“Hip-hop dialed down street violence in the Bronx. New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indian gangs made peace through craft. Why is culture such an underrated civic tool?”
Category: issues
Looting In The Middle East Is (Very Much) Not Confined To ISIS-Held Areas
“The data show that the worst offenders of all were those in areas held by Kurdish and Syrian rebel fighters — places that, as Casana notes, ‘are, unsurprisingly, also the regions with the weakest centralized authority.'”
Because Of His Antiracist Comments, Junot Díaz Gets Stripped Of An Award By The Dominican Republic
“Diaz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New Jersey at the age of six, went to Washington on Thursday with the Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat, there to urge the US government to take action to curb what they said was the persecution of large numbers of immigrants, mainly Haitians, in the Dominican Republic.”
The London Underground Is Touting What Might Be The Worst Poetry Ever Written
“Like the lingering fart of a fat dog, it is impossible to ignore the poetry on the London Underground. There is something mind-numbingly awful about the posters that sit insultingly in trains and on the walls of Tube platforms. This city deserves better poetry because it would be impossible for its current batch to be any worse.”
Dear Smartphone Users: You Are Psychotic Scroll Jockeys
“I realize that I am swimming against the tide of history here. But if I can ask a question that we may have overlooked in our rush to take advantage of everything that’s available to us in this new world, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”
Internet Access Should Be A Public Right (If We’re Serious About Ending Poverty)
“Frazier said that people who can’t polish their resumes or apply for jobs online are less likely to gain employment, further deepening income inequality. ‘The people on the wrong side of the divide won’t be the ones getting the contracts and the jobs,’ he said.”
Britain’s Oldest Science Institution Has To Sell Parts Of Collection To Save Itself
“Ninety works spanning three centuries of scientific inquiry are to go under the hammer at Christie’s in December, in an attempt to plug a £2m hole in the finances of the UK’s most venerable science charity, the Royal Institution. The groundbreaking works in the history of medicine, science and the natural world include first editions from scientific luminaries such as Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, Johannes Kepler and Alexander von Humboldt.”
Look, There’s Just No Need To Play The National Anthem Before A Symphony Concert
“It’s an odd, and frankly inappropriate, custom. In a performance that celebrates global artistry, this is no place for perfunctory patriotism. The pomp and circumstance of a national anthem mercilessly clashes with the complex creativity of classical composers.”
Will New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Be Good For The Arts?
Well, he’d have to be better than Stephen Harper, who cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to arts and culture programs and to the CBC. In fact, Trudeau has promised to reverse many of those cuts.
The Good News About Rescuing Art From ISIS
“For the first time, American museums are taking an active role in protecting cultural heritage under threat from Islamic State.”