State officials still plan to open a cafe to the Cultural Center on the Capitol grounds, amid lingering objections that food will attract pests that threaten the building's invaluable archives trove.
The Associated Press attended a Senate committee meeting Monday where Culture and History Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith made a case for adding both a cafe and a gift shop to the 1970s-era building.
Reid-Smith offered several examples where food and rare materials co-exist, including the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., and the Boston Public Library.
He also showed the committee an artist's sketch of the Cultural Center's original design, which had included an atrium Reid-Smith offered as an option for a cafe/gift shop.
(When asked to show the sketch to the sizable audience behind him in the committee room, Reid-Smith flashed it briefly. The committee chairman told Reid-Smith to "be nice" and show it to them again. With his back turned to the audience, the commissioner held it up over his head. Someone next to me turned to others in the audience and said, "See, I told you he was an asshole.")
The possibly related firing of longtime Archives and History Director Fred Armstrong was not discussed at the meeting. MetroNews, The Charleston Gazette and Public Broadcasting (with audio link) have coverage as well.
15 January 2008
Bringing Food to W.Va.'s Cultural Center
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5 comments:
LMAO
I heard the story on WVPB this morning and thought "wow, his voice sounds just like (Jack McBrayer's) Kenneth on "30 Rock."
The "asshole" comment in this posting is gratuitous. Why?
It is not gratuitous. I wish we were more enlightened with the tone of these proceedings. Smith is a joke and I hope they laugh him out of state government.
I love this blog.
LOVE IT.
It's gratuitous because, one could argue, the same sort of remark is made at most hearings by someone about some one, but -- phil kabler has been an example of this on several occasions -- reid-smith is singled out for reporting such a remark because, as kabler said, he is "flamboyant." The cultural center archive library is more and more a dead zone, mostly due to the internet, and the center definitely needs a cafe and shop to be a viable attraction. fred armstrong was also fairly apparently organizing a rather small but vocal group of people to stop a quite sensible decision that had been made by his superiors. change is painful, and people look at the world through their own experience and interests. it's convenient to point to a man's "out" personal traits, that some find upsetting, as part of opposing his work. the "asshole" remark stills seems to be gratuitous, and irrelevant. but that's journalism, judgment is involved, i was not there. i value this blog, too.
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