“Although entertainment-industry protests have previously helped derail socially conservative legislation in Georgia, studios didn’t voice significant opposition to the new abortion law while it was being considered by the state legislature. Now, according to the University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock, it’s unlikely they can meaningfully impact the law’s future, which is up to the courts.” – The Atlantic
Author: Douglas McLennan
Fresh Prey: Digital Privacy Increasingly An Issue For Those Who Can’t Pay
All kinds of companies pick through our online behavior for clues about how we might be convinced to spend money. These practices particularly affect poor people, who are more dependent on cheap or free online services. The services appear to cost nothing, but payment is in data rather than dollars. – The New Republic
Mona Lisa’s Smile? She Was Faking It, Say Researchers
“Our results indicate that happiness is expressed only on the left side. According to some influential theories of emotion neuropsychology, we here interpreted the Mona Lisa asymmetric smile as a non-genuine smile, also thought to occur when the subject lies,” the authors write in their study published recently in the April 2019 issue of the journal Cortex. – EurekAlert
A Preference For Part-Time
“A survey from the Pew Research Center in 2016 found that, among US workers employed part-time, 64 per cent prefer it that way. Meanwhile, 20 per cent of full-time workers – that’s almost 26 million Americans – would rather work part-time.” – Aeon
A “Commercial” Case For Investing In The Arts
“Despite the constant avowal and assertion of the intrinsic value of arts and culture, funding for art and culture is still often treated as a discretionary spend which is somehow secondary to the needs of what are defined as being more essential services like the NHS. But art and culture do not only make a huge contribution in their own right to the taxation which funds those essential services. They are also the principal reason for the constantly acclaimed commercial success of the creative industries, which make an even larger contribution to the public purse, which funds those essential services we all value.” – Arts Professional
Busting Genre: Blurring The Ingredients In “Classical” Music
“We’re trying to create a balance between things we know are really good and things that we maybe aren’t sure about but don’t ‘fit in’ to the typical new music ideal. It’s tricky — there are just certain kinds of music that neither of us has any experience evaluating. We’ve had to draw some boundaries based on logistics and our own level of knowledge.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
Warning: The Internet Is Splintering In Front Of Us
As the legendary Humpty Dumpty cracked, never to be repaired, Internet 1.0 is shattering, too. Now we are hammering the internet into a splinternet of different forms. Regional digital “nations” are forming, and it’s likely that this fracturing will continue as sovereign entities apply their own rules about content, commerce, privacy, and politics. – Quartz
EO Wilson At 90: Still A Provocateur
Contentious or not, Wilson’s books have mostly addressed one theme: that we must know natural history and evolutionary theory to fully understand humanity’s future on the planet. In his 1986 manifesto Biophilia, for example, he suggested that humans have an innate biological need to be in nature and to “affiliate with other forms of life.” – Wired
The Indictment Of Donald Duck
Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart made the case in the 1990s: “What kind of a role model was he, this eunuch duck, who sought only fame and fortune, who ignored the plight of the working class, who accepted endless suffering as his lot? “Reading Disney,” they wrote, “is like having one’s own exploited condition rammed with honey down one’s throat.” – The New Yorker
Christopher House Steps Down As Artistic Director Of Toronto Dance Theatre After 25 Years
The news, rumoured for months, was confirmed by the company Tuesday as it announced details of what will be House’s final season at the head of one of Canada’s oldest and most respected contemporary dance troupes.
– Toronto Star