1. Destroying Iraq's Museum - One Tank Could Have Saved It The looting of the Iraq Museum is a loss for the world. "The losses will be felt worldwide, but its greatest impact will be on the Iraqi people themselves when it comes to rebuilding their sense of national identity. International cultural organisations had urged before the war that the cultural heritage of Iraq, which has more than 10,000 archaeological sites, be spared. US forces are making a belated attempt to protect the National Museum, calling on Iraqi policemen to turn up for duty. There is no pay, but 80 have given their services. 'The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened. I hold the American troops responsible. They know that this is a museum. They protect oil ministries but not the cultural heritage'." The Telegraph (UK) 04/13/03
   
   
2. Saddam Liked Fantasy Raunch In His Art An American artist named Rowena was surprised to discover that two of her oil paintings hung in Saddam Husein's personal quarters. The paintings are fantasy raunch, and "Rowena, 58, said she did the oil paintings that hung in the dictator's den about 15 years ago as covers for bodice-ripper paperbacks with titles such as 'King Dragon' and 'Shadows Out of Hell'." Oh, and she'd like them back... New York Daily News 04/15/03
   
   
3. Charlotte Church's Rebellion Charlotte Church's holiday in Hawaii has been ruined by a terrible telephone row with her mother. Heading abroad with her 'disreputable' boyfriend, Steven, Charlotte was photographed at the airport in a pink T-shirt which read: 'My Barbie is a Crack Whore'. This didn't play too well with Mum back home." The Observer (UK) 04/13/03
   
   
4. What Are They Teaching In Art Schools These Days? "It’s not easy sorting out how best to use the short time allotted to arts degrees; an undergraduate fine-arts major often spends only one of his four years in art classes—hardly enough time to learn the traditional skills of drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography, let alone today’s laundry list of new forms. Even a two-year master of fine arts (M.F.A.) program doesn’t provide much time for training, compared with the decades-long master-apprentice system of earlier centuries. Countless other challenges have art-school faculties reexamining their missions and values. The proliferation of programs and students; the embrace of diverse art forms and content; the professionalization of art practice; the rise of cultural theory; whether (and how) to teach the new technologies that have sprouted in the last decade." ArtNews 04/03
   
   
5. What's In A Voice? Why do those radio announcers with melodious vocal timbre so often turn out to be singularly unattractive when you meet them in person? "While there is a clear connection among age and sex and the pitch of a person's voice, there's no connection between pitch of voice and height, weight or any other dimension of an individual's size... However, there are 'telltale' signs of body size in the 'shape' or resonance of the voice." A university study is examining the connections. Calgary Herald 04/16/03