Category: issues

“Speaking at world’s largest arts festival in the Scottish capital, Mr Corbyn said that under his leadership Labour will draw on the country’s ‘proud cultural heritage’ and give people from all sections of society the opportunity for their ‘creativity to flourish’.”

“The kung fu culture that [Bruce] Lee helped popularize – and that gave the city a gritty, exotic image in the eyes of foreigners – is in decline. Hong Kong’s streets are safer, with fewer murders by the fierce crime organizations known as triads that figured in so many kung fu films. And its real estate is among the world’s most expensive, making it difficult for training studios to afford soaring rents.”

“We realized that we had this unique chance to make Perm into a place where people would want to live, but there is always this fear in Russia that creative freedom makes people too difficult to control.”

“Ever since publication, it has shown up on lists of great books about modern cities – even those drawn up by people who consider Los Angeles anything but a great American city. Somehow, this book that drew so much of its initial publicity with shock value (“In Praise (!) of Los Angeles”, sneered the New York Times review’s headline) has kept its relevance through the decades, such that newly arrived Angelenos still read it to orient themselves.”

“[There’s] a gap between the values that many nonprofits hold and the way they treat their own staffs. There’s no doubt that nonprofits today face serious financial difficulties and constraints, but do they have no choice but to demand long, unpaid hours of their employees? … The answers have a lot to do with how nonprofits survive in an economy that’s geared primarily toward profit.”

“People who denounce the cultural cleansing of ISIS and the Taliban are often just as likely to demand the removal of old-fashioned artwork from their own public spaces. Our Western reasons are far more sensible: We want the removal of murals and paintings that perpetuate dangerous racial or gender stereotypes (noble “natives” leading European explorers, contented cotton pickers in the U.S. South, socialist-realist mothers clasping babies behind their warrior men…). These are no longer valuable; indeed, they are offensive and may cause harm.”

“In the beginning, before Washington had been designated the nation’s capital, much of the Mall was an empty lowland along the Potomac, made yet marshier by the Tiber Creek, which flowed into the river not far from where the Washington Monument stands today.”

“Much of the most exciting work in the arts today is by groups that connect creativity to such issues as immigration, homelessness, cultural diversity and other social justice causes, and that could make them a target. The arts have also enjoyed a long detente with political leaders in recent years, but it is a fragile one. The National Endowment for the Arts has seen its budget go up and down over the past eight years, but it hasn’t been formally reauthorized by Congress since 1993. A president who forced that issue could radically restructure the agency.”