Category: issues

For the first time Latinos are now the largest minority population in the US. “Figures released in Washington placed the Latino population at 38.8 million in July 2002, an increase of nearly 10% from the 2000 census. The bureau estimated the African American population at 38.3 million. Each group accounts for a little more than 13% of the overall U.S. population.”

Want to stave off Alzheimer’s? Then make your mind active, says a new research report. “Those who played board games had a 74 percent lower risk and those who played an instrument had a 69 percent lower risk. Doing crossword puzzles cut the risk by 38 percent. Using the mind actually causes rewiring of the brain, sprouting new synapses – it may even cause the generation of new neurons. So psychology trumps biology.”

Why are there so few African-Americans at Pittsburgh’s high-culture events? Audiences for the symphony and for theatre are mostly white, as they are in most American cities. One reason? “You’re comparing a population that has half as much income as another group, and it’s not surprising that you’d see this showing up in [the spending of] discretionary income,”

“Artists shudder when they mention South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall; there is no concert hall like it in the rest of the civilised world.” Indeed, London’s South Bank has been a major cultural failure that has bedeviled generations of administrators. What’s the problem? “The arts centre is a 1950s conceit, based on new-town shopping malls where one stop covers all needs. It does not fit the specialised tastes of the 21st century.”

“There are many in the arts world who believe that the government’s obsession with education and diversity has actually obscured what artists aim to do – produce wonderful work. But are “access” and “excellence” mutually exclusive? Are there too many strings attached to arts funding? Has the government been too utilitarian in its view of the arts, valuing its economic and social by-products, from tourism promotion to crime reduction, over its intrinsic worth?” England’s arts ministers take on the questions.

Recently the Metropolitan Opera took the unusual step of prying off a donor’s name from its building when the promised gift failed to arrive. So “what can be done when donors can’t meet commitments? Nonprofits can bring lawsuits to force donors to pay up, but seldom do so. Lawsuits are unproductive if the donor does not have the funds and usually spell public relations disaster for both parties. The public, off-with-his-head (or in Vilar’s case, off-with-his-name-plaque) approach may be the last, necessary resort in some cases, but it’s not likely to win future support from the donor if his fortunes recover. It also may have a chilling effect on prospective donors.

Executives of several of Milwaukee’s high-profile arts groups have stepped down recently, leaving something of a power void at the top levels of the city’s cultural scene. The latest to resign is Judy Smith of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, who has reportedly been exhausted by a massive fundraising effort she was spearheading. In fact, many of the Milwaukee execs have left their posts not because of controversy or dissatisfaction with their work, but because they were simply burned out by the intensive fundraising work required during an economic downturn.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) believes he has a solution to the problem of illegal file-swapping and downloading of copyrighted material: destroy the computers! Hatch wants technology developed which would disable or destroy any computer attempting an illegal download. The fact that such a plan would be in blatant violation of U.S. anti-hacking law does not seem to concern the senator, but the plan does not seem to have much support among Hatch’s colleagues.

Britain has a new arts minister. There doesn’t seem to be much for Estelle Morris to do, though. But then again… under Labour, the arts have been shackled to the “grand, if vague, strategy of social inclusion and urban regeneration.” Okay, it’s time to jsutify cultural subsidies again. “The sting is that those who can’t or won’t play this game – and a game it usually is, on all sides – will be denied their ration of subsidy and starved into death or submission. Just about everybody who works in the arts is sick of the administrative grind of compliance and cynical about it, too – once you’ve ticked the boxes marked education project, chair-lift and minorities quota, you know your cheque will be in the post and your accountant can help you channel the money into something more meaningful.”

Budget woes are affecting even the smallest towns in America. In tiny Susanville California, the city manager’s first crack at a $6.1 million budget included cutting the city contribution to July 4th fireworks. The town’s mayor has other ideas: “The Arts Council, they get $7,500 a year? I think fireworks is more beneficial than the arts council. They used to get much less than that before. That’s pretty generous.”