Brooklyn Today: March 28, 2012

March 28, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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Good morning. Today is the 88th day of the year. It is the anniversary of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant incident. A series of accidents at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Penn., brought the plant perilously close to a meltdown, threatening extensive radiation contamination.

Well-known people who were born today include singer Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta), singer-actress Reba McEntire, former basketball player and coach Jerry Sloan, and actress Dianne Weist (Hannah and Her Sisters, “Law & Order”).

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This evening at 7 p.m. at St. Francis College, author Ibn Warraq will discuss his new book Why the West Is Best on a panel with fellow authors Paul Berman, Sohrab Ahmari and Fred Siegel of the Manhattan Institute. Warraq’s book praises what he sees as the virtues of liberal Western civilization compared to its Islamic counterparts. …

This evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Parish House of New Utrecht Reformed Church, 18th Avenue and 84th Street, Bensonhurst, Green-Wood Cemetery Historian Jeffrey Richman will speak about the cemetery’s Civil War project. Volunteers led by Richman have identified more than 4,800 Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, among Green-Wood’s more than 560,000 “permanent residents.” The volunteers have written biographies of each veteran and obtained Veterans Administration gravestones for more than 2,000 men with unmarked graves. …

Today at 51 N. First St., Williamsburg, Councilman Stephen Levin will chair a discussion about the role of the arts in economic development. Panelists include Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate Levin, Brooklyn Arts Council President Ella Weiss and several others.