’t have to be this way. I might relent if I could be convinced the schools would be thoughtful about it.”
Dr. Salvatore Corda, superintendent of Norwalk public schools, said that the district is considering the issue and evaluating its current homework policy.
“We are looking into [questions like] what should homework look like? What should the length of homework be? What’s appropriate for elementary, middle, and high school children? If every high school teacher gives half an hour of homework, kids could have three hours of homework each night – is that reasonable?” Corda said.
Karen Lang, who is assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the Norwalk schools, chairs a committee looking at the district’s homework policy. Lang said she met with a group of administrators over the summer and they looked at school systems throughout the state. The committee’s preliminary recommendations are now in the hands of principals, who will review them with their faculties, but Lang said the process is quite long and controversial.
“We believe there is a place for homework, but there are very strong differences of opinion about what that should look like,” Lang said.
Mathews said last week that the notion that students are getting buried by homework is largely based on myth. Though there are regions – particularly those with very good high schools – where some students do four and five hours of homework each night, he said those heavy loads are the result of demands students place on themselves.
“Why do they have stressful lives?” Mathews asked. “Because they think stressful lives are fun! Many of [those students] are looking at parents who have stressful lives – overscheduled, doing everything at once – and they want the same kinds of life, so they sign up for five AP classes.”
According to the latest survey by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, the average 15- to 17-year-old spends about 50 minutes a day doing homework – not an oppressive amount of time when compared to the two and a half hours a day the group spent watching television and at the computer.
“There is always going to be a difference between the student who takes three or four honors classes and the one who isn’t taking a deeply enriched track,” said Lang. “That said, there should be some guidelines to how long each student should be spending.”
But Wolk said it is not the time spent doing homework that is the problem, but that the problem is the homework itself.
“What schools do in the six hours they have kids caged in classrooms, they don’t do very well for the majority of the kids,” said Wolk. “And it makes me wonder why we should be any more optimistic that what they do with the kids after school is going to make any more sense.”
Wolk said that kids get bored and frustrated with school because there is such a discrepancy between the school world and the real world, and all homework does is “extend the school world longer into the life of these kids when they really ought to be out in the real world.”
“I am of the opinion that homework needs to be a task that is given to students that challenges them more in terms of thinking about a problem and how one solves a problem, as opposed to, you know, go answer 15 questions as the end of the chapter,” Corda said.
He said that the Norwalk committee’s final policy recommendation will go to the school board and will guide the new way district schools assign homework.
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