Terry McDonell looks at what Thompson did to with Richard Nixon – and figures that HST would have completely understood Trump (not that he’d have liked him) and would have had a total blast writing about the Mooch.
Category: issues
Study: People Who Participate In The Arts Are More Likely To Participate In Their Communities
The findings suggest “the arts provide an important vehicle for facilitating a cohesive and sustainable society,” psychologists Julie Van de Vyver of the University of Lincoln and Dominic Abrams of the University of Kent write in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. “Fostering a society in which engagement in the arts is encouraged and accessible to all may provide an important counter to economic, cultural, and political fracture and division.”
People Who Enjoy The Arts Are More Likely To Give To Charity And Volunteer, Says Study
“New research into the connections between the arts and ‘prosociality’ – whereby individuals are likely to donate their time or money to charitable causes – found … that [attendance at or participation in] the arts had a stronger connection to prosociality than other demographic variables.”
As Venice Has Become Disneyland, Tourists Eat Venice (And Locals Flee)
“If you arrive on a big ship, get off, you have two or three hours, follow someone holding a flag to Piazzale Roma, Ponte di Rialto and San Marco and turn around,” said Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister, who lamented what he called an “Eat and Flee” brand of tourism that had brought the sinking city so low.
This Year’s Kennedy Center Honors Includes Rapper For First Time
The 2017 roster of honorees continues to favor popular culture at the expense of theater and classic music. This year’s celebration will spotlight three pop musicians who have collectively sold hundreds of millions of recordings. Absent are big-name Hollywood actors and Broadway stars.
Have The Kennedy Center Arts Honors Abandoned The Traditional Arts?
“Representatives of the wide range of traditional arts, including classical music, opera and ballet, have been slowly edged out until, it seemed, they were lucky to be represented with a single award among the five given out each year. This year even that toehold looks precarious. Of the five artists to receive the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors, only dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade falls into the tradition of the arts on which the Kennedy Center was founded and built its reputation.”
Why Arts High Schools Are Phenomenally Successful With Students
“Performing and visual arts high schools like New World inspire a fierce devotion among students and graduates. It is no wonder. Many serve as springboards to the professional world. Just as important, graduation and college attendance rates are typically high (100 and 96 percent for New World), particularly impressive considering the schools’ urban setting. The best of these schools offer a conservatory-style training ground that helps budding artists win admission to an undergraduate arts program — training that is expensive, requiring a cadre of specialized teachers and money for student performances.”
William Gibson (Who Would Know) Talks About Our Current Cultural Obsession With Dystopias
“This could be a case of consumers of a particular kind of pop culture trying to tell us something, alas. Seriously, what I find far more ominous is how seldom, today, we see the phrase ‘the 22nd century.'”
Seattle Voters Reject Sales Tax For Arts
“Proposition 1, which requested a 0.1 percent sales tax – or a penny for every $10 spent – was being rejected by 55 percent of [King County] voters, with 45 percent approving.”
Divide Between The Arts And Those With Disabilities Is Wide (And Often Inadvertent)
“There is a fine line in promoting artists’ work appropriately. All too often artists with disabilities are given empathetic reviews replete with that “inspiration porn” trope of heroism overcoming tribulations, but ultimately they are not taken seriously as artists. Aesthetic validation is far more important than sympathy.”