Upcoming Bicentenary (Happy Birthday Charles Dickens ! ) - Feb. 7, 2012

from DICKENS 2012 website (London, England, UK):

A wreathlaying ceremony to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens will take place in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, at 11 a.m. on Tuesday 7 February 2012.

Westminster Abbey will celebrate the bicentenary of one of Britain’s greatest writers with a wreathlaying in the South Transept. The ceremony is one of a number of events being held this year to mark the anniversary of the great Victorian writer, who is buried in the South Transept of the Abbey.

The wreathlaying ceremony will include readings from the Dickens’s novels and his other writings by actor and director Ralph Fiennes, author Claire Tomalin and two of Dickens's descendants.

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, said: 'Dickens'  humanity and compassion made an extraordinary impact on Victorian England through his writings, which remain immensely popular. This bicentenary should help renew our commitment to improving the lot of the disadvantaged of our own day.'

Happy Birthday to W.A. Mozart!

from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, Am. Public Media - Minnesota Public Radio):

January 27 is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). He only lived for 35 years but he started his career early -- a child prodigy from a family of musicians. He toured all over Europe, and wrote his first opera at age 11.
Mozart died at the age of 35 in mysterious circumstances. There is a popular image of him as poor and miserable, working on a funeral requiem as he was dying. But overall, his final year was a good and productive one. He was living in Vienna. He was still getting commissions. He didn't have a lot of money in the year 1791, but then again, he rarely did -- he and his wife, Constanze, never seemed able to live on what Mozart made.
It was a busy year. In the first months of 1791, he wrote dance music for the winter balls at the court and the Piano Concerto No. 27. In the summer, a messenger came, asking Mozart to write a requiem for his patron, Count Franz von Walsegg who had lost his wife and wanted to commission a requiem in her honor.
He was working on the opera La Clemenza di Tito to celebrate the coronation of Emperor Leopold as King of Bohemia. It premiered in early September. Three weeks later, his opera The Magic Flute opened in Vienna, and was a big hit. In October, he finished Clarinet Concerto in A. Then a cantata for his Freemason lodge, which he directed himself on November 18th. Finally, he put all his energy toward the Requiem, but just after the performance of his cantata, he became extremely ill. He had a fever, and his whole body was swollen. He continued writing the Requiem right up until his death, which was only two weeks after he became sick. No one knows what Mozart's illness was, and there are dozens of theories: rheumatic fever, tuberculosis, endocarditis, syphilis, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and poisoning. He died on December 5th, 1791 and was buried in a mass, unmarked grave, a common practice for the middle-class of Vienna.
Mozart said, "Music, in even the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear but always remain a source of pleasure."

Speech at Ann Arbor, Michigan -- President Obama on College Affordability (Friday 27th January 2012)

from the Free-Press (Detroit daily newspaper online edition):

President Barack Obama will focus on "American Skills and Innovation," including college affordability, when he takes the stage at the University of Michigan this morning in front of more than 3,000 students, faculty members and staff members.

Obama will talk about affordability and getting students and workers the education needed to develop a competitive work force, a White House official told the Free Press. It will be a follow-up to his State of the Union address earlier this week, in which he touched on the same topics.

Happy 130th Birthday to Virginia Woolf (b. 1882) !

It's the birthday of Virginia Woolf, born Adeline Virginia Stephen in London (1882) author of Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931). She also wrote a book called A Room of One's Own (1929), based on lectures she gave at the women's colleges of Cambridge in which she said, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Woolf herself wrote in her house in Bloomsbury in a downstairs storage room, which had been a billiard room. A room with a cold stone floor and a skylight, packed with hundreds of books, a bed, an old wicker chair, where she wrote for three hours every morning, using a wooden board for a table, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.
At her summer house in Sussex, she wrote in a remodeled shed, with big windows, with views of the woods and hills. She sat in a chair and put a small tabletop on a cushion on her lap, and wrote on that. In A Room of One's Own, she wrote: "So when I ask you to earn money and have a room of your own, I am asking you to live in the presence of reality, an invigorating life."
On this day in 1915, she wrote in her diary that her husband Leonard gave her a green purse and a book and took her to the movies. They had tea and decided to buy a printing press and get a bulldog.

Tuesday SOTU (Jan. 24, 2012) Bipartisan Seating (AZ representative) : Politico Story

posted Monday, January 23, 2012 evening:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) will have an across-the-aisle seatmate at Tuesday (Jan. 24, 2012)night’s State of the Union address, much like nearly 200 of her colleagues in Congress.
Giffords, who will resign from Congress this week to focus on recovering from her injuries sustained in a shooting one year ago, will sit with fellow Arizona Reps. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Raul Grijalva, a Democrat.
Last year, the Arizona delegation left a seat empty for Giffords between Flake and Grijalva as lawmakers wore black-and-white ribbons acknowledging the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting rampage that killed six people and injured Giffords and a dozen others.
The bipartisan seating craze at the president’s annual speech took off in the aftermath of the shootings in Tucson, Ariz., as lawmakers tried to cultivate a more civil and cooperative atmosphere.

The nonpartisan organization No Labels, which is prodding Congress on the cross-party seating push, said 182 lawmakers had signed up to participate in the effort as of Monday morning.

Tuesday’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama will be among Giffords’s last duties as a member of Congress. Earlier Monday (Jan. 23, 2012), she met in Tucson with constituents who were attending the “Congress on Your Corner” event where the shooting occurred one year ago.
Her husband, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, will also attend the State of the Union as one of Obama’s guests in the Capitol Balcony. Brian Kolfage, one of Giffords’s constituents who is an Iraq War veteran, will be Giffords’s guest at the speech.

Pres. Obama to speak Jan. 27 at U of Michigan Glick Field House (arena)

from DETROIT NEWS online article (Jan. 23, 2012 posting):

President Barack Obama will make a speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Friday, January 27, three days after he delivers his State of the Union address.
Obama is expected to deliver remarks at the Al Glick Field House, the $26 million 104,000-square foot Indoor Football Practice Facility was completed in August 2009, a White House official said.
The president will deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night (January 24, 9 - 10:30 p.m.)before Congress in Washington. The next day, he's scheduled to travel to Iowa and Arizona. He'll be in Nevada and Colorado Thursday before arriving late in Michigan to spend the night. He'll return to Washington on Friday, January 28.
This is the president's 10th visit to Michigan since taking office. He was in Michigan in October, 2011 to visit GM's Orion Assembly plant with the South Korean president and spoke in Detroit on Labor Day.
It will be his second visit to speak at the University of Michigan. In May 2010, he delivered the commencement address at Michigan Stadium, where he urged students to participate in democracy and get all points of view.
"When we don't pay close attention to the decisions made by our leaders, when we fail to educate ourselves about the major issues of the day, when we choose not to make our voices and opinions heard, that's when democracy breaks down," Obama said. "That's when power is abused. That's when the most extreme voices in our society fill the void that we leave. That's when powerful interests and their lobbyists are most able to buy access and influence in the corridors of power — because none of us are there to speak up and stop them."

Debate details finally announced (Florida PRIMARY lead-in at Tampa - Univ. of South Florida)

from NBC NEWS website -- msnbc dot-com

Tonight’s NBC/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate airs beginning at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC’s “Rock Center.” It’s moderated by NBC’s Anchor Brian Williams, and will also feature questions by National Journal’s Beth Reinhard (a former Miami Herald reporter), and the Tampa Bay Times’ veteran political reporter Adam Smith.  You can also watch the debate live on NBCPolitic.com and follow the Twitter stream of our political experts.

First Read BLOG --  http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216094-first-thoughts-high-stakes

EDIT: added information known about Audience Members (Foreign Diplomats)

Joining participants and NBC’s Brian Williams for Monday’s Republican presidential primary debate will be a scattering of notable figures and friends of the university, including Sir Peter Westmacott, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States, and his French counterpart, Ambassador Francois Delattre.

Although the two high-ranking diplomats will keep separate itineraries for most of their time on the campus of the University of South Florida that day, both are expected to attend the evening’s GOP debate in Theatre I.

Sir Peter’s trip to Tampa marks his first official visit to an American university, occurring only days after his arrival in Washington, D.C., to assume his official duties. He previously served as Britain’s chief diplomatic representative to France, and before that as the U.K.’s ambassador to Turkey.

Here primarily to discuss ongoing cooperation with USF on an array of academic initiatives and exchange programs – in October, the university hosted a European Expo in London, and in December, Britain’s Consul General in Miami, Kevin McGurgan, traveled to USF to personally salute Jean Weatherwax, ’12, the university’s first winner of a prestigious Marshall Scholarship for postgraduate study in the U.K. – Sir Peter will attend the debate following meetings with President Judy Genshaft, Provost Ralph Wilcox and Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Global Affairs Karen Holbrook.

His schedule also includes an informal exchange with a group of Honors College and international students during the afternoon. Of the university’s nearly 2,000 students from abroad, about 40 hail from the U.K. The meeting with students will take place in the university’s new Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, where interdisciplinary research scientists and students collaborate on a variety of pressing issues, such as finding a cure for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, developing new cancer treatments through nanomedicine, looking for new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, and advancing the next generation of sensor technologies.

Ambassador Delattre visits USF at the invitation of the Florida Council of 100, a cosponsor of the debate along with NBC News, the Tampa Bay Times and National Journal. He has served as France’s ranking representative to the United States since February 2011, and regularly visits many cities across the U.S. to meet with policy makers and foster French-American relations in all areas, from culture and science to trade and investment.

His international bona fides include terms as Ambassador of France to Canada, French Consul General in New York, and press and communications director at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. Also a former deputy director of the French Foreign Minister’s Office, he began his diplomatic career as an economic liaison with the French Embassy in Bonn, Germany.

“As a global research university focused on contributing solutions to many of the world’s most pressing problems, it is vitally important that USF maintain positive and productive relationships with our many international friends, hosts and partners,” said Wilcox. “And so we’re delighted to welcome the British and French ambassadors to campus for first-hand views of both higher education in the U.S. and American presidential politics. I’m sure that their interactions with our talented students and the broader campus community will inform and enliven our ongoing discussions about global engagement at USF.”

University of SOUTH FLORIDA press release ( http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=4075&z=155 )