Monthly Archives: December 2011

Update on Diana Henriques

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After 20 years at the New York Times, investigative business reporter Diana Henriques took an offered buyout from the paper, late in December.
Henriques, who wrote the much lauded best seller about the Madoff scandal, The Wizard of Lies, will speak at the Princeton Regional Chamber lunch on Thursday, January 5.

The Henriques buyout was first reported on Talking Biz News on December 16. The same source noted that, early in her career, Henriques had reported for the Times of Trenton. She h”as chosen to remain on staff as contributing writer.

Henriques responded to Talking Biz News with this explanation:“I have accepted the buyout, but was immediately offered and accepted a contract to work as a contributing writer in the business news section, beginning next week. I will keep a desk in the NYT building and will retain my current email address, phone number and mailing address. I’m actually filing a story the week after Christmas and another in January. So from a practical standpoint, this really is no big deal, even within the business journalism world — to the outside world, it is less than a non-event.”

She has written three other books Fidelity’s World: The Secret Life and Public Power of the Mutual Fund Giant (1995) and The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and The Original Corporate Raiders (2000) and has various other contracts dealing with the Madoff book.

Maybe this won’t be her last trip to our college town  — Henriques has been quoted as saying she is considering some “teaching opportunities.”

A Question of Dignity: January 2

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The worst crime of slavery, even worse than physical abuse, is the erosion of dignity. So said Princeton University professor Kwame Apiah in his remarks after the Princeton Public Library showing of the film “Prince Among Slaves” last month. Not in Our Town Princeton will offer an opportunity to discuss the film, and Apiah’s remarks, as part of the Continuing Conversations series on Monday, January 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Princeton Public Library.

Wilma Solomon and Marietta Taylor will lead the discussion. Those who did not see the film are welcome to attend and might also want to check out the website of the film.
“What you are essentially doing is you are removing the identity of an individual and you are giving him a very different identity-one that you as a slave owner choose and this communicates very effectively that the person is now a slave…the person is now chattel..the person is now someone who is owned.”

A question to think about: If “dignity” is defined as the state of quality of being worthy of honor or respect, to what degree do you think that African Americans and  people of color today are treated in such a way as to diminish their identity and dignity?
All are welcome to NIOT’s Continuing Conversation on Monday, January 2.

Something New on New Year’s Eve

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Since my husband and I were juniors in high school we have always been together on New Year’s Eve. It’s not exactly a superstition (some believe that whatever you do on December 31st, you’ll keep doing throughout the next year), but it is certainly a tradition. The year I had a babysitting job, he found out where, and he showed up at midnight, to keep the tradition going.
So since December 1955, when we danced in the Engroff basement to Teresa Brewer’s  hit “Till I Waltz Again With You,”  New Year’s has always been important to us.
Though we like parties, we also like to just sit together, review the year, and watch the Times Square ball drop. Better yet, when we were Moravians, some 40 years ago, the  it Watch Night,and everyone picked a verse from the offering plate to be their Watch Word for the New Year.

We’re Methodists now, at the church on the corner of Nassau and Vandeventer (Princeton United Methodist) and I just learned to my delight that our church is going to have its own Watch Night service, as part of its Saturday Evening Gathering, As below:
“On New Year’s Eve we will have a special Watch Night Service followed by a New Year’s Eve Celebration.  In the tradition of John Wesley’s Watch Night services, we will review the year that was, take stock in where we are now and commit ourselves to the year ahead,’ says one of the pastors, Trey Gillette. Immediately following the service, there will be a celebration of food, fellowship and fun. Those attending are encouraged to bring a dish or treat to share.  There will also be music, games and even karaoke for the brave and bold. The Service begins at 5 p.m. and festivities will conclude by 8 p.m.

 “If you’ve never had the chance to come to the Saturday gathering, this will be a great opportunity to see what it is all about,” says Gillette. All are welcome!

Teresa Brewer is long forgotten on the hit parade. Deservedly so in my opinion. Any one who has the gall to sing about waltzing to a tune in 4/4 time deserves to be forgotten. But I still remember her on New Year’s Eve and am thankful to still be here.

Save the Date: Diana B. Henriques on January 5

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“Bernie Madoff thought he could avoid the implacable dead-end finale of the Ponzi scheme and somehow get away with it,” writes Diana B. Henriques, the New York Times financial reporter who wrote Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust.

HERE’s an UPDATE on HENRIQUES AS OF DECEMBER 30.


She has just agreed to speak at the first Princeton Regional Chamber luncheon in 2012. Mark your calendars for Thursday, January 5, at the Forrestal Marriott when her topic will be “Beyond Bernie Madoff — Fallout from History’s Biggest Fraud.” Cost: $45 for members who register, $50 for walk-ins, $65 for non-members. Register here, 

Her book has been cited by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as the “definitive” Madoff biography. It is based on the her award-winning coverage in The New York Times and two years of additional research, including the first in-prison interviews with Madoff himself.

Henriques warns that the next fraudster, like Madoff, thinks he won’t get caught. “Right now,” she writes,
“some new Bernie Madoff is exploiting our need for trust to build another world of lies. We will read about him next month or next year. Until then, his victims are telling themselves how generous and respected he is in the community… That is the most enduring lesson of the Madoff scandal: in a world full of lies, the most dangerous ones are those we tell ourselves.”

December 5: Meet Kwame Anthony Appiah

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Meet Kwame Anthony Appiah, not only in Wikipedia,  but also in person, on Monday, December 5, at 6:30 p.m., when the Princeton Public Library screens “Prince Among Slaves,” the PBS documentary for which he was the consulting scholar. Terry Alford, author of the biography on which the film was based, will also speak. The program is free, and refreshments will be served.
With a Ghanian father and a British mother, he grew up mostly in Britain, and describes his life here. With a PhD from Cambridge, he has taught at Yale, Cornell, Duke, and Harvard. He lives in Pennington and is the Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton.  
Appiah’s interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual theory; he is known as a critic of the Afro-centric world view. 
One of his books,  In My Father’s House, is described as a wide ranging collection of essays, “covering everything from Pan Africanism, to the works of early African-American intellectuals such as Alexander Crummell and W.E.B. Du Bois, to the ways in which African identity influences African literature.”
The story of Abdul Rahman Sori, who is profiled in Prince Among Slaves, is taken from the promotional materials for the documentary which premiered on PBS 2008.  
In 1788 a slave-ship set sail from West Africa, its berth laden with a profitable but fragile cargo: hundreds of men, women and children bound in chains and headed for American shores. Eight months later the survivors were sold in Natchez, Mississippi. Among them was the 26-year-old Abdul Rahman Sori, heir to the throne of one of the largest kingdoms in Africa.
Captured in an ambush, he was sold to English slavers for a few muskets and some rum. After enduring the brutal Middle Passage to America, he was purchased by a struggling Mississippi farmer named Thomas Foster. Foster hoped that the strong African would help establish his farm.
 Sustained by his deep faith and drawing from his well-honed intellect, Abdul Rahman applied his leadership abilities and knowledge about crops such as cotton to help Foster eventually become one of the wealthiest men in Mississippi. In the meantime, Abdul Rahman married an American-born enslaved woman, and together they had nine children.
Did it have a happy ending? Read the rest of it here. 
Co-sponsored by the library, Unity Productions and Not In Our Town Princeton, this program is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.



Journeying to Bethlehem from Nassau & Vandeventer

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Everyone – kids and adults — will be in Biblical costume on Sunday, December 4, 4 to 5:30 p.m., when the social hall at Princeton United Methodist Church will be transformed into a Bethlehem Marketplace.
How can everyone be in costume? Must you wear one to attend? No. But if you have something from home, you’ll add to the festivities. Or you can patronize the “Bethlehem Tailor” (the church’s extensive costume closet) and borrow one. 
As part of the “Journey to Bethlehem” theme for Advent family night, Laura Felten and Susan Lidstone have created tented booths for crafts and recruited such craftspeople as the weaver, the candlemaker, the fishmonger, the carpenter, and the potter. 
Other personalities you’ll meet — the money changer, the portrait painter, the census taker, storytellers-at-the-well, and even the tax collector. Zorba’s Grill will provide snacks that Mary and Joseph might have enjoyed. 
The marketplace will run from 4 to 5 p.m. and from 5 to 5:30 p.m. everyone will sing Christmas carols, led by Karen Zumbrunn. It’s all free and anyone, all ages, may attend. Call 609-924-2613 on Friday to make a reservation or email advent-night@princetonumc.org 
Princeton United Methodist Church is located at the corner of Nassau Street & Vandeventer Avenue (7 Vandeventer). Enter from the Park Placelot. Parking is free on Sundays. 
That “extensive costume closet” will be tapped again on Sunday, December 11 at 5 p.m., when the PUMC Sunday School and Middle School Choir presents “A Gift for the Holy Child,” directed by Yvonne Macdonald and Malisa Langdon. The sheep, lamb, cow, and other animal costumes — worn by the preschoolers — are always adorable.

On Sunday, December 18, the combined choirs — chancel, high school, and handbell — will offer a  evening of drama and traditional carols, directed by Hyosang Park.

For the Winter Solstice, a Longest Night Service — for those who might celebrate this year in a minor key — will be Thursday, December 22, at 7:30 p.m. (Allow time to park, as there is a big event at the University Chapel that night.) 

Advent services are Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 9:30 and 11 a.m. On Christmas Eve, Saturday, December 24, there will be a family service at 6 p,m. and the traditional candlelight Service of Lessons and Carols will be at 8 p.m. On Christmas Day, kids are invited to come in their pjs, and even bring one of their gifts, for one service at 10 a.m. Rumor is that there will be a red-suited gentleman in attendance. New Year’s Day will also have one 10 a.m. service and the regular schedule resumes January 7 and 8. 
Here’s my wish for a blessed December. No matter what your celebration’s name, take time to enjoy it!

A Double Dickens for Christmas

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Scott Langdon has recorded his wonderful one-man show of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol — you may have seen it two years ago at Princeton United Methodist Church — and the CD is available for $13.95. 

Even better, he is doing the show live on Friday and Saturday, December 2 and 3 in East Brunswick. He pairs with Lynn Elson for her version of  “Cricket on the Hearth,” to complete the evening.

 The venue is the Hammarskjold Middle School, 200 Rues Lane, East Brunswick, a 30-minute drive from Route 1 at the Washington Road circle, via Ridge Road, Cranbury South River Road, and Cranbury Road.

 It is a Now Theatre Company production and tickets ($20 or $12 for students and seniors) are available online or at the door. It’s a favorite!