AN UNPUBLISHED Charlotte Bronte manuscript has sold for a record 690,850 pounds ($1.09 million) at auction. The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2, was written when Charlotte was 14 and is set in Glass Town, the earliest fictional world created by the Bronte siblings. Sotheby's had estimated it would sell for between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds at the English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustrations sale overnight. But the manuscript sold for more than double the top estimate, setting new auction records for a manuscript by Charlotte Bronte and for a literary work by any of the Bronte sisters. The book contains more than 4000 words on 19 pages, each measuring about 35mm by 61mm. It is dated August 1830 - 17 years before Bronte wrote Jane Eyre - and is said to have never before been seen by scholars. See picture at: http://www.news.com.au/news/bronte-book-fetches-more-than-1m/story-fn7djq9o-1226223521780

In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said December 16 that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories. The move would allow significant variations in benefits from state to state, much like the current differences in state Medicaid programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/health/policy/health-care-law-to-allow-states-to-pick-benefits.html

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 13 adopted a Report and Order that implements the 2010 Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (the CALM Act), in which Congress gave the Commission, for the first time, authority to address the problem of excessive commercial loudness. The rules require that commercials have the same average volume as the programs they accompany. The rules also establish simple, practical ways for stations and MVPDs to demonstrate their compliance with the rules. As the CALM Act requires, the rules will become effective one year after the date of their adoption, or December 13, 2012. For further information, contact Lyle Elder (202-418-2120; lyle.elder@fcc.gov). http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-rules-restricting-loud-commercials

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them. It is also used in scholarly and historical musical contexts to refer to dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term originated from the early 19th-century French word mélodrame, which is derived from Greek melos, music, and French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma, which in turn derives from Greek drān, to do, perform). An alternative English spelling, now obsolete, is "melodrame". Beginning in the 18th century, melodrama was a technique of combining spoken recitation with short pieces of accompanying music. In such works, music and spoken dialog typically alternated, although the music was sometimes also used to accompany pantomime. The earliest known examples are scenes in J. E. Eberlin's Latin school play Sigismundus (1753). The first full melodrama was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion, the text of which was written in 1762 but was first staged in Lyon in 1770. The overture and an Andante were composed by Rousseau, but the bulk of the music was composed by Horace Coignet. A different musical setting of Rousseau's Pygmalion by Anton Schweitzer was performed in Weimar in 1772, and Goethe wrote of it approvingly in Dichtung und Wahrheit. Pygmalion is a monodrama, written for one actor. Some 30 other monodramas were produced in Germany in the fourth quarter of the 18th century. When two actors are involved the term duodrama may be used. Georg Benda was particularly successful with his duodramas Ariadne auf Naxos (1775) and Medea (1778). The sensational success of Benda's melodramas led Mozart to use two long melodramatic monologues in his opera Zaide (1780). Other later, and better-known examples of the melodramatic style in operas are the grave-digging scene in Beethoven's Fidelio (1805) and the incantation scene in Weber's Der Freischütz (1821). See other examples, including Perils of Pauline and Sweeney Todd at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama

The Roots of Dickens's Christmas Books and Plays in Early Nineteenth-Century Melodrama and Pantomime
"One cannot properly appreciate the psychological realism as well as the theatrical qualities of the Christmas Books of Charles Dickens until one places these five novellas and their dramatic progeny in the context of the Hungry Forties and early Victorian drama. The central message of these seasonal productions, that the hope of the world lies in the reformation of the individual human heart and in the social reintegration of the deviate, is consistent with both the drama and the problems of the period prior to the repeal of the Corn Laws and the expiration of Chartism. Then, too, this was the age of the minor playhouses and new periodicals, innovations that indicate a cultural broadening and a new awareness of the importance of entertainment, information, and moral guidance for the middle and working classes." From the appearance of the initial serial numbers of Pickwick onward, Dickens had found himself plagiarized by dramatic adapters, and powerless to strike back since British copyright law did not protect novelists or guarantee them any financial compensation for use of their work on stage. Logically, if Dickens, in need of ready money, could not beat the pirates in court, he could derive some profit from allying himself with one of their number. Robertson Davies in the sixth volume of The Revels History of Drama in English tersely notes the essential principles of Edward Stirling and the other adapters who tackled A Christmas Carol in January, 1844: where in the original "dramatic incident was strong it was exaggerated; eccentric characters, where they existed, were made occasions for shows of professional skill" (241). With the various adaptations of the five Christmas Books, however, there were the additional characteristics of spectacular stage effects, traditional Pantomime characters, and the inclusion of as much dialogue as possible from the original novellas. In particular, the dramatist sought ingenious ways of retaining the "original" and humorous observations of the Dickensian Christmas Book narrator, even if doing so materially altered the nature of some of the story's characters. Find much more on melodrama at: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva56.html

New York City police clashed with protesters and arrested 49, some in religious garb, after they broke into a private park in Manhattan December 17. Occupy Wall Street protesters, who were evicted from their Lower Manhattan encampment last month, were marking the movement’s three-month anniversary by attempting to claim a second New York City park. They ripped holes in a fence around the park and used ladders to climb over it. Paul Browne, a spokesman for NYPD, confirmed the arrests in an e-mail. Protesters had gathered for speeches, live music and performances in Duarte Square Park in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood. Part of the half-block parcel is city-owned public land, while the other portion belongs to Trinity Wall Street, a nonprofit religious organization and one of the city’s largest real estate holders. One of the first to enter the park by ladder was Episcopal Bishop George Packard, dressed in purple cassock with collar, who’s been a public supporter of OWS, said Dan Shockley, a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild who was at the scene. Ben Meyers, a staffer at the National Lawyers Guild office, confirmed that Packard was among those arrested. Duarte Square’s eastern edge is public parkland while an adjacent larger, fenced-in area is owned by Trinity. Occupiers haven’t been granted permission to enter the space by either Trinity or the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to which the area is currently licensed for an art installation that’s closed for the season, said Lloyd Kaplan, a spokesman for Trinity. In a Dec. 9 statement, Reverend James H. Cooper said Trinity has “probably done as much or more for the protesters than any other institution in the area.” It’s provided Occupy members with meeting rooms, pastoral services and spaces to rest, charge mobile phones and computers, and use bathrooms, he said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-18/nyc-police-arrest-49-protesters-in-duarte-square-park.html

The notebooks in which Sir Isaac Newton worked out the theories on which much classical science is based have been put online by Cambridge University. More than 4,000 pages have been scanned, including his annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, containing Newton's laws of motion and gravity. Newton wrote mainly in Latin and Greek, the scientific language of his time, and was reluctant to publish. The university plans to put almost all of its Newton collection online. The papers mark the launch of the Cambridge Digital Library project to digitise its collections. As well as Principia and Newton's college notebooks, the Newton Papers section of the online library contains his "Waste Book". The large notebook was inherited from his stepfather, and scholars believe it helped Newton to make significant breakthroughs in the field of calculus. A further 8,000 pages of Newton's works are to be added over the next few months. Other works which will become part of the digital library include the university's Charles Darwin collection. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-16141723