Category: issues

“Few of us doubt that stealing is wrong, especially from the poor. But the accusation of “cultural appropriation” is overwhelmingly being used as an objection to syncretism — the mixing of different thoughts, religions, cultures and ethnicities that often ends up creating entirely new ones. In other words: the most natural process in a melting-pot country like ours.”

“Local and national holidays are being celebrated with new vigour. … State media are boosting the use of Chinese medicine when people fall ill, wearing Han robes when they get married, and keeping fit by practising tai chi and other ancient sports. … By presenting himself as the defender of traditional values, [President Xi Jinping] hopes to harness the conservative forces in society. He also seeks to divert attention from the party’s own culpability in creating the supposed spiritual vacuum.”

“Jeffrey Herbst, president and chief executive of the Newseum, stepped down suddenly on Monday as the museum’ board announced a full-blown review of its long-troubled finances. The review could result in the sale of [its] landmark building on Pennsylvania Avenue,” to which it moved in 2008.

The museum in Gdańsk had become a political football well before it opened earlier this year. “On one side, you have the universalists, armed with their globalism, liberalism, and concerns for human rights. On the other, you have the nationalists, wielding their exceptionalism, isolationism, and often conservative religious values. These two narratives clash as they try to define polarized nations and their place in the world.”

“In every part of the country almost every weekend of the year, participants [learn first-hand] … how a soldier felt charging across grass into battle, down to what he ate at the campfire before forcing sleep to come while lying on a hard earthen floor.” Americans have been staging mock Civil War battles since (believe it or not) 1861. But in these politically and socially contentious times, the practice has become – well, somewhat fraught.

The downtown area that’s home to the city’s flagship performing arts organizations is adjacent to Buffalo Bayou and has seen severe flooding. Here are preliminary damage reports from the Alley Theatre and the venues that house the Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, and Houston Grand Opera.

Oh, Seattle. “The shaft of the flesh-colored dildo atop Vladimir Lenin’s head pointed upward at a slight angle, giving the Russian revolutionary the appearance of a grumpy, hyper-sexualized unicorn.”

The Orpheum Theatre screened the film on August 11, the same day of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville – and commenters weren’t shy about connecting the two. The president of the Orpheum Theatre Group says the decision was made before Charlottesville, but: “As an organization whose stated mission is to ‘entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves,’ the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population.”

The country would like to figure out how to raise more private funds – and how to help arts organizations do the same.

Phil Kennicott: “The big question looming over the awards now is whether future presidents will attend. Can a tradition be reassembled after it has been broken? The arts occupy an already marginal position in American society, and the custom of presidential participation in the Honors has always been an anomaly, given the priorities of American cultural life and a decades-long rhetorical assault against the arts by conservative politicians. If a future president needs an excuse to forego the evening, he or she now has one ready. If Trump lasts in office, and skips the Honors the next four years, the tradition may be effectively scuttled.”