canyadigit.net

Thursday, September 6, 2012

London, England— Tuesday, following her team’s 62–37 win over Mexico in the quarter-finals at the North Greewich Arena, Wikinews interviewed Amber Merrit of the Australian women’s national wheelchair basketball team.

In their next match, the Gliders will face the victors from the United States versus Canada, having suffered their first loss of this year’s Games to Canada on Sunday night by seven points.

((Laura Hale)) I’m excited to see you in London, because you were so fantastic in that interview.

[Wikinews previously interviewed Merrit, and teammates in July. —Ed.]

Amber Merrit: Thank you.

((WN)) Which state are you from?

AM: I’m from WA. [Western Australia —Ed.]

((WN)) You wheel change! What was wrong with your wheel?

AM: I smashed out three spokes. Someone hit me, and I lost three spokes in my chair.

((WN)) was that because you were playing really aggressively against Mexico?

AM: Yeah, or they were playing really aggressive against us.

((WN)) Watching that game it didn’t seem that they were playing that aggressive, in terms of they came in with set pieces; they weren’t doing the full-court press; they didn’t seem prepared for your offensive and defensive tenacity. ((Hawkeye7)) You kept on all holding them out, where they weren’t even getting across the centre line

AM: I think we have a really physical style of basketball where we’re going to press, and when we press we try to stop chairs and make sure they don’t get over that halfway line. They’re going to come out and play as hard as they can against us and sometimes there is that odd mishap where they might smash a few spokes cause they hit us. It happens.

((WN)) You tipped a lot in previous games. You haven’t tipped so much in this series.

AM: No, I’ve managed to keep my balance this time. Or maybe they haven’t hit me hard enough to put me down on the floor.

((WN)) Part of the appeal of wheelchair basketball, and I feel guilty admitting it, it watching you guys tip.

AM: And fall out. It’s embarrassing but I like it.

((WN)) You’ve got your next game coming up, which is going to be against the winner of the United States or Canada later today

AM: We’re not 100% sure yet who that’s going to be.

((WN)) Looking forward to meeting them?

AM: Yeah! Looking forward to coming up against them.

((WN)) Who would you prefer?

AM: I don’t know if I have a preference, to be honest. Whoever its going to be, we’re still going to go out there and play as hard as we can and take it to them as a team.

((WN)) Do you think you’ve been adequately prepared coming in to this, with your tournament in Sydney, your tournament in the Netherlands?

AM: Yeah, I think we’ve come in very well prepared for this tournament. We’ve been together for a while now as a team. Of course we had the Gliders and Rollers world challenge. We also went to Arnheim in the Netherlands for a pre-tournament, and we’ve trained together in Cardiff. And then after Cardiff we came in to London; so we’ve had that time together as a team and we’re doing really well.

((WN)) Does that give you an advantage over other teams?

AM: I’m not sure, because I don’t know what other teams have been doing behind the scenes as their training.

((WN)) Thank you very much.

AM: No worries!

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Evansville, Indiana, United States — This past week marked the opening night of an Andy Warhol exhibit at the University of Southern Indiana. USI’s art gallery, like 189 other educational galleries and museums around the country, is a recipient of a major Warhol donor program, and this program is cultivating new interest in Warhol’s photographic legacy. Wikinews reporters attended the opening and spoke to donors, exhibit organizers and patrons.

The USI art gallery celebrated the Thursday opening with its display of Warhol’s Polaroids, gelatin silver prints and several colored screen prints. USI’s exhibit, which is located in Evansville, Indiana, is to run from January 23 through March 9.

The McCutchan Art Center/Pace Galleries at USI bases its exhibit around roughly 100 Polaroids selected from its collection. The Polaroids were all donated by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program, according to Kristen Wilkins, assistant professor of photography and curator of the exhibit. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts made two donations to USI Art Collections, in 2007 and a second recently.

Kathryn Waters, director of the gallery, expressed interest in further donations from the foundation in the future.

Since 2007 the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program has seeded university art galleries throughout the United States with over 28,000 Andy Warhol photographs and other artifacts. The program takes a decentralized approach to Warhol’s photography collection and encourages university art galleries to regularly disseminate and educate audiences about Warhol’s artistic vision, especially in the area of photography.

Wikinews provides additional video, audio and photographs so our readers may learn more.

Wilkins observed that the 2007 starting date of the donation program, which is part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, coincided with the 20th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s death in 1987. USI was not alone in receiving a donation.

K.C. Maurer, chief financial officer and treasurer at the Andy Warhol Foundation, said 500 institutions received the initial invitation and currently 190 universities have accepted one or more donations. Institutional recipients, said Mauer, are required to exhibit their donated Warhol photographs every ten years as one stipulation.

While USI is holding its exhibit, there are also Warhol Polaroid exhibits at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York and an Edward Steichen and Andy Warhol exhibit at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. All have received Polaroids from the foundation.

University exhibits can reach out and attract large audiences. For example, the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro saw attendance levels reach 11,000 visitors when it exhibited its Warhol collection in 2010, according to curator Elaine Gustafon. That exhibit was part of a collaboration combining the collections from Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which also were recipients of donated items from the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program.

Each collection donated by the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program holds Polaroids of well-known celebrities. The successful UNC Greensboro exhibit included Polaroids of author Truman Capote and singer-songwriter Carly Simon.

“I think America’s obsession with celebrity culture is as strong today as it was when Warhol was living”, said Gustafon. “People are still intrigued by how stars live, dress and socialize, since it is so different from most people’s every day lives.”

Wilkins explained Warhol’s obsession with celebrities began when he first collected head shots as a kid and continued as a passion throughout his life. “He’s hanging out with the celebrities, and has kind of become the same sort of celebrity he was interested in documenting earlier in his career”, Wilkins said.

The exhibit at USI includes Polaroids of actor Dennis Hopper; musician Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran; publishers Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine and Carlo De Benedetti of Italy’s la Repubblica; disco club owner Steve Rubell of Studio 54; photographers Nat Finkelstein, Christopher Makos and Felice Quinto; and athletes Vitas Gerulaitis (tennis) and Jack Nicklaus (golf).

Wikinews observed the USI exhibit identifies and features Polaroids of fashion designer Halston, a former resident of Evansville.

University collections across the United States also include Polaroids of “unknowns” who have not yet had their fifteen minutes of fame. Cynthia Thompson, curator and director of exhibits at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, said, “These images serve as documentation of people in his every day life and art — one which many of us enjoy a glimpse into.”

Warhol was close to important touchstones of the 1960s, including art, music, consumer culture, fashion, and celebrity worship, which were all buzzwords and images Wikinews observed at USI’s opening exhibit.

He was also an influential figure in the pop art movement. “Pop art was about what popular American culture really thought was important”, Kathryn Waters said. “That’s why he did the Campbell Soup cans or the Marilyn pictures, these iconic products of American culture whether they be in film, video or actually products we consumed. So even back in the sixties, he was very aware of this part of our culture. Which as we all know in 2014, has only increased probably a thousand fold.”

“I think everybody knows Andy Warhol’s name, even non-art people, that’s a name they might know because he was such a personality”, Water said.

Hilary Braysmith, USI associate professor of art history, said, “I think his photography is equally influential as his graphic works, his more famous pictures of Marilyn. In terms of the evolution of photography and experimentation, like painting on them or the celebrity fascination, I think he was really ground-breaking in that regard.”

The Polaroid format is not what made Warhol famous, however, he is in the company of other well-known photographers who used the camera, such as Ansel Adams, Chuck Close, Walker Evans, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Helmut Newton.

Wilkins said, “[Warhol] liked the way photo booths and the Polaroid’s front flash looked”. She explained how Warhol’s adoption of the Polaroid camera revealed his process. According to Wilkins, Warhol was able to reproduce the Polaroid photograph and create an enlargement of it, which he then could use to commit the image to the silk screen medium by applying paint or manipulating them further. One of the silk screens exhibited at USI this time was the Annie Oakley screen print called “Cowboys and Indians” from 1987.

Wilkins also said Warhol was both an artist and a businessperson. “As a way to commercialize his work, he would make a blue Marilyn and a pink Marilyn and a yellow Marilyn, and then you could pick your favorite color and buy that. It was a very practical salesman approach to his work. He was very prolific but very business minded about that.”

“He wanted to be rich and famous and he made lots of choices to go that way”, Wilkins said.

Kiara Perkins, a second year USI art major, admitted she was willing to skip class Thursday night to attend the opening exhibit but then circumstances allowed for her to attend the exhibit. Why did she so badly want to attend? “It’s Warhol. He is a legend.”

For Kevin Allton, a USI instructor in English, Warhol was also a legend. He said, “Andy Warhol was the center of the Zeitgeist for the 20th century and everything since. He is a post-modern diety.”

Allton said he had only seen the Silver Clouds installation before in film. The Silver Clouds installation were silver balloons blown up with helium, and those balloons filled one of the smaller rooms in the gallery. “I thought that in real life it was really kind of magical,” Allton said. “I smacked them around.”

Elements of the Zeitgeist were also playfully recreated on USI’s opening night. In her opening remarks for attendees, Waters pointed out those features to attendees, noting the touches of the Warhol Factory, or the studio where he worked, that were present around them. She pointed to the refreshment table with Campbell’s Soup served with “electric” Kool Aid and tables adorned with colorful gumball “pills”. The music in the background was from such bands as The Velvet Underground.

The big hit of the evening, Wikinews observed from the long line, was the Polaroid-room where attendees could wear a Warhol-like wig or don crazy glasses and have their own Polaroid taken. The Polaroids were ready in an instant and immediately displayed at the entry of the exhibit. Exhibit goers then became part of the very exhibit they had wanted to attend. In fact, many people Wikinews observed took out their mobiles as they left for the evening and used their own phone cameras to make one further record of the moment — a photo of a photo. Perhaps they had learned an important lesson from the Warhol exhibit that cultural events like these were ripe for use and reuse. We might even call these exit instant snap shots, the self selfie.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The bodies of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and first lady Maria Kaczynska are lying in state ahead of their funeral on Sunday. The couple died along with 94 other people when the plane they were travelling in crashed in Russia. They will be buried after a memorial to the crash victims.

President Kaczynski’s body was repatriated from Russia on Sunday while the first lady’s was flown to Warsaw airport on Tuesday. Kaczynska’s coffin was driven to the Presidential Palace while draped in Poland’s flag. Thousands of mourners lined the six mile route as her coffin was transported. The first couple will be buried at Wawel Castle on Sunday.

Both chambers of parliament held special sessions to honour the crash victims. Poland is currently in seven days of mourning while Russia held a day of mourning on Monday.

The couple were travelling to Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre when their plane clipped trees and crashed in Smolensk, Russia. The couple died along with many other senior politicians and military commanders. Other victims included the president of the central bank of Poland, the head of the Polish Olympic Committee and last President of Poland, from the Polish government-in-exile which existed in London during the Nazi and Communist period, Ryszard Kaczorowski.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to attend the funeral. President of the United States Barack Obama and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper have both announced that they will also attend.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Oscar Peterson, a Canadian jazz pianist who earned many honours during his decades-long career, died Sunday in Mississauga, Ontario aged 82.

The Montreal-born Peterson learned to play piano in childhood and by the 1940s was actively performing in Canadian big bands such as the Johnny Holmes Orchestra. A groundbreaking performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1949 brought Peterson’s career to an international level.

Among many honours, he was appointed a Companion of theOrder of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour, in 1984. He also received seven Grammy Awards and in 1978 was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

See the discussion page for instructions on adding schools to this list and for an alphabetically arranged listing of schools.

Due to the damage by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding, a number of colleges and universities in the New Orleans metropolitan area will not be able to hold classes for the fall 2005 semester. It is estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 students have been displaced. [1]. In response, institutions across the United States and Canada are offering late registration for displaced students so that their academic progress is not unduly delayed. Some are offering free or reduced admission to displaced students. At some universities, especially state universities, this offer is limited to residents of the area.

Monday, February 12, 2007

The Dixie Chicks won the award album in the song of Not Ready To Make Nice. Finally overcame controversy to dominate the 2007 Grammy Awards on Sunday night, winning five statuettes including the two coveted awards for Record and Song of the Year (for “Not Ready To Make Nice”). The country/rock trio, led by Martie Maguire, often criticized for their political views, also won for their album Taking the Long Way.

Mary J. Blige, who went into the Grammies with the most nominations, ended up winning three, while American Idol winner Carrie Underwood won two, including Best New Artist and for her song “Jesus Take The Wheel“. With completion of the “big three” music awards (which includes the American Music Awards held in November, and the Billboard Music Awards held in December), Blige and Underwood were the only two artists to sweep all three major awards this season.

Saturday, February 5, 2005

AUSTRALIA — Australian immigration authorities have held a mentally ill Australian woman, Cornelia Rau (also known as Anna), against her will for over 10 months, at least two of them spent in high security, where she was reportedly isolated for 18 to 20 hours a day, subjected to 24-hour simulated daylight and deprived adequate legal or medical aid.

Volunteer advocates’ requests for ministerial intervention, prompted by her clear distress and aberrant behaviour, went unanswered for seven weeks, while Ms Rau was held at South Australian Baxter Immigration Detention Center.

Several days ago, refugee advocate Pamela Curr had visited and spoken with the woman, then unidentified and known only as Anna, and said “She exhibits psychotic symptoms, screaming and talking to herself at times, and screams in terror often for long periods especially when locked in the cell.

“Such is her terror of being put back into this cell that it takes six guards in full riot gear to manhandle her back into the room and close the heavy door.”

“We have reports from witnesses that the guards are enjoying this aspect of Anna’s behaviour,” said refugee advocacy group ChilOut.org at around the same time. [1]

One message from a fellow detainee posted on the refugee advocate website safecom.org on January 24, said Ms Rau appeared to be “very, very sick”.

“She takes her clothes off and wanders around in this all-male compound,” the account read. “She screams obscenities, throws food at other detainees and smashes things.”

According to Ms Curr, Ms Rau was being held in isolation in Baxter’s dedicated ‘Red One’ isolation block for 18 to 20 hours a day, and in daylight conditions for 24 hours a day, a practice which has in the past been criticised because of use of isolation and sleep deprivation in Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) facilities to coerce cooperation from inmates [2].

The Migration Act prevents anyone from acting on behalf of a detainee unless the detainee requests this in writing, and so chances of any improvement in Ms Rau’s condition or welfare were slim. The Act makes no provision for cases such as this, where the detainee is no longer competent to make such a request. Mental ill health is a reported by-product of the DIMIA system of indefinite detention [3].

Fellow detainees became concerned for Ms Rau’s welfare when immigration authorities failed to remedy her mental ill health, and were unable to identify her. Refugee advocates in contact with detainees then led a campaign to identify the woman, resulting in her family recognising her description.

Thirty-nine year old Qantas flight attendant Cornelia Rau had in fact been listed as a missing person with New South Wales (NSW) police since August of last year, after disappearing in March. A NSW police effort to find her in November failed to identify that she was being held by Australia’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, meanwhile DIMIA was stumped as to the identity of their German-speaking prisoner.

The Immigration Department said it had gone to great lengths to identify of Ms Rau, contacting the police missing persons registry in Queensland, and several foreign governments, but not NSW police missing persons. “All the information provided by the woman led the department to believe she was an unlawful non-citizen. At no time did she state she was a permanent (Australian) citizen.”

Aborigines at Coen in Far North Queensland had found Cornelia in a disturbed state on March 31 last year, and become concerned, taking her to police for her own safety. The Queensland Police failed to identify her and assumed she was an illegal immigrant since she spoke German. Instead of hospitalising Ms Rau, they handed her over to immigration officials, on April 5.

According to Ms Curr, when she spoke to Ms Rau at Baxter last month, “Her English was fine. She told me then she really wasn’t in touch with reality, but there was a moment of clarity when she just wanted to get out of Baxter. I spoke to a detainee two days ago and he said her English was so good he thought she was an Aussie girl.”

Ms Rau had arrived in Australia at the age of 18 months from Germany. Cornelia’s sister Chris says, “The two groups who were kind to Cornelia in all this time were the two most downtrodden groups in society — the Aboriginal people in Cairns and the refugees in Baxter. There’s an irony in that”.

The Australian Federal Government Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC)‘s Immigration Detention Centre Guidelines [4] state that, “Immigration detainees who are found to be severely mentally ill should be transferred to an appropriate facility as soon as possible.”

The Immigration Department said she had been under mental supervision at all times. “A number of medical assessments were conducted by healthcare professionals, including doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists,” a departmental spokesperson said.

Findings by a number of independent inquiries have shown that long term, indefinite detention, which is the norm within the Australian immigration system, has the unfortunate side effect of inducing mental health problems in individuals who were otherwise healthy on entering the system, and refugee advocates have pointed to this issue previously in cases involving non-citizens.

Countless human rights violations have been documented within DIMIA’s system by the Federal Government’s own policing body, HREOC, which has complained repeatedly for years that its recommendations are not being met. Principally, that the system of mandatory detention itself is an infringement of human rights and should be abolished, and that children (of whom there are currently 87 in detention [5]) should not be held in custody.

HREOC criticises the general lack of adequate mental health services, the use of isolation detention for behaviour management, detainees’ restricted access to legal assistance and lack of information about the application process, their limited access to general information and contact with the outside world, including relatives, and the effects of such long term detention on the detainees, specifically on their mental health. [6]

Past publicised cases have shown detainees denied any legal avenues they do not explicitly ask for using correct legal/bureaucratic terminology [7]; failure to provide adequate medical assistance; and habitual isolation of troublesome detainees instead of meeting of their grievances.

HREOC has the ability to make recommendations only, and it is up to the Government to enforce, or not enforce them.

“It’s pretty dangerous if you have Alzheimer’s disease or you speak a second language right now,” according to Labor immigration spokesperson, Laurie Ferguson. Mr Ferguson believed Queensland Police and the Federal Government had questions to answer, and that there should be an Inquiry.

As well as the personal cost to Cornelia Rau and her family and friends, each day a person spends in immigration detention costs the Department between $111 to $725 [8]. According to DIMIA, “Government policy is that, where practical, immigration detainees should be billed for the cost of their stay in detention.” [9] It is not known whether the Department intends to bill Ms Rau.