Free Museums

While I have mixed feelings about promoting my bank, I am excited to take advantage of Bank of America’s “Museums on Us” program, which allows me and a guest to go to a handful of museums — free of charge — in the Bay area during the month of May.

San Quentin, I Hate Every Inch of You

From The Roundup:

Legislators learned by accident this week that construction of the [new San Quentin execution] chamber was well underway when a couple of legislative policy analysts visited the prison for research and happened upon the new facility,” write Evan Halper and Jordan Rau in the Times.

“‘It is an insult to the Legislature. It is an insult to the public,’ Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said. ‘It really is outrageous what they have done.’”

“Administration officials say that they did everything by the book. Legislative approval, they note, is required for projects costing $400,000. The administration priced the new chamber at $399,000.”

Funny, we at the Roundup have never been able to build a death chamber with less than 401,000. Guess we’ve been overpaying for ours…

Free hugs

Having found myself listening to — and reeling from — NPR’s coverage of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech, I got the odd bit of comfort from the following video coverage of Juan Mann’s “Free Hugs” campaign.

(Via the good folks at TechPresident.)

Design of the Times

Annie Leibovitz photographs the construction of the dynamic New York Times Building.

If a Note Falls in the Forest Dept.

Gene Weingarten  and  Joshua Bell explore the topic of unappreciated genius in L’Enfant Plaza. (Via ALDaily.)