More Alumni Briefs

W.Va. Gov. Appoints Mark Snyder as Judge

West Virginia Governor Bob Wise appointed local attorney and public defender Mark Snyder, '80, to be a family court judge in Kanawha County. Snyder has worked for the past year as a public defender for the 30th Judicial Circuit in Mingo County, W.Va., where Teressa McCune, `80, serves as Chief Public Defender. Mark is a member of the State Bar Commission on Children and the Law and was a member of Governor Wise's Transition Task Force on Children and the Law.

Cohen's Coffee House Wins Monty

Mark Cohen's, `85, "The Coffee House" won the Monty - the top prize for public access television in Montgomery County - for the second year in a row. A panel of judges from other area public access stations picked "The Coffee House" as the best studio informational show.

The winning entry, the September 2001 show, featured several reports, including: a report on why AMU-FM and WETA-FM both offer the same NPR programs at the same time and what is being lost as a result; the remarkable story of how the Kossoy Sisters went to the movies only to learn that their recording decades earlier of "I'll Fly Away" was on the soundtrack of the hit film, O Brother, Where Art Thou; an interview with the creative duo behind the percussive dance team, "Tappers With Attitude"; civil rights leader and Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Wilkins on his new book Jefferson's Pillow; and poetry by D.J. Renegade, Rebecca Villareal, and Bernadette Geyer.

In addition to the Monty, "The Coffee House" has also won the 2001 Community Access Magic award and the 1999 Hometown Video Festival. The Coffee House airs on 12 channels in Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia. The schedule and rundown for each show is on the Web at www.coffeehousetv.org.

Alum Anti-Nuke Letter in Post

A letter by Kitty Tucker, '78, was recently published in the Washington Post (A-25, Saturday, November 17) in response to a letter that criticized activists for publishing information about the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to terrorist attack.

She wrote in part, "Some letter writers would rather silence the messenger than read the bad news ["Tipsheet for Terrorists," Free for All, Nov. 10]. .. Terrorists can identify and strike at vulnerable targets, and the public cannot demand protection for those targets without knowing of the danger. . Environmentalists have long warned that nuclear reactors could become ammunition in wartime enemy attacks. An attack on a spent-fuel pond, which has no concrete dome and little protection, could lead to fires that release massive, deadly clouds of radioactive and chemical gases. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy (the agency that produces and stores nuclear weapons) should immediately take steps to improve security at nuclear sites. The public can only demand action when the danger is known.

Discrimination Victims "Crazy About" Athan Tsimpedes

Tom Hucker of "Progressive Maryland" sought an attorney and, through our alumni e-mail network, we hooked him up. Tom wrote, "You should know we ended up retaining one of your alums, Athan Tsimpedes, '95 and we are proceeding with what Athan thinks will be a multi-million [dollar] racial discrimination and ADA discrimination case in federal court. The tenants are crazy about him. A few of our organizers and I are going door-to-door with tenants this week to get more plaintiffs."

Special Master Alan Balaran Stings U.S. Dept. of Interior

U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth's Special Master, Alan Balaran, `92, has been in the news continually for his tough investigation into the mismanagement of a 114-year-old $500 million trust fund for Native Americans by successive Secretaries of the Interior.

In an article on the Federal Page of the Washington Post on December 5, 2001, Post reporter Neely Tucker wrote "In a stinging 154-page report, the special master, Alan Balaran, wrote that the computer security of the Individual Indian Monies account is so poorly managed by the Department of the Interior that a firm secretly hired by the court easily hacked into the system and set up a phony account that would be eligible to receive funds."

Neely went on to quote Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in pending litigation who said that, "It is disgusting and shameful that Secretary Norton and her predecessors have allowed this situation to exist. They're treating money that belongs to individual Indians - some of the poorest people in this nation like it's a candy store."

As a result, the Department of the Interior shut down all its Web sites for over a month-including those for the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Service. The battle heated up even more when it was disclosed in mid-January that no benefits were paid to Native Americans last month, which some observers have described as a cynical ploy to put pressure on Judge Lambert to loosen control of DOI!

My Own Awakening

Nanci Griffith releases her new album Clock Without Hands

"Clock Without Hands is the title of Carson McCullers's last novel," writes Nanci Griffith in the liner notes to her new album of the same name. "As with all of her work, this piece of fictional art is based around the concept of complacency of emotion, allowing one's heart to go dormant, and the loss of innocent passion in life. To borrow from Jack London and John Terzano (Vice President of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation), once passion has been reduced to ashes, the lights of life are flown and the soul has died in waking memory. This collection of my songs and those I've covered from the heart are my own awakening."