Category: issues

“Critics have said the proposed legislation will mirror the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and take a hard line against the copying of digital materials, making illegal acts such as the television time shifting enabled by digital video recorders, file-sharing of music and video files, and copying files to DVDs or MP3 players.”

“Awards are all wrong until you win one. Or you judge one. Over the past few years, for some reason (am I on a list?), I’ve been on the judging panel for several awards.”

“By many standards, Africa is doing better than it has in decades. The number of democratically elected governments has risen sharply in the past decade, and the number of violent conflicts has dropped. African economies, and African businesses, are starting to show impressive results, and not just by the diminished standards the rest of the world reserves for its poorest continent.”

I am merely following the example of “artist” Richard Prince, who, since the late ’70s, has been trucking in what he calls “appropriation art,” which roughly translated means “I didn’t do it, but I saw it, and that must count for something.”

According to the German timber industry, demand for Christmas trees is rising due to increasing exports and the growing number of single-person households. Meanwhile the supply of trees has decreased because several thousand hectares of tree plantations have been given over to more profitable uses — such as lucrative biofuel crops.

“While Yahoo! Answers is a valuable window into how people look for information online, it looks like a complete disaster as a traditional reference tool. It encourages bad research habits, rewards people who post things that aren’t true, and frequently labels factual errors as correct information. It’s every middle-school teacher’s worst nightmare about the Web.”

“The push is on [in Australia] to establish a national indigenous art collection, but many argue that it should not be confined to one museum.” And just as important as preserving the art is giving aboriginal artists training, work space, and the opportunity to make a living with their work.

A Seattle community demands to know why the popular director of a cultural arts center has been placed on administrative leave…

“The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, last week approved $31 million worth of contracts to demolish 4,500 public housing units of such high quality that some are on the National Register of Historic Places. These aren’t forbidding tower fortresses but appealing, three-story garden apartments. Most were built in the 1930s and 1940s, when subsidized rental housing was deemed a worthy endeavor and sheltered working families.”

“A bankruptcy trustee wants a judge to decide the fate of ‘Mother’ Maybelle Carter’s Gibson L-5 guitar and Bill Monroe’s mandolin after negotiations stalled over the future of some of country music’s most treasured instruments.”