Category: issues

Two sets of confidential blueprints for the planned Freedom Tower, which is set to rise at Ground Zero, were carelessly dumped in a city garbage can on the corner of West Houston and Sullivan streets, The Post has learned.

“Colleges and individual faculty members continue to experiment with putting course information and material online, and ‘open textbooks’ typically are licensed to allow users to download, share and alter the content as they see fit, so long as their purposes aren’t commercial and they credit the author for the original material. This allows instructors to customize e-textbooks and offer them to students for free online or as low-cost printed versions.”

Continental Airlines is a major supporter of the arts in Houston. “The announced merger of Delta and Northwest Airlines has Houston-based Continental considering its own merger options. How such a move might affect Continental’s involvement here concerns arts executives.”

It’s looking like a strong year for the cultural festivals that dot Western Massachusetts, playing host to the Boston Symphony and other heavyweights for several weeks each summer. “Berkshire Theatre Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Shakespeare & Company are reporting ticket sales 6 to 16 percent ahead of the same time this year, and Tanglewood’s advance sales for classical concert events are up 6.5 percent over this time last year.”

“The arts community has moved forward to the point where it can be set free from targets and measurement. It means we need to rely more on the critical assessments of confident, successful artists and cultural organisations, and to trust the judgement of their peers.”

The new chief of England’s Arts Council “is more used to the shadows than the limelight… a policy man working out of the public eye, but a frequent sight in the audience at the theatre and concerts, often nursing a pint of bitter in the interval.” But unassuming or not, Alan Davey will be expected to guide the council through a critical period in its history.

Who Matters in UK culture? Here’s a list…

“A generation have been deprived of the tools they should have been given to open a door [to the arts] that can otherwise seem quite daunting.” He said dumbing down productions was not the answer to the crisis.

Artists in Prague are protesting new arts funding allocations. “City Hall approved the first grant allocations to be produced by a new arts funding system established last November. After months of anxious waiting for the grants to be announced, nonprofit arts organizations were devastated to learn that they were receiving less money than the previous year, and some were getting no money at all.”

“European politicians have voted down calls to throw suspected file-sharers off the net. The idea to cut off persistent pirates formed part of a wide-ranging report on creative industries written for the European parliament.”