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Local news, local teens

The phenomenon of
Zuckerberg’s story no longer his alone with release of movie
BY ADAM GELLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Harvard dormitory
where Facebook was born is
a red brick and ivy- draped
campus castle that, beyond
just being a place to sleep
and study, has long prided it-
self as a community of the
best and the brightest.
But Kirkland House —
where a curly- haired 19-
year- old prodigy named
Mark Zuckerberg hid out in
his room for a week writing
the computer code that
would eventually redefine
the way people interact on
the Internet — is wary of
threats to its sanctuary. “Do
not copy or lend your key to
anyone,” it instructs resi-
dents. “Do not allow anyone
access to the House unless
you know him/her.”
Ever since Zuckerberg
dropped out at the end of his
sophomore year, he has
worked to create an online
world where such rules no
longer apply.
Facebook — with 500 mil-
lion users, the world’s largest
social networking site —
began as a tool for commu-
nication between people
who knew each other and
were bound by shared and
exclusive interests.
Zuckerberg required those
signing up to have a Harvard
e-mail address, months after
the university nearly ex-
pelled him for hacking its
computers and jolting the
campus with a site that en-
couraged students to rank
their classmates’ looks.
That site, called Facemash,
made fast enemies. But with
its successor, Zuckerberg
vastly expanded what it
means to make friends.
Zuckerberg, now 26, has
built Facebook into an inter-
national phenomenon by
stretching the lines of social
convention and embracing a
new and far more permeable
definition of community. In
this new world, users are
able, with a few keystrokes,
to construct a social network
well beyond what would
ever be possible face- to-
face. We are encouraged to
disclose personal informa-
tion freely, offering up the
stuff of everyday life as ma-
terial worthy of the biggest
stage.
In Zuckerberg’s world, the
greatest status is conferred
on those who “friend” others
fast and frequently, even
those they’ve never met.
“I’m trying to make the
world a more open place,”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote address at a conference in
San Francisco April 21.
A University of Missouri student looks through Face-
book while in class Feb. 22, 2006, on the Columbia,
Mo., campus.
Zuckerberg says in the “bio”
line of his own Facebook
page. This week, ready or
not, the publicity- shy wun-
derkind — whose own story
has largely escaped the pub-
lic’s attention despite wide-
spread fascination with the
network he created — is
being forced into the open in
a way far beyond his control.
Today, Hollywood lays out
its version of his story in a
movie called “The Social
Network.” The script by
Aaron Sorkin (“The West
Wing”) depicts Zuckerberg
as a socially inept and intel-
lectually corrupt genius,
fighting wars with both
friends and rivals for the
right to call Facebook his
own.
The movie comes a week
after Zuckerberg, in the last
chance to shape his image
independently, appeared on
the Oprah Winfrey show to
announce a $100 million do-
nation to the long- troubled
Newark, N.J., school system,
casting himself as the na-
tion’s brightest young face of
philanthropy.
“When you look at the gift
to Newark what it demon-
strates is his recognizing that
he can’t leave it to the movie
AP FILE PHOTOS
SHOWTIMES
“The Social Network”
opens in theaters today.
Here are some of the
showtimes for local
theaters:
Westminster 9
1:15 p.m., 4:15 p.m.
7:30 p.m., 10:15 p.m.
Owings Mills 17
11:30 a.m., 12:30p.m.
2:30 p.m., 3:40 p.m.
5:40 p.m., 6:40 p.m.
8:45 p.m., 9:45 p.m.
Westview Movies 16
1:20 p.m., 2:20 p.m.
4:10 p.m., 5:10 p.m., 7
p.m., 8 p.m., 9:45 p.m.
10:45 p.m.
to define his image to the
general public because he
has no image,” says David
Kirkpatrick, author of “The
Facebook Effect,” a book
chronicling Zuckerberg’s
story that was written with
the cooperation of the man
and his company.
Central to this tale: the
contradiction between the
blank slate that is Zucker-
berg, and his campaign to get
people to bare their souls via
Facebook.
A Facebook spokesman,
Larry Yu, said Zuckerberg
would not agree to an inter-
view to talk about himself.
School lunches
Nutrition
bill stalls
in House
Officials against using food
stamp money for program
BY MARY CLARE JALONICK
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — First lady Michelle
Obama’s campaign for healthier school lunches
has stalled in Congress after anti- hunger
groups and more than 100 Democrats protested
the use of food stamp dollars to pay for it.
Passage of the child nutrition bill, which
would improve lunches in schools and expand
feeding programs for low-income students, has
been a priority for Democrats
and hunger groups for years.
But the groups and many mem-
bers of the House switched
sides when leaders proposed a
vote on a Senate- passed ver-
sion of the legislation that uses
future funding for food stamp
programs to pay for part of the
$4.5 billion cost.
One hundred and six Democ- OBAMA
rats wrote to House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., in Au-
gust calling the move egregious, saying it was
not a vote they would take lightly. Labor unions,
anti- poverty groups and even New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg also urged the
speaker to reconsider using the food stamp
money.
“It’s just plain wrong,” said Rep. Jim McGov-
ern, D- Mass., a longtime advocate for child-
hood nutrition programs. “The way you are
going to pay for a child nutrition bill is by dip-
ping into people’s food stamps? Give me a
break.”
The first lady has lobbied aggressively for the
legislation as part of her “Let’s Move” campaign
to combat childhood obesity. A spokeswoman
for Obama said Wednesday that she had “made
extensive outreach” to Pelosi and other mem-
bers of House leadership over the past several
weeks.
To no avail. Democrats declined to take up
the bill before the November elections, citing
many of their members’ concerns about the
food stamp dollars. Many Republicans opposed
the bill as well, saying it was too expensive.
Supporters had hoped to pass the bill before
Thursday, when many of the child nutrition
programs in the bill are scheduled to expire. An
extension of those programs was included in a
stopgap bill that will keep the government op-
erating for the next two months, and support-
ers will try again to pass the nutrition bill when
Congress returns to Washington after the elec-
tions.
If passed, the new nutrition standards would
not remove popular foods like hamburgers
from schools completely, but would make them
healthier, using leaner meat or whole wheat
buns, for example. Vending machines could be
stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie
drinks.
Creation of new standards, which public
health advocates have sought for a decade, has
unprecedented support from many of the na-
tion’s largest food and beverage companies.
The two sides came together on the issue as
public pressure to remove junk foods from
schools increased.
Congressional passage of the bill would be
only the first step. Decisions on what kinds of
foods could be sold — and what ingredients
may be limited — would be left up to the Agri-
culture Department.

Schools led to grow own teachers

Shortage in small towns has officials looking to familiar faces
BY ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUFFALO, Mo. — Suzanne Feld-
man realizes she’s an anomaly: a
soon-to- be college graduate who
wants to return to the languid
rhythms of rural life rather than
flee.
The aspiring high school math
teacher is a member of the inaugu-
ral class of the Ozarks Teacher
Corps, a group of southwest Mis-
souri teachers in training who re-
ceive $4,000 annual scholarships
in exchange for a three-year com-
mitment to work in rural school
districts after graduation.
Having grown up in a town with
fewer than 3,000 residents, a place
where your homeroom instructor
is just as likely to be sitting in the
same church pew come Sunday,
the 21-year- old newlywed knows
that small- town teachers are not
[Schools] can count on [local]
teachers being more in touch
with their students’ home lives.
just educators but also neighbors
and role models.
“The community’s expectations
are higher,” said Feldman, a senior
at Drury University in Springfield,
Mo. “When it’s a small community,
everybody knows everybody —
and expects a whole lot more.”
Faced with chronic teacher
shortages and unable to compete
with the higher salaries and
greater social opportunities found
in big cities and suburban districts,
a growing number of rural school
systems are turning to familiar
faces to teach their students.
They know teachers with rural
backgrounds are more likely to
stick around and not leave after a
year or two. They can be pretty
sure that the absence of late-night
clubs or art-house movie theaters
won’t drive away otherwise ideal-
istic young teachers.
And they can count on those
teachers being more in touch with
their students’ home lives,
whether their parents are Indiana
farmers, Mississippi factory work-
ers or Northern California grape
pickers.
“Small, rural communities are
grounded in tradition and have
deep roots,” said Catherine Kear-
AP PHOTO
Suzanne Feldman, 21, who expects to graduate in December
from Drury University, stands in front of her old high school in
Buffalo, Mo., Aug. 27. Feldman belongs to Ozarks Teacher Corps,
a program encouraging college students in Missouri to commit
to teaching in rural areas for three years after graduation.
ney, president of the California luring professionals with non-
Teacher Corps. “Someone who teaching experience into the class-
understands those traditions room. Last year, the teacher corps
makes a huge difference.” shifted its emphasis to rural school
The California effort consists of districts in a state with 300,000
more than 70 programs aimed at students from rural areas.