Wednesday, April 21, 2010

“Ga. Senate budget OK'd as $890,000 for arts is restored; $1.7M lost for local cultural groups - Washington Examiner” plus 3 more

“Ga. Senate budget OK'd as $890,000 for arts is restored; $1.7M lost for local cultural groups - Washington Examiner” plus 3 more

Ga. Senate budget OK'd as $890,000 for arts is restored; $1.7M lost for local cultural groups - Washington Examiner

Posted: 21 Apr 2010 02:02 PM PDT

ATLANTA — The Senate has approved a $17.8 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

After weeks of struggling to fill a $785 million shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1, the Senate approved the budget on Wednesday in a 49-2 vote.

The amended budget restores $890,000 in state money to keep the Georgia Council for the Arts afloat.

The council is still taking a hit. Gone are about $1.7 million in state grants to local arts and cultural organizations.

The Senate's spending blueprint must now be reconciled with the one that has cleared the House.

The House, meanwhile, agreed on Wednesday to an amended $17.4 billion budget for the current fiscal year. It now heads to Gov. Sonny Perdue for his signature.

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IMAX Corp. (IMAX) Signs Theater Installation Agreement ... - StreetInsider.com (subscription)

Posted: 21 Apr 2010 08:40 AM PDT

April 21, 2010 11:44 AM EDT

IMAX Corporation (Nasdaq: IMAX) today announced that Zhejiang Xinyuan Cultural Industry Group Co., Ltd, a large government-run cultural enterprise in the People's Republic of China, has signed an agreement to install a digital IMAX theatre system at the exhibitor's new 16-screen multiplex in the city of Hangzhou, the capital of China's Zhejiang province. The theatre is scheduled to open in late June 2010, in time to show Aftershock, the first mainstream Chinese film to be digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience. There are currently 26 IMAX theatres open in China, and this deal brings the total number of IMAX theatres scheduled to be open in China to 50 by 2012. The city of Hangzhou is approximately two-hours driving distance from Shanghai.

"The IMAX brand has become very popular with moviegoers in China, and we believe it will be an ideal fit for our new complex in Hangzhou," said Mr. Lei Xiangqiong, Chairman and President of Xinyuan. "The recent box office results of other IMAX theatres in the country show there is a strong demand for The IMAX Experience and we're very excited to feed that demand with IMAX's exciting slate of films, starting with the digitally re-mastered version of the next big anticipated Chinese blockbuster Aftershock."

"The expansion of our Asia-Pacific IMAX network is building momentum as IMAX operators in the region continue to have success with Hollywood films and anticipate the first digitally re-mastered Chinese films," said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. "We're very happy to enter this partnership with the Zhejiang Xinyuan Cultural Industry Group to offer The IMAX Experience to more moviegoers in Hangzhou City and Zhejiang Province. This new location is expected to be one of the top multiplexes in the Zhejiang province and we believe it will be one of many ideal places in the country to increase the commercial visibility of the IMAX brand."

The new theater will utilize IMAX's digital projection system, which delivers The IMAX Experience and helps drive profitability for studios, exhibitors and IMAX theatres by eliminating the need for film prints, increasing program flexibility and ultimately increasing the number of movies shown on IMAX screens. The system can run both IMAX and IMAX(R)3D presentations.


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Dorothy Height dies at 98; civil rights leader fought ... - Los Angeles Times

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 11:58 PM PDT

Dorothy Height, who was called the queen mother of the civil rights movement through seven decades of advocacy for racial equality — including 41 years as president of the National Council of Negro Women — has died. She was 98.

Height, who also played a key role in integrating the YWCA, died Tuesday of natural causes at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., the council announced.

Though not nearly as well known as her male contemporaries, Height was a steadfast presence in the civil rights movement. Often the only woman at strategy meetings with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders, she was a determined voice pressing the importance of issues affecting women and children, such as child care and education.

President Obama called Height "the godmother of the civil rights movement and a hero to so many Americans."

"Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality … and served as the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement — witnessing every march and milestone along the way," Obama said in a statement.

Beginning in the 1930s, Height helped shape the national agenda for the YWCA. Traveling throughout the nation, she advocated for interracial charters at a time when racial segregation was the norm and resistance to integration was often fierce.

As president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1998, she led the group to expand its mission. Her initiatives included training thousands of women — housewives, teachers, office workers, students — to work as community advocates. Back in their own communities, they pushed for better housing, schools and stores. It was a way to help women escape what Height called the "triple bind of racism, sexism and poverty."

One of Height's most visible accomplishments was the Black Family Reunion Celebration, a three-day cultural event in Washington, D.C., with related events around the country. Founded to counter negative images of the black family, it has been held annually since 1986.

"Her fingerprints are quietly embedded in many of the transforming events of the last six decades as blacks, women and children pushed open and walked through previously closed doors of opportunity," Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, wrote in 2006 in the Baltimore Times.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, told The Times in an interview, "Dorothy understood from the beginning the importance of both the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement and how they're intertwined. She's always tried to keep people together and united."

The daughter of a nurse and a building contractor, Height was born March 24, 1912, in Richmond, Va., and grew up in Rankin, Pa., where she earned top grades in school.

After graduating from high school at 16, she was accepted to Barnard College in New York but was told she had to delay her entrance a year because the school had met its annual quota of two African American students.

Instead she entered New York University, which had no such quota. In four years she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in social work.

Height never married and had no children. She is survived by a sister, Anthenette Aldridge of New York City, and many nieces and nephews.

She joined the YWCA in 1937 and was there during a critical period in the organization's history as it grappled with the issue of race. In the 1940s, she pushed to end the YWCA's practice of separate conferences — one for black leaders and another for whites — and traveled the country helping local chapters implement the organization's interracial charter.

Heads of local chapters in the South would not meet with her, and she was forced to spend nights with local African American families because hotels would not admit black guests. A white police officer once threatened her life when she defied his order to wait for a train in the "colored waiting room," rather than on the platform with her white colleagues.

"He yelled again for me to go in the colored waiting room," she later wrote. "'This is my train,' I called, starting to run, and he growled, 'Don't you go straight on that train or I'll blow your brains out.'"

White colleagues surrounded her and together they got on the train. Later she reported the incident to Roy Wilkins, one of the leaders of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. "He said, 'Dorothy, had you been a black man, you would have been dead.'"

Height was a 25-year-old assistant director at the YWCA in Harlem when then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and National Council of Negro Women founder Mary McLeod Bethune paid a visit. Height was assigned the job of greeting and escorting the first lady, but a conversation with Bethune, the daughter of former slaves, altered the course of Height's life.

We need you at the council, Bethune said to Height.

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Privacy officials criticize launch of Google Buzz - Zd Net Asia.com

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 08:44 PM PDT

Ten privacy commissioners from countries including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom have sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying the company "failed to take adequate account of privacy considerations" when launching Google Buzz.

Monday's letter doesn't threaten the Mountain View, Calif.-based company with any formal or informal legal action. Instead, it asks for a response outlining how Google "will ensure that privacy and data protection requirements" are met in the future.

Also signing the letter were privacy commissioners from France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain. Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, which serves a similar role in the United States, did not sign.

Google sent CNET a statement saying: "We try very hard to be upfront about the data we collect, and how we use it, as well as to build meaningful controls into our products. Google Dashboard, the Ads Preferences Manager and our data liberation initiative are all good examples of such initiatives. Of course we do not get everything 100 percent right--that is why we acted so quickly on Buzz following the user feedback we received. We have discussed all these issues publicly many times before and have nothing to add to today's letter--instead we are focused on launching our new transparency tool which we are very excited about."

"While your company addressed the most privacy-intrusive aspects of Google Buzz in the wake of this public protest and most recently you asked all users to reconfirm their privacy settings, we remain extremely concerned about how a product with such significant privacy issues was launched in the first place," the letter says. "We would have expected a company of your stature to set a better example."

The letter also takes aim at Google Street View, complaining it "was launched in some countries without due consideration of privacy and data protection laws and cultural norms". Google has been under pressure from the European Union to reduce the time it stores Street View images.

Google Buzz disclosed your "followers" and who you were "following" only if you had elected to publish that information publicly on your Google profile in the first place. But critics have charged that the choices were not as obvious as they could have been, and a lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed.

During a Monday press conference organized by the privacy commissioners, the privacy commissioners also singled out Facebook for criticism in what was apparently a reference to a privacy dispute a few months ago.

Canada is "in discussions with Facebook about how it has unrolled its changes", Jennifer Stoddart said. "It, too, does not seem to be in conformity with our privacy legislation."

Other commissioners talked about the need to protect the "legitimate right to anonymity" while requiring identification from users to detect the "presence of minors below a legally permitted age", but didn't say how they would reconcile the two opposing goals.

Disclosure: Declan McCullagh is married to a Google employee who is not involved with Google Buzz or Google Street View.

This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.

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