Watercooler Stories

Museum offers touchable art for the blind

CHICAGO, April 21 (UPI) -- The Art Institute of Chicago Thursday opened an exhibit of highly detailed plastic replicas of classic paintings that the blind can feel.

For years, the institute has had a Touch Gallery of sculptures for the blind but now has re-created 12 pieces of its art on portable, machine-etched plastic called TacTiles.

The 8-inch-by-10-inch boards replicate in relief the brush strokes of such masters as Renoir and Miro, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

On the replica of a Japanese screen by Tosa Mitsuoki, "Flowering Cherry with Poem Slips," the bumps of the tree blossoms can be sensed. The relief of fine vines can be felt on the TacTile "Trompe-L'Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain."

While the blind cannot see colors, Braille plaques beside each work describe the work's use of color, the report said.

Siberians use Stalin as tourism hook

MOSCOW, April 21 (UPI) -- In a bid to lure tourists to a remote Siberian region, officials have embarked on rebuilding a museum dedicated to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The Krasnoyarsk region had a "Pantheon of Stalin" and a life-size bronze statue of Stalin, but the museum was shut down in 1961, eight years after Stalin died. In the late 1980s, the statue was toppled into a river when Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or openness, began to take effect, The Independent's Moscow correspondent reported.

Yevgeny Pashenko, an aide to the regional governor, said the project should be completed in time for next year's tourist season, and said there should be no fear of a resurgence in Stalin-style politics.

"It is a purely commercial project to attract tourists and there are no politics behind it," he said.

Japanese soldier goes home 63 years later

TOKYO, April 21 (UPI) -- A World War II Japanese soldier returned to Japan Thursday, 63 years after being sent off to fight in eastern Russia and ending up living in Ukraine.

Ishinosuke Uwano, 83, arrived in Tokyo and headed to his hometown of Hirono, 300 miles north, to reunite with the family who still remembers him, The Independent reported.

In 2000, Uwano's family gave up hope of finding him and had him officially declared dead.

But it turns out he ended the war on Sakhalin Island, which was eventually annexed by the Soviet Union and he moved to Ukraine. He married a local woman and had three children, and his eldest son accompanied him to Japan.

Uwano was mobbed by reporters when he arrived in Tokyo, and carefully chose his words.

"I haven't spoken Japanese in 60 years, and first of all I would like to say konnichiwa (hello)," he said.

Beggars get a hearing in China

NANJING, China, April 21 (UPI) -- A civic affairs bureau in China has taken a step forward for the proletariat's cause by seeking legal redress for two beggars killed in traffic accidents.

A lawsuit filed by the Gaochun Civil Affairs Bureau in Nanjing is the first such in China against car drivers, reports the official Xinhua news agency.

The suit had its first hearing Thursday in a People's Court. The two beggars, both around 60 years old, died in traffic accidents in 2004 and 2005.

The civic affairs bureau conducted their funerals as no relatives came forward to demand compensation, and later decided to file the lawsuit on its own, seeking a total of about $3,750 from the accused drivers.

"We consider it an obligation for us to demand civil compensation for these unlucky men killed accidentally, although the regulation doesn't clearly designate this type of situation," said a bureau official. "If we don't sue, the troublemakers will go unpunished in a legal vacuum."

The defendants say they will only compensate the true relatives of the two victims.