“Historic U Street Gets Audio Tour, Visitor Center - 630 WMAL” plus 3 more

Historic U Street Gets Audio Tour, Visitor Center - 630 WMAL
1930s recordings preserve some of Haiti’s cultural wealth - Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Obama Administration Ends 'Leave Internet Alone' Policy - I4U
Hawaii returns to normal after tsunami scare - MSNBC

Historic U Street Gets Audio Tour, Visitor Center - 630 WMAL

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 02:58 AM PST

WASHINGTON (AP) - The historic district of Washington once known as the "Black Broadway" now has its own neighborhood heritage trail and visitor center.

The group Cultural Tourism D.C. introduced an audio tour Friday for Washington's U Street area. A visitor center is opening near 12th and U streets.

Visitors can learn about the cultural life of this African American neighborhood in the first half of the 20th century. It was home to jazz great Duke Ellington. Clubs and theaters drew top performers.

Stops on the tour include the restored Lincoln Theater and the site of the first luxury hotel for African Americans in the once segregated capital city.

Narrators for the audio tour include Kamal Ben Ali, co-owner of Ben's Chili Bowl, and Korva Coleman of National Public Radio.

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1930s recordings preserve some of Haiti’s cultural wealth - Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Posted: 26 Feb 2010 01:28 AM PST

MIAMI — At 21, Alan Lomax went to Haiti and recorded its citizens making music — songs about Voodoo, carnival politics, children's games and the first airplanes crisscrossing its Caribbean skies in the late 1930s.

He preserved the sounds on aluminum discs for the Library of Congress, but they were largely forgotten for seven decades as they sat in the library's archives. Recently discovered, they were compiled into a box set released last fall. Haitian music scholars called it a "cultural archive" that documents the daily triumphs that get missed whenever a crisis in Haiti makes the news.

The catastrophic earthquake last month that killed more than 200,000 people was the latest crisis. Now, the set's curator hopes "Alan Lomax in Haiti" will teach people that Haiti's culture remains intact, even when so many of its arts institutions have collapsed. Music from the 10-disc box set, released by Harte Recordings, is featured in three radio public service announcements seeking aid for Haiti.

"It's too easy for people to just periodically feel sorry for Haiti," ethnomusicologist Gage Averill said. "Very few people except those who travel to Haiti understand just how much Haiti has to offer, how lovely a country it is, how generous a country it is."

Lomax was a newlywed ethnomusicologist when he set out to record the music of Haiti in 1936 and 1937, just following a 15-year American military occupation of Haiti. He lugged his equipment into the mountains beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince, in search of ordinary people instead of polished performers and ended up with 1,500 recordings. Ultimately, digital copies will be returned to Haiti, as some of Lomax's recordings from other Caribbean countries have been returned to those islands.

He found a wide range of music, from Boy Scout troops, religious processions, dances and bands of sugar cane cutters who brought back rhythms from Cuba. Many of the Haitian Creole lyrics convey the impact of poverty and life in close quarters. There also are songs about Haiti's global isolation after its slave rebellion and French ballads.

"The French romances (ballads) are not about courtly affairs and knights, but about the first time someone saw an airplane," Averill said.

When the earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, the box set's collaborators looked for a way to use the music to help the relief effort. It could show a different picture of Haiti than just a country of rubble; it also could immediately restore something that was lost, they thought.

"My feeling was, at a time like this, people don't just think of bread and water all the time," Lomax's daughter, Anna Lomax Wood, said. "They think of everything that is jeopardized in their lives — everything in their culture."

Actor Fisher Stevens and Kimberly Green, president of the Miami-based Green Family Foundation, produced the radio PSAs. Like other urgent appeals for donations after the earthquake, they feature celebrities — Naomi Watts, Ben Stiller and Sting — seeking pledges to The Clinton Foundation and Partners in Health.

"This is Haiti," the celebrities say over three music clips selected from the box set. They note the country's stature as the first black republic in the world after a slave rebellion succeeded in 1804, then its proximity to the United States. Only in closing do they note Haiti's poverty and previous disasters.

The three songs selected for the PSAs share a sense of danger, Averill said. In each, the singers call out to the gods for help, but they also prepare to take matters into their own hands if an adversary comes to close.

In a carnival song, a community girds itself against an unseen adversary. A song from a Voodoo ceremony implores the gods to soothe some trauma and relieve the singers' agony. Lastly, in a procession of sacred music, the band honors a particular supporter with a refrain that's still familiar, more than 70 years after it was recorded.

The refrain of one song indicates some beliefs have not changed much since Lomax's time. "After God, the priest," a rara band sings, honoring the entities they considered supportive. After the earthquake, some Haitians uttered a similar refrain, describing the entities most likely to help them: "After God, the United Nations."

Green said she hopes to broadcast Lomax's recordings on Haitian radio stations as they come back on the air, to inspire the preservation of culture even if museums and concert halls won't be rebuilt for years.

"I hope it can provide some solace to people, some strength," Lomax Wood said.

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Obama Administration Ends 'Leave Internet Alone' Policy - I4U

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 01:07 PM PST

Topic: Technology News

Posted on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:11:48 CST | by Robert Evans

Buy Antitrust Secretary Larry Strickling on Amazon.com.
(if available)

Technology News

The Internet changed forever this week. Antitrust Secretary Larry Strickling stated in a speech to the Media Institute that the government would soon embark upon "Internet Policy 3.0". While the outcome of this new approach is still to be decided, we do know that it will represent a huge departure from the old way of doing things (The Register).

Until this week, the government's Internet policy had been one of benign neglect. In the web's early days, users were left mostly to their own devices. Now Uncle Sam is going to make his presence known as the Internet creeps towards adolescence. Strickling said that the old policy was the "right policy" for the "early stages of the Internet".

Things have changed since those first, heady days. While the Internet is still comparatively young, it can hardly be said to be the same beast it was five years ago, let alone ten. As distrustful I am of government intervention into the Internet, I can't say this move is entirely without cause. The Internet is now one of the cultural and economic keystones of the human race. Quite frankly, it's too important for the government to leave alone.

Which isn't to say that this won't all end horribly. The federal government is gigantic, slow, and rarely 'up to date' in their understanding of technology. It's quite possible that this change in policy will be the first (and least) of many blunders. We're unlikely to know for several years. My advice? Sit back and enjoy the ride.

At least until the engines catch fire.

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Posted on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:11:48 CST | by Robert Evans

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Hawaii returns to normal after tsunami scare - MSNBC

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 10:51 AM PST

Hawaii tourism officials hope the publicity churned up by the tsunami that struck the Aloha State Saturday afternoon won't keep visitors from coming to the island. The state has been struggling to recover from the recession and a dramatic drop-off in tourism spending.

"There is no reason to cancel your visit," said George Applegate, the executive director of the Big Island Visitors Bureau.

Part of Hawaii's tourism infrastructure shut down because of the tsunami, which was triggered by the powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake that rattled Chile early Saturday.

Hilo International Airport, on the east side of the Island of Hawaii, closed in advance of the approaching wave. The airport is primarily used by interisland airlines. Other shuttered tourist attractions included the Honolulu Zoo, the Japanese Cultural Center, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Waikiki Aquarium and Wet N Wild Hawaii Waterpark.

The port of Honolulu was also closed. Norwegian Cruise Lines' Pride of America was scheduled to dock in Honolulu early Saturday, but remained at sea until the Port of Honolulu reopened. "While at sea, this situation does not in any way compromise the safety and security of our passengers and crew," NCL said in a statement. "Pride of America should be alongside shortly after that and we expect that the next cruise will depart later this evening." The cruise line expected the ship to arrive at the pier between 7 and 9 p.m.

"So far there is no damage to anything," Applegate said moments after the first wave hit late Saturday morning. "We'll monitor the waves for several hours."

The tsunami may be the least of the tourism industry's worries. The Aloha State experienced a double-digit decline in visitor spending in January, which followed a difficult 2009 for the state's tourism industry. Visitors spent $949 million in Hawaii last month, about 13 percent less than in January 2008, according to numbers released by the state. Several well-known resorts, including the IIikai Hotel and the Hawaiiana Hotel have closed, while many other properties faced foreclosure.

Like the soft tourism industry, the effects of the tsunami are likely to be felt for a while.

"Hawaii has a history of dangerous waves," said Michael Brein, a former Oahu resident and travel psychology expert. "Everyone who lives there has it in the back of their minds that they really have to pay attention."

Historically, visitors have not been as aware of the potential for a deadly wave, although after the Asian tsunami in 2004, tourists have become more conscious of the hazards, according to Brein. "This time, tourists were excited and a little scared. I think everyone knows how dangerous it could be," he said.

He and other tourism experts think the publicity from the smaller-than-expected waves won't deter people from visiting Hawaii.

Rather, it will be a soft economy and higher airfares that will make Americans take a vacation closer to home, they say.

As the predicted wave approached Hawaii, there was a sense that this would not affect the visitors on or off the island. Tim Lussier, a student at Hawai`i Pacific University, who was waiting in Waikiki for the first wave to come ashore late Saturday morning, reported that people were calm as the streets emptied of cars. "Everything is fine," he said, even as the tsunami bore down on the beach.

Some current visitors to the island were certain to be displaced by the wave, says longtime Honolulu resident and tourism expert Jeanne Datz Rice, who described this tsunami as a "non-event." Hotels in low-lying areas normally evacuate guests to higher rooms. "They're moved up three floors," she says, adding, "In a situation like this, everyone makes new friends."

That's exactly what happened to Kristina Arntz' parents, Walter and Victoria Hughes of Martinsburg, W.V. The couple, which had been in Waikiki since Feb. 1, watched the waves roll in from the roof of their condominium, which was located just two blocks away from the beach.

"They seem fine," said Arntz, who had been in contact with them by e-mail.

At the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, about 600 hotel guests were sent to the hotel's second-floor ballroom in advance of the tsunami. They were offered sandwiches, pastries and soft drinks and played games until the danger passed, according to the hotel's general manager, Rodney Ito. "We assured everyone that we were just following civil defense instructions," he said moments after the waves arrived.

"We just got the 'all-clear' five minutes ago."

Perhaps the biggest tsunami-related complaint had nothing to do with nature. Visitors complained about a lack of phone coverage as the waves grew closer and phone lines were jammed with calls from concerned relatives on the mainland. The Hughes couldn't make cell phone calls earlier in the day, and calls to Hawaii were not going through because of busy circuits.

By 1:15 p.m., a sense of calm had returned to Hawaii — if, indeed, it ever left. "There's a feeling of relief," said Adam Smith, the chief executive of a Hawaii-based events Web site called WTFHawaii.com.

Asked if he had any advice for visitors, he said, "Yes. Everything's back to normal. Enjoy the day."

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Cultural

Sunday, February 28, 2010