museum

Coal Museum Powered by Solar Panels

- Adam Clare

solar

If the end of coal wasn’t obviously upon us, it is now. The Kentucky Coal Museum has switched to solar power for energy and cost savings. Yes, in what might be a wonderful display of irony, the museum centred on celebrating the region’s coal culture has switched to a green energy source.

“It’s a little ironic or coincidental that you are putting solar green energy on a coal museum,” said Roger Noe, a former state representative who sponsored the legislation that created the coal museum. “Coal comes from nature, the sun rays come from nature so it all works out to be a positive thing.”

The museum is in Benham, once a coal camp town whose population peaked at about 3,000, according to 85-year-old Mayor Wanda Humphrey. Today, it has about 500 people, and Humphrey says she is the mayor because no one else wants the job.
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“The people here are sort of in awe of this solar thing,” Humphrey said.

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From Mafia Home to Art Gallery

- Adam Clare

Italy is home to the oldest operating museum, the Uffizi, and the country is (probably) home to the oldest operating mafia. But it may come as a bit of a surprise to find out that an old mafia home is being converted to a new museum.

In an ongoing and complicated effort to stop the influence of the mafia on Italian society a former mafia mansion seized by the police is being converted to an art gallery. This is not the first time that old property belonging to mafia crime lords has been converted to something that benefits all people.

Today, construction crews are busy turning the Coppola residence – seized by the Italian state following his arrest in 2012 – into the area’s first museum.

A temporary exhibit called The Light Wins Over the Shadow, which takes its inspiration from Caravaggio, will open on 22 June and will include works of art from the Uffizi and other galleries. The exhibit will be dedicated to the memory of Peppe Diana, a local priest who was shot in the head by Camorra members in 1994 as he prepared for mass.

“Only through the promotion of civil society can we build a community that will always be ready to protect itself from this kind of infiltration,” Natale told the Guardian, as he participated in a memorial ceremony in nearby Castel Volturno for a local businessman killed seven years ago for resisting the Camorra.

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Get Cultured for a Happier Life

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

People who play an instrument, go to museums, or are otherwise involved in culture are happier than those who don’t according to a new study. This is great news for people who want to feel happier or generally improve your life because all you have to do is essentially go and be entertained!

Researchers led by Koenraad Cuypers of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analysed information culled from 50,797 adults living in Norway’s Nord-Trondelag County.

The participants were asked detailed questions about their leisure habits and how they perceived their own state of health, satisfaction with life and levels of depression and anxiety.

The results were unambiguous and somewhat unexpected: not only was the correlation strong between cultural activities and happiness, but men felt better when they were spectators while women clearly preferred doing rather than watching.

Even more surprising was that wealth and education were not an issue.

Read the full article at MNN.

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