Category: issues

In a BBC interview last month, she said, “It’s heartbreaking that we haven’t dealt with these issues, that it requires violence, which I think it does require, to be honest, to change this equation. Inequality and injustice is unacceptable. Sadly, this has been the most violent year in Baltimore.” This caused a bit of a kerfuffle, and she expands on it here – and the Baltimore Symphony CEO backs her up.

Director Lexi Alexander: “We now have Hollywood power people organizing diversity camps, which we get to read about in articles that include hilariously gung-ho diversity quotes from the worst … no let me write this in capitol letters THE WORST diversity offenders of Hollywood. And nobody bats an eye. Not a single entertainment reporter thinks to compare these people’s diversity record against the story they’re spinning.”

“A musician who wants to go abroad and whose instrument contains ivory needs to obtain a CITES musical-instrument certificate, or ‘passport.’ To do that, the musician must provide proof that the African elephant that yielded the ivory used in the instrument was “removed from the wild” before Feb. 26, 1976, the date African elephants were listed in one of the three CITES appendixes. Depending on the pedigree of the musical instrument, it may be possible to obtain a date of manufacture from the maker. But often, it is not.”

“For too long at too many American colleges and universities, it has been assumed that students alone control their educational destiny. So, static lectures, irregular student assignments and feedback, and disjointed course offerings remain in place even though better alternatives exist.”

“In the first raid, on Monday, government agents seized papers and computers at the Townhouse Gallery and the affiliated Rawabet Theater before suspending the organization’s activities … On Tuesday, officials and police officers raided Merit, the publishing house, arresting an employee and confiscating equipment.”

“This is an odd phenomenon when you think about it: There is one group of movies we honor, and a different one we actually enjoy (assuming box office receipts are indicative of public favor). The same can be said for recorded music, and, to an increasing extent, Broadway shows.”

“With the explosion of tech in recent years, we’ve not seen an explosion in revenue, in contributions or ticket sales. I’m not aware of anyone who lives within a tech-bubble community that’s had spectacular success in attracting those dollars.”

“Was it better to be bold and risk failure, or to give money to a project that had a good chance of success? And how soon would success have to happen in order to count—five years? Ten? Was it better to be patient or impatient?”

“Examining the limits of critique does not mean that we must abandon politics. It means that we must think about politics in a more rigorous way. It certainly does not mean that we must no longer be critical.”

“This growth is partly thanks to a new $5.3 million staffing program called Arts Matter, which allows middle and high schools to share dance, music, art, and theater teachers. The program brought art instruction to some 22,000 new students this year.”