In designing our third photo contest, we decided to suggest - but not require - a spring theme. While it wasn't a criterion in our judging, several of the winners did indeed follow our advice - most clearly seen in Linda Ortiz's second-place-winning photograph in the "people" category, showing a young girl in field rich with green and accented by violet and a small dab of yellow.
• Fantômas, the enigmatic band helmed by Mike Patton of Faith No More, is taking a new direction this Tuesday with the release of Suspended Animation on Ipecac Records. While the collective has previously noodled in science-fiction fancies, the new CD is described as a lavishly designed project that dallies in all the sound effects and manic energy of cartoon music.
She'd give him a real run for his money. Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka has a new poll that shows her trailing Governor Rod Blagojevich by just three points in a head-to-head matchup. Using just about any test, the numbers are real.
• Rounder Records has just re-issued a lost gem from 1972, Mountain Moving Day, by the Chicago & New Haven Women's Liberation Rock Bands. Now re-mastered under the title Papa Don't Lay That **** on Me, the CD features six previously unreleased tracks and two bonus songs by modern rockers Le Tigre.
Editor's note: This is the debut of a new feature in the River Cities' Reader highlighting news, events, and other information about local libraries. • In celebration of William Shakespeare's birthday, the Rock Island Public Library will present "A Whole Lotta Shakespeare Going On," hosting many Shakespeare-related activities for the culture hound.
• Two "masters of darkness" have picked this coming Tuesday to go head-to-head with new CD box sets. The Ozzman cometh with Ozzy Osbourne's long-awaited four-CD box set, Prince of Darkness, packed with rarities and newly recorded cover selections.
• Bridgepoint Education, a higher-education company based in Poway, California, has announced that it is acquiring The Franciscan University of the Prairies of Clinton, Iowa. The agreement, which is expected to close by mid-March, has been approved by the university's board of trustees and Bridgepoint's board of directors.
Under Iowa law, a city's comprehensive plan - meant to be a community's primary planning document, particularly as it relates to land use - has virtually no teeth. Because of that, members of the City of Davenport's "design center" are working to make the city's overarching planning document as user-friendly as possible.
• Officials from the Davenport Community Schools will hold a series of "State of Our Schools" sessions in the upcoming weeks to provide information on the district's new Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (or CSIP) and the district's current advocacy positions for this year's legislative session.
• This Tuesday R.E.M.'s catalogue gets the sweet reissue treatment as eight albums - Out of Time, Green, Automatic for the People, Monster, Up, Reveal, Around the Sun, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi - are upgraded and expanded with bonus tracks.

Pages