Diary Prequel Package — page 288

year. Unfortunately, they missed out in the semis even though they broke their own time record by rowing a 6 min. 22 second race. They were in a heat with the top 3 teams in the country - Virginia, Cal, and USC. She rows tomorrow in the "petite final". May 30-31, 2012 - Went to NYC to give Commencement Address at Brooklyn College and receive an honorary degree. Bright sunny day. I lot of déjà vu driving from Manhattan to Brooklyn through Atlantic Avenue and then Bedford Avenue. God bless Brooklyn College, they tried (for the first time in their history) have all 1600 graduates from all of their schools come on the stage to shake the hand of the President - Karen Gould. My co-recipient of an honorary doctorate was the jazz legend Cecil Taylor, a feeble old man, but very gentle. Sen. Chick Schumer came and said a few words to the graduates. Brooklyn Borough President gave a hilarious speech about Brooklyn. Had dinner with Jenny the night before. Went to Kefi restaurant on 85th and Columbus Avenue. I never really appreciated the West Side of Manhattan when I lived for so many years on the East Side. Jenny is an amazing young woman who is trying to figure out who she is and what she wants in life. She is currently a graduate student at Teachers College of Columbia University getting a Masters in Developmental Psychology. On May 30 right before I left for NYC, CNN's Wolf Blitzer's producer called and said that Wolf wanted me on CNN Situation Room to discuss a recent paper by Peter Hotez (formerly of GW and now at Baylor) who wrote a paper in PLoS journal saying that Chagas disease was the new HIV/AIDS. I like Peter, but I had to contradict this potentially misleading statement. I could not appear live and so CNN did a telephone interview and showed me testifying at a Congressional Hearing at the same time that they played my voiced interview. Nice trick. June 1, 2012 - NIAID had our annual spring policy retreat at the Hilton Hotel in Rockville which was a meeting between our group and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in order to determine possibilities of strengthening current collaborations and forging new collaborations. Present at the meeting were the senior leadership of the Institute together with Trevor Mundel (President of the Global Health Program for the BMGF), Nina Russell, Dan Hartmann, Chris Wilson and Jan..... The discussions went very well and I feel that our collaborations will strengthen. I was impressed by the sincerity of Trevor. In the early evening, paid tribute to Ed Tramont at a symposium in his honor at the USUHS across the street from NIH. Tornadoes and thunderstorms hit the DC area during the late afternoon and early evening. June 9, 2012 - Went with Chris to Annual Garden Party at the home of Jamie Gorelick and Rich Waldron. Usual good time with the usual Washington elite there, i.e. Ruth Marcus, Chris Matthews, etc. Always good to see Jamie and Rich. Wonder whether Jamie will ever get back into USG. June 12, 2012 - Had dinner over my house with the 3 week-day bachelors (i.e. their wives live and work in different cities): Harold Varmus (Connie in NYC); Gary Nabel