“Ryszard Kapuscinski Included 'Some Fictional Elements' In Renowned ... - Huffingtonpost.com” plus 3 more |
- Ryszard Kapuscinski Included 'Some Fictional Elements' In Renowned ... - Huffingtonpost.com
- Quillen: Just who annexed whom? - Denver Post
- Russian Orchestra Tour: Either on the Bus or on the Stage - New York Times
- 200 years of shared knowledge - Boston Globe
Ryszard Kapuscinski Included 'Some Fictional Elements' In Renowned ... - Huffingtonpost.com Posted: 04 Mar 2010 03:15 AM PST WARSAW, Poland — A new biography of celebrated Polish reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski suggests that his riveting coverage of global events in the 1960s and 1970s included some fictional elements. The book, "Kapuscinski Non-Fiction," by Artur Domoslawski also revisits already acknowledged claims that Kapuscinski provided information and analyses on politics in Africa and Latin America to Poland's communist leaders. Domoslawski knocks down claims that Kapuscinski had met and befriended Che Guevara, Salvador Allende and Patrice Lumumba, saying the journalist never published interviews with them nor met them, but his writing was so suggestive that it made readers think he did. The tome hit bookstores in Poland this week. Get HuffPost Media On Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz! Know something we don't? E-mail us at media@huffingtonpost.comFive Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
Quillen: Just who annexed whom? - Denver Post Posted: 04 Mar 2010 12:02 AM PST For years, I've looked for a decent modern biography of James Knox Polk, U.S. president from 1845 to 1849, when the national borders expanded to the Pacific Ocean. He should be as well known to posterity as Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln. Now, there is such a biography: "A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent," by Robert W. Merry. The only problem I have with it, and most other histories of the period, is that they use phrases like "the American annexation of Texas," when it might be more accurate to refer to the "Texan annexation of the United States." Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836, and struggled as an independent republic until it joined the United States in 1844. It attempted to leave the Union in 1861, but was on the losing side in our Civil War. But there are other routes to power. Consider the state's clout in Washington, which goes back to the days of Texan Sam Rayburn as the longest-serving speaker of the House of Representatives, starting in 1940 and continuing — except when the Republicans controlled the House — until 1961. For the last six of those years, fellow Texan Lyndon B. Johnson was Senate majority leader. Now look at presidential politics. In all but two of the elections since 1980, there's been a Texan on a major-party ticket: George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, along with Lloyd Bentsen. If you count Dick Cheney as a Texan (which he was before moving his registration to Wyoming in 2000 because the Constitution forbids the president and vice president from being from the same state, and there was a time when Cheney at least paid lip service to that document), then nine of the 32 nominations have been Texans. Only in 1996 and 2008 was there not a Texan running for president or vice president on a major-party ticket. Compare that to two other big states: California has but the two Ronald Reagan nominations, and New York has only Jack Kemp. Think of Texas and you think of oil. The state was the leading producer for many years, following the gushing discovery at Spindletop in 1901. For some years thereafter, it produced more oil than America could consume. A solution to the glut? Redesign America to burn lots more oil by abandoning fuel-efficient railroads and moving to fuel-consuming roads — as with the interstate highway system, supported and promoted by Rayburn, Johnson, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a native of, you guessed it, Texas. They also seemed to have a Lone Star attitude about separation of church and state, since it was on their watch that "under God" was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, and "in God we trust" was made a national motto (we already had "E pluribus unum") and applied to currency. There's more. Texas is one of the nation's largest markets for textbooks, so publishers go with what they can sell there. Thus Texas standards determine what's in schoolbooks in most other states. And the Texas state board of education has members who want it taught that the United States was founded on biblical principles — even though there's nothing in the Bible about elections, jury trials or probable cause. So Texas determines the American history that is taught in much of America as it holds disproportionate national political power. That's why it might be more accurate to call it the "annexation of the United States by Texas." In his statement after winning the Republican primary Tuesday night, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said it was a message to Washington: "Stop messing with Texas." But how do we keep Texas from messing with the rest of us? Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
Russian Orchestra Tour: Either on the Bus or on the Stage - New York Times Posted: 03 Mar 2010 10:07 PM PST When the great orchestras of Europe glide through the United States on tour, they stay at elegant hotels like Le Parker Meridien near Carnegie Hall, play in grand spaces like Symphony Hall in Boston and can receive more than $100 a day in meal money. Then there is the Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra. On their nine-week tour, these Muscovites are slogging to Ashland, Ky.; Quincy, Ill.; and Zanesville, Ohio, often riding buses for up to seven hours, moving from highway to budget hotel to concert hall, and then all over again the next morning. They have a day off every two weeks, on average. The pay? About $40 a concert in most cases, the musicians said. Per diems? Zero, making "breakfast included" the sweetest of words. The bus drivers often stop at malls to let them shop for food at a Wal-Mart. Many of them double up in hotel rooms. "Musicians are human beings too, and they should be treated like humans," one disgusted musician wrote in an e-mail message. Like most of the orchestra members who were contacted, this one spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing being blacklisted from future jobs. The conditions are tough akin to the grinding travel of low-level minor league baseball teams or striving rock bands or the barnstorming jazz orchestras of yore and a little unexpected for a group of highly trained classical musicians. Yet they are not uncommon. Performing arts centers and concert halls in smaller cities and towns around the country are hungry for classical music programming. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra or Berlin Symphony is well beyond their means. So lesser known, and lower priced, foreign orchestras provide a solution. Presenters on the Moscow orchestra's tour said it cost from $50,000 to $75,000 to engage it, compared to $100,000 and up for a well known orchestra, or twice that for one of the elite, like the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonic. Foreign orchestras, no matter the level, provide a lure of the exotic. "There's a cachet there," said Wesley O. Brustad, the president and chief executive of the State Theater in New Brunswick, N.J. "American orchestras are tough to sell," he said. They are also more expensive because of union rules. As a bonus, presenters of foreign groups benefit from a built-in audience: ethnic groups that live in the area. Russians are especially enthusiastic concertgoers. The State Theater played host to the Muscovites on Feb. 14, a day after they performed at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where the musicians plowed through a preconcert buffet. "It's not the best orchestra in the world," Mr. Brustad said. "The winds were a little weak." But the musicians played with emotion, he said. (When told the Moscow players generally made $40 for the concert, Mr. Brustad said: "Oh, my goodness. No kidding. Wow. I had no idea.") The Moscow State Radio Symphony's biography says it was founded in 1978 to give broadcast performances. It toured the United States once before, in 2004, and has made recent trips to China and Italy. It has made several dozen recordings, including a number for the Naxos label. Anatoli Nemudrov, the orchestra's artistic director, declined to discuss financial arrangements, saying they were confidential. But, he noted, touring "is hard work for all musicians, Russians and Americans." He said the tour had been going well, adding, "We have good concerts." The producer of the tour, Andrew S. Grossman of Columbia Artists Management, did not respond to phone messages left at his office, on his cellphone and with his assistant, and did not respond to an e-mail query. The Columbia Artists chairman, Ronald A. Wilford, said he was not familiar with the details of the contract. But he said that typically Columbia Artists, as a producer, receives fees from the presenters, who keep the box office receipts. Columbia Artists arranges travel inside the country and lodging, and guarantees the orchestra a set fee. "We have no idea what they're paying their orchestra," Mr. Wilford said of Moscow State Radio Symphony's management. The orchestra began its latest American tour on Jan. 13, when it arrived in Atlanta, and is due in St. Louis on Wednesday. After an original itinerary of 53 concerts in 67 days, it leaves from Los Angeles on March 22. The trip began in the deep South, worked its way north, swung through southern New England, is now in the Midwest and heads out to Arizona, Nevada and California. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
200 years of shared knowledge - Boston Globe Posted: 03 Mar 2010 11:04 PM PST Challenges notwithstanding, athenaeum supporters feel they have much to celebrate at this milestone. The Essex Street institution appears vibrant, not sleepy. Special events, such as a 2009 lecture on the Great Salem Fire of 1914, sometimes pack the house. The deficit, too, seems manageable. It's largely the result of one-time capital expenditures for building upkeep, King said, and should be reduced in the years ahead. She noted that funds raised through campaigns go into a special fund for use at the board of trustees' discretion, and are not used to cover operating expenses. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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