“The Pirates won 7.6 per cent of the vote in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most popular state, according to initial estimates, enough for 18 seats in parliament. The Pirates have now won representation in four German states and seem destined to enter Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, in national elections next year.
The Pirates’ platform includes calls a major reform of copyright legislation, as well as demanding free Internet access for all citizens and a minimum income law.”
Month: May 2012
How The World’s Top Stradivarius Dealer Went Bad
Deitmar “Machold was the Stradivarius man. There are still about 600 violins, 60 cellos and 12 violas from the famous workshop in Cremona, Italy in existence today, and Machold has held about half of these instruments in his hands. His reputation was so stellar that he was permitted to prepare the appraisals himself for the two Stradivarius instruments given to the Bremen bank as collateral, and he has also appeared in court as an expert witness.”
Do Cultural Boycotts Work?
“Whatever about calls for divestment or economic sanctions and protests such as refusing to buy produce grown in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the notion of a cultural or academic boycott leaves many, including some sympathetic to the Palestinians’ plight, conflicted or uneasy.”
Study: Support For Public Arts Funding Slips In UK
“ACE’s Stakeholder Focus Research reveals that 44% of the general public support government subsidy of the arts, down from 52% when the research was last carried out in 2009. Only 12% strongly support it – down from 16% in 2009 – while 19% of the population oppose it – up from 14% in 2009 – and 7% strongly oppose it, up from 5%.”
The Art Market’s Irrational Exuberance
“No one can doubt that those who run after art operate as if they were living on a different planet. This outburst of hubristic buying occurred less than a week after Sotheby’s registered its highest score ever, $330 million, in a sale of Impressionist and modern art.”
Why The Traditional TV Is Losing Out To Other Options
“When it comes to the traditional screen that families gather around, live television is competing against a growing array of self-selected content. Given the amount of high-quality shows idling in my DVR and on-demand queue, channel surfing for live television seems very last century.”
The Second Time Around – Why It’s Good To Revisit Theatre You Know
“The relationship between any work of art and its perceiver is mutable. (Every time I reread “Anna Karenina” or “David Copperfield,” I feel differently about the title character.) But that of theater and the theatergoer is especially fluid. Unlike books or paintings or movies, works of theater are not fixed creations.”
Is Student Debt The Next Bubble?
“With more than $1 trillion in student loans outstanding in this country, crippling debt is no longer confined to dropouts from for-profit colleges or graduate students who owe on many years of education, some of the overextended debtors in years past. Now nearly everyone pursuing a bachelor’s degree is borrowing.”
Punch And Judy Turn 350 Amid Raucous Crowd Of Puppeteers
“Punch and Judy men and women – known as ‘professors’ – took their hand puppets on a procession in London’s Covent Garden, staged shows for hundreds of children and held a church service with the red-nosed Mr Punch in the pulpit.”
Founder Of StoryCorps Remembers Studs Terkel, Extraordinary Historian Of Ordinary People
“When Studs was 91½, he took time to fly to New York City to cut the ribbon on our first StoryCorps Booth in Grand Central Terminal. At the opening, Studs proclaimed, ‘We know who the architect of Grand Central was, but who laid these floors? Who built these walls? These are the voices you must celebrate through StoryCorps!'”