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Writing Samples |
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Sitting before me in his '70s-style office was 91-year-old Edward Teller, a physicist who throughout his life has been intimately involved with both the politics and scientific development of nuclear energy, more specifically nuclear bombs.
As a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Mr. Teller now specializes in international and national policies concerning defense and energy. He divides his time between the institution and serving as a director emeritus at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (which he was instrumental in founding in 1952).
Leaning back in his black leather chair that contoured his stooped body, Mr. Teller—who is often referred to as the father of the H-bomb—gestured with his hands as he spoke to punctuate his words. He still has a formidable presence. "What do you want to know?" asked Mr. Teller, holding himself open to inquiries…
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/04/19/focus5.html
Nestled on the Peninsula between the Santa Cruz Mountains and San Francisco Bay, in the heart of the Stanford University campus is a very special place—the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.
A mixture of Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian and Library of Congress, the institution is a repository for 20th century memorabilia and books relating to social, economic and political change.
The institution's library is located at the base of the 265-foot Hoover Tower and contains more than 1.6 million volumes of books and periodicals, many of which are stored in the tower itself.
Underneath the three-building complex is the institution's archive. In a catacomb-like setting, the archive houses 25 miles of shelving upon which rests 50 million documents stored in gray, acid-free boxes. These containers hold items such as diaries, political posters, ship manifests and even chunks of the Berlin Wall. And in the courtyard above is the exhibit pavilion, currently showing rare artifacts from Imperial Russia's Romanoff family…
(page 1)
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/04/19/focus4.html
After a tough day at work, you begin listening to a message on your answering machine: "Mrs. Johnson, your child, Amy, did not show up at school today; please give us a call."
Fear flashes through your body like a bolt of lightning as fleeting glimpses of Amy, strolling toward school that morning, echo in your mind.
You have just joined the ranks of parents looking for their missing children…
I love you Betty, I love you Leland, I love you Kathleen … Green … Susie … Deborah … Don … Carolyn … Brian … Peter, echoed each voice moving up and down the rows of aluminum chairs as attendees verbalized feelings to deceased children.
In the capacity-filled room at Santa Clara’s Centre for Living with Dying, this meeting of the parents of Murdered Children organization (POMC) was especially momentous.
Atop tables in the front of the room stood a traveling “memorial wall” that treks around the country between POMC chapters. Publicly displayed at courthouses, shopping malls and legislative conferences, the wall keeps the memory of loved ones alive and, at the same time, lets society know how impoverished it is – among these children could have been a future president, Einstein or Mother Teresa…
(page 1)
Last year, in the midst of Operation Desert Storm, San Jose Mercury Columnist, Mike Antonucci wrote, "There are ways to turn a quick buck that are OK and there are ways to turn a quick buck that can unsettle the stomach."
Antonucci's stomach problem had little to do with food and everything to do with the "current event" trading cards—Desert Storm cards to be exact—that flooded the shelves of convenience stores. These cards, which depict images of war such as machine gunners, F-15 Eagle aircraft, and airborne assault units dropping from the skies above Iraq, can now be found next to the all-familiar sports cards.
"Desert Storm cards are hot," Antonucci wrote, "but that's not the same as saying Desert Storm cards area good idea."
On one side of the issue are manufacturers like Eclipse Enterprises of Forestville, California who is about to release a new series of current even cards entitled "True Crime."
"In today's world, serial killers, mafia bosses, mass murders, and the cops who battle crime, hold a gripping fascination," Eclipse claims. Besides portraying crime fighters like Eliot Ness, these True Crime cards will contain painted mug-shot images of sociopathic criminals like teenage rapist and murders, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Texas tower killer Charles Whitman, to name a few…
(page 1)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was more than an architect. He was a social reformist who cared about his structures, and in building healthy lifestyles for the people who lived in them.
“He had a plan from the early ‘30s called Broadacre City that the whole country could be subdivided into one-acre lots where each family could grow sustainable farming for themselves,” said Paul Adamson, an architect with Hornberger & Worstell in San Francisco. “And everybody would have their own house that would be passed down through the generations.”
Touted as a solution for the overcrowded tenements of city life during the Great Depression, this utopian plan was based on systems of construction, manufacture and transportation that would have been governed by small regional centers linked by superhighways, trains, barges and monorails. But these ideas were far ahead of their time—especially given that the only route across America back then was a string of pothole-ridden local roads called the Lincoln Highway…
(page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4)
“Simply calling yourself a `team' doesn't make you one," reads JM Perry Corp.'s brochure. It takes a lot of work. But who says it has to be hard? This Palo Alto-based company is in the business of making teambuilding fun and easy, by mixing it with adventure trips.
More like vacations than work-related seminars, participants spend half their time in classrooms learning about the STAR-D teamwork model and debriefing what they have learned from a particular activity. The other half is spent rafting down Idaho's Payette River, sailing on San Francisco Bay, mountain climbing the granite cliffs of Yosemite Valley, cross-country skiing through the Swiss Alps or golfing on the plush greens of England…
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1999/06/21/focus1.html
Sexual harassment is no laughing matter. Those innocent jokes and off-the-cuff remarks can spell disaster. Just ask Mitsubishi Motors or Palo Alto law firm Baker & McKenzie.
Officials at an Illinois Mitsubishi Motors automobile plant learned that lesson the hard way. Mitsubishi assembly-line workers and low-level managers must have thought the matter of sexual harassment a joke, as they fondled and groped female workers while calling them "whores" and "bitches."
And Baker & McKenzie partner Martin Greenstein made light of the issue by dropping candies into the blouse pocket of his secretary, Rena Weeks, while asking her which breast was bigger…
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/12/21/focus1.html
"I read somewhere a long time ago that `every person has an idea within themselves that will make them a million dollars.' The only difference is people that implement and people that don't," said Ellyna Berglund, who took the plunge in August 1997 from being an advertising account manager to making her fortune as a retail businesswoman and artist.
"I don't know why they say `artists can't make money.' I earned back my initial $3,000 investment within the first three months," Ms. Berglund exclaimed.
By August 1998, she had already surpassed her income goal for the year through sales of 40 original chalk pastel paintings, numerous giclée prints, and posters. And she has begun licensing her work for use on products, greeting cards, advertisements and special promotions…
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/11/23/focus1.html
