“About one-third of the people living in the national’s capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.”
Tag: 03.19.07
Why Picasso Was Obsessed With Rembrandt
“Constantly measuring himself for admission to the pantheon, Picasso evidently felt that taking down the masters also meant taking them on, and in his time he had mixed it up with, among others, Grünewald, Poussin, Cranach, Velázquez, Goya, and El Greco. At the end, though, it was Rembrandt of whom, according to his friend and biographer Pierre Cabanne, he spoke ceaselessly.”
Roof Collapses At Alberta Museum
If Monday morning had gone as planned, the Prairie Art Gallery would have been “filled with visitors, staff and a pre-school class filled with 20 children. But early in the morning, curator Robert Steven noticed one of the central roof beams had cracked and water was trickling into the south end of the building. … It was moments after city workers left the building after checking out what was going on that a third of the roof sagged and smashed to the floor.”
LA Gets A Dance Medicine Center
“The first of its kind in Los Angeles, the Cedars-Sinai/USC Dance Medicine Center will offer comprehensive injury treatment, rehabilitation and preventive care tailored to professional and recreational dancers.”
Japanese Museum Theft The Fault Of Curators
“Three masked men stole a massive block of gold worth more than $2-million (U.S.) from a Japanese museum in a heist police said Monday could have been prevented — if only the curators hadn’t left its showcases wide open.”
CBC Cuts Classical Music
CBC’s Radio Two is cutting back on classical music. “The non-classical music that the network had relegated to late nights and weekends is now being given a prominent home in the evening hours, all part of Radio Two’s new programming lineup.”
New Sounds Out Of Public Radio?
America’s public radio audience is… well, America’s public radio audience. And it is a certain demographic. So how to expand that audience? There are several experiments about to launch that will test new ways of doing public radio…
Some Colleges Eliminate Student Loans
Afraid that the high cost of college and crushing debt of school loans, “many colleges are rethinking their aid and loan policies. Just last week, Hamilton College, for example, announced that it was eliminating all merit scholarships and shifting the funds to need-based aid. Among the reasons Hamilton cited was a belief that demographics in the years ahead would require greater support for need-based financial aid.”
Is Reading Overrated?
“An all too predictable moralism surrounds the reading of books. There is a prescribed way of reading: one page at a time, starting from the front of the book to the back, paying close attention to every single page in order, no skipping around. But the reality is that most of us graze — read a bit, put the book down, start up again.”
Cognitive Resonance (Imaging)
“Cameras follow your car, GPS tracks your cell phone, software monitors your Web surfing, X-rays explore your purse, and airport scanners see through your clothes. Now comes the final indignity: machines that look into your soul.”