Category: issues

The story is long and winding, involving massive public comment and a stonewalling GOP, but “you can’t blame petty politics alone for the mess the FCC finds itself in. Debates over net neutrality and cable boxes stem from an ideological shift in Washington. In earlier days, it was ‘good regulation versus bad regulation,’ says Chris Lewis, vice president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. Now it’s ‘more regulation versus less regulation.'”

In opposition to the U.S. president’s anticipated revised travel ban and many other things he’s said since he was inaugurated, the six issued a joint statement. “No matter who wins the Oscar, they said, the statuette would be dedicated to activists, journalists, artists and others ‘working to foster unity and understanding, and who uphold freedom of expression and human dignity — values whose protection is now more important than ever.'”

The problem is that globalization is pulverizing local content. Everything is like Netflix, and “everyone watches the same 50 titles on Netflix. Does anyone seriously believe that the other several hundred titles are truly inferior?”

“When you speak to successful people in science or tech, they say one of the things that leads to lateral thinking is people doing arts. Not only does it lead to future artists, people in the cultural and creative sectors, but it helps people in different sectors.”

Arts Council England is “pressing ahead with the system despite serious concerns raised following a pilot project last year to test such a system among 150 NPOs. An independent review of the pilot found that arts organisations wanted a more flexible system that would align with their individual artistic objectives, and ACE’s announcement that the system was going to be rolled out provoked anger and disbelief on social media. Using the system will be mandatory for around 300 of ACE’s largest NPOs, and a further 600 will be encouraged to use it.”

“Setting aside the insurmountable logistical challenges that will face some of the organisations having to conduct the fieldwork for the Quality Metrics scheme, there are two fatal flaws with the research framework that will render the findings meaningless.”

“To be an academic in today’s America is to be plunged into a perennial identity crisis. And like most academic things, it’s a maddeningly elliptical, recursive, and small-bore sort of crisis. Fueling all our self-indulgent angst is a never-fully-acknowledged social contract, the one that, via countless professional canons and conventions, confirms your choice to be a so-called academic, to assume it not only as a profession, but an identity, and to wear on yourself the trappings that come with that identity without stopping to wonder how necessary they really are and whether they are actually killing your ability to be and do something better.”

The message at issue: “NO! In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America.”

“PSSST, which opened on East 3rd Street last year, came under fire from some residents and activists concerned about a new wave of galleries moving into the largely Latino Boyle Heights neighborhood. Boyle Heights has become a battleground over gentrification, although it hasn’t seen anything remotely like the changes that neighborhoods, including Silver Lake and Highland Park, have experienced. Still, many residents have long sensed it’s a neighborhood on the brink of major change.”