Giffords bids farewell but promises to return

January 26, 2012 No comments

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, left, tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with Community Food Bank CEO Bill Carnegie Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. The tour is her last act as a congresswoman in Tucson before her resignation this week. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, left, tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with Community Food Bank CEO Bill Carnegie Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. The tour is her last act as a congresswoman in Tucson before her resignation this week. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with her staffer Ron Barber, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. The tour is her last act as a congresswoman in Tucson before her resignation this week. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., center, tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with Community Food Bank CEO Bill Carnegie and food bank board member Fran McNeely, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. The tour is Giffords’ last act as a congresswoman in Tucson before her resignation this week. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., center, tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with Community Food Bank CEO Bill Carnegie, left, and Food Bank board member Fran McNeely Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords announced Sunday that she would resign from Congress this week to focus on her recovery. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., left, greets board members as she tours the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center, one of her favorite charities, with Community Food Back CEO Bill Carnegie, second left, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. The tour is her last act as a congresswoman in Tucson before her resignation this week. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool)

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) ? Outgoing Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords spent her last hours as Tucson’s U.S. representative finishing the meeting she started on the morning she was shot and bidding farewell to constituents who have supported her through her recovery.

But it may not be the end. The woman whose improbable recovery has captivated the nation promised, “I will return.”

Giffords spent time Monday at her office with other survivors of the shooting rampage that killed six people and injured 13. She hugged and talked with survivors, including Suzi Hileman, who was shot three times while trying to save her young friend and neighbor, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. The little girl died from a gunshot wound to the chest.

“The last time I did this I had Christina’s hand,” Hileman said. “It was something that was hanging out there, and now it’s not.”

Others who met with Giffords included Pat Maisch, who was hailed as a hero for wrestling a gun magazine from the shooter that day, and Daniel Hernandez, Giffords’ intern at the time who helped save her life by trying to stop her bleeding until an ambulance arrived.

“It was very touching,” said Maisch, who was not hurt in the attack. “I thanked her for her service, wished her well, and she just looked beautiful.”

Giffords announced Sunday that she would resign from Congress this week to focus on her recovery. Maisch was sad to think that Giffords would no longer be her congresswoman.

“But I want her to do what’s best for her,” she said. “She’s got to take care of herself.”

However, an upbeat Giffords hinted that her departure from public life might be temporary. In a message sent on Twitter, she said: “I will return & we will work together for Arizona & this great country.”

In her last act in Tucson as a congresswoman, the Democrat visited one of her favorite charities, the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

The food bank established the Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center with $215,000 it received in the wake of the shooting. Giffords’ husband and former astronaut Mark Kelly told people who wanted to help Giffords after the shooting that the best way to do so was to donate to one of her favorite charities.

The center has helped 900 families get on food stamps in the last year and offered guidance to needy families seeking assistance with housing, insurance, clothing and other basic needs.

“It’s a wonderful thing that she gets to come here and see the center we built,” said Bill Carnegie, the food bank’s CEO. “But it’s also her exit from Congress. I’m concerned about the future.”

Giffords’ aides had to yell at TV cameramen and reporters who surrounded the congresswoman as she arrived, telling them to back up. Giffords didn’t bat an eye and walked with confidence through the crowd and into the building, where she promptly hugged Carnegie and others.

When she saw the center that is named in her honor, she said “Wow” and “Awesome.”

When one woman told Giffords, “I love your new hairstyle,” she beamed and responded with “Thank you.”

Giffords did not address reporters at the center and planned to head to the airport right after her visit. She was expected in Washington on Tuesday for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

In her announcement Sunday, Giffords said that by stepping down, she was doing what is best for Arizona.

“I don’t remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice,” she said in a video posted online.

The video showed a close-up of Giffords gazing directly at the camera and speaking in a voice that was both firm and halting.

“I have more work to do on my recovery,” the congresswoman said at the end of the two-minute message, appearing to strain to communicate.

C.J. Karamargin, who was Giffords’ spokesman until recently, said he can only imagine what she is feeling as she steps down.

“But Gabby would never want to do a job unless she could give everything to it,” he said.

“The news of her stepping down was almost more emotional than this time last year because then, she had survived and had a positive prognosis. Now we’ve got this pause, this comma, in her career … and she won’t be back anytime soon.”

Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range as she was meeting with constituents outside a grocery store. Her recovery progressed to the point that she was able to walk into the House chamber last August to cast a vote.

Giffords’ resignation set up a free-for-all in a competitive district.

She could have stayed in office for another year even without seeking re-election, but her decision to resign scrambles the political landscape.

Arizona must hold a special primary and general election to find someone to finish out her remaining months in office. That will probably happen in the spring or early summer. Then voters will elect someone in November for a full two-year term.

Giffords would have been heavily favored to win again.

She was elected to her third term just two months before she was shot, winning by only about 1 percent over a tea party Republican. But she gained immense public support during her recovery.

Among those mentioned as potential candidates were several Republican and Democratic state lawmakers and the name of Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, although he has publicly quashed such speculation.

A state Democratic party official who met with Giffords on Sunday also suggested that she could return to politics.

Jim Woodbrey, a senior vice chairman of the state party, said Giffords strongly implied at a meeting that she would seek office again someday. He said the decision to resign came after much thought.

“It was Gabby’s individual decision, and she was not in any condition to make that decision five months ago,” he said. “So I think waiting so that she could make an informed decision on her own was the right thing to do.”

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Associated Press writers Bob Christie and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix and David Espo in Washington contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-24-Giffords/id-08718619803544959b19f613150ce5a4

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Jay Leno’s Mitt Romney joke incenses India’s Sikhs (omg!)

January 26, 2012 No comments

NEW DELHI (AP) ? India’s Sikh community isn’t finding Jay Leno so funny.

Members of the religious group said they were outraged when the “Tonight Show” host showed a photo of a glittering gold building and claimed it was Republican Mitt Romney’s summer home.

It was meant to be a joke about the Republican presidential candidate’s wealth. But the building in the photograph is the Golden Temple, the holiest site in the Sikh religion.

Dalbeg Singh, a top Sikh leader, said Tuesday that community leaders would seek an apology from Leno.

India’s foreign minister says the government would take the issue up with U.S. authorities.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_jay_lenos_mitt_romney_joke_incenses_indias_sikhs110400262/44283114/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/jay-lenos-mitt-romney-joke-incenses-indias-sikhs-110400262.html

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Droid RAZR now available in purple from Verizon Wireless

January 26, 2012 No comments

 

Motorola Droid RAZR

If you don't fancy the Motorola Droid RAZR in white or black and have been holding out for it to arrive in purple, your wait is now over. The purple Droid RAZR that got announced alongside the Droid RAZR MAXX at CES 2012 is now available from Verizon Wireless. There is no difference in pricing for the device so; you're looking at $200 with a new two-year agreement or $600 with no contract at all. Want one? Hit the source link below.

Source: Verizon; Thanks, @Pilotboy!



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/3oN2YaxlWAo/story01.htm

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Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Debuts New Haircut

January 25, 2012 No comments

Angelina Jolie’s little girl debuts a short new ‘do while hanging with her family in Studio City.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/66FNd5Xivdw/

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Mozambique: Storms, floods kill 22 (AP)

January 25, 2012 No comments

MAPUTO, Mozambique ? Storms have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and killed 22 in the southern African nation of Mozambique, disaster relief officials said Monday.

State TV on Monday reported that 12 people died Sunday in the central province of Zambezia. Ten deaths in southern areas had been reported earlier in the aftermath of a tropical depression that brought fierce rains and wind last week.

Storms have abated, but Dulce Chilundo, director of the national emergency office, told Radio Mozambique the government is feeding and housing more than 56,000 people whose homes and belongings were swept away.

The governor of Gaza, Raimundo Diomba, said several schools in his southern province were destroyed. Elsewhere, flooding has made stretches of highway impassable.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_af/af_mozambique_flooding

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Enormous solar outburst could dazzle your weekend

January 25, 2012 No comments

Auroras may dazzle more people than usual this weekend as Earth receives a glancing blow from an enormous solar outburst that erupted on Jan. 19.

Auroras may dazzle more people than usual this weekend as Earth receives a glancing blow from an enormous solar outburst that erupted on Jan. 19.

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The outburst, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), was detected by sun-watching satellites.

Researchers at the University of Alaska’s Geophysical Institute predict that auroras should be visible from Seattle, Des Moines, Chicago, and Cleveland, to Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia Saturday and Sunday nights, weather permitting.

RELATED: Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz!

Space-weather forecasters initially were concerned that Earth would take a direct hit, notes Joe Kunches, a space scientist at the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo.

“Indications at the time were that this could be a fairly energetic event,” says Mr. Kunches, a former operations chief at the center. The solar flare that triggered the coronal mass ejection covered a relatively large patch of the sun and released a lot of energy. Where other flares during the week lasted an hour or two, the flare that launched the CME lasted roughly 18 hours.

And the CME “was in the right spot,” he adds. It emerged from just about the middle of the sun’s disk.

It’s the “just about,” however, that led to the prediction of a glancing blow, rather than a direct hit. The CME emerged from a location just north of the sun’s equator, so for the most part it will hurtle past Earth far above the North Pole.

Space Weather Center forecasters say they expect the encounter to generate a weak geomagnetic disturbance beginning around 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Sunday Jan. 22 and lasting through Jan. 23. It could trigger weak fluctuations in electricity flowing through the long-distance transmissions lines and have a minor effect on satellites.

Coronal mass ejections represent the sudden release of a vast, searingly hot cloud containing up to 200 billion tons of electrons and protons, as well as heavy atomic nuclei forged in the sun’s nuclear-fusion furnace.

Hurtling from the sun at speeds of up to 2 million miles an hour, CMEs can generate intense disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field that can trigger power and radio blackouts and disable satellites ? as well as generate spectacular aurora over the North and South poles.?

RELATED: Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz!

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/DZTRnfwm4-Y/Enormous-solar-outburst-could-dazzle-your-weekend

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Reaction to Academy Awards nominations (AP)

January 25, 2012 No comments

Reaction to the nominations announced Tuesday for the 84th annual Academy Awards:

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“I was pleasantly sleeping and someone had the audacity to wake me up.” ? Christopher Plummer, joking about learning about best supporting actor nomination for “Beginners.”

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“I thought it may elude me. I’ve always wondered what it was like. I’ve always peered through the curtain to the front cabin. I feel like I’ve been invited up. It’s a great thing.” ? Gary Oldman, who received his first Oscar nomination for his lead role in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

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“There was an excitement to do a film that’s a bit forbidden because in 2011, nobody does a silent, black and white film: `It doesn’t fit the economy, it’s not possible.’ Well yes, it is possible. Apparently it’s possible.” ? Jean Dujardin, who received a best actor nomination for “The Artist,” which collected 10 nominations.

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“A nomination helps. I feel a lot better already.” ? Demi?n Bichir, who went to bed with the flu and woke up as a best actor nominee for “A Better Life.”

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“I was slightly surprised, I confess. I bounced. Gently.” ? Janet McTeer, who was nominated for best supporting actress for “Albert Nobbs.”

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“I know I’ve made pictures in the past that are tougher. So, despite my name on the picture, believe me, it’s OK to come in the theater I think. Bring the kids! Bring the grandparents ? it’s OK. I’ll be good. I’m not kidding.” ? Martin Scorsese, whose film “Hugo” was nominated for 11 awards, including best film and director.

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“I don’t care how sugared up they get for school.” ? Brad Pitt, who learned about his best actor nomination for “Moneyball” before fixing a pancake breakfast with all the fixings for his children.

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“I don’t think I’ve processed it. It probably won’t hit me until next week. Last year at this time, I was asleep.” ? Best Supporting Actress nominee Octavia Spencer, who celebrated with co-stars the night before Oscar nominations in case the film wasn’t nominated. It received four nominations.

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“I wasn’t nervous until people started asking me if I was nervous.” ? best supporting actor nominee Jonah Hill, who couldn’t’ sleep the night before nominations were announced

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“It’s great, especially at this age to still be in the ballgame playing. I don’t want to retire, anyway. Never have. I don’t know what the hell I’d do. There’s not much I can do. I’ve been at this for 50 years.” ? Nick Nolte, who was nominated for best supporting actor in “Warrior.” Just don’t expect too much celebration from Nolte. “I’m 70. I’m going to go to bed.”

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“I feel very honored and special really. You can’t imagine, to arrive at the Oscars when you arrive so low, and you can’t go further than the Oscars.” ? Berenice Bejo, who received a supporting actress nomination for her role in “The Artist.”

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“I’m so talked out. There’s just so many ways to describe real happiness.” ? “Footnote” director Joseph Cedar, who learned about his nomination while in Israel on a break from helping his son with his homework.

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“People of the world, no matter what language they speak, it seems like art has become the common language all over the world.” ? Writer-director Asghar Farhadi, whose Iranian film “A Separation” was nominated for best foreign film and original screenplay.

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“It almost feels like movie production because we seem to be working nights instead of early mornings. You think you’re just going to go have a chicken dinner, but you end up talking to people until 1 a.m.” ? “The Help” producer Brunson Green.

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“We’ve emailed. It’s too damn early (to talk on the phone). There’s a lot of emailing and texting going on.” ? “The Descendants” producer Jim Burke on communicating with best actor nominee George Clooney and other collaborators.

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AP Entertainment Writers Anthony McCartney, Derrik J. Lang, Mark Kennedy in New York and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this package.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_en_mo/oscar_nominations_quotes

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Egypt’s Islamist-led parliament meets, rivalries on display (Reuters)

January 25, 2012 No comments

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egypt’s first free parliament in six decades got to work Monday with Islamists holding by far the most seats and opponents comparing their grip on the chamber to that enjoyed by the now defunct party of deposed President Hosni Mubarak.

With almost half the seats in the assembly, the Muslim Brotherhood is promising to cooperate with the military generals, who took power last February when Mubarak was overthrown, in their transition to civilian rule.

Thousands of protesters who fear a deal between the Islamists and the army to carve up power cried “down with the military government” behind a police cordon near the parliament building, a reminder to those trying to rebuild Egypt’s state institutions of the power of the street.

A credible chamber would help Egypt’s new political class prove it can govern and the Brotherhood has said it wants to be inclusive and ensure all voices in Egypt are heard.

The session began in somber mood as parliament’s acting speaker, automatically chosen as its oldest member, invited deputies to hold a silent prayer in memory of the hundreds who died in the uprising that ousted Mubarak in February last year.

“The blood of the martyrs is what brought this day,” said acting speaker Mahmoud al-Saqa, 81. Some deputies wore yellow sashes in protest at the army’s policy to try thousands of civilians in military courts.

The session became more raucous when one Islamist member, Mamdouh Ismail, read the oath that vows allegiance to the nation and its laws but added his own words “so long as it does not oppose God’s law,” prompting the acting speaker to tell him to repeat it without his addition.

An angry exchange erupted later as deputies worked on their first task of electing a speaker.

One candidate opposing Brotherhood nominee Mohamed Saad al-Katatni sought to introduce himself to the chamber, a move the Brotherhood opposed in a swift vote. Katatni, secretary-general of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), was then appointed.

The two deputy speaker posts went to Ashraf Sabet Saad El-Deen of the Islamist al-Nour party, runners up in the vote, and Mohamed Abdel Aleem Dawoud of the liberal Wafd party.

“We announce to the Egyptian people and the world that our revolution continues and we will not rest until all the revolution’s goals are achieved,” Katatni told the chamber, who thanked the army for fulfilling its promise to hold elections.

He pledged to serve all parliament without bias.

Opponents of the Brotherhood said its grip on parliament was similar to that enjoyed by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP), which was handed large parliamentary majorities in widely discredited elections.

But unlike the NDP, the Brotherhood does not have an outright majority and must form alliances.

Hossam Hamalawy, a leftist activist, said: “I do not have any high expectations for this parliament because of the composition of the political forces inside … It seems they’re going to reinvent the old regime with very few cosmetic changes.”

PROTESTS

Many Egyptians, tired of a year of turmoil, want to give the army’s promised transition a chance.

“We won’t see something worse than what we had … I am one of the people ready to wait for change and I don’t care if the military council is prosecuted or not,” said Ahmed Hassan, a 28-year-old bank employee.

“I want them to achieve the demands that led to the revolution, restore stability and security and get the economic wheel turning again,” said accountant Elhamy Abdel Aleesm.

The generals will remain in charge until after a presidential election in June when they have promised to hand over power. Many Egyptians suspect the army may seek to retain influence behind the scenes.

The Brotherhood’s rise marks a sea change from Mubarak’s era when it was officially banned but won some seats by running candidates as independents.

It is unclear whether it will form a single bloc in parliament, which will have a role in drafting the new constitution by picking the 100-strong assembly that will draw up the document.

“We will cooperate with everyone: with the political forces inside and outside parliament, with the interim government and with the military council until we reach safety heralded by a presidential election,” said Essam el-Erian, deputy FJP head.

Liberals were pushed into third place behind the Freedom and Justice Party and the ultraconservative Islamist Salafis led by the al-Nour party. The FJP says it controls almost half the 498 elected seats, with a few re-runs to be held.

Monday’s session marked the revival of an assembly that in the early 20th century was a vibrant forum for the nation’s aspirations and filled with deputies who vied with the monarch and Egypt’s British overlords.

Parliament’s independent voice was extinguished after a 1952 coup that toppled the king and swept military-backed autocrats to power. Mubarak was a former air force commander and the ruling military council is now led by the man who was Mubarak’s defense minister for 20 years, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

Mubarak’s party routinely won sweeping majorities. The best performance by the Brotherhood was when it secured 20 percent of seats in the 2005 election. In 2010, almost all the opposition was all but squeezed out. The Brotherhood and other opponents boycotted what they saw as a blatantly rigged poll.

Mubarak, 83, is now on trial for his role in the deaths of 850 people during the uprising.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Sherine El Madany; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/wl_nm/us_egypt_parliament

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Annie Leibovitz opens new art show at Smithsonian (omg!)

January 25, 2012 No comments

Photographer Annie Leibovitz leads a media tour of her exhibit "Pilgrimage" Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Photographer Annie Leibovitz says she has come back from some dark days and revived her creativity with a new photography project now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that marks a departure from her popular celebrity portraits.

Two years ago, Leibovitz was facing millions in debt and a mismanaged fortune that nearly cost her legal rights to some of pop culture’s most memorable images she created. The ordeal was a good lesson in managing her business, Leibovitz said, but left her “emotionally and mentally depleted.”

On Tuesday, she led a tour through the photographs she says renewed her inspiration with a few road trips through U.S. history. The idea grew out of a book she had wanted to make with her partner, Susan Sontag, with a list of destinations and an excuse to visit them. After Sontag died, she eventually revived the idea with her young children.

It began with a six-hour drive to Niagara Falls during her financial troubles only to find out her credit card had been rejected at a hotel and their rooms had been given away. While they found another place to stay, Leibovitz was upset wanted to go home. But she agreed to go to a lookout point over the waterfalls with her kids.

“I was sitting off to the side, feeling a little down, and I saw my children mesmerized, studying the falls,” she said. “And I walked over, stood behind them … and I took this picture.”

It’s a snapshot anyone could have taken, she said: an image that captures the blue-green water before it plunges over the falls. Soon she began thinking of other places to visit.

The images that would become “Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage” include depictions of landscapes and people, but no faces. Instead, Leibovitz photographed historic objects and scenes, including the homes of “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott, essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, entertainer Elvis Presley and others.

“I was swept away when I walked into these places,” she said. “I found myself taking pictures and not thinking about any consequences. I was seduced.”

There were obstacles, though. One was coming to terms with photographing objects, she said, and finding a way to give them some emotion. She began creating close-up images, as with a nightdress worn by Emily Dickinson when she was known for roaming around her house in a nightgown. Leibovitz zoomed in on the intricate detail.

“That is not my kind of picture. I mean, I don’t ever come in tight like that,” Leibovitz said. “It’s not me.”

It’s also her first all-digital photography show. Leibovitz said she is still learning about new technology and about herself.

“This is an amazing time to be a photographer,” she said. “I discovered things about myself which were really comforting, that the work had a deep well, that it wasn’t going to go away.”

She also learned it was a mistake to leave her business affairs to others to manage.

“I mean, I had a great ride,” she said. “I was like a girl who went out and took pictures, and everyone else took care of everything else. Now I really do need to take care of everything.”

Leibovitz didn’t discuss the status of her debt but said she has good business advisers. “I’m back, for all intents and purposes,” she said.

Her travels for “Pilgrimage” produced images of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s couch, sharpshooter Annie Oakley’s heart-shaped shooting target, Presley’s Harley-Davidson and a TV he once shot with a gun at Graceland.

As a nod to Sontag, Leibovitz visited the home of Virginia Woolf, one of her partner’s favorite writers, where she was happy to learn such a brilliant person could have such a messy studio, she said.

Andy Grundberg, guest curator for the show and a dean at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, said Leibovitz is presenting cultural history in a new way.

“She’s trying to convey a sense of people without the people actually being there in front of the camera,” he said of Leibovitz’ travels. “She was kind of bushwhacking through our cultural legacy and figuring it out as she went along.”

In some cases, one destination would lead to several others. Leibovitz was fascinated with the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, which led her to find Lincoln’s top hat at the Smithsonian, models for Lincoln’s statue in the studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French, and to a concert gown of Marian Anderson, who sang at the memorial when she was shut out of a segregated concert hall.

Leibovitz eventually compiled the project into a book that evolved into the new exhibit. The show is on view in Washington through May 20 and then will travel to U.S. museums through 2014. The photographs on display will be donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for its permanent collection.

Leibovitz said she pursued her new project to protect her lucrative portrait work and to go back to it revived.

“It’s a project I did for myself. I wanted to be seduced into a photograph and not make it up,” she said. “And I wanted to take my time.”

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Smithsonian American Art Museum: http://americanart.si.edu

___

Brett Zongker can be reached at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_annie_leibovitz_opens_art_show_smithsonian195315353/44289559/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/annie-leibovitz-opens-art-show-smithsonian-195315353.html

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Review: Pickler embraces traditional country on CD (AP)

January 25, 2012 No comments

Kellie Pickler, “100 Proof” (19/BNA)

Kellie Picker’s North Carolina accent and unfiltered rural perspective has made her a polarizing figure since she competed as a 2006 “American Idol” contestant, finishing sixth. Some consider her big personality and hard-country style as charming; others see her as recalling an era left behind by modern-day Nashville.

Pickler deepens the line in the sand with the hardcore country of her third album, “100 Proof.” One of six tunes the singer co-wrote, “Unlock That Honky Tonk,” rings the battle call; its plea to open a locked dancehall could be an allegory that country music shouldn’t forego the down-home sounds that gave the genre its identity. The quality of her performances proves Pickler is right.

For “100 Proof,” Pickler enlists co-producers Frank Liddell, who has worked with Miranda Lambert, and Luke Wooten, who has worked with Dierks Bentley. Both Lambert and Bentley are successful contemporary artists who embrace traditional country music. Indeed, Pickler incorporates Lambert’s take-no-prisoners attitude and Bentley’s rambunctious use of acoustic and electric instruments.

However, even those artists haven’t cut anything as drenched in old-fashioned heartbreak as the ballad “Stop Cheatin’ On Me,” which would have fit country queens Connie Smith or Tammy Wynette, the latter of whom, fittingly, is the subject of one of Pickler’s new songs.

CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: Part of Pickler’s appeal comes from her hard-knock story: She was raised by grandparents after her mother abandoned her and her father was beset by alcoholism and prison terms. Two new songs, co-written by Pickler, are directed at each parent, with the acoustic ballad “The Letter (To Daddy)” touchingly celebrating her father’s return to sobriety and to firming up their relationship.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_en_mu/us_music_review_kelly_pickler

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