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Kindle’s Next Act: Reinventing The Book?

“In a world filled with distractions and notifications and devices that do everything, the Kindle’s lack of features becomes its greatest asset. But readers also want to read everywhere, in places and ways a paperback can’t manage. They want more tools, more features, more options, more stuff to do. Amazon’s still working out how to satisfy both sides. Whatever route it takes, the next decade of Kindle is likely to be even more disruptive than the last. First it changed the book business. Next it might help change books themselves.”

MacArthur’s $100 Million Plan To Bring The Muppets To The Middle East

“The five-year grant will fund a localized version of “Sesame Street,” distributed through television and digital devices, and home visits using “Sesame Street” content for an estimated 1.5 million children. Instead of the stars that Americans grew up with, like Big Bird, Elmo and Oscar the Grouch, the characters would be tailored to the region, speaking Arabic and Iraqi Kurdish.”

Our Universities Have Become Polarized. What To Do About It?

“There are many things we can do to reduce tribalism, strengthen our kids, and repair our universities. We—the baby boomers and gen-Xers who fill this room—we have made a mess of the clock. Left and Right, Republicans and Democrats. But we can make up for it if we can come together, admit that we messed up, and change what we are doing to kids, and to college students. We just might be able to raise a generation of kids who can care for the clock after all.”

How A Fight Over Attending The Theatre Fueled Civil Rights Battle In the 1800s

“Across America, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, the races were kept separate at the theater. Black people sat apart in the upper galleries or were excluded entirely, by custom and, in some southern cities, by law. As hybrid places—private associations open to the public—theaters were subject to municipal authority, but property owners possessed the liberty to exclude or restrict at will. The common law recognized no right of amusement seeking. After emancipation, statehouses controlled by Radical Republicans banned distinctions of race and color in public conveyances and resorts. But the legislation was evaded simply by tickets stating that proprietors had discretion to exclude anyone. Nor did it carry a positive grant of rights; it regulated places rather than entitling persons.”

How Do You Build A Dance Center In San Francisco? Buy Derelict And Package It With Affordable Housing

The dilapidated 1919 structure, a former furniture store that was remodeled with an Art Deco flair in the late 1930s, has been on and off the market for more than a decade as a succession of owners unsuccessfully attempted to redevelop it as a dialysis center, a vegan restaurant, a brewery and an organic grocery store.

New York Times’s 12 Small Gifts To Be Grateful For From The Arts In 2017

From the leotards in the Netflix comedy GLOW to a Janet Jackson backup dancer who got cheers of her own to the single-take episode of Mr. Robot, “these 12 blink-and-you-might-have-missed-them cultural moments of 2017 brightened up a year otherwise defined by the threat of nuclear war, natural disasters – from hurricanes to wildfires – that left hundreds of thousands homeless, a string of sexual harassment charges against some of the country’s most prominent political and entertainment figures and yet more terrorist attacks.”

500 Academics Protest Polish Government’s “Repurposing” Of WWII Museum

“The museum, which opened to the public in February, has been at the centre of an ongoing battle over national memory. The right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), elected to government in Poland in 2015, is determined to use the museum displays to present the “Polish point of view” while its critics argue for the autonomy of historians and museums.”