The Morningwood News

The Enquirer (Cincinnati)
BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - After a series of U.S. currency makeovers, the most amazing is yet to come.

A new security thread has been approved for the $100 bill, and the change will cause double-takes.

The new look is part of an effort to thwart counterfeiters armed with ever-more sophisticated computers, scanners and color copiers. The C-note, with features the likeness of Benjamin Franklin, is the most frequent target of counterfeiters outside the United States.

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Trendhunter Magazine

What better way to spruce up your vehicle than to personalize it with your favorite cartoon character?

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KVAL.com
By Elissa Harrington

DOWNTOWN EUGENE - Eugene has picked up the motto “World’s greatest city of the arts and outdoors.” City leaders are trying to figure out if it’s living up to its name.

Today the City of Eugene got a report card in the arts. The cultural policy review was better than most years but it creativity still has room to grow.

Wednesday, officials looked over an annual report for the arts. Required number of productions? Check! High number of attendees?Check! Good economic impact? Big check! In fact, according to today’s spreadsheet, performing arts pulled in more than 6 million dollars last year.

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Trendhunter Magazine

A recent survey by Virgin Travel Insurance ranked France’s Eiffel Tower as the world’s most disappointing tourist spot. The results come from a poll of 1,000 British tourists and are packed with some shocking results.

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New York Daily News

Barbie’s not that kind of girl.

The makers of the all-American doll sued chinabarbie.com yesterday, accusing the Hollywood, Fla., company of trying to peddle soft porn across the Internet by invoking Barbie’s good name.

Chinabarbie.com sells memberships to customers eager to view Asian women posing in various stages of undress.

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The Enquirer
BY SHARON COOLIDGE

Prison term can’t replace collection

A man who lost an irreplaceable collection of magic memorabilia worth more than $1 million when his Indian Hill home was set on fire by a drug addict talked about his loss for the first time Tuesday as the arsonist was sent to prison.

Dr. Randall Wolf, a heart surgeon at University Hospital, said it’s both a personal loss - he and his family no longer feel safe - and a loss to the community, which lost a piece of history. “I think the real shame of it is Cincinnati and really the world lost something we can’t get back,” Wolf said.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Dennis Helmick sentenced Jarrod Frederick, 26, of Clifton on charges of aggravated arson and burglary. He must spend almost two years in prison followed by six months of alcohol and drug treatment at a locked facility.

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Independent Online
iol.co.za

Edinburgh - A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.

Daniel Blackner, or “Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf”, was due to perform at the Circus of Horrors at the festival known for its oddball, offbeat performances.

The main part of his act saw him appear on stage with a vacuum cleaner attached to his member through a special attachment.

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WCVB TV/DT
Boston

One Piece Is 7-Mile-Long Braid

HANOVER, N.H. — Two massive art works on display this summer at Dartmouth College are drawing mixed reactions of fascination and disgust.

The college commissioned the two installations, both made almost entirely of human hair, from artist Wenda Gu.

The first piece, called “the green house” is an 80-foot banner of human hair donated by college members and Upper Valley residents held together by a film of Elmer’s glue.

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International Herald Tribune
Americas
By Christopher Hall

SAN QUENTIN, California: Behind the 150-year-old granite walls of San Quentin State Prison lies a brutal world of physical confinement and mind-numbing monotony, a place where violence constantly threatens. It is not a place where you expect to find beauty, and perhaps this best explains the dumbfounded reaction of a first-time visitor to the prison’s cavernous dining hall, where six epic murals depict a populist vision of California history.

Remarkably powerful and almost unknown to the outside world, the sepia-tone murals, each roughly 12 feet, or 3.6 meters, high and 100 feet long, were created more than 50 years ago by a young Mexican-American prisoner who, after serving four years for possession of heroin, went on to a successful career as an artist. Painted mostly in a style that recalls Diego Rivera or Works Progress Administration government murals from the 1930s, they almost certainly would have been protected long ago with a landmark designation if they were in a building to which the public had access. But hidden in an overcrowded and decaying prison whose own fate is up in the air, the murals face an uncertain future.

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The Columbus Dispatch
By Bill Bush

The messages of students and teachers are still visible on the chalkboards from last year, when Southwood Elementary School closed for remodeling.

“Miss Copper you are the best teacher ever in my life,” said one. “We’re going to miss you.”

“Thursday June 8, 2006. Have a nice summer,” reads another.

But when construction crews renovating the historic South Side school pulled the chalkboards off the walls, they found mysterious messages from a different era.

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East Valley Tribune
By Julie Janovsky

It didn’t take Diane Pitz long to get hooked. The 11-by-14-inch oil painting of an Arizona landscape she saw hanging inside Scottsdale Art School nearly two years ago beckoned to be bought.

Since then, the health care consultant, who’s become a regular visitor to Scottsdale’s downtown galleries, has acquired four more paintings for her Scottsdale home. She says her newfound interest in collecting art is only just beginning.

“It’s a daily pleasure and a joy,” she says, describing the feeling she gets from looking at the fine art now hanging in her home. “When you buy art, you have to love it. It’s like finding the right black dress or shoes,” says Pitz, who recently visited the Scottsdale Fine Art gallery on East Main Street to check out future prospects for her growing collection.

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International Herald Tribune
Asia-Pacific
By Jane Perlez

LONDON: A color photograph of Htein Lin, an artist from Myanmar, taken on the day of his release from prison, shows him stooped and wan, looking easily 20 years older than his real age. His face is scrawny, and in one of his thin hands he holds a white plastic bag filled with the remnants of more than six years in a cell.

On his face is a jubilant grin. Behind the smile lies a well-kept, high-wire secret.

Htein Lin, a political prisoner charged with having planned opposition activities, managed to smuggle out from prison more than 300 paintings and 1,000 illustrations on paper. Now, three years later, his artwork offers a rare vision of prison life in Myanmar, one of the most authoritarian and closed nations in the world.

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