Short Takes: News From All Over: November 20, 2003

Staff Utne.com

Matt Groening on Outsider Music and Party Planning
By John Payne, L.A. Weekly
An interview with The Simpsons creator, Matt Groening reveals a down-to-earth guy with an oddball taste in music. As Payne writes, 'Groening's a supereclectic whose real cup of tea you might call music from the fringes.' Groening also talks about his role in the creation of a music festival called 'All Tomorrow's Parties' and how his taste in music is reflected in the performers, including Sonic Youth and the Magic Band.
-- Joel Stonington
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/51/features-payne.php

The Most Wanted Works of Art
By Kelly Devine Thomas, Art News Online
Kelly Thomas, reporting for Art News Online, reveals the privately owned works of art most desired by art collectors and galleries. From that $100 million Cezanne, to Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q., to Brancusi's Bird in Space -- recently sold to a Seattle couple for $30 million -- every art collector has their wish list. Something Thomas finds is not a public document. As one New York art collector put it, 'That?s really personal stuff.'
-- Joel Stonington
http://www.artnewsonline.com/currentarticle.cfm?type=feature&art_id=1417

The Progressive Government Project
By Staff, The Progressive Government Project
Around the world, opposition parties regularly create so-called 'shadow governments' -- lists of people they would put into key offices if they took power. The Boston-based Progressive Government Project aims to do the same for the U.S., placing prominent progressive, politicians, thinkers, and activists in the roles of federal Cabinet members and political appointees, and providing them with a platform to advocate for progressive public policies.
-- Leif Utne
http://www.progressivegovernment.org/

Gore Uncut
By Marc Cooper, LA Weekly
Of America's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was the only one to view the Constitution as a transitional document. Without Constitutional Conventions every generation, Franklin predicted that despotism was inevitable. In this LA Weekly interview author Gore Vidal analyzes the accuracy and political consequences of Franklin's vision.
-- Erin Ferdinand
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/52/features-cooper.php

And They Don't Even Have Touch-Screens Yet
By Staff, Indystar.com
The machines have risen up! They're sabotaging elections! Not quite, but due to a glitch in tabulation software, voting machines in Boone County, Indiana, briefly reported voter turnout of 144,000 in local elections earlier this month, out of a pool of 19,000 possible voters.
-- Kyle Cohen
http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/091021-1006-009.html