The cuts represent a loss of 18% of the NPR affiliate’s staff, reducing it to 127 full- and part-time employees. It comes less than two years after the station began moving into its $38-million media center on the campus of Santa Monica Community College. – Los Angeles Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
Why Converting Turkey’s Historic Museums To Mosques Is A Powerful Statement
As museums, Hagia Sophia and Chora embodied both Byzantine and Ottoman pasts, and became symbols of multi-faith co-existence. Their conversion implies a hierarchy prioritising their Islamic past over all other layers. – The Conversation
A Last Chance To Save Music Venues
“Music venues, theaters, and movie houses help make cities desirable, interesting, and economically humming—but they simply cannot operate in a pandemic. Following one of them through the past six months reveals a lot about how America’s economic relief left many kinds of businesses behind—and how much worse off these places will be unless a presently gridlocked Congress does something.” – Slate
Tim Egan: Why Seattle Is A City Of Readers
“Nature, in the form of the predominant gloom that pervades our skies for much of the year, forces us inward — to a creative frontier that matches the geographic one. Thus, an obscure poet at a midweek reading on a winter’s eve, hoping for an audience beyond a few bookstore employees, will be happily shocked to find the room packed. People in Seattle love to come in out of the rain and tell stories, or to hear them.” – Crosscut
Banksy Loses Trademark Claim Over His Work
“The artwork, which depicts a masked protester throwing a bouquet of flowers, appeared on a wall in Jerusalem in 2005. It has since been reappropriated by the UK card company Full Colour Black, which has used the artwork on cards. In 2014, Banksy successfully applied for an EU trademark for the work, which was then challenged by Full Colour Black. The company argued that the artist was not entitled to the trademark as he did not wish to use it for trade purposes or for branding.” – The Independent (UK)
What Will This Week’s Virtual Emmys Look Like?
“TV broadcast has been our friend right through that whole period. It’s brought us together. … Let’s celebrate the role it’s had in our lives, as well as the people who made it, who are so extraordinarily talented.” – Washington Post
Co-Working Spaces That Work During A Pandemic?
Instead of occupying a sealed, monolithic glass office tower, Second Home inhabits a converted community center where the majority of the work spaces are housed in individual studios (there are 60) in a lush garden that was once a vast parking lot. – Los Angeles Times
A Non-Profit Strategy For Raising Money In A Pandemic
When nonprofits are under-resourced, their natural response is to turn to their donors. But is it realistic to expect a healthy stream of charitable contributions in the midst of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression? Absolutely — if you approach the right people. Because even as unemployment soars, as tens of thousands of businesses close, and as default and eviction rates rise, a small but significant portion of the population is doing just fine, thank you. – Harvard Business Review
A Machine That Can Measure Happiness? Really?
Lithuanian scientists are working on a device they hope will measure happiness. Why? “Because, during the pandemic, people’s psychological state could be damaged not only by the fear and anxiety caused by the spread of the virus, but also by the economic and social consequences that the quarantine would bring about.” – Eurozine
A History Of Book-Burning
The Reformation was “one of the worst periods in the history of knowledge”, Ovenden writes; hundreds of thousands of books were destroyed as the monasteries and religious orders that held them were dissolved. – New Statesman