Honoring Evelyn Voorhees

Around Town

A Memorial Bench for the late Evelyn D. Voorhees will be dedicated on Friday, July 19, at 2 p.m.  at Spruce Circle.  A resident of Spruce Circle, she was a pollworker for District 9, a Commissioner on the Housing Authority of the Borough of Princeton and worked for the Princeton Senior Resource Center as an administrative assistant until she retired in 2010. 

“Anyone who knew Evelyn and would like to attend the Memorial dedication and the reception to follow is welcome to attend,” says Linda Sipprelle.

Spin the Wheel — Preserve the Sourlands

Business, Faith and Social Justice, , , ,

Two “do-good” events come up in the next 18 hours. Will you be stopping by the Plaza Palooza this afternoon, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.? I’ll be at the table sponsored by Princeton United Methodist Church and United Front Against Riverblindness. We’ll have a “Help Us Help Others” Wheel — for $1 you get to spin the wheel and either win a prize — or your dollar goes to the charity that the wheel chooses. It’s fun. At the other tables you’ll meet area business folks, get free tastings and lots of giveaways. BAI water will be there, sure to be a hit in the heat! It’s free and a great place to network.

Bryson
Tomorrow morning, Wednesday, Jennifer Bryson will speak at the Princeton Chamber breakfast on one of her recent exciting endeavors.  For two years she had worked for the Department of Defense at Guantanomo Bay. Now her day job involves partnering with Muslim advocates for religious freedom, but she also campaigns to defend the Sourland Mountains from encroachment. Bryson (Stanford, Yale) is currently teaching at the Army War College.

I’m not always in agreement with preservationists (I’m siding with the Institute of Advanced Study re building on its property). Hear what Bryson has to say and make up your own mind about the 90 square miles of the Sourland Mountains, New Jersey’s “last great wilderness.” Everybody can come to this breakfast for the reduced member price, $25, and it’s great networking.

Align the Body as Well as the Soul

Faith and Social Justice,

Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Hebrews 12:13

I came across this verse in today’s Moravian Daily Texts, an ecumenical devotional guide read by 1.5 million in 50 languages. Though the writer of Hebrews surely meant spiritual healing, the same principle — align yourself correctly to be healthy — applies to the physical body as well.

With my Pilates instructor, Katrine, I am currently trying to heal tendinitis in a shoulder joint — partly by trying to learn to use my arm in a better way. And with a physical therapist, Jeff, I am retraining my jaw to open in a normal way. (Loquacious as I am, my mandible is abnormally tight.)

So it occurs to me that Hebrews 12:13 could be the mantra for Pilates and physical therapy. If your body is not aligned correctly, it develops bad habits until eventually you are “out of joint.” Pilates trainers and physical therapists discern alignment problems; they heal.

For your interest, here is the entire selection. The long passages (Psalms, Hebrew Bible, New Testament) at the top are from the “lectionary,” the verses read and preached upon by most Christian churches for this week. The Hebrew Bible verse (Ezekiel for today)  is chosen by lot during the previous year. A minister chooses the New Testament verse to go with it — and composes the prayer.

Moravian Daily Texts

Friday, July 12 – Psalm 83:13-18 Isaiah 32:1-33:16; Ephesians 5:21-33

They shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid. Ezekiel 34:28
Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Hebrews 12:13
Like a comforting mother, hold me this day, Lord, with the tender touch that kisses our wounds and rubs our shoulder and keeps us safe when we fall or even fail. Thank you Lord. Amen.

‘She’s So Smart.’ Duh. Why Diversity Matters

Faith and Social Justice

Angela Amar, an African American nurse and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar, tells of an incident when a patient’s wife referred to her as “a lil’ colored girl here to see you.”
That was one issue to for her to work through, but Amar reveals the bigger issue is when her students say she is “smart.” Faculty members are supposed to be intelligent, Amar points out. Her white colleagues do not hear the same compliment.
“So, is it something that is remarkable because I am a woman of color? Am I an exception? Does my mere presence challenge students’ perceptions of African Americans?” Yes, her presence does challenge perceptions. She is effective as a mentor for minorities, but even more as a challenge to stereotypes that the majority holds.
Amar currently works in Georgia, and I don’t know where the “lil colored girl” incident took place, but let me make it plain to my Southern friends that I realize Northerners can be equally steeped in harmful stereotypes.
Here is the link, again, to Amar’s essay, and I’ll let her have the last word:
Diversity is not a one-way glass that only directs light in one direction. Diversity is a window—it lets light in and out. The benefits and opportunities of diversity are not just for the individuals who bring the diversity to the environment; diversity benefits everyone.

War Stories at WIBA

Business, Faith and Social Justice, Memoir, , , , , ,

“Coveting Not the Corner Office, but Time at Home,” a July 7 article in the New York times, resonated with me, as I am sure it did with thousands of women. It begins:

Sara Uttech has not spent much of her career so far worrying about “leaning in.” Instead, she has mostly been hanging on, trying to find ways to get her career to accommodate her family life, rather than the other way around.

I’d been pondering the balance between career and family as I prepared my speech for the WIBA “Women of Achievement” breakfast last month.

Along with three other women (Denise Taylor, Danielle Gletow, and Barbara Hillier) I was “honored to be honored” at this event. Richard K. Rein, my ex-boss at U.S. 1, wrote an “outsider” column about it, outsider because he was a man at a predominently female gathering. Rich comments that Hillier was the one who put the career balance thing in context. She used the familiar Ginger Rogers metaphor (does everything that Fred Astaire does, but backwards and in high heels) but it is oh so true.

In the ’60s, ’70s, and even ’80s, women did not have so many choices as we do now. But living with limited horizons can be easier. Each of us must find her own way.

Marion Reinson — whom I know from the chamber program committee and the former Einstein Alley Entrepreneur’s Group — wrote a sweetly complimentary account of the WIBA awards breakfast. I posted it on my personal blog for my grandchildren to read someday.

It’s more difficult than you’d think to be praised in public, but it was a truly wonderful event, planned to be specially nice from the table decorations to the engraved Simon Pearce glass bowl that the honorees received.

So here is the ultimate thank you to everyone on the committee, printing all the names: Elizabeth Hampton (chairperson), Brenda Ross-Dulan (emcee), Lorraine Holcombe (chamber liasion), plus Mary Betz, Dale Blair, Donna Bouchard, Jodi Brigman, Carol Einhorn, Michelle Everman, Robin Fogel, Danielle Gletow, Meg Helms, Judy Hutton, Heather Kumor, Nicole Lyons, Jane Mahon, Eileen Martinson, Susan Mullin, Helen Okajima, and Lucia Stegaru. You did a great job!

And while I’m at it, the sponsors were Wells Fargo, jasna Polana, WithumSmith+Brown, PNC, MacLean Agency, Fox rothschild, Lindt Chocolates, and Monday Morning Flower & Balloon Co. Thank you all again.

Glenn Paul: From dotPhoto to the Digital Divide

Business, Technology & Innovation

Every time I wrote or edited a U.S. 1 story about Glenn Paul, we said he was a serial entrepreneur. In the latest U.S. 1 cover story on Paul, by Michele Alperin, he insists that he’s just a computer guy who has had to change with the technology. He has a good cause, and she’s written a good story.

prince-2menFor just one day, at the Princeton University Art Museum, you can compare 19th century oil portraits of old, white (add two more adjectives, powerful and rich) men with 20th century portraits, photographs.

Shared Vision: The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collection of Photography has just opened and it highlights the enigmatic child pictured above.

Sunday, June 30, is the last day for Picturing Power: Capitalism, Democracy, and American Portraiture, brought to Princeton by courtesy of the Scheides (Judith and William). Your jaw will drop at the tier upon tier display of portraits of important men. These portrait painters knew their stuff — you can discern the personalities of the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Rockefellers, the Edisons.

The portraits used to hang at the chamber of commerce in New York until the display got so embarrassing (no diversity of sex or race) that the chamber sold it off.

When the portrait is on a wall, you can return the stare.

 

 

 

Shirley Satterfield’s Princeton

Around Town, Faith and Social Justice

Shirley Satterfield guides tours of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighhborhood, the historic African-American district, on behalf of the Princeton Historical Society. Her most recent tour was on “Juneteenth,” the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the Emancipation, observed as a holiday in many states.
Satterfield, who grew up in Princeton, was both informative and interesting — a hard combo to achieve on a tour like this. The tour is named after Albert E. Hinds, who worked on the crew that paved Nassau Street. Satterfield offers her tours to public and private groups, and the self-guided pamphlet can be purchased for $1 at Bainbridge House.

This picture is taken from the steps of the house where Paul Robeson lived as a boy, and it is across the street from the gate to the “colored” section of Princeton cemetery. Paul Robeson’s father and mother are the only African Americans buried in the main section of the cemetery, designated for whites.

Yes, though it was north of the Mason Dixon line, Princeton was a Jim Crow town.

Ed Felten: Foil the Online Trackers

Around Town, Technology & Innovation, , ,

How to foil the “trackers,” those who follow you on the web in order to market to your tastes? If you are buying health products, and you don’t want the insurance companies to know about your condition, buy with cash and without a loyalty card, says Ed Felten, the computer science and public affairs professor at Princeton University who just finished a year in DC as chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission.  Felten  was quoted in the New York Times on Thursday in “Ways to Make Your Online Tracks Harder to Follow”

If you don’t want to always pay with cash, preserve your online privacy with this Felten tip: use a different browser (Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) for each of three online activities: email, social networking, and general browsing.

The NYT reporter, Natasha Singer, had a clever “ender.” She quoted Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter:  “We must not always talk in the marketplace . . . of what happens in the forest.”

 

Hotel Mavens: Rabon and Kunz

Around Town, Business

Two women who know a thing or two about treating hotel guests well — Lori Rabon and Deborah Kunz — will have their say in the next couple of days. Rabon is being honored, deservedly so, for her unstinting dedication to the cause of Princeton’s tourism community. She chaired the CVB, the moniker for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, for the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce, for 10 years. She is also the general manager of the Nassau Inn in the heart of Palmer Square. Well done, Lori — and continued success with the hotel. A reception in her honor is on Thursday.
Kunz is the former customer service manager at the Hilton Hotels, and her topic is — yes, customer service. She speaks at the Princeton Regional Chamber breakfast on Wednesday, June 19, at 7:30 a.m. at the Nassau Club.
Some Princeton retailers do very well on customer service; I will leave the rest unsaid. But we can all pick up tips. About 10 years ago I remember interviewing a speaker who implored Princeton retailers to join together in marketing — not just their own enterprise — but the Princeton region as a whole. Do you have a tourist in your store? Offer sightseeing tips. A good “insider” tip is the photo opp by the Einstein statue, or the Einstein exhibit at Landau’s.
And did you ever offer to get behind the tourist’s camera? Someone at Landau’s did that, took my camera to get a photo of my granddaughter and me and earned a soft spot in my heart for at least 4 years. That’s customer service.
annie at landaus<a