NEWS: Picasso Paintings Stolen

A bit of interesting news flashed on my RSS feed on my personalized Yahoo! page and made me look twice. Here's the gist of the story:

Two of Picasso's paintings totaling about $66 million were stolen from his granddaughter's home in Paris. According to the police, her home was broken into Monday night and the robbery was reported the following day. The two paintings were known as "Maya and the Doll," which was an interpretation of his daughter as a child, and "Portrait of Jacqueline," which was of his last wife. There are currently 549 missing Picasso pieces-- a large number due to his fame and popularity. Stolen Picasso pieces usually do not sell for much, or very often, because potential buyers are usually wise to the well-known stature of the art.

For the whole story, visit Yahoo! News at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_en_ot/france_picasso_theft

Career Center Workshops

George Mason's Career Center will be offering several workshops for the week of February 26, 2007. The eight available workshops include: information on how to find jobs and internships, a question-answer session called "Ask the Employer," information on jobs in Education, an Accounting Career Panel discussion, international internships, advice and practice for qualifying exams, information on an Annenberg Apprenticeship program at "The National Interest," and an explanation of the On Campus Interviewing program. For dates and times of these workshops and other resources from the Career Center, visit their website at http://careers.gmu.edu or e-mail at mailto:careerhp@gmu.edu.

Backfence.com

Backfence.com is a great resource to find out what's going on in your city or town. Unlike traditional news sites, this one is primarily written by community members rather than professional journalists. This allows audiences to be directly interactive about events and news in their areas instead of learning information from professionals who might not know the community that well. Backfence.com was created by Mark Potts, a former journalist from the Washington Post. Several cities in Virginia have their own backfence sites, check out http://www.backfence.com to see if your community is involved.

Indoor Ice Rink at GMU

The Mason Gazette announced that GMU's Homecoming Committee created an indoor ice skating rink in the Johnson Center's Dewberry Hall in honor of the Homecoming festivities. The rink is made up of synthetic ice panels called EZ-Glide, and students can rent ice skates if they don't have their own. The rink opened Wednesday, February 14 and will operate until the evening of Saturday, February 18.

For more information about ice skating rink hours, visit the full article in the Mason Gazette:

http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/9725/

Passport Fair

There is a Passport Fair at the Johnson Center Room 116 today from 9am-3pm. Students who plan to go out of the country for Spring Break should consider attending, since a new law has passed that requires all U.S. citizens to have a passport in order to travel in and out of the country. The Fair is sponsored by the U.S. Post Office, and they will be taking passport photos for a $15 fee. For people 16 & over, the total fee is $97. For people under 16, the total fee is $82. The Passport Fair is open to all people, not just students. For more information on the required documentation needed, check out the flyer:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/cge/PDF/Passport%20Fair%20Flyer.pdf

Claude Salhani

Today in my COMM 351 class (Writing for the Mass Media), UPI International Editor Claude Salhani spoke about his experiences as a journalist in the Middle East. He shared some really interesting stories about how he took risks as a photographer and journalist in order to get information. He has covered events in the Middle East for 30 years, and spent half of that time living in the areas he wrote about. He is an accomplished writer, reporter, editor, and photographer. He really demonstrated a passion for his work, and said "There is no greater job in the world than a journalist."

Check out Claude Salhani's Blog:

http://www.claudesalhani.blogspot.com/