GAME CHANGER: Japan's PM Hatoyama
Gene J. Puskar/AP
PRIME TIME
The leader of Japan's Democratic Party Yukio Hatoyama, MS '72, MS '73, PhD '76, defeated the Liberal Democratic Party incumbent in a landmark victory in August's national election. On September 16, he took office as prime minister, ending a half-century of virtually uninterrupted one-party rule. His party campaigned on a pledge to reverse the country's economic decline and to redefine relations with the U.S. While in Pittsburgh for the G-20 economic summit on September 25, Hatoyama—a noted baseball fan—threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Pirates-Dodgers game.
HANDYMAN: The Phillies' Bruntlett
Gregory Smith/AP
DOUBLE TREBLE
Former Cardinal slugger Eric Bruntlett, '00, made the MLB record books, fielding the first game-ending unassisted triple play in National League history. (There have been only 14 regular-season unassisted triple plays in professional baseball.) Bruntlett, who helped Stanford make it to the College World Series finale in 2000, is a utility player for the Philadelphia Phillies. The triple play concluded a 9-7 victory over the Mets at New York's Citi Field on August 23.
Antonio Arguelles, '82, completed the triple crown of open water swimming: circumnavigating Manhattan Island (28.5 miles), swimming from Long Beach, Calif., to Catalina Island (26 miles), and crossing the English Channel (21 miles). He is Mexico's first swimmer to finish all three endurance events—a total of more than 70 miles—within a single season.
FILM PHENOM
Aspiring filmmaker Philip Flores, '03, was named the winner of the FIND Your Voice film competition, sponsored by Netflix and Film Independent (FIND), the organization that produces the Spirit Awards for independent films. His screenplay and trailer for Touchback, based on a novel by Max Doty, '04, MA '04, were selected from among more than 2,000 entries. Flores will receive a prize package worth more than $350,000 to produce Touchback as a feature-length film that is scheduled to premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2010. He was also accepted into FIND's Screenwriters Lab program.
BURNING QUESTIONS
What possesses nearly 50,000 people to brave the 100-plus-degree heat of Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the week-long counterculture festival known as Burning Man? In (U. of Chicago Press), Katherine K. Chen, '94, MA '95, an assistant professor of sociology at the City College of New York, examines how a rag-tag group of organizers transformed into a multimillion-dollar—albeit unconventional—corporation, marshaling 2,000 volunteers to put on the annual event.
For the past 10 years, Marc Nelson, MA '91, PhD '94, has provided medical care for the makeshift settlement at Black Rock, treating people for dehydration, eye irritation and "playa foot," as well as cuts, sunburn and insect bites. An ER physician at Kaiser Oakland for most of the year, Nelson says that the sense of community at Burning Man keeps him coming back. "It's a genuine kind of friendliness where people care about each other and look after each other," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
AT LAST
After 70 years apart, Marin journalist Beth MacVicar Ashley, '47, married her childhood crush, Rowland Fellows, on August 22. The New York Times reported that the ceremony took place aboard a 26-foot boat on the Sheepscot River in Maine, where the two had spent summers together during their youth. The article quoted author Isabel Allende, a friend of the couple, as saying, "Beth told me that it's great to be loved, but it's even better to have someone to love."
