Former National Urban League head Hugh B. Price told the Princeton Chamber yesterday that one of the strategies for improving education is to increase and enhance the opportunities for student recognition. Prizes, awards, parades – they matter more than we would think, he said.

Looking back at the previous Sunday, when Not in Our Town gave out the 12th edition of its Interfaith Unity Awards, I get it. There wasn’t a dry eye when The Witherspoon Five, five eighth grade youths from John Witherspoon Middle School, gave their recitation of a poem by David E. Talbert on what it means to young black men for Barack Obama to be president. Evelyn Counts, JWMS counselor, had organized this for a Martin Luther King Day assembly, and the effort earned them the awards, a state citation, and a U.S. Savings Bond. (Pictured, Carole Krauthamer, left, with Evelyn Counts and the boys). JWMS Principal Bill Johnson has scheduled the Witherspoon Five to recite for a third time, at the Martin House graduation next week.

Not in Our Town is the interracial, interfaith social action group that recently presented a White Privilege workshop, co-sponsored by the Princeton Public Library, which brought 90 participants. NIOT also honored PHS seniors Moriah Akrong and Tamara Curtis as role models in their efforts to promote respect for diversity and to advance the cause of good race relations. (Tamara is pictured with her father, John Curtis, at the NIOT reception at the Carl Fields Center on the Princeton University Campus. For more photos, click here.)

Friends, family, and school officials spoke at length, affirming each of the honorees. The eighth graders, in particular, are at that perilous age when it is not a sure thing that they will succeed – and they are not afraid to wear their emotions on their sleeves. Jamal Williams’ mother (pictured with her sons by the banner) told of how, as a single mom, she was proud of her son and his friends, and it was especially poignant when Isaac Williams piped up to say how Jamal took care of him like a father.

Price, a product of the DC public schools (where his father was a doctor) plus Amherst and Yale, is a warm and witty speaker. He put much of his advice in his latest book, “Mobilizing the Community to Help Students Succeed.” He is in the first year of a five-year endowed visiting professorship at the Woodrow Wilson School, so he’ll also be around for the next couple of years. (He speaks in Trenton at Gallery 125 at 6:30 p.m. )

Another idea to celebrate achievement: herd the entire third grade of Trenton and surrounding area schools into the Thunder stadium or Sovereign Bank Arena and have them read a book in unison together. The only cost would be the buses and I bet that would be a popular corporate grant idea. Or give out a free bike, as they did in New Rochelle, to any youngster who read 50 books in a year. That year, 600 youngsters read 25 or more books.

“Children are hungry for this kind of engagement,” Price said. “The point is to create a drum roll for academic achievement, and engage the community in beating the drum.”

So — drum roll, please!

Esther Dyson, alternately dubbed the First Lady (or the Court Jester) of the Internet, will speak at the Princeton Chamber’s Thursday, July 9

Yes, I know, there is a dismal future for investigative journalism. Same for arts criticism. In a previous blog, I told about Richard Bilotti, former publisher of the Times of Trenton, pitching the unpleasant proposition that journalists should be entrepreneurial. Richard K. Rein’s U.S. 1 Newspaper column told of a panelist at Princeton University saying that experienced reporters were being replaced by youngsters making $35k a year. Neither option good.

Now, for the first time I hear (on public radio, natch) of some honest to goodness good ideas.

Studio 360’s Jonathan Mitchell talks to a freelance film critic, Mike D’Angelo, whose print jobs disappeared, but his readers chipped in to send him to Cannes.

That won’t pay the rent, but here’s another option: Visual art critic Lori Waxman has funding from the Warhol Foundation to travel around, set up her desk in museums and galleries, and write 20-minute on the spot reviews. It may not sound like much, but it would be an enormous boost to an un-reviewed artist to have a review from a bona fide critic.

Andras Szanto (pictured) of the Artnewspaper.com — quoted on the program — cites a bunch of likely ideas, ranging from the Carnegie Foundation’s Vartan Gregorian suggesting that foundations fund newspaper subscriptions for college students (replenishing future readers) — to foundations “tithing” one percent of their arts organization funds to support arts criticism, sort of like how builders, in Philadelphia, must dedicate a percentage of the building costs to artwork for that building.

Other ideas: “Community funded reporting” where people who want something investigated can make a tax deductible contribution to http://www.spot.us, with monies held in escrow until the sum is collected (usually under $1,000) and then the writer does the story. As Mitchell said, it’s the “pitchforks and burning tar” method.

Or think about “Kachingle, sprinkling change on the blogs you love.” You, the philanthropist, dedicate some amount per month ($5? $50) in advance. Automatically the money is distributed in proportion to the amount of time you spend at each of the sites.

This assumes the blogs you read have their Kachingle button in place. Note the absence of one here. I still haven’t even figured out how to count my stats. (Since this was posted, Steve Outing of Editor & Publisher has written about Kachingle’s competitors.)

Szanto agrees that it’s easier to find arts critics than investigative journalists, and it’s easy to agree. When U.S. 1 Newspaper went weekly more than 15 years ago, I was doing both business and arts reporting. We found a terrific arts editor, Nicole Plett, and I relinquished the arts portfolio – until now. As part of my volunteer gig here, I encourage myself to do dance reviews.

It’s the good and the bad that the arts attract writers willing to work for little or no money. Fellow members of the Dance Critics Association have been bemoaning that for years, and it’s worse now. Those with outside support (inherited money, spouse support, a day job, an academic job) are the ones who can afford to devote some serious time to arts writing, whether for print or online.

Having left my staff job, I can imagine doing dance reviews for free. I’m doing that here because I feel strongly that, since I’m trained to do it, and if I can possibly find the time, the dancers deserve that effort. And I’m willing to do basic reporting for free, to go to an event and spend a couple of hours reporting what was said, on the hope that the information will be useful to somebody in the future. But I can’t imagine doing a day-long or longer business reporting job for free. Thankfully, I can still get paid for that.

Not to be maudlin about it, but it was certainly sad when Doris Duke’s possessions, which I’d seen at Duke Farms, showed up sitting forlornly on tables at the Morristown Armory. Today was the first day of a two-day auction of the less valuable of Doris’s things. Now I know why my father-in-law didn’t want an auction. 

There was her history, the facets of her complicated personality, from exquisite Asian art to bawdy cocktail glasses, from the gold penknife with the initials of the father she dearly loved (you can imagine her treasuring it in her drawer – didn’t some family member want this???) to an outdoor statue of a deer. From the oh-so-comfortable red chairs in her Theater room to four dilapidated cars. 

Catalog prices were way low, perhaps to attract amateurs like me, and the bidding was sky high, partly because of the provenance. I tried my hand at a bid, choosing a huge Japanese drum that I could hardly lift, because I imagined Martha Graham beating on it as she gave dance lessons to Doris. Bidding started at 100, I got out at 400, and it sold for $11,500. That was the way it had gone all day, said a Chinese collector. At any other auction, he said, less than perfect pieces would go for low prices or unsold. There aren’t any bargains today, he said. 

Most of what I covet goes on sale tomorrow, whereas today was Asian art and books. The Chinese collector said that, for the big New York auction, buyers came in from Asia, but today they were bidding on the Web and by phone, making preemptive bids and leapfrogging like crazy. 

Nosing around, I talked to one of every kind: the elderly gentleman who had served on a trustee board with Doris duke at the community college, the African American couple and their young daughter who collect Lalique and Steuben, the former postman who is enamored with leather-bound books, the fashionable matron on an outing from New York, and, yes, the people who just liked Doris Duke and what she had stood for in the community. 

“I don’t know what they were thinking,” said the woman who lives in Hillsborough (pictured here). “It just doesn’t seem right that after all the wonderful things she did, that Miss Duke’s possessions should end up in the Morristown Armory.” 

More stories should go with this, and perhaps I’ll have time, but meanwhile here is the link to the photos I took today. It’s worth going on Sunday, if only as a reminder that no matter how rich you are, you can’t take it with you, and all you really leave behind is your reputation.  

Many a heartwarming story lies behind Eden Institute’s launch of a $7 million capital campaign tonight, April 30. Of that, $4 million will go to the sorely needed new school on University-owned land in Princeton Forrestal Center,  and $3 million to set up an endowment fund to bridge the gap between what the state provides for adults with autism and the services that Eden provides.

Grateful parents turned out in force for this launch, and here is the link to some photos. The last photo shows just one of the success stories. It pictures one of the Eden staff members, Marge Brooks, a mother (Marge Schwallie) whose son is an adult client at Eden, and her son’s employer, Esther Ludwig, the manager of the DrJohns.com warehouse in Monroe. What a happy outcome. 

This a responsible way to recycle electronics, especially old CRT TV’s and monitors, all of which contain lead and other toxic materials that will leach into our drinking water.

Electronics Disposal Day to be held on Saturday, May 2 from 9 am to 2 pm,rain or shine, at the Sovereign Bank Arena – Lot 1, at 80 Hamilton Avenue in Trenton at the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Route 129.

This event, sponsored by the Mercer County Improvement Authority, is for household electronics waste only (but if you have a home  office, that would count, right? You’re supposed to bring proof of residence.

It’s not the saddest thing that has happened to the legacy of Doris Duke. That dishonor belongs to the tell-all books and movies. But it’s still sad that the contents of her Hillsborough home, “Duke Farm,” suddenly are up on the auction block, and not even at Sotheby’s. Both the art and the domestic items will be on sale in Morristown on Friday, May 1.

I had two pangs of sadness when I saw it. I’ve written about her for U.S. 1, and have visited two of her three houses — in Hillsborough and Hawaii. I’m not sure I agree with the trustees’ decision to close the one in Hillsborough and devote it to outdoor education. More on that later.

The other pang was because I learned about it today in the pages of U.S. 1 Newspaper, where I worked for 22 years. If I had been in the office, I would have seen the press release and the photo of Doris’s bedroom come in.

But I rejoice that the savvy folks there spotted it and were able to run the picture that caught my eye. And that I had time to page through today’s edition and see it. So maybe I can change my plans and get there, just for curiosity.

It’s ironic that I am torn between the Duke auction and an all-day seminar on the potential demise of newspapers, both on the same day. I had not heard of either event until I found them, today, by reading U.S. 1 Newspaper.

Nick Hilton, owner of the men’s & women’s clothing store on Witherspoon Street, is setting up an informal group to market the “shop local” concept in Princeton.

If, in anticipation of the pandemic, you are buying quantities of surgical masks for your office, note that they are not all alike, and what good do they do? According to OSHA, surgical masks serve to protect other people from your germs. They don’t do much to protect you from other people’s germs — except that they do keep your germy hands from touching your nose and mouth.

I got this consoling information courtesy of a Duane Morris e-pamphlet, a checklist for employers on preparing the workplace for a pandemic. The law firm offered the obvious, like have plenty of hand sanitizers, and the not so obvious:

“Support employees who are out of work by reviewing and liberalizing leave policies, but recognize that what is done in this context may have precedent in other contexts.”

Other contexts, hmm?? Useful lawyer speak.

Also of concern, what happens to people who merely suffer from allergies. Will they be booted off planes? If you look closely at the CDC’s advice to airline personnel, regarding how to identify traveler’s with swine flu, maybe the pollen-sensitive traveler should carry a doctor’s note that says, “I just have allergies. Really.”