“A federal public defender for Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. said in court Friday that while the poem might be offensive, it has not incited violence and should be protected under the Constitution as a work of art. … Spencer’s poem describes an assassin’s mission to kill a president who is black.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Loudon Wainwright III Sings About Paul Krugman
Yep, the song is called “The Krugman Blues.”
Tories, Your Arts Plan Won’t Fly
Michael Billington: Jeremy Hunt’s “proposals for the arts, under a putative Tory government, leave me cold. They may look plausible on paper but they don’t stand up to close examination. First, there is the little matter of history.”
Shadow Culture Secretary Defends Tories’ Arts Manifesto
Jeremy Hunt’s two-year “charm offensive reaches its climax today – with the publication of the Conservatives’ arts manifesto. … So what of the contents of the Tory arts manifesto? In reality, the stated arts policies of all three major parties are strikingly close.”
Prof Begs Hollywood: Stop Violating The Laws Of Physics
A set of guidelines is “intended to curb the film industry’s worst abuses of science by confining scriptwriters to plotlines that embrace the suspension of disbelief but stop short of demanding it in every scene.”
Caravaggio’s Paintings Are A Sign Of Their Times
“For models, Caravaggio used laborers, prostitutes and gypsies. The church was outraged. Painting after painting was rejected: a dead Virgin that looked like a bloated corpse, a jailer yanking Christ’s hair, saints with dirty feet.” But 16th-century Rome was not a pretty place.
New Software Allows Professors To Rewrite E-Textbooks
“While many publishers have offered customized print textbooks for years — allowing instructors to reorder chapters or insert third-party content from other publications or their own writing — [Macmillan’s] DynamicBooks gives instructors the power to alter individual sentences and paragraphs without consulting the original authors or publisher.”
Networks Resist Apple’s Effort To Halve Price Of TV Shows
“Apple wants to ignite TV show sales [on iTunes], especially as it prepares to introduce the iPad tablet computer next month. But its proposals to lower prices across the board are being met by skepticism from the major networks,” which “are wary of selling shows for less” and “of harming their far more lucrative deals with affiliates and cable distributors.”
FCC Launches Investigation Of Fox’s Our Little Genius
The parent’s complaint that triggered the probe “raises questions about the legitimacy of the breathless-and-bright-light game show competitions that populate the prime-time television landscape. The allegations … recall the quiz show scandals of the 1950s when TV executives fixed the outcomes of ‘Twenty One’ and ‘The $64,000 Question.'”
By Outsourcing To Actors, School Saves Its Drama Program
A “Burbank Catholic high school couldn’t afford to hire two instructors at its usual teaching salary, so they hired two actors to teach a full theater arts curriculum at a fraction of the cost. The professional actors have revitalized the school’s drama program, and school leaders say the idea could be a viable option for other financially strapped schools….”