Category: issues

It’s not just all the bumper stickers and belt buckles and shower curtains and other merch: it’s motorcycle clubs and Lynyrd Skynyrd albums and Dukes of Hazzard reruns. “How do you deal with a symbol that means so many different things, to so many different people? How do you ‘take down’ a flag that has ceased to be a flag at all?”

“Even the shrinking pool of champions of liberal education try to argue for its workplace utility, pointing out that employers actually do want their employees to ‘write clearly,’ ‘argue persuasively,’ and ‘possess critical thinking skills,’ … It has not compelled anyone. … This tactic may win some battles, but it will ultimately lose the war.”

“In the early days of the web, much more of what we encountered was home-made by people who shared those values and that vision. … But then Facebook happened. … Blogs were ours. Facebook is not ours.” Nevertheless, argues David Weinberger, if they’ve turned paradise into a parking lot, there’s still a lot of grass growing through the pavement.

“Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing.”

“The 1954 Hague Convention was set up after World War Two but has never been adopted into law by the government. Culture Secretary John Whittingdale says destruction and looting in Syria and Iraq by Islamic State militants shows it is now essential. The UK is the only major nation not to have endorsed the convention.”

“This was an extraordinary and painful action for these graduate students to have taken, and presents evidence of serious wrongdoing and extensive problems in the School. … We do not want to see this jewel of the University recklessly discarded.”

“Regardless of the enormity of future challenges, Michael Kaiser insists that “one simply cannot save one’s way to health in the arts.” Survival in the universe he foresees will depend on creating exciting, ambitious work that distinguishes itself from online competition.”

“In our current system the relation between vulnerability and support is an inverse one. One result is that graduation rates are the same for low-income students with high test scores as for high-income students with low scores.7 In the United States today, three of every five children from families in the top income quartile earn a bachelor’s degree by age twenty-four, while for those in the bottom quartile the rate is one in four.”

“The idea of a vanguard arts district may seem counterintuitive in this slow-paced city of courtly manners and stately architecture, but after almost two decades, an emerging area called the Starland District may finally be hitting its stride.”

“At this point I’d like to sincerely apologise for where this article has gone. I lured you in with some clickbait promising the dirt on arts bludgers and here we are talking about accounting. It’s boring, I know. But that’s the nasty truth about the arts. It’s a job. A valid job that contributes to the community and the economy.”