NPR gets $1.8 million to put reporters in statehouses nationwide

NPR will develop a statehouse enterprise reporting project with a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, the New York Times reported on Oct. 17. The initative, called Impact of Government, aims to add at least 100 journalists at NPR member stations in every state over the next three years beginning with an eight-state pilot in March 2011. NPR and the stations hope to raise about $17 million to expand the program, and between $18 million and $19 million annually to sustain it.

Hair, glorious Muppet hair!

"I just watched a Sesame Street video that left me in tears. Tears of joy, that is," writes Huffington Post blogger Michele Langevine Leiby. What thrilled her so is an adorable little musical number featuring a African American girl singing, "I love my hair, I really love my hair!" "How many adult African American women will shed a tear of joy, as I did," Leiby says, "remembering a very different world where Saturday mornings were spent fidgeting on a kitchen chair in mortal dread of the pressing comb and black hair, rather than a crowning glory, was a burden to be fried, dyed and laid to the side post-haste. Hats off to Sesame Street for making the world of little black girls just a little bit more positive." As one commenter noted, "I never met a Muppet I didn't like."