Chicago -
By PersonalPicker
“Mathematica: A World of Numbers . . . and Beyond is an interactive exhibition originally shown at the California Museum of Science and Industry,” according to Wikipedia. Duplicates have since been made, and they (as well as the original) have been moved to other institutions.”
Including the Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago.
Posted on August 31, 2012
By The Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are proud to announce the winners of eight awards for contributions to Poetry over the past year. The prizes are awarded for poems and prose published during the past 12 months, from October 2011 to September 2012.
* The Levinson prize, presented annually since 1914 through the generosity of the late Salmon O. Levinson and his family, in the amount of $500, is awarded to Dean Young for his poems “Handy Guide,” “Crash Test Dummies of an Imperfect God, and “Dear Bob,” in the November 2011 issue; “Spring Reign” in the February 2012 issue; and “Peach Farm” in the June 2012 issue. Young’s most recent book is Fall Higher (Copper Canyon Press, 2011). A collection of new and selected poems, Bender, is forthcoming.
Posted on August 15, 2012
Video by Rockin’ Comics
“Hulk actually smells a lot better than most people think.”
Posted on August 14, 2012
Chicago Wants To Forgive You
“The Chicago Public Library is offering an amnesty program on overdue materials for the first time in 20 years,” WLS-AM reports.
“Officials say the library is owed $1.4 million in fines.”
But then why waive fines? How ’bout doubling them! Provide work for a few library cops at the same time.
Posted on August 7, 2012
Or Just Be Your Best Friend For A Moment
Which is apparently something worth paying for.
Posted on August 4, 2012
Plans World Tour
“While Rodman’s colorful character might fit well with kid lit, let’s just hope that this bedtime story doesn’t include an afterward on missing your child support payments.”
Posted on August 2, 2012
By Bob Chambers
I.
Wither our leaders?
This question has troubled me for decades. I have raised it among academic folk, business people, sports persons, and especially politicians at every level. This obsessive interest in the paucity of leadership in our country long ago turned me into a political junkie. It’s one reason my all-too-sprawling private library is packed with volumes about politicos here and abroad, some of them pretty good leaders in the end, but hardly enough of them.
We now seem to be in something of a heyday of dramatic books about politics. Perhaps that’s because our leadership is so pathetic, wherever we look. Failed politicians, ironically, energize angry observers who, in turn, grind out good reading for the rest of us. Since political commentaries are almost invariably ponderings about leadership – what it is, who is good at it, where is it taking us – I want to focus here on three of the most probing recent political studies. Two of these are by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind: The Way Of The World: A Story Of Truth And Hope In An Age Of Extremism (2008) and Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, And The Education Of A President (2011). The third book – Game Change: Obmaa And The Clintons, McCain And Palin, And The Race Of A Lifetime (2010) – is co-authored by two of our leading students of politics today, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.
Looked at together, these three volumes, totaling some 1,300 pages in all, offer hundreds of insights into the last dozen political years in America. All the major actors are here – from the Clintons, through the Bushes, to the Obamas – as well as countless lesser ones, including Sarah Palin, John McCain’s unwelcome gift to all of us. In the end, the question above about our leaders remains largely unanswered. Where are they?
From tales of Bush’s stubborn incompetence to Obama’s surprising reluctance to do the things we all expected him to do (at least, the things many of us expected him to do), we are left dangling. The disappearance of true leadership has cast a pall on the United States, and thereby on much of the rest of the world as well. Here we are saddled with a shamefully inept Congress, a shambling White House, and an aging and divisive Supreme Court. And this crippling anemia has spread. Are the Europeans, the Asians, the Africans, the Aussies, any better off than those of us here in the Americas? The sole politician anywhere today who seems capable of providing even a dollop of inspiration is Boris Johnson, the zany mayor of London, who’s wowing ’em at the Olympics. Just ask the Queen. She loves him!
But read on!
Posted on August 1, 2012
