Free Republic

Bright Sheng is a professor of composition at the University of Michigan. He was born in China in 1955; when he was a child, the Red Guards took away his family piano. Nevertheless, he grew up to become a widely celebrated musician: He received a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship in 2001, and has twice been a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in music. His undergraduate students should certainly count themselves lucky to be able to learn from him. Instead, they are demanding the university fire him for rendering the classroom an unsafe space. The administration is looking into the matter, and...

Would Lord Laurence Olivier have made a better Don Vito Corleone than Marlon Brando in The Godfatherc? Coppola's casting choices were unpopular with studio executives at Paramount Pictures, particularly Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. Coppola's first two choices for the role were both Brando and Laurence Olivier, but Olivier's agent refused the role, saying, "Lord Olivier is not taking any jobs. He's very sick. He's gonna die soon and he's not interested" (Olivier lived 18 years after the refusal)... Source

Just in time for the Oscar’s, Chris Dodd makes his bid for Best Actor in a Corrupt Role . . . On this weekend’s Journal Editorial Report on FNC, host Paul Gigot interviewed Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, who has been closely following the story of the sweetheart deal Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, received from Countrywide Financial under the “Friends of Angelo” program, a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. The segment opened with a clip of Dodd speaking with reporters at a recent meeting at which he made available a carefully selected set of papers...