This article comes from the online journal, the Huffington Post,  always an interesting read on just about any subject, current or otherwise, you could imagine.  In pursuit of “the sweet life”, travel to Italy in terms of art, culture, cuisine, wine, design and beautiful people, will surely fit the bill and satisfy the heart’s desire.  Just a summary of this article follows.  If you want to read the rest and view the beautiful photographs within the article, you’ll have to drop by the Huffington Post.

Culture Zohn: Roman Holiday Meets La Dolce Vita — American Academy Style

“We all have a fantasy about taking off for six months or a year, getting away from the grind in order to have the time to muse and contemplate. We know we would be the better for it, our ideas sharper, our vision about our work clearer. We might even finish the thing we had started and put away in the drawer or begin the thing we had made notes on or sketches for and put away in the drawer, the famous drawer that like the Bocca della verita threatens to suck up whatever lies are put inside its cold, imposing mouth.

Most of us, alas, have not had the chance to do that.

Some very lucky, very talented people do, however. Though there are writers and artists colonies of all stripes, there could be none more achingly beautiful or more intellectually dynamic than the American Academy in Rome. Long a secret of architects and designers who were annointed early on in their careers with fellowships and who come back to occasionally to refuel, the Academy is gradually widening its net, this year including an engineer and a dancer and those of us who can only afford a month or a few months, yet want somehow to stop the world so we can get off.

As far back as 1666 when the French established their Academy in Rome, the city has been serving as a tutorial in all things classical, when the Grand Tour stop in Italy was the Alpha and the Omega of culture; if you walk near the Mussolini-style Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna or the Villa Giulia designed by Vignola, you can see the enormous Academy buildings from many nations in all their faded splendor.

None come close to the splendor of the American Academy, founded in the early twentieth century and its magnificently restored Villa Aurelia.

The fellowships given each year are hotly contested and with good reason; you only have to spend an afternoon or a lunch at the long refectory tables dining on Alice Waters inflected cuisine or spend a hushed moment in one of the multi-storied windowed studios or take a walk in the sublime gardens or grab a Campari or espresso at the Bar to know that you have achieved paradise.”

Read the rest of this story here

The tragic news story of the murder of a little girl named Somer Thompson is one of the current news stories in the online news  today.  Read the article below from CBC news.

How Police Found Somer Thompson and How They Hope to Catch Her Killer

ORANGE PARK, Fla. (CBS/AP) Garbage trucks were the key to finding seven-year-old Somer Thompson’s body and garbage trucks may be the key to finding her killer.

Officials say investigators tailed nine garbage trucks from Thompson’s Florida neighborhood to a Georgia landfill and then picked through the trash as each rig spilled its load.

They sorted through more than 225 tons of garbage before the little girl’s body was found.

At a news conference, Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said the quick discovery of Somer’s body, two days after she disappeared, may have saved precious evidence that could lead to her killer.

“Had we not done this tactic,” Beseler said. “I believe that body would have been buried beneath hundreds of tons of debris, probably would have gone undiscovered forever.”

Searching landfills is common when children disappear, but it is unusual to try to zero in on them more efficiently by tracking a neighborhood’s garbage trucks, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Somer vanished on her one-mile walk home from school Monday in a heavily populated residential area, about a mile from a stretch of fast-food restaurants and other businesses, in the Jacksonville suburb of Orange Park.

Searchers combed the area before investigators, following garbage trucks that collected trash Tuesday, spotted her lifeless legs in a landfill about 50 miles away.

An autopsy to establish the cause of death is done, but authorities Thursday would not disclose their findings. Beseler would not say if Somer had been sexually assaulted or answer other questions about the condition of the body.

So far the police have questioned more than 155 registered sex offenders in the area. State online records show 88 sex offenders live in Orange Park, a suburb of about 9,000 people just south of Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

Now as the search for a missing girl turns into the search for her killer, the garbage trucks may again play a pivotal role.

Investigators will presumably try to pinpoint the trash bin or garbage can where she was dumped, based on the trash around her and the truck’s pickup route. That could hopefully help them piece together a better timeline and offer a firmer direction for the investigation.

No arrests have been made.”

News Source

The following online news article “Some See Iran as Ready for Nuclear Deal” from the New York Times by Michael Slackman questions whether Iran is ready for a nuclear deal. It’s about time and let’s hope so.

“RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Iran says it has no plans to build nuclear weapons. Western nations say they do not believe Iran and periodically release intelligence reports that they say prove Iran has been working on building a bomb.

Hassan Rowhani, center, chief nuclear negotiator for Iran, in 2005, the year his speech on Iran’s program was published.  For years, that has been the point of contention in an intractable international dispute.

But as the United States and its Western allies prepare for a second round of direct negotiations with Tehran this month, that may no longer be the central question. The more pertinent point, Iran experts and regional analysts say, is that Iran finally may be ready to make a deal.

The analysts cite a confluence of factors, from Iran’s internal political crisis to the change in leadership in Washington, and one overriding point: Iran’s leadership may have achieved much of what it set out to accomplish when it stepped up its clandestine nuclear program in 1999.

In contentious, high-stakes negotiations, deals are possible when both sides have a chance to declare victory, and that point may have been reached.

“If the Iranian endgame is to keep enrichment, and if the United States’ endgame is to make sure there are no nuclear weapons in Iran, then it can be a win-win,” said Trita Parsi, author of a book on Iran and president of the National Iranian American Council, an independent advocacy group in Washington. “Those who have been criticizing the administration for compromising or giving Iran a concession, they are wrong. It is not a concession to adjust to an unchanging reality.”

For Iran, this is not exactly about compromising — which it has shown little appetite for — as much as cooperating. For the West, it is not about winning concessions but about developing verifiable assurances that Iran is not producing weapons.

“I think the Iranians are simply in no mood to accept any serious limits on the expansion of their program,” said Flynt Leverett, director of the Iran Project at the New America Foundation. “From their point of view, they already suspended enrichment for almost two years, from 2003 to 2005, and from their perspective, they got nothing for that and they’re not going to do that again.”

Read the rest of the story here

The following news story on the new roles of artists comes from the Hurriyet Daily news.  The `My City`project, a project supported by the EC begins in Istanbul on Friday, giving Turkish artists the chance to create art in various cities in Turkey and for Turkish artists to work in various European cities.  This is sort of an artists exchange program which will benefit the artists and the viewer and audience of the artists finished work.

Underlining the role of artists in civil society

“My City,” a project supported by the European Commission as part of its “Civil Society Dialogue: Cultural Bridges” program, opened in Istanbul on Friday.

Implemented by the British Council and supported by the Garanti Culture Center, the project will make it possible for five European artists to create artwork in the Turkish cities of Istanbul, Çanakkale, Konya, Trabzon and Mardin. The program will also enable six Turkish artists to work in European cities Berlin, Dortmund, London, Helsinki, Vienna and Warsaw.
Speaking at a reception to introduce the project, Turkish State Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış said the “My City” project, which he views as crucial, was initiated with British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband.

“The civil-society dialogue, one of the three legs of negotiations with the EU, continues with nongovernmental organizations. The role of artists is vital to a civil-society dialogue. Those countries with developed art scenes are also those with developed democracies and economies,” Bağış noted.

Mentioning that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan supports related projects, Bağış said that six days before Turkey’s EU-accession negotiations began on Dec. 14, 2004, Turkey opened the Istanbul Modern. Whenever Turkish officials travel to Europe, they are asked about the venue, he said.

“Art is an important concept for Turkey’s promotion in Europe and the rest of the world,” Bağış said. Artists from Turkey and Europe will display the results of the project in September 2010.

Source