Piotr Gajewski led the National Philharmonic in three tried-and-true (some say “worn-out”) symphonic staples on Saturday at Strathmore. But a fresh look at them won’t hurt. Felix Mendelssohn’s music, which occupied the evening’s first half, included his Hebrides Overture (“Fingal’s Cave”), Op. 26, and his Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, with diva violinist Sarah Chang. Read full article > >

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National Philharmonic offers a trio of crowd-pleasers at Strathmore

Maybe somebody spiked the D.C. water system with pixie dust. Or maybe we’re all aching for some happily-ever-after closure as an escape from the open-ended chaos that is current public discourse. Or maybe we’ve just got a cosmic coincidence on our hands, because Washington theaters are offering five — count ’em, five — fairy-tale shows for families. Read full article > >

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Fairy tales for audiences — and theaters — that seek happy endings

The opening line of Anne Tyler’s 19th novel is self-consciously clever: “The strangest thing about my wife’s return from the dead was how other people reacted.” For a few pages, “ The Beginner’s Goodbye ” sounds like the sort of droll story Jose Saramago might write if he lived in Baltimore. But Tyler drops the spectral comedy almost immediately and returns to Earth with another wry tale of mournful folks with quirky occupations. In other words, it’s like the ghost of an Anne Tyler novel — a little immaterial but with enough residual matter to remind us of what we love about her books in the flesh. Read full article > >

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Anne Tyler’s ‘The Beginner’s Goodbye’: Widower keeps running into his late wife

The opening line of Anne Tyler’s 19th novel is self-consciously clever: “The strangest thing about my wife’s return from the dead was how other people reacted.” For a few pages, “ The Beginner’s Goodbye ” sounds like the sort of droll story Jose Saramago might write if he lived in Baltimore. But Tyler drops the spectral comedy almost immediately and returns to Earth with another wry tale of mournful folks with quirky occupations. In other words, it’s like the ghost of an Anne Tyler novel — a little immaterial but with enough residual matter to remind us of what we love about her books in the flesh. Read full article > >

Excerpt from:
Anne Tyler’s ‘The Beginner’s Goodbye’: Widower keeps running into his late wife

With Gov. Martin O’Malley ’s signature Thursday, Maryland joined seven other states that, along with the District, have legalized gay marriage . A crowd of supporters descended on Annapolis for a scheduled 5 p.m. ceremony at the State House and erupted into sustained applause after O’Malley signed the bill. Read full article > >

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Md. becomes eighth state to legalize gay marriage

MEXICO CITY — The worst prison riot in Mexico in years was not really a riot. It was mass murder. Mexican officials said Monday that it appears all of the 44 inmates stabbed and beaten to death at a state prison in northern Mexico on Sunday were members of the same crime syndicate, known as the Gulf Cartel. Read full article > >

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A massacre at Mexican prison, then an escape

U.S. and European officials on Friday cautiously welcomed a 200-word letter from Iran proposing talks about its nuclear program, a request that appeared to spark a flicker of hope for resuming long-stalled diplomatic engagement with Iranian leaders. Read full article > >

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U.S., Europeans welcome Iranian proposal for new nuclear talks

LAS VEGAS — After a likely second-place finish in the Nevada caucuses Saturday, former House speaker Newt Gingrich sought to dispel the idea that he might drop out of the Republican presidential nomination any time soon, promising a hotel ballroom filled with reporters that he will fight on to the convention in the summer. Read full article > >

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Gingrich vows to fight on to the convention

The retired accounting professor who runs the city council of the Libyan rebel capital wants you to know: “There is good news in Benghazi!” Just ignore the smell. “Electricity, benzene, water, gas — all okay. No rockets, no fighting — all okay. Sewage? Big headache. But all in all, we are amazed,” said Saad Elferjani, who compared his city — in the most favorable way possible — to a roach motel. “You remember the advertisement?” he said. “ ‘You can check in, but you can’t check out.’ That is us.” Read full article > >

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Benghazi doing better than Tripoli, rebels say

Federal authorities are using words uttered by the co-founder of a radical Islamic group to charge him with threats against the creators of “South Park.”

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Radical charged in ‘South Park’ case

Are you a disaffected journalist, wary of conventional media companies and worn down from the perpetual limbo of freelancing? Facebook may have just the job for you. The social network recently announced the new position of  Journalist Program Manager  on their media partnerships team, whose role will be to “utilize both partnership and program management skills to help journalists understand the value of using Facebook, get started, and use it effectively over time.” The current listed responsibilities of the job include: Lead development of strategic programs and projects which help journalists use Facebook progressively as a reporting and distribution tool  Identify and document best practices for journalists, including creating content and case studies  Speak at industry conferences and partner events related to journalism and social media Counsel individual journalists on how to use Facebook  Provide hands on leadership of cross-functional projects to engage journalists in conjunction with the partnership and marketing teams  Serve as an advocate for journalists within Facebook, and identify new product and partnership opportunities  Develop relationships with key industry and academic institutions with journalism programs The new position seems fairly blase on the surface, but it represents more than an organizational reshuffling. Facebook has been working closely with media companies since the launch of their  Facebook + Media  program last summer, helping brands leverage the social network’s massive sharing infrastructure to spur growth in audience and traffic, increase engagement and gain valuable customer insights. As I wrote in December, Facebook is in the business of  media infrastructure : the company has managed to build a system highly attractive to advertisers and marketers without producing original content itself. Other “Internet portals” like Yahoo and AOL (and  even Google ) have experimented with producing their own media, but Facebook has been happy to stay out of the content game. Instead of simply providing services to larger media companies, Facebook is now retooling to assist individual journalists as a reporting tool. “Last summer we announced new efforts focused on helping media organizations make their products more social,” said Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s manager of public policy communications and a former journalist himself. “In addition to working with media organizations, we’re also committed to working with journalists to provide them with the platform they need to engage with their readers and advance their stories through social tools. Journalists have always listened to the people in their communities and brought together their collective voice by telling their stories. Facebook makes it possible to bring this practice online, and make it faster, more accessible and more efficient.” Facebook isn’t looking to change the way journalists operate, but build on the current convergence of social media and reporting. “We’ve already seen amazing examples of how Facebook can be used in the reporting process from the  Basetrack photographers  and  Ian Shapira ‘s Washington Post story, ‘A mother’s joy and a family’s sorrow,’ and in engaging with readers from NPR’s  Andy Carvin  and the New York Times ‘  Nicholas Kristof ,” Noyes said. “We’re only just beginning to see what’s possible with social journalism, as innovative reporters are telling stories and reaching their audiences through Facebook Platform (apps, plugins, open graph, login) and Facebook products and features (Pages and status updates).” In light of the role Facebook and Twitter played as essential reporting tools amid the unrest in the Middle East, Facebook’s journo-centric approach may prove a serious boom for conflict reporters and beyond. The deal will benefit Facebook, too: if the familiar trope of “the medium is the message” remains true (and, like most cliches, it does), Facebook will be able to establish itself as a crucial component of narrative journalism without having to produce a single scrap of original content.

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Facebook Adds Reporting Tools, Seeks Journalist Program Manager

Since the 1969 coup that overthrew the unpopular pro-Western monarchy of King Idris, Libya has been ruled by Col. Muammar Gaddafi (also spelled Qaddafi, Gadhafi, Khaddafi and other transliterations). Though long considered emotionally unstable, he was also considered politically stable, destined to maintain his iron grip on the country until he died a natural death. Now, even as he unleashes extreme and sometimes lethal violence against the growing pro-democracy uprising,

Sarah Palin has called the post-Tucson campaign of vilification against her and her fellow travelers a “blood libel.” On the one hand, this is unfortunate, as Jonah Goldberg points out , because it threatens to redefine the phrase, plus, what is happening to her is not precisely the byproduct of a blood libel. On the other hand, Sarah Palin  is such an important political and cultural figure that her use of the term “blood libel” should introduce this very important historical phenomenon to a wide audience, and the ensuing discussion — about how Fox News is not actually Mendel Beilis — will serve to enlighten and inform. It is a moral necessity, I think, for Christians to understand the blood libel (Muslims, too — see the Damascus Blood Libel of 1840 ), not only because it is part of their history, but because the blood libel still has modern ramifications — Israel, after all, was founded as a reaction to Christian hatred, of which the blood libel was an obvious and murderous manifestation. I mean it sincerely when I say I hope Sarah Palin, who regularly expresses love for Jews and Israel, takes the time to learn about the history of the blood libel, and shares what she has learned with her many admirers.

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Why Sarah Palin’s Use of ‘Blood Libel’ Is a Great Thing

The very last roll of Kodachrome film will be delivered today in Parsons, Kansas. Kodak has slowly phased out the materials needed to make and develop the film. Only a single operation in the world — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons — had continued to develop Kodachrome. First introduced in 1935, the death of the film stock has generated an outpouring of emotion from several generations of photographers, for whom the particular hues generated by Kodachrome define the look of midcentury America. As much as I love digital cameras and tools that allow you to mimic the old film stocks like Hipstamatic and Instagram , there is just something special about the way Kodachrome captures light. To remind you of what these photos look like, we’ve assembled a gallery of the best Kodachrome photographs we could find. To point out that Kodachrome could be used for motion pictures, too, we’ve included a promotional film from the Florida State Archives above. (It’s amazing.) And if I can be permitted one moment of philosophizing before you click through all the beautiful pictures, it’s worth reflecting that it took 75 years for the first successful color film to actually exit the market. On the rare occasions when technologies actually die, they go slowly and leave much behind. Update: This article originally stated that the last roll of Kodachrome would be developed today — as per Dwayne’s site — but Erin McCann pointed out that it actually takes some time to develop the rolls, and they were still taking deliveries today. So it may be a few days yet before the machines are turned off. Please use a JavaScript-enabled device to view this slideshow

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Gallery: Kodachrome Is Dead, Long Live Kodachrome

Canongate has refused to confirm this story, but several outlets have picked up on it since yesterday afternoon: Everyone’s favorite WikiLeaker — and alleged rapist — Julian Assange, has sold his memoirs. It’s expected that they will be published sometime in 2011, with a first draft from Assange due to his editor by March. Canongate publisher Jamie Byng confirmed the news to DailyFinance by email, adding that the U.K. publisher was handling all translation rights. (A spokesperson for Knopf was on vacation and didn’t return request for comment.) Caroline Michel of the U.K.-based literary agency Fraser, Peters & Dunlop brokered the English-language book deals, and both publishers expect Assange to deliver a finished manuscript by March, with plans to publish later in 2011. Interest in Assange is at fever pitch since WikiLeaks began disseminating more than 250,000 diplomatic cables in late November. Companies such as Visa ( V ), Amazon ( AMZN ) and PayPal have cut off the organization’s ability to collect donations and existing funds, and Time magazine passed over Assange for Person of the Year, giving Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg the honor. As a result, a memoir from Assange is a logical step, since the book will have great interest for his many admirers — and just as many detractors. Read the full story at the AOL’s DailyFinance .

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Julian Assange: The Memoirs