The scoop on The Copernicus Plot: Seven of the 260 surviving copies of Polish

astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ momentous 1543

book De Revolutionibus Orbium

Coelestium (On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres), in which he argued that the Earth goes around the

sun and not vice versa, have been stolen from university

and scientific libraries worldwide over the past several

years. Worth $400,000 apiece but virtually impossible

to fence, why have multiple thieves, or one thief very

gifted at disguise, used various ruses to take the tomes

from cities as far apart as Krakow, Kiev,

Stockholm, St. Petersburg and

the University of Illinois? [Chicago Tribune]

Old News: former

Washington Post pop-music critic Richard

Harrington filed suit in February alleging that

he had been demoted to a part-time job on the

weekend section as a result of his age.

What is the link between depression and artistic genius?

An Oscar-nominated documentary about emotionally tortured concert violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg, Speaking in Strings, “looks at her difficulties

sympathetically but in the process may have turned her into the next David Helfgott as far as the public is

concerned. That’s unfair to Salerno-Sonnenberg, who is vastly more talented and capable than Helfgott,

the pianist whose story was chronicled in the movie Shine, and who was then exploited by his wife and

managers in a concert tour for which he was not fit. But it does raise a question: Do depression and other

emotional problems have a particular connection with artistic creativity?”

Mixed signals

NPR says it supports low-power FM, a new standard for a class of 10- and 100-watt grassroots community stations. But it’s joining with industry lobbyists to gut the standard by claiming it fears interference with existing broadcasting signals. [Salon]

Last fall, British and Danish investigative reporting sugggested that the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade had had a motive, contrary to NATO claims that it had been a terrible mistake based on outdated maps. Reportedly, NATO intelligence had discovered that the Chinese were helping Serbian military command broadcast to troops in the field. These reports were buried by the US media, but the New York Times now weighs in. After its full investigation, it can find no evidence for the British/Danish charges. “The bombing resulted from

error piled upon incompetence

piled upon bad judgment in a variety of places – from a frantic

rush to approve targets to questionable reliance on inexpert

officers to an inexplicable failure to consult the people who

might have averted disaster, according to the officials,” writes

Steven Lee Myers.

And this is all I’m going to say about this matter: “The notion that a 6-year-old child should somehow be paraded on TV as capable of determining whether he should stay or go is a tremendous distortion and at some level an abuse of the child,” child psychiatrist tells the Los Angeles Times. And: “The little kid from Cuba has overtaken some of the

biggest media feeding frenzies of the past decade,” according to Center for Media and Public Affairs analysis of network news

coverage. Bigger than Princess Di’s death, far surpassing JFK Jr., and if the debacle goes on for much longer, threatening to topple the ascendency of the OJ Simpson affair!

Shouts Bring Murmurs, And That Works: cultural critic and sociologist Todd Gitlin in the Washington Post about the significance of the IMF/World Bank protests.

I lauded the President’s proclamation establishing the Sequoia National Monument below, but in the back of my mind wondered whether it was real protection or window-dressing. Here’s a concerned environmentalist’s criticism.

Greenpeace USA

A peer-reviewed report commissioned by Greenpeace and released today by a team of

Swiss scientists reveals that tests submitted by the biotech companies Novartis and Mycogen to determine

whether their genetically-engineered corn could harm non-target insects were so poorly designed that there

was virtually no chance that adverse effects would be observed. Despite the flawed

methodology, EPA accepted the tests as scientific evidence that the gene-altered crop was

harmless to non-target insects, and continued to accept the same flawed testing

procedures for approval of other companies’ insect-resistant “biotech” crops.

Clinton’s Cruel Decision On Land Mines Risks Too Many Lives: a recent editorial in the Seattle Post-intelligencer reminds us of U.S.’s shameful 1997 decision not to be signatory of treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines. “The global banning of a weapons system is rare but not unprecedented. Exploding bullets

were banned in 1863, fragmenting (so-called “dum-dum”) bullets in 1899, poison gas in

1925 and blinding lasers in 1995.”

Jeremy Rifkin in the LA Times: It’s Death of a Salesman as Shared-Savings Catches On: “I have long been a skeptic when it comes to the prospect of persuading companies to take

responsibility for protecting the environment and public health. Yet now a revolutionary new

way of doing business called “shared savings” is changing the basic rules of commerce

and, in the process, making environmental protection and public health synonymous with

the bottom line. The implications are profound.”