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.”

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.

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.

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!

So much to do, so little time.

I probably can’t attend any of the meetings listed here, but my fave calendar item would be the TEDx salon today. Wednesday, November 30, 6:30 to 9 p.m., at the Princeton Public Library.

A TEDx salon — with 3 1/2 hours — lets participants slow down and really dig into the subject. How many times do we get to do that?

This salon will explore how to conquer time in the 21st century — how science can move at the speed of Twitter. “We can use the Internet to build tools to solve the most challenging intellectual problems,” says celebrity speaker Michael Nielsen. Nielsen will talk about Open Sourcing Science.

Chris Leyon, of Princeton’s Linux User’s Group, will also speak. Register for $25 including dessert and a copy of Nielsen’s book, Reinventing Discovery. A $7 student ticket does not include the book.

Three events on Thursday, December 1, compete for attention.

Morgan Lewis Bockius hosts a panel on personalized medicine at 502 Carnegie Center on Thursday, December 1, from 6 to 8 p.m.. Geert Cauwenbergh, founder of Barrier Therapeutics and now managing partner of Aramis Pharma, will be one of the panelists. Cost $15. Register here. 


An entrepreneurship event, a lesson in negotiating, on December 1 at 7 p.m. sponsored by  Princeton University’s Keller Center offers a good (free) place to listen and network. The Keller Center also hosts Kef Kasdin, VeeCee from Battelle Ventures, to speak on entrepreneurial women on December 7 at 5 p.m. 

Also on December 1 at 6 p.m., Lorelei Fenton aims to prove that positive thinking is profitable, and she follows it up on December 4.

See Princeton’s own “business” version of Dancing with the Stars on Wednesday, December 7 at noon, when NJEN’s panel hears three pitches — one wins the prize.

ACG meets on Tuesday, December 6, at 6 p.m. to hear Barry Rabner, CEO of the Princeton Healthcare System.

Any Princeton Comment readers who attend an event and want to comment about it — be my guest! Write a guest entry on this blog. Just email it to me and I’ll post it.

And may we all try to slow down to absorb the wonder of this season.

The day after Thanksgiving, and, no, we did not take the opportunity to “engage with grace,” as per the previous post. Next time I’ll practice what I preach.

But we did see the Nutcracker, a la Rochester City Ballet, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and Nazareth College’s Bach Children’s Chorus at today’s matinee in Eastman’s Theater’s opera house, named  Kodak Hall. The orchestra conducted by Michael Butterman was fabulous — I heard so many inner lines I’ve never heard before — and the sets were nice, the costumes scrumptious. Though I didn’t really intend to write about this performance, it was enough different, from any of the more than dozen Nuts that I’ve ever seen, that it’s worth a report.

One always wonders about regional ballet performances, so let’s get the “was it embarrassing” question out of the way. In no respect. Though the 24-year-old company (directed by Jamey Leverett) imported excellent guest artists for Sugar Plum and Cavalier, it would not have needed to. Its own principals — I saw Tara Lally, Courtney Catalana, and Adam Kittelberger in lead roles — seemed quite capable. The corps for Waltz of the Flowers was drawn from the 11 company members and eight apprentices, while the Snow corps also included some from a group of 16 younger dancers, labeled “trainees.”

What made it a little different included the additions in Act II — a British Toffee female soloist, dancing to veddy British-sounding music, and an Italian ice trio — plus three triple-cast sets of kids representing more than two dozen dance studios. In addition to 20 cherubim, a line of tiny red-and-green-clad Holly Sprites and another line of pages, brandishing horns, occupied the stage for a combined total of perhaps 90 seconds but think of the ticket sales they garnered!

What made it a lot different was a “Christmas Sprite,” the magical sidekick of the more-than-usually-ubiquitous Herr Drosselmayer, played by the charismatic Fidel Orillo, the company’s ballet master. Wired to fly like Peter Pan (as in Flying by Foy), Kelsey Schneider cast the spell that causes the tree to grow and the other spells as well.

As for the first act party scene — I have never, never in all my born days, seen such naughty children and such ineffective parents. Like a Breughel painting, so much mayhem happening with both kids and adults, everyone upstaging everyone else, that you didn’t know where to look. Cameron Thomas played Fritz with pathological glee, a rascal verging on bully. Seems to me a little less nastiness and a little more gentility could be just as funny.

But hey, I’m a grandma, and the kids will love it.