Reporter's Notebook

More Than Just Brains: Thursday was a big day for Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus Norman F. Ramsey. After all, it's not every day that you win the Nobel Prize.

After interviewing Ramsey in the morning, the Crimson reporter covering the story had not expected to speak with Ramsey again that day--his secretary was typing up a long list of phone messages from almost every national morning news show, magazine and newspaper across the country.

But when the reporter later called Ramsey's office looking for some background information, Ramsey himself answered the phone and invited the reporter to his office to pick up the documents.

Of course, Ramsey's colleagues and former students said that the 74-year-old professor has always prided himself on accessibility.

"His door is always open," said Baird Professor of Science Francis M. Pipkin.

It's little wonder, as former student Richard R. Freeman said, that "Norman is loved and cherished by his students and all of his colleagues.

Some People Are Never satisfied: Ramsey is the 31st Harvard professor ever to win a Nobel prize and the ninth to win one in physics. It may be high by most universities' standards, but Harvard President Derek C. Bok wasn't resting on any laurels. At a reception for Ramsey yesterday afternoon, he said, "We can never have too many."

Trash TV: The unseemly scandal alleged to surround the Society of Black Professional Entrepreneurs and its ex-president, Harvard Law student Kevin T. Watkins, appears to have caught the caught the eye of one of the nation's leading purveyors of infotainment. A scout for the syndicated tabloid-style TV show Inside Edition attended Watkins' arraignment Thursday on charges of rape and assault and battery.

It's "completely meaningless to me. I hated Yale, and I love Harvard."

--Benjamin T. Simons '92, a transfer student from Yale, commenting on Harvard's thirdplace finish behind Yale and Princeton in the annual U.S. News & World Report poll on "America's Best Colleges."

The phone system doesn't work like it used to. When a development office secretary from the Medical School tried to put a Crimson reporter on hold last week, circuits must have crossed. The reporter ended up on the line with the first secretary and another from Med School Dean Daniel C. Tosteson's office. Here's what was overheard:

First secretary: "I've got a Crimson reporter here who wants to talk to the dean. Do you want to talk to her?"

Second secretary: "No. Send her to the press office."

Then the development office secretary reconnected with the Crimson reporter--who in fact was there all the time. But the reporter got a slightly different story:

First secretary: "Well the dean's not available...he's in a meeting. Perhaps you should try the press office. Do you have the number?"

Crimson reporter: "Yeah. I've got it."

This really is the people's victory. We are going to herald this as a major step forward in the civil rights movement."

--David LaFontaine, lobbying director for the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, after the proposed Massachusetts gay civil rights bill aimed at ending discrimination in housing, credit and employment cleared final hurdles in the state Senate.

"I hope we will come to our senses at some stage, either before this becomes law, or at some other time"...the bill "will get more people entangled in a lifestyle that is counterproductive."

--State Sen. Edward P. Kirby (R-Whitman), one of the bill's chief opponents, the same day.