Category: issues

That all depends on the lawsuits – and the museums. “‘Truth is, we absolutely could not take them,’ says Christy Coleman, CEO of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Va. Coleman often receives calls from cities hoping to find homes for their Confederate monuments. ‘The biggest reason, I’d say, that museums aren’t able to accept them is that they simply can’t afford to take care of them,’ says Coleman.”

Wow: “After criticism from advocacy groups and Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison about the availability of Nazi-themed toys and baby onesies with pictures of burning crosses on Amazon’s website, the company said this week that it had removed several items and banned sellers who had violated its policies.” OK, but “a search by NPR of Amazon’s website yielded many results of racist paraphernalia, especially books by white supremacists.”

“It would be difficult to think of a field that is more old-power than the arts. As the former executive director of a nonprofit theater company, I know that firsthand. Many arts organizations–particularly in the performing arts–are usually headed by an artistic director, music director, or general manager who has almost total control over the artistic content that is produced, and that artistic content is then marketed to the public by the managerial staff who has little or no say on these artistic selections. Closely connected with this old-power/new-power dynamic is the way that technology has been embraced in these organizations (or not).”

“By providing students an inadequate history education, [sociologist and historian James W.] Loewen argues, America’s schools breed adults who tend to conflate empirical fact and opinion, and who lack the media literacy necessary to navigate conflicting information.” A Q&A between Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Atlantic writer Alia Wong.

The problem for newsrooms is threefold: how to identify sophisticated manipulations, how to educate audiences without ​inducing apathy and deepening mistrust​, and how to keep the growth of this technology from casting doubt on legitimate and truthful stories.

“The iconic monument [had] been closed since Wednesday afternoon as unions argued with management over the lopsided lines stemming from a decision to reserve certain elevators for visitors with pre-booked tickets while those who buy them upon arrival languish in long queues.”

Routine at public gatherings in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the custom of Indigenous land acknowledgment, or acknowledgment of country, has only recently started to gain traction in the United States outside of tribal nations. In New York City the practice is sporadic but growing, occasionally heard at high-profile cultural and educational institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art and New York University.

“Spanning nearly 40,000 square feet, … the [National Comedy Center] took seven years and around $50m to bring to fruition. … It features over 50 interactive exhibits divvied up by style of humor as well as artifacts and ephemera that, in sum, tell the story of comedy from Charlie Chaplin to Dave Chappelle and beyond.”

For much of the Soviet era, Baku actually was known for a busy arts scene, but it faded in the upheaval following the dissolution of the USSR. Now, flush with oil money and equipped with a flashy new cultural center designed by Zaha Hadid, Baku is rebuilding its arts scene. Stephan Rabimov gives us a survey.