Word: smithsonian
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...folks at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History have come to the wise conclusion that "all of the above" is the worst possible answer. In an admirably focused and thoughtful new exhibit, "American Television: From the Fair to the Family, 1939-89," running until next April, the museum shies away from a nostalgic, you-must-remember- this approach. Imagine a survey of TV history with no mention of Milton Berle, Edward R. Murrow or the Kennedy-Nixon debates...
Introduced at the end of a decade of economic hardship, TV was touted early on as a creator of jobs as much as a purveyor of entertainment. The centerpiece of the Smithsonian's exhibit is a display of old TV sets -- clunky wooden boxes with tiny, anemic-looking screens. But perhaps more significant is a selection of print advertisements that tried to sell Americans on this strange new gizmo...
...gotten smaller and the Smithsonian has gotten bigger" since the merging of the two, said Huchra. "If [the Smithsonian] weren't here, there'd only be about eight people...
...great thing that will make enormous progress for astronomy," says Professor Emeritus Fred L. Whipple, former director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA). The ST would gain the additional range because its view would be free of obscuring, human-produced light and atmospheric pollution, Whipple said...
Closer to home, the CFA has proposed building a $20 million, four-meter telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. "Harvard has been dragging its feet," however, content to rely on the Smithsonian-owned observing facilities, says Geller. The new telescope would cost two-thirds of the center's annual operating budget...