Category: issues

“The cultural scene in Harlem has been building momentum for some time, but the next several years will bring an unprecedented expansion of the number of institutions on 125th Street and in the surrounding area.”

“The 2008 Sydney Festival is the biggest earner yet, with box office takings of $6.7 million, more than $1 million higher than last year’s record figure.”

“The proposal being considered would require developers of buildings valued at more than $1 million to donate 1% of their budget to public art.”

“Columbia requires freshmen to successfully swim 75 yards, using any combination of strokes. Those who flounder must take a beginning swim class and demonstrate proficiency before graduation. That is pretty much the parameters of the test.”

The Canadian province will pump $12 million more into arts funding. “Culture contributes greatly to our quality of life and is the lens through which the rest of the world views our province.”

“Tuition has gone up, college presidents’ salaries have gone up, and endowments continue to go up and up. We need to start seeing tuition relief for families go up just as fast. It’s fair to ask whether a college kid should have to wash dishes in the dining hall to pay his tuition when his college has a billion dollars in the bank.”

“Sun-Times TV critic Doug Elfman heard he was safe from the layoffs before he left work Wednesday, got a call a few hours later to tell him he was a goner, then came in Thursday to have his picture taken, as scheduled. The new photo will run with his column for his remaining week or so in the paper.”

“Jacqueline Hushion of the publishers’ council and Alan Willaert from the U.S. musicians’ federation said Canadian musicians and authors have had difficulty negotiating marketing rights outside Canada because the government can’t guarantee appropriate rights for foreign artists whose work is published and distributed in Canada.”

“There are now 76 colleges and universities with endowments that have passed $1 billion _ including 16 new members of that club like Georgetown and the Universities of Oklahoma and Missouri. But five at the top each have nearly $6 billion more than any school outside that group: Harvard ($34.6 billion), Yale ($22.5 billion), Stanford ($17.2 billion), Princeton ($15.8 billion) and the University of Texas system ($15.6 billion).”

Six members of a Czech art collective are facing years of jail time for an incident in which the group broadcast what appeared to be a nuclear explosion in the Czech countryside on a major TV channel. But the public doesn’t seem terribly upset by the prank. “The incident instead has highlighted an old Czech tradition of tomfoolery that is a particular matter of national cultural pride.”