Sherry Chandler

A gorgeous April day! Sunny, mild, the redbuds are in bloom. A beautiful evening to do the Gallery Hop in Lexington. While you’re out, be sure to stop by the Sideshow at the Carnegie Center. The clown, the poets, the artists – which are which? No matter. All guaranteed to drive away your tax day blues!

from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Organizers of a politically charged art exhibit at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery thought their show might draw controversy.

But they didn’t expect two U.S. Secret Service agents would be among the show’s first visitors.

The agents turned up Thursday evening, just before the public opening of “Axis of Evil, the Secret History of Sin,” and took pictures of some of the art pieces — including “Patriot Act,” showing President Bush on a mock 37-cent stamp with a revolver pointed at his head.

The agents asked what the artists meant by their work and wanted museum director CarolAnn Brown to turn over the names and phone numbers of all the artists. They wanted to hear from the exhibit’s curator, Michael Hernandez deLuna, within 24 hours, she said.

“They just want to make sure it isn’t something more than a statement,” Brown said.

I picked this link up from Informed Comment.

Al Kamen, in the Washington Post today, reports that the Voice of America is planning to outsource its graveyard shift reporting to Hong Kong – that’s Communist China.

Who says irony died on September 11, 2001?

According to the report:

…the plan, announced at a recent staff meeting, is to take about eight news writer jobs — the slots of people who work the graveyard shift from around midnight to the morning — and move those tasks to Hong Kong. (The people will move to other shifts.) These folks handle the late news writing, then send their stories to be translated by VOA language services into Swahili, Spanish and so on.

VOA says the move could save at least $300,000 in salaries and benefits each year, and would relieve people burdened by working those hours — though we hear most of those affected like their hours and enhanced night pay.

The idea is to use contract employees — expatriate English-speakers in Hong Kong, who would be supervised by a senior editor in Washington.

The “rank and file” had objections to this plan, announced by management at a recent staff meeting.

I found the link on War and Piece, an excellent political blog (written by a woman).

Joe Survant has been Poet Laureate of Kentucky for the last two years. He’s worked hard at to fulfill the duties of the office, which the Kentucky Arts Council state as “promoting the literary arts in Kentucky through readings and/or public presentations…” Joe has travelled hither and thither throughout the state, doing just that – as do all our poets laureate (see a list here). The stipend is not large and, in Joe’s case, I think it was eaten up by expenses in the first year.

Joe’s tenure as laureate ended yesterday, and I can imagine that he’ll be looking forward to the quiet so he can get some writing done. But he will still be active reading around the state. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, you can hear him read from Rafting Rise (University Press of Florida, 2002), at the Kentucky History Center in Frankfort. Rafting Rise deals with the lives of log rafters and flood plain dwellers on the Rough and Green Rivers in Kentucky in 1916 and 1917. The current exhibit at the History Center is “A River Runs Through Us” (through December 2005). “Bill with Horses on Jennings Creek” is from Rafting Rise.

Bill with Horses on Jennings Creek

They stand
at the far end
of the field, just
up from the creek
where Johnson grass
grows shoulder high
and cool air

flows up
from the water.
The black sees me
first. He shakes
his head. The mares
neigh welcomes.
They trot, then

gallop, now run
toward me. I want
to speak. They
clench and unclench
like great fists.
They ripple with light
as they come from the shade.

I envy their strong
impossible bodies.
The air is filled
with their greetings.
I want to answer,
but how to speak
and what to say?