There’s a mothballed computer in this office that contains emails I gathered for two unpublished interviews, both of which gnaw at me from time to time. I have a reasonable, if paranoid, excuse for the uncompleted Euan Semple interview. I was working with Euan when the Downing Street memo was published. Euan had a relationship with the BBC in July, 2003 when Dr. David Kelly died. Most thinking people understood that Britain and the United States had trumped up reasons for the Iraq war, and Kelly had let the cat out of the bag. His “suicide” shifted the story from his charges against the government to a story about the BBC and the pressure they had put on him. This was all before the publication of the Downing Street memo, but the world was already quite aware that Bush had foisted off a war of aggression on our allies and Blair had put both feet in it.

All of the questions I could think to ask Euan had to do with these thorny matters, and rather than turn the Sandhill interviews into a political club, I thought it best to lay that one down.

Regarding the other interview… I hope to resurrect it, so the less said the better!

My sincere sympathy to Jack Bell and the others she leaves behind. There are many of us out here who were touched by Anita. We’ll miss her too.

UPDATE:

Anita’s husband, Jack Bell, asks those who knew Anita or whose life was touched by her in some way to leave a comment at his Live Journal, Antigravitas: http://jackwilliambell.livejournal.com/198715.html

[tags]Anita Rowland, anitarowland[/tags]

I visited Joan Kanwisher at her home in Woods Hole near the Bell Tower this week.   Joan was cleaning out her closets, bundling up sketches and prints for the Community Center.  She let me paw through what she had uncovered and pick out a few for gifts. 

We have, in our dining room, three drawings she did of Eel Pond Bridge, Nobska Light, and the Marine Biological Laboratory.  They are signed but not dated.  The first two were gifts in the late sixties, the last we received some time in the last five or ten years.  Joan was very generous to let us expand our little collection of her prints and drawings.

The negotiation was funny.  She was ready to give the pictures away.  I wanted to give her a material value.  We ended up closer to my end of the scale.  I felt like I had gotten a steal of a deal.  She felt glad to have some cash to contribute to her community cause.

Joan is in her eighties and faces heart valve surgery next week.  She is the kind of woman I just want  to hug.  She’s diminutive and pretty, with beautiful eyes.  We are holding her in the light of our love and concern as she faces her surgery.

In 1965 Joan would have been about 42. That year, when the last train departed from Woods Hole, Joan wrote to the railroad company and the Falmouth Conservation Commission to propose that the right of way be converted to a bike path.  Ten years later that bike path was finally dedicated after more than a few legal battles and administrative hassles.

• Sarah Allen, engineer, Macromedia Software – Sarah is now at Lazslo, using (choke) vi.;
• Donna Auguste, in 1998 CEO of Freshwater Software, a company she founded (and sold to Mercury Interactive in 2001 for US$147 million) – Donna is now doing philanthropic work in Africa and around the world through her Leave a Little Room Foundation;
• Janelle Brown, then, the Culture Writer for Wired News and co-founder of Maxi Magazine. Today Janelle still writes, edits, publishes;
• Red Burns, founder and chair, NYU Interactive Technology Program. Everyone’s "top people" list then and now;
• Denise Caruso, then: digital commerce columnist and executive producer for Spotlight. Now, Denise has a lower, if as impactful, profile;
• Denise Castellucci, creator, Voices of Adoption Website. Denise appears to have moved away from public activism at this time;

That’s six down, and nineteen to go. Look for more of the top 25 Webgrrls of 1998 here later this week.