The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation is planning a “national home for poetry” in the city’s River North district. The new building would be home to the offices of Poetry Magazine, “a library to house the foundation’s 30,000 volumes… as well as resources and reading rooms for scholars and poetry enthusiasts, and spaces for public forums, conferences and performances.”
Author: sbergman
Bush Order Keeping Scholars From Presidential Papers
Historians are up in arms over a 2001 executive order issued by President Bush which made it much more difficult for the public to gain access to historical presidential records than ever before. “[The] order restricted the release of presidential records by giving sitting presidents the power to delay the release of papers indefinitely, while extending the control of former presidents, vice presidents and their families.” Congress is considering a bill to overturn Mr. Bush’s order.
Before You Could Even See His Rise, He Fell
“The journey of Henry Winterstern is a classic Hollywood tale: of this town’s irresistible lure, the particular hunger it breeds and the hubris that so often leads to a sudden demise. But this rapid rise and fall came with some trendy hedge-fund trimmings. A gravel-voiced, Canadian-born investor with a flair for turning around ailing companies, Mr. Winterstern arrived two years ago, aiming to remake a tiny distributor… By last Friday he was gone, done in by a disastrous 2006 at the box office and a taste for spending.”
Legendary Superhero Assassinated
Captain America is dead. The legendary superhero is shot to death outside a courtroom in the latest issue of his comic, as part of a larger storyline about a government ban on superhero vigilantism. The hero’s adventures have been published by Marvel Comics since 1941.
Fingerprinting Photographs
“A suite of photo-authentication tools under development by Adobe Systems could make it possible to match a digital photo to the camera that shot it, and to detect some improper manipulation of images.” The new software should make it much easier to detect news photos that have been faked or embellished, a problem that has intensified in recent years.
Canadian Authors Honored
“Newfoundland writer Kenneth J. Harvey’s story of a man wrongfully convicted has won [Canada’s] Writers’ Trust Award for fiction and U.K.-based Dragan Todorovic has won the non-fiction prize for his heartfelt lament for Yugoslavia.”
Rochester Gives Up On New Theater
Plans to construct a new mid-size theater in Rochester, New York have been scrapped in favor of a more modest plan to renovate existing venues. “The plotline of this theater drama is rooted in how the state Assembly plans to spend $18 million secured last year for local theaters.”
Smithsonian Removes Interim Tag From Inspector
“The Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents has appointed A. Sprightley Ryan as permanent inspector general. Ryan, the acting inspector general since June 2006, recently released two reports on executive salaries at the Smithsonian and an audit of expenses of Secretary Lawrence M. Small.”
Canada Moves Towards Nationalizing More Museums
The Canadian Parliament is quietly making major changes to the way the federal government funds museums. Specifically, measures recently passed allow for federal funding of museums outside the Ottawa region for the first time ever, a move that could open the floodgates for museums wishing to be classified as national institutions.
Canadians Love It When We Tell Them What To Do
Two U.S. Senators are pressuring Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to take a tougher line against music and video piracy, “urging Ottawa to enact anti-piracy legislation similar to a bill the two senators introduced in 2003.”