Today, visitors outnumber Venetians by 140 to 1. If tourism development continues apace, the city center may soon have no residential lodging at all. Among the institutions that have closed since 2000 along the Grand Canal: the National Research Council, the Mediocredito bank, the transport authority, the local education agency, the German Consulate. Souvenir shops have replaced grocery stores. Luxury hotels have replaced medical offices. “A tourist monoculture now dominates a city, which banishes its native citizens and shackles the survival of those who remain to their willingness to serve.”
Category: issues
UK Arts Organizations Have Saved £8.7m since 2012 By Reducing Carbon Emissions
“Compared to doing nothing, the reduction in energy emissions has saved £8.7m since 2012/13. The report predicts that if the 4.5% annual decrease continues until 2019/20, emissions will be 46% lower than in 2012/13 and £54m will have been saved in energy costs.”
McKinsey Study: Automation Will Eliminate A High Number Of Jobs In Coming Decades (Maybe Yours)
“McKinsey estimates that about 45% of all activities in the economy can be automated. How many people will that affect? They estimate that bots can pick up about a third of all the work in 60% of occupations. That figure is based on technologies that already exist and are in use, not capabilities that may arrive in the future. Global trends already show that the growth of jobs is starting to decline or even dip into the negatives in countries around the world; now robots are poised to take more work away.”
‘Blamegiving Day’ – For Decades, Secularists Campaigned To Get God Out Of Thanksgiving And Concern For The Poor Into It
You think the “War on Christmas” is a bitter struggle, Bill O’Reilly? Pish-posh. Repeated efforts by secularists to erase the religious element from a U.S. government-declared national holiday go all the way back to President Grover Cleveland and before.
Big Drop In UK Arts Funding As Lottery Sales Plummet
“The arts are bracing for an £18.4m cut in funding after a significant fall in Lottery ticket sales means the amount available for the National Lottery Good Causes has fallen by £92m so far this year, compared with last.”
Now That Computers Dominate Chess, Some Of The Art Of The Game Has Been Lost
“Grandmasters that have grown up with most of their training in the computer era play a much more objective style of chess. They’re less willing to dismiss a move because it’s ugly, or doesn’t appeal to their aesthetics.”
Penn Foundation Gives Almost An Entire Year’s Grant Budget, $100 Million, To Rehab Philly’s Libraries, Parks, And Recreation Centers
The grant, by far the William Penn Foundation’s largest ever, covers one fifth of the entire cost of Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney’s Rebuild program.
Survey: More UK Adults Prefer Theatre Than Sport For A Night Out
“A forthcoming report finds 26% of British adults identify theatre or opera as a great evening activity, compared with 17% who said the same for sports. Overall, 45% of British adults enjoy going to see live performance across all genres, rising to 63% among the under 25s.”
What Is Donald Trump’s Definition Of Good Art? And Will He Have Impact On Art?
For Trump, good art is an expensive hotel. When he announced his plans for the Donald Trump hotel in Washington DC three years ago he said: “Friends of mine, they spend these ridiculous amounts of money on paintings. I’d rather do [hotel] jobs like this, do something that the world can cherish and the world can see and that everyone can truly be proud of.”
Some Museums Are Speaking Out Post-Election To ‘Affirm Their Roles As Safe, Open Spaces’
The president of the Tenement Museum, for instance, posted a message saying he and his staff “explain to visitors that Americans in the past sometimes lost confidence in their national future and lashed out against immigrants in reaction. We try to help visitors appreciate that immigrants often had to build new lives in the face of hostility.”