Category: issues

The Australia Council, which is in charge of arts funding for the nation, has a new American-born chief, now two months into her tenure and one month from her first federal budget deadline. She’s upbeat about the national arts picture, but she steadfastly refuses to join many in Australia’s cultural community in criticizing the government for insufficient support. In fact, she doesn’t seem terribly interested in answering any pointed questions about the arts.

“The president of Tajikistan has demanded that the British Museum give back a unique collection of ancient gold and silver artefacts discovered 130 years ago near the Oxus river… According to Tajik scholars, the treasure was found in 1877. It arrived in Britain after bandits ambushed a group of merchants crossing from Kabul to Peshawar.”

“With new academic requirements emphasizing math and science, education advocates worry that arts classes may be pushed out of school curricula or disregarded by harried students who can’t fit them into their heavy course loads… The new Ohio Core curriculum, championed by former Gov. Bob Taft, takes effect in the fall of 2010 and increases the math requirement for high school students from three to four years. Most fine arts classes are not required or can be taken in middle school.”

The outgoing director of the UK’s National Gallery slammed the Labour government this weekend, accusing Treasury chief Gordon Brown of having no interest in preserving the country’s cultural heritage. “The criticism came as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Master of the Queen’s Music, also prepares to launch a stinging attack this week on ‘this utterly philistine government’ with a Prime Minister whose ‘horizons are rock and pop’.”

There may be no sadder job than that of director of Iraq’s National Library and Archive in Baghdad. “After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, looters pillaged and burned the library. Now, on the brink of the fourth anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s fall, and several weeks into a new security offensive, [Saad] Eskander and his staff are struggling to preserve the fragments of Iraq’s ancient heritage at a place he calls the ‘historical memory of the country.'”

Colonial Williamsburg “is variously called a historical village or a living museum. But that means much more now than it once did. Aside from dramatizing historical controversies, the town is also caught up in living ones: debates about who writes history and how it is told, about what historical realism is and how it should be portrayed, even about what aspects of our past are to be celebrated in this strange combination of education and entertainment.”

“Touts are no longer lumbering beasts with a backpocket full of crumpled tickets. The internet has spawned a new breed: the bedroom tout. Genuine fans complain about rip-off merchants, but many also enjoy making a quick buck on an auction site. With eBay, every student in the land is a ticket tout. They buy four tickets and the two they sell pay for the two they keep. The music industry says the problem is getting worse. Even middling bands routinely sell out shows within hours and, minutes later, tickets for sold-out events are plonked on auction websites for hugely inflated prices.”

That perfect score on your SAT doesn’t look so spectacular these days when it comes to getting in to elite schools. “Harvard turned down 1,100 student applicants with perfect 800 scores on the SAT math exam. Yale rejected several applicants with perfect 2400 scores on the three-part SAT, and Princeton turned away thousands of high school applicants with 4.0 grade point averages. Needless to say, high school valedictorians were a dime a dozen.”

“Giving by U.S. foundations rose by 11.7 percent, to an estimated $40.7 billion, in 2006, and is expected to show double-digit growth again this year.”