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A Sampling of Jumbo Opinion
when life gives you water hyacinths . . .Water hyacinth, a highly invasive species, is choking Kenya’s Lake Victoria, but with the help of the Seattle-based organization Village Volunteers local communities have begun to “fight back and turn a potentially devastating situation into a financial boon.” The plant “ ‘is actually a really great raw material for so many things,’ says Village Volunteers founder and director Shana Greene. ‘We are using it to make fuel briquettes for cook fires and turning it into a very effective fertilizer.’ ”
—Danielle Nierenberg, N01, on blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet

breast reconstruction that works After breast cancer, a double mastectomy, and two failed reconstructive surgeries, I finally saw a specialist in “gluteal flap reconstructions of the breast—or, as I like to say, Booty to Booby, or B2B.” As a result, I now have two small but very nice breasts.

“To be forty-five years old and to have survived breast cancer and to have survived reconstructions v.1 and v.2 and to wind up in with the incredible, beautiful success that is reconstruction v.3 . . . it is just amazing. Would I have wanted to come to this place through the circuitous path that I took? Hell no. But here I am.”
—Lauren Cahn, J87, on huffingtonpost.com

historic bowling “I felt stunned” to learn that Fairway Bowling in Natick, Massachusetts, has closed its doors. “A sign of the times. Who bowls anymore when you can sit in front of a laptop and play virtual checkers, bowl, or kill aliens with someone in Uzbekistan?”

But it’s not just bowling as a physical activity that I mourn. It’s also the potential loss of the Fairway Bowling facility itself, which is a “pristine example” of fifties architecture. “I can count on two hands the number of buildings being knocked down” that are “from an era when America had freshly defeated fascism—and a communist lurked under every bed. Our national social and architectural heritage is being destroyed with each tick of the clock.” This needs to change. “Where are local, state, and/or national historic societies to save Fairway? Bill Gates. Steven Spielberg. Where are you? Be white knights and please rescue Fairway.”
—Brendan Ben Feeney, G96, on brendanbenfeeney.com