Lick These Links: U.A.E. Workers' Rights, Tentative Fisk-O'Keeffe Settlement, Rudy Giuliani's Night Job, Guggenheim's Interim Director UPDATED

In case you had any doubts about human-rights abuses of construction workers in the United Arab Emirates, where the Guggenheim and the Louvre plan to build major new facilities, read this front-page article from yesterday's NY Times.

Jonathan Marx reports in today's Tennessean [via] that Fisk University has agreed to hand over its O'Keeffe "Radiator Building" to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe for the bargain price of $7.5 million. Fisk can borrow the painting for four months every four years, and stands to get half of the proceeds over $7.5 million if the O'Keeffe Museum sells the painting within 20 years. Read the readers' comments at the end of the story, which seem wiser that the actions of university's admininstration. Now it's up to Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle and my man, Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper, to nix this ditzy deal. Come on, Coop, don't let me down!

UPDATE: Thanks to the Art Law Blog for a link to the actual settlement agreement between Fisk and the O'Keeffe. (Also note correction, above: Fisk would be able to borrow "Radiator Building" every FOUR years, not every year. What a deal!)

Rudy Giuliani's war platform (or, rather, "War Requiem" podium). We knew this Republican Presidential candidate enjoyed classical vocal music, but we thought this tastes ran more towards Verdi than Benjamin Britten!

NY Times report on the Guggenheim Museum's appointment of Marc Steglitz as interim director....Oops, there is no article from the NY Times culture writers for that important artworld story, which CultureGrrl brought you yesterday. The only mainstream media report that I could find was this from the Associated Press, which just caught up with the week-old fact of Lisa Dennison's resignation, but also mentioned the latest news of the dicey Steglitz appointment.

Hello??? Anyone there on the NY Times culture desk? I expect they'll get back from the beach tomorrow.

UPDATE: At least The Chronicle of Philanthropy has now given wider exposure to my Guggenheim story.