Author: Douglas McLennan

Call For More Transparency In Choosing Public Art

“There is a cultural revolution happening in the United States, and people are realizing that they have the power to be more engaged with how public art is decided,” explained Patricia Walsh, who helps run the Public Art Network, a membership group of more than a thousand public art professionals organized by the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. “Best practices need to be reinvented to become more equitable and diverse.” – ARTnews

Journalist Sues Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes)

Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian journalist living in Los Angeles, filed a complaint Monday in California federal court alleging that the HFPA has adopted membership rules that exclude qualified applicants who compete with existing members. The suit alleges that applicants must pledge not to write for any rival publication claimed by an HFPA member and that foreign markets are allocated among the membership. – Los Angeles Times

Princeton’s Existential Crisis

Groups of students have variously described the composition of Princeton’s faculty and its “institutional culture” as “pillars of its oppressive past,” declared that their education failed to prepare them to vanquish racism, and urged a “comprehensive transformation” of curriculum, programming, and faculty. More notable, roughly 350 faculty members and staff signed an open letter, published on July 4, that set forth nearly 50 demands. – The Atlantic

New AI Browser Extension Factchecks What You’re Seeing

Beyond just matching up bogus claims with evidence to the contrary, the startup treats the fact-checking process like an assembly line, with an algorithm prioritizing and doling out tasks. As a basic example, one step might involve finding the source of a rumor, while another might involve researching the claim. Logically’s system can handle some of these tasks automatically, but it can also hand out assignments to human fact-checkers based on their area of expertise. – Fast Company

How To Think About Leadership Transitions

“I mentioned that I work in real estate. When a listing is advertised with the line, “First time on market after 40 years of family ownership,” it almost always includes the phrase, “Bring your contractor and architect!” The work of restructuring an outmoded organization is not as physical as renovating a building, but the perils of deferred maintenance are just as dangerous. You can’t allow your house to fall into disrepair. You must keep up with changing codes, modern tastes, new ways of addressing sustainability.” – American Theatre

Understanding The Charismatic Leader

David Bell argues that charismatic leaders were a key product of the age of Revolution, which created the ideal political and cultural conditions for a new kind of civic heroism to emerge. It flourished initially in response to the development of print technologies, and the radical Enlightenment’s belief that governments should be founded not on the divine right of kings, but on the principles of secularism and popular sovereignty. It then proliferated with the overthrow of monarchies and the founding of republics, the escalation of warfare on a titanic scale, as well as the cultivation of romantic sensibilities, which encouraged citizens to embrace powerful emotions about their leaders – feelings of admiration, devotion and even love. – Times Literary Supplement