One potential avenue to spare redundancies is a move to a four-day workweek. While the idea has been toyed with for decades, new and adaptable working situations ushered in by Covid-19 have sparked an entirely new conversation on the subject. So much so, in fact, that MPs in the UK are pushing for a four-day workweek to cut costs and mitigate redundancies. – Artnet
Author: Douglas McLennan
Report: Global Movie Box Office Down 66 Percent For 2020
For the U.S., the firm’s annual study projects a 65.7 percent decline from $11.4 billion in 2019 to $3.9 billion this year. The firm warned that “the whole cinema ecosystem will be dramatically affected,” with cinema revenue, comprised of box office and cinema advertising (but excluding concession sales in cinemas and movie merchandising), set to contract globally at a 2.4 percent compound annual rate from 2019 to end 2024 with $39.9 billion. – The Hollywood Reporter
How Creative Workers Are Adapting During Shutdown
The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged all parts of the economy, and culture workers are among the hardest hit. Yet some have managed to keep their jobs — and even thrive — while others are still struggling or have pivoted to new roles. – The New York Times
Are Americans Losing Faith In Our Scientific Institutions?
We’ve reached a sort of meta-crisis of scientific authority, one in which our leading experts have lost their faith in the public’s faith in the leadership of experts. – Wired
How A Young Unknown Redefined Fame In The 1800s
In May 1884, long before the likes of Kim Kardashian achieved celebrity through the careful curation and promotion of self, a young unknown named Marie Bashkirtseff staked her desire for fame on the publication of her personal diary. – Public Domain Review
A Different Way Of Thinking About The Purpose Of Education
Too often schools are tasked not simply with caring for their students but with repairing an entire social order. Schools can do so much we do not ask of them, like developing solidarity, fostering political responsibility, and ensuring a love of learning for its own sake. Yet the one thing we are most insistent they accomplish, the ensuring of “equal opportunity,” is something even the best school is simply not capable of achieving. – Hedgehog Review
Two California Theatres Lay Off Their Artistic Directors. Now What?
The decisions suggest that the theater world will likely continue to feel the effects of the pandemic long after artists and audiences are again allowed to gather. Eliminating a position, as opposed to merely furloughing or laying off, adds another obstacle to theaters reopening and rebounding. Either a hiring committee must decide to re-create a leadership position and rehire, or a theater must rebuild after the pandemic while deprived of a leader. – San Francisco Chronicle
Why Do Some Technologies Transform Our World And Others Don’t
Although the private sector brought electricity to the big cities—New York, Chicago, St. Louis—the federal government’s Rural Electrification Administration brought electricity to much of America, helping to make radio, electric appliances, television and telecommunications part of everyone’s daily lives. A good deal of private investment created these technologies, but the transformations that they wrought were enabled by the “hidden hand” of government, and citizens often experienced their value in unanticipated ways. – Scientific American
Is Punctuation Finished?
Enter the international Apostrophe Protection Society, with its attempts to call out misuse and spread good practice. But November 2019 saw the announcement of the society’s demise, and owing not only to the highly respectable age of its founder John Richards (96): it would close, the society said, because of the ‘ignorance and laziness present in modern times’. – Aeon
The Prejudice Against Those With Less Education
Building a politics around the idea that a college degree is a precondition for dignified work and social esteem has a corrosive effect on democratic life. It devalues the contributions of those without a diploma, fuels prejudice against less-educated members of society, effectively excludes most working people from elective government and provokes political backlash. – The New York Times