Category: issues

“Amazon has gradually eliminated the human factor. In the early years it employed people to write reviews of the books it sold; now there isn’t even mediation in the process of making up and placing a self-published book on the network. It has robotized the chain of distribution and wants us, the consumers, to perform similarly.”

Maria Contreras-Sweet ran the Small Business Administration, and now she’s wants to run a big business – the scandal-laden, struggling Weinstein Co. Or at least that’s what she said in her surprise bid: “I believe we have now reached a crossroads where it is imperative that a woman-led board acquire control of the company and create content that continues to inspire audiences around the world.”

Amazon had already been considering writing his character, around whom the entire series is focused, out of the fifth season in response to the allegations by a former assistant and a co-star. Part of Tambor’s statement: “Given the politicized atmosphere that seems to have afflicted our set, I don’t see how I can return to Transparent.”

Comedian and political commentator Hari Kondabolu thinks the 30-year-old series definitely needs to clean up its act with its only South Asian character. His documentary goes on a quest to find out why. “What really emerges — as Kondabolu sits down with former Simpsons producer Dana Gould, and culls comments [Apu voice actor Hank] Azaria has made about the character in other, less critical spaces — is an essential truth about Hollywood. Success justifies everything.”

The pieces are all in place: “Amazon has built a stable of services touching just about every part of the entertainment industry, from film and game development to ebook publishing and video streaming. It’s also built a retail empire on cheap piecemeal labor, free material generated by users, and an arcane system designed to connect people with things they want at the absolute maximum level of efficiency. So it’s not hard to imagine it — or a similarly large competitor — building a miniature film industry that looks a lot like an automated marketplace.”

With National Lottery income making up nearly 40% of Creative Scotland’s and sportscotland’s total income, these reductions are of critical concern and put both jobs and provision at risk. Figures released by National Lottery operator Camelot in June 2017 showed arts funding was down £55m, with expectations that the “disappointing” sales would continue this year. Creative Scotland told AP its lottery income fell by £5.3m in 2016/17, to £29.1m.

“The opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi over the weekend is the latest example of how traditional French cultural diplomacy is being supplanted by brand politics: Abu Dhabi bought the rights to use the Paris museum’s famous name at a price tag of over $500 million over three decades. This example of “soft power” goes beyond museum names such as the future Shanghai Pompidou Center — and can be seen in the exporting of Sorbonne’s academic reputation, the proliferation of Christian Dior boutiques in Asia, the increasingly popular fizz of Moet & Chandon champagne, the cuisine of master chef Alain Ducasse and Louis Vuitton’s status handbags.”

“Artists, collectives, new bars, farm-to-table restaurants, startups, and alternative music venues are amassing in Athens. Abandoned buildings, the scars from what Greeks simply call ‘the Crisis’, are turning into cultural spaces and homes for startups. Political statements are now emblazoned as street art. Artists from Mexico, Bali, New York and Western Europe are making Athens a new base. Is Athens the New Berlin? No, it is Athens. But, something is happening.”

Responding to a New York Post article – headlined in the print paper “The Art of the Steal” – questioning the fate of the funds intended for her now-abandoned performance-art institute in Hudson, New York, Abramović – in a statement titled “The Art of the Truth” – wrote that “the [tabloid’s] allegations are so false, libelous and in every way untrue that I must address them.”

“Over the past decade, Seattle has added 220,000 jobs, an increase of nearly 15 percent. Amazon, which employs 40,000 people here and holds about one-fifth of the city’s premier office space, has keyed that growth, but the revival has spilled far beyond it. Thirty-one Fortune 500 companies now operate research and engineering hubs in Seattle, up from seven in 2010. More construction cranes are working here than in any other U.S. city, many in the South Lake Union area where Amazon has centered its burgeoning operations. Seattle is now adding about 60 people daily, many of them well-educated Millennials. That’s the city’s most rapid rate of population increase since the Klondike Gold Rush around 1900.”