01/27/09 - Dawn

	MOVIE - Academy Award Noms -nyt- ART - Silver Scream Spook Show -plaza- LOCAL - The Return of the Gays -ajc-
	U.S. - Elec car=no gas=no gas tax? - nyt- FRANCE - Obama extends a hand -lemonde- WEB - Fantastic Contraption

MOVIE NEWS - Academy Award Noms -nyt- - For the first time ever, we've seen 2 of the 5 Best Picture nominated films before the nominations! Does that mean we won't spend the entire day before the awards show scrambling to watch as many movies as we can? Not necessarily ... -last year's oscars-

ART NEWS - 1/27, Outwrite Books - Meet author E Lynn Harris. "This winter, Harris returns to familiar turf with BASKETBALL JONES, another story of sex, secrets and scandal set in the sports world."

1/31 - Silver Scream Spook Show -plaza- This month, it's "Godzirra"...

1/31 - The New American Shakespeare Tavern performs "Romeo and Juliet". Pretty, Tragic, Doomed. You know how it ends; kind of like Governor Blogojovich. -shax-

LOCAL NEWS - The Return of the Gays -ajc- - The City of Atlanta votes to "let" Gay Pride back into Piedmont Park, an extremely mixed blessing:

YEAH! Pride is in the park!
BOO! The date is not anywhere near the anniversary of the event it celebrates (Stonewall Riots at the end of June, 1969, when for the first time, homosexuals stood up to the police in an illegal raid of a gay bar).

YEAH! It's on Halloween! Twice the fun on one day!
BOO! It's on Halloween! Half the number of weekends to party.

YEAH! It might not rain!
BOO! It might be too cold to be shirtless.

...and speaking of cultural events that Atlanta is attempting to destroy in favor of its precious grass, the Midtown Tour of Homes (in conjunction with the Dogwood Festival) needs volunteer homes. Be a show-off! -mna-

U.S. NEWS - Elec car=no gas=no gas tax? - nyt- - How do we replace the current road-funding gas tax when electric cars use no gas? Tax everyone for the number of miles they drive. That seems fair; use 100 miles of an interstate and pay accordingly.

Good news along that front from the O-ministration includes signing legislation allowing states to set their own (higher) gas mileage requirements. That means California can demand higher mileage; the car companies will want to sell cars in Cali, so they will have to improvement their product. It's a good solution, but a VERY long term one.

If the goal is to reduce emissions, Obama could accomplish that immediately by increasing the federal gas tax. Gas would be more expensive and folks would drive less (of course, that would increase the price to ship goods and add to inflation, but hey, I can't fix everything!)

FRANCE NEWS - Barack Obama extends a hand to the Muslim world -lemonde- - The french paper reports that Obama wants to restore relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world, and thereby the U.S.'s position in conflicts in the Israel, Iraq, and elsewhere.

WEB NEWS - Fantastic Contraption - Your whole day...gone.