Category: issues

The MPs are writing a detailed letter requesting a “quick, open, and flexible system” – and warning that if freedom of movement isn’t preserved, small and medium arts groups will suffer the most.

The raid on Friday ended the showings of a British comedy about Stalin. “In a Facebook post, Pioner Cinema wrote that the 2017 film, by the director Armando Iannucci, which had been playing to sold-out crowds, had been pulled as of Saturday ‘due to circumstances beyond our control’ and directed further queries to Russia’s Ministry of Culture, which had quashed it.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise: “The politicized tension inside Google echoes the challenge that Silicon Valley tech giants face moderating divisive content on their social-media platforms. Tech companies sold themselves as open and neutral forces for good, espousing free expression both on their corporate campuses and on the internet.”

The SNP is anxious to keep its “artsy stormtroopers onside” because of the threat posed by a resurgent Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn to its support in any future independence referendum campaign, he writes.

“This week, more than 200 scientists and other academics who have advocated policy action on climate change endorsed an open letter that calls on the museum to remove [the prominent right-wing donor] from its board and ‘end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation.'” Protesters have been demonstrating in front of the museum as well.

To Arabs, whose experience of imperialism and colonialism is brutal and direct, talking about their land as delectable bits of food, sweets to be consumed, can feel like more than mere caricature. It’s the way that the West has perceived the lands of the Middle East—something for our consumption. “It’s our oil, after all. It’s our Holy Land, after all.”

“Why [make] such a radical career shift? In interviews, several said they realized while working in architecture that pastry required a similar skill set, and they found baking a cake a lot more interesting – and immediately gratifying – than designing a building.”

“Prosecutors decided not to pursue their case against [84-year-old] Sulak Sivaraksa, who was charged in October under Thailand’s controversial lèse-majesté law against defaming, insulting or threatening the royal family. The charges were connected to a 2014 university lecture, during which Sulak … questioned whether [16th-century] King Naresuan had in fact slain a Burmese crown prince while riding an elephant.”

Last year, Weinstein announced that he would donate $5 million to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts to endow scholarships for female filmmaking students. When his years of sexual misconduct became public, the gift became a problem; one USC student said in a petition, “We don’t need this money. What we need is some damn principles.” Mike Scutari looks at how the school responded and the implications of its decision.