Emeritus Faculty Association news May 2015

Next Meeting:
This year the emeritus luncheon will be held in the Wang Center Chapel at noon on Friday May 1st. Visiting presidential professor Carl Bernstein will speak. For now he suggests a title: "An Afternoon with Carl Bernstein", which will leave him able to cover whatever is going on in the world as the date approaches. Please note: the space available is filling up fast. To attend you must RSVP by April 24th to Alison Gibbons, Phone: 631-632-7002; Email: Alison.Gibbons@stonybrook.edu. You may bring a guest.
Bio: Carl Bernstein shared a Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward for his coverage of Watergate for The Washington Post. In the four decades since, in books, magazine articles, commentary, and television reporting, Bernstein has continued to build on the theme he and Woodward first explored in the Nixon years -- the use and abuse of power: Political power, media power, financial power, and spiritual power. His most recent book is the best-selling biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is the author, with Woodward, of All the President's Men and The Final Days, and, with Marco Politi, of His Holiness: John Paul II and The History of Our Time; and the author of Loyalties: - A Son's Memoirâ about his family's experience in the McCarthy Era. Bernstein is the Presidential Visiting Professor at Stony Brook University, whereâ drawing on his personal experienceâ he teaches an interdisciplinary rotation of classes in history, political science, memoir-writing and, of course, journalism. He is currently also at work on several multi-media projects: a memoir about growing up at a Washington newspaper The Evening Star during the Kennedy era, which will be released in 2016; a dramatic TV series about the United States Congress; and a feature film with director Steven Soderbergh. He is also an on-air contributor for CNN and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair magazine.

Last Meeting:
Member Peter Winkler spoke on A Symphony Must Be Like the World - The Evolution of Peter Winkler's Symphony.
At this talk, Peter really gave us a show:
with recorded excerpts from the Stony Brook orchestra performance the previous Saturday;
projections of scenic views which inspired the various passages;
and illustrations on a synthesizer following written music on the screen.
We could see that his symphony really tells the story of his own life, starting with his early seduction by and scholarly involvement with popular music; the pervading 43 note theme developing with his arrival at Stony Brook in 1971; the craggy granite peaks and seething ocean of his summer on the British Columbia coast; the birds in the forest followed by the thunder and storm of a midlife crisis; an adagio reflecting the pastorale solitude of his residency at the McDowell artists colony in New Hampshire; and an epilog with its gentle Caribbean heartbeat. His talk ended with his retirement and accession to the emeritus faculty ( - illustrated with a glorious sunset!)
Rather than summarizing the musical structure we defer to the composer's own words (and written for the program at the recent performance of the revised work). This will appear on a website of his own this Fall at www.peterwinklermusic.com. On our own website, click here .

Off and Running:
Our forthcoming luncheon speaker, Carl Bernstein, gave his most recent public talk here on on April 6 in the Javits lecture center in which he asked: "What do you know about Clinton, Bush, Cruz, Christie? How will you find the truth before you vote?". That the 2016 presidential election season is going to be a wild ride was presaged on March 23 when the first major candidate to announce was Ted Cruz, who wants to abolish the IRS. He surprised everyone by revealing that his superPACS * had raised $31 million in just the preceding week. It turned out that the major donor was no other than our local (Head of the Harbor and Renaissance Technology) computer scientist Robert Mercer. Mercer was previously the major bankroller for the evolution denier and perennial Oregon congressional candidate Art Robinson, who wants to abolish all public education. Robinson was also the organizer of the widely quoted petition of 31,000 scientists questioning made-made global warming (although some of the real scientists on the list questioned their signatures).
* SuperPACS are a creation of the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, and can raise unlimited amounts. Once a super PAC is supporting a candidate it is forbidden to directly communicate with that candidate's campaign. However, upon declaration, a candidate can transfer control of his/her superPACS to a friend, who can then use it to support the campaign, as demonstrated by the comedians Colbert and Stewart acting (not communicating) together.